That sacred pow'r, that in my ink remains,
Shall put fresh blood into thy wither'd veins,
And on thy red decay'd, thy whiteness dead,
Shall set a white more white, a red more red:
When thy dim sight thy glass cannot descry,
Nor thy crazed mirror can discern thine eye,
My verse, to tell th' one what the other was,
Shall represent them both, thine eye and glass:
Where both thy mirror and thine eye shall see,
What once thou saw'st in that, that saw in thee;
And to them both shall tell the simple truth,
What that in pureness was, what thou in youth.
If Florence once should lose her old renown,
As famous Athens, now a fisher-town;
My lines for thee a Florence shall erect,
Which great Apollo ever shall protect,
And with the numbers from my pen that falls,
Bring marble mines to re-erect those walls.
Nor beauteous Stanhope, whom all tongues report
To be the glory of the English court,

Shall by our nation be so much admired,
If ever Surrey truly were inspired.

And famous Wyat, who in numbers sings
To that enchanting Thracian harper's strings,
To whom Phœbus (the poets' god) did drink
A bowl of Nectar, fill'd up to the brink;

And sweet tongued Bryan (whom the Muses kept,
And in his cradle rock'd him whilst he slept)
In sacred verses (most divinely penn'd)
Upon thy praises ever shall attend.

When to my chamber I myself retire, Burnt with the sparks that kindled all this fire, Thinking of England, which my hope contains, The happy isle where Geraldine remains: Of Hunsdon, where those sweet celestial eyne At first did pierce this tender breast of mine: Of Hampton Court and Windsor, where abound All pleasures that in Paradise were found:

Near that fair castle is a little grove,

With hanging rocks all cover'd from above,
Which on the banks of goodly Thames doth stand,
Clipp'd by the water from the other land,
Whose bushy top doth bid the sun forbear,

And checks his proud beams that would enter there;
Whose leaves still mutt'ring, as the air doth breathe,
With the sweet bubbling of the stream beneath,
Doth rock the senses (whilst the small birds sing)
Lulled asleep with gentle murmuring;

Where light-foot fairies sport at prison-base
(No doubt there is some pow'r frequents the place),
There the soft poplar and smooth beech do bear
Our name together carved everywhere,
And Gordian knots do curiously entwine
The names of Henry and of Geraldine.
Oh let this grove, in happy times to come,
Be call'd the lover's bless'd Elyzium;
Whither my mistress wonted to resort,

In summer's heat, in those sweet shades to sport:
A thousand sundry names I have it given,
And call'd it Wonder-hider, Cover-heav'n,
The roof where beauty her rich court doth keep,
Under whose compass all the stars do sleep.
There is one tree, which, now I call to mind,
Doth bear these verses carved in the rind :
"When Geraldine shall sit in thy fair shade,
Fan her fair tresses with perfumed air,
Let thy large boughs a canopy be made,
To keep the sun from gazing on my fair:
And when thy spreading branched arms be sunk,
And thou no sap nor pith shalt more retain,
Ev'n from the dust of thy unwieldy trunk
I will renew thee, phoenix-like, again,
And from thy dry decayed root will bring
A new-born stem, another Æson's spring."

THE LADY GERALDINE TO HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

IN Cupid's school I never read those books, Whose lectures oft we practice in our looks, Nor ever did suspicious rival eye

Yet lie in wait my favours to espy;

My virgin thoughts are innocent and meek,
As the chaste blushes sitting on my cheek:
As in a fever I do shiver yet,

Since first my pen was to the paper set.

My house from Florence I do not pretend,
Nor from those Geralds claim I to descend;
Nor hold those honours insufficient are,
That I receive from Desmond or Kildare:
Nor better air will ever boast to breathe,
Than that of Leinster, Munster, or of Meath:
Nor crave I other foreign far allies,
Than Windsor's or Fitz-Gerald's families:
It is enough to leave unto my heirs,

If they but please t' acknowledge me for theirs.
To what place ever did the court remove,
But that the house gives matter to my love?
At Windsor still I see thee sit and walk,

There mount thy courser, there devise, there talk,
The robes, the garter, and the state of kings,
Into my thoughts thy hoped greatness brings :
None-such, the name imports (methinks) so much,
None such as it, nor as my lord, none such:
In Hampton's great magnificence I find
The lively image of thy princely mind:
Fair Richmond's tow'rs like goodly trophies stand,
Rear'd by the pow'r of thy victorious hand;
White-Hall's triumphing galleries are yet
Adorn'd with rich devices of thy wit:
In Greenwich still, as in a glass, I view,
Where last thou bad'st thy Geraldine adieu.

With ev'ry little perling breath that blows,
How are my thoughts confused with joys and woes!
As through a gate, so through my longing ears
Pass to my heart whole multitudes of fears.
Oh, in a map that I might see thee show
The place where now in danger thou dost go!
Whilst we discourse, to travel with our eye
Romania, Tuscan, and fair Lombardy;
Or with thy pen exactly to set down
The model of that temple or that town;
And to relate at large where thou hast been,
As there, and there, and what thou there hast seen;
Expressing in a figure, by thy hand,

How Naples lies, how Florence fair doth stand:
Or as the Grecian's finger dipp'd in wine,
Drawing a river in a little line,

And with a drop, a gulf to figure out,
To model Venice moated round about;
Then adding more to counterfeit a sea,
And draw the front of stately Genoa.

These from thy lips were like harmonious tones,
Which now do sound like mandrake's dreadful groans.
Some travel hence t' enrich their minds with skill,
Leave here their good, and bring home others' ill;
Which seem to like all countries but their own,
Affecting most where they the least are known:
Their leg, their arm, their back, their neck, their
head,

As they had been in sev'ral countries bred;
In their attire, their gesture, and their gait,
Found in each one, all Italianate,

So well in all deformity in fashion;
Borrowing a limb of ev'ry sev'ral nation:
And nothing more than England hold in scorn,
So live as strangers whereas they were born;
But thy return in this I do not read,

Thou art a perfect gentleman indeed:
Oh God forbid that Howard's noble line
From ancient virtue should so far decline!

The Muses' train (whereof yourself are chief)
Only to me participate their grief:

To sooth their humours I do lend them ears.
"He gives a poet, that his verses hears."
Till thy return, by hope they only live;
Yet had they all, they all away would give:
The world and they so ill-according be,
That wealth and poets never can agree.
Few live in court that of their good have care,
The Muses' friends are everywhere so rare.

Some praise thy worth (that it did never know), Only because the better sort do so,

Whose judgment never further doth extend,
Than it doth please the greatest to commend:
So great an ill upon desert doth chance,
When it doth pass by beastly ignorance.
Why art thou slack, whilst no man put his hand
To praise the mount where Surrey's towers must
stand?

Or who the groundsil of that work doth lay,
Whilst like a wand'rer thou abroad doth stray,
Clipp'd in the arms of some Italian dame,
When thou shouldst rear an Ilion to thy name?
When shall the Muses by fair Norwich dwell,
To be the city of the learned well?

Or Phœbus' altars there with incense heap'd,
As once in Cyrrha or in Thebe kept?

Or when shall that fair hoof-plow'd spring distil
From great Mount Surrey, out of Leonard's Hill?
Till thou return, the court I will exchange
For some poor cottage or some country grange,
Where to our distaves, as we sit and spin,
My maid and I will tell what things have been.
Our lutes unstrung shall hang upon the wall,
Our lessons serve to wrap our tow withal,
And pass the night, whiles winter-tales we tell,
Of many things that long ago befell:

Or tune such homely carols as were sung
In country sport when we ourselves were young,