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diff --git a/2080-0.txt b/2080-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..18ab6cc --- /dev/null +++ b/2080-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13836 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Flower of the Mind, by Alice Meynell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Flower of the Mind + + +Author: Alice Meynell + + + +Release Date: June 28, 2015 [eBook #2080] +[This file was first posted 22 June 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE MIND*** + + +Transcribed from the 1898 Grant Richards edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + _Of this reissue_ + _only_ 250 + _copies will_ + _be bound_ + _up_. + + + + + + THE FLOWER + OF THE MIND + + + A Choice among the best Poems + + MADE BY + + ALICE MEYNELL + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + LONDON + GRANT RICHARDS + 9 HENRIETTA STREET + 1898 + + * * * * * + + Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +PARTIAL collections of English poems, decided by a common subject or +bounded by narrow dates and periods of literary history, are made at very +short intervals, and the makers are safe from the reproach of proposing +their own personal taste as a guide for the reading of others. But a +general Anthology gathered from the whole of English literature—the whole +from Chaucer to Wordsworth—by a gatherer intent upon nothing except the +quality of poetry, is a more rare enterprise. It is hardly to be made +without tempting the suspicion—nay, hardly without seeming to hazard the +confession—of some measure of self-confidence. Nor can even the desire +to enter upon that labour be a frequent one—the desire of the heart of +one for whom poetry is veritably ‘the complementary life’ to set up a +pale for inclusion and exclusion, to add honours, to multiply homage, to +cherish, to restore, to protest, to proclaim, to depose; and to gain the +consent of a multitude of readers to all those acts. Many years, +then—some part of a century—may easily pass between the publication of +one general anthology and the making of another. + +The enterprise would be a sorry one if it were really arbitrary, and if +an anthologist should give effect to passionate preferences without +authority. An anthology that shall have any value must be made on the +responsibility of one but on the authority of many. There is no caprice; +the mind of the maker has been formed for decision by the wisdom of many +instructors. It is the very study of criticism, and the grateful and +profitable study, that gives the justification to work done upon the +strongest personal impulse, and done, finally, in the mental solitude +that cannot be escaped at the last. In another order, moral education +would be best crowned if it proved to have quick and profound control +over the first impulses; its finished work would be to set the soul in a +state of law, delivered from the delays of self-distrust; not action +only, but the desires would be in an old security, and a wish would come +to light already justified. This would be the second—if it were not the +only—liberty. Even so an intellectual education might assuredly confer +freedom upon first and solitary thoughts, and confidence and composure +upon the sallies of impetuous courage. In a word, it should make a +studious anthologist quite sure about genius. And all who have bestowed, +or helped in bestowing, the liberating education have given their student +the authority to be free. Personal and singular the choice in such a +book must be, not without right. + +Claiming and disclaiming so much, the gatherers may follow one another to +harvest, and glean in the same fields in different seasons, for the +repetition of the work can never be altogether a repetition. The general +consent of criticism does not stand still; and moreover, a mere accident +has until now left a poet of genius of the past here and there to neglect +or obscurity. This is not very likely to befall again; the time has come +when there is little or nothing left to discover or rediscover in the +sixteenth century or the seventeenth; we know that there does not lurk +another Crashaw contemned, or another Henry Vaughan disregarded, or +another George Herbert misplaced. There is now something like finality +of knowledge at least; and therefore not a little error in the past is +ready to be repaired. This is the result of time. Of the slow actions +and reactions of critical taste there might be something to say, but +nothing important. No loyal anthologist perhaps will consent to +acknowledge these tides; he will hardly do his work well unless he +believe it to be stable and perfect; nor, by the way, will he judge +worthily in the name of others unless he be resolved to judge intrepidly +for himself. + +Inasmuch as even the best of all poems are the best upon innumerable +degrees, the size of most anthologies has gone far to decide what degrees +are to be gathered in and what left without. The best might make a very +small volume, and be indeed the best, or a very large volume, and be +still indeed the best. But my labour has been to do somewhat +differently—to gather nothing that did not overpass a certain +boundary-line of genius. Gray’s _Elegy_, for instance, would rightly be +placed at the head of everything below that mark. It is, in fact, so +near to the work of genius as to be most directly, closely, and +immediately rebuked by genius; it meets genius at close quarters and +almost deserves that Shakespeare himself should defeat it. Mediocrity +said its own true word in the _Elegy_: + + ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, + And waste its sweetness on the desert air.’ + +But greatness had said its own word also in a sonnet: + + ‘The summer flower is to the summer sweet + Though to itself it only live and die.’ + +The reproof here is too sure; not always does it touch so quick, but it +is not seldom manifest, and it makes exclusion a simple task. Inclusion, +on the other hand, cannot be so completely fulfilled. The impossibility +of taking in poems of great length, however purely lyrical, is a +mechanical barrier, even on the plan of the present volume; in the case +of Spenser’s _Prothalamion_, the unmanageably autobiographical and local +passage makes it inappropriate; some exquisite things of Landor’s are +lyrics in blank verse, and the necessary rule against blank verse shuts +them out. No extracts have been made from any poem, but in a very few +instances a stanza or a passage has been dropped out. No poem has been +put in for the sake of a single perfectly fine passage; it would be too +much to say that no poem has been put in for the sake of two splendid +passages or so. The Scottish ballad poetry is represented by examples +that are to my mind finer than anything left out; still, it is but +represented; and as the song of this multitude of unknown poets overflows +by its quantity a collection of lyrics of genius, so does severally the +song of Wordsworth, Crashaw, and Shelley. It has been necessary, in +considering traditional songs of evidently mingled authorship, to reject +some one invaluable stanza or burden—the original and ancient surviving +matter of a spoilt song—because it was necessary to reject the sequel +that has cumbered it since some sentimentalist took it for his own. An +example, which makes the heart ache, is that burden of keen and remote +poetry: + + ‘O the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom, + The broom of Cowdenknowes!’ + +Perhaps some hand will gather all such precious fragments as these +together one day, freed from what is alien in the work of the restorer. +It is inexplicable that a generation resolved to forbid the restoration +of ancient buildings should approve the eighteenth century restoration of +ancient poems; nay, the architectural ‘restorer’ is immeasurably the more +respectful. In order to give us again the ancient fragments, it is +happily not necessary to break up the composite songs which, since the +time of Burns, have gained a national love. Let them be, but let the old +verses be also; and let them have, for those who desire it, the +solitariness of their state of ruin. Even in the cases—and they are not +few—where Burns is proved to have given beauty and music to the ancient +fragment itself, his work upon the old stanza is immeasurably finer than +his work in his own new stanzas following, and it would be less than +impiety to part the two. + +I have obeyed a profound conviction which I have reason to hope will be +more commended in the future than perhaps it can be now, in leaving aside +a multitude of composite songs—anachronisms, and worse than mere +anachronisms, as I think them to be, for they patch wild feeling with +sentiment of the sentimentalist. There are some exceptions. The one +fine stanza of a song which both Sir Walter Scott and Burns restored is +given with the restorations of both, those restorations being severally +beautiful; and the burden, ‘Hame, hame, hame,’ is printed with the +Jacobite song that carries it; this song seems so mingled and various in +date and origin that no apology is needed for placing it amongst the +bundle of Scottish ballads of days before the Jacobites. _Sir Patrick +Spens_ is treated here as an ancient song. It is to be noted that the +modern, or comparatively modern, additions to old songs full of +quantitative metre—‘Hame, hame, hame,’ is one of these—full of long +notes, rests, and interlinear pauses, are almost always written in +anapæsts. The later writer has slipped away from the fine, various, and +subtle metre of the older. Assuredly the popularity of the metre which, +for want of a term suiting the English rules of verse, must be called +anapæstic, has done more than any other thing to vulgarise the national +sense of rhythm and to silence the finer rhythms. Anapæsts came quite +suddenly into English poetry and brought coarseness, glibness, +volubility, dapper and fatuous effects. A master may use it well, but as +a popular measure it has been disastrous. I would be bound to find the +modern stanzas in an old song by this very habit of anapæsts and this +very misunderstanding of the long words and interlinear pauses of the +older stanzas. This, for instance, is the old metre: + + ‘Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be!’ + +and this the lamentable anapæstic line (from the same song): + + ‘Yet the sun through the mirk seems to promise to me—.’ + +It has been difficult to refuse myself the delight of including _A Divine +Love_ of Carew, but it seemed too bold to leave out four stanzas of a +poem of seven, and the last four are of the poorest argument. This +passage at least shall speak for the first three: + + ‘Thou didst appear + A glorious mystery, so dark, so clear, + As Nature did intend + All should confess, but none might comprehend.’ + +From _Christ’s Victory in Heaven_ of Giles Fletcher (out of reach for its +length) it is a happiness to extract here at least the passage upon +‘Justice,’ who looks ‘as the eagle + + that hath so oft compared + Her eye with heaven’s’; + +from Marlowe’s poem, also unmanageable, that in which Love ran to the +priestess + + ‘And laid his childish head upon her breast’; + +with that which tells how Night, + + ‘deep-drenched in misty Acheron, + Heaved up her head, and half the world upon + Breathed darkness forth’; + +from Robert Greene two lines of a lovely passage: + + ‘Cupid abroad was lated in the night, + His wings were wet with ranging in the rain’; + +from Ben Jonson’s _Hue and Cry_ (not throughout fine) the stanza: + + ‘Beauties, have ye seen a toy, + Called Love, a little boy, + Almost naked, wanton, blind; + Cruel now, and then as kind? + If he be amongst ye, say; + He is Venus’ run-away’; + +from Francis Davison: + + ‘Her angry eyes are great with tears’; + +from George Wither: + + ‘I can go rest + On her sweet breast + That is the pride of Cynthia’s train’; + +from Cowley: + + ‘Return, return, gay planet of mine east’! + +The poems in which these are cannot make part of the volume, but the +citation of the fragments is a relieving act of love. + +At the very beginning, Skelton’s song to ‘Mistress Margery Wentworth’ had +almost taken a place; but its charm is hardly fine enough. If it is +necessary to answer the inevitable question in regard to Byron, let me +say that in another Anthology, a secondary Anthology, the one in which +Gray’s _Elegy_ would have an honourable place, some more of Byron’s +lyrics would certainly be found; and except this there is no apology. If +the last stanza of the ‘Dying Gladiator’ passage, or the last stanza on +the cascade rainbow at Terni, + + ‘Love watching madness with unalterable mien,’ + +had been separate poems instead of parts of _Childe Harold_, they would +have been amongst the poems that are here collected in no spirit of +arrogance, or of caprice, of diffidence or doubt. + +The volume closes some time before the middle of the century and the +death of Wordsworth. + + A. M + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +ANONYMOUS. + THE FIRST CAROL 1 +SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1552–1618). + VERSES BEFORE DEATH 1 +EDMUND SPENSER (1553–1599). + EASTER 2 + FRESH SPRING 2 + LIKE AS A SHIP 3 + EPITHALAMION 3 +JOHN LYLY (1554?–1606). + THE SPRING 17 +SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554–1586). + TRUE LOVE 18 + THE MOON 18 + KISS 19 + SWEET JUDGE 19 + SLEEP 20 + WAT’RED WAS MY WINE 20 +THOMAS LODGE (1556–1625). + ROSALYND’S MADRIGAL 21 + ROSALINE 22 + THE SOLITARY SHEPHERD’S SONG 24 +ANONYMOUS. + I SAW MY LADY WEEP 24 +GEORGE PEELE (1558?–1597). + FAREWELL TO ARMS 25 +ROBERT GREENE (1560?–1592). + FAWNIA 26 + SEPHESTIA’S SONG TO HER CHILD 27 +CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1562–1593). + THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE 28 +SAMUEL DANIEL (1562–1619). + SLEEP 29 + MY SPOTLESS LOVE 30 +MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631). + SINCE THERE’S NO HELP 30 +JOSHUA SYLVESTER (1563–1618). + WERE I AS BASE 31 +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616). + POOR SOUL, THE CENTRE OF MY SINFUL EARTH 32 + O ME! WHAT EYES HATH LOVE PUT IN MY HEAD 32 + SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY? 33 + WHEN IN THE CHRONICLE OF WASTED TIME 33 + THAT TIME OF YEAR THOU MAY’ST IN ME BEHOLD 34 + HOW LIKE A WINTER HATH MY ABSENCE BEEN 34 + BEING YOUR SLAVE, WHAT SHOULD I DO BUT TEND 35 + WHEN IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES 35 + THEY THAT HAVE POWER TO HURT, AND WILL DO 36 + FAREWELL! THOU ART TOO DEAR FOR MY POSSESSING 37 + WHEN TO THE SESSIONS OF SWEET SILENT THOUGHT 37 + DID NOT THE HEAVENLY RHETORIC OF THINE EYE 38 + THE FORWARD VIOLET THUS DID I CHIDE 38 + O LEST THE WORLD SHOULD TASK YOU TO RECITE 39 + LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS 39 + HOW OFT, WHEN THOU, MY MUSIC, MUSIC PLAY’ST 40 + FULL MANY A GLORIOUS MORNING HAVE I SEEN 40 + THE EXPENSE OF SPIRIT IN A WASTE OF SHAME 41 + FANCY 41 + FAIRIES 42 + COME AWAY 43 + FULL FATHOM FIVE 43 + DIRGE 44 + SONG 44 + SONG 45 +ANONYMOUS. + TOM O’ BEDLAM 45 +THOMAS CAMPION (_circa_ 1567–1620). + KIND ARE HER ANSWERS 46 + LAURA 47 + HER SACRED BOWER 48 + FOLLOW 49 + WHEN THOU MUST HOME 50 + WESTERN WIND 50 + FOLLOW YOUR SAINT 51 + CHERRY-RIPE 52 +THOMAS NASH (1567–1601?). + SPRING 53 +JOHN DONNE (1573–1631). + THIS HAPPY DREAM 53 + DEATH 54 + HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER 55 + THE FUNERAL 56 +RICHARD BARNEFIELD (1574?—?). + THE NIGHTINGALE 57 +BEN JONSON (1574–1637). + CHARIS’ TRIUMPH 58 + JEALOUSY 59 + EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H. 59 + HYMN TO DIANA 60 + ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER 60 + ECHO’S LAMENT FOR NARCISSUS 61 + AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN 61 + ELIZABETH’S CHAPEL +JOHN FLETCHER (1579–1625). + INVOCATION TO SLEEP, FROM VALENTINIAN 62 + TO BACCHUS 63 +JOHN WEBSTER (—?–1625). + SONG FROM THE DUCHESS OF MALFI 63 + SONG FROM THE DEVIL’S LAW-CASE 64 + IN EARTH, DIRGE FROM VITTORIA COROMBONA 64 +WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN (1585–1649). + SONG 65 + SLEEP, SILENCE’ CHILD 66 + TO THE NIGHTINGALE 67 + MADRIGAL I 67 + MADRIGAL II 68 +BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER (1586–1616)—(1579–1625). + I DIED TRUE 68 +FRANCIS BEAUMONT (1586–1616). + ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 69 +SIR FRANCIS KYNASTON (1587–1642). + TO CYNTHIA, ON CONCEALMENT OF HER BEAUTY 69 +NATHANIEL FIELD (1587–1638). + MATIN SONG 71 +GEORGE WITHER (1588–1667). + SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP! 71 +THOMAS CAREW (1589–1639). + SONG 74 + TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS 75 + AN HYMENEAL DIALOGUE 75 + INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED 76 +THOMAS DEKKER (—1638?). + LULLABY 77 + SWEET CONTENT 77 +THOMAS HEYWOOD (—1649?). + GOOD-MORROW 78 +ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674?). + TO DIANEME 79 + TO MEADOWS 79 + TO BLOSSOMS 80 + TO DAFFODILS 81 + TO VIOLETS 82 + TO PRIMROSES 82 + TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON 83 + TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME 84 + DRESS 84 + IN SILKS 85 + CORINNA’S GOING A-MAYING 85 + GRACE FOR A CHILD 86 + BEN JONSON 88 +GEORGE HERBERT (1593–1632). + HOLY BAPTISM 89 + VIRTUE 89 + UNKINDNESS 90 + LOVE 91 + THE PULLEY 91 + THE COLLAR 92 + LIFE 93 + MISERY 94 +JAMES SHIRLEY (1596–1666). + EQUALITY 97 +ANONYMOUS (_circa_ 1603). + LULLABY 98 +SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT (1605–1668). + MORNING 99 +EDMUND WALLER (1605–1687). + THE ROSE 99 +THOMAS RANDOLPH (1606–1634?). + HIS MISTRESS 100 +CHARLES BEST (—?). + A SONNET OF THE MOON 101 +JOHN MILTON (1608–1674). + HYMN ON CHRIST’S NATIVITY 101 + L’ALLEGRO 109 + IL PENSEROSO 113 + LYCIDAS 119 + ON HIS BLINDNESS 125 + ON HIS DECEASED WIFE 126 + ON SHAKESPEARE 126 + SONG ON MAY MORNING 127 + INVOCATION TO SABRINA, FROM COMUS 127 + INVOCATION TO ECHO, FROM COMUS 128 + THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, FROM COMUS 129 +JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE (1612–1650). + THE VIGIL OF DEATH 130 +RICHARD CRASHAW (1615?–1652). + ON A PRAYER-BOOK SENT TO MRS. M. R. 131 + TO THE MORNING 135 + LOVE’S HOROSCOPE 137 + ON MR. G. HERBERT’S BOOK 138 + WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS 139 + QUEM VIDISTIS PASTORES, ETC. 144 + MUSIC’S DUEL 149 + THE FLAMING HEART 154 +ABRAHAM COWLEY (1618–1667). + ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW 157 + HYMN TO THE LIGHT 159 +RICHARD LOVELACE (1618–1658). + TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WARS 163 + TO AMARANTHA 164 + LUCASTA 165 + TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON 166 + A GUILTLESS LADY IMPRISONED: AFTER PENANCED 167 + THE ROSE 168 +ANDREW MARVELL (1620–1678). + A HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND 169 + THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF FLOWERS 173 + THE NYMPH COMPLAINING OF DEATH OF HER FAWN 174 + THE DEFINITION OF LOVE 178 + THE GARDEN 179 +HENRY VAUGHAN (1621–1695). + THE DAWNING 182 + CHILDHOOD 183 + CORRUPTION 185 + THE NIGHT 186 + THE ECLIPSE 188 + THE RETREAT 188 + THE WORLD OF LIGHT 189 +SCOTTISH BALLADS. + HELEN OF KIRCONNELL 191 + THE WIFE OF USHER’S WELL 192 + THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW 194 + SWEET WILLIAM AND MAY MARGARET 197 + SIR PATRICK SPENS 199 + HAME, HAME, HAME 203 +BORDER BALLAD. + A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE 204 +JOHN DRYDEN (1631–1700). + ODE 205 +APHRA BEHN (1640–1689). + SONG, FROM ABDELAZAR 209 +JOSEPH ADDISON (1672–1719). + HYMN 209 +ALEXANDER POPE (1688–1744). + ELEGY 210 +WILLIAM COWPER (1731–1800). + LINES ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER’S PICTURE 213 +ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (1743–1825). + LIFE 217 +WILLIAM BLAKE (1757–1828). + THE LAND OF DREAMS 217 + THE PIPER 218 + HOLY THURSDAY 219 + THE TIGER 220 + TO THE MUSES 221 + LOVE’S SECRET 221 +ROBERT BURNS (1759–1796). + TO A MOUSE 222 + THE FAREWELL 224 +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770–1850). + WHY ART THOU SILENT? 