CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UiJjIlVftSsiTY PR 2848.AM75'""™""^ "*""^ '^'iZmZtf^!}?!:i?mre-s sonnets, 20 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 314351 PRICE SIX SHILLINGS GOD IN SHAKSPEARE. BY CLELIA. PRESS NOTICES. He possesses a knowledge of Shakspeare unrivalled except by Mr. Swinburne On every page is evidence of rare energy and still rarer subtlety. — Glasgow Herald. There is much keen and clever analysis and a good deal of really pro- found insight shown in expounding the plays and sonnets . . . He may yet rank among the most suggestive of the great dramatist's expounders. — Scotsman. Its practical value is great ; for it is written by one who has a thorough textual knowledge of Shakspeare ; and the possessor of it will become acquainted with many cross-readings of texts of which probably he had previously been unaware . . . . The book bears evidence on every page of a loving and life-long study of the poet .... The argument is sustained cleverly through four hundred octavo- pages. — Art and Literature. A man of original and subtle mind .... To him the sonnets have no mystery; and he expounds their meaning with an assurance which is really captivating. The astonished reader who perseveres long enough to become sympathetic with the author's style and method may be led with fearful pleasure. — Graphic. *„* In the above work is the long desiderated knowledge of the life and personality of Shakspeare. Shakspeare's life is a full expression of the Law of the Conscience ; a full Evolution of the Ideal. I. — It is described by the poet himself at its most critical period in the Sonnets, 2. — It may be traced by comparative study through the plays in their order to The Tempest. 3. — It is described by the poet himself, at the close of his life, from one point of view in The Tempest ; 4. — From another in Winter's Tale ; 5. — From still another in Cymbeline. In all five cases Shakspeare's life is revealed as Evolution of the Ideal. Further in The Tempest^ Winter's Tale and Cymbeline.^ the poet, regarding his own life as " a baby figure of the giant mass " of the wsrld's life, describes that also as Evolution of the Ideal, proceeding upon lines parallel to his own, but over a vast space, from the beginning of our era onward into the mists of the future. In sum, in these plays he modernises primitive Idealism by the aid of types* ; the central and all important type, Prospero, Truth, he identifies with himself; and in Prospero's triumph describes the future triumph of Truth, of himself and all true men over Self-interest, Laissez-Faire and the Brute forces of humanity. *cf Balzac's professed purpose in La Peau de Chagrin and other novels to modernise primitive Idealism by the aid of types. GREAT PAN LIVES Question ; Who and what is the " Lovely Boy " of Shaks- peare's sonnets ? Answer : — BEAUTY, ALL The Ideal Beauty, Truth, Love I I Beauty Truth Love I Virtue Grace The Musa \ - The poet's love and thought of Beauty Genius Idealistic (Fiuicy) The Representative Soul The world's love and thought of Beauty General Culture Perfect Man (Will Herbert) Reason Conscience Will WILL SHAKSPEARE I GREAT PAN LIVES: SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 20—126. WITH PARAPHRASE AND REFERENCES By CLE LI a, AUTHOR OF " GOD IN SHAKSPEARE." "Universal Pan, 'tis said, was there."— JViick of Atlas. LONDON: LUZAC AND CO. OPPOSITE THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 1892 (All rights reserved.) " Divide each of the complexities under exatninatioil into as many parts as possible, and as may be necessary for its adequate solution." — Descartes. " The language ... is fluid, passing and literary, not rigid, fixed and scientific." — Matthew Arnold. PRINTED BY THE " BI^CK AND WHITE" PUBLISHING- CO., BOUVERIE ST., E.G. CONTENTS. Introduction I — The Contract to Beauty i 2 — Consolation in Beauty 17 3 — Beauty, the Soul; its Impeachment by Love 30 4 — Impeachment by Business 51 5^ — Impeachment by Pleasure 78 5 — Impeachment by Criticism 117 7 — Eclipse of Beauty 135 8 — Re-emergence of the Sun of Beauty 156 9 — Return to the Ideal 172 10 — The Soul's Immortahty in Beauty ^ 199 INTRODUCTION. In my previous work, " God in Shakspeare," first, from the evidence of the Sonnets and of the plays in their order to The Tempest, an account was rendered of the poet's life as Evolu- tion of the Ideal or Self development to Perfect Man; secondly, this account received manifold corroboration in an exposition, ■ which followed, of The Tempest, Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, plays that were shown to constitute Shakspeare's Wahrheit und Dichtung or poetical autobiography, and to be all Evolu- tion of the Ideal. In the present work I invite the Reader to a special study of the Evolution of the Ideal observable in Sonnets 20 — 126. To assist perception, the secondary or " dumb " * signification of these sonnets, except when it " speaks in effect " * with more than usual plainness, is paraphrased almost lineally. T'he references are the basis of the paraphrase. If the Reader will consult them steadily, he will find himself engaged in work of systematic textual comparison, which will afford him literary pleasure and enlightenment and the cumulative interest almost of independent discovery, and will assure him of the feet that the paraphrase is not an arbitrary composition, but is supported adequately by textual evidence. In further aid, the parallel passages indicated by the references are woven to a consider- able extent into the paraphrase. It is essential to a comprehension of the subject that the sonnets contained in this book should be studied in their numerical order. Sonnets i — 19, 127 — 154 are omitted. I reserve methodic elucidation of the secondary signification of these sonnets to another time and place. References to them in the following pages can be looked up in ordinary editions. 'cf 85, lines 13, 14. " Then others for the breath of worJs respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speakmg in effeet" Vlll GREAT PAN LIVES. To the primary or purely personal signification of the son- nets I shall not find occasion to allude. It remains now to remark upon the poet's scope and technique in the" secondary signification. The thought of sonnets 20 — 126 begins simply, develops naturally, expanding and becoming complex, evolves in orderly progression to its conclusion, has completeness and unity and considerable interest. (The Argument is inserted in the body 0/ the work, distributed duly to the sections into which I have divided this sonnet-series.) The friend is type of Beauty, and represents on the one hand Beauty, on the other all forms of Beauty. By Beauty the poet means sometimes Beauty singly, but generally Beauty, Truth, and Love combined and commingled in perfect Beauty. The type is identified with tlys three-fold ideal and severally with its three components. Jn T-gyp thp ^^tf TPprocpntg fijcjp virtiiA^ which for Shakcspeare sums up to "LotCj^^ ' ' ' The Ideal as Beauty operative in the mind is Grace and the Muse ; in the poet, his inspiration, genius, soul, true self (62) ; in the world, public taste. The type is to be found representing Beauty, All, or Supreme Reason ; and as Beauty operative in Reason, Conscience, Will. A curious operation of Beauty in the mind is Idealistic Illusion, 20 Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth, 114 Creating every bad a perfect best. The type often represents this Idealistic Illusion or Fancy. Love the poet regards as partaking of Desire and Idealistic Illusion or Fancy ; and the relations of the dark lady and friend are typical of the relations of Desire and Fancy, of Body and Soul, in the passion of Love, The type is typical in detail : the eye of Mr. W. H. is true perception of Beauty ; his brow is thought of Beauty; his heart is Love ; and generally in the language of the sonnets, wherever possible, the abstract idea is expressed by the typical image. . Shakspeare puns and quibbles in the sonnets as elsewhere. GREAT PAN LIVES. Below is a table of the forms of Beauty addressed in the type. To every form I might append the numbers of those Sonnets in which it is addressed singly. Such an analysis, however, in this place would distract from orderly study, not aid acquisition of knowledge; though it might serve hereafter as a convenient inventory of knowledge acquired. But "this inventory the Reader, when he has completed the work, will be able to make for himself easily enough and with pleasure. BEAUTY, ALL The Ideal Beauty, Truth, Love Beauty Truth Love Virtue Grace The Muse (The world's love and thought of Beauty General Culture Perfect Man (Will Herbert) (a) These forms may be taken as one form. (b) This form is chiefly to be found in series 137 — 154, (cf 135, line 2). (c) cf 62, line 13. The poet's love and thought of Beauty. Genius „ representative. „ Idealistic (Fancy) The Soul Reason Conscience (b) Will (of the Reason) (c) WILL SHAKSPEARE ' So they loved, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none ; Number there in love was slain. Property was thus appalled, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded. Saw distinction grow together ; To themselves yet either neither. Simple were so well compounded." Phcenix and Turtle. I. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. ARGUMENT. 20 Exordium. My theme is True Beauty; my dumb thoughts speak in effect (cf 85 line 14). 2 1 I propose to write of Beauty, without hyperbole, modestly and truly. 22 This Beauty is in reality my Thought. Then let me take all thought of it, and of myself for it, and cherish it with my love. 23 Professions are all too weak to prove my love of Beauty; but in my plays it may be known in its effects. 24 I have true artistic vision; therefore I know that in my plays, as well as in my heart, there is true Beauty; yet my love of beauty requires to be spoken also. 2 5 I honour Beauty above prosperity and fame ; these are as houses built upon the sand; but Beauty is an everlasting foundation. 26 Thus I bind myself to the service of Beauty ; but in hope to show my love more by works than by professions. GREAT PAN LIVES. I A woman's face, with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted 4 With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, 8 Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, 12 By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. Note. — In this sonnet man and woman represent respectively the intellectual and sensitive sides of true Beauty and of human nature. 1 A Natural Grace 2 Has True Beauty, the master-mistress of my passion ; 3, 4 Inward Love, to constancy confined, far from the quick change of nice affections; 5 Truth of perception, both unswayed from judgment, 6 And adding a vision splendid to the light of common day ; 7 Beauty, intellectual, but also supremely harmonious, 8 For sweet attractive grace and contemplation formed. 9 At first for me Beauty was all of grace, lo But fond Nature working II, 12 Added virility and defeated me of a meretricious mis- tress. 1 3 But since Nature wrought Beauty virile for husbandry of the graces, 1 4 The inward love and heart's thought of Beauty silently be mine; theirs the issue. (1—2) cf 54, lines 1—2; cf " Twelfth Night," Act I, sc. 5 " 'Tis Beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on." (3 — 8) cf los, lines 9 — 14. (3) cf 46, line 14. (4) cf 105, line 7; 76, line 2. " Lover's Complaint" : " Nice affections wavering stood in doubt." (5) cf I37,lines i — 8; 148, lines i — 4; 150, lines i — ^4; re the bias of affection. (6) cf 113, lines 13, 14; 114, lines i — 4; then 33, lines I — 4. cf Wordsworth's Ode: — " The youth that daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest. And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At last the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day. cf Shelley, _ ' ' Epipsychidion " : — " Thou mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the sun, All shapes look glorious that thou gazest on." (8) cf Milton's " Paradise Lost " : — " For contemplation he and valour formed. For softness she and sweet attractive grace." (II — 12) cf 21, lines I — 9. (13) cf 13, line 10. (14) cf 46, Ime 14; 46, line 10; 47, line 8; 23, line 13. GREAT PAN LIVES. I So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse; Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, 4 And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; Making a couplement of proud compare. With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's -firstborn flowers, and all things rare 8 That heaven's air in his huge rondure hems. O, let me, true in love, but truly write. And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright 12 As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air: Let them say more that like of hearsay well ; I will not praise, that purpose not to sell. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 21 1 — 8 There are who seem inspired by a painted Beauty, and write in a style hyperbolic, overloaded with orna- ment, meretricious. 9 Let me, true in my love of Beauty, be true to Nature. lo, II The Beauty to my taste is as the beauty of a simple child in its mother's eyes. 12 I will not go to, the stars for comparisons. 1 3 Let them say more that write from hearsay for hearsay ; 14 I will not daub so grossly either for notoriety or money, (9) cf 20, line I. (II) "A simple child That lightly draws its breath And feels its life ia every limb." (14) cf 82, lines 13, 14. GREAT PAN LIVES. I My glass shall not persuade nie I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date ; But when in thee Time's ivirrows I behold, 4 Then look I D£ath my days should expiate. For all that beauty that doth cover thee. Is but the seemly raiment of my heart. Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me : 8 How can I, then, be elder than thou art? O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary. As I, not for myself, but for thee will; Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary 12 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain ; Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 22 1 My glass shall not persuade me I am old, 2 So long as Beauty to my perception retains its youthful freshness ; 3 But when with Time my perception of Beauty fades, 4 Then look I Death my days should expiate. 5 For all that I express of the outward grace of Beauty 6 Is but the fair appearing raiment of my heart's thought, 7 Which in Beauty hath its home, as Beauty's inward grace in me; 8 Therefore while my Thought grows not old, I grow not old. 9 Then let my Thought cherish Beauty, lo As I will cherish myself, not for myself, but for Beauty ; II, 12 Which hath been given into my trust, and I will tender it as a nurse her babe. 1 3 But when I die, I shall not give it back again, 1 4 I shall keep it in my verse. (5) cf 23, line 12; 24, lines 13, 14; 46, line 13. (6) cf 46, line 8; 46, line 10; 47, line 8 (7) cf 109, line 5 ; 46, line 14. (9, 10) cf 66, lines 13, 14. (II, I2)cf 21, line II. GREAT PAN LIVES. 23- I As an unperfect actor on the stage, AA^o with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, 4 Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart ; So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite. And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, 8 O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love, and look for recompense, 12 More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ; To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 23 1—8 ..... ■ 9 The best proof of my love of Beauty is in my plays; 10 In them my dumb love speaks in eflfects of Beauty; 1 1 And seeks that recognition 1 3 Which justly might be refused to mere professions. 1 3 A true eye will see my love of Beauty in my Art ; 14 Though my Art must be loved to seem worthy. (9, 10) cf S, line 11; 85, line 14. (13) cf 20, line S. (14) cf Wordsworth: — "You must love him ere to you, He .shall seem worthy of your love.'' GREAT PAN LIVES. 24. I Mine eye hath pla/d the painter, and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, 4 And perspective, it is best painter's art. For through the painter must -you see his skill, To lind where your true image pictur'd lies, Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, 8 That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done; Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun 12 Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art. They draw but what they see, know not the heart. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 24 1 My perception hath drawn 2 Beauty's form upon my heart j 3 Its frame am I ; 4 And its effect, its projection by Art, is true to Beauty. 5 For Truth has to look through my eyes, 6 To determine whether true Beauty, 7 Be in me and my wares ; 8 For my eyes are the eyes of Truth. 2 My artistic vision accords with Truth; I o And draws Beauty's shape true I I Transparently ; and through its truth the world's eye 1 2 Regards it with delight. 1 3, 1 4 Yet the world's eye can see but the outward grace, not know the inward love. (4) cf 5, line 11; 85, line 14; 23, lines 9, 10. (5) cf 20, lines. (8) cf Spinoza: "Verily as the light revealeth the light and the dark- ness also, so is Truth the standard both of the true and the false." (tl, 12) cf 69, lines I, 2. (14) cf 46, lines 13, 14. GREAT PAN LIVES. 24*. (A FREE VERSION.) I, 2 I have dreamt of perfect Beauty, and verily I have taken the dream to heart. 3, 4 It possesses me and I realise it in my plays. 5 — 8 Beauty is the standard of Beauty ; seen through my eyes and through Beauty the dream of my heart is true : 9 It accords with true Beauty. 10 — 12 It was no mere flattering dream; it stands sublime in the sun in fulness of Beauty revealed. 13, 14 It is revealed, the dream of my heart, in all its out- ward grace, if not in all its inward love, (n, 12) cf Swinburne, " To WaltWhitman "— "It stands sublime in the sun In (illness of Godhead revealed." CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 13 25. I honour Beauty above prosperity and fame; these are as houses built upon the sand, but Beauty is an everlasting foundation. 1 Let those who are in favour with their stars, Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, 4 Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread. But as the marigold at the sun's eye; And in themselves their pride lies buried, 8 For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famoused for fight. After a thousand victories once foil'd. Is from the book of honour razed quite, 12 And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd : Then happy I, that love and am helov'd. Where I may not remove, nor be remov'd. {4) in that I honour Beauty most and in that I honour most. Beauty. (13) Then happy I that love and am graced of Beauty, 14 GREAT PAN LIVES. 26. I Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, 4 To witness duty, not to show my wit. Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it; But that I hope some good conceit of thine 8 In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it; Till whatsoever star that guides my moving. Points on me graciously with fair aspect. And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving, 12 To show me worthy of thy sweet respect: Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee; Till then, not show my head where thou mayest prove me. CONTRACT TO BEAUTY. 15 26 I, 2 In the all merit of Beauty is my free service; 3, 4 I have written not to show my wit, but to bind my duty by willing homage. 5, 6 In these rags of words and unclothed of deeds, my duty may seem bare; 7, 8 But thou, Love, seest me ! 9, 10 Thy star, that guides my moving, shall point graciously upon me, 1 1 And my love by my works 1 2 Shall be justified in the sight of Truth. 1 3 Then first may I boast the Truth of my Love, 14 Till then not dare to put it to the test of Truth. (7, 8) cf 23, line 14. (9, 10) cf 116, lines S — 8. (11) cf 23,>line9. (12) cf 20, line S; 24, line 5; 23, line 13. II. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. Argument. 27 The necessity of daily toil consumes the time that I would give to Beauty; so that at night I cannot sleep for think- ing of Beauty unworshipped and unserved by day. 28 This toil by day and sorrow by night will leave me little fit ^o pay dear dues to Beauty, when, at last, I obtain leisiire. 29 Yet as I groan under the burden of Life, the thought of Beauty is my one consolation. 