To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney  5133

To thee, pure spirit, to thee alone addressed
[tab]Is this joint work, by double interest thine,
[tab]Thine by his own, and what is done of mine
Inspired by thee, thy secret power impressed.
[tab]My Muse with thine, itself dared to combine
[tab]As mortal stuff with that which is divine:
Let thy fair beams give luster to the rest

That Israel’s King may deign his own, transformed
[tab]In substance no, but superficial ’tire;
[tab]And English guised in some sort may aspire
To better grace thee what the vulgar formed:
[tab]His sacred tones, age after age admire;
[tab]Nations grow great in pride and pure desire
So to excel in holy rites performed.

Oh, had that soul which honor brought to rest
[tab]Too soon not left and reft the world of all
[tab]What man could show, which we perfection call,
This precious piece had sorted with the best.
[tab]But ah, wide festered wounds that never shall
[tab]Nor must be closed, unto fresh bleeding fall:
Ah, memory, what needs this new arrest?

Yet blessed grief, that sweetness can impart
[tab]Since thou art blest! Wrongly do I complain:
[tab]Whatever weights my heavy thoughts sustain
Dear feels my soul for thee. I know my part
[tab]Nor be my weakness to thy rites a stain,
[tab]Rites to aright, life-blood would not refrain:
Assist me, then, that life what thine did part.

Time may bring forth what time hath yet suppressed
[tab]In whom thy loss hath laid to utter waste;
[tab]The wrack of time, untimely all defaced,
Remaining as the tomb of life deceased,
[tab]Where, in my heart the highest room thou hast;
[tab]There, truly there, thy earthly being is placed,
Triumph of death: in life how more than blest.

Behold, oh, that thou were now to behold
[tab]This finished long perfection’s part begun,
[tab]The rest but pieced, as left by thee undone.
Pardon blest soul, presumption overbold,
[tab]If love and zeal hath to this error run:
[tab]’Tis zealous love, love that hath never done,
Nor can enough, though justly here controlled.

But since it hath no other scope to go,
[tab]Nor other purpose but to honor thee,
[tab]That thine may shine, where all the Graces be;
And that my thoughts (like smallest streams that flow,
[tab]Pay to their sea, their tributary fee)
[tab]Do strive, yet have no means to quit nor free
That mighty debt of infinities I owe

To thy great worth which time to times enroll,
[tab]Wonder of men, sole born, sole of thy kind
[tab]Complete in all, but heavenly was thy mind,
For wisdom, goodness, sweetness, fairest soul:
[tab]Too good to wish, too fair for earth, refined
[tab]For heaven, where all true glory rests confined;
And where but there no life without control?

Oh, when from this account, this cast-up sum,
[tab]This reck’ning made the audit of my woe,
[tab]Sometime of rase my swelling passions know
How work my thoughts, my sense is stricken dumb
[tab]That would thee more than words could ever show,
[tab]Which all fall short. Who knew thee best do know
There lives no wit that may thy praise become.

And rest fair monuments of thy fair fame,
[tab]Though not complete. Nor can we reach, in thought,
[tab]What on that goodly piece time would have wrought
Had divers so spared that life (but life) to frame
[tab]The rest. Alas, such loss! The world hath naught
[tab]Can equal it, nor, oh, more grievance brought,
Yet what remains must ever crown thy name.

[tab]Receive these hymns, these obsequies receive,
[tab][tab](If any mark of thy secret spirit thou bear)
[tab][tab]Made only thine, and no name else must wear.
[tab]I can no more: Dear Soul, I take my leave;
[tab][tab]My sorrow strives to mount the highest sphere.

• The version above is a variant printed in Samuel Daniel’s 1623 edition

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