225 + THOUGHTS OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND 226 + IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE 226 + ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 227 + O FRIEND! I KNOW NOT 227 + SURPRISED BY JOY 228 + TO TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE 228 + WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED 229 + THE WORLD 229 + UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802 230 + WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY 230 + THREE YEARS SHE GREW 231 + THE DAFFODILS 232 + THE SOLITARY REAPER 233 + ELEGIAC STANZAS 234 + TO H. C. 237 + ’TIS SAID THAT SOME HAVE DIED FOR LOVE 238 + THE PET LAMB 240 + STEPPING WESTWARD 243 + THE CHILDLESS FATHER 244 + ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY 245 +SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771–1832). + PROUD MAISEE 252 + A WEARY LOT IS THINE 252 + THE MAID OF NEIDPATH 253 +SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772–1834). + KUBLA KHAN 254 + YOUTH AND AGE 256 + THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 258 +WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775–1864). + ROSE AYLMER 281 + EPITAPH 282 + CHILD OF A DAY 282 +THOMAS CAMPBELL (1767–1844). + HOHENLINDEN 282 + EARL MARCH 283 +CHARLES LAMB (1775–1835). + HESTER 284 +ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (1784–1842). + A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA 285 +GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788–1823). + THE ISLES OF GREECE 286 +PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792–1822). + HELLAS 290 + WILD WITH WEEPING 291 + TO THE NIGHT 291 + TO A SKYLARK 293 + TO THE MOON 297 + THE QUESTION 297 + THE WANING MOON 298 + ODE TO THE WEST WIND 299 + RARELY, RARELY COMEST THOU 301 + THE INVITATION, TO JANE 303 + THE RECOLLECTION 305 + ODE TO HEAVEN 308 + LIFE OF LIFE 310 + AUTUMN 311 + STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES 312 + DIRGE FOR THE YEAR 313 + A WIDOW BIRD 314 + THE TWO SPIRITS 314 +JOHN KEATS (1795–1821). + LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 316 + ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER 318 + TO SLEEP 319 + THE GENTLE SOUTH 319 + LAST SONNET 320 + ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 320 + ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 323 + ODE TO AUTUMN 325 + ODE TO PSYCHE 326 + ODE TO MELANCHOLY 328 +HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796–1849). + SHE IS NOT FAIR 329 +NOTES 331 + + + + +ANONYMOUS +13TH CENTURY + + +THE FIRST CAROL + + + SUMMER is y-comen in! + Loud sing cuckoo! + Groweth seed and bloweth mead, + And springeth the wood new. + Sing cuckoo! cuckoo! + + Ewe bleateth after lamb, + Loweth cow after calf; + Bullock starteth, buck verteth; + Merry sing cuckoo! + Cuckoo! cuckoo! + Nor cease thou ever now. + Sing cuckoo now! + Sing cuckoo! + + + + +SIR WALTER RALEIGH +1552–1618 + + +VERSES BEFORE DEATH + + + EVEN such is time, that takes in trust + Our youth, our joys, our all we have, + And pays us but with earth and dust; + Who, in the dark and silent grave, + When we have wandered all our ways, + Shuts up the story of our days; + But from this earth, this grave, this dust, + My God shall raise me up, I trust! + + + + +EDMUND SPENSER +1553–1599 + + +EASTER + + + MOST glorious Lord of life! that on this day + Didst make thy triumph over death and sin; + And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away + Captivity then captive, us to win: + This glorious day, dear Lord, with joy begin, + And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, + Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, + May live for ever in felicity! + + And that thy love we weighing worthily, + May likewise love thee for the same again; + And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, + With love may one another entertain. + So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought; + Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. + + + +FRESH SPRING + + + FRESH Spring, the herald of love’s mighty king, + In whose coat-armour richly are displayed + All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring + In goodly colours gloriously arrayed: + Go to my love, where she is careless laid, + Yet in her winter bower not well awake; + Tell her the joyous time will not be stayed, + Unless she do him by the forelock take; + + Bid her therefore herself soon ready make, + To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew; + Where every one that misseth there her make + Shall be by him amerced with penance due. + Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime, + For none can call again the passed time. + + + +LIKE AS A SHIP + + + LIKE as a ship, that through the ocean wide, + By conduct of some star doth make her way, + When, as a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide, + Out of her course doth wander far astray! + So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray + Me to direct, with clouds is overcast, + Do wander now, in darkness and dismay, + Through hidden perils round about me placed; + + Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past, + My Helice, the loadstar of my life, + Will shine again, and look on me at last, + With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief: + Till then I wander, careful, comfortless, + In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness. + + + +EPITHALAMION + + + YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes + Been to me aiding, others to adorn, + Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rhymes, + That even the greatest did not greatly scorn + To hear their names sung in your simple lays, + But joyed in their praise; + And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn, + Which death, or love, or fortune’s wreck did raise, + Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn, + And teach the woods and waters to lament + Your doleful dreariment: + Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside; + And, having all your heads with garlands crowned, + Help me mine own love’s praises to resound; + Ne let the same of any be envied: + So Orpheus did for his own bride! + So I unto myself alone will sing; + The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring. + + Early, before the world’s light-giving lamp + His golden beam upon the hills doth spread, + Having dispersed the night’s uncheerful damp, + Do ye awake; and, with fresh lusty-head, + Go to the bower of my beloved love, + My truest turtle dove; + Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake, + And long since ready forth his mask to move, + With his bright tead that names with many a flake, + And many a bachelor to wait on him, + In their fresh garments trim. + Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight, + For lo! the wished day is come at last, + That shall, for all the pains and sorrows past, + Pay to her usury of long delight: + And, whilst she doth her dight, + Do ye to her of joy and solace sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. + + Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hear + Both of the rivers and the forests green, + And of the sea that neighbours to her near: + All with gay garlands goodly well beseen. + And let them also with them bring in hand + Another gay garland, + For my fair love, of lilies and of roses, + Bound truelove wise, with a blue silk riband. + And let them make great store of bridal posies, + And let them eke bring store of other flowers, + To deck the bridal bowers. + And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, + For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong, + Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along, + And diapred like the discoloured mead. + Which done, do at her chamber door await, + For she will waken straight; + The whiles do ye this song unto her sing, + The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring. + + Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heed + The silver scaly trouts do tend full well, + And greedy pikes which use therein to feed + (Those trouts and pikes all others do excel); + And ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake, + Where none do fishes take; + Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light, + And in his waters, which your mirror make, + Behold your faces as the crystal bright, + That when you come whereas my love doth lie, + No blemish she may spy. + And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the door, + That on the hoary mountain used to tower; + And the wild wolves, which seek them to devour, + With your steel darts do chase from coming near; + Be also present here, + To help to deck her, and to help to sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. + + Wake now, my love, awake! for it is time: + The Rosy Morn long since left Tithon’s bed, + All ready to her silver coach to climb; + And Phœbus ’gins to show his glorious head. + Hark! how the cheerful birds do chant their lays + And carol of love’s praise. + The merry Lark her matins sings aloft; + The Thrush replies; the Mavis descant plays: + The Ouzel shrills; the Ruddock warbles soft; + So goodly all agree, with sweet consent, + To this day’s merriment. + Ah! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long, + When meeter were that ye should now awake, + T’ await the coming of your joyous make, + And hearken to the birds’ love-learned song, + The dewy leaves among? + For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, + That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring. + + My love is now awake out of her dreams, + And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were + With darksome cloud, now show their goodly beams + More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear. + Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight, + Help quickly her to dight! + But first come, ye fair hours, which were begot, + In Jove’s sweet paradise, of Day and Night; + Which do the seasons of the year allot, + And all, that ever in this world is fair, + Do make and still repair: + And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen, + The which do still adorn her beauty’s pride, + Help to adorn my beautifullest bride: + And, as ye her array, still throw between + Some graces to be seen; + And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing, + The whiles the woods shall answer, and your echo ring. + + Now is my love all ready forth to come: + Let all the virgins therefore well await: + And ye, fresh boys, that tend upon her groom, + Prepare yourselves, for he is coming straight. + Set all your things in seemly good array, + Fit for so joyful day: + The joyfullest day that ever Sun did see. + Fair Sun! show forth thy favourable ray, + And let thy life-full heat not fervent be, + For fear of burning her sunshiny face, + Her beauty to disgrace. + O fairest Phœbus! father of the Muse! + If ever I did honour thee aright, + Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight, + Do not thy servant’s simple boon refuse; + But let this day, let this one day, be mine; + Let all the rest be thine. + Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing, + That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. + + Hark! how the minstrels ’gin to shrill aloud + Their merry Music that resounds from far, + The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling crowd, + That well agree withouten breach or jar. + But, most of all, the damsels do delight + When they their timbrels smite, + And thereunto do dance and carol sweet, + That all the senses they do ravish quite; + The whiles the boys run up and down the street, + Crying aloud with strong confused noise, + As if it were one voice, + Hymen! iö Hymen! Hymen, they do shout; + That even to the heavens their shouting shrill + Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill; + To which the people standing all about, + As in approvance, do thereto applaud, + And loud advance her laud; + And evermore they Hymen, Hymen! sing, + That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring. + + Lo! where she comes along with portly pace, + Like Phœbe, from her chamber of the East, + Arising forth to run her mighty race, + Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best. + So well it her beseems, that ye would ween + Some angel she had been. + Her long loose yellow locks like golden wire, + Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween, + Do like a golden mantle her attire; + And, being crowned with a garland green, + Seem like some maiden Queen. + Her modest eyes, abashed to behold + So many gazers as on her do stare, + Upon the lowly ground affixed are; + Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, + But blush to hear her praises sung so loud, + So far from being proud. + Nathless, do ye still loud her praises sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. + + Tell me, ye merchants’ daughters, did ye see + So fair a creature in your town before; + So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she, + Adorned with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store? + Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, + Her forehead ivory white, + Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath ruddied, + Her lips like cherries charming men to bite, + Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded, + Her paps like lilies budded, + Her snowy neck like to a marble tower; + And all her body like a palace fair, + Ascending up, with many a stately stair, + To honour’s seat and chastity’s sweet bower. + Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze, + Upon her so to gaze, + Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing, + To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring? + + But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, + The inward beauty of her lively spright, + Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree, + Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, + And stand astonished like to those which read + Medusa’s mazeful head. + There dwells sweet love, and constant chastity, + Unspotted faith, and comely womanhood, + Regard of honour, and mild modesty; + There virtue reigns as Queen in royal throne, + And giveth laws alone, + The which the base affections do obey, + And yield their services unto her will; + Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may + Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill. + Had ye once seen these her celestial treasures + And unrevealed pleasures, + Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing, + That all the woods should answer, and your echo ring. + + Open the temple gates unto my love, + Open them wide that she may enter in, + And all the posts adorn as doth behove, + And all the pillars deck with garlands trim, + For to receive this Saint with honour due, + That cometh in to you. + With trembling steps, and humble reverence, + She cometh in before th’ Almighty’s view; + Of her ye virgins learn obedience, + When so ye come into those holy places, + To humble your proud faces: + Bring her up to th’ high altar, that she may + The sacred ceremonies there partake, + The which do endless matrimony make; + And let the roaring organs loudly play + The praises of the Lord in lively notes; + The whiles, with hollow throats, + The choristers the joyous anthem sing, + That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring. + + Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, + Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, + And blesseth her with his two happy hands, + How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, + And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain, + Lake crimson dyed in grain: + That even th’ Angels, which continually + About the sacred altar do remain, + Forget their service and about her fly, + Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair, + The more they on it stare. + But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, + Are governed with goodly modesty, + That suffers not one look to glance awry, + Which may let in a little thought unsound. + Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand, + The pledge of all our band? + Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluja sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. + + Now all is done: bring home the Bride again; + Bring home the triumph of our victory: + Bring home with you the glory of her gain, + With joyance bring her and with jollity. + Never had man more joyful day than this, + Whom heaven would heap with bliss. + Make feast therefore now all this live-long day; + This day for ever to me holy is. + Pour out the wine without restraint or stay, + Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful! + Pour out to all that wull, + And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine, + That they may sweat, and drunken be withal. + Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal, + And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine; + And let the Graces dance unto the rest, + For they can do it best: + The whiles the maidens do their carol sing, + To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. + + Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town, + And leave your wonted labours for this day: + This day is holy; do ye write it down, + That ye for ever it remember may. + This day the sun is in his chiefest height, + With Barnaby the bright, + From whence declining daily by degrees, + He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, + When once the Crab behind his back he sees. + But for this time it ill ordained was, + To choose the longest day in all the year, + And shortest night, when longest fitter were: + Yet never day so long, but late would pass. + Ring ye the bells, to make it wear away, + And bonfires make all day; + And dance about them, and about them sing, + That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring! + + Ah! when will this long weary day have end, + And lend me leave to come unto my love? + How slowly do the hours their numbers spend; + How slowly does sad Time his feathers move! + Haste thee, O fairest Planet, to thy home, + Within the Western foam: + Thy tired steeds long since have need of rest. + Long though it be, at last I see it gloom, + And the bright evening-star with golden crest + Appear out of the East, + Fair child of beauty! glorious lamp of love! + That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead, + And guidest lovers through the night’s sad dread, + How cheerfully thou lookest from above, + And seem’st to laugh atween thy twinkling light, + As joying in the sight + Of these glad many, which for joy do sing, + That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring! + + Now cease, ye damsels, your delights forepast; + Enough it is that all the day was yours: + Now day is done, and night is nighing fast, + Now bring the Bride into the bridal bowers. + The night is come; now soon her disarray, + And in her bed her lay; + Lay her in lilies and in violets, + And silken curtains over her display, + And odoured sheets, and arras coverlets. + Behold how goodly my fair love does lie, + In proud humility! + Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took + In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass, + ’Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was, + With bathing in the Acidalian brook. + Now it is night, ye damsels may be gone, + And leave my love alone, + And leave likewise your former lay to sing: + The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring. + + Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected, + That long day’s labour dost at last defray, + And all my cares, which cruel Love collected, + Hast summed in one, and cancelled for aye: + Spread thy broad wing over my love and me, + That no man may us see; + And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, + From fear of peril and foul horror free. + Let no false treason seek us to entrap, + Nor any dread disquiet once annoy + The safety of our joy; + But let the night be calm, and quietsome, + Without tempestuous storms or sad affray: + Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay, + When he begot the great Tirynthian groom: + Or like as when he with thy self did lie + And begot Majesty. + And let the maids and young men cease to sing; + Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring. + + Let no lamenting cries nor doleful tears + Be heard all night within, nor yet without; + Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, + Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt. + Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, + Make sudden sad affrights; + Ne let house-fires, nor lightning’s helpless harms, + Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil sprights, + Ne let mischievous witches with their charms, + Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, + Fray us with things that be not: + Let not the shriek-owl nor the stork be heard, + Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells; + Nor damned ghosts, called up with mighty spells, + Nor grisly vultures, make us once afeard: + Ne let the unpleasant choir of frogs still croaking + Make us to wish their choking! + Let none of these their dreary accents sing; + Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring. + + But let still Silence true night-watches keep, + That sacred Peace may in assurance reign, + And timely Sleep, when it is time to sleep, + May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain; + The whiles an hundred little winged loves, + Like divers-feathered doves, + Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, + And in the secret dark, that none reproves, + Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spread + To filch away sweet snatches of delight, + Concealed through covert night. + Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will! + For greedy Pleasure, careless of your toys, + Thinks more upon her paradise of joys, + Then what ye do, albeit good or ill! + All night therefore attend your merry play, + For it will soon be day: + Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing; + Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring. + + Who is the same, which at my window peeps, + Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright? + Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps, + But walks about high heaven all the night? + O! fairest goddess, do thou not envy + My love with me to spy: + For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, + And for a fleece of wool, which privily + The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought, + His pleasures with thee wrought! + Therefore to us be favourable now; + And sith of women’s labours thou hast charge, + And generation goodly dost enlarge, + Incline thy will to effect our wishful vow, + And the chaste womb inform with timely seed, + That may our comfort breed: + Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing; + Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring. + + And thou, great Juno! which with awful might + The laws of wedlock still dost patronize, + And the religion of the faith first plight + With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize; + And eke for comfort often called art + Of women in their smart; + Eternally bind thou this lovely band, + And all thy blessings unto us impart. + And thou, glad Genius! in whose gentle hand + The bridal bower and genial bed remain, + Without blemish or stain; + And the sweet pleasures of their love’s delight + With secret aid dost succour and supply, + Till they bring forth the fruitful progeny; + Send us the timely fruit of this same night. + And thou, fair Hebe! and thou, Hymen free! + Grant that it may so be. + Till which we cease your further praise to sing; + Ne any woods shall answer, nor your echo ring. + + And ye high heavens, the Temple of the Gods, + In which a thousand torches flaming bright + Do burn, that to us wretched earthly clods + In dreadful darkness lend desired light; + And all ye powers which in the same remain, + More than we men can feign! + Pour out your blessing on us plenteously, + And happy influence upon us rain, + That we may raise a large posterity, + Which from the earth, which they may long possess + With lasting happiness, + Up to your haughty palaces may mount; + And, for the guerdon of their glorious merit, + May heavenly tabernacles there inherit, + Of blessed saints for to increase the count. + So let us rest, sweet Love, in hope of this, + And cease till then our timely joys to sing: + The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring! + + _Song_! _made in lieu of many ornaments_, + _With which my Love should duly have been decked_. + _Which cutting off through hasty accidents_, + _Ye would not stay your due time to expect_, + _But promised both to recompense_; + _Be unto her a goodly ornament_, + _And for short time an endless monument_. + + + + +JOHN LYLY +1554(?)