30 It is Grace, bom of the past, distilled essence of losses and sorrows. 31 It is my Ideal, the abstract of all that was best in all my perished idols. 32 I am but as the morning star of Beauty struggling with the night; and I am content if the world in Beauty's perfect day shall love these lines for my love. l8 GREAT PAN LIVES. 27. ist_Wearywith_j5aL_I haste me to my bed, ^Tie dear repose for limbs with travel tir'd; But then begins a journey in my head, 4 To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd; For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee. And keep m y Hrnnping eye lids open wide, 8 Looking on darkness wtiicn tbe blind do see: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view. Which, like a jewel hung' in ghastly night,, 12 Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee and for myself no quiet find. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 1 9 27 I, 2 Toil-worn as one who hath travelled all the day through the desert, I seek my bed for rest ; 3, 4 But there my toil and travel begins again; 5, 6 My thoughts toil and make pilgrimage from the far country where I abide, to Beauty, their home of love. 7 — 10 In the darkness is a haunting shadow, II, 12 A gleam of Beauty is in the night; 13, 14 Thus by day my body finds no quiet; nor by night my mind, haunted by Beauty's ineffectual'gleam. (2) cf 109, line 6. (6) cf 109, line 5. 20 GREAT PAN LIVES. 28. I How can I, then, return in happy plight, That am debarr'd the benefit of rest? When day's oppression is not eas'd by night, 4 But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd And each, though enemies to cither's leign. Do in consent shake hands to torture me; The one by toil, the other to complain 8 How far I toil, still farther off from thee. I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright, And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven; So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night; 12 When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grirfs strength seem stronger. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 28 1 I shall be little fit to use my liberty, 2 If now I have no benefit of rest ; 3 — 6 If day and night torture me; 7 The. day by toil, the night by sorrow, 8 That my toil still takes me from Beauty. 9 I refresh my labours with sweet thoughts of Beauty, 10 And tell the clouded day Beauty is bright; II, 12 And starless night I tell that Beauty's star still bums; 1 3 But the burthen grows heavier day by day, 14 And the visions of the night increase sorrow. (9) cf " Tempest," Act III. Sc. I. Ferdinand. — " These sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours, Most busy, least when I do it." (13, 14) Cf27. GREAT PAN LIVES. 29. I When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, 4 And look upon myself, and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd. Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, 8 With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising. Haply I think on thee, — and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising 12 From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 23 29 1—9 lo — 12 But suddenly I remember Beauty, and my soul is singing at the gates of Heaven. 1 3 Beauty is my gift ; its infinite jriches 14 Make the bondsman greater than the King, cf "Tempest," Act I., Sc 2. Prospero. — " O a cherubin Thou wast that didst preserve me ! Thou didst smile, Infused with u. fortitude from heaven. When I have decked the sea with drops full salt. Under my burden groaned ; which raised in me An undergoing stomach to bear up Against what should ensile." (13, 14) cf 2S, lines 13, 14. 24 GREAT PAN LIVES. 3° I When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 4 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste; Then can I drown an eye unus'd to flow. For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, 8 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. Then can I grieve -at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoanM moan, 12 Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 25 30 1 I call up Thought at midnight, 2 And visit all nooks of memory; 3, 4 And bewail old woes ; and sigh upon life's shores strewn with wrecks of hope ; 5, 6 And let fall tears into the deep that holds youth's treasures ; 7 And remember first love in sorrow, 8 And all life's pageant faded ; 9 — 12 And feel the pangs of these still- vexing griefs as keen as at the first. 1 3 But still my Thought finds consolation in Grace, 14 Distilled essence of losses and sorrows, (and brings it to mind like fresh dew from the storm-beaten rocks of the past.) cf "Tempest," Act I. Sc. II. Ariel. — " In the deep nook where once Thou called'st me up at midnight to fetch dew, From the still vexed Bermoothes." (13, 14) cf 25, lines 13, 14 ; 29, lines 13, 14. 26 GREAT PAN LIVES. 31 I Thy bosom is endearM with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead; And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts, 4 And all those friends which I thought buried. Plow many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, As interest of the dead, which now appear 8 But things remov'd, that hidden in thee lie! Thou art the grave where buried love doth live. Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give; 12 That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I lov'd I view in thee. And thou (all they) hast all the all of me. CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 27 31 I, 2, 4 All my perished idols live in my ideal. 3 That now attracts the best regards with which I eyed their noblest graces. 5 — 8 I have bewailed them, but lo, in my ideal they live! 9 And my love lives too in this their monument, I o Hung with their trophies, II Created of all their best; 1 2 For all my love for them is now my love for the ideal : 13, 14 It has all the all of them and all the all of me. cf Shelley, " Epipsychidion" : — " In many mortal forms I rashly sought The shadow of that idol of my thought; And some were fair, but beauty dies away, And some were wise, but honeyed words betray. cf " Tempest," Act III. Sc. I. Ferdinand. — "Admired Miranda, Indeed the top of admiration, worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard ; and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues Have I liked several women, never any With so fiiU soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed. And put it to the foil: but you, oh you. So perfect and so peerless are created Of every creature's best." cf Mrs. Browning, " Aurora Leigh " : — (The Poet) "Fixes still The type with mortal vision, to pierce through With eyes immortal to the ante-type, Some call the ideal." cf 25, lines 13, 14; 29, lines 13, 14; 30, lines 13, 14. 28 GREAT PAN LIVES. 32 I If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey 4 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, — Compare them with the bettering of the time ; And though they be outstripp'd by every pen. Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, 8 Exceeded by the height of happier men. O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought, — " Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, 12 To march in ranks of better equipage : But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love." CONSOLATION IN BEAUTY. 29 32 I, 2 If true Beauty blossom in my dust, 3, 4 The world with true eye may survey these poor rude lines of Beauty's deceased lover; 5 — 8 And howe'er the time better them love them for my love, 9 Vouchsafing me this loving thought: — 10 Had Dan Shakspeare's style grown with this growing age, 1 1 What verse he has left us had been more precious, 12 And had kept rank in public esteem with our present well turned and true filfed lines; 1 3 But since he died ere the Muse's prime, 14 Truth shall approve his love and later poets' style. (3) cf 24, line II. (11, 12) cf Jonson's Elegy. III. BEAUTY, THE SOUL: ITS IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. Argument. 33 Alas! the surt of my soul is masked in a cloud of shame. 34 My soul is ashamed, and repents that by illusion it led me into Error. 35 But there is no occasion for my soul's self-sorrow, for the cause of its illusion was in me, my Desire. 36 This Error warns me that I must not make too open profes- sion of my devotion to Beauty, or my errors may be taken for Beauty's issues. 37 In Beauty is all my wealth, worth, and happiness. 38 It is my Muse. 39 It is my genius and my soul. But let me not confess this too openly ; or how in modesty can I sing its praises ? 40 If, in consequence of illusion, my soul is consenting unto Desire, so far it is not subject to blame. 41 It seems regrettable, however, that the soul should add Fancy to passion and so stoop to a part in mere earthly love. 42 But Beauty, my soul, and I are one; then Desire, being mine is my soul's; therefore, it must become spiritualised and fair, must become Love. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 31 33 Alas ! the sun of my soul is masked in a cloud of shame. I Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 4 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face. And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 8 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace; Even so my sun one early morn did shine. With all triumphant splendour on my brow; But, out! alack! he was but one hour mine, 12 The regent cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. (2) cf 1 14, line 2. (4) cf 20, line 6 ; 114, line 4. (9) My sun = my soul's Beauty. (9—14) cf " Henry IV., Part I." Prince Henry. — I "Herein will I imitate the sun. Who doth permit the base, contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, 4 That when he please again to be himself. Being wanted he may be more wondered at. By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours, that did seem to strangle him : 8 So when this loose behaviour I throw off. And pay the debt I never promised. By how much better than my word I am. By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; 12 Aiid like a metal on a sullen ground. My reformation glittering o'er my fault. Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes. Than that which hath no foil to set it off. 16 I'll so offend to make offence a skill, Redeeming time when men think least I will." These lines very closely describe a course of conduct to which Shakspeare confesses in the sonnets. (14) Thus Shakspeare calls the beauty of his mind, the " Sun of the world." 32 GREAT PAN LIVES. 34 I Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, 4 Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke? 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such a salve can speak, 8 That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace: Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief: Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss: The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief 12 To him that bears the strong offence's cross. Ah ! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds. And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 33 34 1 My soul gilded evil with fair promise, 2 And led me forth in security, 3 To let me be overtaken by base clouds, 4 That smother up its Beauty in shame. 5 'Tis not enough that Virtue ever liveth, 6 And covenants for the future with my soul's sad tears ; 7, 8 The spiritual wound closes, but the defeat remains. 9 My shame of soul does not heal my woe; 10 My sorrow of soul does not redeem me from the loss of Virtue ; 1 1 In fine, my soul's illusion, shame and sorrow, leave me 12 To bear the strong offence's cross scored to my account. 13 Ah, but like pearl are my soul's sad tears, 14 The priceless purchase of future fireedom from error. (i) cf 39, line 2 ; 62, line 2. cf 20, line 6, {'^4, lines i-4j_ „3_ ^^^ ^^^ jj^^ ,3 cf 137, line 4 ; 129, lines 11, 12. (4) cf 33. P. Henry's speech, line 3. (5) cf 124. (6) cf "Titus Andronicus," Act III., Sc. i. "My heart's deep langour and my soul's sad tears. ' (9) cf 129, line II. (12) cf 117, line 9. 34 GREAT PAN LIVES. 3S I No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, 4 And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults, and even I in this. Authorising thy trespass with compare, Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, 8 Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are: For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, (Thy adverse party is thy advocate,) And 'gainst myself a lawfiil plea commence : 12 Such civil war is in my love and hate. That I an accessory needs must be To that sweet thief, which sourly robs from me. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 35 35 I But let no more my soul have self-sorrow, that it gilded the evil and so led me into Error; 2, 4 Roses have thorns and cankers, and silver fountains mud : 3 Both sun and moon suffer eclipse; so must my soul's sun, as I, its mortal moon. 5 After all, I am the cause of the fault, as all men cause their faults, 6 To excuse now my soul's share in the fault, by com- paring it with my share, 7 Which, indeed, is very gross and does excuse my soul's sin, 8 In showing it caused by a greater sin in me 9 For my soul saw Desire in a favourable light by the influence and solicitation of my Desire. 10 Thus I bring in Desire, my soul's adversary, as advocate to and now for my soul; 1 1 And thus I plead against myself natural law in proof that I caused the fault ; 1 2 I love so much each offender, howe'er I hate the offence, 1 3 That I must needs plead myself 14 With Desire, accessory to its eclipsing my soul; with my Fancy, accessory to its gilding Desire and taking it for my soul's Desire. (3) cf 33 ; 60, lines 5—8 ; 107, line J. (9) cf 129, lines II, 12 j 137, lines i — 4; 144, lines 5 — 8; 146, lines I — 4 ; 148, lines 1—8 ; 150, lines i — 8 ; 154, line 14. (10) It will be observed that the word "advocate" has two applications, (13) And the word "accessory" four applications. (14) cf, line 3 above. cf 34, line I and references. 36 GREAT PAN LIVES. 36 I Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one: So shall those blots that do with me remain, 4 Without thy help, by me be borne alone. In our two loves there is but one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Which though it alter not love's sole effect, 8 Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. I may not evermore acknowledge thee. Lest my bewailed guilt should dp thee shame; Nor thou with public kindness honour me, 12 Unless thou take that hondur from thy name; But do not so; I love thee in such sort, As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. BEAUTY THE SOUL. 37 36 1 In sooth, distinction must part me from Beauty, 2 Though it is my Thought and in Beauty I live ; 3, 4 For my blots must be borne by me alone, and not be allowed to reflect on Beauty. 5 My life is in Beauty ; 6 Yet I may not profess my love before men ; 7 This alters not the effect, my Art, 8 Though the restraint is loss of joy. 9 But I dare not proclaim Beauty, the soul of "my Art, I o Lest my blots should become a shame to Beauty ; I I Nor may the Beauty of my Art mark me for public honour and proud titles, 1 2 Lest, of my blots it be said, such also are the results of a life devoted to Beauty, such also are Beauty's issues. 1 3 Then let it not mark me for public honour. For I love Beauty in such sort, 1 4 And 'tis so much mine, that while it is honoured, I must be honoured. (2) cf 22, lines i — 8. (7) cf 85, line 14; 23, lines 9, 10; 24 line 4. IT^ nf 2C- linp ^- (11) cf 25, line 2, 38 GREAT PAN LIVES. 37 1 As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite, 4 Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth ; For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more,- Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit, 8 I make my love engrafted to this store : So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd. Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give, That I in thy abundance am suffic'd, 12 And by a part of all thy gloiy live. Look what is best, that best I wish in thee : This wish I have : then ten times happy me ! BEAUTY THE SOUL. 39 37 I, 2 . . . . 3 So I, disabled by Fortune, 4 Have all my comfort in the worth and truth of Beauty. 5 Hath it Beauty ? Is it from Heaven or no worse issued ? Are its riches infinite ? Is it the fountain of all wit ? 6, 7 Hath it parts innumerable, diverse in particular name, yet all crowned with the general name of Beauty ? 8 Then with this store I commingle in love. 9 And I am not disabled, poor, despised, 10 While from the idea of Beauty I derive such substance, 1 1 That I in its abundance am sufiSced, 1 2 And live in it essentially by its idea ; 1 3 For in wishing Beauty, I wish all that is best : 14 This wish I have : in itself it is all that is best ; then ten times happy me. cf2S, lines 13, 14; 29, lines 13, 14; 30, lines 13, 14; 31. (3) cf III, lines I — 4. (6, 7) cf S3, lines 1—4. (10) cf 27, line 10. (14) Why ten times ? cf 38, line 9. cf 25, line 4, note. 40 GREAT PAN LIVES. 38 I How can my Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent 4 For every vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight : For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee 8 When thou thyself dost give invention light? Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth Than those old nine, which rhymers invocate ; And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth 12 Eternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight Muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. BEAUTY THE SOUL. 4 1 38 I — 4 Beauty is at once the argument and the inspiration of my pen; 6 So that if in Truth's sight, 5 My skill rises to my argument, it has the argument to thank. 7 For in writing to, 8 I write by the master-light of Art. 9 Be Beauty named the tenth Muse ... 10 1 1 And he that calls upon this Muse . . . . 12 1 3 If my slight pen can please these curious days, 14 The pain be mine; my Muse's be the praise. (i) The poet in this sonnet uses the word Muse in two senses, in the true sense for inspiratipn, and in a professional sense, which, for distinction's sake, may be expressed by the word pen. (cf 100, line 8.) So; a cure of souls, a duty or an office (cf loi, line 13) ; a statesman, truly or officially, &c. , &c. (5) cf 100, line 8. (6) cf 20, line S; 24, line 5; 26, line 12. (8) cf Wordsworth's Ode : " A master-light of all our seeing." (9) cf 37, line 14. 42 GREAT PAN LIVES. 39 I O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? 4 And what is't but mine own, when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one. That by this separation I may give 8 That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone. O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove, Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave To entertain the time with thoughts of love, — 12 (Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,) And that thou teachest how to make one twain. By praising him here, who doth hence remain. BEAUTY THE SOUL. 43 39 1 How in modesty can I sing the worth of Beauty, 2 When 'tis all the better part of me, my thought, my genius, my soul? 3 What value hath self-praise? 4 And self-praise it is when I praise Beauty, my better part. 5 For this reason also there must be distinction, 6 Our union must be division in name ; 7 That thus I may give 8 The dues to Beauty that it deserves alone. 9 All separation from my life's delight were torment, 10, 1 1 But that it permits me thoughts of love, 12 In which Beauty still remains; 13 And that it teaches to make twain the one Beauty, 14 That praised here as hence, hence remains in the praise. (2) cf 22, lines I — 8 ; 37, lines 13, 14 ; 62. cf Shelley, " Epipsychidion " : — - " Thou Soul within my Soul." (5) cf 36, line I. (8) cf Mrs. Browning : — " The conscious and eternal soul With all its ends, and not the outside life, The parcel man." (9) cf 27, 28. (12) cf 47, line II. (13) cf " Phoenix and Turtle ' :— "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one." 44 GREAT PAN LIVES. 40 I Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou njayst true love call; 4 All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. Then, if for my love thou my love receivest, I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest; But yet be blam'd, if thou this self-deceivest 8 By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief. Although thou steal thee all my poverty; And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief 12 To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury. Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, ■ Kill me with spite; yet we must not be foes. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 45 40 1 Grant that my better part engrosses now my all of love, 2 Then what more than before has it ? 3 No love that it may rightly call true love ; 4 For Beauty had all my true love, before this other love usurped my soul. 5 But if my soul gilds this other love and takes it to be true like the rest, 6 I cannot blame my soul that it indulges and consents to it, 7 (Unless it misleads Desire unto woe 8 By a wilful trial of ill, itself rejects.) 9 At its own sweet will my gentle Fancy must still mis-take and translate the false as true ; 10 Though thereby, to my loss, an appetite, base and vile, it transposes to form and dignity; II, 12 And though Love knows its cruel deceptions are harder to bear than Hate's known injuries. 1 3 Overflowing Grace makes ill seem well, makes Desire seem Love. Lascivious Grace! 14 Mortifying Fancy! But I must not quarrel with my bread of- life. (i) cf39, line 2; 31, line 14; (5) <^f 34> line i and references. (6) cf 151, lines 7, 8; (7) cf 121, line 11; (9) cf 96, lines 7, 8. (10) cf 56, line 2; " Midsummer Night's Dream," Act I. So. IL " Things base and vile holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. ' (13) cf 96, lines 7, 8; 154, line 14. (14) cf 75, line I. 46 GREAT PAN LIVES. 41 I Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits. When I am sometimes absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, 4 For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won. Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd; And when a woman woos, what woman's son 8 Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd? Ah me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth. Who lead thee in their riot even there 12 Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold truth; Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee. Thine, by thy beauty being false to me. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 47 41 1 The pretty faults of Fancy freely playing, 2 Forgetting Fancy's child, 3 Are to be expected of Thought, on the one hand not yet all experienced, on the other overflowing with Beauty ; 4 For much solicits it for trial, 6 And claims to be judged of my soul for fair and good and true; 5 And my soul' is Love ; then easily to be won. 7, 8 Moreover, passion is not always upon one side alone. The woman's case may call for pity ; and the soul's pity becomes the man's passion. 9 Ah, but why doth my soul stoop for a part in mere earthly love? 10 Fie upon its untutored Thought and its Beauty 1 1 Overflowing in Fancy ! These conduce to a sort of Love, 12 In which fair is foul and foul is fair, 14 And the soul gilds rAnd false Fancy allows 1 3 Its eclipse by Desire. iThe specious claim of Desire. (3) cf 138, line 3. (4) cf 35, line 9. (5) cf 134, line 6. (6) cf 35, line 9. (10, II) cf, line 3 above. (12) cf " Macbeth," Act I, Sc. I. cf "Hamlet ":— " There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." (13) cf 35, line 9 and references, cf, line 6 above. (14) cf 34, line I and references. 48 GREAT PAN LIVES, 42 I That thou hast her, it is not all my grief. And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, 4 A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: — Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love herj And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, 8 Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain. And, losing her, my friend hath found that loss; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, 12 And both for my sake lay on me this cross: But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery ! — then she loves but me alone. IMPEACHMENT BY LOVE. 49 42 1 That my soul, by Fancy, translates Desire, does not relieve me of all my grief, 2 Though before, the burden of passion was heavy; 3 I have chiefly to wail that Desire should engross my soul, 4 A robbery from my true Love, Beauty. 5 Loves both, thus I will excuse ye ; 6 — 8 For my sake my soul makes trial of passion, which, upon this pretext, ceases to be be repugnant to it: 9 Then Desire engrosses Fancy; result. Love, 10 Which transposes Desire to spiritual dignity. 1 1 Spirit and sense, fair and foul combine; total, they mix ; 1 2 To meet my need and wish ; so lay on me the cross. 13 But it need not be a cross, a sorrow! Beauty, my soul and I are one; 14 Sweet Flattery! Then Desire, spiritualised and fair, is only mixed with me. (i) cf 40, line 9 and reference. (3) cf 133, line 6. (4) cf 40, lines 3, 4. (6—8) cf 40, line 8; cf 134, lines 7 and II. (10) cf 40, line 10 and reference. (12) cf 35, line 9. (13) cf 39, line 2; 62, line 2. IV. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. Argument. 43 The world takes me from Beauty; but I ever dream of it and long to realise it. 44 I skip in thought the weary time that I must expend in toil and travel, before I can return to Art. Ah, that I were Thought ! 45 In this way I gain both joy and sorrow, joy in the thought of Beauty, sorrow in the thought of its remote^realisation. 46 Beauty should appear in its effects, in works of Art ; still, one may be allowed also to write about Beauty ; 47 Especially if one throws one's thoughts into perspective, so that they take on form and outward grace. 48 While I am toiling and travelling, Beauty is being dese- crated by vulgar writers. 49 I have left the Muse ; perhaps one day the Muse may leave me; I should have no right to complain. 50 My nature revolts at my present occupations. 51 How eagerly shall I return to Art! 52 Now all that I can do is from time to time to sit down to a sonnet, as to a rare and solemn feast of Beauty. 53 In general the Truth of Beauty is only shadowed in particular things of Beauty. 54 But in my verse this Truth lives. 5 5 Therefore I sing immortal Beauty in immortal verse. 56 Thus while the weary time still keeps me from Beauty, let me still renew my love. Note. — Apparently Shakspeare writes sonnets 43 — $6 while travel- ling on business. The travel itself, since from his home in London and the head-quarters of his Art, and as depriving him of opportunity for continuous production, may be called a travel away from Beauty. But to the poet's mind the actual travel is less present than the metaphorical ; the business is as travel and the travel only part of the business. So even a modem commercial traveller might say: " I have a long and tedious journey before me to secure a competency and leisure," and refer rather to his business than to his travel in itself. 52 GREAT PAN LIVES. 43 I When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, Fpr all the day they view things unrespectedj But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, 4 And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed ; Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, 8 When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so ! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade 12 Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay ! All days are nights to see, till I see thee. And nights, bright days, when dreams do show thee me. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 53 43 1 True sight is when I close my eyes 2 Upon this weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable life; 3 And enter the world of dream, and there see Beauty, 4 With the inner eye, by Beauty's light, the master-light of all my seeing. 5 If thus the idea of Beauty makes bright my dreams, 6 How fair would appear its effect in Art 7 — Its light still clearer then — to the world's clear eye, 8 When to eyes that see not the effect, the idea so shines ! 9 Blessed were mine eyes I o If I might see that shape of Beauty in the living day, II, 12 Of which the fair idea haunts my dreams! 13 All days are nights until that day, 14 And nights bright days that show it me in dream. (2) cf " Hamlet." (4) cf Wordsworth : — " That inner eye which is the bliss of solitude.'' "A master-light of all our seeing." (5) cf 27, line 10; 37, line 10. (6) cf 85, line 14; 23, line 9; 24, line 4; 36, line 7. (7) cf 24, lines 10 — 12. 54 GREAT PAN LIVES. 44 I If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way ; For then, despite of space, I would be brought, 4 From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then, although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee, For nimble thought can jump both sea and land, 8 As soon as think the place where he would be. But ah, thought kills me, that I am not thought. To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone. But that, so much of earth and water wrought, 12 I must attend time's leisure with my moan ; Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either's woe : IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 55 44 1 Oh, that this too-too solid flesh were Thought ! 2 Then were that distant day at hand. 3 Forthen, despite of distance, I would be brought 4 From the far country of my travel, to my home of love ; 5, 6 Yea, though I were farthest in the world from Beauty. 7 For nimble Thought can jump hfe's toil and travel, 8 As soon as think that home where he would be. 9 But ah! Thought kills me that I am not Thought, 10 That with a thought I might pass to Beauty, though miles away from it ; but now Beauty is a dream and passes. II — 14 (1) cf" Hamlet." (2) cf 43, line 13. (4) cf 27, lines I — 6; 109, lines S, 6. (7> cfs6, lineg. cf " Macbeth " : — " Upon this bank and shoal of Time, We'd jump the life to come." . Shakspeare is ready to jump the Earthly life as Macbeth the Heavenly. 56 GREAT PAN LIVES. 45 1 The other two, slight air and purging fire. Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, 4 These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone 8 Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy; Until life's composition be recur'd By those swift messengers retum'd from thee. Who even but now come back again, assur'd 12 Of thy fair health, recounting it to me : This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again, and straight grow sad. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. S7* 45 1 The other two, all air and fire, 3 Thought and Love, 2 Are ever with Beauty; 4 And present it as fair idea or as turned to shape in the future. 5 If these livelier elements look forward 6 Tenderly to Art, 7 Mine other two, that detain from me it, 8 Sink me in despair; 9 Till I am restored 10, II By thought and love forgetting injurious time, 1 2 And presenting their object to me in all its Beauty ; 1 3 Then my soul arises like the lark from earth and rejoices ; to droop again from its exaltation, 14 With the thought, that all this Beauty is afar. (I) In the " Tempest " Ariel is Thought. (4) cf 85, line 14 and references. (10, 11) cf 44, line 2. (13) cf 29, lines 9, 12. GREAT PAN LIVES 46 I Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, How to divide the conquest of thy sight ; Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, 4 My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie, — (A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes,) But the defendant doth that plea deny, 8 And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To 'cide this title is impannellM A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart ; And by their verdict is determine 12 The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part : As thus, — mine eye's due is thine outward part. And my heart's right thine inward love of heart. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 59 46 1 Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, 2 How to divide yet preserve the Truth of Beauty : 3 My eye would exclude from Beauty's effect my heart's dearest thoughts about Beauty ; 4 My heart denies that Beauty's effect is all; 5 And pleads that all the Beauty in its thoughts 6 Cannot be expressed in the effect ; that the eye knows not the heart ; 7 But the eye affirms 8 That Beauty to be apparent must be seen in its effect. 9 — 12 Good thoughts and true determine to each a share; 1 3 To the eye, the outward grace, 14 To the heart, an inward grace of Love. (2) cf 20, line 5 ; 38, line 6. (3) cf 85, line 14 and references. (6) cf 24, line 14. (13, 14) cf 24, line 14. 6o GREAT PAN LIVES. 4? I Betwixt mine eye and heart a- league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other : When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, 4 Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast. And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, 8 And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: So, either by thy picture or my love. Thyself away art present still with me. For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, 12 And I am still with them, and they with thee ; ' Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. ' 6 1 47 I> 2 3 When my eye, famished for Beauty, 5 Feasts on the outward grace in past Effects, 6 To the banquet it invites the judgmeht of my heart ; 4 And when my heart yearns with inward love, 7 My eye is its guest, 8 And takes in its thoughts the share of the outward grace. 9 So either by byegone play or present sonnet, 10 Beauty is still with me, though I am away from Beauty ; 1 1 For Beauty cannot leave my thoughts ; 12 And I am still with them and they with Beauty. 13 Or if they sleep, one of my boo^s in sight 14 Awakes my heart to delights of judgment and fancy. (3 — 8) cf 46, lines 13, 14; 24, line 14. (6) cf 137, line 8. (9) cf 85, line 14 and references. (13) cf 23, line 9; 24, lines 1—4. 62 GREAT PAN LIVES. 48 I IIow careful was I when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, That to my use it might unused stay 4 From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust ! But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are. Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief. Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care, 8 Are left the prey of every vulgar thief. Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest. Save were thou art not, though I feel thou art. Within the gentle closure of my breast, 12 From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; And even thence thou wilt be stolen, I fear, For truth proves thievish for -^ prize so dear. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 63 48 1—4 .... 5 But Beauty . . . 6, 7 8 Is left to be spoiled of the Philistines. 9 It is not locked up 1 1 But in my heart, 10 And there it both is and is not ; 12 I feel 'tis there and yet 'tis everywhere. i 3 And even from my heart I fear it will be stolen, 1 4 My private friends will peck at it. (14) Meres refers to Shakspeare's sonnets as "sugred sonnets among his private friends." A second edition of Drayton's sonnets differs from the first by the addition of sundry packings from Shakspeare's sonnets, (cf Tyler, Shak- speare's sonnets.) 64 GREAT PAN LIVES. 49 I Against that time, if ever that time come, When I shall see thee frown on my defects, Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum, 4 Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects ; Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass, And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye. When love, converted from the thing it was, 8 Shall reasons find of settled gravity, — Against that time do I ensconce me here Within the knowledge of mine own desert. And this my hand against myself uprear, 12 To guard the lawful reasons on thy part : To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, Since, why to love, I can allege no cause. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 65 49 1 In my yellow leaf, 2 The Muse may no longer smile with favour on my superfluous age ; 3 It may shine upon me in my noon to visit me with chill neglect in my twilight; 4 When my gracious numbers are decayed and compare not with the bettering of the time ; 5 It may leave me to forgetfulness a prey, 6 And withdraw from me its comfortable beams ; 7 No longer my genial flame, 8 Nor to be fanned from my expiring embers. 9 — 12 I shall not complain,- for I owe not the past favour to my own deserts. 13 If inspiration and public appreciation fail me, it will be but just. 1 4 The wind bloweth where it listeth ; the Muse has favoured me in pure bounty. (i) cf 73, line 2. (3) cf 75. line 5. (4) These seem to be the advised respects, cf 79, line 3 ; 32, line 5. (6) cf 24, lines 11, 12. (7 — 8) cf 73, lines 9 — 12. (13) In this sonnet it seems to be the duplex idea of the Muse as inspiration and public appreciation that is addressed. The language of the paraphrase is adapted to this duplicity of reference, cf 38 ; 32, line 3 and reference. 66 GREAT PAN LIVES. SO I How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek — my weary travel's end — Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 4 " Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend ! " The beast that bears me, tired with my woe. Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me. As if by some instinct the wretch did know 8 His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee : The bloody spur cannot provoke him on That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide; Which heavily he answers with a groan, 12 More sharp to me than spurring to his side; For that same groan doth put this in my mind, My grief lies onward, and my joy behind. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 67 50 1 How weary is toil, 2 When night and rest 3 But bring the thought, 4 Thus farther am I subdued to what I work in, thus farther have I ranged from Beauty, my home of love ! 5 The dull substance of my flesh, oppressed with my melancholy, 6 Plods without energy, in heaviness and tears, 7 By my slackened will knowing, 8 That I am not fond enough, for speed, of work that takes me from Beauty. 10 In vain I spend my fury, 9 My nature answers not to the spur, 1 1 But groans aloud ; 12 So adds to my suffering, 13 As I pause from my task to reflect, 14 My grief lies onward and my joy behind. (i) cf 27, lines i, 2. (4) cf III, lines 6, 7 ; log, line 5. (5) cf 44. line I ; 45, Jine 8 |^ generally. (6) cf 45, line 8 ; 44, line 14J "f^' t^ & > A comparison of sonnets 44, 45 with sonnets 50, 51 will establish the identity of the "beast that bears me" with "the dull sub- stance of the flesh." (10) cf 100, line 3. (11) cf 44, lines 11, 12. cf " Arden of Feversham " : — " I tell thee, Greene, the forlorn traveller. Whose lips are glued with summer's parching heat. Ne'er longed so much to see a running brook. As I to finish Arden's Tragedy." 68 GREAT PAN LIVES. 51 I Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence? 4 Till I return, of posting is no need. O, what excuse will my poor beast then find. When swift extremity can seem but slow? Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind, 8 In winged speed no motion shall I know: Then can no horse with my desire keep pace ; Therefore desire, of perfect love being made, Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race; 12 But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade, — Since from thee going he went wilfiil-slow, Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 69 51 1 Thus can my love excuse the slow offence 2 Of my slow elements, when from Beauty I range. 3 Why should I haste me from my joy? 4 Till I return there is no need of haste. 5 Oh, what excuse will my slow elements then find, 6 When swift extremity can seem but slow? 7 My love will outrun the wind 8 With nimble Thought, which moves not but is swifter than all motion. 9 Then can no earthly courier keep pace with my Desire. 10 Therefore my Desire, pure air and fire, perfect and ideal love, 1 1 Shall be my sightless courier for the fiery race, 1 4 To jump life to the heaven of Beauty, and leave dull earth behind. 12 (That's the way, that Love, to be the purer Love, shall excuse my slow elements, 1 3 Of less use then, than now evenj (I— 14) cf 44, 45, 50. (10) cf "Henry V.," Act III., Sc. 7. (11) cf " Macbeth " :— "Sightless couriers of the air." (14) cf no, line 13 ; cf 44, line 7 ; cf 29, line 12. (13) cf " Hamlet," Act HL, Sc. 4:— Queen. " Oh, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. Ham. " Oh, throw away the worser part of it And live the purer with the other half." 70 GREAT PAN LIVES. 