The Astrophel and Stella (containing 110 sonnets) is the earliest of the great sonnet-sequences or sonnet-cycles of English poetry, those of Spenser, Shakspere, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning being later representatives. In the Elizabethan age the fashion of writing sonnets, and sonnet-sequences in particular, was at its height, especially in the last decade of the century (1590-1600). On this subject, see the Introduction to Professor Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in the Athenæum Press Series, and Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakspere. Other noteworthy sonnet-sequences besides those of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakspere were Constable's Diana, Daniel's Delia, Lodge's Phyllis, Watson's Tears of Fancy, Barnes's Parthenophil, Giles Fletcher's Lycia, and Drayton's Idea,—all published in the years 1592-1594. A now forgotten poet by the name of Lok produced more than four hundred sonnets, proving himself an Elizabethan rival to Wordsworth.
I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought
In time's great periods shall return to naught;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought;
And that naught lighter is than airy praise.
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
Where sense and will invassall reason's power.
Know what I list, this all can not me move,
But that, O me! I both must write and love.
(William Drummond of Hawthornden: Sense of the Fragility of All Things, etc. 1616.)
Drummond was a sonneteer of great skill, and used many original combinations of rime-schemes,—some forty in all,—yet usually approximating to the Italian type. Leigh Hunt says: "Drummond's sonnets, for the most part, are not only of the legitimate order, but they are the earliest in the language that breathe what may be called the habit of mind observable in the best Italian writers of sonnets; that is to say, a mixture of tenderness, elegance, love of country, seclusion, and conscious sweetness of verse." (Essay on the Sonnet, in The Book of the Sonnet, vol. i. pp. 78, 79.)
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men do with thee go—
Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.
(John Donne: Holy Sonnets, X. 1635.)
Donne's series of "Holy Sonnets" was one of the few Elizabethan sequences, or cycles, which dealt with other than amatory subjects. The seven sonnets of the series called La Corona are bound together into a "crown of sonnets,"—an Italian fashion, according to which the first line of each sonnet is the same as the last of the sonnet preceding, and the last line of the last sonnet the same as the first line of the first.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,—
Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?
I fondly ask:—But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:—
They also serve who only stand and wait.