Сер ФИЛИП СИДНЕЈ: Астрофел и Стела

Книга I

IV

‘Vertue, thou thy selfe shalt be in loue.’

VERTUE, alas, now let me take some rest;

Thou set’st a bate betweene my will and wit;

If vaine Loue haue my simple soule opprest,

Leaue what thou likest not, deale not thou with it.

Thy scepter use in some olde Catoe’s brest,

Churches or Schooles are for thy seat more fit;

I do confesse – pardon a fault confest –

My mouth too tender is for thy hard bit.

But if that needs thou wilt usurping be

The little reason that is left in me,

And still th’ effect of thy perwasions prooue,

I sweare, my heart such one shal shew to thee,

That shrines in flesh so true a deitie,

That, Vertue, thou thy selfe shalt be in loue.

12.

‘Cupid.’

CUPID, because thou shin’st in Stella’s eyes –

That from her locks thy day-nets none scapes

free -

That those lips sweld so full of thee they be –

That her sweet breath makes oft thy flames to rise –

That in her breast thy pap well sugred lies –

That her grace gracious makes thy wrong – that she,

What words soere shee speake, perswades for thee –

That her cleere voice lifts thy fame to the skies, -

Thou countes Stella thine, like those whose powers

Hauing got up a breach by fighting well,

Crie ‘Victorie, this faire day all is ours!’

O no; her heart is such citadell,

So fortified with wit, stor’d with disdaine,

That to win it is all the skill and paine.

20.

‘My death’s wound.’

FLY, fly, my friends; I haue my death’s wound, fly;

See there that boy, that murthring boy, I say,

Who, like a theefe hid in darke bush doth ly,

Till bloudy bullet get him wrongfull prey.

So, tyran he, no fitter place could spie,

Nor so faire leuell in so secret stay,

As that sweet which vailes the heav’nly eye;

There himselfe with his shot he close doth lay.

Poore passenger, passé now thereby I did,

And staid, pleas’d with the prospect of the place,

While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:

But straight I saw motions of lightning grace;

And then descried the glistrings of his dart:

But ere I could flie thence, it pirec’d my heart.

(изд. CHATTO AND WINDUS, Piccadilly – 1877; London)