Chapter IV: Introduction (4)

METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alkestis from the grave,
Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the Old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

ON SHAKESPEARE

WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst, to shame of slow-endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

SONG ON MAY MORNING

NOW the bright morning star, day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and young desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.

INVOCATION TO SABRINA, FROM COMUS

SABRINA fair!
Listen, where thou art sitting,
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thine amber-dripping hair,
Listen for dear honour’s sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save!
Listen, and appear to us,
In name of great Oceanus,
By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace,
And Tethys’ grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus’ wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard’s hook;
By scaly Triton’s winding shell,
And old soothsaying Glaucus’ spell;
By Leucothea’s lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet,
And the songs of sirens sweet;
By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,
And fair Ligea’s golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answered have.
Listen and save!

INVOCATION TO ECHO, FROM COMUS

SWEET Echo, sweetest Nymph, that liv’st unseen
Within thine airy shell
By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale,
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;
Canst thou not tell me of a single pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
O, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where,
Sweet Queen of Parley, daughter of the Sphere!
So mayest thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies.

THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, FROM COMUS

TO the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky.
There I suck the liquid air,
All amid the gardens fair
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree.
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours
Thither all their bounties bring.
There eternal Summer dwells,
And west winds with musky wing
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia’s balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purpled scarf can show,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen.
But far above, in spangled sheen,
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,
Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced,
After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done:
I can fly or I can run
Quickly to the green earth’s end,
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free,
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if feeble Virtue were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE 1612–1650

THE VIGIL OF DEATH

LET them bestow on every airth a limb,
Then open all my veins, that I may swim
To thee, my Maker! in that crimson lake.
Then place my parboiled head upon a stake—
Scatter my ashes—strew them in the air:
Lord! since thou know’st where all these atoms are,
I’m hopeful thou’lt recover once my dust,
And confident thou’lt raise me with the just.

RICHARD CRASHAW 1615(?)–1652

ON A PRAYER-BOOK SENT TO MRS. M. R.

LO, here a little volume, but great book!
A nest of new-born sweets,
Whose native pages, ’sdaining
To be thus folded, and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comely bands,
Fair one, from thy kind hands,
And confidently look
To find the rest
Of a rich binding in your breast!

It is in one choice handful, heaven; and all
Heaven’s royal hosts encamped, thus small
To prove that true schools use to tell,
A thousand angels in one point can dwell.

It is love’s great artillery,
Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie
Close couched in your white bosom; and from thence,
As from a snowy fortress of defence,
Against your ghostly foe to take your part,
And fortify the hold of your chaste heart.

It is an armoury of light;
Let constant use but keep it bright,
You’ll find it yields
To holy hands and humble hearts
More swords and shields
Than sin hath snares, or hell hath darts.

Only be sure
The hands be pure
That hold these weapons, and the eyes
Those of turtles, chaste, and true,
Wakeful, and wise.
Here’s a friend shall fight for you;
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play his part.

But, O! the heart
That studies this high art
Must be a sure housekeeper,
And yet no sleeper.
Dear soul, be strong;
Mercy will come ere long,
And bring her bosom full of blessings,
Flowers of never-fading graces,
To make immortal dressings
For worthy souls, whose wise embraces
Store up themselves for Him who is alone
The Spouse of virgins, and the Virgin’s Son.

But if the noble Bridegroom when He comes
Shall find the wandering heart from home,
Leaving her chaste abode
To gad abroad,
Amongst the gay mates of the god of flies
To take her pleasure, and to play
And keep the Devil’s holy day;
To dance in the sunshine of some smiling,
But beguiling
Spheres of sweet and sugared lies,
Some slippery pair
Of false, perhaps, as fair,
Flattering, but forswearing, eyes;

Doubtless some other heart
Will get the start
Meanwhile, and, stepping in before,
Will take possession of that sacred store
Of hidden sweets, and holy joys,
Words which are not heard with ears—
These tumultuous shops of noise—
Effectual whispers, whose still voice
The soul itself more feels than hears;

Amorous languishments, luminous trances,
Sights which are not seen with eyes,
Spiritual and soul-piercing glances
Whose pure and subtle lightning flies
Home to the heart, and sets the house on fire
And melts it down in sweet desire,
Yet does not stay
To ask the window’s leave to pass that way;

Delicious deaths, soft exhalations
Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;
A thousand unknown rites
Of joys, and rarefied delights;

A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,
And many a mystic thing,
Which the divine embraces
Of the dear Spouse of spirits with them will bring
For which it is no shame
That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store
Of blessings, and ten thousand more,
If when He come
He find the heart from home,
Doubtless He will unload
Himself some otherwhere,
And pour abroad
His precious sweets,
On the fair soul whom first He meets.