–1606 + + +THE SPRING + + + WHAT bird so sings, yet does so wail? + O, ’tis the ravished nightingale! + ‘Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu,’ she cries, + And still her woes at midnight rise. + Brave prick-song! who is’t now we hear? + None but the lark so shrill and clear; + Now at heaven’s gate she claps her wings, + The morn not waking till she sings. + Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat + Poor robin-redbreast tunes his note; + Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing! + Cuckoo to welcome in the spring, + Cuckoo to welcome in the spring! + + + + +SIR PHILIP SIDNEY +1554–1586 + + +TRUE LOVE + + + MY true-love hath my heart, and I have his, + By just exchange one for the other given: + I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, + There never was a better bargain driven: + His heart in me keeps him and me in one, + My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: + He loves my heart, for once it was his own, + I cherish his because in me it bides: + His heart his wound received from my sight; + My heart was wounded with his wounded heart; + For as from me on him his hurt did light, + So still methought in me his hurt did smart: + Both, equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss. + My true-love hath my heart, and I have his. + + + +THE MOON + + + WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies! + How silently, and with how wan a face! + What, may it be that e’en in heavenly place + That busy archer his sharp arrows tries! + Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes + Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case; + I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace, + To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. + Then, e’en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, + Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? + Are beauties there as proud as here they be? + Do they above love to be loved, and yet + Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? + Do they call virtue, there, ungratefulness? + + + +KISS + + + LOVE still a boy and oft a wanton is, + Schooled only by his mother’s tender eye; + What wonder, then, if he his lesson miss, + When for so soft a rod dear play he try? + And yet my Star, because a sugared kiss + In sport I sucked while she asleep did lie, + Doth lower, nay chide, nay threat, for only this.— + Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I! + But no ’scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear + In Beauty’s throne; see now, who dares come near + Those scarlet judges, threatening bloody pain! + O heavenly fool, thy most kiss-worthy face + Anger invests with such a lovely grace, + That Anger’s self I needs must kiss again. + + + +SWEET JUDGE + + + ALAS! whence comes this change of looks? If I + Have changed desert, let mine own conscience be + A still-felt plague to self-condemning me, + Let woe gripe on my heart, shame load mine eye; + But if all faith, like spotless ermine, lie + Safe in my soul, which only doth to thee, + As his sole object of felicity, + With wings of love in air of wonder fly, + O ease your hand, treat not so hard your slave; + In justice, pains come not till faults do call: + Or if I needs, sweet Judge, must torments have, + Use something else to chasten me withal + Than those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwell: + No doom should make one’s heaven become his hell. + + + +SLEEP + + + COME, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, + The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, + The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, + The indifferent judge between the high and low; + With shield of proof shield me from out the prease + Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw: + O make in me those civil wars to cease; + I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. + Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, + A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, + A rosy garland and a weary head: + And if these things, as being thine in right, + Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me + Livelier than elsewhere Stella’s image see. + + + +WAT’RED WAS MY WINE + + + LATE tired with woe, even ready for to pine, + With rage of love, I called my love unkind; + She in whose eyes love, though unfelt, doth shine, + Sweet said that I true love in her should find. + I joyed; but straight thus wat’red was my wine, + That love she did, but loved a love not blind; + Which would not let me, whom she loved, decline + From nobler course, fit for my birth and mind: + And therefore, by her love’s authority, + Wiled me these tempests of vain love to fly, + And anchor fast myself on virtue’s shore. + Alas, if this the only metal be + Of love new-coined to help my beggary, + Dear, love me not, that you may love me more. + + + + +THOMAS LODGE +1556–1625 + + +ROSALYND’S MADRIGAL + + + LOVE in my bosom, like a bee, + Doth suck his sweet; + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet. + Within mines eyes he makes his nest, + His bed amidst my tender breast; + My kisses are his daily feast, + And yet he robs me of my rest: + Ah! wanton, will ye? + + And if I sleep, then percheth he + With pretty flight, + And makes his pillow of my knee + The livelong night. + Strike I my lute, he tunes the string; + He music plays if so I sing: + He lends me every lovely thing, + Yet cruel he my heart doth sting: + Whist, wanton, will ye? + + Else I with roses every day + Will whip you hence, + And bind you, when you long to play, + For your offence; + I’ll shut my eyes to keep you in, + I’ll make you fast it for your sin, + I’ll count your power not worth a pin: + Alas! what hereby shall I win, + If he gainsay me? + + What if I beat the wanton boy + With many a rod? + He will repay me with annoy, + Because a god. + Then sit thou safely on my knee, + And let thy bower my bosom be; + Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee! + O Cupid! so thou pity me, + Spare not, but play thee! + + + +ROSALINE + + + LIKE to the clear in highest sphere + Where all imperial glory shines, + Of selfsame colour is her hair + Whether unfolded, or in twines: + Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! + Her eyes are sapphires set in snow, + Resembling heaven by every wink; + The gods do fear whenas they glow, + And I do tremble when I think— + Heigh ho, would she were mine! + Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud + That beautifies Aurora’s face, + Or like the silver crimson shroud + That Phœbus’ smiling looks doth grace; + Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! + Her lips are like two budded roses + Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh, + Within which bounds she balm encloses + Apt to entice a deity: + Heigh ho, would she were mine! + + Her neck is like a stately tower + Where Love himself imprisoned lies, + To watch for glances every hour + From her divine and sacred eyes: + Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! + Her paps are centres of delight, + Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame, + Where Nature moulds the dew of light + To feed perfection with the same: + Heigh ho, would she were mine! + + With orient pearl, with ruby red, + With marble white, with sapphire blue + Her body every way is fed, + Yet soft in touch and sweet in view: + Heigh ho, fair Rosaline! + Nature herself her shape admires; + The gods are wounded in her sight; + And Love forsakes his heavenly fires + And at her eyes his brand doth light: + Heigh ho, would she were mine! + + Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan + The absence of fair Rosaline, + Since for a fair there’s fairer none, + Nor for her virtues so divine: + Heigh ho, fair Rosaline; + Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine! + + + +THE SOLITARY SHEPHERD’S SONG + + + O SHADY vale, O fair enriched meads, + O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising mountains; + O painted flowers, green herbs where Flora treads, + Refreshed by wanton winds and watery fountains! + + O all ye winged choristers of wood, + That perched aloft, your former pains report; + And straight again recount with pleasant mood + Your present joys in sweet and seemly sort! + + O all you creatures whosoever thrive + On mother earth, in seas, by air, by fire; + More blest are you than I here under sun! + Love dies in me, whenas he doth revive + In you; I perish under Beauty’s ire, + Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is won. + + + + +ANONYMOUS + + +I SAW MY LADY WEEP + + + I SAW my Lady weep, + And Sorrow proud to be advanced so + In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. + Her face was full of woe, + But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts + Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. + + Sorrow was there made fair, + And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing; + Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare: + She made her sighs to sing, + And all things with so sweet a sadness move + As made my heart at once both grieve and love. + + O fairer than aught else + The world can show, leave off in time to grieve! + Enough, enough: your joyful look excels: + Tears kill the heart, believe. + O strive not to be excellent in woe, + Which only breeds your beauty’s overthrow. + + + + +GEORGE PEELE +1558(?)–1597 + + +FAREWELL TO ARMS + + + HIS golden locks time hath to silver turned; + O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing! + His youth ’gainst age, and age at time, hath spurned, + But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing: + Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; + Duty, faith, love, are roots and ever green. + + His helmet now shall make an hive for bees, + And lovers’ sonnets turn to holy psalms; + A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, + And feed on prayers, that are old age’s alms: + But though from court to cottage he depart, + His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. + + And when he saddest sits in homely cell, + He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song,— + ‘Blessed be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, + Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong!’ + Goddess, allow this aged man his right + To be your beadsman now that was your knight. + + + + +ROBERT GREENE +1560(?)–1592 + + +FAWNIA + + + AH, were she pitiful as she is fair, + Or but as mild as she is seeming so, + Then were my hopes greater than my despair, + Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe! + Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand, + That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, + Then knew I where to seat me in a land + Under wide heavens, but yet I know not such. + So as she shows, she seems the budding rose, + Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower, + Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows, + Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower; + Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn, + She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn. + + Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, + For none must be compared to her note; + Ne’er breathed such glee from Philomela’s bill, + Nor from the morning-singer’s swelling throat. + Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed, + She comforts all the world, as doth the sun, + And at her sight the night’s foul vapour’s fled; + When she is set, the gladsome day is done. + O glorious sun, imagine me thy west, + Shine in mine arms, and set thou in my breast! + + + +SEPHESTIA’S SONG TO HER CHILD + + + WEEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee. + Mother’s wag, pretty boy, + Father’s sorrow, father’s joy; + When thy father first did see + Such a boy by him and me, + He was glad, I was woe, + Fortune changed made him so, + When he left his pretty boy + Last his sorrow, first his joy. + + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee. + Streaming tears that never stint, + Like pearl drops from a flint, + Fell by course from his eyes, + That one another’s place supplies; + Thus he grieved in every part, + Tears of blood fell from his heart, + When he left his pretty boy, + Father’s sorrow, father’s joy. + + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee. + The wanton smiled, father wept, + Mother cried, baby leapt; + More he crowed, more we cried, + Nature could not sorrow hide: + He must go, he must kiss + Child and mother, baby bless, + For he left his pretty boy, + Father’s sorrow, father’s joy. + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee. + + + + +CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE +1562–1593 + + +THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE + + + COME live with me and be my Love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and valleys, dale and field, + And all the craggy mountains yield. + + There will we sit upon the rocks + And see the shepherds feed their flocks, + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals. + + There will I make thee beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies, + A cap of flowers, and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + A gown made of the finest wool, + Which from our pretty lambs we pull, + Fair lined slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold. + + A belt of straw and ivy buds + With coral clasps and amber studs: + And if these pleasures may thee move, + Come live with me and be my Love. + + Thy silver dishes for thy meat + As precious as the gods do eat, + Shall on an ivory table be + Prepared each day for thee and me. + + The shepherd swains shall dance and sing + For thy delight each May-morning; + If these delights thy mind may move, + Then live with me and be my Love. + + + + +SAMUEL DANIEL +1562–1619 + + +SLEEP + + + CARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night, + Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, + Relieve my languish, and restore the light; + With dark forgetting of my care return. + And let the day be time enough to mourn + The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: + Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, + Without the torment of the night’s untruth. + Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires, + To model forth the passions of the morrow; + Never let rising Sun approve you liars, + To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow: + Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, + And never wake to feel the day’s disdain. + + + +MY SPOTLESS LOVE + + + MY spotless love hovers with purest wings + About the temple of the proudest frame, + Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things, + Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame. + My ambitious thoughts, confined in her face, + Affect no honour but what she can give; + My hopes do rest in limits of her grace; + I weigh no comfort unless she relieve. + For she that can my heart imparadise, + Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is, + My fortune’s wheel’s the circle of her eyes, + Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss! + All my life’s sweet consists in her alone; + So much I love the most Unloving One. + + + + +MICHAEL DRAYTON +1563–1631 + + +SINCE THERE’S NO HELP + + + SINCE there’s no help, come let us kiss and part,— + Nay I have done, you get no more of me; + And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, + That thus so cleanly I myself can free; + Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, + And when we meet at any time again, + Be it not seen in either of our brows, + That we one jot of former love retain. + Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath, + When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, + When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, + And innocence is closing up his eyes, + —Now if thou would’st, when all have given him over, + From death to life thou might’st him yet recover! + + + + +JOSHUA SYLVESTER +1563–1618 + + +WERE I AS BASE + + + WERE I as base as is the lowly plain, + And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, + Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain + Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love. + Were I as high as heaven above the plain, + And you, my Love, as humble and as low + As are the deepest bottoms of the main, + Wheresoe’er you were, with you my love should go. + Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies, + My love should shine on you like to the sun, + And look upon you with ten thousand eyes + Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. + Wheresoe’er I am, below, or else above you, + Wheresoe’er you are, my heart shall truly love you. + + + + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE +1564–1616 + + + POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth, + [Foiled by] those rebel powers that thee array, + Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, + Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? + Why so large cost, having so short a lease, + Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? + Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, + Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end? + Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss, + And let that pine to aggravate thy store; + Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; + Within be fed, without be rich no more:— + So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, + And death once dead, there’s no more dying then. + + O ME! what eyes hath Love put in my head + Which have no correspondence with true sight; + Or if they have, where is my judgment fled + That censures falsely what they see aright? + If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, + What means the world to say it is not so? + If it be not, then love doth well denote + Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: No, + How can it? O how can love’s eye be true, + That is so vexed with watching and with tears? + No marvel then though I mistake my view: + The sun itself sees not till heaven clears. + O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind, + Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find! + + SHALL I compare thee to a summer’s day? + Thou art more lovely and more temperate: + Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, + And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: + Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, + And often is his gold complexion dimmed; + And every fair from fair sometime declines, + By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed. + But thy eternal summer shall not fade + Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; + Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, + When in eternal lines to time thou growest:— + So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, + So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. + + WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time + I see descriptions of the fairest wights, + And beauty making beautiful old rhyme + In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights; + Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best + Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, + I see their antique pen would have exprest + Ev’n such a beauty as you master now, + So all their praises are but prophecies + Of this our time, all, you prefiguring; + And for they looked but with divining eyes, + They had not skill enough your worth to sing: + For we, which now behold these present days, + Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. + + THAT time of year thou may’st in me behold + When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang + Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, + Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang: + In me thou see’st the twilight of such day + As after sunset fadeth in the west, + Which by and by black night doth take away, + Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest: + In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire + That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, + As the death-bed whereon it must expire, + Consumed with that which it was nourished by: + This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, + To love that well which thou must leave ere long. + + HOW like a winter hath my absence been + From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year! + What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, + What old December’s bareness everywhere! + And yet this time removed was summer’s time: + The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, + Bearing the wanton burden of the prime + Like widowed wombs after their lord’s decease: + Yet this abundant issue seemed to me + But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit; + For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, + And, thou