10 Best Famous Ambrosia Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Ambrosia poems. This is a select list of the best famous Ambrosia poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Ambrosia poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of ambrosia poems.

• All Famous Ambrosia Poems

Give me truths;
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition. If I knew
Only the herbs and simples of the wood,
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony,
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew,
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
Draw untold juices from the common earth,
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply
By sweet affinities to human flesh,
Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,--
O, that were much, and I could be a part
Of the round day, related to the sun
And planted world, and full executor
Of their imperfect functions.
But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And traveling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers,
And human fortunes in astronomy,
And an omnipotence in chemistry,
Preferring things to names, for these were men,
Were unitarians of the united world,
And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell,
They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
And strangers to the plant and to the mine.
The injured elements say, 'Not in us;'
And haughtily return us stare for stare.
For we invade them impiously for gain;
We devastate them unreligiously,
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.
Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us
Only what to our griping toil is due;
But the sweet affluence of love and song,
The rich results of the divine consents
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
And pirates of the universe, shut out
Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes,
The stunted trees look sick, the summer short,
Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay,
And nothing thrives to reach its natural term;
And life, shorn of its venerable length,
Even at its greatest space is a defeat,
And dies in anger that it was a dupe;
And, in its highest noon and wantonness,
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child;
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
And prizes of ambition, checks its hand,
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped,
Chilled with a miserly comparison
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life. 

 Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When here thy hands let fall the gather'd flower,
Might break thro' clouded memories once again
On thy lost self. A sudden nightingale
Saw thee, and flash'd into a frolic of song
And welcome; and a gleam as of the moon,
When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
Fled wavering o'er thy face, and chased away
That shadow of a likeness to the king
Of shadows, thy dark mate. Persephone!
Queen of the dead no more -- my child! Thine eyes
Again were human-godlike, and the Sun
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray,
And robed thee in his day from head to feet --
"Mother!" and I was folded in thine arms.

Child, those imperial, disimpassion'd eyes
Awed even me at first, thy mother -- eyes
That oft had seen the serpent-wanded power
Draw downward into Hades with his drift
Of fickering spectres, lighted from below
By the red race of fiery Phlegethon;
But when before have Gods or men beheld
The Life that had descended re-arise,
And lighted from above him by the Sun?
So mighty was the mother's childless cry,
A cry that ran thro' Hades, Earth, and Heaven!

So in this pleasant vale we stand again,
The field of Enna, now once more ablaze
With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls,
All flowers -- but for one black blur of earth
Left by that closing chasm, thro' which the car
Of dark Aidoneus rising rapt thee hence.
And here, my child, tho' folded in thine arms,
I feel the deathless heart of motherhood
Within me shudder, lest the naked glebe
Should yawn once more into the gulf, and thence
The shrilly whinnyings of the team of Hell,
Ascending, pierce the glad and songful air,
And all at once their arch'd necks, midnight-maned,
Jet upward thro' the mid-day blossom. No!
For, see, thy foot has touch'd it; all the space
Of blank earth-baldness clothes itself afresh,
And breaks into the crocus-purple hour
That saw thee vanish.

Child, when thou wert gone,
I envied human wives, and nested birds,
Yea, the cubb'd lioness; went in search of thee
Thro' many a palace, many a cot, and gave
Thy breast to ailing infants in the night,
And set the mother waking in amaze
To find her sick one whole; and forth again
Among the wail of midnight winds, and cried,
"Where is my loved one? Wherefore do ye wail?"
And out from all the night an answer shrill'd,
"We know not, and we know not why we wail."
I climb'd on all the cliffs of all the seas,
And ask'd the waves that moan about the world
"Where? do ye make your moaning for my child?"
And round from all the world the voices came
"We know not, and we know not why we moan."
"Where?" and I stared from every eagle-peak,
I thridded the black heart of all the woods,
I peer'd thro' tomb and cave, and in the storms
Of Autumn swept across the city, and heard
The murmur of their temples chanting me,
Me, me, the desolate Mother! "Where"? -- and turn'd,
And fled by many a waste, forlorn of man,
And grieved for man thro' all my grief for thee, --
The jungle rooted in his shatter'd hearth,
The serpent coil'd about his broken shaft,
The scorpion crawling over naked skulls; --
I saw the tiger in the ruin'd fane
Spring from his fallen God, but trace of thee
I saw not; and far on, and, following out
A league of labyrinthine darkness, came
On three gray heads beneath a gleaming rift.
"Where"? and I heard one voice from all the three
"We know not, for we spin the lives of men,
And not of Gods, and know not why we spin!
There is a Fate beyond us." Nothing knew.

Last as the likeness of a dying man,
Without his knowledge, from him flits to warn
A far-off friendship that he comes no more,
So he, the God of dreams, who heard my cry,
Drew from thyself the likeness of thyself
Without thy knowledge, and thy shadow past
Before me, crying "The Bright one in the highest
Is brother of the Dark one in the lowest,
And Bright and Dark have sworn that I, the child
Of thee, the great Earth-Mother, thee, the Power
That lifts her buried life from loom to bloom,
Should be for ever and for evermore
The Bride of Darkness."