O fair! O fortunate! O rich! O dear!
O happy, and thrice happy she,
Dear silver-breasted dove,
Whoe’er she be,
Whose early love
With winged vows
Makes haste to meet her morning Spouse,
And close with His immortal kisses!
Happy, indeed, who never misses
To improve that precious hour,
And every day
Seize her sweet prey,
All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping, with a balmy shower,
A delicious dew of spices.

O, let the blessful heart hold fast
Her heavenly armful, she shall taste
At once ten thousand paradises!
She shall have power
To rifle and deflower
The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets;
Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures;
Happy proof she shall discover,
What joy, what bliss,
How many heavens at once it is,
To have a God become her lover!

TO THE MORNING

_Satisfaction for Sleep_

WHAT succour can I hope the Muse will send,
Whose drowsiness hath wronged the Muse’s friend?
What hope, Aurora, to propitiate thee,
Unless the Muse sing my apology?
O! in that morning of my shame, when I
Lay folded up in sleep’s captivity;
How at the sight didst thou draw back thine eyes,
Into thy modest veil! how didst thou rise
Twice dyed in thine own blushes, and didst run
To draw the curtains and awake the sun!
Who, rousing his illustrious tresses, came,
And seeing the loathed object, hid for shame
His head in thy fair bosom, and still hides
Me from his patronage; I pray, he chides;
And, pointing to dull Morpheus, bids me take
My own Apollo, try if I can make
His Lethe be my Helicon, and see
If Morpheus have a Muse to wait on me.
Hence ’tis my humble fancy finds no wings,
No nimble raptures, starts to heaven and brings
Enthusiastic flames, such as can give
Marrow to my plump genius, make it live
Dressed in the glorious madness of a muse,
Whose feet can walk the milky-way, and choose
Her starry throne; whose holy heats can warm
The grave, and hold up an exalted arm
To lift me from my lazy urn, and climb
Upon the stooped shoulders of old Time,
And trace eternity. But all is dead,
All these delicious hopes are buried
In the deep wrinkles of his angry brow,
Where mercy cannot find them; but, O thou
Bright lady of the morn, pity doth lie
So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die;
Have mercy, then, and when he next doth rise,
O, meet the angry god, invade his eyes,
And stroke his radiant cheeks; one timely kiss
Will kill his anger, and revive my bliss.
So to the treasure of thy pearly dew
Thrice will I pay three tears, to show how true
My grief is; so my wakeful lay shall knock
At the oriental gates, and duly mock
The early lark’s shrill orisons to be
An anthem at the day’s nativity.
And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine,
That shuts night’s dying eyes, shall open mine.
But thou, faint god of sleep, forget that I
Was ever known to be thy votary.
No more my pillow shall thine altar be,
Nor will I offer any more to thee
Myself a melting sacrifice; I’m born
Again a fresh child of the buxom morn,
Heir of the sun’s first beams; why threat’st thou so?
Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Go,
Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe,
Sickness and sorrow, whose pale lids ne’er know
Thy downy finger dwell upon their eyes;
Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries.

LOVE’S HOROSCOPE

LOVE, brave Virtue’s younger brother,
Erst hath made my heart a mother.
She consults the anxious spheres,
To calculate her young son’s years;
She asks if sad or saving powers
Gave omen to his infant hours;
She asks each star that then stood by
If poor Love shall live or die.

Ah, my heart, is that the way?
Are these the beams that rule thy day?
Thou know’st a face in whose each look
Beauty lays ope Love’s fortune-book,
On whose fair revolutions wait
The obsequious motions of Love’s fate.
Ah, my heart! her eyes and she
Have taught thee new astrology.
Howe’er Love’s native hours were set,
Whatever starry synod met,
’Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poor Love shall live or die.

If those sharp rays, putting on
Points of death, bid Love be gone;
Though the heavens in council sat
To crown an uncontrolled fate;
Though their best aspects twined upon
The kindest constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his birth,
And whispered the confederate earth
To pave his paths with all the good
That warms the bed of youth and blood:—
Love has no plea against her eye;
Beauty frowns, and Love must die.