away, the very birds are mute; + Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer, + That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near. + + BEING your slave, what should I do but tend + Upon the hours and times of your desire? + I have no precious time at all to spend + Nor services to do, till you require: + Nor dare I chide the world-without-end-hour + Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, + Nor think the bitterness of absence sour + When you have bid your servant once adieu: + Nor dare I question with my jealous thought + Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, + But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought + Save, where you are how happy you make those;— + So true a fool is love, that in your will + Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. + + WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes + I all alone beweep my outcast state, + And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, + And look upon myself and curse my fate; + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, + Desiring this man’s heart, and that man’s scope, + With what I most enjoy contented least; + Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, + Haply I think on Thee—and then my state, + Like to the lark at break of day arising + From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate; + For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings + That then I scorn to change my state with kings. + + THEY that have power to hurt, and will do none, + That do not do the thing they most do show, + Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, + Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,— + They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces, + And husband nature’s riches from expense; + They are the lords and owners of their faces, + Others, but stewards of their excellence. + The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet, + Though to itself it only live and die; + But if that flower with base infection meet, + The basest weed outbraves his dignity: + For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; + Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. + + FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing, + And like enough thou know’st thy estimate: + The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; + My bonds in thee are all determinate. + For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? + And for that riches where is my deserving? + The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, + And so my patent back again is swerving. + Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing, + Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking; + So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, + Comes home again, on better judgment making. + Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter; + In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter. + + WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought + I summon up remembrance of things past, + I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, + And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste; + Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, + For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, + And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe, + And moan the expense of many a vanished sight. + Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, + And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er + The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan, + Which I new pay as if not paid before: + But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, + All losses are restored, and sorrows end. + + DID not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye + ’Gainst whom the world could not hold argument, + Persuade my heart to this false perjury? + Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. + A woman I forswore; but I will prove, + Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: + My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; + Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me. + My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is; + Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine, + Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is: + If broken, then it is no fault of mine. + If by me broke, what fool is not so wise + To break an oath, to win a paradise? + + THE forward violet thus did I chide: + Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, + If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride + Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells + In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed. + The lily I condemned for thy hand, + And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair: + The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, + One blushing shame, another white despair; + A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both + And to his robbery had annexed thy breath; + But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth + A vengeful canker eat him up to death. + More flowers I noted, yet I none could see + But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee. + + O, LEST the world should task you to recite + What merit lived in me, that you should love + After my death, dear love, forget me quite, + For you in me can nothing worthy prove; + Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, + To do more for me than mine own desert, + And hang more praise upon deceased I + Than niggard truth would willingly impart: + O, lest your true love may seem false in this, + That you for love speak well of me untrue, + My name be buried where my body is, + And live no more to shame nor me nor you. + For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, + And so should you, to love things nothing worth. + + LET me not to the marriage of true minds + Admit impediments. Love is not love + Which alters when it alteration finds, + Or bends with the remover to remove: + O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark + That looks on tempests and is never shaken; + It is the star to every wandering bark, + Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. + Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks + Within his bending sickle’s compass come; + Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, + But bears it out even to the edge of doom. + If this be error and upon me proved, + I never writ, nor no man ever loved. + + HOW oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, + Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds + With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st + The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, + Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap + To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, + Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, + At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand! + To be so tickled, they would change their state + And situation with those dancing chips, + O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, + Making dead wood more blest than living lips. + Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, + Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. + + FULL many a glorious morning have I seen + Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, + Kissing with golden face the meadows green, + Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; + Anon permit the basest clouds to ride + With ugly rack on his celestial face, + And from the forlorn world his visage hide, + Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: + Even so my sun one early morn did shine + With all-triumphant splendour on my brow, + But out, alack! he was but one hour mine; + The region cloud hath masked him from me now. + Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth: + Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth. + + THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame + Is lust in action; and till action, lust + Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, + Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, + Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight, + Past reason hunted, and no sooner had + Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait + On purpose laid to make the taker mad; + Mad in pursuit and in possession so; + Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; + A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; + Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. + All this the world well knows; yet none knows well + To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. + + + +FANCY + + + TELL me where is Fancy bred, + Or in the heart, or in the head? + How begot, how nourished? + Reply, reply. + + It is engendered in the eyes; + With gazing fed; and Fancy dies + In the cradle where it lies: + Let us all ring Fancy’s knell; + I’ll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell. + Ding, dong, bell. + + + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + + UNDER the greenwood tree + Who loves to lie with me, + And tune his merry note + Unto the sweet bird’s throat— + Come hither, come hither, come hither! + Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather. + + Who doth ambition shun + And loves to live i’ the sun, + Seeking the food he eats + And pleased with what he gets— + Come hither, come hither, come hither! + Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather. + + + +FAIRIES + + + COME unto these yellow sands, + And then take hands: + Courtsied when you have, and kissed, + The wild waves whist, + Foot it featly here and there; + And sweet Sprites the burthen bear. + Hark, hark! + Bow-bow. + The watch-dogs bark: + Bow-wow. + Hark, hark! I hear + The strain of strutting chanticleer + Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow! + + + +COME AWAY + + + COME away, come away, Death, + And in sad cypres let me be laid; + Fly away, fly away, breath; + I am slain by a fair cruel maid. + My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, + O prepare it! + My part of death, no one so true + Did share it. + + Not a flower, not a flower sweet + On my black coffin let there be strown; + Not a friend, not a friend greet + My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown; + A thousand, thousand sighs to save, + Lay me, O where + Sad true lover ne’er may find my grave + To weep there. + + + +FULL FATHOM FIVE + + + FULL fathom five thy father lies; + Of his bones are coral made; + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that doth fade, + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange. + Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: + Hark! now I hear them,— + Ding, dong, bell. + + + +DIRGE + + + FEAR no more the heat o’ the sun + Nor the furious winter’s rages; + Thou thy worldly task hast done, + Home art gone and ta’en thy wages: + Golden lads and girls all must, + As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. + + Fear no more the frown o’ the great, + Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke; + Care no more to clothe and eat; + To thee the reed is as the oak: + The sceptre, learning, physic, must + All follow this, and come to dust. + + Fear no more the lightning-flash + Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; + Fear not slander, censure rash; + Thou hast finished joy and moan: + All lovers young, all lovers must + Consign to thee, and come to dust. + + + +SONG + + + TAKE, O take those lips away + That so sweetly were forsworn, + And those eyes, the break of day, + Lights that do mislead the morn: + But my kisses bring again, + Bring again— + Seals of love, but sealed in vain, + Sealed in vain! + + Hide, O hide those hills of snow, + Which thy frozen bosom bears, + On whose tops the pinks that grow + Are of those that April wears. + But first set my poor heart free + Bound in those icy chains by thee. + + + +SONG + + + How should I your true love know + From another one? + By his cockle hat and staff + And his sandal shoon. + + He is dead and gone, lady, + He is dead and gone; + And at his head a green grass turf + And at his heels a stone. + + White his shroud as mountain snow, + Larded with sweet showers, + Which bewept to the grave did go, + With true love showers. + + + + +ANONYMOUS + + +TOM O’ BEDLAM + + + THE morn’s my constant mistress, + And the lovely owl my marrow; + The naming drake, + And the night-crow, make + Me music to my sorrow. + + I know more than Apollo; + For oft when he lies sleeping, + I behold the stars + At mortal wars, + And the rounded welkin weeping. + + The moon embraces her shepherd, + And the Queen of Love her warrior; + While the first does horn + The stars of the morn, + And the next the heavenly farrier. + + With a heart of furious fancies, + Whereof I am commander: + With a burning spear, + And a horse of air, + To the wilderness I wander; + + With a Knight of ghosts and shadows, + I summoned am to Tourney: + Ten leagues beyond + The wide world’s end; + Methinks it is no journey. + + + + +THOMAS CAMPION +_Circ._ 1567–1620 + + +KIND ARE HER ANSWERS + + + KIND are her answers, + But her performance keeps no day; + Breaks time, as dancers + From their own music when they stray. + All her free favours and smooth words + Wing my hopes in vain. + O, did ever voice so sweet but only feign? + Can true love yield such delay, + Converting joy to pain? + + Lost is our freedom + When we submit to women so: + Why do we need ’em + When, in their best, they work our woe? + There is no wisdom + Can alter ends by fate prefixt. + O, why is the good of man with evil mixt? + Never were days yet called two + But one night went betwixt. + + + +LAURA + + + ROSE-CHEEKED Laura, come; + Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty’s + Silent music, either other + Sweetly gracing. + + Lovely forms do flow + From concent divinely framed; + Heaven is music, and thy beauty’s + Birth is heavenly. + + These dull notes we sing + Discords need for helps to grace them, + Only beauty purely loving + Knows no discord. + + But still moves delight, + Like clear springs renewed by flowing, + Ever perfect, ever in them- + Selves eternal. + + + +HER BACKED BOWER + + + WHERE she her sacred bower adorns + The rivers clearly flow, + The groves and meadows swell with flowers, + The winds all gently blow. + Her sun-like beauty shines so fair, + Her spring can never fade. + Who then can blame the life that strives + To harbour in her shade? + + Her grace I sought, her love I wooed; + Her love though I obtain, + No time, no toil, no vow, no faith + Her wished grace can gain. + Yet truth can tell my heart is hers + And her will I adore; + And from that love when I depart + Let heaven view me no more! + + Her roses with my prayers shall spring; + And when her trees I praise, + Their boughs shall blossom, mellow fruit + Shall straw her pleasant ways. + The words of hearty zeal have power + High wonders to effect; + O, why should then her princely ear + My words or zeal neglect? + + If she my faith misdeems, or worth, + Woe worth my hapless fate! + For though time can my truth reveal, + That time will come too late. + And who can glory in the worth + That cannot yield him grace? + Content in everything is not, + Nor joy in every place. + + But from her Bower of Joy since I + Must now excluded be, + And she will not relieve my cares, + Which none can help but she; + My comfort in her love shall dwell, + Her love lodge in my breast, + And though not in her bower, yet I + Shall in her temple rest. + + + +FOLLOW + + + FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow, + Though thou be black as night, + And she made all of light; + Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow! + + Follow her whose light thy light depriveth; + Though here thou live disgraced + And she in heaven is placed; + Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth. + + Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth + That so have scorched thee + As thou still black must be, + Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth. + + Follow her while yet her glory shineth; + There comes a luckless night + That will dim all her light; + And this the black unhappy shade divineth. + + Follow still since so thy fates ordained; + The sun must have his shade, + Till both at once do fade; + The sun still proved, the shadow still disdained. + + + +WHEN THOU MUST HOME + + + WHEN thou must home to shades of underground, + And there arrived, a new admired guest, + The beauteous spirits do engird thee round, + White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, + To hear the stories of thy finished love, + From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move; + Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, + Of masks and revels which sweet youth did make, + Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, + And all these triumphs for thy beauties’ sake: + When thou hast told these honours done to thee, + Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murther me. + + + +WESTERN WIND + + + THE peaceful western wind + The winter storms hath tamed, + And nature in each kind + The kind heat hath inflamed: + The forward buds so sweetly breathe + Out of their earthly bowers, + That heav’n, which views their pomp beneath, + Would fain be decked with flowers. + + See how the morning smiles + On her bright eastern hill, + And with soft steps beguiles + Them that lie slumbering still! + The music-loving birds are come + From cliffs and rocks unknown, + To see the trees and briars bloom + That late were overflown. + + What Saturn did destroy, + Love’s Queen revives again; + And now her naked boy + Doth in the fields remain, + Where he such pleasing change doth view + In every living thing, + As if the world were born anew + To gratify the Spring. + + If all things life present, + Why die my comforts then? + Why suffers my content? + Am I the worst of men? + O beauty, be not thou accus’d + Too justly in this case! + Unkindly if true love be used, + ’Twill yield thee little grace. + + + +FOLLOW YOUR SAINT + + + FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet! + Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet! + There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move, + And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love; + But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, + Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er return again. + + All that I sang still to her praise did tend, + Still she was first, still she my songs did end; + Yet she my love and music both doth fly, + The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy. + Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight! + It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight. + + + +CHERRY-RIPE + + + THERE is a garden in her face + Where roses and white lilies blow; + A heavenly paradise is that place, + Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow; + There cherries grow that none may buy, + Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry. + + Those cherries fairly do enclose + Of orient pearl a double row, + Which when her lovely laughter shows, + They look like rosebuds filled with snow: + Yet them no peer nor prince may buy, + Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry. + + Her eyes like angels watch them still; + Her brows like bended bows do stand, + Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill + All that approach with eye or hand + These sacred cherries to come nigh, + Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry! + + + + +THOMAS NASH +1567–1601 + + +SPRING + + + SPRING, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king; + Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring; + Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, + Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo. + + The palm and may make country-houses gay, + Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, + And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay, + Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo. + + The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, + Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit; + In every street these tunes our ears do greet, + Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo. + Spring, the sweet Spring! + + + + +JOHN DONNE +1573–1631 + + +THIS HAPPY DREAM + + + DEAR love, for nothing less than thee + Would I have broke this happy dream; + It was a theme + For reason, much too strong for fantasy. + Therefore thou wak’dst me wisely; yet + My dream thou brok’st not but continu’dst it: + Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice + To make dreams truth, and fables histories; + Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best + Not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest. + + As lightning or a taper’s light, + Thine eyes, and not thy noise, waked me. + Yet I thought thee + (For thou lov’st truth) an angel at first sight; + But when I saw thou saw’st my heart, + And knew’st my thoughts beyond an angel’s art, + When thou knew’st what I dreamt, then thou knew’st when + Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then; + I must confess, it could not choose but be + Profane to think thee anything but thee. + + Coming and staying showed thee thee, + But rising makes me doubt, that now + Thou art not thou. + That love is weak, where fear’s as strong as he; + ’Tis not all spirit, pure and brave, + If mixture it of fear, shame, honour, have. + Perchance as torches, which must ready be, + Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with me; + Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come: then I + Will dream that hope again, but else would die. + + + +DEATH + + + 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 picture be, + Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; + And soonest our best men with thee do go, + Rest of their bones, and soul’s 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. + + + +HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER + + + WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun, + Which was my sin, though it were done before? + Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run, + And do run still, though still I do deplore? + When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I have won + Others to sin, and made my sins their door? + Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun + A year or two and wallowed in a score? + When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun + My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; + But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son + Shall shine, as He shines now and heretofore. + And having done that, Thou hast done; + I fear no more. + + + +THE FUNERAL + + + WHOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm + Nor question much + That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm; + The mystery, the sign, you must not touch, + For ’tis my outward soul, + Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone, + Will leave this to control + And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. + + But if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall + Through every part, + Can tie those parts and make me one of all; + The hairs, which upward grew, and strength and art + Have from a better brain, + Can better do’t; except she meant that I + By this should know my pain, + As prisoners are manacled when they’re condemned to die. + + Whate’er she meant by’t, bury it with me; + For since I am + Love’s martyr, it might breed idolatry + If into others’ hands these relics came. + As ’twas humility + To afford to it all that a soul can do, + So ’twas some bravery + That since you would have none of me, I bury some of you. + + + + +RICHARD BARNEFIELD +1574(?)