52 I So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, 4 For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare. Since, seldom coming, in the long year set, Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 8 Or captain jewels in the carkanet. So is the time that keeps you, as my chest. Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide. To make some special instant special-blest, 12 By new unfolding his imprison'd pride. BlessM are you, whose worthiness gives scope, Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope. 1—8 9 The time that still keeps Beauty for me is as my chest ; 10 — 12 Or as the wardrobe which hides a rich robe rarely to be worn. 1 3 Blest worth of Beauty, 14 Ever anew to be a hope, to be lost in sight. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 71 54 Note, — Read first 53, next page. I O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 4 For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses. Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly 8 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; 12 Qf their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made ; And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth. When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth. I — 12 .... 1 3 So after Beauty's summer 14 Is over, its Truth shall remain distilled in my verse (13) cf 104, line 14 72 GREAT PAN LIVES. S3 Note. — For 54, see preceding page. I What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, 4 And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set 8 And you in Grecian tires are painted new ; Speak of the spring, and foison of the year ; The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear: 12 And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part. But you like none, none you, for constant heart. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 73 53 1 What mind can conceive Beauty's Essence, 2 Shadowed as it is in infinite Effluence? 3 One thing of Beauty presents one shade of Beauty, 4 It is one Beauty lends every shade. 5 — 6 It is the poet's pattern in Rose-cheeked Adonis, 7 — 8 The painter's model in Grecian tires of Helen ; 9 — ID It is the herald of the gaudy spring, 1 1 It teems in autumn big with rich increase; 12 And all the shapes by Beauty blessed dream of Beauty's single blessedness. 1 3 They are but broken parts of Beauty, 14 True sweet Beauty is more than they. (I, 2) cf Milton, " Paradise Lost," Book III. "Hail, Holy Light Bright Effluence of bright Essence increate." (4) cf 98, line 14. (5) cf 98, line 12. (10) cf I, line 10. (11) cf 97, line 6. (14) cf 54, line 2. (13 — 14) cf Tennyson : — " Our little systems have their day They have their day and cease to be They are but broken parts of thee And thou, oh Lord, art more than they.'' 74 GREAT PAN LIVES. 55 I Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents 4 Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry. Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn 8 The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all posterity 12 That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise. You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. 75 55 I, 2 . . . . 3 But Beauty shall shine .... 4—7 8 This living memorial of Beauty; 9 Which shall be victorious over Death and oblivion, 10 And on proud Fortune's neck rear its trophy; to be o'er looked II, 12 By eyes that shall gaze upon the ending Doom. 1 3 Then shall come the Kingdom of Truth and Beauty, 1 4 Till then Truth and Beauty live in my verse for the eyes of all that are true and fair. ( lo) cf Milton's sonnet to Cromwell. (14) cf " Phnenix and Turtle " :— " To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair For these dead birds sigh a prayer." 76 GREAT PAN LIVES. 56 I Sweet love, renew thy force ; be it not said, Thy edge should blunter be than appetite. Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, 4 To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might : So, love, be thou ; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness. To-morrow see again, and do not kill 8 The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness. Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see 12 Return of love, more blest may be the view ; Or call it winter, which, being full of care, Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare. IMPEACHMENT BY BUSINESS. T] 56 1 Let the sweet love of Beauty still renew its force, lest 2 Its edge should blunter be than appetite; 3 Which, fed to-day, 4 Is hungry to-morrow; 5 So though to-day 5 Love be satiate with Beauty, 7 To-morrow to pastures new! — lest the love of Beauty be starved 8 And dulled. 9 A weary time still lies between me and Beauty, like the ocean 10 Between two parted lovers on dividable shores; 1 1 (They keep not an incommunicable love) but daily seek the banks (and embrace as over a vast, till as from the ends of opposed winds) 1 2 They meet, and unforgotten love is all in all : 1 3 Or call it a winter, which, being full of care, 14 Makes Beauty's summer thrice more wished, more rare. (7) cf " Lycidas," last line. (10) cf " Troilus and Cressida," Act I. Sc 3. " Peaceful commerce on dividable shores." (11) cf Wordsworth's " Affliction of Margaret." cf" Winter's Tale," Act L Sc. i. The sea in " Winter's Tale '' is merely a sea of life that divides the ideal from the practical. (14) cf 104, line 14. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. Argument. 57 The Muse just now seems rather with others than with me. 58 The fact is my genius has taken a sportive turn, which causes me uneasiness. 59 My idea of Beauty, I fancy, surpasses that of the Ancients. 60 I seem in danger of losing it, however, in this general scepticism which is invading me. 61 I am oppressed with a consciousness that, while I am lapsed in time and sportiveness, the Muse is forsaking me for other pens. 62 Let me remember that my Muse is my genius — myself; 63, 64, 65 Therefore, let me make haste to immortalise it before it decays with time. 66 In reality, I am weary of life, and only live that Beauty may have one interpreter on the earth. 67 There is not much joy in living in a world of bad morals and false art. 68 Ah me! I am alone true to Beauty. 69 Yet I am bringing the Muse into disrepute by the curious phase of sportiveness through which my genius is passing. 70 But in a stupid and malignant world, how can I expect that genius should escape misconstruction and slander? 71, 72 It will be better that my life should never be pried into, for my actions, ill understood, might prejudice the Muse. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE, 79 73 Love perceives me in the yellow leaf and makes inquisition into my life before it loses me. 74 But let Love be content with my poesy, and not want a life of me. 7 5 All my life and life's delight is in Beauty. 76 Beauty is my sole argument. 77 As I stand upon the verge of decay I will not lose a thought that occurs to me. I will have a note-book for happy thoughts which may be of use to my Muse. Note. — Under the sanction of the Ideal Shakspeare's genius at this time, the time when Falstaff begins to tread the stage, becomes "sportive " not only in his writings, but also in his conduct. For the Muse must be true to Nature and to itself, and, therefore, must present the comedy as well as the tragedy of Vice. Now, to present Vice truly the poet must know it, and to know it he must live with it, and to live with it must do at Rome, &c. So GREAT PAN LIVES. 57 I Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire ? I have no precious time at all to spend, 4 Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world- without -end hour. Whilst I, ri!y sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, 8 When you have bid your servant once adieu ; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose. But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, 12 Save, where you are, how happy you make those. So true a fool is love, that in your will, (Though you do anything,) he thinks no ill. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 8 I 57 1 The Muse's slave, I attend 2 Its seasons (that voluntary move harmonious numbers) ; 3 The best moments only are precious ; 4 I attempt not duty uninspired. 5, 6 I chide not the sad interim, 7, 8 Un visited of the Muse, 9 Nor jealous, do I think I o That others have no business with the Muse ; I I Like a sad slave, I wait and am content 1 2 That wherever the Muse is, at least there's happy verse. 13, 14 Love can think no ill, howe'er the loved one stray. (1) cf 38. (2) cf Milton, " Paradise Lost," Book III. (5) cf 56, line 9. (12) cf 78, line II. 82 GREAT PAN LIVES. S8 I That God forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, 4 Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure ! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty ; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, 8 Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong. That you yourself may privilege your time: Do what you will ; to you it doth belong 12 Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ; Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 83 58 1 (It Strays, it plays;) its Thought is a law unto itself, 2 And I may not control its sportiveness : 3 My genius now gives to Time my own dear purchased right ; and I cannot say it Nay ! 4 I, its slave, am bound to let it range as far as long as it pleases ; 5 I must obey, in all things, its instincts : 6 At present, I am confined to letting it hoist sail to all the winds ; 7 III consequences I must endure , 8 And must not on their account count bad what it thinks good. 9 It is above law, 10 And hath the large privilege of immorality; 11 It is its own law, 12 And absolves itself of self proceeding crime. 1 3 I must wait till the phase be past, though it be a hell of time, 14 Not blame the sportiveness of genius, be it ill or well for my humanity. (2) CI 121, line 6. (3) cf 117, line 6; 39, line 2. (4) cf 109, line 5. (6) cf 117, line 7 ; 40, line 8 ; 41, line I. (8) cf 121, line 8. (9 — 12) cf 95, lines 9—14; 96, lines 7, 8 ; no, H2, lines i — 4; 121. (13) cf 120, line 6 ; 144, line 12. 84 GREAT PAN LIVES. S9 I If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our .brains beguil'd. Which, labouring for invention, • bear amiss 4 The second burden of a former child ! D, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, 8 Since mine at first in character was done ! That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame ; Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they, 12 Or whether revolution be the same. Oh ! sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 85 59 1 If there be nothing new under the sun, 2 How is the brain beguiled, 3 Whereon the brooding Soul begets 4 A former generation of still breeding thoughts ! 5 But if in some antique book, 6 Be it as old as Doomsday Book, 7 There exist already my form of Beauty, let it be produced 8 And compared with mine, my work at first hand, and from the beginning until now ; - 9 That I might see the early world's best impression of Beauty, 10 My deep Contemplation's wonder ; 1 1 Whether the Ancients or the Moderns bear the palm ; 1 2 Or whether Beauty remain essentially the same. 1 3 Oh, sure I am the old poets 1 4 Oft sang of Beauty, pale and shorn of its beams. (3, 4) cf " Richard II." :— " My brain I'll prove the female of my soul, My soul, the father, and these two beget A generation of still breeding thoughts." (10) cf Marston in "-Love's Martyr." 86 GREAT PAN LIVES. 60 I Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, 4 In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd. Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, 8 And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth. And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, 12 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet, to times in hope my verse shall stand. Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 87 60 1—4 5 The mortal moon reflects the rays of the Ideal, its immortal Sun, 6 And shines at the full, 7 Only to be sicklied o'er with eclipse, 8 The soul and sovereign reason overthrown. 9 Time blasts blown youth, 10 And fairs and fouls the foul and fair. 1 1 Beauty, Truth and Rarity, Grace in all simplicity, 1 2 Fall before his scythe. 1 3 Yet till Beauty's kingdom come, my verse shall stand 1 4 The glory of Beauty, despite of Time. cf Goethe's " Faust" : — "The god-like essence of our earth-bom powers Must yield to strange and still more strange intrusion; Soon as" the good things of the world are ours, We deem our nobler selves a vain illusion; And heaven-born instincts, very life of life, Are strangled in the low terrestrial strife." (5) rf 35. lines; i07. line 5- (7) cf " Hamlet," Act III., Sc. i ; Hamlet's Soliloquy. (8) cf "Hamlet," Act III., Sc. i; Ophelia's Soliloquy. (9) cf do. (10) cf "Hamlet":— ." There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." cf "Macbeth":— " Fair is foul, and foul is fair." cf 95, lines II, 12; 96, lines 7,8; no, lines; "3) J'4i "9> lines S, 6; 127, line 6; 131, line 12; 137, line 4; 138, lines I, 2; 144, line 12; 147, lines 13, 14; 148, 149, 150, 154, line 14. (11) cf "Phoenix and Turtle," Threnos. (13) cf 55, line 13. 88 GREAT PAN LIVES. 6i I Is it thy will thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night; Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, 4 While shadows, like to thee, do mock my sight? Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee So far from home, into my deeds to pry ; To find out shames and idle hours in me, 8 The scope and tenor of thy jealousy? O, no ! thy love, though much, is not so great : It is my love that keeps mine eye awake ; Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, 12 To play the watchman ever for thy sake: For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 89 61 1 What would my soul? That Beauty's image should still stay 2 Upoit my heavy eyes in this night of woe ? 3 Or that my idleness 4 Should be mocked with fair illusions ? 5 Does Beauty visit me 6 Now far from my home of love, that in my Conscience it may frown upon' my deeds, a presence not to be put by, 7 Pointing with slow unmoving finger at my shames and idle hours, 8 Divinely jealous ? 9 No ! Beauty is. itself alone, mine but not chary of me ; 10 It is my love of Beauty that is chary, 1 1 And arouses me from idleness 1 2 To tender it. • 1 3 I watch for it, but see it only in illusions ; 14 And meanwhile it is forsaking me for alien pens. (i) cf 43, line 12. (2) cf 120, line 9. (3) cf "Midsummer Night's Dream" re "love in idleness.'' (4) cf 60, line 10 and references. (6) cf 109, line J. (7) cf " Othello," " slow unmoving finger " ; cf 58. (10) cf 22, lines 9, 12. (i2) cf 22, lines 9 — 12. (13) cf line 4, above and references. (14) cf 78, line 3 ; 89, line i. go GREAT PAN LIVES 62 I Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye, And all my soul, and all my every part ; And for this sin there is no remedy, 4 It is so grounded inward in my heart. Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, No shape so true, no truth of such account, And for myself mine own worth do define, 8 As I all other in all worths surmount. But when my glass shows me myself indeed Seated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity. Mine own own self-love quite contrary I read ; 12 Self so self-loving were iniquity. 'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise, Painting my age with beauty of thy days. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 9 1 62 I — 4 I cannot make one twain ; it is self-love that possesses ray fancy, my heart, my soul, my every part, beyond all remedy ; 5, 6 It is my own perfect Grace and Truth, of import infinite, that I praise ; 7 And my own worth 8 That I esteem beyond all others. 9 Yet when in my glass I see myself as others see me, 10 A man with faint defects of age, 1 1 I distinguish ; 12 If this were all myself such self-love were iniquity ; 1 2 But it is Beauty, my true self, my better part, that I praise for myself, 1 4 And endow myself with its youth. (4) cf 39, line 2 ; 37, lines 8 and 14. (I3)cf39, line 2. (14) cf 22, lines i — 8. 92 GREAT PAN LIVES. 63 I Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erwom ; When hours have drain'd his blood, and filled his brow 4 With lines and wrinkles ; when his youthful morn Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night ; And all those beauties, whereof now he's king, Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, 8 Stealing away the treasure of his spring ; For such a time do I now fortify Against confounding age, his cruel knife. That he shall never cut from memory 12 My sweet love's beauty, though my lovers life : His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. $3 63 1 My genius, one day, shall be as I am now, 2 Crushed and o'erwom by Time ; 3, 4 Time will deprive my Thought of youth, filling it with doubt and cynicism ; 5, 7 The sun of my Soul must travel on from rise to setting and fade with all its splendour fl-om my view ; 8 And Beauty's summer be confounded in hideous winter. 9 But I fortify myself 10 Against age ; 1 1 Which may destroy 1 2 My genius, but never its Beauty : 1 3, 1 4 Its Beauty shall live for ever green in my verse. (3, 4) cf22, lines i — 8; 60, line 10; 100, line 10. (5-7) cf7. (8) cf 5, line 6 ; 104, line 14. 94 GREAT PAN LIVES. 64 I When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age ; When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd, 4 And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the himgry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, 8 Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay ; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, — 12 That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. (12) That Time will destroy the beauty of my genius. 65 I Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways their power. How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 4 Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering dajrs, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 8 Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays ? O fearful meditation ! where, alack. Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid ? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? 12 Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ? O, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. {14) My love = Beauty, my love. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 95 66 I Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry, — As, to behold desert a beggar bom. And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, 4 And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shameftiUy misplac'd. And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted. And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, 8 And strength by limping sway disabled. And art made tongue-tied by authority. And folly (doctor-like), controlling skill. And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, 12 And captive good attending captain ill: Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone. Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. (14) Save that to die, I leave Beauty uncared for, vrithout an interpreter, cf 22, lines 9 — 12. cf " Tempest," Act III. Sc. 2 :— " For your sake Am I this patient logman." 96 GREAT PAN LIVES. 67 I Ah, wherefore, with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, 4 And lace itself with his society 7 Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeing of his living hue ? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek 8 Roses of shadow, since his rose is true ? Why should he live now Nature bankrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? For she hath no exchequer now but his, 12 And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had In days long since, before these last so bad. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 97 67 1 Ah, wherefore should my soul dwell with infection, 2 And virtue grace the feasts of the worldly, 4 And be yokefellow with wickedness, 3 And seem to smile on Sin ? 5 Wherefore should my genius be afflicted with false Art, 6 And dead imitations of its living Beauty ? 7 Why should poor lovers of Beauty seek it 8 In Art, mere shadow of my Art, the true ? 9 Why is my genius bom now, when Nature is bankrupt 10 Of genius, and no life remains in Art ? 