At Penshurst.[1]

While in this park I sing, the list'ning deer Attend my passion, and forget to fear; When to the beeches I report my flame, They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers With loud complaints, they answer me in showers. To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven! Love's foe profess'd! why dost thou falsely feign Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain He sprung, that could so far exalt the name Of love, and warm our nation with his flame; That all we can of love, or high desire, Seems but the smoke of am'rous Sidney's fire. Nor call her mother, who so well does prove One breast may hold both chastity and love. Never can she, that so exceeds the spring In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring One so destructive. To no human stock We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock, That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side Nature, to recompense the fatal pride Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs, Which not more help, than that destruction, brings. Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone, I might, like Orpheus, with my num'rous moan Melt to compassion; now, my trait'rous song With thee conspires to do the singer wrong; While thus I suffer not myself to lose The memory of what augments my woes; But with my own breath still foment the fire, Which flames as high as fancy can aspire!

This last complaint th'indulgent ears did pierce Of just Apollo, president of verse; Highly concerned that the Muse should bring Damage to one whom he had taught to sing, Thus he advised me: 'On yon aged tree Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea, That there with wonders thy diverted mind Some truce, at least, may with this passion find.' Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain Flies for relief unto the raging main, And from the winds and tempests does expect A milder fate than from her cold neglect! Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove Bless'd in her choice; and vows this endless love Springs from no hope of what she can confer, But from those gifts which Heaven has heap'd on her.

'Penshurst': his farewell verses to Dorothy. 'Sprung': Sir Philip Sidney. 'Springs': Tunbridge Wells.