–(?) + + +THE NIGHTINGALE + + + AS it fell upon a day + In the merry month of May, + Sitting in a pleasant shade + Which a grove of myrtles made, + Beasts did leap and birds did sing, + Trees did grow and plants did spring; + Everything did banish moan + Save the Nightingale alone. + She, poor bird, as all forlorn, + Leaned her breast up-till a thorn, + And there sung the dolefull’st ditty + That to hear it was great pity. + Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry; + Teru, teru, by and by: + That to hear her so complain + Scarce I could from tears refrain; + For her griefs so lively shown + Made me think upon mine own. + —Ah, thought I, thou mourn’st in vain, + None takes pity on thy pain: + Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee, + Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapped in lead: + All thy fellow birds do sing + Careless of thy sorrowing: + Even so, poor bird, like thee + None alive will pity me. + + + + +BEN JONSON +1574–1637 + + +CHARIS’ TRIUMPH + + + SEE the chariot at hand here of Love, + Wherein my lady rideth! + Each that draws is a swan or a dove, + And well the car Love guideth. + As she goes all hearts do duty + Unto her beauty; + And enamoured do wish, so they might + But enjoy such a sight, + That they still were to run by her side, + Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. + + Do but look on her eyes, they do light + All that love’s world compriseth! + Do but look on her, she is bright + As love’s star when it riseth! + Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother + Than words that soothe her! + And from her arched brows, such a grace + Sheds itself through the face, + As alone there triumphs to the life + All the gain, all the good of the elements’ strife. + + Have you seen but a bright lily grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you marked but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutched it? + Have you felt the wool of the beaver, + Or swan’s down ever? + Or have smelled o’ the bud o’ the brier? + Or the nard in the fire? + Or have tasted the bag of the bee? + O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she! + + + +JEALOUSY + + + WRETCHED and foolish jealousy, + How cam’st thou thus to enter me? + I ne’er was of thy kind: + Nor have I yet the narrow mind + To vent that poor desire, + That others should not warm them at my fire: + I wish the sun should shine + On all men’s fruits and flowers as well as mine. + + But under the disguise of love, + Thou say’st thou only cam’st to prove + What my affections were. + Think’st thou that love is helped by fear? + Go, get thee quickly forth, + Love’s sickness and his noted want of worth, + Seek doubting men to please. + I ne’er will owe my health to a disease. + + + +EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H. + + + WOULDST thou hear what many say + In a little?—reader, stay. + + Underneath this stone doth lie + As much beauty as could die; + Which in life did harbour give + To more virtue than doth live. + If at all she had a fault, + Leave it buried in this vault. + One name was Elizabeth, + The other, let it sleep with death: + Fitter where it died to tell + Than that it lived at all. Farewell! + + + +HYMN TO DIANA + + + QUEEN and Huntress, chaste and fair, + Now the sun is laid to sleep, + Seated in thy silver chair + State in wonted manner keep: + Hesperus entreats thy light, + Goddess excellently bright! + + Earth, let not thy envious shade + Dare itself to interpose; + Cynthia’s shining orb was made + Heaven to clear when day did close: + Bless us then with wished sight, + Goddess excellently bright! + + Lay thy bow of pearl apart, + And thy crystal-shining quiver; + Give unto the flying hart + Space to breathe, how short soever: + Thou that mak’st a day of night, + Goddess excellently bright! + + + +ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER + + + HERE lies to each her parent’s ruth, + Mary, the daughter of their youth: + Yet all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s due, + It makes the father less to rue. + At six months’ end she parted hence + With safety of her innocence; + Whose soul Heaven’s Queen (whose name she bears), + In comfort of her mother’s tears, + Hath placed among her virgin train: + Where, while that severed doth remain, + This grave partakes the fleshly birth, + Which cover lightly, gentle earth. + + + +ECHO’S LAMENT FOB NARCISSUS + + + SLOW, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; + Yet, slower yet; O faintly, gentle springs; + List to the heavy part the music bears; + Woe weeps out her division when she sings. + Droop herbs and flowers; + Fall grief in showers, + Our beauties are not ours; + O, I could still, + Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, + Drop, drop, drop, drop, + Since nature’s pride is now a withered daffodil. + + + +AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CHAPEL + + + WEEP with me, all you that read + This little story; + And know, for whom a tear you shed + Death’s self is sorry. + It was a child that so did thrive + In grace and feature, + As Heaven and Nature seemed to strive + Which owned the creature. + Years he numbered scarce thirteen + When fates turned cruel, + Yet three filled zodiacs had he been + The stage’s jewel; + And did act (what now we moan) + Old men so duly, + Ah, sooth, the Parcae thought him one— + He played so truly. + So by error to his fate + They all consented, + But viewing him since, alas, too late + They have repented; + And have sought, to give new birth, + In baths to steep him; + But being much too good for earth, + Heaven vows to keep him. + + + + +JOHN FLETCHER +1579–1625 + + +INVOCATION TO SLEEP, FROM VALENTINIAN + + + CARE-CHARMING Sleep, thou easer of all woes, + Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose + On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud + In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud + Or painful to his slumbers;—easy, sweet, + And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, + Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain + Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain; + Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide + And kiss him into slumbers like a bride! + + + +TO BACCHUS + + + GOD LYÆUS, ever young, + Ever honoured, ever sung; + Stained with blood of lusty grapes + In a thousand lusty shapes; + Dance upon the mazer’s brim, + In the crimson liquor swim; + From thy plenteous hand divine, + Let a river run with wine: + God of Youth, let this day here + Enter neither care nor fear. + + + + +JOHN WEBSTER +(?)–1625 + + +SONG FROM THE DUCHESS OF MALFI + + + HARK, now everything is still, + The screech-owl and the whistler shrill + Call upon our dame aloud, + And bid her quickly don her shroud: + + Much you had of land and rent, + Your length in clay’s now competent; + A long war disturbed your mind, + Here your perfect peace is signed. + Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping? + Sin their conception, their birth weeping, + Their life a general mist of error, + Their death a hideous storm of terror. + Strew your hair with powders sweet, + Don clean linen, bathe your feet, + And (the foul fiend more to check) + A crucifix let bless your neck; + ’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day; + End your groan and come away. + + + +SONG FROM THE DEVIL’S LAW-CASE + + + ALL the flowers of the spring + Meet to perfume our burying; + These have but their growing prime, + And man does flourish but his time. + Survey our progress from our birth; + We’re set, we grow, we turn to earth, + Courts adieu, and all delights, + All bewitching appetites! + Sweetest breath and clearest eye, + Like perfumes, go out and die; + And consequently this is done + As shadows wait upon the sun. + Vain the ambition of kings + Who seek by trophies and dead things + To leave a living name behind, + And weave but nets to catch the wind. + + + +IN EARTH, DIRGE FROM VITTORIA COROMBONA + + + CALL for the robin-redbreast and the wren, + Since o’er shady groves they hover, + And with leaves and flowers do cover + The friendless bodies of unburied men. + Call unto his funeral dole + The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole + To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm + And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm; + But keep the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men, + For with his nails he’ll dig them up again. + + + + +WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN +1585–1649 + + +SONG + + + PHŒBUS, arise! + And paint the sable skies + With azure, white, and red: + Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed + That she thy càreer may with roses spread: + The nightingales thy coming each-where sing: + Make an eternal Spring! + Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; + Spread forth thy golden hair + In larger locks than thou wast wont before, + And emperor-like decore + With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: + Chase hence the ugly night + Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light. + + This is that happy morn, + That day, long-wished day + Of all my life so dark + (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn + And fates not hope betray), + Which, purely white, deserves + An everlasting diamond should it mark. + This is the morn should bring unto this grove + My Love, to hear and recompense my love. + Fair king, who all preserves, + But show thy blushing beams, + And thou two sweeter eyes + Shalt see than those which by Peneus’ streams + Did once thy heart surprise. + Nay, suns, which shine as clear + As thou, when two thou didst to Rome appear. + Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise: + If that ye winds would hear + A voice surpassing far Amphion’s lyre, + Your stormy chiding stay; + Let Zephyr only breathe, + And with her tresses play, + Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death. + —The winds all silent are, + And Phœbus in his chair + Ensaffroning sea and air + Makes vanish every star: + Night like a drunkard reels + Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels: + The fields with flowers are decked in every hue, + The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue; + Here is the pleasant place— + And nothing wanting is, save She, alas! + + + +SLEEP, SILENCE’ CHILD + + + SLEEP, Silence’ child, sweet father of soft rest, + Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings, + Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, + Sole comforter of minds with grief oppressed; + Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things + Lie slumb’ring, with forgetfulness possessed, + And yet o’er me to spread thy drowsy wings + Thou sparest, alas! who cannot be thy guest. + Since I am thine, O come, but with that face + To inward light which thou art wont to show; + With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe; + Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, + Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath: + I long to kiss the image of my death. + + + +TO THE NIGHTINGALE + + + DEAR chorister, who from these shadows sends, + Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light, + Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends, + Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight: + If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, + Who ne’er, not in a dream, did taste delight, + May thee importune who like care pretends, + And seems to joy in woe, in woe’s despite; + Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try, + And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, + Sith, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky + Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? + The bird, as if my question did her move, + With trembling wings sobbed forth, ‘I love! I love!’ + + + +MADRIGAL I + + + LIKE the Idalian queen, + Her hair about her eyne, + With neck and breast’s ripe apples to be seen, + At first glance of the morn, + In Cyprus’ gardens gathering those fair flowers + Which of her blood were born, + I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours. + The graces naked danced about the place, + The winds and trees amazed + With silence on her gazed; + The flowers did smile, like those upon her face, + And as their aspen stalks those fingers band, + That she might read my case + A hyacinth I wished me in her hand. + + + +MADRIGAL II + + + THE beauty and the life + Of life’s and beauty’s fairest paragon, + O tears! O grief! hung at a feeble thread + To which pale Atropos had set her knife; + The soul with many a groan + Had left each outward part, + And now did take its last leave of the heart; + Nought else did want, save death, even to be dead; + When the afflicted band about her bed, + Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes, + Cried, ‘Ah! and can death enter paradise?’ + + + + +BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER +1586–1616 AND 1579–1625 + + +I DIED TRUE + + + LAY a garland on my hearse + Of the dismal yew; + Maidens willow branches bear; + Say, I die true. + + My love was false, but I was firm + From my hour of birth. + Upon my buried body lie + Lightly, gentle earth. + + + + +FRANCIS BEAUMONT +1586–1616 + + +ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + + MORTALITY, behold and fear! + What a change of flesh is here! + Think how many royal bones + Sleep within these heaps of stones; + Here they lie, had realms and lands, + Who now want strength to stir their hands; + Where from their pulpits sealed with dust + They preach, ‘In greatness is no trust.’ + Here’s an acre sown indeed + With the richest royallest seed + That the earth did e’er suck in + Since the first man died for sin: + Here the bones of birth have cried, + ‘Though gods they were, as men they died!’ + Here are sands, ignoble things, + Dropt from the ruined sides of kings: + Here’s a world of pomp and state + Buried in dust, once dead by fate. + + + + +SIR FRANCIS KYNASTON +1587–1642 + + +TO CYNTHIA, ON CONCEALMENT OF HER BEAUTY + + + DO not conceal those radiant eyes, + The starlight of serenest skies; + Lest, wanting of their heavenly light, + They turn to chaos’ endless night! + + Do not conceal those tresses fair, + The silken snares of thy curled hair + Lest, finding neither gold nor ore, + The curious silk-worm work no more. + + Do not conceal those breasts of thine, + More snow-white than the Apennine; + Lest, if there be like cold and frost, + The lily be for ever lost. + + Do not conceal that fragrant scent, + Thy breath, which to all flowers hath lent + Perfumes; lest, it being supprest, + No spices grow in all the rest. + + Do not conceal thy heavenly voice, + Which makes the hearts of gods rejoice; + Lest, music hearing no such thing, + The nightingale forget to sing. + + Do not conceal, nor yet eclipse, + Thy pearly teeth with coral lips; + Lest that the seas cease to bring forth + Gems which from thee have all thy worth. + + Do not conceal no beauty, grace, + That’s either in thy mind or face; + Lest virtue overcome by vice + Make men believe no Paradise. + + + + +NATHANIEL FIELD +1587–1638 + + +MATIN SONG + + + RISE, Lady Mistress, rise! + The night hath tedious been; + No sleep hath fallen into mine eyes + Nor slumbers made me sin. + Is not she a saint then, say, + Thoughts of whom keep sin away? + + Rise, Madam! rise and give me light, + Whom darkness still will cover, + And ignorance, darker than night, + Till thou smile on thy lover. + All want day till thy beauty rise; + For the grey morn breaks from thine eyes. + + + + +GEORGE WITHER +1588–1667 + + +SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP! + + + SLEEP, baby, sleep! what ails my dear, + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear, + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear? + What thing to thee can mischief do? + Thy God is now thy father dear, + His holy Spouse thy mother too. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Though thy conception was in sin, + A sacred bathing thou hast had; + And though thy birth unclean hath been, + A blameless babe thou now art made. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + While thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine Eldest Brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Sweet baby, sleep, and nothing fear; + For whosoever thee offends + By thy protector threaten’d are, + And God and angels are thy friends. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + When God with us was dwelling here, + In little babes He took delight; + Such innocents as thou, my dear, + Are ever precious in His sight. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + A little infant once was He; + And strength in weakness then was laid + Upon His Virgin Mother’s knee, + That power to thee might be convey’d. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + In this thy frailty and thy need + He friends and helpers doth prepare, + Which thee shall cherish, clothe, and feed, + For of thy weal they tender are. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + The King of kings, when He was born, + Had not so much for outward ease; + By Him such dressings were not worn, + Nor such like swaddling-clothes as these. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Within a manger lodged thy Lord, + Where oxen lay and asses fed: + Warm rooms we do to thee afford, + An easy cradle or a bed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + The wants that He did then sustain + Have purchased wealth, my babe, for thee; + And by His torments and His pain + Thy rest and ease secured be. + My baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou hast, yet more, to perfect this, + A promise and an earnest got + Of gaining everlasting bliss, + Though thou, my babe, perceiv’st it not. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + + + +THOMAS CAREW +1589–1639 + + +SONG + + + ASK me no more where Jove bestows, + When June is past, the fading rose; + For in your beauties, orient deep, + These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. + + Ask me no more whither do stray + The golden atoms of the day; + For in pure love heaven did prepare + Those powders to enrich your hair. + + Ask me no more whither doth haste + The nightingale when May is past; + For in your sweet dividing throat + She winters, and keeps warm her note. + + Ask me no more if east or west + The phœnix builds her spicy nest; + For unto you at last she flies, + And in your fragrant bosom dies! + + + +TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS + + + WHEN thou, poor Excommunicate + From all the joys of Love, shalt see + The full reward and glorious fate + Which my strong faith shall purchase me, + Then curse thine own Inconstancy. + + A fairer hand than thine shall cure + That heart which thy false oaths did wound; + And to my soul a soul more pure + Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound, + And both with equal glory crowned. + + Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain + To Love, as I did once to thee: + When all thy tears shall be as vain + As mine were then: for thou shalt be + Damned for thy false Apostacy. + + + +AN HYMENEAL DIALOGUE + + + _Groom_.—TELL me, my Love, since Hymen tied + The holy knot, hast thou not felt + A new-infused spirit slide + Into thy breast, whilst mine did melt? + + _Bride_.—First tell me, Sweet, whose words were those? + For though your voice the air did break, + Yet did my soul the sense compose, + And through your lips my heart did speak. + + _Groom_.—Then I perceive, when from the flame + Of love my scorched soul did retire, + Your frozen heart in that place came, + And sweetly melted in that fire. + + _Bride_.—’Tis true, for when that mutual change + Of souls was made, with equal gain, + I straight might feel diffused a strange + But gentle heat through every vein. + + _Bride_.—Thy bosom then I’ll make my nest, + Since there my willing soul doth perch. + _Groom_.