1 1 When the treasure house of Art were empty, 1 2 (Though the world boasts of its many artists) but for the products of my Muse. 13 In my solitary Muse is stored that wealth of Beauty, which Nature possessed 14 Of old, before these degenerate days. (i) cf 39, line 2; III, line 10. (2) cf 124. (S) cf 39, line 2. (7) cf 24, lines II, 12 ; 32, line 3 ; 82, lines 7, 8. Observe the force of "indirectly." (8) cf 78, Une 3. (10) cf63, line 3. 98 GREAT PAN LIVES. 68 I Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty liv'd and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were borne, 4 Or durst inhabit on a living brow ; Before the golden tresses of the dead. The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life, on second head ; 8 Ere Beauty's dead fleece made another gay: In' him those holy antique hours are seen. Without all ornament, itself, and true, Making no summer of another's green, 12 Robbing no old to dress his beauty new ; And him as for a map doth Nature store. To show false Art what beauty was of yore. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 99 68 1,2 In my genius the Flower of Beauty springs original and blooms native as with the poets of old. 3 They bore no bastard signs of Beauty 4 To deck their brows withal. (They borrowed not the Art and very verses of their fore-runners), 5 — 8 As if they should break open sepulchres for the golden tresses of the dead, and make themselves gay with the dead fleece of Beauty. 9 No ; and for me also, as in those holy antique hours, 1 6 Beauty is undecked, itself and true ; 1 1 And my Muse makes no summer of another's green ; 1 2 And robs no old to dress Beauty new ; 1 3 Therefore Nature so endows my genius, 1 4 That I may show false Art the simple Beauty that bloomed of yore. (3) cf 127, line 4- (S— 8) cf " Merchant of Venice," Act III., Sc. 2. Bassanio's speech before opening the casket, (lo) cf 125. (13) cf II, line II. GREAT PAN LIVES. I Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view, Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend ; All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due, 4 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend ; Thine outward thus with outward praise is crown'd ; But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own. In other accents do this praise confound, 8 By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. They look into the beauty of thy mind. And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds ; Then (churls) their thoughts, although their eyes were kind, 12 To thy foir flower add the rank smell of weeds : But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, The solve is this, — that thou dost common grow. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. lOI 69 1 The world when it sees my plays, 2 Thinks that it would be impossible to better them ; 3, 4 'Tis the bare Truth uttered impartially of all tongues, the voice of souls. 5 Thus Beauty's outward grace is crowned. 6 Yet the world, so just to my Muse, 7 Sounds a discordant note, 8 When it looks from the outward to the inward grace : 9 It seeks an inward grace in genius, 10 Observes its conduct and cries, lo, genius is immoral ; 1 2 Lo, Beauty is judged by its issues ! 1 1 And the world's eyes, before well pleased, turn away from beholding vanity. 1 3 But why my genius thus gets into bad odour, 14 Is that it is too unreservedly sportive. (i) cf 24, lines 11, 12. (5, 8, 9) cf 24, lines 13, 14 ; 46, lines 13, 14. (10) cf 121. (II, 12) cf 36, line 12. (14) cf 121, line 6. (12, 14) cf " Henry IV." :— King. — " Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common hackneyed in the eyes of men, &c '" " Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds. And he, the noble image of my youth. Is overspread with them." GREAT PAN LIVES. 70 I That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; The ornament of beauty is suspect, 4 A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time ; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, 8 And thou present's! a pure unstained prime. Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd ; Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, 12 To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd; If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show. Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. IO3 70 1 That genius should be vile esteemed is not its fault ; 2 The finer it is, the more it is marked out for sjander ; 3 Suspicion is the sign of its Beauty, 4 Like a crow flying, sign of a pure sky. 5 Slander which is sure to come with Time, proves not only that my genius is good, 6 But that it has been good for a long time, and so very good. 7 The canker Vice the sweetest buds doth love, 8 Yet my genius remains immaculate (having always acknow- ledged that Virtue is Beauty) : 9 It has not, in its inexperience, been caught by sophistry, ID Either as naturally superior to it, or as easily breaking through it ; 1 1 But this praise, simple and true, as I maintain, does not so explain appearances 12 As to tie up envy, that only wants an excuse to gratify malignity. 13 It is this suspect of some ill in life in Beauty, 14 That so limits Beauty's Kingdom. (i) cf 121, line I. (8) cf " Twelfth Night ":— " Virtue is Beauty," Act V. (9) cf 138, line I — /y. Shakspeare's point is that he only tries immorality and therefore himself remains moral, cf 121, lines 9, 10 ; 40, line 8 ; 58, lines 11, 12 ; 109, lines 5—8. I04 GREAT PAN LIVES. 71 I No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled 4 From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it ; for I love you so. That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, C If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as ray poor name rehearse ; i 2 But let your love even with my life decay ; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. lOJ 71 I Let not Beauty's lovers mourn, 3 When I am fled 4 From the contagion of the world's slow stain, to the cor- ruption of the grave. 5, 6 Let them read this verse but forget the hand that wrote it; 7 For I would have no part in their thoughts of Beauty, 8 If the memory of my blots should prejudice the Muse. 9 Then if they overlook this verse, favouring 10 My destined urn, 1 1 Let them not breathe my luckless name ; 12 Let all their personal interest in me decay with my life : 13 Lest the world come to its wise conclusions and respond to- the Muse's moan : — 14 This was your great poet I Marry! The Muse is judged by his deeds, (i) cf 67, line 7. (4) cf Shelley, " Adonais." (8) cf 36, lines. (9, 10, II) cf " Lycidas " :— " So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn. " (14) cf 69, lines 9, 12. lo6 GREAT PAN LIVES. 72 I O, lest the world should task you to recite What merit liv'd in me, that you should love; After my death, — dear love, forget me quite, 4 For you in me can nothing worthy prove ; Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I 8 Than niggard truth would willingly impart; O, lest your true love may seem false in this, That you for love speak well of me untrue. My name be buried where my body is, 12 And live no more to shame nor me nor you. For I am shani'd by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. I07 72 1 The world will ask of Beauty's lovers 2 How my life deserved their love ; 3 Then let dear Love forget me when I die ; 4 For it could not prove my deserts, 5 Unless it should devise a virtuous lie, 6, 7, 8 Sacrificing Truth to Love. 9 Then lest true love seem false in this, 10 That for Love's sake, it speak well of me untrue, 1 1 My name be buried where my body is, 12 And live no more to prejudice either my poetry or the Muse; 1 3 For my deeds bring me into ill repute, 14 And this will reflect on the Muse if its lovers study too closely facts of no real import. (j) cf 67, line 7. (12—14) cf 69, lines 11, 12. I08 GREAT PAN LIVES. 73 Love perceives me in the yellow leaf and makes inquisition into my life before it loses me. I That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 4 Bare ruin'd' choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, 8 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 12 Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong. To love that well which thou must leave ere long. For "Thou" in this Sonnet, substitute in thought, "Beauty's Lovers " or " Love." cf 72, line 3 ; 67, line 7. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. I09 75 Note. — This Sonnet is'inserted here out of its order for convenience of printing. Beauty is my sole argument. I Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So fer from variation or quick change? Why, with the time, do I not glance aside 4 To new-found methods and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same. And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, 8 Showing their birth, and where they did proceed ? O, know, sweet love, I always write of you. And you and love are still my argument ; So all my best is dressing old words new, 12 Spending again what is already spent : For as the sun is daily new and old. So is my love still telling what is told. (9, 10) I always write of Beauty and my love of it. (10) of 105, line 9. GREAT PAN LIVES. 74 I But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, 4 Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due: 8 My spirit is thine, the better part of me: So, then, thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead; The coward conquest of a virretch's knife, 12 Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that, is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. 74 I, 2 But let Love be content : in Death 3, 4 My life shall remain to it in the eternal memorial of my verse. 5 There Beauty's lovers may review. 6 The very part of me consecrate to Beauty. 7 Dust to the dust ; 8 But my pure spirit and better part shall be part of the Loveliness which once it made more lovely ; 9 Which, then, shall lose but the dregs of life, 10 The prey of worms, my body being dead, 1 1 The coward conquest of a wretch's knife (perhaps), 1 2 Too base to be remembered of the gentle Muse. 1 3 My life's worth is its content, 14 My poesy ; and that is for ever one of the Muse's treasures. (i) cf 72, line 3 ; 67, line 7. (5) cf 67, line 7. (7, 8) cf Shelley, "Adonais " :— "Dust to the dust, but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain, whence he came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow. Through time and change, unquenchahly the same. He i^ a portion of the XJoveliness Which once he made more lovely." (8) cf 39, line 2. (11) cf Marlowe's death by the knife of Francis Archer. (12) cf " Lycidas" : — " So may some gentle Muse." (13) cf I, line II. GREAT PAN LIVES. 75 I So are you to my thoughts, as food to life, Or-as sweet-season'd showers are the ground? And for the peace of you I hold such strife 4 As 'twixt a raiser and his wealth is found ; Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, 8 Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure : Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by cleaned starved for a look ; Possessing or pursuing no delight, 12 Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. U3 75 1 Beauty is my bread of life, 2 And water for my thirst ; 3 But to find rest in Beauty, I am as perplexed 4 As a miser with his wealth ; 5 Now proud to possess it, 8 And display it to the world ; 7 Now feasting my fancy with it alone, 6 And doubting the fiilching age will steal the treasure. 9 Sometimes full, 10 And sometimes devoid of inspiration, 1 1 Always having all my life and life's delight 12 In Beauty. 13 Thus do I pine and. surfeit, day by day, 1 4 And must have all the Muse or none. (4) cf 52- (6) cf 48, lines 13, 14. (14) cfS7, lines3, 4. 114 GREAT PAN LIVES. 77 Note. — For Sonnet 76 see immediately after Sonnet 73. 1 Thy glass will show" thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste ; The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, 2 And of this book this learning mayst thou taste: The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory ; Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know 8 Time's thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory cannot contain. Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain, 12 To take a. new acquaintance of thy mind. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book. IMPEACHMENT BY PLEASURE. I15 n 1 Truth will tell my genius how its Beauty wears, 2 Its Beauty, like a dial hand, how its precious minutes waste ; 3 These vacant leaves will bear the imprint of its thought, 4 And this book may suggest : — 5 That Truth, telling of decay, 6 Forbodes Death ; 7 That Beauty, stealing from Thought, 8 Steals from eternity ; 9 That therefore, what Thought cannot remember, 10 It should commit to these waste blanks; that so my soul, the father, 1 1 May find again those thoughts, born of its female, the brain, and nursed 12 To enter its consciousness anew. 14 The book will be a rich one in time and of use to my genius, 1 3 As often as it will condescend to consult it. (i) cf 103, line 6 and note. (2) cf 104, line 9. (7) cf 104, line 10 ; 43, lines 5 — 12. (9) cf 22, lines I — 8. (10) cf " Richard II." :— " My brain I'll prove the female to my soul, My soul, the father, and these two beget A generation of still breeding thoughts. " (11) cf 22, line 12. (13) cf 22, lines 7, 8 ; 62, line 13. VI. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. ARGUMENT. 78 By simple love of true Beauty, I have become the first poet of the time. 79 But now it seems my favour decays and another poet comes to the front. 80 I confess he is very awe-inspiring with his learning and philosophy. 8 1 Nevertheless I have true Beauty, and it will be immortal in my verse. 82 Let others sing Beauty in the abstract; I sing Beauty in the concrete. 83 It is made an accusation against me that I do not praise Beauty. 84 But I do praise Beauty here in proper artistic form ; and, generalK, the best praise of Beauty is Art. 85 I write with Beauty in my thoughts, and express my love more effectively than by direct praise. 86 See, how my rival's direct praise of Beauty is barren of Beauty! GREAT PAN LIVES. 78 I So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse, As every alien pen hath got my use, 4 And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing. And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned's wing, 8 And given grace a double majesty. Yet be most proud of that which I compile. Whose influence is thine, and born of thee; In other's works thou dost but mend the style, 12 And arts with thy sweet graces gracid be; But thou art all my art, and dost advance As high as learning my rude ignorance. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. II9 78 1 So oft have I invoked Beauty as my Muse, 2 And such skill it has imparted to my verse, 3 That pens, less apt, imitate me, 4 And raise the flower from the seed, my gift of Beauty. 5 That true eye for Beauty that taught me, dumb, on high to sing, 6 Me, ignorant, aloft to fly, 7 Through me, has taught even Pedantry to rise above the ground 8 And to natural grace of Art has lent a double majesty; 9 Yet let it regard with most complacency my works, 10 Whose inspiration and prestige is solely Beauty's. 1 1 In others' works it mends the style, 1 2 And graces their art with a sweeter grace ; 13 But Beauty is all my Art and doth advance, 14 As high as Learning my rude ignorance. (2) cf 100, line 8. ■ (4) cf Tennyson : — " All can raise the flower now For all have got the seed." (5) cf 20, line 5 ; 24, lines S — 9. cf 38, line 7. (10) cf 125. GREAT PAN LIVES. 79 I Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace ; But now my gracious numbers are decay'd, 4 And my sick muse doth give another place. I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument Deserves the travail of a worthier pen ; Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent, 8 He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour ; beauty doth he give. And found it in thy cheek ; he can afford 12 No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. Then thank him not for that which he doth say, Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 79 1 Once I alone rendered unto Beauty, 2 And then it rendered unto me alone, its gentle grace ; 3 But now it seems I decay in grace and favour ; 4 My pen loses its cunning and gives place to another's. 5 Certes, the lovely argument 6 Deserves a worthier pen than mine ; 7 Yet the new poet 8 Only takes from Beauty what he gives it. 9 He gives it Virtue, and Virtue is Beauty in conduct ; ID, 1 1 He gives it Beauty — and well he may. (Truth ?) 1 2 These and all other assigned- attributes may be seen in Beauty itstelf. 1 3 Let him strictly meditate a thankless Muse, 14 With his abstract platitudes. (i — 2) cf 125, line 12. cf Jonson's Elegy: — "All the Muses still were in their prime, When like Apollo he came forth to warm Our ears, and like a Mercury to charm." (4) cf 38, note, cf line 6, above. (5) cf los, line g. (13) cf " Lycidas." GREAT PAN LIVES. So I O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, 4 To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame ! But since your worth (wide as the ocean is) The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, inferior far to his, 8 On your broad main doth wilfully appear. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; Or, being. wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, 12 He of tall building, and of goodly pride : Then, if he thrive and I be cast away, The worst was this, — my love was my decay. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 123 80 1 I confess though I faint in my verse, 2 When a better spirit invokes Beauty, 3 And praises it so loudly; 4 I grow tongue-tied. 5 But it is a wide subject, 6 And the humblest as well as the proudest may embark upon it ; 7 So my saucy bark, lesser in bulk than his, 8 Appears on this wide sea again (if not far from shore.) 9 The shallows, just simple Beauty, will serve for me; 10 While he rides on unfathomable depths and tries to sound the philosophy of the matter. 11 I, a worthless boat risk not much ; 12 But he, higher built in learning, he may come to grief indeed. 1 3 Then if he thrive and I be cast away, 14 At the worst my true love was the cause. cf Fuller : — " Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war; Master Jonson, like the former was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances; Shakspeare, with the English man of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and inven- tion." The rival poet, however, seems to be Chapman (cf Tyler, Shak. Son.). In Sonnet 91 Shakspeare takes part of a crabbed poem of Chapman's to be found in Chester's "Love's Martyr" and " saucily" rewrites it by his own " simple " method substituting concrete images for abstract terms. 124 GREAT PAN LIVES. 8l I Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; From hence your memory death cannot take, ■4 Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die; The earth can yield me but a common grave, 8 When you entombM in men's eyes shall lie. Ydur monument shall be my gentle verse. Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, 12 When all the breathers of this world are dead; You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) Where breath most breathes, — even in the mouths of IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. I25 81 1 I live to write a memorial of Beauty; 2 In other words, the Beauty that has blessed my soul shall survive me : 3 It shall be victorious over Death, 4 Though its part in me together with my worser part be forgotten. 5—14 (S— 14) In these lines, take " you " and " your " as referring to "the Beauty that has blessed ray soul." 126 GREAT PAN LIVES. 82 I I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook The dedicated words which writers use 4 Of their fair subject, blessing every book. Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, Finding thy worth a limit past my praise; And therefore art enforced to seek anew 8 Some iresher stamp of the time-bettering days. And do so, love ; yet when they have devis'd What strained touches rhetoric can lend, Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd 12 In true plain words by thy trufe-telling friend; And their gross fainting might be better us'd Where cheeks need blood, — in thee it is abus'd. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 127 82 1 I grant that my pen has no exclusive right in Beauty, 2 And that the world's true eye is not less true that it glances 3 At words which writers dedicate 4 To Beauty, and bless their books withal. 