| Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599). The Complete Poetical Works. 1908. | | | | Astrophel | | Another of the Same |
| | [Ascribed by Charles Lamb, ‘from internal testimony,’ to Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.]
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SILENCE augmenteth grief, writing encreaseth rage; | |
| Stald are my thoughts, which lov’d, and lost, the wonder of our age; | |
| Yet quickned now with fire, though dead with frost ere now, | |
| Enrag’de I write, I know not what: dead, quick, I know not how. | |
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| Hard harted mindes relent, and Rigors teares abound, | 5 |
| And Envie strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found; | |
| Knowledge her light hath lost, Valor hath slaine her knight, | |
| Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the worlds delight. | |
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| Place pensive wailes his fall, whose presence was her pride; | |
| Time crieth out, ‘My ebbe is come: his life was my spring tide;’ | 10 |
| Fame mournes in that she lost the ground of her reports; | |
| Ech living wight laments his lacke, and all in sundry sorts. | |
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| He was (wo worth that word!) to ech well thinking minde, | |
| A spotlesse friend, a matchles man, whose vertue ever shinde, | |
| Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ, | 15 |
| Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit. | |
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| He, onely like himselfe, was second unto none, | |
| Whose deth (though life) we rue, and wrong, and al in vain do mone; | |
| Their losse, not him, waile they that fill the world with cries; | |
| Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies. | 20 |
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| Now sinke of sorrow I, who live, the more the wrong, | |
| Who wishing death, whom Deth denies, whose thred is al to long, | |
| Who tied to wretched life, who lookes for no reliefe, | |
| Must spend my ever dying daies in never ending griefe. | |
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| Harts ease and onely I like parallels run on, | 25 |
| Whose equall length keep equall bredth, and never meet in one; | |
| Yet for not wronging him, my thoughts, my sorrowes cell, | |
| Shall not run out, though leake they will, for liking him so well. | |
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| Farewell to you, my hopes, my wonted waking dreames, | |
| Farewell, sometimes enjoyed joy, eclipsed are thy beames, | 30 |
| Farewell selfe pleasing thoughts, which quietnes brings foorth, | |
| And farewel friendships sacred league, uniting minds of woorth. | |
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| And farewell mery hart, the gift of guiltlesse mindes, | |
| And all sports which, for lives restore, varietie assignes; | |
| Let all that sweete is voyd; in me no mirth may dwell; | 35 |
| Phillip, the cause of all this woe, my lives content, farewell! | |
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| Now Rime, the sonne of Rage, which art no kin to Skill, | |
| And endles Griefe, which deads my life, yet knowes not how to kill, | |
| Go seeke that haples tombe; which if ye hap to finde, | |
Salute the stones that keep the lims that held so good a minde.
FINIS.
LONDON
PRINTED BY T. C. FOR WILLIAM PONSONBIE
1595 | 40 | | |
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