—And for my heart, in thy chaste breast, + I’ll make an everlasting search. + + O blest disunion, that doth so + Our bodies from our souls divide; + As two to one, and one four grow, + Each by contraction multiplied. + + + +INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED + + + KNOW, Celia (since thou art so proud), + ’Twas I that gave thee thy renown! + Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd + Of common beauties lived unknown, + Had not my verse exhaled thy name, + And with it imped the wings of fame. + + That killing power is none of thine; + I gave it to thy voice and eyes; + Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine; + Thou art my star, shin’st in my skies; + Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere + Lightning on him that fixed thee there. + + Tempt me with such affrights no more, + Lest what I made I uncreate! + Let fools thy mystic forms adore; + I’ll know thee in thy mortal state. + Wise poets, that wrapped the truth in tales, + Knew her themselves through all her veils. + + + + +THOMAS DEKKER +_Circa_ 1570–1641 + + +LULLABY + + + GOLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes, + Smiles awake you when you rise. + Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, + And I will sing a lullaby. + Bock them, rock a lullaby. + + Care is heavy, therefore sleep you, + You are care, and care must keep you. + Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, + And I will sing a lullaby. + Rock them, rock a lullaby. + + + +SWEET CONTENT + + + ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? + O sweet content! + Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? + O punishment! + Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed + To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? + O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content! + Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face; + Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny! + + Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring? + O sweet content! + Swimm’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears? + O punishment! + Then he that patiently want’s burden bears + No burden bears, but is a king, a king! + O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content! + Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face; + Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny! + + + + +THOMAS HEYWOOD +—1649? + + +GOOD-MORROW + + + PACK, clouds, away, and welcome day, + With night we banish sorrow; + Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft + To give my Love good-morrow! + Wings from the wind to please her mind, + Notes from the lark I’ll borrow; + Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale sing, + To give my Love good-morrow; + To give my Love good-morrow, + Notes from them both I’ll borrow. + + Wake from thy nest, Robin-redbreast, + Sing, birds, in every furrow; + And from each hill, let music shrill + Give my fair Love good-morrow! + Blackbird and thrush in every bush, + Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! + You pretty elves, amongst yourselves, + Sing my fair Love good-morrow; + To give my Love good-morrow + Sing, birds, in every furrow! + + + + +ROBERT HERRICK +1591–1674 + + +TO DIANEME + + + SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes + Which star-like sparkle in their skies; + Nor be you proud, that you can see + All hearts your captives; yours yet free. + Be you not proud of that rich hair + Which wantons with the love-sick air; + Whenas that ruby which you wear, + Sunk from the tip of your soft ear, + Will last to be a precious stone + When all your world of beauty’s gone. + + + +TO MEADOWS + + + YE have been fresh and green, + Ye have been filled with flowers; + And ye the walks have been + Where maids have spent their hours. + + Ye have beheld how they + With wicker arks did come + To kiss and bear away + The richer cowslips home. + + You’ve heard them sweetly sing, + And seen them in a round, + Each virgin, like a Spring, + With honeysuckles crowned. + + But now we see none here + Whose silvery feet did tread, + And with dishevelled hair + Adorned this smoother mead. + + Like unthrifts, having spent + Your stock, and needy grown, + You’re left here to lament + Your poor estates alone. + + + +TO BLOSSOMS + + + FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree, + Why do ye fall so fast? + Your date is not so past, + But you may stay yet here awhile + To blush and gently smile, + And go at last. + + What, were ye born to be + An hour or half’s delight, + And so to bid good-night? + ’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth + Merely to show your worth, + And lose you quite! + + But you are lovely leaves, where we + May read how soon things have + Their end, though ne’er so brave: + And after they have shown their pride + Like you, awhile, they glide + Into the grave. + + + +TO DAFFODILS + + + FAIR Daffodils, we weep to see + You haste away so soon: + As yet the early-rising Sun + Has not attained his noon. + Stay, stay, + Until the hasting day + Has run + But to the even-song; + And, having prayed together, we + Will go with you along. + + We have short time to stay, as you, + We have as short a Spring; + As quick a growth to meet decay + As you, or any thing. + We die, + As your hours do, and dry + Away, + Like to the Summer’s rain, + Or as the pearls of morning’s dew, + Ne’er to be found again. + + + +TO VIOLETS + + + WELCOME, Maids of Honour! + You do bring + In the Spring, + And wait upon her. + + She has Virgins many, + Fresh and fair; + Yet you are + More sweet than any. + + Ye are the Maiden Posies, + And so graced + To be placed + ’Fore damask roses. + + But, though thus respected, + By and by + Ye do lie, + Poor girls, neglected. + + + +TO PRIMROSES + + + WHY do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears + Speak grief in you, + Who were but born + Just as the modest morn + Teemed her refreshing dew? + Alas, you have not known that shower + That mars a flower; + Nor felt th’ unkind + Breath of a blasting wind; + Nor are ye worn with years; + Or warped as we, + Who think it strange to see + Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young, + To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue. + + Speak, whimp’ring younglings, and make known + The reason, why + Ye droop and weep; + Is it for want of sleep? + Or childish lullaby? + Or that ye have not seen as yet + The violet? + Or brought a kiss + From that sweetheart to this? + No, no, this sorrow shown + By your tears shed, + Would have this lecture read, + That things of greatest, so of meanest, worth, + Conceived with care are, and with tears brought forth. + + + +TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON + + + SHUT not so soon; the dull-eyed night + Hath not as yet begun + To make a seizure on the light, + Or to seal up the sun. + + No marigolds yet closed are, + No shadows great appear; + Nor doth the early shepherd’s star + Shine like a spangle here. + + Stay but till my Julia close + Her life-begetting eye, + And let the whole world then dispose + Itself to live or die. + + + +TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME + + + GATHER ye rose-buds while ye may, + Old Time is still a-flying: + And this same flower that smiles to-day + To-morrow will be dying. + + The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, + The higher he’s a-getting, + The sooner will his race be run, + And nearer he’s to setting. + + That age is best which is the first, + When youth and blood are warmer; + But being spent, the worse, and worst + Times still succeed the former. + + Then be not coy, but use your time; + And while ye may, go marry: + For having lost but once your prime, + You may for ever tarry. + + + +DRESS + + + A SWEET disorder in the dress + Kindles in clothes a wantonness:— + A lawn about the shoulders thrown + Into a fine distraction,— + An erring lace, which here and there + Enthrals the crimson stomacher,— + A cuff neglectful, and thereby + Ribbands to flow confusedly,— + A winning wave, deserving note, + In the tempestuous petticoat,— + A careless shoe-string, in whose tie + I see a wild civility,— + Do more bewitch me, than when art + Is too precise in every part. + + + +IN SILKS + + + WHENAS in silks my Julia goes, + Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows + That liquefaction of her clothes. + + Next, when I cast mine eyes and see + That brave vibration each way free; + O how that glittering taketh me! + + + +CORINNA’S GOING A-MAYING + + + GET up, get up for shame! The blooming morn + Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. + See how Aurora throws her fair + Fresh-quilted colours through the air! + Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see + The dew bespangling herb and tree. + Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east, + Above an hour since; yet you not drest— + Nay! not so much as out of bed, + When all the birds have matins said, + And sung their thankful hymns: ’tis sin, + Nay, profanation, to keep in— + Whenas a thousand virgins on this day + Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May. + + Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen + To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and green, + And sweet as Flora. Take no care + For jewels for your gown or hair: + Fear not; the leaves will strew + Gems in abundance upon you: + Besides, the childhood of the day has kept, + Against you come, some orient pearls unwept: + Come, and receive them while the light + Hangs on the dew-locks of the night: + And Titan on the eastern hill + Retires himself, or else stands still + Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying: + Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying. + + Come, my Corinna, come! and coming, mark + How each field turns a street, each street a park + Made green, and trimmed with trees: see how + Devotion gives each house a bough + Or branch: each porch, each door, ere this, + An ark, a tabernacle is, + Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove, + As if here were those cooler shades of love. + Can such delights be in the street + And open fields, and we not see’t? + Come, we’ll abroad: and let’s obey + The proclamation made for May: + And sin no more, as we have done, by staying: + But, my Corinna, come! let’s go a-Maying. + + There’s not a budding boy or girl, this day, + But is got up, and gone to bring in May. + A deal of youth, ere this, is come + Back, and with white-thorn laden home. + Some have despatched their cakes and cream, + Before that we have left to dream: + And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth + And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth: + Many a green-gown has been given; + Many a kiss, both odd and even: + Many a glance, too, has been sent + From out the eye, Love’s firmament: + Many a jest told of the keys betraying + This night, and locks picked:—Yet we’re not a-Maying. + + Come! let us go, while we are in our prime, + And take the harmless folly of the time! + We shall grow old apace, and die + Before we know our liberty. + Our life is short; and our days run + As fast away as does the sun: + And as a vapour, or a drop of rain + Once lost, can ne’er be found again; + So when or you or I are made + A fable, song, or fleeting shade, + All love, all liking, all delight + Lies drowned with us in endless night. + Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, + Come, my Corinna, come! let’s go a-Maying. + + + +GRACE FOR A CHILD + + + HERE, a little child, I stand, + Heaving up my either hand: + Cold as paddocks though they be, + Here I lift them up to Thee, + For a benison to fall + On our meat and on our all. Amen. + + + +BEN JONSON + + + AH, Ben! + Say how, or when, + Shall we thy guests + Meet at those lyric feasts + Made at the Sun, + The Dog, the Triple Tun? + Where we such clusters had + As made us nobly wild, not mad; + And yet each verse of thine + Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine. + + My Ben! + Or come again + Or send to us + Thy wit’s great over-plus; + But teach us yet + Wisely to husband it, + Lest we that talent spend: + And having once brought to an end + That precious stock, the store + Of such a wit, the world should have no more. + + + + +GEORGE HERBERT +1593–1632 + + +HOLY BAPTISM + + + SINCE, Lord, to Thee + A narrow way and little gate + Is all the passage, on my infancy + Thou didst lay hold, and antedate + My faith in me. + + O, let me still + Write Thee ‘great God,’ and me ‘a child’; + Let me be soft and supple to Thy will, + Small to myself, to others mild, + Behither ill. + + Although by stealth + My flesh get on; yet let her sister, + My soul, bid nothing but preserve her wealth: + The growth of flesh is but a blister; + Childhood is health. + + + +VIRTUE + + + SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright, + The bridal of the earth and sky, + The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, + For thou must die. + + Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, + Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, + Thy root is ever in its grave, + And thou must die. + + Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, + A box where sweets compacted lie, + My music shows ye have your closes, + And all must die. + + Only a sweet and virtuous soul, + Like seasoned timber, never gives; + But though the whole world turn to coal, + Then chiefly lives. + + + +UNKINDNESS + + + LORD, make me coy and tender to offend: + In friendship, first I think if that agree + Which I intend + Unto my friend’s intent and end; + I would not use a friend as I use Thee. + + If any touch my friend or his good name, + It is my honour and my love-to free + His blasted fame + From the least spot or thought of blame; + I could not use a friend as I use Thee. + + My friend may spit upon my curious floor; + Would he have gold? I lend it instantly; + But let the poor, + And Thee within them, starve at door; + I cannot use a friend as I use Thee. + + When that my friend pretendeth to a place, + I quit my interest, and leave it free; + But when Thy grace + Sues for my heart, I Thee displace; + Nor would I use a friend as I use Thee. + + Yet can a friend what Thou hast done fulfil? + O, write in brass, ‘My God upon a tree + His blood did spill, + Only to purchase my good-will’; + Yet use I not my foes as I use Thee. + + + +LOVE + + + LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, + Guilty of dust and sin. + But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack + From my first entrance in, + Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning + If I lacked anything. + + ‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here’: + Love said, ‘You shall be he.’ + ‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear! + I cannot look on thee.’ + Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, + ‘Who made the eyes but I?’ + + ‘Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame + Go where it doth deserve.’ + ‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame? + ‘My dear, then I will serve.’ + ‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’ + So I did sit and eat. + + + +THE PULLEY + + + WHEN God at first made man, + Having a glass of blessings standing by, + ‘Let us,’ said He, ‘pour on him all we can; + Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, + Contract into a span.’ + + So strength first made a way, + Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour pleasure; + When almost all was out, God made a stay, + Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, + Rest in the bottom lay. + + ‘For if I should,’ said He, + ‘Bestow this jewel also on My creature, + He would adore My gifts instead of Me, + And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: + So both should losers be. + + ‘Yet let him keep the rest, + But keep them with repining restlessness; + Let him be rich and weary, that at least, + If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to My breast.’ + + + +THE COLLAR + + + I STRUCK the board, and cried, ‘No more; + I will abroad. + What, shall I ever sigh and pine? + My lines and life are free; free as the road, + Loose as the wind, as large as store. + Shall I be still in suit? + Have I no harvest but a thorn + To let me blood, and not restore + What I have lost with cordial fruit? + Sure there was wine + Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn + Before my tears did drown it; + Is the year only lost to me? + Have I no bays to crown it, + No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted, + All wasted? + Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, + And thou hast hands. + Recover all thy sigh-blown age + On double pleasures; leave thy cold dispute + Of what is fit and not; forsake thy cage, + Thy rope of sands, + Which petty thoughts have made; and made to thee + Good cable, to enforce and draw, + And be thy law, + While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. + Away! take heed; + I will abroad. + Call in thy death’s-head there, tie-up thy fears; + He that forbears + To suit and serve his need + Deserves his load.’ + But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild + At every word, + Methought I heard one calling, ‘Child’; + And I replied, ‘My Lord.’ + + + +LIFE + + + I MADE a posy while the day ran by: + Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie + My life within this band; + But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they + By noon most cunningly did steal away, + And withered in my hand. + + My hand was next to them, and then my heart; + I took, without more thinking, in good part + Time’s gentle admonition; + Who did so sweetly Death’s sad taste convey, + Making my mind to smell my fatal day, + Yet sugaring the suspicion. + + Farewell, dear flowers; sweetly your time ye spent, + Fit while ye lived for smell or ornament, + And after death for cures. + I follow straight, without complaints or grief, + Since if my scent be good, I care not if + It be as short as yours. + + + +MISERY + + + LORD, let the angels praise Thy name: + Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing; + Folly and sin play all his game; + His house still burns, and yet he still doth sing— + Man is but grass, + He knows it—‘Fill the glass.’ + + How canst Thou brook his foolishness? + Why, he’ll not lose a cup of drink for Thee: + Bid him but temper his excess, + Not he: he knows where he can better be— + As he will swear— + Than to serve Thee in fear. + + What strange pollutions doth he wed, + And make his own! as if none knew but he. + No man shall beat into his head + That Thou within his curtains drawn canst see: + ‘They are of cloth + Where never yet came moth.’ + + The best of men, turn but Thy hand + For one poor minute, stumble at a pin; + They would not have their actions scanned, + Nor any sorrow tell them that they sin, + Though it be small, + And measure not the fall. + + They quarrel Thee, and would give over + The bargain made to serve Thee; but Thy love + Holds them unto it, and doth cover + Their follies with the wings of Thy mild Dove, + Not suffering those + Who would, to be Thy foes. + + My God, man cannot praise Thy name: + Thou art all brightness, perfect purity; + The sun holds down his head for shame, + Dead with eclipses, when we speak of Thee: + How shall infection + Presume on Thy perfection? + + As dirty hands foul all they touch, + And those things most which are most pure and fine, + So our clay-hearts, even when we crouch + To sing Thy praises, make them less divine: + Yet either this + Or none Thy portion is. + + Man cannot serve Thee: let him go + And serve the swine—there, that is his delight: + He doth not like this virtue, no; + Give him his dirt to wallow in all night: + ‘These preachers make + His head to shoot and ache.’ + + O foolish man! where are thine eyes? + How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares! + Thou pull’st the rug, and wilt not rise, + No, not to purchase the whole pack of stars: + ‘There let them shine; + Thou must go sleep or dine.’ + + The bird that sees a dainty bower + Made in the tree, where she was wont to sit, + Wonders and sings, but not His power + Who made the arbour; this exceeds her wit. + But man doth know + The Spring whence all things flow: + + And yet, as though he knew it not, + His knowledge winks, and lets his humours reign; + They make his life a constant blot, + And all the blood of God to run in vain. + Ah, wretch! what verse + Can thy strange ways rehearse? + + Indeed, at first man was a treasure, + A box of jewels, shop of rarities, + A ring whose posy was ‘my pleasure’; + He was a garden in a Paradise; + Glory and grace + Did crown his heart and face. + + But sin hath fooled him; now he is + A lump of flesh, without a foot or wing + To raise him to a glimpse of bliss; + A sick-tossed vessel, dashing on each thing, + Nay, his own shelf: + My God, I mean myself. + + + + +JAMES SHIRLEY +1596–1666 + + +EQUALITY + + + THE glories of our blood and state + Are shadows, not substantial things; + There is no armour against fate; + Death lays his icy hand on kings: + Sceptre and Crown + Must tumble down, + And in the dust be equal made + With the poor crooked scythe and spade. + + Some men with swords may reap the field, + And plant fresh laurels where they kill: + But their strong nerves at last must yield; + They tame but one another still: + Early or late + They stoop to fate, + And must give up their murmuring breath + When they, pale captives, creep to death. + + The garlands wither on your brow; + Then boast no more your mighty deeds; + Upon Death’s purple altar now + See where the victor-victim bleeds: + Your heads must come + To the cold tomb; + Only the actions of the just + Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust. + + + + +ANONYMOUS +_Circa_ 1603 + + +LULLABY + + + WEEP you no more, sad fountains; + What need you flow so fast? + Look how the snowy mountains + Heaven’s sun doth gently waste. + But my sun’s heavenly eyes + View not your weeping, + That now lies sleeping + Softly, now softly lies + Sleeping. + + Sleep is a reconciling, + A rest that peace begets; + Doth not the sun rise smiling + When fair at eve he sets? + Rest you, then, rest, sad eyes, + Melt not in weeping, + While she lies sleeping + Softly, now softly lies + Sleeping. + + + + +SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT +1605–1668 + + +MORNING + + + THE lark now leaves his watery nest, + And climbing shakes his dewy wings, + He takes your window for the east, + And to implore your light, he sings; + Awake, awake, the morn will never rise, + Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes. + + The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star, + The ploughman from the sun his season takes; + But still the lover wonders what they are, + Who look for day before his mistress wakes; + Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn! + Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn. + + + + +EDMUND WALLER +1605–1687 + + +THE ROSE + + + Go, lovely rose! + Tell her that wastes her time and me, + That now she knows, + When I resemble her to thee, + How sweet and fair she seems to be. + + Tell her that’s young + And shuns to have her graces spied, + That hadst thou sprung + In deserts, where no men abide, + Thou must have uncommended died. + + Small is the worth + Of beauty from the light retired; + Bid her come forth, + Suffer herself to be desired, + And not blush so to be admired. + + Then die! that she + The common fate of all things rare + May read in thee: + How small a part of time they share + That are so wondrous sweet and fair! + + + + +THOMAS RANDOLPH +1606–1634? + + +HIS MISTRESS + + + I HAVE a mistress, for perfections rare + In every eye, but in my thoughts most fair. + Like tapers on the altar shine her eyes; + Her breath is the perfume of sacrifice; + And wheresoe’er my fancy would begin, + Still her perfection lets religion in. + We sit and talk, and kiss away the hours + As chastely as the morning dews kiss flowers. + I touch her, like my beads, with devout care, + And come unto my courtship as my prayer. + + + + +CHARLES BEST +17TH CENTURY + + +A SONNET OF THE MOON + + + LOOK how the pale Queen of the silent night + Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her, + And he, as long as she is in his sight, + With his full tide is ready her to honour: + + But when the silver waggon of the Moon + Is mounted up so high he cannot follow, + The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan, + And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. + + So you that are the sovereign of my heart, + Have all my joys attending on your will, + My joys low ebbing when you do depart, + When you return, their tide my heart doth fill. + + So as you come, and as you do depart, + Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart. + + + + +JOHN MILTON +1608–1674 + + +HYMN ON CHRIST’S NATIVITY + + + IT was the winter wild + While the heaven-born Child + All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; + Nature in awe to Him + Had doffed her gaudy trim, + With her great Master so to sympathise: + It was no season then for her + To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. + + Only with speeches fair + She woos the gentle air + To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; + And on her naked shame, + Pollute with sinful blame, + The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; + Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes + Should look so near upon her foul deformities. + + But He, her fears to cease, + Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; + She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding + Down through the turning sphere, + His ready harbinger, + With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; + And waving wide her myrtle wand, + She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. + + No war, or battle’s sound + Was heard the world around: + The idle spear and shield were high uphung; + The hooked chariot stood + Unstained with hostile blood; + The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; + And kings sat still with awful eye, + As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. + + But peaceful was the night + Wherein the Prince of Light + His reign of peace upon the earth began: + The winds, with wonder whist, + Smoothly the waters kist, + Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, + Who now hath quite forgot to rave, + While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. + + The stars, with deep amaze, + Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, + Bending one way their precious influence; + And will not take their flight + For all the morning light, + Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; + But in their glimmering orbs did glow, + Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go. + + And though the shady gloom + Had given day her room, + The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, + And hid his head for shame, + As his inferior flame + The new-enlightened world no more should need; + He saw a greater Sun appear + Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear. + + The shepherds on the lawn, + Or ere the point of dawn, + Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; + Full little thought they than + That the mighty Pan + Was kindly come to live with them below; + Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, + Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. + + When such music sweet + Their hearts and ears did greet + As never was by mortal fingers strook— + Divinely-warbled voice + Answering the stringed noise, + As all their souls in blissful rapture took; + The air, such pleasure loth to lose, + With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. + + Nature, that heard such sound + Beneath the hollow round + Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling, + Now was almost won + To think her part was done, + And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; + She knew such harmony alone + Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union. + + At last surrounds their sight + A globe of circular light, + That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; + The helmed Cherubim + And sworded Seraphim + Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, + Harping in loud and solemn quire, + With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s new-born Heir. + + Such music (as ’tis said) + Before was never made + But when of old the Sons of Morning sung, + While the Creator great + His constellations set, + And the well-balanced world on hinges hung; + And cast the dark foundations deep, + And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. + + Ring out, ye crystal spheres! + Once bless our human ears, + If ye have power to touch our senses so; + And let your silver chime + Move in melodious time; + And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow; + And with your ninefold harmony + Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. + + For if such holy song + Enwrap our fancy long, + Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; + And speckled Vanity + Will sicken soon and die, + And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; + And Hell itself will pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. + + Yea, Truth and Justice then + Will down return to men, + Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, + Mercy will sit between + Throned in celestial sheen, + With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; + And Heaven, as at some festival, + Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. + + But wisest Fate says No; + This must not yet be so; + The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy + That on the bitter cross + Must redeem our loss; + So both Himself and us to glorify: + Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, + The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, + + With such a horrid clang + As on Mount Sinai rang, + While the red fire and smouldering clouds out-brake: + The aged Earth aghast + With terror of that blast + Shall from the surface to the centre shake, + When, at the world’s last session, + The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread His throne. + + And then at last our bliss + Full and perfect is, + But now begins; for from this happy day + The old Dragon under ground, + In straiter limits bound, + Not half so far casts his usurped sway; + And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, + Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. + + The Oracles are dumb; + No voice or hideous hum + Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. + Apollo from his shrine + Can no more divine, + With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: + No nightly trance or breathed spell + Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. + + The lonely mountains o’er + And the resounding shore + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; + From haunted spring and dale + Edged with poplar pale, + The parting Genius is with sighing sent; + With flower-inwoven tresses torn + The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. + + In consecrated earth + And on the holy hearth + The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; + In urns, and altars round, + A drear and dying sound + Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; + And the chill marble seems to sweat, + While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat. + + Peor and Baalim + Forsake their temples dim, + With that twice-battered god of Palestine; + And mooned Ashtaroth, + Heaven’s queen and mother both, + Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine; + The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn: + In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. + + And sullen Moloch, fled, + Hath left in shadows dread + His burning idol all of blackest hue; + In vain with cymbals’ ring + They call the grisly king, + In dismal dance about the furnace blue; + The brutish gods of Nile as fast, + Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. + + Nor is Osiris seen + In Memphian grove or green, + Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud: + Nor can he be at rest + Within his sacred chest; + Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; + In vain with timbrelled anthems dark + The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark. + + He feels from Juda’s land + The dreaded Infant’s hand; + The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; + Nor all the gods beside + Longer dare abide, + Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: + Our Babe, to show His Godhead true, + Can in His swaddling bands control the damned crew. + + So, when the sun in bed, + Curtained with cloudy red, + Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, + The flocking shadows pale + Troop to the infernal jail, + Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; + And the yellow-skirted fays + Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. + + But see! the Virgin blest + Hath laid her Babe to rest; + Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: + Heaven’s youngest-teemed star + Hath fixed her polished car, + Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: + And all about the courtly stable + Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. + + + +L’ALLEGRO + + + HENCE, loathed Melancholy, + Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born + In Stygian cave forlorn, + ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! + Find out some uncouth cell + Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings + And the night-raven sings; + There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks + As ragged as thy locks, + In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. + + But come, thou goddess fair and free, + In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, + And by men, heart-easing Mirth, + Whom lovely Venus at a birth + With two sister Graces more + To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; + Or whether (as some sager sing) + The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr, with Aurora playing, + As he met her once a-Maying— + There on beds of violets blue + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew + Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, + So buxom, blithe, and debonair. + Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee + Jest, and youthful jollity, + Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, + Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, + Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, + And love to live in dimple sleek; + Sport that wrinkled Care derides, + And Laughter holding both his sides:— + Come, and trip it as you go + On the light fantastic toe; + And in thy right hand lead with thee + The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; + And if I give thee honour due, + Mirth, admit me of thy crew, + To live with her, and live with thee + In unreproved pleasures free; + To hear the lark begin his flight + And singing startle the dull night + From his watch-tower in the skies, + Till the dappled dawn doth rise; + Then to come, in spite of sorrow, + And at my window bid good-morrow + Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, + Or the twisted eglantine: + While the cock with lively din + Scatters the rear of darkness thin, + And to the stack, or the barn-door, + Stoutly struts his dames before: + Oft listening how the hounds and horn + Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, + From the side of some hoar hill, + Through the high wood echoing shrill: + Sometime walking, not unseen, + By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, + Right against the eastern gate + Where the great Sun begins his state + Robed in flames and amber light, + The clouds in thousand liveries dight; + While the ploughman, near at hand, + Whistles o’er the furrowed land, + And the milkmaid singeth blithe, + And the mower whets his scythe, + And every shepherd tells his tale + Under the hawthorn in the dale. + Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures + Whilst the landscape round it measures; + Russet lawns, and fallows gray, + Where the nibbling flocks do stray; + Mountains, on whose barren breast + The labouring clouds do often rest; + Meadows trim with daisies pied, + Shallow brooks, and rivers wide; + Towers and battlements it sees + Bosomed high in tufted trees, + Where perhaps some Beauty lies, + The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. + Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes + From betwixt two aged oaks, + Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, + Are at their savoury dinner set + Of herbs, and other country messes, + Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; + And then in haste her bower she leaves, + With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; + Or, if the earlier season lead, + To the tanned haycock in the mead. + Sometimes with secure delight + The upland hamlets will invite, + When the merry bells ring round, + And the jocund rebecks sound + To many a youth and many a maid, + Dancing in the chequered shade; + And young and old come forth to play + On a sunshine holiday, + Till the live-long day-light fail: + Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, + With stories told of many a feat, + How Faery Mab the junkets eat:— + She was pinched and pulled, she said; + And he by Friar’s lantern led; + Tells how the grudging Goblin sweat + To earn his cream-bowl duly set, + When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, + His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn + That ten day-labourers could not end; + Then lies him down the lubber fiend, + And, stretched out all the chimney’s length, + Basks at the fire his hairy strength; + And crop-full out of doors he flings, + Ere the first cock his matin rings. + Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, + By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. + Towered cities please us then + And the busy hum of men, + Where throngs of knights and barons bold, + In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, + With store of ladies, whose bright eyes + Rain influence, and judge the prize + Of wit or arms, while both contend + To win her grace, whom all commend. + There let Hymen oft appear + In saffron robe, with taper clear, + And pomp, and feast, and revelry, + With mask, and antique pageantry; + Such sights as youthful poets dream + On summer eves by haunted stream. + Then to the well-trod stage anon, + If Jonson’s learned sock be on, + Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, + Warble his native wood-notes wild. + And ever against eating cares + Lap me in soft Lydian airs + Married to immortal verse, + Such as the meeting soul may pierce + In notes, with many a winding bout + Of linked sweetness long drawn out, + With wanton heed and giddy cunning, + The melting voice through mazes running, + Untwisting all the chains that tie + The hidden soul of harmony; + That Orpheus’ self may heave his head + From golden slumber, on a bed + Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear + Such strains as would have won the ear + Of Pluto, to have quite set free + His half-regained Eurydice. + These delights if thou canst give, + Mirth, with thee I mean to live. + + + +IL PENSEROSO + + + HENCE, vain deluding Joys, + The brood of Folly without father bred! + How little you bestead + Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! + Dwell in some idle brain, + And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess + As thick and numberless + As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, + Or likest hovering dreams, + The fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train. + + But hail, thou goddess sage and holy, + Hail, divinest Melancholy! + Whose saintly visage is too bright + To hit the sense of human sight, + And therefore to our weaker view + O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue; + Black, but such as in esteem + Prince Memnon’s sister might beseem, + Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove + To set her beauty’s praise above + The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended: + Yet thou art higher far descended: + Thee bright-haired Vesta, long of yore, + To solitary Saturn bore; + His daughter she; in Saturn’s reign + Such mixture was not held a stain: + Oft in glimmering bowers and glades + He met her, and in secret shades + Of woody Ida’s inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove. + Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, + Sober, steadfast, and demure, + All in a robe of darkest grain + Flowing with majestic train + And sable stole of Cipres lawn + Over thy decent shoulders drawn: + Come, but keep thy wonted state, + With even step and musing gait, + And looks commercing with the skies, + Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: + There, held in holy passion still, + Forget thyself to marble, till + With a sad leaden downward cast + Thou fix them on the earth as fast: + And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, + Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, + And hears the Muses in a ring + Aye round about Jove’s altar sing: + And add to these retired Leisure + That in trim gardens takes his pleasure:— + But first and chiefest, with thee bring + Him that yon soars on golden wing, + Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, + The cherub Contemplation; + And the mute Silence hist along, + ’Less Philomel will deign a song + In her sweetest, saddest plight, + Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, + While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke + Gently o’er the accustomed oak. + Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, + Most musical, most melancholy! + Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among, + I woo to hear thy even-song; + And missing thee, I walk unseen + On the dry smooth-shaven green, + To behold the wandering Moon + Riding near her highest noon, + Like one that had been led astray + Through the heaven’s wide pathless way, + And oft, as if her head she bowed, + Stooping through a fleecy cloud. + Oft on a plat of rising ground + I hear the far-off curfew sound + Over some wide-watered shore, + Swinging slow with sullen roar; + Or, if the air will not permit, + Some still, removed place will fit, + Where glowing embers through the room + Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; + Far from all resort of mirth, + Save the cricket on the hearth, + Or the bellman’s drowsy charm + To bless the doors from nightly harm. + Or let my lamp at midnight hour + Be seen in some high lonely tower, + Where I may oft out-watch the Bear + With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere + The spirit of Plato, to unfold + What worlds or what vast regions hold + The immortal mind, that hath forsook + Her mansion in this fleshly nook: + And of those demons that are found + In fire, air, flood, or under ground, + Whose power hath a true consent + With planet, or with element. + Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy + In sceptered pall come sweeping by, + Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line, + Or the tale of Troy divine; + Or what (though rare) of later age + Ennobled hath the buskined stage. + But, O sad Virgin, that thy power + Might raise Musaeus from his bower, + Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing + Such notes as, warbled to the string, + Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek + And made Hell grant what Love did seek! + Or call up him that left half-told + The story of Cambuscan bold, + Of Camball, and of Algarsife, + And who had Canace to wife + That owned the virtuous ring and glass; + And of the wondrous horse of brass + On which the Tartar king did ride: + And if aught else great bards beside + In sage and solemn tunes have sung + Of tourneys and of trophies hung, + Of forests and enchantments drear, + Where more is meant than meets the ear. + Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, + Till civil-suited Morn appear, + Not tricked and frounced as she was wont + With the Attic Boy to hunt, + But kercheft in a comely cloud + While