5 The world's true eye perceives that Beauty, which is Truth and co-extensive with all knowledge, 6 Is not a subject which I entirely exhaust; 7 And, therefore, still seeks- new expression for Beauty 8 With increase of knowledge. 9 Let it do so, it well becomes its love; yet knowledge 10 Increaseth rhetoric ; 1 1, 12 And true Beauty has been expressed most truly by my true plain copy of it. 13 It is needless to dedicate hyperbolic praise to Beauty in the abstract ; J 4 Beauty's Truth needs no higher colour. (i) cf 38, note; 20, lines 9 — 14. (2) cf 32, line 3 and reference. (S) cf 20, lines 5 — 8. (7) cf 67, lines 7,-8. (Ji, 12) cf 125, lines 9, 12. (13) cf 21 ; 79, line 14; 80, line la (14) cf loi, line 6. 128 GREAT PAN LIVES. 83 I I never saw that you did painting need. And therefore to your fair no painting set; I found, or thought I foimd, you did exceed 4 The barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modem quill doth come too short, 8 Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; For I impair not beauty, being mute, 12 When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes. Than both your poets can in praise devise. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 1 29 83 1 I never saw that it was necessary to go into hysterical rap- tures about Beauty. 2 To Art I have nothing better to add. 3 Beauty is beyond 4 Possible defining, and that poet becomes barren of Beauty who attempts to define it. 5 Therefore have I been lacking in praise of Beauty in the abstract, 6 To let Art show 7 How far a modern quill doth fall, too short 8 In attempting to assign attributes to Beauty. 9 Art lovers reproach me for this silence; 10 But it shall be my glory that my dumb thoughts speak in effect, 1 1 And so do not impair Beauty, 1 2 While others praise, and lo ! Beauty is dead in their verse. 1 3 Beauty is more lively, shown truly in the concrete, 1 4 Than either my rival or myself could make it appear by praising it in the abstract. (i) cf 21. (2) cf 21, line 9. (3, 4, 8) cf Marston, in Chester's " Love's Martyr ": "Alas, best attributes can never right it." " No suburbs, all is mind. As far from spot as possible defining." (10) cf 23, lines 9, 10; 85, line 14. I30 GREAT PAN LIVES. 84 I Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise, — that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store 4 Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, That to his subject lends not some small glory ; But he that writes of you, if he can tell 8 That you are you, so dignifies his story, Let him but copy what in you is writ. Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, 12 Making his style admired everywhere. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 13I 84 1 What praise can be higher 2 Than to describe Beauty by Beauty itself ? 3 Who can command words 4 To tell what Beauty is like ? 5, 6 . . . . 7 But he that describes Beauty, describes it 8 Most worthily by itself, in perspective, in Art. 9 Ifthis.be true to Beauty, 10 As Nature's own hand paints it. II, 12 13 It is a curse to Art 14 That artists are so fond of lauding Beauty in the abstract ; such praise has no Beauty in the concrete, (8) cf 24, line 4. (10) cf 20, line I. 132 GREAT PAN LIVES 85 I My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compil'd Reserve their character with golden quill, 4 And precious phrase by all the muses fil'd. I think good thoughts, while others write good words, And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry " amen " To every hymn that able spirit affords, 8 In polish'd form of well-refinM pen. Hearing you prais'd, I say, '"Tis so, 'tis true," And to the most of praise add something more : But that is in my thought whose love to you, 12 Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others for the breath of words respect, — Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. IMPEACHMENT BY CRITICISM. 133 85 1 My pen halts in modesty, 2 In the presence of these hymns to Beauty, so elaborate, 3 So too-too refined, 4 So precious. 5 I write with Beauty in my thoughts, while others directly ' praise it. 6—8 9 Hearing Beauty praised, I say, 'tis so, 'tis true ; ID And add something more to the praise ; 1 1 But all that is in my thoughts, whose love of Beauty inspires praise, 1 2 More effective than direct praise. 13 Art lovers may respect others than me for breath expended in direct praise of Beauty, 14 If they will respect me for my plays and sonnets, in which my dumb thoughts of Beauty speak in effect. (i) cf 38, note. (II) cf 23, line 13. (13) cf 67, line 7. (14) cf 83, line 10; 23, line 10; 24, line 4; 36, line 7 ; 43, line 6; 45, lines S— 8 ; 46 ; 47 ; S, line 11. 134 GREAT PAN LIVES. 86 I Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inherse, 4 Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ? No, neither he, nor his compeers by night 8 Giving him aid, my verse astonish^. He, nor that afiable familiar ghost Which nightly gulls him with intelligence. As victors of my silence cannot boast ; 12 I was not sick of any fear from thence: But when your countenance fil'd up his line, Then lack'd I matter, that enfeebled mine. 86 1 . . . . 2 Bound for the prize of an all too precious Beauty. 3—12 .... 1 3 But when I saw Beauty to be fairer than his praise, 14 I would not attempt direct praise ; I was warned off. fi3 In putting more Beauty into my line than I found in ] 14(b) I was obliged to discard direct praise, as too en- feebling to the verse. (z) cf 85, line 4. (14b) cf 91. VII. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. Argument. 87 Beauty is too dear a possessibn for my unworthiness. The public, perhaps, have found this out, so that now I shall be deserted for others. 88 I shall not stop to enquire whether my faults may not be due to my genius. I shall take them on myself, that they may not be regarded as Beauty's issues. 89 I will retire from the stage. Art is everything, I am nothing. 90 If this loss of public favour be really significant of the Muse leaving me, let it leave me at once and not lingeringly. 91 What is my Muse ? It is my ideal, the abstract of all that is best. If I lose my ideal, I shall indeed be miserable. 92 But I cannot lose my ideal, for I live- by it and therefore shall die with it. Is my ideal false ? That is the question. 93 Is Love to others Hate to myself ? 94 Is not also my genius false to me ? Is it not becoming in- fected with the vices it represents ? 95 In its assumption of Vice is it in danger of losing distinction between good and evil ? 96 This assumption must have a limit or it will prejudice the Muse. Note. — The poet doubts whether his inspiration, and with it the public favour, be not leaving him ; the truth of his Ideal ; the truth of Love as rule of conduct ; the complete immunity of his genius from in- fection by the ill that it assumes ; and generally of good and evil. These doubts are to him the Eclipse of Beauty. 136 GREAT PAN LIVES 87 I Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate : The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ; 4 My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting ? And for that riches where is my deserving ? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, 8 And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing. Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking ; So thy great gift, upon misprison growing, 12 Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter. In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter, ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. 137 87 1 Farewell, a long farewell to Beauty ! It is too dear a possession for my unworthiness, 2 As, like enough, the growing age recognises, now seeing Beauty with true eyes. 3 The infinite worth of Beauty eludes me, 4 And I have no means to retain it ; 5 The wind bloweth where it listeth ; 6 My gift is not my merit ; 7 Its cause is not in me ; 8 And so my virtue, vein and vogue are past. 9 The fact is, though Beauty was ascribed to me by myself and others, we knew not then all Beauty's grace ; 10 Or else, truly ascribing it, we yet misreckoned upon my persistence in grace ; 1 1 So the grace, with my still growing neglect, 12 Fades from my lines as the still growing age compares them with the bettering of the time. 13 It was a flattering dream of Beauty, 14 I awake and my wealth is gone. (2) cf 32, line 10, line 3 and reference. (11) cf 61, line 7. (12) cf 32, lines 10, 5. (14) cf 29, lines 13, 14. 138 GREAT PAN LIVES. 88 I When thou sbalt be dispos'd to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I'll fight, 4 And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. With mine own weakness, being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted ; 8 That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory : And I by this will be a gainer too ; For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, The injuries that to myself I do, 12 Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. Such is my love to thee I so belong, That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. 1 39 88 1, 2 When, by my Ideal, grown more severe than of late, I shall show unworthy, 3 I shall not lay upon its inspirations the blame, but defend them, 4 And prove my genius right in doing wrong. 5, 6, 7 I will bring in my own concealed faults to excuse its feults, 8 And distinguishing it from myself, justify it. 9 I too shall gain in this ; 1 6 For all I care for is my better part of Beauty, 1 1 And injuries to my worser part, 12 Doing the better vantage, double vantage me. 13 Such is my love, to- Beauty I so belong, 14 That I will bear my blots alope rather than have them looked upon as Beauty's issues. (i, 2) cf IX. " Return to the Ideal," the Note, after the argument. (3,4) cfsS. (5. 6, 7) cf 35, lines 9, 10. (10) cf 39, line 2. (I4)cf36, lines3, 4. r40 GREAT PAN LIVES. 89 I Say that thpu did$t forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence : Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, 4 Against thy reasons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill. To set a form upon deSirid change, As I'll myself disgrace : knowing thy will, 8 I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange ; Be absent from thy walks ; and in my tongue Thy sweet-beloved name no more shall dwell, Lest I (too much profane,) should do it wrong, 12 And haply of our old acquaintance tell. For thee, against myself I'll vow debate, For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. M' 89 1 Let Beauty's lovers name the oflfence for which they forsake me, 2 And I will comment upon it. 3 Is it that public means breeds public manners ? I confess it. 4 There is reason in that charge. 5 They cannot disgrace me half so much, 6 By giving reasons for being tired of me, 7 As I'll myself disgrace ; knowing their wish, 8 I will abandon Art and look elsewhere. 9 I'll leave the well-trod stage ; and my tongue 10 Shall never mention the Muse's name ; 1 2 Lest I should be remembered in connection with it, 1 1 And my blots should prejudice Beauty. 1 3 For Beauty against myself I'll vow debate, 14 For I must ne'er love him the Muse doth hate. (i) cf 67, line 7. (3) cf III, lines i — 4. (6) cf 49, line 8. (9) cf "L'Allegro": " Then to the well-trod stage anon. If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child. Warble his native wood-notes wild." (II) cf 36, lines 3, 4. 142 GREAT PAN LIVES. go I Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ; Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, 4 And do not drop in for an after-loss : Ah, do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow. Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe ; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 8 To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, AVhen other petty griefs have done their spite, . But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 12 At first the very worst of fortune's might ; ■ And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, Compar'd with loss of thee will not seem so. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. I43 go 1 Then let the Muse leave me when it will ; if ever now, 2 When the fickle public leaves me, 13—14 (In these lines for "thou "and "thee" substitute in thought, the Muse. ) cf Otway : — " So whilst our Fortune smiles, our thoughts a-spire, Pleasure and fame's our business and Desire : Then too, if we find A promptness in the mind, The Muse is always ready always kind ; But if the old harlot Fortune once denies Her favour, all our pleasure and rich Fancy dies ; And then the young slippery jilt, the Muse too from us flies.'' 144 GREAT PAN LIVES. 91 I Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in theii wealth, some in their body's force ; Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill ; 4 Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse ; And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest ; But these particulars are not my measure : 8 All these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me. Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost. Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; 12 And, having thee, of all men's pride I boast : Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take All this away, and me most wretched make. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. 145 91 (8) In possessing Beauty for my Muse, possess the abstract of all that is best, I — 7 "> Excess of all things, the analysed world of pleasure in 9 — 1 1 / a quintessence, 12 Which is all variety in unity. 13 If my all the world, my ideal, the sun of my soul, is oyer- cast, 14 I am overcast. cf Chapman in Chester's " Love's Martyr " in a poem that neighbours Shakspeare's own " Phoenix and Turtle " (Ideal and Idealist) : — " She was to him the analysed world of pleasure, Her firmness clothed him in variety, Excess of all things he joyed in her measure, Mourned when she mourned, and (cf 92) diethwhen she dies." cf sonnet 80 note. cf 31 (13, 14) cf 112, line 5; ipg, lines 13, 14; cf 31 ; cf 7, 33. cf " Hamlet " : — " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." cf 35, line 3 ; 60, lines 5 — 9 ; 107, line 5. 146 GREAT PAN LIVES 92 I But do Ihy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine ; And life no longer than thy love will stay, 4 For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, When in the least of them my life hath end. I see a better state to me belongs 8 Than that which on thy humour doth depend : Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie, O, what a happy title do I find, 12 Happy to have thy love, happy to die ! But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot? Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. 1 47 92 1 I am mocked with shadows of Beauty while the substance steals away. 2 Yet I cannot lose my ideal while I live : 3 For I can only live by the ideal. 4 If I lose it I lose my life, in losing the means by which I live. 6 The loss of the means of life is the least evil ; and since my life thereupon ends, 5 I need not fear the greater evil, the loss of the ideal. 7 I see a better state to me belongs 8 Than doubt and a shifting ideal, 9 An ideal that so fills my mind that it makes my imagina- tion false, creates every bad a perfect best, so that, for me, there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. I o No ! without the ideal I shall perish, for I cannot ■write without it. II, 12 Then either I possess the Ideal or I die, in either case, I am happy. 1 3 But alas ! my idea of it may be untrue, 14 May be false and yet I know it not. (i) cf 61, line 4 ; 60, line 10 and references ; 53, line i ; 33, line 8. (2) cf 25, line 14. (9) Here it is attempted to explain what is meant by the inconstancy of the Ideal, by the use of Shakspearean phrases, cf 113, lines 13, 14; 114, line 7"; cf "Hamlet." 148 GREAT PAN LIVES. 93 I So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband ; so love's lace May still seem love to me, though alter'd new ; 4 Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place : V For there can live no hatred in thine eye. Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. In many's looks the false heart's history 8 Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange ; But heaven in thy creation did decree That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell ; Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be, 12 Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell. How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow. If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show ! ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. 1 49 93 1 So shall I live supposing my ideal true, 2 Like a deceived husband ; the virtue, Love, for example, 3 May be a sanctified and holy traitor to me, 4 To me seem Truth, yet not be a true love of myself 5 The Truth of Love does not imply my injury ; 6 So thztd priori I should not expect that my love would prove my injury. 7, 8 The husband in his faithless wife's face may read her false heart's history ; 9 But Heaven in its creation did decree 10 That Love should seem eternally beneficent 11 That whatever its effects 12 Truth should show them to be benefits. 14 If Virtue in its effects respond not to expectation, 1 3 How like Eve's apple is its Beauty ! (I — 3) cf The Histories of Leontes and Hermione, Fosthumus and Imogen (" God in Shakspeare "). (3) cf " As You Like It":— Adam. — "Thy Virtues, gentle master, Are sanctified and holy traitors to you."' (4) cf 20, line 5 ; 24, lines S — 9. (5) cf-do. (12) cf do. 14) cf " Twelfth Night," " Virtue is Beauty. " 150 GREAT PAN LIVES. 94 I They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show. Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, 4 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow ; They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, And husband nature's riches from expense ; They are the lords and owners of their faces, 8 Others but stewards of their excellence. The summer's flower is to the summer sweet. Though to itself it only live and die ; But if that flower with base infection meet, 1.2 The basest weed outbraves his dignity : For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. I51 94 1 If genius inspired by Beauty is capacious of ill, yet will do no ill, 2 But merely assume its forms ; 3 If thus, it can move others to delight, while itself remains as stone, 4 Unmoved and unaffected by the ill ; 5, 6 Then it inherits and husbands grace rightly, 7 It is the sun, 8 And others receive its beams; 9 And Summer's flower would still be sweet, I o Though it wasted its sweetness on the desert air. II, 12 But if that flower meet with infection the basest weed were less noxioiis. 1 3 Genius may become infected by the ill that it assumes ; corrupt genius shocks ; 14 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. (2) cf 121, line 10. (9) cf 104, line 14. (13) cf III, line 10; 119, lines i — 8. cf Pope : — " Beauty that shocks you, parts no man can trust A wit that creeps and pride that licks the dust." 152 GREAT PAN LIVES. 95 I How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name ! 4 O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose <. That tongue that tells the story of thy days. Making lascivious comments on thy sport. Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise ; 8 Naming thy name blesses an ill report. O, what a mansion have those vices got Which for their habitation chose out thee. Where Beauty's veil doth cover every blot, 12 And all things turn to fair that eyes can see ! Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege ; The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose its edge. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. I S3 95 I How fair my genius makes the shame appear 2, 3 That cankers its good report ! 4 The vices it acts lose half their grossness in its wit and humour. 5 — 8 Improprieties are forgiven that bear the stamp oi , genius. 9, lo Vice finds a fair reflection in the Muse. II, 12 111 shows well in a play, or as a humorous assumption garnished with Fancy ; and to Fancy all ill well shows. 1 3 My genius must beware, however, or this large privilege of immorality 14 Will blunt its discrimination between good and evil. (4) cf 94, lines i, 2. (II, 12) cf 60, line 10 and references. cf 40, line 13. (i3)cf 58, line 10. 154 GREAT PAN LIVES. 