Читать книгу The Oxford Book of English Verse - Various Authors - Страница 168

Devotion

170. i

FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Though thou be black as night,

And she made all of light,

Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!

Though here thou liv’st disgraced,

And she in heaven is placed,

Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth!

That so have scorchèd thee

As thou still black must be,

Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.

Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!

There comes a luckless night

That will dim all her light;

And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still, since so thy fates ordainèd!

The sun must have his shade,

Till both at once do fade,—

The sun still proud, the shadow still disdainèd.

171. ii

FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet!

Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!

There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,

And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:

But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,

Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again!

All that I sung still to her praise did tend;

Still she was first, still she my songs did end;

Yet she my love and music both doth fly,

The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy:

Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!

It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.