Classic Poem

While this was singing, Ovid young in love
With her perfections, never proving yet
How merciful a mistress she would prove,
Boldly embraced the power he could not let,
And like a fiery exhalation
Followed the sun he wished might never set;
Trusting herein his constellation
Ruled by love's beams, which Julia's eyes erected,
Whose beauty was the star his life directed.

And having drenched his ankles in those seas,
He needs would swim, and cared not if he drowned.
Love's feet are in his eyes; for if he please
The depth of beauty's gulfy flood to sound,
He goes upon his eyes, and up to them
At the first step he is. No shader ground
Could Ovid find; but in love's holy stream
Was past his eyes, and now did wet his ears,
For his high sovereign's silver voice he hears.

Whereat his wit assumed fiery wings,
Soaring above the temper of his soul,
And he the purifying rapture sings
Of his ears' sense; takes full the Thespian bowl
And it carouseth to his mistress' health,
Whose sprightful verdure did dull flesh control;
And his conceit he crowneth with the wealth
Of all the Muses in his pleased senses,
When with the ears' delight he thus commences:

" Now Muses, come, repair your broken wings
(Plucked and prophaned by rustic ignorance)
With feathers of these notes my mistress sings;
And let quick verse her drooping head advance
From dungeons of contempt to smite the stars.
In Julia's tunes, led forth by furious trance
A thousand Muses come to bid you wars,
Dive to your spring, and hide you from the stroke,
All poets' furies will her tunes invoke.

Never was any sense so set on fire
With an immortal ardour, as mine ears;
Her fingers to the strings doth speech inspire
And numbered laughter, that the descant bears
To her sweet voice; whose species through my sense
My spirits to their highest function rears;
To which, impressed with ceaseless confluence,
It useth them as proper to her power,
Marries my soul, and makes itself her dower.

Methinks her tunes fly gilt like Attic bees
To my ears' hives, with honey tried to air:
My brain is but the comb, the wax, the lees,
My soul the drone, that lives by their affair.
O, so it sweets, refines, and ravisheth,
And with what sport they sting in their repair!
Rise then in swarms, and sting me thus to death,
Or turn me into swound; possess me whole,
Soul to my life and essence to my soul!

Say, gentle air, O does it not thee good
Thus to be smit with her correcting voice?
Why dance ye not, ye daughters of the wood?
Wither for ever, if not now rejoice.
Rise stones, and build a city with her notes,
And notes infuse with your most Cynthian noise
To all the trees, sweet flowers, and crystal floats
That crown and make this cheerful garden quick,
Virtue, that every touch may make such music.

O that as man is called a little world
The world might shrink into a little man
To hear the notes about this garden hurled,
That skill dispersed in tunes so Orphean
Might not be lost in smiting stocks and trees
That have no ears, but grown as it began
Spread their renowns as far as Phoebus sees
Through earth's dull veins; that she like heaven might move
In ceaseless music, and be filled with love.

In precious incense of her holy breath
My love doth offer hecatombs of notes
To all the gods, who now despise the death
Of oxen, heifers, wethers, swine and goats.
A sonnet in her breathing sacrificed
Delights them more than all beasts' bellowing throats,
As much with heaven as with my hearing prized.
And as gilt atoms in the sun appear,
So greet these sounds the gristles of mine ear,

Whose pores do open wide to their regreet,
And my implanted air that air embraceth
Which they impress. I feel their nimble feet
Tread my ears' labyrinth; their sport amazeth
They keep such measure; play themselves and dance.
And now my soul in Cupid's furnace blazeth,
Wrought into fury with their dalliance;
And as the fire the parched stubble burns,
So fades my flesh, and into spirit turns.

Sweet tunes, brave issue, that from Julia come,
Shook from her brain, armed like the Queen of Ire;
For first conceived in her mental womb,
And nourished with her soul's discursive fire
They grew into the power of her thought.
She gave them downy plumes from her attire,
And them to strong imagination brought:
That, to her voice; wherein most movingly
She (blessing them with kisses) lets them fly.

Who fly rejoicing; but (like noblest minds)
In giving others life themselves do die,
Not able to endure earth's rude unkinds,
Bred in my sovereign's parts too tenderly.
O that as intellects themselves transite
To each intelligible quality,
My life might pass into my love's conceit,
Thus to be formed in words, her tunes, and breath,
And with her kisses sing itself to death.

This life were wholly sweet, this only bliss;
Thus would I live to die, thus sense were feasted;
My life that in my flesh a chaos is
Should to a golden world be thus digested.
Thus should I rule her face's monarchy,
Whose looks in several empires are invested
Crowned now with smiles, and then with modesty.
Thus in her tunes' division I should reign,
For her conceit does all, in every vein.

My life then turned to that, t'each note and word
Should I consort her look; which sweeter sings
Where songs of solid harmony accord,
Ruled with love's rule and pricked with all his stings.
Thus should I be her notes before they be;
While in her blood they sit with fiery wings
Not vapoured in her voice's stillery.
Nought are these notes her breast so sweetly frames
But motions, fled out of her spirit's flames.

For as when steel and flint together smit
With violent action spit forth sparks of fire
And make the tender tinder burn with it,
So my love's soul doth lighten her desire
Upon her spirits in her notes' pretence;
And they convey them (for distinct attire)
To use the wardrobe of the common sense;
From whence in veils of her rich breath they fly
And feast the ear with this felicity.

Methinks they raise me from the heavy ground
And move me swimming in the yielding air,
As zephyrs' flowery blast do toss a sound;
Upon their wings will I to heaven repair,
And sing them so, gods shall descend and hear.
Ladies must be adored that are but fair,
But apt besides with art to tempt the ear
In notes of nature, is a goddess' part,
Though oft men's nature's notes please more than art.

But here are art and nature both confined,
Art casting nature in so deep a trance
That both seem dead, because they be divined;
Buried is heaven in earthly ignorance:
Why break not men then strumpet folly's bounds,
To learn at this pure virgin's utterance?
No; none but Ovid's ears can sound these sounds,
Where sing the hearts of love and poesy
Which make my Muse so strong she works too high."

Now in his glowing ears her tunes did sleep;
And as a silver bell, with violent blow
Of steel or iron, when his sounds most deep
Do from his sides and airs' soft bosom flow,
A great while after murmurs at the stroke,
Letting the hearers' ears his hardness know,
So chid the air to be no longer broke,
And left the accents panting in his ear,
Which in this banquet his first service were.