So the Shadow wail'd.
Then I, Earth-Goddess, cursed the Gods of Heaven.
I would not mingle with their feasts; to me
Their nectar smack'd of hemlock on the lips,
Their rich ambrosia tasted aconite.
The man, that only lives and loves an hour,
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities.
My quick tears kill'd the flower, my ravings hush'd
The bird, and lost in utter grief I fail'd
To send my life thro' olive-yard and vine
And golden grain, my gift to helpless man.
Rain-rotten died the wheat, the barley-spears
Were hollow-husk'd, the leaf fell, and the sun,
Pale at my grief, drew down before his time
Sickening, and Aetna kept her winter snow.
Then He, the brother of this Darkness, He
Who still is highest, glancing from his height
On earth a fruitless fallow, when he miss'd
The wonted steam of sacrifice, the praise
And prayer of men, decreed that thou should'st dwell
For nine white moons of each whole year with me,
Three dark ones in the shadow with thy King.

Once more the reaper in the gleam of dawn
Will see me by the landmark far away,
Blessing his field, or seated in the dusk
Of even, by the lonely threshing-floor,
Rejoicing in the harvest and the grange.
Yet I, Earth-Goddess, am but ill-content
With them, who still are highest. Those gray heads,
What meant they by their "Fate beyond the Fates"
But younger kindlier Gods to bear us down,
As we bore down the Gods before us? Gods,
To quench, not hurl the thunderbolt, to stay,
Not spread the plague, the famine; Gods indeed,
To send the noon into the night and break
The sunless halls of Hades into Heaven?
Till thy dark lord accept and love the Sun,
And all the Shadow die into the Light,
When thou shalt dwell the whole bright year with me,
And souls of men, who grew beyond their race,
And made themselves as Gods against the fear
Of Death and Hell; and thou that hast from men,
As Queen of Death, that worship which is Fear,
Henceforth, as having risen from out the dead,
Shalt ever send thy life along with mine
From buried grain thro' springing blade, and bless
Their garner'd Autumn also, reap with me,
Earth-mother, in the harvest hymns of Earth
The worship which is Love, and see no more
The Stone, the Wheel, the dimly-glimmering lawns
Of that Elysium, all the hateful fires
Of torment, and the shadowy warrior glide
Along the silent field of Asphodel.

 When, by decree of the supreme power,
The Poet appears in this annoyed world,
His mother, blasphemous out of horror
At God's pity, cries out with fists curled:

"Ah! I'd rather You'd will me a snake's skin
Than to keep feeding this monstrous slur!
I curse that night's ephemera are sins
To make my womb atone for pleasure.

"Since You have chosen me from all the brides
To bear the disgust of my dolorous groom
And since I can't throw back into the fires
Like an old love letter this gaunt buffoon

"I'll replace Your hate that overwhelms me
On the instrument of Your wicked gloom
And torture so well this miserable tree
Its pestiferous buds will never bloom!"

She chokes down the eucharist of venom,
Not comprehending eternal designs,
She prepares a Gehenna of her own,
And consecrates a pyre of maternal crimes.

Yet, watched by an invisible seraph,
The disinherited child is drunk on the sun
And in all he devours and in all he quaffs
Receives ambrosia, nectar and honey.

He plays with the wind, chats with the vapors,
Deliriously sings the stations of the cross;
And the Spirit who follows him in his capers
Cries at his joy like a bird in the forest.

Those whom he longs to love look with disdain
And dread, strengthened by his tranquillity,
They seek to make him complain of his pain
So they may try out their ferocity.

In the bread and wine destined for his lips,
They mix in cinders and spit with their wrath,
And throw out all he touches as he grasps it,
And accuse him of putting his feet in their path.

His wife cries out so that everyone hears:
"Since he finds me good enough to adore
I'll weave as the idols of ancient years
A corona of gold as a cover.

"I'll get drunk on nard, incense and myrrh,
Get down on bent knee with meats and wines
To see if in a heart that admires,
My smile denies deference to the divine.

"And, when I tire of these impious farces,
I'll arrange for him my frail and hard nails
Sharpened just like the claws of a harpy
That out of his heart will carve a trail.

"Like a baby bird trembling in the nest
I'll dig out his heart all red from my breast
To slake the thirst of my favorite pet,
And will throw it on the ground with contempt!"

Toward the sky, where he sees a great host,
The poet, serene, lifts his pious arms high
And the vast lightning of his lucid ghost
Blinds him to the furious people nearby:

"Glory to God, who leaves us to suffer
To cure us of all our impurities
And like the best, most rarefied buffer
Prepares the strong for a saint's ecstasies!

"I know that You hold a place for the Poet
In the ranks of the blessed and the saint's legions,
That You invite him to an eternal fete
Of thrones, of virtues, of dominations.

"I know only sorrow is unequaled,
It cannot be encroached on from Hell or Earth
And if I am to braid my mystic wreath,
May I impose it on the universe.

"But the ancient jewels of lost Palmyra,
The unknown metals, pearls from the ocean
By Your hand mounted, they do not suffice,
They cannot dazzle as clearly as this crown

"For it will not be made except from halos
Drawn of pure light in a holy portal
Whose entire splendor, in the eyes of mortals
Is only a mirror, obscure and mournful."

 Imprimis he was "broke." Thereafter left
His Regiment and, later, took to drink;
Then, having lost the balance of his friends,
"Went Fantee" -- joined the people of the land,
Turned three parts Mussulman and one Hindu,
And lived among the Gauri villagers,
Who gave him shelter and a wife or twain.
And boasted that a thorough, full-blood sahib
Had come among them. Thus he spent his time,
Deeply indebted to the village shroff
(Who never asked for payment), always drunk,
Unclean, abominable, out-at-heels;
Forgetting that he was an Englishman.

You know they dammed the Gauri with a dam,
And all the good contractors scamped their work
And all the bad material at hand
Was used to dam the Gauri -- which was cheap,
And, therefore, proper. Then the Gauri burst,
And several hundred thousand cubic tons
Of water dropped into the valley, flop,
And drowned some five-and-twenty villagers,
And did a lakh or two of detriment
To crops and cattle. When the flood went down
We found him dead, beneath an old dead horse,
Full six miles down the valley. So we said
He was a victim to the Demon Drink,
And moralised upon him for a week,
And then forgot him. Which was natural.

But, in the valley of the Gauri, men
Beneath the shadow of the big new dam,
Relate a foolish legend of the flood,
Accounting for the little loss of life
(Only those five-and-twenty villagers)
In this wise: -- On the evening of the flood,
They heard the groaning of the rotten dam,
And voices of the Mountain Devils. Then
And incarnation of the local God,
Mounted upon a monster-neighing horse,
And flourishing a flail-like whip, came down,
Breathing ambrosia, to the villages,
And fell upon the simple villagers
With yells beyond the power of mortal throat,
And blows beyond the power of mortal hand,
And smote them with his flail-like whip, and drove
Them clamorous with terror up the hill,
And scattered, with the monster-neighing steed,
Their crazy cottages about their ears,
And generally cleared those villages.
Then came the water, and the local God,
Breathing ambrosia, flourishing his whip,
And mounted on his monster-neighing steed,
Went down the valley with the flying trees
And residue of homesteads, while they watched
Safe on the mountain-side these wondrous things,
And knew that they were much beloved of Heaven.

Wherefore, and when the dam was newly built,
They raised a temple to the local God,
And burnt all manner of unsavoury things
Upon his altar, and created priests,
And blew into a conch and banged a bell,
And told the story of the Gauri flood
With circumstance and much embroidery. . . .
So hi, the whiskified Objectionable,
Unclean, abominable, out-at-heels,
Became the tutelary Deity
Of all the Gauri valley villages,
And may in time become a Solar Myth.

 [Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which 
he wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being "designed to change 
his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images."]

THERE'S no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions wildly wave,--
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.

What is the fairy's name?--Is't Lily?--Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she's unknown to thee.

Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,

With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within, the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look!--the very gods delighting
(To say nought of beasts). There begins, then, a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
And each o'er the legs of another is tripping,
And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
And all for one small piece of bread,
To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
As though it in ambrosia had been plac'd.

And then her look! the tone

With which she calls: Pipi! Pipi!
Would draw Jove's eagle from his throne;
Yes, Venus' turtle doves, I wean,
And the vain peacock e'en,
Would come, I swear,
Soon as that tone had reach'd them through the air.

E'en from a forest dark had she

Enticed a bear, unlick'd, ill-bred,

And, by her wiles alluring, led
To join the gentle company,
Until as tame as they was he:
(Up to a certain point, be't understood!)
How fair, and, ah, how good
She seem'd to be! I would have drain'd my blood
To water e'en her flow'rets sweet.

"Thou sayest: I! Who? How? And where?"--
Well, to be plain, good Sirs--I am the bear;

 In a net-apron, caught, alas!

Chain'd by a silk-thread at her feet.

 But how this wonder came to pass
I'll tell some day, if ye are curious;
Just now, my temper's much too furious.

Ah, when I'm in the corner plac'd,

And hear afar the creatures snapping,

And see the flipping and the flapping,

 I turn around

 With growling sound,

And backward run a step in haste,

 And look around

 With growling sound.

Then run again a step in haste,
And to my former post go round.

But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose,
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! a dolt!
Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack!
I bristle up my shaggy back
Unused a slave to be.
I'm laughed at by each trim and upstart tree
To scorn. The bowling-green I fly,

With neatly-mown and well-kept grass:

The box makes faces as I pass,--
Into the darkest thicket hasten I,
Hoping to 'scape from the ring,
Over the palings to spring!
Vainly I leap and climb;

I feel a leaden spell.

That pinions me as well,
And when I'm fully wearied out in time,
I lay me down beside some mock-cascade,

And roll myself half dead, and foam, and cry,

And, ah! no Oreads hear my sigh,
Excepting those of china made!

But, ah, with sudden power

In all my members blissful feelings reign!
'Tis she who singeth yonder in her bower!

I hear that darling, darling voice again.
The air is warm, and teems with fragrance clear,
Sings she perchance for me alone to hear?

I haste, and trample down the shrubs amain;
The trees make way, the bushes all retreat,
And so--the beast is lying at her feet.

She looks at him: "The monster's droll enough!

He's, for a bear, too mild,

Yet, for a dog, too wild,
So shaggy, clumsy, rough!"
Upon his back she gently strokes her foot;

He thinks himself in Paradise.
What feelings through his seven senses shoot!

But she looks on with careless eyes.
I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,

As gently as a bear well may;
Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse

Leap on her knee.--On a propitious day
She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,

And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
I growl with new-born ecstasy;
Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot
"Allons lout doux! eh! la menotte!
Et faites serviteur
Comme un joli seigneur."
Thus she proceeds with sport and glee;

Hope fills the oft-deluded beast;
Yet if one moment he would lazy be,

Her fondness all at once hath ceas'd.

She doth a flask of balsam-fire possess,

Sweeter than honey bees can make,

One drop of which she'll on her finger take,
When soften'd by his love and faithfulness,

Wherewith her monster's raging thirst to slake;
Then leaves me to myself, and flies at last,
And I, unbound, yet prison'd fast
By magic, follow in her train,
Seek for her, tremble, fly again.
The hapless creature thus tormenteth she,

Regardless of his pleasure or his woe;
Ha! oft half-open'd does she leave the door for me,

And sideways looks to learn if I will fly or no.
And I--Oh gods! your hands alone
Can end the spell that's o'er me thrown;
Free me, and gratitude my heart will fill;

And yet from heaven ye send me down no aid--

Not quite in vain doth life my limbs pervade:
I feel it! Strength is left me still.

 1775.

 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less to live, than to live well:--
And both are known to thee, who now canst live
Led by thy conscience, to give
Justice to soon-pleased nature, and to show
Wisdom and she together go,
And keep one centre; This with that conspires
To teach man to confine desires,
And know that riches have their proper stint
In the contented mind, not mint;
And canst instruct that those who have the itch
Of craving more, are never rich.
These things thou knows't to th' height, and dost prevent
That plague, because thou art content
With that Heaven gave thee with a wary hand,
(More blessed in thy brass than land)
To keep cheap Nature even and upright;
To cool, not cocker appetite.
Thus thou canst tersely live to satisfy
The belly chiefly, not the eye;
Keeping the barking stomach wisely quiet,
Less with a neat than needful diet.
But that which most makes sweet thy country life,
Is the fruition of a wife,
Whom, stars consenting with thy fate, thou hast
Got not so beautiful as chaste;
By whose warm side thou dost securely sleep,
While Love the sentinel doth keep,
With those deeds done by day, which ne'er affright
Thy silken slumbers in the night:
Nor has the darkness power to usher in
Fear to those sheets that know no sin.
The damask'd meadows and the pebbly streams
Sweeten and make soft your dreams:
The purling springs, groves, birds, and well weaved bowers,
With fields enamelled with flowers,
Present their shapes, while fantasy discloses
Millions of Lilies mix'd with Roses.
Then dream, ye hear the lamb by many a bleat
Woo'd to come suck the milky teat;
While Faunus in the vision comes, to keep
From rav'ning wolves the fleecy sheep:
With thousand such enchanting dreams, that meet
To make sleep not so sound as sweet;
Nor call these figures so thy rest endear,
As not to rise when Chanticlere
Warns the last watch;--but with the dawn dost rise
To work, but first to sacrifice;
Making thy peace with Heaven for some late fault,
With holy-meal and spirting salt;
Which done, thy painful thumb this sentence tells us,
'Jove for our labour all things sells us.'
Nor are thy daily and devout affairs
Attended with those desp'rate cares
Th' industrious merchant has, who for to find
Gold, runneth to the Western Ind,
And back again, tortured with fears, doth fly,
Untaught to suffer Poverty;--
But thou at home, blest with securest ease,
Sitt'st, and believ'st that there be seas,
And watery dangers; while thy whiter hap
But sees these things within thy map;
And viewing them with a more safe survey,
Mak'st easy fear unto thee say,
'A heart thrice walled with oak and brass, that man
Had, first durst plough the ocean.'
But thou at home, without or tide or gale,
Canst in thy map securely sail;
Seeing those painted countries, and so guess
By those fine shades, their substances;
And from thy compass taking small advice,
Buy'st travel at the lowest price.
Nor are thine ears so deaf but thou canst hear,
Far more with wonder than with fear,
Fame tell of states, of countries, courts, and kings,
And believe there be such things;
When of these truths thy happier knowledge lies
More in thine ears than in thine eyes.
And when thou hear'st by that too true report,
Vice rules the most, or all, at court,
Thy pious wishes are, though thou not there,
Virtue had, and moved her sphere.
But thou liv'st fearless; and thy face ne'er shows
Fortune when she comes, or goes;
But with thy equal thoughts, prepared dost stand
To take her by the either hand;
Nor car'st which comes the first, the foul or fair:--
A wise man ev'ry way lies square;
And like a surly oak with storms perplex'd
Grows still the stronger, strongly vex'd.
Be so, bold Spirit; stand centre-like, unmoved;
And be not only thought, but proved
To be what I report thee, and inure
Thyself, if want comes, to endure;
And so thou dost; for thy desires are
Confined to live with private Lar:
Nor curious whether appetite be fed
Or with the first, or second bread.
Who keep'st no proud mouth for delicious cates;
Hunger makes coarse meats, delicates.
Canst, and unurged, forsake that larded fare,
Which art, not nature, makes so rare;
To taste boil'd nettles, coleworts, beets, and eat
These, and sour herbs, as dainty meat:--
While soft opinion makes thy Genius say,
'Content makes all ambrosia;'
Nor is it that thou keep'st this stricter size
So much for want, as exercise;
To numb the sense of dearth, which, should sin haste it,
Thou might'st but only see't, not taste it;
Yet can thy humble roof maintain a quire
Of singing crickets by thy fire;
And the brisk mouse may feast herself with crumbs,
Till that the green-eyed kitling comes;
Then to her cabin, blest she can escape
The sudden danger of a rape.
--And thus thy little well-kept stock doth prove,
Wealth cannot make a life, but love.
Nor art thou so close-handed, but canst spend,
(Counsel concurring with the end),
As well as spare; still conning o'er this theme,
To shun the first and last extreme;
Ordaining that thy small stock find no breach,
Or to exceed thy tether's reach;
But to live round, and close, and wisely true
To thine own self, and known to few.
Thus let thy rural sanctuary be
Elysium to thy wife and thee;
There to disport your selves with golden measure;
For seldom use commends the pleasure.
Live, and live blest; thrice happy pair; let breath,
But lost to one, be th' other's death:
And as there is one love, one faith, one troth,
Be so one death, one grave to both;
Till when, in such assurance live, ye may
Nor fear, or wish your dying day.