But if her milder influence move,
And gild the hopes of humble Love;—
Though heaven’s inauspicious eye
Lay black on Love’s nativity;
Though every diamond in Jove’s crown
Fixed his forehead to a frown;—
Her eye a strong appeal can give,
Beauty smiles, and Love shall live.

O, if Love shall live, O where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breast, or in her breath,
Shall I hide poor Love from death?
For in the life aught else can give,
Love shall die, although he live.

Or, if Love shall die, O where,
But in her eye, or in her ear,
In her breath, or in her breast,
Shall I build his funeral nest?
While Love shall thus entombed lie,
Love shall live, although he die!

ON MR. G. HERBERT’S BOOK

_Entitled_, ‘_The Temple of Sacred Poems_,’ _sent to a Gentlewoman_

KNOW you, fair, on what you look?
Divinest love lies in this book,
Expecting fire from your eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think you’ve an angel by the wings;
One that gladly will be nigh
To wait upon each morning sigh,
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well perfumed prayer.
These white plumes of his he’ll lend you,
Which every day to heaven will send you,
To take acquaintance of the sphere,
And all the smooth-faced kindred there.
And though Herbert’s name do owe
These devotions, fairest, know
That while I lay them on the shrine
Of your white hand, they are mine.

WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS

WHOE’ER she be,
That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me:

Where’er she he,
Locked up from mortal eye
In shady leaves of destiny:

Till that ripe birth
Of studied Fate stand forth,
And teach her fair steps tread our earth:

Till that divine
Idea take a shrine
Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

Meet you her, my Wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye called, my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty
That owes not all its duty
To gaudy tire, or glist’ring shoe-tie.

Something more than
Taffata or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

More than the spoil
Of shop, or silkworm’s toil,
Or a bought blush, or a set smile.

A face that’s best
By its own beauty drest,
And can alone commend the rest.

A cheek where youth
And blood, with pen of truth,
Write what the reader sweetly rueth.

A cheek where grows
More than a morning rose,
Which to no box his being owes.

Lips where all day
A lover’s kiss may play,
Yet carry nothing thence away.

Looks that oppress
Their richest tires, but dress
And clothe their simple nakedness.

Eyes that displace
Their neighbour diamond, and out-face
That sunshine by their own sweet grace.

Tresses that wear
Jewels, but to declare
How much themselves more precious are;

Whose native ray
Can tame the wanton day
Of gems that in their bright shades play.

Each ruby there,
Or pearl that dare appear,
Be its own blush, be its own tear.

A well-tamed heart,
For whose more noble smart
Love may be long choosing a dart.

Eyes that bestow
Full quivers on love’s bow,
Yet pay less arrows than they owe.

Smiles that can warm
The blood, yet teach a charm,
That chastity shall take no harm.

Blushes that bin
The burnish of no sin,
Nor flames of aught too hot within.

Joys that confess,
Virtue their mistress,
And have no other head to dress.

Fears fond and slight
As the coy bride’s, when night
First does the longing lover right.

Tears quickly fled,
And vain, as those are shed
For a dying maidenhead.

Soft silken hours,
Open suns, shady bowers;
’Bove all, nothing within that lowers.

Days that need borrow
No part of their good-morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.

Days that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind, are day all night.

Nights, sweet as they,
Made short by lovers’ play,
Yet long by the absence of the day.

Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!

Sydneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old winter’s head with flowers.

Whate’er delight
Can make day’s forehead bright,
Or give down to the wings of night.

In her whole frame,
Have Nature all the name,
Art and ornament the shame.

Her flattery,
Picture and poesy,
Her counsel her own virtue be.

I wish her store
Of worth may leave her poor
Of wishes; and I wish—no more.

Now, if Time knows
That Her, whose radiant brows
Weave them a garland of my vows;

Her whose just bays
My future hopes can raise,
A trophy to her present praise;

Her that dares he
What these lines wish to see;
I seek no further, it is She.

’Tis She, and here,
Lo! I unclothe and clear
My wishes’ cloudy character.

May she enjoy it
Whose merit dare apply it,
But modesty dares still deny it!

Such worth as this is
Shall fix my flying wishes,
And determine them to kisses.

Let her full glory,
My fancies, fly before ye;
Be ye my fictions:—but her story.