96 I Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport ; Both grace and faults are lov'd of more or less : 4 Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteem'd, So are those errors that in thee are seen 8 To truths translated, and for true things deem'd. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray. If like a lamb he could his looks translate ! How many gazers mightst thou lead away, 12 If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state! But do not so ; I love thee in such sort. As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. ECLIPSE OF BEAUTY. " 1 55 96 1 Is it a fault of youth and wantonness, 2 Or a grace of youth and gentle sport that leads my genius on? 4 It turns faults to graces 3 And makes them as well loved. 5,6 7, 8 So a mind crowned with Beauty gilds errors, till to flat- tering Fancy they appear true. 9, 10 A wolf in sheep's clothing might betray many sheep; 12 If my genius throws all its force into this assumption of immorality, 1 1 It may do an injury to the morals of others. 13 Then let it know a limit; for I love Beauty in such sort, 1 4 And 'tis so much mine, that the more my genius is hon- , oured, the more Beauty will be honoured. (3, 4) cf 95, lines 11, 12; 41, lines I — 3. (7, 8) cf 6o,"line 10 and references] 114, lines I, 2; 20, line 6. (13, 14) cf 36, lines 13, 14. VIII. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. Argument. 97 'Tis past! For a time I have been estranged from the Muse, and had lost sense of true Beauty, a time becoming ever drearier; for Beauty thus absent from my thoughts seemed absent from nature. g8 All beautiful things were but shadows of Beauty, and still spoke of Beauty absent ; 99 And I accused each of stealing its shade of Beauty from the one Beauty, my absent love. loo But now that I return to the Muse, let me chant anew its praises, loi And immortalise its Truth and Beauty. 102 I fear only to dull with the theme of which I sang so much when my contract to Beauty was new. 103 The truth is, the graces and gifts of Beauty are beyond the power of praise. 104 My Muse of Beauty is as perfect in inspiration now as when, three years ago, I adopted it. It makes this age of the world Beauty's summer. 105 But what can I say of it except ever that it is Beauty, Truth and Love ? No poet except myself ever took this three in one for a Muse, 106 So that all preceding poets were but prophecies of my Muse; 1 07 Now, when my Muse shall be out of date no prophecy can foretell. 108 Thus have I sung my old song. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. I 57 97 'Tis past ! For a time I have been estranged from the Muse, and had lost sense of true Beauty, a time becoming ever drearier; for Beauty thus absent from my thoughts seemed absent from nature. I How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen 4 What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time remov'd was summer's time; The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, 8 Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease; Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, 12 And, thou away, the very birds are mute; Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. (2, II) Thee = Beauty. (12) Thou = Beauty. (I) cf 87-96. cf 109 — 121. (II) cf 98, line 14. 158 GREAT PAN LIVES. 98 All beautiM things were but shadows of Beauty and still spoke of Beauty absent. I From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, 4 That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with hira. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue. Could make me any summer's story tell, 8 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew Nor did I wonder at the lilies' white. Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 12 Drawn after you — you pattern of all those. Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away. As with your shadow I with th&se did play : (I, 12, 13) You=Beauty. (14) Your shadow = Beauty's shadow. (12) cf S3, lines 1—4. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 159 99 I accused each beautiful thing of stealing its shade of Beauty from the one Beauty, my absent love. I The forward violet thus did I chide : — • Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath ? The purple pride, 4 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells. In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. The Illy I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair : 8 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand. One blushing shame, another white despair ; A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both, And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; 12 But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee. (3) My love's breath-v (5) My Ipve's veins "The blazon of sweet Beauty's best" (106, line 5) (6) Thy hand j-in which Beauty is expressed by certain (7) Thy hair I particulars of Beauty. (II) Thy breath I (14, IS) cf 53, lines 1—4. (15) Thee = Beauty. l6o GREAT PAN LIVES. I Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might ? Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, 4 Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light ? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent ; Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, 8 And gives thy pen both skill and argument. Rise, restive Muse, my love's sweet face survey, If Time have any wrinkle graven there ; If any, be a satire to decay, 12 And make Time's spoils despised everywhere. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life ; So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTV. l6l lOO I, 2, 3 4 Darkening thy power unto satire, to show vice its own image. 5, 6 ... . 7 Sing very Beauty to the purer sense that esteems such lays, 8 And gives my pen both skill and subject. 9 Survey thyself my Muse ! 10 Is thy Beauty all that it was, or is there now a wrinkle of of satire to it ? 11 If so be here at least a satire to all such wrinkles ; 1 2 Stand forth perfect Beauty beyond the enmity of Time ; 13, 14 And beget Beauty to brave Time's scythe faster than my life decays. (i) cf 38, note. Here, however, the poet identifies his official Muse with his inspiration in a way that leaves the paraphrase without means of distinguishing hetween them, cf loi, line 4. {4) The work alluded to is perhaps " Measure for Measure '' (see " God in Shakespeare"). (10) cf line 3 and line 11 and generally the " melancholy Jaques" vein in Shakspeare after 1598. cf 63, line 4. 1 62 GREAT PAN LIVES. 101 I will immortalise the Truth and Beauty of my Muse. I O truant Muse, what shall he thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd? Both truth and beauty on my love depends ; 4 .So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer. Muse, wilt thou not haply say, " Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd : Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay ; 8 But best is best, if never intermix'd ? " Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so ; for 't lies in thee To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, 12 And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. Then do thy office, Muse ; I teach thee how To make him seem long hence as he shows now. cf I CO, line I, note. cf S4 (3) My love (9) He (II) Him [ = Beauty, my Muse. (14) Him, fy love , le I lira 1"=^ lim, he j RE- EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 1 63 I fear only to dull with the theme of which I sang so much when my contract to Beauty was new. I My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming ; I lovB not less, though less the show appear : That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming 4 The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, 8 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days : Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, 12 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometimes hold my tongue. Because I would not dull you with my song, ( 14) You = Beauty's lovers, cf 67, line 7 ; Also The Beauty of the poet's verse, likely to he dulled by diffuseness. 1 64 GREAT PAN LIVES. 103 The truth is, the graces and gifts of Beauty are beyond the power of praise. I Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth. That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument, all bare, is of more worth, 4 Than when it hath my added praise beside ! O blame me not, if I no more can write : Look in your glass, and there appears a face That over-goes my blunt invention quite, 8 Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. Were it not sinftil, then, striving to mend. To mar the subject that before was well? For to no other pass my verses tend, 12 Than of your graces and your gifts to tell : And more, much more, than in my verse can sit. Your own glass shows you, when you look in it. (6) cf 3; 77, line I ; 24, lines S — 8 ; 43, line 7. The glass is Nature. " Look in your glass" means, " Let the poet's perception look on Beauty in Nature," or, " The Truth is." {12) Your graces and your gifts = Beauty's graces and gifts. (14) cf line 6, note. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 1 55 104 My Muse of Beauty is as perfect in inspiration now as when, three years ago, I adopted it. It makes this age of the world, Beauty's summer. I To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed. Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold 4 Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen. Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd 8 Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand. Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, 12 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd : For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred. — Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead. (i) Beauty is youth, my Muse can never grow old ; (2) But as it was when first I saw it true, (3) So seems its Beauty still, still bright with Truth. (1) cf 22, line I. (2) cf 20, line 5. (8) And still I see Beauty fresh and ever green, (II) So my Muse's beauty (13) cf Ariel's Song :— " On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily." Ariel is Shakespeare's thought, the bat is the " age unbred," Summer is " Beauty's summer." 1 66 GREAT PAN LIVES. 105 But what can I say of it except ever that it is Beauty, Truth, and Love ? No poet except myself has ever taken this three in one for a Muse. I Let not my love be call'd idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be 4 To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind. Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd, 8 One thing expressing, leaves out difference. " Pair, kind, and true," is all my argument, "Fair, kind, and true" varying to other words ; And in this change is my invention spent, 12 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. " Fair, kind, and true," have often liv'd alone, Which three, till now, never kept seat in one. (2) My beloved = Beauty = Beauty, Truth, and Love. (5) My love = Beauty. (9) cf 76, line 10. (9—12) cf 20, lines 3—8. (14) One = the poet himself, cf 41, line 9. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 1 67 1 06 So that all preceding poets were but prophecies of my Muse. I When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest w^hts. And beauty making beautiiiil old rhyme, 4 In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights ; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd 8 Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all yon prefiguring : And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, 12 They had not skill enough your worth to sing : For we, which now behold these present days. Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. cf 59. (5—8) " In their setting forth of particulars of Beauty, they would have expressed sudi a Beauty, as my Muse is now past master in." (10) You = my Muse. (12) Your worth = my Muse's worth. l68 GREAT PAN LIVES. 107 I Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, 4 Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, 8 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, 12 While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument. When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 1 69 107 I, 2 Not mine own nor anybody's fears 3, 4 Can foresee a time, when all that Beauty that I hold in please shall know determination. 5 The earth-shadow hath past. The eclipse that bereft me of Beauty is over. 6 My own and others' forebodings that my career was going to the bad are now a mockery. ^ My fate hangs no longer in the balance. 8 I enter into peaceful possession of Beauty for ever. 9 In the rich tears of this hour of repentance, 10 My love renews its spring, a spring that shall be eternal; 1 1 Since spite of Death I shall Hve in this verse, 1 2 When generation after generation descends into the grave. 13 And the Beauty that has blessed my soul shall find its monument in my verse, 14 When all the monuments of princes are broken. (i) Anybody's fears = all men's fears = the apprehensions of the whole world = the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come = exit Bruno. (3, 4) cf 13, line 5. (5) cf 35, line 3 ; 60, line 5. cf87— 96. cf 109— 121; 127 — 154. (6) cf 33, Prince Henry's speech, lines 10, 11: — " By how much better than my word I am By so much shall I falsify men's hopes." (8) cf 75, line 3. (9) cf 34, line 13 I70 GREAT PAN I.IVES. I08 I What's in the brain, that ink may character, Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? What's new to speak, what new to register, 4 That may express my love, or thy dear merit ? Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, I .must each day say o'er the very same ; Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 8 Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. So that eternal love in love's fresh case Weighs not the dust and injury of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, 12 But makes antiquity for aye his page; Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Where time and outward form would show it dead. RE-EMERGENCE OF THE SUN OF BEAUTY. 17 1 I08 I, 2 What new generation of thoughts can my brain bear in the likeness of my true spirit ? 3 What new can I say 4 To express my love of Beauty or the all merit of Beauty ? 5 Nothing but — Beauty for ever young ! and like prayers divine 6 Sing my old song, 7 Counting nothing old, our contract unwithered and unstaled 8 As when first I sang it ; 9 So that eternal Love when it would express itself anew, 10 Reckons not time and alteration that tan sacred Beauty; 1 1 And remembers not that wrinkle of satire in my Muse, a necessity of the time; 12 But regards it in its youthful perfection, 13 And with all the old inward love, 14 Sees all the old outward grace. (1-2) cf "Richard n.":— " My brain I'll prove the female to my soul, My soul,' the father, and these two beget A generation of still breeding thoughts." (ID) cf 116, line 3 ; 115 lines 5—8. (11) cf 100, line 9 and references. (13, 14) cf 24, line 14; 46 lines 13, 14. IX. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. Argument. 109 If I have ranged from the Ideal in my actions, I now return to it; but, at heart, I could not leave it, for it is my all. I I o One must take a broad view of human conduct ; by reason of my all my excursion into ill is excused. III It was involved in my r&le of dramatist. My conscience, therefore, can be at peace on the subject, and I can renew my Will in the path of Virtue. 112 Beauty, the supreme reason, ultimately excuses my actions, and I care for no other voice. 1 1 3 So far as my actions have overstepped the measure, I must plead that my mind is so filled with Beauty that I become the victim of idealistic illusions. 1 1 4 A dominant idea of Beauty makes all things seem fair and good to me, so that often I mistake evil for good. 1 1 5 Now that I have proved the Ideal, my love for it is greater than ever. (tcmaJJj 117 This is just what I wanted, by worse essays, to prove. 1 1 8 I feared, too, that I might grow weary of the good, unless I fortified myself in it by experience of the bad. 119 It was a dangerous course, and I have suffered by it ; yet I have benefited by it also ; for I am fortified in my love of the good. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 173 1 20 If illusion, engendered of passion, led me into error I am blameless. 121 In general, in my course, I was not bad myself, but only a mirror to the badness of others. 122 I did not write much upon the. beautiful tables that I prepared for the Muse's happy thoughts ; but this was not due to forgetfulness — on the contrary, I have always been so mindful of the Muse that I had no need of tables. Note. — In Sections V. and VII. Shakspeare defined to himself his " sportiveness " as the Muse taking on Protean forms. In Section IX. he regards it as an absence from the Ideal. In the interim the Muse has taken on the severe simplicity of the Ideal. 1 74 GREAT PAN LIVES. 109 I O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify, As easy mi^t I from myself depart, 4 As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love : if I have rang'd Like him that travels, I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, 8 So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reign'd All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stain'd, 12 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; Fcfr nothing this wide universe I call. Save thou, my rose ; in it thou art my all. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 175 log 1 Let not my Conscience call me false to the Beauty of Virtue, 2 Though in my eclipse I could not return the intercepted ray ! 3 As easy might I from myself depart, 4 As from Beauty, my soul. 5, 6 7 Not later than in the perfectness of Time, not changed by time; 8 That is my absolution. 9 It is not true, though I may recognise my capacity for faults, 10 And may have been the abstract of all faults that all men follow, 1 1 That I could so preposterously be stained, 12 To leave for nothing that supreme sum of good which is Beauty ; 13, 14 For nothing this wide universe I call, save Beauty; in it, Beauty is my All. (1) cf 88, lines i, 2; cf 117, line 9. (2) cf 97, line I ; 107, line 5 ; 60, lines 5—8. (4) cf 39, line 2 ; 62, line 2. (7) cf " Henry IV," part II. :— " The prince will in the perfectness of Time cast off his followers." (8) cf 58, line 12 ; 121, lines 9 — 12. (9) cf 94, lines i, 2. (10) cf " Antony and Cleopatra," Act I. Sc. 4. 121, lines g, 10. (13, 14) cf 112, line S ; no, line 6. 176 GREAT PAN LIVES. no I Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made m)rself a motley to the view, Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, 4 Made old offences of a6fections new ; Most true it is that I have look'd on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, 8 And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love. Now all is done, save what shall have no end : Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an older friend, 12 A god in love, to whom I am confin'd. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 177 1 Most true it is that I have strayed from the narrow way, 2 And indued my soul with Protean forms ; 3 That I have turned round upon and gored my own true thoughts, made myself cheap to vulgar company, 4 And affected all manner of faults; 5 That I have obscured my contemplation 6 Under the veil of wildness ; but on the whole, by the reason of my All, a reason of higher authority, 7 These blenches gave my heart another youth, 8 For by tasting the bad I proved virtue the best. 9 So now for a repose that ever is the same ; ID No more exchange 1 1 Of the old old path for new; 1 2 I will confine myself to duty, the path divine. 13 Then next to all comprehensive Beauty, let me find in duty, a happiness, the best, 1 4 Wearing the godhead's most benignant grace. (2) cf 94, lines 1—2. (3) cf "Henry IV, Part I.", Act II., Sc. 3. cf " Much Ado About Nothing " : — " This man doth fear God though it appear not in him by some large jests he will make.' (5) cf " Henry V.", Act I., Sc. i. (6) cf 109, lines 13, 14. (9—14) cf Wordsworth, " Ode to Duty " :— " Me this unchartered freedom tires, I feel the weight of chance desires ; My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose which ever is the same. Stern lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear The godhead's most benignant grace ; Nor know we anything so fair, As is the smile upon thy face ; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds. And fragrance' in thy fooling treads." (13) cf line 6 above ; 109, lines 13, 14; 29, line 12. 