O qui flosculus es Iuuentiorum,
non horum modo sed quot aut fuerunt
aut posthac aliis erunt in annis.
mallem diuitias Midae dedisses
isti cui neque seruus est neque arca
quam sic te sineres ab illo amari.
`Qui? Non est *****bellus?' inquies. Est:
sed bello huic neque seruus est neque arca.
Hoc tu quam libet abice eleuaque:
Nec seruum tamen ille habet neque arcam.

MELLITOS oculos tuos Iuuenti
siquis me sinat usque basiare
usque ad milia basiem trecenta,
Nec mi umquam uidear satur futurus,
non si densior aridis aristis
sit nostrae seges osculationis.

NEMONE in tanto potuit populo esse, Iuuenti,
bellus homo, quem tu deligere inciperes.
Praeterquam iste tuus moribunda ab sede Pisauri
hospes inaurata palladior statua,
qui tibi nunc cordi est, quem tu praeponere nobis
audes. Et nescis quod facinus facias?

SURRIPUI tibi dum ludis, mellite Iuuenti
suauiolum dulci dulcius ambrosia.
Verum id non impune tuli, namque amplius horam
suffixum in summa me memini esse cruce
dum tibi me purgo nec possum fletibus ullis
tantillum uestrae demere saeuitiae.
Nam simul id factum est multis diluta labella
guttis abstersisti omnibus articulis.
ne quicquam nostro contractum ex ore maneret,
tamquam commictae spurca saliua lupae.
praeterea infestum misero me tradere amore
non cessasti omni excruciarique modo,
ut mi ex ambrosia mutatum iam foret illud
suauiolum tristi tristius elleboro.
quam quoniam poenam misero proponis amori
numquam iam posthac basia surripiam. 

The birth of faire Belphoebe and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
 
And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.
 But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth
The heauens so fauourable were and free,
Looking with myld aspect vpon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her natiuitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;
Ioue laught on Venus from his soueraigne see,
And Phoebus with faire beames did her adorne,
And all the Graces rockt her cradle being borne.

Her berth was of the wombe of Morning dew,
And her conception of the ioyous Prime,
And all her whole creation did her shew
Pure and vnspotted from all loathly crime,
That is ingenerate in fleshly slime.
So was this virgin borne, so was she bred,
So was she trayned vp from time to time,
In all chast vertue, and true bounti-hed
Till to her dew perfection she was ripened.

Her mother was the faire Chrysogonee,
The daughter of Amphisa, who by race
A Faerie was, yborne of high degree,
She bore Belphoebe, she bore in like cace
Faire Amoretta in the second place:
These two were twinnes, & twixt them two did share
The heritage of all celestiall grace.
That all the rest it seem'd they robbed bare
Of bountie, and of beautie, and all vertues rare.

It were a goodly storie, to declare,
By what straunge accident faire Chrysogone
Conceiu'd these infants, and how them she bare,
In this wild forrest wandring all alone,
After she had nine moneths fulfild and gone:
For not as other wemens commune brood,
They were enwombed in the sacred throne
Of her chaste bodie, nor with commune food,
As other wemens babes, they sucked vitall blood.

But wondrously they were begot, and bred
Through influence of th'heauens fruitfull ray,
As it in antique bookes is mentioned.
It was vpon a Sommers shynie day,
When Titan faire his beames did display,
In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,
She bath'd her brest, the boyling heat t'allay;
She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

Till faint through irkesome wearinesse, adowne
Vpon the grassie ground her selfe she layd
To sleepe, the whiles a gentle slombring swowne
Vpon her fell all naked bare displayd;
The sunne-beames bright vpon her body playd,
Being through former bathing mollifide,
And pierst into her wombe, where they embayd
With so sweet sence and secret power vnspide,
That in her pregnant flesh they shortly fructifide.

Miraculous may seeme to him, that reades
So straunge ensample of conception;
But reason teacheth that the fruitfull seades
Of all things liuing, through impression
Of the sunbeames in moyst complexion,
Doe life conceiue and quickned are by kynd:
So after Nilus invndation,
Infinite shapes of creatures men do fynd,
Informed in the mud, on which the Sunne hath shynd.

Great father he of generation
Is rightly cald, th'author of life and light;
And his faire sister for creation
Ministreth matter fit, which tempred right
With heate and humour, breedes the liuing wight.
So sprong these twinnes in wombe of Chrysogone,
Yet wist she nought thereof, but sore affright,
Wondred to see her belly so vpblone,
Which still increast, till she her terme had full outgone.

Whereof conceiuing shame and foule disgrace,
Albe her guiltlesse conscience her cleard,
She fled into the wildernesse a space,
Till that vnweeldy burden she had reard,
And shund dishonor, which as death she feard:
Where wearie of long trauell, downe to rest
Her selfe she set, and comfortably cheard;
There a sad cloud of sleepe her ouerkest,
And seized euery sense with sorrow sore opprest.

It fortuned, faire Venus hauing lost
Her little sonne, the winged god of loue,
Who for some light displeasure, which him crost,
Was from her fled, as flit as ayerie Doue,
And left her blisfull bowre of ioy aboue,
(So from her often he had fled away,
When she for ought him sharpely did reproue,
And wandred in the world in strange aray,
Disguiz'd in thousand shapes, that none might him bewray.)

Him for to seeke, she left her heauenly hous,
The house of goodly formes and faire aspects,
Whence all the world deriues the glorious
Features of beautie, and all shapes select,
With which high God his workmanship hath deckt;
And searched euery way, through which his wings
Had borne him, or his tract she mote detect:
She promist kisses sweet, and sweeter things
Vnto the man, that of him tydings to her brings.

First she him sought in Court, where most he vsed
Whylome to haunt, but there she found him not;
But many there she found, which sore accused
His falsehood, and with foule infamous blot
His cruell deedes and wicked wyles did spot:
Ladies and Lords she euery where mote heare
Complayning, how with his empoysned shot
Their wofull harts he wounded had whyleare,
And so had left them languishing twixt hope and feare.

She then the Citties sought from gate to gate,
And euery one did aske, did he him see;
And euery one her answerd, that too late
He had him seene, and felt the crueltie
Of his sharpe darts and whot artillerie;
And euery one threw forth reproches rife
Of his mischieuous deedes, and said, that hee
Was the disturber of all ciuill life,
The enimy of peace, and author of all strife.

Then in the countrey she abroad him sought,
And in the rurall cottages inquired,
Where also many plaints to her were brought,
How he their heedlesse harts with loue had fyred,
And his false venim through their veines inspyred;
And eke the gentle shepheard swaynes, which sat
Keeping their fleecie flockes, as they were hyred,
She sweetly heard complaine, both how and what
Her sonne had to them doen; yet she did smile thereat.

But when in none of all these she him got,
She gan auize, where else he mote him hyde:
At last she her bethought, that she had not
Yet sought the saluage woods and forrests wyde,
In which full many louely Nymphes abyde,
Mongst whom might be, that he did closely lye,
Or that the loue of some of them him tyde:
For thy, she thither cast her course t'apply,
To search the secret haunts of Dianes company.

Shortly vnto the wastefull woods she came,
Whereas she found the Goddesse with her crew,
After late chace of their embrewed game,
Sitting beside a fountaine in a rew,
Some of them washing with the liquid dew
From off their dainty limbes the dustie sweat,
And soyle which did deforme their liuely hew;
Others lay shaded from the scorching heat;
The rest vpon her person gaue attendance great.

She hauing hong vpon a bough on high
Her bow and painted quiuer, had vnlaste
Her siluer buskins from her nimble thigh,
And her lancke loynes vngirt, and brests vnbraste,
After her heat the breathing cold to taste;
Her golden lockes, that late in tresses bright
Embreaded were for hindring of her haste,
Now loose about her shoulders hong vndight,
And were with sweet Ambrosia all besprinckled light.

Soone as she Venus saw behind her backe,
She was asham'd to be so loose surprized,
And woxe halfe wroth against her damzels slacke,
That had not her thereof before auized,
But suffred her so carelesly disguized
Be ouertaken. Soone her garments loose
Vpgath'ring, in her bosome she comprized,
Well as she might, and to the Goddesse rose,
Whiles all her Nymphes did like a girlond her enclose.

Goodly she gan faire Cytherea greet,
And shortly asked her, what cause her brought
Into that wildernesse for her vnmeet,
From her sweet bowres, and beds with pleasures fraught:
That suddein change she strange aduenture thought.
To whom halfe weeping, she thus answered,
That she her dearest sonne Cupido sought,
Who in his frowardnesse from her was fled;
That she repented sore, to haue him angered.

Thereat Diana gan to smile, in scorne
Of her vaine plaint, and to her scoffing sayd;
Great pittie sure, that ye be so forlorne
Of your gay sonne, that giues ye so good ayd
To your disports: ill mote ye bene apayd.
But she was more engrieued, and replide;
Faire sister, ill beseemes it to vpbrayd
A dolefull heart with so disdainfull pride;
The like that mine, may be your paine another tide.

As you in woods and wanton wildernesse
Your glory set, to chace the saluage beasts,
So my delight is all in ioyfulnesse,
In beds, in bowres, in banckets, and in feasts:
And ill becomes you with your loftie creasts,
To scorne the ioy, that Ioue is glad to seeke;
We both are bound to follow heauens beheasts,
And tend our charges with obeisance meeke:
Spare, gentle sister, with reproch my paine to eeke.

And tell me, if that ye my sonne haue heard,
To lurke emongst your Nymphes in secret wize;
Or keepe their cabins: much I am affeard,
Least he like one of them him selfe disguize,
And turne his arrowes to their exercize:
So may he long himselfe full easie hide:
For he is faire and fresh in face and guize,
As any Nymph (let not it be enuyde,)
So saying euery Nymph full narrowly she eyde.

But Phoebe therewith sore was angered,
And sharply said; Goe Dame, goe seeke your boy,
Where you him lately left, in Mars his bed;
He comes not here, we scorne his foolish ioy,
Ne lend we leisure to his idle toy:
But if I catch him in this company,
By Stygian lake I vow, whose sad annoy
The Gods doe dread, he dearely shall abye:
Ile clip his wanton wings, that he no more shall fly.

Whom when as Venus saw so sore displeased,
She inly sory was, and gan relent,
What she had said: so her she soone appeased,
With sugred words and gentle blandishment,
Which as a fountaine from her sweet lips went,
And welled goodly forth, that in short space
She was well pleasd, and forth her damzels sent,
Through all the woods, to search from place to place,
If any tract of him or tydings they mote trace.

To search the God of loue, her Nymphes she sent
Throughout the wandring forrest euery where:
And after them her selfe eke with her went
To seeke the fugitiue, both farre and nere,
So long they sought, till they arriued were
In that same shadie couert, whereas lay
Faire Crysogone in slombry traunce whilere:
Who in her sleepe (a wondrous thing to say)
Vnwares had borne two babes, as faire as springing day.

Vnwares she them conceiu'd, vnwares she bore:
She bore withouten paine, that she conceiued
Withouten pleasure: ne her need implore
Lucinaes aide: which when they both perceiued,
They were through wonder nigh of sense bereaued,
And gazing each on other, nought bespake:
At last they both agreed, her seeming grieued
Out of her heauy swowne not to awake,
But from her louing side the tender babes to take.

Vp they them tooke, each one a babe vptooke,
And with them carried, to be fostered;
Dame Phoebe to a Nymph her babe betooke,
To be vpbrought in perfect Maydenhed,
And of her selfe her name Belphoebe red:
But Venus hers thence farre away conuayd,
To be vpbrought in goodly womanhed,
And in her litle loues stead, which was strayd,
Her Amoretta cald, to comfort her dismayd.

She brought her to her ioyous Paradize,
Where most she wonnes, wh? she on earth does dwel.
So faire a place, as Nature can deuize:
Whether in Paphos, or Cytheron hill,
Or it in Gnidus be, I wote not well;
But well I wote by tryall, that this same
All other pleasant places doth excell,
And called is by her lost louers name,
The Gardin of Adonis, farre renowmd by fame.

In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie
Of all things, that are borne to liue and die,
According to their kindes. Long worke it were,
Here to account the endlesse progenie
Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;
But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.

It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old,
And girt in with two walles on either side;
The one of yron, the other of bright gold,
That none might thorough breake, nor ouer-stride:
And double gates it had, which opened wide,
By which both in and out men moten pas;
Th'one faire and fresh, the other old and dride:
Old Genius the porter of them was,
Old Genius, the which a double nature has.

He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,
All that to come into the world desire;
A thousand thousand naked babes attend
About him day and night, which doe require,
That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:
Such as him list, such as eternall fate
Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,
And sendeth forth to liue in mortall state,
Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate.

After that they againe returned beene,
They in that Gardin planted be againe;
And grow afresh, as they had neuer seene
Fleshly corruption, nor mortall paine.
Some thousand yeares so doen they there remaine;
And then of him are clad with other hew,
Or sent into the chaungefull world againe,
Till thither they returne, where first they grew:
So like a wheele around they runne from old to new.

Ne needs there Gardiner to set, or sow,
To plant or prune: for of their owne accord
All things, as they created were, doe grow,
And yet remember well the mightie word,
Which first was spoken by th'Almightie lord,
That bad them to increase and multiply:
Ne doe they need with water of the ford,
Or of the clouds to moysten their roots dry;
For in themselues eternall moisture they imply.

Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,
And vncouth formes, which none yet euer knew,
And euery sort is in a sundry bed
Set by it selfe, and ranckt in comely rew:
Some fit for reasonable soules t'indew,
Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare,
And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew
In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,
That seem'd the Ocean could not containe them there.

Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent
Into the world, it to replenish more;
Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,
But still remaines in euerlasting store,
As it at first created was of yore.
For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In hatefull darkenesse and in deepe horrore,
An huge eternall Chaos, which supplyes
The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.

All things from thence doe their first being fetch,
And borrow matter, whereof they are made,
Which when as forme and feature it does ketch,
Becomes a bodie, and doth then inuade
The state of life, out of the griesly shade.
That substance is eterne, and bideth so,
Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,
Doth it consume, and into nothing go,
But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.

The substance is not chaunged, nor altered,
But th'only forme and outward fashion;
For euery substance is conditioned
To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion:
For formes are variable and decay,
By course of kind, and by occasion;
And that faire flowre of beautie fades away,
As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.

Great enimy to it, and to all the rest,
That in the Gardin of Adonis springs,
Is wicked Time, who with his scyth addrest,
Does mow the flowring herbes and goodly things,
And all their glory to the ground downe flings,
Where they doe wither, and are fowly mard:
He flyes about, and with his flaggy wings
Beates downe both leaues and buds without regard,
Ne euer pittie may relent his malice hard.

Yet pittie often did the gods relent,
To see so faire things mard, and spoyled quight:
And their great mother Venus did lament
The losse of her deare brood, her deare delight:
Her hart was pierst with pittie at the sight,
When walking through the Gardin, them she spyde,
Yet no'te she find redresse for such despight.
For all that liues, is subiect to that law:
All things decay in time, and to their end do draw.

But were it not, that Time their troubler is,
All that in this delightfull Gardin growes,
Should happie be, and haue immortall blis:
For here all plentie, and all pleasure flowes,
And sweet loue gentle fits emongst them throwes,
Without fell rancor, or fond gealosie;
Franckly each paramour his leman knowes,
Each bird his mate, ne any does enuie
Their goodly meriment, and gay felicitie.

There is continuall spring, and haruest there
Continuall, both meeting at one time:
For both the boughes doe laughing blossomes beare,
And with fresh colours decke the wanton Prime,
And eke attonce the heauy trees they clime,
Which seeme to labour vnder their fruits lode:
The whiles the ioyous birdes make their pastime
Emongst the shadie leaues, their sweet abode,
And their true loues without suspition tell abrode.

Right in the middest of that Paradise,
There stood a stately Mount, on whose round top
A gloomy groue of mirtle trees did rise,
Whose shadie boughes sharpe steele did neuer lop,
Nor wicked beasts their tender buds did crop,
But like a girlond compassed the hight,
And from their fruitfull sides sweet gum did drop,
That all the ground with precious deaw bedight,
Threw forth most dainty odours, & most sweet delight.

And in the thickest couert of that shade,
There was a pleasant arbour, not by art,
But of the trees owne inclination made,
Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,
With wanton yuie twyne entrayld athwart,
And Eglantine, and Caprifole emong,
Fashiond aboue within their inmost part,
That nether Phoebus beams could through th? throng,
Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

And all about grew euery sort of flowre,
To which sad louers were transformd of yore;
Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure,
And dearest loue:
Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore,
Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,
Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore
Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,
To whom sweet Poets verse hath giuen endlesse date.

There wont faire Venus often to enioy
Her deare Adonis ioyous company,
And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;
There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,
Lapped in flowres and pretious spycery,
By her hid from the world, and from the skill
Of Stygian Gods, which doe her loue enuy;
But she her selfe, when euer that she will,
Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.

And sooth it seemes they say: for he may not
For euer die, and euer buried bee
In balefull night, where all things are forgot;
All be he subiect to mortalitie,
Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,
And by succession made perpetuall,
Transformed oft, and chaunged diuerslie:
For him the Father of all formes they call;
Therefore needs mote he liue, that liuing giues to all.

There now he liueth in eternall blis,
Ioying his goddesse, and of her enioyd:
Ne feareth he henceforth that foe of his,
Which with his cruell tuske him deadly cloyd:
For that wilde Bore, the which him once annoyd,
She firmely hath emprisoned for ay,
That her sweet loue his malice mote auoyd,
In a strong rocky Caue, which is they say,
Hewen vnderneath that Mount, that none him losen may.

There now he liues in euerlasting ioy,
With many of the Gods in company,
Which thither haunt, and with the winged boy
Sporting himselfe in safe felicity:
Who when he hath with spoiles and cruelty
Ransackt the world, and in the wofull harts
Of many wretches set his triumphes hye,
Thither resorts, and laying his sad darts
Aside, with faire Adonis playes his wanton parts.

And his true loue faire Psyche with him playes,
Faire Psyche to him lately reconcyld,
After long troubles and vnmeet vpbrayes,
With which his mother Venus her reuyld,
And eke himselfe her cruelly exyld:
But now in stedfast loue and happy state
She with him liues, and hath him borne a chyld,
Pleasure, that doth both gods and men aggrate,
Pleasure, the daughter of Cupid and Psyche late.

Hither great Venus brought this infant faire,
The younger daughter of Chrysogonee,
And vnto Psyche with great trust and care
Committed her, yfostered to bee,
And trained vp in true feminitee:
Who no lesse carefully her tendered,
Then her owne daughter Pleasure, to whom shee
Made her companion, and her lessoned
In all the lore of loue, and goodly womanhead.

In which when she to perfect ripenesse grew,
Of grace and beautie noble Paragone,
She brought her forth into the worldes vew,
To be th'ensample of true loue alone,
And Lodestarre of all chaste affectione,
To all faire Ladies, that doe liue on ground.
To Faery court she came, where many one
Admyrd her goodly haueour, and found
His feeble hart wide launched with loues cruell wound.

But she to none of them her loue did cast,
Saue to the noble knight Sir Scudamore,
To whom her louing hart she linked fast
In faithfull loue, t'abide for euer more,
And for his dearest sake endured sore,
Sore trouble of an hainous enimy;
Who her would forced haue to haue forlore
Her former loue, and stedfast loialty,
As ye may elsewhere read that ruefull history.

But well I weene, ye first desire to learne,
What end vnto that fearefull Damozell,
Which fled so fast from that same foster stearne,
Whom with his brethren Timias slew, befell:
That was to weet, the goodly Florimell;
Who wandring for to seeke her louer deare,
Her louer deare, her dearest Marinell,
Into misfortune fell, as ye did heare,
And from Prince Arthur fled with wings of idle feare.

Thou arrant robber, Death!
Couldst thou not find
Some lesser one than he
To rob of breath,—
Some poorer mind
Thy prey to be?
His mind was like the sky,—
As pure and free;
His heart was broad and open
As the sea.
His soul shone purely through his face,
And Love made him her dwelling place.
Not less the scholar than the friend,
Not less a friend than man;
The manly life did shorter end
Because so broad it ran.
Weep not for him, unhappy Muse!
His merits found a grander use
Some other-where. God wisely sees
The place that needs his qualities.
Weep not for him, for when Death lowers
O'er youth's ambrosia-scented bowers
He only plucks the choicest flowers.