QUEM VIDISTIS PASTORES, ETC. A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY, SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS

_Chorus_

COME, we shepherds whose blest sight
Hath met Love’s noon in Nature’s night;
Come lift we up our loftier song,
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stol’n joy
He slept, and dreamt of no such thing,
While we found out Heaven’s fairer eye,
And kissed the cradle of our King;
Tell him he rises now too late
To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e’er showed to mortal sight,
Than he himself e’er saw before,
Which to be seen needs not his light:
Tell him, Tityrus, where th’ hast been,
Tell him, Thyrsis, what th’ hast seen.

_Tityrus_

Gloomy night embraced the place
Where the noble infant lay:
The babe looked up, and showed His face;
In spite of darkness it was day.
It was Thy day, sweet, and did rise,
Not from the East, but from Thine eyes.
_Chorus_. It was Thy day, sweet, and did rise,
Not from the East, but from Thine eyes.

_Thyrsis_

Winter chid aloud, and sent
The angry North to wage his wars:
The North forgot his fierce intent,
And left perfumes instead of scars.
By those sweet eyes’ persuasive powers,
Where he meant frosts he scattered flowers.
_Chorus_. By those sweet eyes’ persuasive powers,
Where he meant frosts he scattered flowers.

_Both_

We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
Young dawn of our eternal day;
We saw Thine eyes break from the East,
And chase the trembling shades away:
We saw Thee, and we blest the sight,
We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.

_Tityrus_

Poor world, said I, what wilt thou do
To entertain this starry stranger?
Is this the best thou canst bestow—
A cold and not too cleanly manger?
Contend the powers of heaven and earth,
To fit a bed for this huge birth.
_Chorus_. Contend the powers of heaven and earth,
To fit a bed for this huge birth.

_Thyrsis_

Proud world, said I, cease your contest,
And let the mighty babe alone,
The phœnix builds the phœnix’ nest,
Love’s architecture is his own.
The babe, whose birth embraves this morn,
Made His own bed ere He was born.
_Chorus_. The babe, whose birth embraves this morn,
Made His own bed ere He was born.

_Tityrus_

I saw the curled drops, soft and slow,
Come hovering o’er the place’s head,
Off’ring their whitest sheets of snow,
To furnish the fair infant’s bed.
Forbear, said I, be not too bold,
Your fleece is white, but ’tis too cold.

_Thyrsis_

I saw th’ obsequious seraphim
Their rosy fleece of fire bestow,
For well they now can spare their wings,
Since Heaven itself lies here below.
Well done, said I; but are you sure
Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?
_Chorus_. Well done, said I; but are you sure
Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?

_Both_

No, no, your King’s not yet to seek
Where to repose His royal head;
See, see how soon His new-bloomed cheek
’Twixt mother’s breasts is gone to bed.
Sweet choice, said we; no way but so,
Not to lie cold, yet sleep in snow!
_Chorus_. Sweet choice, said we; no way but so,
Not to lie cold, yet sleep in snow!

_Full Chorus_

Welcome all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span!
Summer in winter! day in night!

_Chorus_

Heaven in earth! and God in man!
Great little one, whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to earth,
Welcome, tho’ nor to gold, nor silk,
To more than Cæsar’s birthright is:
Two sister seas of virgin’s milk,
With many a rarely-tempered kiss,
That breathes at once both maid and mother,
Warms in the one, cools in the other.

She sings Thy tears asleep, and dips
Her kisses in Thy weeping eye;
She spreads the red leaves of Thy lips,
That in their buds yet blushing lie.
She ’gainst those mother diamonds tries
The points of her young eagle’s eyes.

Welcome—tho’ not to those gay flies,
Gilded i’ th’ beams of earthly kings,
Slippery souls in smiling eyes—
But to poor shepherds, homespun things,
Whose wealth’s their flocks, whose wit’s to be
Well read in their simplicity.

Yet, when young April’s husband show’rs
Shall bless the fruitful Maia’s bed,
We’ll bring the first-born of her flowers,
To kiss Thy feet and crown Thy head.
To Thee, dread Lamb! whose love must keep
The shepherds while they feed their sheep.

To Thee, meek Majesty, soft King
Of simple graces and sweet loves!
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves!
At last, in fire of Thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice!

