SAMUEL DANIEL.

1562-1619.

DELIA.

THE biographers of Daniel have not been able to ascertain the name of the lady who was his first love, and whom he celebrated under the poetical name of Delia. We learn from the sonnets that she lived on the River Avon,

("But Avon, poor in fame and poor in waters,

Shall have my songs, where Delia hath her seat,")

and that his love was not returned. He married Justina Florio, the sister of John Florio, a noted philologist of the time-the Holofernes of Shakespeare's "LOVE'S LABOUR LOST." Daniel's sonnets were published in 1592.

Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty,

Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal,

Returning thee the tribute of my duty,

Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal.

Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul,

Where I have cast th' accounts of all my care:

Here have I summed my sighs; here I enroll
How they were spent for thee; look what they are.

Look on the dear expences of my youth,

And see how just I reckon with thine eyes:
Examine well thy beauty with my truth;
And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise.

Read it, sweet maid, though it be done but slightly;
Who can show all his love, doth love but lightly.

Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair;

Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes are sunny; Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair; And her disdains are gall, her favours honey. A modest maid, decked with a blush of honour; Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love; The wonder of all eyes that look upon her; Sacred on earth; designed a saint above! Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes, Live reconciléd friends within her brow: And had she pity to conjoin with those,

Then who had heard the plaints I utter now? For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore;

Yield Citherea's son those arks of love:
Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore;
And to th' orient do thy pearls remove.
Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white;
T' Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet:
Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright;
To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.

Let Venus have thy graces, hers resigned;

And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres :
But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind.
To Hyrcan tygers, and to ruthless bears.
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again;
So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.

Look, Delia, how w' esteem the half-blown rose,
The image of thy blush, and summer's honour!
Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose
That full of beauty, time bestows upon her.

No sooner spreads her glory in the air,

But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline;

She then is scorned that late adorned the fair:
So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine!
No April can revive thy withered flowers,

Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain;
But love now, whilst thou may'st be loved again.

But love whilst that thou may'st be loved again,

Now whilst that May hath filled thy lap with flowers;
Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain;

Now use the summer's smiles, ere winter lowers.

And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sun,
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy the time before thy sweet be done;
And, Delia, think thy morning must have night;

And that thy brightness sets at length to West,

When thou wilt close up that which now thou show'st,
And think the fame becomes thy fading best,
Which then shall most inveil and shadow most.

Men do not weigh the stalk for what it was,
When once they find her flower, her glory pass.

When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass,
And thou with careful brow sitting alone,
Receivéd hast this message from thy glass,
That tells the truth, and says that all is gone,
Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad'st;

Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining:
I that have loved thee thus before thou fad'st,
My faith shall wax when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,

That fire can burn when all the matter's spent:
Then what my faith hath been, thyself shall see;
And that thou wast unkind thou may'st repent.

Thou may'st repent that thou hast scorned my tears, When winter snows upon thy sable hairs.

Read in my face a volume of despairs,

The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe;

Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares, Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so. Who, whilst I burn, she sings at my soul's wrack, Looking aloft from turret of her pride;

There my soul's tyrant joys her, in the sack
Of her own seat, whereof I made her guide.
There do these smokes that from affliction rise,
Serve as an incense to a cruel dame;

A sacrifice thrice grateful to her eyes,
Because their power serves to exact the same.
Thus ruins she, (to satisfy her will,)

The temple where her name was honoured still.

Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew,

Whose short refresh upon the tender green Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew; And straight 'tis gone, as it had never been. Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish; Short is the glory of the blushing rose:

The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose. When thou, surcharged with burden of thy years,

Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth; And that in beauty's lease expired, appears The date of age, the calends of our death. But ah, no more, this must not be foretold; For women grieve to think they must be old.

I must not grieve my love, whose eyes would read Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;

Flowers have time before they come to seed, And she is young, and now must sport the while. And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,

And learn to gather flowers before they wither; And where the sweetest blossom first appears, Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither. Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,

And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise; Pity and smiles do best become the fair; Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone, Happy the heart that sighed for such a one!

And whither, poor forsaken, wilt thou go,

To go from sorrow, and thine own distress? When every place presents like face of woe, And no remove can make thy sorrows less? Yet go, forsaken; leave these woods, these plains; Leave her and all, and all for her, that leaves Thee and thy love forlorn, and both disdains; And of both wrongful deems, and ill conceives. Seek out some place; and see if any place

Can give the least release unto thy grief: Convey thee from the thoughts of thy disgrace; Steal from thyself, and be thy cares' own thief. But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain? Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain.