Sonnets
on
English Dramatic Poets
(1590-1650)

I
Christopher Marlowe

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire, Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star! Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far, Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire Where all ye sang together, all that are, And all the starry songs behind thy car Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And as with rush of hurtling chariots The flight of all their spirits were impelled Toward one great end, thy glory—nay, not then, Not yet might'st thou be praised enough of men.

II
William Shakespeare

Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one Spake, might the word be said that might speak Thee. Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea, the sea, What power is in them all to praise the sun? His praise is this,—he can be praised of none. Man, woman, child, praise God for him; but he Exults not to be worshipped, but to be. He is; and, being, beholds his work well done. All joy, all glory, all sorrow, all strength, all mirth, Are his: without him, day were night on earth. Time knows not his from time's own period. All lutes, all harps, all viols, all flutes, all lyres, Fall dumb before him ere one string suspires. All stars are angels; but the sun is God.

III
Ben Jonson

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform, With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine, Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine, And many a crag full-faced against the storm, The mountain where thy Muse's feet made warm Those lawns that revelled with her dance divine Shines yet with fire as it was wont to shine From tossing torches round the dance aswarm.
Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights, High-thoughted seers with heaven's heart-kindling lights Hold converse: and the herd of meaner things Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous wings.

IV
Beaumont and Fletcher

An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west, Arose two stars upon the pale deep east. The hall of heaven was clear for night's high feast, Yet was not yet day's fiery heart at rest. Love leapt up from his mother's burning breast To see those warm twin lights, as day decreased, Wax wider, till when all the sun had ceased As suns they shone from evening's kindled crest. Across them and between, a quickening fire, Flamed Venus, laughing with appeased desire. Their dawn, scarce lovelier for the gleam of tears, Filled half the hollow shell 'twixt heaven and earth With sound like moonlight, mingling moan and mirth, Which rings and glitters down the darkling years.

V
Philip Massinger

Clouds here and there arisen an hour past noon Chequered our English heaven with lengthening bars And shadow and sound of wheel-winged thunder-cars Assembling strength to put forth tempest soon, When the clear still warm concord of thy tune Rose under skies unscared by reddening Mars Yet, like a sound of silver speech of stars, With full mild flame as of the mellowing moon. Grave and great-hearted Massinger, thy face High melancholy lights with loftier grace Than gilds the brows of revel: sad and wise, The spirit of thought that moved thy deeper song, Sorrow serene in soft calm scorn of wrong, Speaks patience yet from thy majestic eyes.

VI
John Ford

Hew hard the marble from the mountain's heart Where hardest night holds fast in iron gloom Gems brighter than an April dawn in bloom, That his Memnonian likeness thence may start Revealed, whose hand with high funereal art Carved night, and chiselled shadow: be the tomb That speaks him famous graven with signs of doom Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart, As on some thunder-blasted Titan's brow His record of rebellion. Not the day Shall strike forth music from so stern a chord, Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how, And stars impenetrable of midnight, may. So looms the likeness of thy soul, John Ford.

VII
John Webster

Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down. Night: east, west, south, and northward, very night. Star upon struggling star strives into sight, Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown. The very throne of night, her very crown, A man lays hand on, and usurps her right. Song from the highest of heaven's imperious height Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town. Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime, Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves. Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves, Shapes here and there of child and mother pass.

VIII
Thomas Decker

Out of the depths of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe; Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel in; What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams that flow, Winds that blow healing in each note they blow, Is this that the outer darkness hears begin?
O sweetest heart of all thy time save one, Star seen for love's sake nearest to the sun, Hung lamplike o'er a dense and doleful city, Not Shakespeare's very spirit, howe'er more great, Than thine toward man was more compassionate, Nor gave Christ praise from lips more sweet with pity.

IX
Thomas Middleton

A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud, That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath, Hell's children revel along the shuddering heath With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud: A worse fair face than witchcraft's, passion-proud, With brows blood-flecked behind their bridal wreath And lips that bade the assassin's sword find sheath Deep in the heart whereto love's heart was vowed: A game of close contentious crafts and creeds Played till white England bring black Spain to shame: A son's bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds High conscience lights for mother's love and fame: Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds: Such tokens and such trophies crown thy name.