MUSIC’S DUEL

NOW westward Sol had spent the richest beams
Of noon’s high glory, when, hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection of an oak, there sat
A sweet lute’s master: in whose gentle airs
He lost the day’s heat, and his own hot cares.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood:—
The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their muse, their Syren, harmless Syren she,—
There stood she list’ning, and did entertain
The music’s soft report, and mould the same
In her own murmurs, that whatever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good.
The man perceived his rival, and her art;
Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport,
Awakes his lute, and ’gainst the fight to come
Informs it, in a sweet _præludium_
Of closer strains; and ere the war begin
He slightly skirmishes on every string,
Charged with a flying touch; and straightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily
Into a thousand sweet distinguished tones;
And reckons up in soft divisions
Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know
By that shrill taste she could do something too.
His nimble hand’s instinct then taught each string
A cap’ring cheerfulness; and made them sing
To their own dance; now negligently rash
He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash
Blends all together, then distinctly trips
From this to that, then, quick returning, skips
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
She measures every measure, everywhere
Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt—
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out—
Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note
Through the sleek passage of her open throat:
A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that, being reared
In controverting warbles evenly shared,
With her sweet sell she wrangles; he, amazed
That from so small a channel should be raised
The torrent of a voice whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,
Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art,
The tattling strings—each breathing in his part—
Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling bass
In surly groans disdains the treble’s grace;
The high-perched treble chirps at this, and chides
Until his finger—moderator—hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all,
Hoarse, shrill, at once: as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th’ harvest of death’s field, and woo
Men’s hearts into their hands; this lesson, too,
She gives him back, her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o’er her skill,
And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,
The pliant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng
Of short thick sobs, whose thund’ring volleys float
And roll themselves over her lubric throat
In panting murmurs, ’stilled out of her breast,
That ever-bubbling spring, the sugared nest
Of her delicious soul, that there does lie
Bathing in streams of liquid melody,—
Music’s best seed-plot; when in ripened ears
A golden-headed harvest fairly rears
His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath,
Which there reciprocally laboureth.
In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire
Founded to th’ name of great Apollo’s lyre;
Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon; and then
Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,
To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their matins sing;—
Most divine service! whose so early lay
Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day.
There might you hear her kindle her soft voice
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise,
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song;
Still keeping in the forward stream so long,
Till a sweet whirlwind, striving to get out,
Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast;
Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky,
Winged with their own wild echos, pratt’ling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the waved back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train;
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note;
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voice of war’s hoarse bird;
Her little soul is ravished; and so poured
Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed
Above herself—music’s enthusiast!
Shame now and anger mixed a double stain
In the musician’s face: Yet once again,
Mistress, I come. Now reach a strain, my lute,
Above her mock, or be for ever mute;
Or tune a song of victory to me,
Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy!
So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings,
And with a quivering coyness tastes the strings:
The sweet-lipped sisters, musically frighted,
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted:
Trembling as when Apollo’s golden hairs
Are fanned and frizzled in the wanton airs
Of his own breath, which, married to his lyre,
Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven’s self look higher;
From this to that, from that to this, he flies,
Feels music’s pulse in all her arteries;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads,
Following those little rills, he sinks into
A sea of Helicon; his hand does go
Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe’s cup:
The humorous strings expound his learned touch
By various glosses; now they seem to grutch
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle
In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single;
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke,
Gives life to some new grace: thus doth he invoke
Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus—
Fraught with a fury so harmonious—
The lute’s light Genius now does proudly rise,
Heaved on the surges of swoll’n rhapsodies,
Whose flourish, meteor-like, doth curl the air
With flash of high-born fancies; here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone,
Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs,
Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares;
Because those precious mysteries that dwell
In music’s ravished soul he dare not tell,
But whisper to the world: thus do they vary,
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their master’s blest soul, snatched out at his ears
By a strong ecstasy, through all the spheres
Of music’s heaven; and seat it there on high
In th’ _empyræum_ of pure harmony.
At length—after so long, so loud a strife
Of all the strings, still breathing the best life
Of blest variety, attending on
His fingers’ fairest revolution,
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall—
A full-mouthed diapason swallows all.
This done, he lists what she would say to this;
And she, although her breath’s late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note.
Alas, in vain! for while, sweet soul, she tries
To measure all those wild diversities
Of chatt’ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone,
She fails; and failing, grieves; and grieving, dies;
She dies, and leaves her life the victor’s prize,
Falling upon his lute. O, fit to have—
That lived so sweetly—dead, so sweet a grave!

THE FLAMING HEART

_Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint_
_Teresa_, _as she is usually expressed with_
_a Seraphim beside her_

WELL-MEANING readers! you that come as friends
And catch the precious name this piece pretends,
Make not too much haste t’ admire
That fair-cheeked fallacy of fire.
That is a seraphim, they say,
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be ruled by me, and make
Here a well-placed and wise mistake;
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right;
Read Him for Her, and Her for Him,
And call the saint the seraphim.
Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand?
See, even the years and size of him
Shows this the mother seraphim.
This is the mistress flame, and duteous he
Her happy fireworks, here, comes down to see:
O, most poor-spirited of men!
Had thy cold pencil kissed her pen,
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us this faint shade for her.
Why, man, this speaks pure mortal frame,
And mocks with female frost love’s manly flame;
One would suspect thou meant’st to paint
Some weak, inferior woman Saint.
But, had thy pale-faced purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright book,
Thou wouldst on her have heaped up all
That could be found seraphical;
Whate’er this youth of fire wears fair,
Rosy fingers, radiant hair,
Glowing cheek, and glist’ring wings,
All those fair and flagrant things;
But, before all, that fiery dart
Had filled the hand of this great heart.
Do, then, as equal right requires,
Since his the blushes be, and hers the fires,
Resume and rectify thy rude design,
Undress thy seraphim into mine;
Redeem this injury of thy art,
Give him the veil, give her the dart.
Give him the veil, that he may cover
The red cheeks of a rivalled lover,
Ashamed that our world now can show
Nests of new Seraphims here below.
Give her the dart, for it is she,
Fair youth, shoots both thy shaft and thee;
Say, all ye wise and well-pierced hearts
That live and die amidst her darts,
What is’t your tasteful spirits do prove
In that rare life of her and love?
Say and bear witness. Sends she not
A seraphim at every shot?
What magazines of immortal arms there shine!
Heav’n’s great artillery in each love-spun line!
Give, then, the dart to her who gives the flame,
Give him the veil who gives the shame.
But if it be the frequent fate
Of worst faults to be fortunate,
If all’s prescription, and proud wrong
Hearkens not to an humble song,
For all the gallantry of him,
Give me the suff’ring seraphim.
His be the bravery of those bright things,
The glowing cheeks, the glistering wings,
The rosy hand, the radiant dart;
Leave her alone the flaming heart.
Leave her that, and thou shalt leave her
Not one loose shaft, but Love’s whole quiver.
For in Love’s field was never found
A nobler weapon than a wound.
Love’s passives are his activ’st part,
The wounded is the wounding heart.
O, heart! the equal poise of Love’s both parts,
Big alike with wounds and darts,
Live in these conquering leaves, live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame!
Live here, great heart, and love, and die, and kill,
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.
Let this immortal Life, where’er it comes,
Walk in the crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on’t, and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O, sweet incendiary! show here thy art
Upon this carcass of a hard, cold heart;
Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast, at once break in
And take away from me myself and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O, thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires,
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove,
By all thy lives and deaths of love,
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirst of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire,
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;
By all the heav’ns thou hast in Him,
Fair sister of the seraphim!
By all of Him we have in thee,
Leave nothing of myself in me:
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

ABRAHAM COWLEY 1618–1667

ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW

POET and Saint! to thee alone are given
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the muses banished slaves abide,
And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;
Like Moses, thou (though spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly back home to their Holy Land.
Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou
Wert living the same poet which thou’rt now.
Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,
And join in an applause so great as thine,
Equal society with them to hold,
Thou need’st not make new songs, but say the old.
And they (kind spirits!) shall all rejoice to see
How little less than they exalted man may be.
Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell,
The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up hell.
Nor have we yet quite purged the Christian land;
Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand.
And though Pan’s death long since all oracles broke,
Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke:
Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage we
(Vain men!) the monster woman deify;
Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,
And paradise in them, by whom we lost it, place.
What different faults corrupt our muses thus!
Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!
Thy spotless muse, like Mary, did contain
The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain
That her eternal verse employed should be
On a less subject than eternity;
And for a sacred mistress scorned to take
But her whom God Himself scorned not His spouse to make.
It (in a kind) her miracle did do;
A fruitful mother was and virgin too.
How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death,
And make thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great Mistress’ arms, thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto’s shrine!
Where, like some holy sacrifice to expire,
A fever burns thee, and love lights the fire.
Angels (they say) brought the famed chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air.
’Tis surer much they brought _thee_ there, and they
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.

* * * * *

Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the poets militant below.
Opposed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacked by envy and by ignorance,
Enchained by beauty, tortured by desires,
Exposed by tyrant love to savage beasts and fires.
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And, like Elijah, mount alive the skies.
Elisha-like (but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness and my littleness),
Lo, here I beg (I, whom thou once didst prove
So humble to esteem, so good to love)
Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be—
I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me;
And when my muse soars with so strong a wing,
’Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee, to sing.

HYMN TO THE LIGHT

FIRST-BORN of chaos, who so fair didst come
From the old Negro’s darksome womb!
Which, when it saw the lovely child,
The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled!

Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know,
But ever ebb and ever flow!
Thou golden shower of a true Jove
Who does in thee descend, and Heaven to Earth make love!

Hail, active Nature’s watchful life and health!
Her joy, her ornament, and wealth!
Hail to thy husband, Heat, and thee!
Thou the world’s beauteous Bride, the lusty Bridegroom he.

Say from what golden quivers of the sky
Do all thy winged arrows fly?
Swiftness and power by birth are thine:
From thy great Sire they came, thy Sire the Word Divine.

’Tis, I believe, this archery to show,
That so much cost in colours thou
And skill in painting dost bestow
Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.

Swift as light thoughts their empty career run,
Thy race is finished when begun.
Let a post-angel start with thee,
And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he.

Thou, in the moon’s bright chariot proud and gay,
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;
And all the year dost with thee bring
Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.

Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above
The sun’s gilt tent for ever move;
And still as thou in pomp dost go,
The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn
The humble glow-worms to adorn,
And with those living spangles gild
(O, greatness without pride!) the lilies of the field.

Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright,
And sleep, the lazy owl of night;
Ashamed and fearful to appear,
They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm
Of painted dreams a busy swarm.
At the first opening of thine eye
The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.

The guilty serpents and obscener beasts
Creep, conscious, to their secret rests;
Nature to thee does reverence pay,
Ill omens and ill sights remove out of thy way.

At thy appearance, Grief itself is said
To shake his wings and rouse his head:
And cloudy Care has often took
A gentle beamy smile, reflected from thy look.

At thy appearance, Fear itself grows bold;
Thy sunshine melts away his cold.
Encouraged at the sight of thee,
To the cheek colour comes, and firmness to the knee.

Even Lust, the master of a hardened face,
Blushes, if thou be’st in the place,
To darkness’ curtain he retires,
In sympathising night he rolls his smoky fires.

When, goddess, thou lift’st up thy wakened head
Out of the morning’s purple bed,
Thy quire of birds about thee play,
And all thy joyful world salutes the rising day.

The ghosts and monster-spirits that did presume
A body’s privilege to assume,
Vanish again invisibly,
And bodies gain again their visibility.

All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes,
Is but thy several liveries:
Thou the rich dye on them bestow’st,
Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go’st.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear’st,
A crown of studded gold thou bear’st.
The virgin lilies in their white
Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, Spring’s little infant, stands
Girt in the purple swaddling-bands;
On the fair tulip thou dost dote,
Thou cloth’st it in a gay and parti-coloured coat.

With flames condensed thou dost thy jewels fix,
And solid colours in it mix:
Flora herself envies to see
Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she.

Ah goddess! would thou couldst thy hand withhold
And be less liberal to gold;
Didst thou less value to it give,
Of how much care (alas!) might’st thou poor man relieve.

To me the sun is more delightful far,
And all fair days much fairer are.
But few, ah, wondrous few there be
Who do not gold prefer, O goddess, even to thee!

Through the soft ways of heaven, and air, and sea,
Which open all their pores to thee;
Like a clear river thou dost glide,
And with thy living streams through the close channels slide.

But where firm bodies thy free course oppose,
Gently thy source the land o’erflows;
Takes there possession, and does make,
Of colours mingled, Light, a thick and standing lake.

But the vast ocean of unbounded Day
In the Empyrean Heaven does stay.
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below
From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.

RICHARD LOVELACE 1618–1658

TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WARS

TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True; a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou, too, shalt adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honour more.

TO AMARANTHA

_That she would dishevel her hair_

AMARANTHA, sweet and fair,
Ah, braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee, let it fly.

Let it fly as unconfined
As its calm ravisher the wind,
Who hath left his darling, th’ east,
To wanton in that spicy nest.

Every tress must be confessed;
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clew of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled.

Do not, then, wind up that light
In ribands, and o’er cloud in night,
Like the sun in ’s early ray;
But shake your head and scatter day.

LUCASTA

_Paying her Obsequies to the chaste memory of my dearest Cousin_, _Mrs.
Bowes Barne_

SEE what an undisturbed tear
She weeps for _her_ last sleep!
But viewing her, straight waked, a star,
She weeps that she did weep.

Grief ne’er before did tyrannize
On the honour of that brow,
And at the wheels of her brave eyes
Was captive led, till now.

Thus for a saint’s apostasy,
The unimagined woes
And sorrows of the hierarchy
None but an angel knows.

Thus for lost soul’s recovery,
The clapping of the wings
And triumph of this victory
None but an angel sings.

So none but she knows to bemoan
This equal virgin’s fate;
None but Lucasta can her crown
Of glory celebrate.

Then dart on me, Chaste Light, one ray,
By which I may descry
Thy joy clear through this cloudy day
To dress my sorrow by.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON

WHEN love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye;
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

A GUILTLESS LADY IMPRISONED: AFTER PENANCED

HARK, fair one, how whate’er here is
Doth laugh and sing at thy distress,
Not out of hate to thy relief,
But joy—to enjoy thee, though in grief.

See! that which chains you, you chain here,
The prison is thy prisoner;
How much thy jailor’s keeper art!
He binds thy hands, but thou his heart.

The gyves to rase so smooth a skin
Are so unto themselves within;
But, blest to kiss so fair an arm,
Haste to be happy with that harm;

And play about thy wanton wrist,
As if in them thou so wert dressed;
But if too rough, too hard they press,
O they but closely, closely kiss.

And as thy bare feet bless the way,
The people do not mock, but pray,
And call thee, as amazed they run,
Instead of prostitute, a nun.

The merry torch burns with desire
To kindle the eternal fire, {168}
And lightly dances in thine eyes
To tunes of epithalamies.

The sheet tied ever to thy waist,
How thankful to be so embraced!
And see! thy very, very bands
Are bound to thee to bind such hands.

THE ROSE

SWEET, serene, sky-like flower,
Haste to adorn the bower;
From thy long cloudy bed,
Shoot forth thy damask head.

New-startled blush of Flora,
The grief of pale Aurora
(Who will contest no more),
Haste, haste to strew her floor!

Vermilion ball that’s given
From lip to lip in Heaven;
Love’s couch’s coverled,
Haste, haste to make her bed.

Dear offspring of pleased Venus
And jolly, plump Silenus,
Haste, haste to deck the hair
Of the only sweetly fair!

See! rosy is her bower,
Her floor is all this flower
Her bed a rosy nest
By a bed of roses pressed.

But early as she dresses,
Why fly you her bright tresses?
Ah! I have found, I fear,—
Because her cheeks are near.

ANDREW MARVELL 1620–1678

A HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND

THE forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
’Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour’s rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star;
And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide;
(For ’tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy,
And with such to enclose
Is more than to oppose;)
Then burning through the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar’s head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
’Tis madness to resist or blame
The force of angry heaven’s flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould.
Though Justice against Fate complain
And plead the ancient rights in vain
(But those do hold or break,
As men are strong or weak),
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;
Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook’s narrow case,
That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands;
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try;
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour,
Which first assured the forced power;
So, when they did design
The capitol’s first line,
A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate.
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed;
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust;
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the republic’s hand
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey!)
He to the Commons’ feet presents
A kingdom for his first year’s rents;
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs;
And has his sword and spoil ungirt,
To lay them at the Public’s skirt:
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more doth search,
But on the next green bough to perch;
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our isle presume,
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year?
As Caesar, he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy a Hannibal,
And to all states not free
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his parti-coloured mind,
But, from this valour sad,
Shrink underneath the plaid;
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war’s and fortune’s son,
March indefatigably on,
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect;
Beside the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night;
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF FLOWERS

SEE with what simplicity
This nymph begins her golden days!
In the green grass she loves to lie,
And there with her fair aspect tames
The wilder flowers, and gives them names;
But only with the roses plays,
And them does tell
What colours best become them, and what smell.

Who can foretell for what high cause
This darling of the gods was born?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.
Happy who can
Appease this virtuous enemy of man!

O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyes,
Ere they have tried their force to wound;
Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
In triumph over hearts that strive,
And them that yield but more despise:
Let me be laid,
Where I may see the glories from some shade.