Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SIDNEY'S ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: CANTO SECUNDO. LOVE'S PILGRIMS, by THOMAS CAMPION


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SIDNEY'S ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: CANTO SECUNDO. LOVE'S PILGRIMS, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: What fair pomp have I spied of glittering ladies
Last Line: Come, we'll associate this jolly pilgrimage!
Subject(s): Clothing & Dress; Cosmetics


What fair pomp have I spied of glittering Ladies
With locks sparkled abroad, and rosy coronet.
On their ivory brows, trackt to the dainty thighs
With robes like Amazons blue as violet,
With gold aiglets adorned, some in a changeable
Pale; with spangs wavering taught to be movable.

Then those Knights that afar off with dolorous viewing
Cast their eyes hitherward; lo, in an agony,
All unbraced, cry aloud, their heavy state rueing:
Moist cheeks with blubbering, painted as ebony
Black; their feltred hair torn with wrathful hand:
And whiles astonied, stark in a maze they stand.

But hark! what merry sound! what sudden harmony!
Look! look near the grove! where the ladies do tread
With their Knights the measures weighed by the melody.
Wantons! whose traversing make men enamoured;
Now they fain an honour, now by the slender waist
He must her aloft, and seal a kiss in haste.

Straight down under a shadow for weariness they lie
With pleasant dalliance, hand knit with arm in arm,
Now close, now set aloof, they gaze with an equal eye,
Changing kisses alike; straight with a false alarm,
Mocking kisses alike, pout with a lovely lip.
Thus drowned with jollities, their merry days do slip.

But stay! now I discern they go on a pilgrimage
Towards Love's holy land, fair Paphos or Cyprus.
Such devotion is meet for a blithesome age;
With sweet youth, it agrees well to be amorous.
Let old angry fathers lurk in an hermitage:
Come, we'll associate this jolly pilgrimage!





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