O! for some honest lover’s ghost, Some kind unbodied post Sent from the shades below! I strangely long to
Whether the noble chaplets
Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear Or those that were used kindly.
For whatsoe’er they tell us here To make those sufferings dear, ’Twill there,
I fear, be found That to the being crown’dT’ have loved alone will not suffice,
Unless we also have been wise And have our loves enjoy’d.
What posture can we think him in That, here unloved, again Departs, and ’s thither gone Where each sits by his own?
Or how can that Elysium
Where I my mistress still must see Circled in other’s arms?
For there the judges all are just, And Sophonisba must Be his whom she held dear, Not his who loved her here.
The sweet Philoclea, since she died,
Lies by her Pirocles his side, Not by Amphialus.
Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough For difference crowns the brow Of those kind souls that were The noble martyrs here:
And if that be the only odds(As who can tell?), ye kinder gods, Give me the woman here!'O! for some honest lover's ghost,':
For the inspiration of Suckling's first line see the beginning of John Donne's 'Love's Deity.' '...unbodied post':
Messenger.
Sophonisba:
Daughter of the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal.
She had been betrothed by her father to the Numidian prince Masinissa, but was later married by her father to Masinissa's rival,
Syphax.
Masinissa conquered Syphax, married Sophonisba, and upon Scipio's demand for the surrender of the lady, sent her poison, with which she immediately ended her life.
Philoclea:
In Sidney's Arcadia the Arcadian princess Philoclea is beloved by her cousin Amphialus, but she loves and is later wedded to the Thracian prince Pyrocles.