X
Thomas Heywood

Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom, What else may all men call thee, seeing thus bright Even yet the laughing and the weeping light That still thy kind old eyes are kindled from? Small care was thine to assail and overcome Time and his child Oblivion: yet of right Thy name has part with names of lordlier might For English love and homely sense of home, Whose fragrance keeps thy small sweet bayleaf young And gives it place aloft among thy peers Whence many a wreath once higher strong Time has hurled: And this thy praise is sweet on Shakespeare's tongue— O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world!

XI
George Chapman

High priest of Homer, not elect in vain, Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train: Fierce history, molten in thy forging brain, Takes form and fire and fashion from thy mind, Tormented and transmuted out of kind: But howsoe'er thou shift thy strenuous strain, Like Tailor1 smooth, like Fisher2 swollen, and now Grim Yarrington3 scarce bloodier marked than thou, Then bluff as Mayne's4 or broad-mouthed Barry's5 glee; Proud still with hoar predominance of brow And beard like foam swept off the broad blown sea, Where'er thou go, men's reverence goes with thee.

XII
John Marston

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn. Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne, Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn. Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul, Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.

XIII
John Day

Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm, When in the skies of song yet flushed and warm With music where all passion seems to strive For utterance, all things bright and fierce to drive Struggling along the splendour of the storm, Day for an hour put off his fiery form, And golden murmurs from a golden hive Across the strong bright summer wind were heard, And laughter soft as smiles from girls at play And loud from lips of boys brow-bound with May Our mightiest age let fall its gentlest word, When Song, in semblance of a sweet small bird, Lit fluttering on the light swift hand of Day.

XIV
James Shirley

The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers' eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp, When thy steed's pace went ambling round Hyde Park.
And in the thickening twilight under thee Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he, The blithest throat that ever carolled love In music made of morning's merriest heart, Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.

XV
The Tribe of Benjamin

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben, All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale, Bright from the broad light of its presence, hail! Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men, Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail: Cartwright, a soul pent in with narrower pale, Praised of thy sire for manful might of pen: Marmion, whose verse keeps alway keen and fine The perfume of their Apollonian wine Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine: Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see?

XVI
Anonymous Plays:
Arden of Feversham

Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men, Mother of Shakespeare, whom all time acclaims Queen therefore, sovereign queen of English dames, Throned higher than sat thy sonless empress then, Was it thy son's young passion-guided pen Which drew, reflected from encircling flames, A figure marked by the earlier of thy names Wife, and from all her wedded kinswomen Marked by the sign of murderess? Pale and great, Great in her grief and sin, but in her death And anguish of her penitential breath Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate, She stands, the holocaust of dark desire, Clothed round with song for ever as with fire.

XVII
Anonymous Plays

Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour, Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims For ever, but forgetfulness defames And darkness and the shadow of death devour, Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power, Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames And smile, albeit night name not even their names, Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down on flower: That sweet-tongued shadow, like a star's that passed Singing, and light was from its darkness cast To paint the face of Painting fair with praise:1 And that wherein forefigured smiles the pure Fraternal face of Wordsworth's Elidure Between two child-faced masks of merrier days.2

XVIII
Anonymous Plays

More yet and more, and yet we mark not all: The Warning fain to bid fair women heed Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;1 The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;2 That iron page wherein men's eyes who read See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed, A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall;3 The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;4 And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend, Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one, Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.5

XIX
The Many

I

Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers, Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage: Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours: Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers: And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers: Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves: And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse: Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves, Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse: Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.

XX
The Many

II

Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will: Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird And keen alternate notes of laud and gird: Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil: Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word: Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred: Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still: Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand: Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns, But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns: Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland: Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns: Praise be with all, and place among our band.

XXI
Epilogue

Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith, Found first among the nations: once, when she Who bore thine ensign saw the God in thee Smite Spain, and bring forth Shakespeare: once, when death Shrank, and Rome's bloodhounds cowered, at Milton's breath: More than thy place, then first among the free More than that sovereign lordship of the sea Bequeathed to Cromwell from Elizabeth, More than thy fiery guiding-star, which Drake Hailed, and the deep saw lit again for Blake, More than all deeds wrought of thy strong right hand, This praise keeps most thy fame's memorial strong, That thou wast head of all these streams of song, And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare's land.