Faerie Queene. In 1591 he returned to Ireland, and a miscellaneous collection of compositions of earlier and later dates (Complaints) was published in London. In June, 1594, he married, and the next year, 1595, he again visited London, and in Jan., 1595-6, published the second instalment of The Faerie Queene (iv-vi). With the same date, 1595, were published his Colin Clouts Come Home again, an account of his visit to the Court in 1589-90, and his Amoretti Sonnets, and an Epithalamion, relating to his courtship and marriage. At the end of 1598 his house was sacked and burnt by the Munster rebels, and he returned in great distress to London. He died at Westminster, Jan. 16, 1598-9, and was buried in the Abbey.] But he, my lion, and my noble lord, How does he find in cruel heart to hate Her, that him lov'd, and ever most adored As the god of my life? why hath he me abhorred?" Redounding tears did choke th' end of her plaint, Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill; Sweet is the broom flower, but yet sour enough; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill; So, every sweet, with sour is tempered still, That maketh it be coveted the more: For easy things that may be got at will Most sorts of men do set but little store. Which softly echoed from the neighbor Why then should I account of little pain, That endless pleasure shall unto me gain. THE HERMITAGE. A LITTLE lowly hermitage it was, THE RED CROSS KNIGHT. A GENTLE knight was pricking on the plain, Yclad in mighty arms and silver shield, Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain, The cruel marks of many a bloody field; Yet arms till that time did he never wield: His angry steed did chide his foaming bit, As much disdaining to the curb to yield: Full jolly knight he seem'd, and fair did sit, As one for knightly guists and fierce encounters fit. And on his breast a bloody cross he bore, The dear remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore, And the dull drops that from his purpled bill As from a limbeck did adown distil; For he was faint with cold and weak with eld That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld. LOVE IN ABSENCE. LIKE as the culver on the bared bough Sits mourning for the absence of her mate, And in her songs sends many a wishful VOW For his return, that seems to linger late; So I alone, now left disconsolate, Mourn to myself the absence of my love, And wandering here and there all desolate, Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove. Ne joy of ought that under heaven doth hove Can comfort me, but her own joyous sight, Whose sweet aspect both god and man can move, In her unspotted pleasance to delight: Dark is my day whiles her fair light I miss, And dead my life, that wants such lively | bliss. ASTROPHEL (SIR PHILIP SIDNEY). "WOODS, hills, and rivers, now are desolate, Sith he is gone, the which them all did grace; And all the fields do wail their widow state, Sith death their fairest flower did late deface: The fairest flower in field that ever grew Was Astrophel; that was we all may rue. "What cruel hand of cursed foe unknown Hath cropt the stalk which bore so fair a flower? Untimely cropt, before it well were grown, And clean defaced in untimely hour; Great loss to all that ever him did see, Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me. "Break now your girlonds, O ye shepherds' lasses! Sith the fair flower which them adorn'd is gone; The flower which them adorn'd is gone to ashes, Never again let lass put girlond on: Instead of girlond wear sad cypress now, And bitter elder broken from the bough. |