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From the Island Voyage with the Earl of Essex
THOU which art I—’tis nothing to be so— | |
| Thou which art still thyself, by these 1 shalt know | |
| Part of our passage; and a hand or eye | |
| By Hilliard drawn is worth a history | |
| By a worse painter made; and, without pride, | 5 |
| When by thy judgment they are dignified, | |
| My lines are such. ’Tis the pre-eminence | |
| Of friendship only to impute excellence. | |
| England, to whom we owe what we be and have, | |
| Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave | 10 |
| —For Fate’s or Fortune’s drifts none can soothsay; 2 | |
| Honour and misery have one face, and way— 3 | |
| From out her pregnant entrails sigh’d a wind, | |
| Which at th’ air’s middle marble room did find | |
| Such strong resistance, that itself it threw | 15 |
| Downward again; and so when it did view | |
| How in the port our fleet dear time did leese, | |
| Withering like prisoners, which lie but for fees, | |
| Mildly it kiss’d our sails, and fresh and sweet | |
| —As to a stomach starved, whose insides meet, | 20 |
| Meat comes—it came; and swole our sails, when we | |
| So joy’d, as Sarah her swelling joy’d to see. | |
| But ’twas but so kind as our countrymen, | |
| Which bring friends one day’s way, and leave them then. | |
| Then like two mighty kings, which dwelling far | 25 |
| Asunder, meet against a third to war, | |
| The south and west winds join’d, and, as they blew, | |
| Waves like a rolling trench before them threw. | |
| Sooner than you read this line, did the gale, | |
| Like shot, not fear’d till felt, our sails assail; | 30 |
| And what at first was call’d a gust, the same | |
| Hath now a storm’s, anon a tempest’s name. | |
| Jonas, I pity thee, and curse those men | |
| Who, when the storm raged most, did wake thee then. | |
| Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfil | 35 |
| All offices of death, except to kill. | |
| But when I waked, I saw that I saw not; | |
| I, and the sun, which should teach me, had forgot | |
| East, west, day, night; and I could only say, | |
| If th’ world had lasted, now it had been day. 4 | 40 |
| Thousands our noises were, yet we ’mongst all | |
| Could none by his 5 right name, but thunder, call. | |
| Lightning was all our light, and it rain’d more | |
| Than if the sun had drunk the sea before. | |
| Some coffin’d in their cabins lie, equally | 45 |
| Grieved that they are not dead, and yet must die; | |
| And as sin-burden’d souls from grave will creep | |
| At the last day, some forth their cabins peep, | |
| And trembling 6 ask, “What news?” and do hear so | |
| As jealous husbands, what they would not know. | 50 |
| Some sitting on the hatches would seem there | |
| With hideous gazing to fear away fear. | |
| Then note they the ship’s sicknesses, the mast | |
| Shaked with an ague, 7 and the hold and waist | |
| With a salt dropsy clogg’d, and all our tacklings | 55 |
| Snapping, like too-too-high-stretch’d 8 treble strings. | |
| And from our tatter’d sails rags drop down so, | |
| As from one hang’d in chains a year ago. | |
| Even 9 our ordnance, placed for our defence, | |
| Strives to break loose, and ’scape away from thence. | 60 |
| Pumping hath tired our men, and what’s the gain? | |
| Seas into seas thrown, we suck in again; | |
| Hearing hath deaf’d our sailors, and if they | |
| Knew how to hear, there’s none knows what to say. | |
| Compared to these storms, death is but a qualm, | 65 |
| Hell somewhat lightsome, the Bermudas 10 calm. | |
| Darkness, light’s eldest brother, his birthright | |
| Claims o’er the 11 world, and to heaven hath chasèd light. | |
| All things are one, and that one none can be, | |
| Since all forms uniform deformity | 70 |
| Doth cover; so that we, except God say | |
| Another Fiat, shall have no more day. | |
| So violent, yet long, these furies be, | |
| That though thine absence starve me, I wish not thee. | |