178 GREAT PAN LIVES. Ill I O, for my sake do you with fortune chide The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide 4 Than public means, which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; And almost thence my nature is subdu'd To what it works in, like the dyer's hand ; 8 Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd: Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eysell 'gainst my strong infection; No bitterness that I will bitter think, 12 Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me, then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to cure me. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 179 1 Reason on my behalf, must lay on fortune 2 The responsibility for my ill courses. 3—7 8 Then let Conscience grant me peace, and let me have new Will. 9 — lo Reformation shall come in a heady flood scouring faults ; 1 1 I will go through with it however bitter the process ; 1 2 And if it tend to make a Puritan of me, I will patiently correct all harshness also. 13 Let still -the Ideal be my kindly light. 14 And it will lead me right in the end. (I) cf 110, line 6. (8) cf 117, line 9. cf 37, line 14. (9, 10) cf "Henry V.", Act I., Sc. i. (12) cf" As You Like it": — "I will chide no breather in the world except myself against whom I know most feults." (l-3, 14) cf "Faust," Prologue:— " A good man through obscurest aspiration Hath still an instinct of the one true way." l8o GREAT PAN LIVES 1 Your love and pity doth th' impression fill Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow ; For what care I who calls me well or ill, 4 So you o'ergreen my bad, my good allow? You are my all-the-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue ; None else to me, nor I to none alive, 8 That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of other's voices, that my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. 12 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the world besides methinks y'are dead. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. l8l ^ Thus Reason, by inspiring me with new will for the future and by excusing the past, reheves me 2 Of scandal's mark ; 3 For what care I who calls me ill or well, 4 So that in Reason's sight my good appears and my bad finds excuse ? 5 Reason is my AU-the-world, and I must strive 6 To judge of my own praise and blame in the light of Reason. 7 No man is in that relation to me, nor I to him, 8 That he might change my judgment right or wrong. 9 — 12 1 3 Reason is so strongly in my purpose bred 14 That except that it is All the world, methinks that all the world are dead. (1) cf 110, line 6 ; iii, line 8. (2) cf 70, line 2. (S) cf no, line 6 ; 109, lines 13, 14. (9— II) cf" Tempest," Ariel : — " In a cowslip's bell I lie. There I couch when owls do cry.'' That is to say, Shakspeare's thought (Ariel) takes refuge in Beauty, or its particulars, when critics cry. In the sonnet above Beauty is regarded as the supreme reason. (14) cf line 5 above; no, line 6 ; 109, lines 13, 14. 1 82 GREAT PAN LIVES. "3 I Since I left you mine eye is in my mind ; And that which governs me to go about Doth part his function, and is partly blind, 4 Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch : Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, 8 Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch. For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight. The most sweet &vour, ordeformed'st creature. The mountain or the sea, the day or night, 12 The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature : Incapable of more, replete with you. My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 1 83 113 I Since first I strayed from the one true way, mine eye is in mind, is one with Fancy ; 2 — 4 My true eye practically is blind. 5 For a form true to my judgment it never gives me, 6 Of bird or flower, or any shape that it transforms. 7 Of the eye's real living objects the mind leams nothing, 8 And the eye itself cannot retain them as they are. 9 — II Things the most opposite in their nature, 1 2 It sees, all of them, in shapes of Beauty. 1 3 All filled with Beauty, 14; My mind true to Beauty makes my eye untrue to things" as they are. (1—4) cf 137, lines 1—4. (5) cf 137, lines. (6) cf " Midsummer Night's Dream," Act III., Scene 2 :— " Hast thou yet latched the Athenian's eyes With the love juice ? " (12 — 14) cf 20, hne 6. cf 60, line 10 and references. 184 GREAT PAN LIVES. 114 I Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, 4 And that your love taught it this alchemy, To make of monsters and things indigest Such' cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best, 8 As fast as objects to his beams assemble? ' O, 'tis the first ; 'tis flattery in my seeing. And my great mind most kingly drinks it up : Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, 12 And to his palate doth prepare the cup : If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 1 85 114 1 Or whether does my mind being crowned with Beauty 2 Accept for true the flattery of Fancy that represents all things as beautiful? 3 Or does my eye really see all this Beauty, 4 For that Beauty flows through it from the mind and gilds its objects, 5 And so of monsters 6 Makes beauteous cherubins, 7 And every bad a perfect best, 8 As fast as objects assemble to its celestial light, its visionary gleam? 9 Oh, tis the first! This gilding of objects is due to Fancy; 10 My mind accepts the illusion; 1 1 The eye, influenced by the mind's desire, 12 Sees the fancy instead of the reality and so satisfies the mind. 13 If then the reality be hidden like poison in the cup of illu- sion, (for example Death of Desire, in illusion of Love) 'tis the lesser sin, by this 14 That Fancy loves the illusion and begins it. (i) cf 29, line 14; 37, line 7; 60, line 6; 63, line 6; 87, line 14 ; 96, lines S, 6. (2) cf 33, line 2. (4) cf 33, line 4; 20, line 6. (7) cf 137, line 4; 150, line 8. (8) cf Wordsworth's Ode. (13, 14) cf 137 ; 147. cf 60, line 10 and references. 1 86 GREAT PAN LIVES. 115 Now that I have proved the Ideal, my love for it is greater than ever. I Those lines that I before have writ, do lie; Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgment knew no reason why 4 My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp's! intents, 8 Divert strong minds to the course of altering things; — Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny. Might I not then say, " Now I love you best," When I was certain o'er incertainty, 12 Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? Love is a babe; then might I not say so. To give full growth to that which still doth grow? (2, 10) You = the Ideal. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 1 87 116 Virtue is eternally true. I Let "g^ngt to the marriage of true minds Aclmit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, 4 Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no ! it is an ever-fixW mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, 8 Whose worth's nnknovm, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fiaol, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 12 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. (i) Let me not to the marriage of true minds with the Ideal, with Virtue , (2) Admit impediments. Love (Virtue) is not a love (cf93) (7) cf "Epipsychidion." "Thou Star above the Storm" "A star Which moves not in the moving heavens alone." cf " Phoenix and Turtle " :— " Co-supremes and stars of Ix)ve." The Love here meant is the Love of the Ideal, the love of Virtue, and so Virtue itself, which for Shakspeare sums up to Love. j88 great pan lives. 117 I Accuse me thus : — that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay; Forgot upon your dearest love to call, 4 Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; That I have frequent been with unknown minds, And given to time your own defir-purchas'd right; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds 8 Which should transport me furthest from your sight. Book both my wilftilness and errors down, And on just proof surmise accumulate ; Bring me within the level of your frown, 12 But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate: Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 117 1 Conscience may rightly accuse me that I have scanted 1 Diity; 3 And sought not the guidance of that kindly light, 4 Which I am bound for life to follow; 5 That I have been sworn brother to doubtful characters, 6 And given to them the time due to the Ideal, the dear purchase of my life ; 7 That I have been of all humours, . 8 And have been violently carried away from grace. 9 My conscience must mark offences to my account, 10 Both the proved and the possible; 1 1 But while it cannot approve my, defects, 12 Yet it need not condemn them; 1 3 Since my appeal says I did strive to prove 14 The eternal validity of the one true way. (i) cf line 9. (3) cf III, lines 13, 14. (5) cf " Henry IV." (6) cf 30, lines 13, 14. (7, 8) cf " Henry IV., Part I." Act II., Sc. 2. (9) cf 34, line 12. cf 122, where book = brain, cf 61, lines S, 6. cf 88, lines i, 2 ; 109, line i ; iii, line 8; 120, line 7. (14) cf " Faust," Prologue :— "The good man through obscurest aspiration Has still an instinct of the one true way." cf 33, Prince Henry's speech : — " I'll so oSend to make offence a skill. Redeeming time when men think least I will." igo GREAT PAN LIVES. Il8 I feared that I might grow weary of the good unless I fortified myself in it by experience of the bad. I Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge : As, to prevent our maladies unseen, 4 We sicken to shun sickness when we purge ; Even so, being lull of your ne'er-cloying sweetness. To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding ; And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness 8 To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd. And brought to medicine a healthful state, 12 Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd; But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. (S) Your = virtue's. (14) You = virtue. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 19I I.I 9 It was a dangerous course and I have suffered by it ; yet I have benefited by it also ; for I am fortified in my love of the good. I What potions have I drunk of Syren tears, Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, 4 Still losing when I saw myself to win ! What wretched errors hath my heart committed. Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed -never ! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted 8 In the distraction of this madding fever ! O benefit of ill ! now I find true That better is by evil still made better ; Arid ruin'd love, when it is built anew, 12 Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuk'd to my content. And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. (i) cf 129. (3) cfi29. (5) cf 129 ; 137, line 9. (8) cf 147. (9) cf "Eenry V.":— " There is some sort of goodness in things evil. Would men observingly distil it out. " cf " Measure for Measure " : — " Best men they say are moulded out of faults. And for the most become much more the better. By being a little bad." (to) Love = love of virtue. (13) To my content=to virtue. • 192 GREAT PAN LIVES. I That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel. Needs must I under my transgression bow, 4 Unless my nerves were brass or bammer'd steel. For if you were by iny unkindness shaken. As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time ; And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken 8 To weigh how once I suifer'd in your crime. Oh, that our night of woe might have remember'd My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd 12 The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits ! But that your trespass now becomes a fee ; Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 193 120 1 When my Fancy led me into Error (this befriends me now), 2 I was grieved enough ; 3, 4 The more should I be grieved to think of my own errors of passion. 5 If my Conscience has suffered as much in my straying, 6 As I suffered from a straying fancy, it has passed a hell of time. 7 How tyrannously I was trampling upon my Conscience, 8 I might have known by remembering, how I suffered from that first error, the mere result of Fancy ; 9 That night of woe might have reminded me, 10 That true repentance hits right at the cause of offence. II, 12 And as my soul recognised, on my behalf, its error of Fancy, so I should have recognised the Truth in my conduct, and ceased to wound my conscience. 13 Still Fancy began it ! 14 Passion excuses Fancy, and Fancy must excuse my actions. (i) cf 34, lines 1 — ^4. (3)cf3S, Uneg. (5) cf 117, line 9. (7) cf 149, line 4. (13) cf 114, line 14. (14) cf 35, line 9. 194 GREAT PAN LIVES. I 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd, When not to be, receives reproach of being ; And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd 4 Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing ; For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood ? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, 8 Which in their wills count bad what I think good ; No, — I am that I am ; and they that level At my abuses, reckon up their own : I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel : 12 By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, — All men are bad, and in their badness reign. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. rgS 2 When Conduct essentially right is condemned as wrong, I And esteemed vile, then one feels as if one would almost prefer to be vile, 3, 4 To escape at any rate the bitterness of misconstruction. 5 Why should double-faced hypocrites 6 Nod the head at my open sportiveness, as if they recog- nised their own secret shame ? 7 And frailer spies upon my frailties, 8 Choose to call bad what I think good T 9, lo I am that I am, a glass in which they may see them- selves ; my abuses are the study of theirs. II, 12 13, 14 Unless they maintain that badness is universal and reigns genuinely in me as in everybody else. (6) cf 41, 58, 61, 69, 95, 96 for evidences of Shakspeare's sportiveness in the past. (8) cf 58, lines 8—12. 196 GREAT PAN LIVES I Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full chaiacter'd with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain, 4 Beyond all date, even to eternity; Or, at the least, so long -as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part 8 Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. That poor retention could not so much hold, Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; Therefore to give them from me was I bold, 12 To trust those tables that receive thee more; To keep an adjunct to remember thee Were to import forgetful ness in me. RETURN TO THE IDEAL. 197 1 The tables, a gift of rare Beauty, are within the book and volume of my brain, 2 That is, the thoughts they were to receive are there, completed charactered with memory that shall endure, 3, 4, Even to eternity; 5 Or at least as long as there are brains and hearts 6 In the world, 7 In which Beauty and the love of it have not fallen into oblivion, 8 So long shall the record of my Muse, the book and volume of my brain remain. 9 Mere tables could not hold so much ; 10 Nor need I tallies to score my inspirations ; 1 1 I have given them to the world, 12 In trusting to my brain and books that can receive the Muse more copiously. 1 3 To keep an adjunct to remember the Muse, 14 Were to imply that I am forgetful of it. (I) cf 77. cf" Hamlet": — "Within the book and volume of my brain." Prospero's book is also a book and volume of the brain, in which he stores the memory of his enemies' offences, until their repentance when he drowns his book or memory of their offences. To produce their repentance he consults his book, that is to say, he consults his brain. X. THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY IN BEAUTY. Argument. 123 Truth, 124 Virtue, 125 Beauty, 126 In these is my soul's immortality. GREAT PAN LIVES. 123 I No, Time, thou shall not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange ; 4 They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old ; And rather make them born to our desire, 8 Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past ; For thy records and what we see do lie, 12 Made more or less by* thy continual haste : This I do vow, and this shall ever be, I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee. THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY IN BEAUTY. 123 1 Time shall not see me change; 2 The learned Art of the day, though just now produced with newer power, 3 Is really nothing new : 4 I have seen it all before though not so ably done. 5 Our lives are short and our memories : and therefore we are for ever wondering 6 At old things come back again, as if they were quite new. 7 We ever desire the new, so we say, there's something new at last ! 8 Being only too willing to forget that it is the same old thing. 9 But record with a backward look cannot show my likeness, nor can Time ever make me old. 10 1 have no cause to wonder at either Ancients or Modems. II, 12 The past is always magnified at the expense of the present. 13, 14 I shall be eternally true (and therefore new). cf Speech of Chorus in " Winter's Tale,'' which, by the way, is not a speech of Time, but of Truth ever the same through all Time. (9) cf 59, lines. 202 GREAT PAN LIVES. 124 I If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate, 4 Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. No, it was builded far from accident ; It sufiers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, 8 Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : It fears not policy, that heretic. Which works on leases of short-number'd hours. But all alone stands hugely politic, 12 That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. To this I witness call the fools of time. Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime. THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY IN BEAUTY. 203 124 1 If Virtue were mere calculation, 2 It might prove miscalculation : 3 Like statecraft it might turn out ill or well, 4 Prove a flower or a weed. 5 But it is not subject to accident ; aye true to itself, 6 It is not lost with the acquisition of public honour and proud titles; nor falls 7 In the shock of revolution, 8 Whither we are tending. 9 It daffs aside Policy, that heretic, 10 That works for commodity the bias of the world, and jumps the life to come; 11 It all alone stands hugely Politic, 1 2 Nor proud in prosperity, nor cast down in adversity. 1 3 I call the fools of Time to witness, whether virtue be not more politic than policy : 14 Do they not repent upon their death-beds after a life of crime? (6) cf 25, line 2. 204 GREAT PAN LIVES. I2S I Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, 4*Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent; For compound sweet foregoing simple savour, 8 Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No, let me be obsequious in thy heart. And take thou my oblation, poor but free. Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, 12 But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou subom'd informer ! a true soul. When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control. THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY IN BEAUTY. 205 125 1 V/ere it aught to me to carefully ward oflf Nature, 2 And pay an unfelt deference to external rules of Art of so- called, 3 Or to lay great bases for eternal fame, 4 When such pedantic and formal constructions fall into oblivion as fast as they are made ? 5 Have I not seen such precious writers 6 Forgotten, because too refined for this world ? 7 They have taken leave of simplicity and exchanged it for new found methods and for compounds strange ; 8 They thrive well by it truly. They gaze at Beauty with mouths as wide open as possible, but no Beauty ever falls into it. 9 No ! by me let Beauty be truly sympathised 10 In true plain words ; 1 1 Let Beauty be all my Art, 1 2 And give me both skill and argument. 1 3 Hence, critic, suborned by prejudice and pedantry ! 14 When most you impeach me you show yourself least able to comprehend a soul like mine true to Beauty. (3) cf 123, line 2. (5) cf 85, line 4; 86, line 2. (7) cf 76, line 4. (8) cf 83, line 12; 80, line 13. (9) cf 82, lines II, 12