rocking winds are piping loud, + Or ushered with a shower still, + When the gust hath blown his fill, + Ending on the rustling leaves + With minute drops from off the eaves. + And when the sun begins to fling + His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring + To arched walks of twilight groves, + And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, + Of pine, or monumental oak, + Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, + Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, + Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. + There in close covert by some brook, + Where no profaner eye may look, + Hide me from day’s garish eye, + While the bee with honeyed thigh, + That at her flowery work doth sing, + And the waters murmuring, + With such consort as they keep + Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep; + And let some strange mysterious dream + Wave at his wings in airy stream + Of lively portraiture displayed, + Softly on my eyelids laid: + And, as I wake, sweet music breathe + Above, about, or underneath, + Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, + Or the unseen Genius of the wood. + But let my due feet never fail + To walk the studious cloister’s pale, + And love the high-embowed roof, + With antique pillars massy proof, + And storied windows richly dight + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow + To the full-voiced quire below + In service high and anthems clear, + As may with sweetness, through mine ear, + Dissolve me into ecstasies, + And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. + And may at last my weary age + Find out the peaceful hermitage, + The hairy gown and mossy cell + Where I may sit and rightly spell + Of every star that heaven doth shew, + And every herb that sips the dew; + Till old experience do attain + To something like prophetic strain. + These pleasures, Melancholy, give, + And I with thee will choose to live. + + + +LYCIDAS + + + _Elegy on a Friend drowned in the Irish Channel_, 1637 + + YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more + Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, + I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, + And with forced fingers rude + Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. + Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear + Compels me to disturb your season due: + For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, + Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. + Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew + Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. + He must not float upon his watery bier + Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, + Without the meed of some melodious tear. + + Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well + That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; + Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. + Hence withdenial vain and coy excuse: + So may some gentle Muse + With lucky words favour my destined urn; + And, as he passes, turn + And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. + + For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, + Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill: + Together both, ere the high lawns appeared + Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, + We drove a-field, and both together heard + What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn, + Battening our nocks with the fresh dews of night, + Oft till the star that rose at evening bright + Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel. + Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, + Tempered to the oaten flute, + Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel + From the glad sound would not be absent long; + And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. + + But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, + Now thou art gone and never must return! + Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves + With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown, + And all their echoes, mourn: + The willows and the hazel copses green + Shall now no more be seen + Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. + As killing as the canker to the rose, + Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, + Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear + When first the white-thorn blows; + Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear. + + Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep + Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas? + For neither were ye playing on the steep + Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, + Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, + Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: + Ay me! I fondly dream— + Had ye been there . . . For what could that have done? + What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, + The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, + Whom universal nature did lament, + When by the rout that made the hideous roar + His gory visage down the stream was sent, + Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? + + Alas! what boots it with incessant care + To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade, + And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? + Were it not better done, as others use, + To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, + Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair? + Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise + (That last infirmity of noble mind) + To scorn delights, and live laborious days; + But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, + And think to burst out into sudden blaze, + Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, + And slits the thin-spun life. ‘But not the praise,’ + Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears; + ‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, + Nor in the glistering foil + Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: + But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes + And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; + As he pronounces lastly on each deed, + Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.’ + + O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, + Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, + That strain I heard was of a higher mood. + But now my oat proceeds, + And listens to the herald of the sea + That came in Neptune’s plea. + He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, + What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? + And questioned every gust of rugged wings + That blows from off each beaked promontory. + They knew not of his story; + And sage Hippotades their answer brings, + That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed; + The air was calm, and on the level brine + Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. + It was that fatal and perfidious bark + Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, + That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. + + Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, + His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge + Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge + Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. + ‘Ah! who hath reft,’ quoth he, ‘my dearest pledge?’ + Last came, and last did go + The Pilot of the Galilean lake; + Two massy keys he bore of metals twain + (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain); + He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: + ‘How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, + Enow of such, as for their bellies’ sake + Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! + Of other care they little reckoning make + Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast, + And shove away the worthy bidden guest. + Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold + A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least + That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs! + What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; + And when they list, their lean and flashy songs + Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; + The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, + But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, + Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: + Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw + Daily devours apace, and nothing said: + But that two-handed engine at the door + Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.’ + + Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past + That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, + And call the vales, and bid them hither cast + Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. + Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use + Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks + On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks; + Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes + That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers + And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. + Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, + The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, + The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, + The glowing violet, + The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, + With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, + And every flower that sad embroidery wears: + Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, + And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, + To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. + For so to interpose a little ease, + Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise:— + Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas + Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled, + Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, + Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, + Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; + Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, + Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, + Where the great Vision of the guarded mount + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold; + Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: + And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth! + + Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, + For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor: + So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, + And yet anon repairs his drooping head + And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: + So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high + Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves; + Where, other groves and other streams along, + With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, + And hears the unexpressive nuptial song + In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. + There entertain him all the Saints above, + In solemn troops, and sweet societies, + That sing, and singing in their glory move, + And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. + Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; + Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, + In thy large recompense, and shalt be good + To all that wander in that perilous flood. + + Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, + While the still morn went out with sandals grey; + He touched the tender stops of various quills, + With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: + And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the western bay: + At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: + To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. + + + +ON HIS BLINDNESS + + + 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-labour, 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. + + + +ON HIS DECEASED WIFE + + + 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. + + Meantime, whilst every verdant thing + Itself does at thy beauty charm, + Reform the errors of the Spring; + Make that the tulips may have share + Of sweetness, seeing they are fair, + And roses of their thorns disarm; + But most procure + That violets may a longer age endure. + + But O young beauty of the woods, + Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers, + Gather the flowers, but spare the buds; + Lest Flora, angry at thy crime + To kill her infants in their prime, + Should quickly make the example yours; + And, ere we see, + Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes in thee. + + + +THE NYMPH COMPLAINING OF THE DEATH OF HER FAWN + + + THE wanton troopers riding by + Have shot my fawn, and it will die. + Ungentle men! they cannot thrive + Who killed thee. Thou ne’er didst, alive, + Them any harm, alas! nor could + Thy death yet ever do them good. + I’m sure I never wished them ill, + Nor do I for all this, nor will. + But if my simple prayers may yet + Prevail with heaven to forget + Thy murder, I will join my tears + Rather than fail. But O my fears! + It cannot die so. Heaven’s King + Keeps register of everything, + And nothing may we use in vain; + Even beasts must be with justice slain, + Else men are made their deodands. + Though they should wash their guilty hands + In this warm life-blood which doth part + From thine, and wound me to the heart, + Yet could they not be clean, their stain + Is dyed in such a purple grain. + There is not such another in + The world, to offer for their sin. + + Inconstant Sylvio, when yet + I had not found him counterfeit, + One morning (I remember well), + Tied in this silver chain and bell, + Gave it to me; nay, and I know + What he said then, I’m sure I do: + Said he, ‘Look how your huntsman here + Hath taught a fawn to hunt his deer!’ + But Sylvio soon had me beguiled; + This waxed tame while he grew wild, + And quite regardless of my smart + Left me his fawn, but took my heart. + + Thenceforth I set myself to play + My solitary time away + With this; and, very well content, + Could so mine idle life have spent; + For it was full of sport, and light + Of foot and heart, and did invite + Me to its game; it seemed to bless + Itself in me; how could I less + Than love it? O, I cannot be + Unkind to a beast that loveth me! + + Had it lived long, I do not know + Whether it too might have done so + As Sylvio did; his gifts might be + Perhaps as false, or more, than he. + But I am sure, for aught that I + Could in so short a time espy, + Thy love was far more better than + The love of false and cruel man. + + With sweetest milk and sugar first + I it at my own fingers nursed; + And as it grew, so every day + It waxed more white and sweet than they— + It had so sweet a breath! and oft + I blushed to see its foot more soft + And white—shall I say?—than my hand, + Nay, any lady’s of the land! + + It is a wondrous thing how fleet + ’Twas on those little silver feet: + With what a pretty skipping grace + It oft would challenge me the race:— + And when ’t had left me far away + ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay; + For it was nimbler much than hinds, + And trod as if on the four winds. + + I have a garden of my own, + But so with roses overgrown + And lilies, that you would it guess + To be a little wilderness: + And all the spring-time of the year + It only loved to be there. + Among the beds of lilies I + Have sought it oft, where it should lie; + Yet could not, till itself would rise, + Find it, although before mine eyes. + + For in the flaxen lilies’ shade + It like a bank of lilies laid. + Upon the roses it would feed, + Until its lips e’en seemed to bleed, + And then to me ’twould boldly trip, + And print those roses on my lip. + But all its chief delight was still + On roses thus itself to fill, + And its pure virgin limbs to fold + In whitest sheets of lilies cold:— + Had it lived long, it would have been + Lilies without—roses within. + + O help! O help! I see it faint + And die as calmly as a saint! + See how it weeps! the tears do come + Sad, slowly, dropping like a gum. + So weeps the wounded balsam; so + The holy frankincense doth flow; + The brotherless Heliades + Melt in such amber tears as these. + + I in a golden vial will + Keep these two crystal tears, and fill + It, till it doth o’erflow, with mine, + Then place it in Diana’s shrine. + + Now my sweet fawn is vanished to + Whither the swans and turtles go; + In fair Elysium to endure + With milk-white lambs and ermines pure. + O, do not run too fast, for I + Will but bespeak thy grave, and die. + First my unhappy statue shall + Be cut in marble; and withal + Let it be weeping too; but there + The engraver sure his art may spare; + For I so truly thee bemoan + That I shall weep though I be stone, + Until my tears, still dropping, wear + My breast, themselves engraving there; + Then at my feet shalt thou be laid, + Of purest alabaster made; + For I would have thine image be + White as I can, though not as thee. + + + +THE DEFINITION OF LOVE + + + MY love is of a birth as rare + As ’tis, for object, strange and high; + It was begotten by despair + Upon impossibility. + + Magnanimous despair alone + Could show me so divine a thing, + Where feeble hope could ne’er have flown + But vainly flapped its tinsel wing. + + And yet I quickly might arrive + Where my extended soul is fixed; + But fate does iron wedges drive, + And always crowds itself betwixt. + + For fate with jealous eyes does see + Two perfect loves, nor lets them close; + Their union would her ruin be, + And her tyrannic power depose. + + And therefore her decrees of steel + Us as the distant poles have placed + (Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel), + Not by themselves to be embraced, + + Unless the giddy heaven fall, + And earth some new convulsion tear, + And, us to join, the world should all + Be cramped into a planisphere. + + As lines, so loves oblique may well + Themselves in every angle greet; + But ours, so truly parallel, + Though infinite, can never meet. + + Therefore the love which us doth bind, + But fate so enviously debars, + Is the conjunction of the mind, + And opposition of the stars. + + + +THE GARDEN + + + _Translated out of his own Latin_ + + HOW vainly men themselves amaze + To win the palm, the oak, or bays, + And their incessant labours see + Crowned from some single herb or tree, + Whose short and narrow-verged shade + Does prudently their toils upbraid; + While all the flowers and trees do close + To weave the garlands of Repose. + + Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, + And Innocence thy sister dear? + Mistaken long, I sought you then + In busy companies of men: + Your sacred plants, if here below, + Only among the plants will grow: + Society is all but rude + To this delicious solitude. + + No white nor red was ever seen + So amorous as this lovely green. + Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, + Cut in these trees their mistress’ name: + Little, alas, they know or heed + How far these beauties her exceed! + Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound, + No name shall, but your own, be found. + + When we have run our passions’ heat + Love hither makes his best retreat; + The gods, who mortal beauty chase, + Stall in a tree did end their race; + Apollo hunted Daphne so + Only that she might laurel grow; + And Pan did after Syrinx speed + Not as a nymph, but for a reed. + + What wondrous life is this I lead! + Ripe apples drop about my head; + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon my mouth do crush their wine; + The nectarine and curious peach + Into my hands themselves do reach; + Stumbling on melons, as I pass, + Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. + + Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, + Withdraws into its happiness; + The mind, that ocean where each kind + Does straight its own resemblance find; + Yet it creates, transcending these, + Far other worlds and other seas; + Annihilating all that’s made + To a green thought in a green shade. + + Here at the fountain’s sliding foot + Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root, + Casting the body’s vest aside + My soul into the boughs does glide; + There, like a bird, it sits and sings, + Then whets and claps its silver wings, + And, till prepared for longer flight, + Waves in its plumes the various light. + + Such was that happy Garden-state + While man there walked without a mate: + After a place so pure and sweet, + What other help could yet be meet! + But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share + To wander solitary there: + Two paradises ’twere in one, + To live in Paradise alone. + + How well the skilful gardener drew + Of flowers and herbs this dial new! + Where, from above, the milder sun + Does through a fragrant zodiac run: + And, as it works, th’ industrious bee + Computes its time as well as we. + How could such sweet and wholesome hours + Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers? + + + + +HENRY VAUGHAN +1621–1695 + + +THE DAWNING + + + AH! what time wilt Thou come? When shall that cry, + ‘The Bridegroom’s coming!’ fill the sky? + Shall it in the evening run, + When our words and works are done? + Or will Thy all-surprising light + Break at midnight, + When either sleep or some dark pleasure + Possesseth mad man without measure? + Or shall these early, fragrant hours + Unlock Thy bowers? + And with their blush of light descry + Thy locks crowned with eternity? + Indeed it is the only time + That with Thy glory best doth chime; + All now are stirring, every field + Full hymns doth yield; + The whole creation shakes off night, + And for Thy shadow looks the light; + Stars now vanish without number, + Sleepy planets set and slumber, + The pursy clouds disband and scatter, + All expect some sudden matter; + Not one beam triumphs, but from far + That morning star. + O at what time soever Thou, + Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow, + And, with Thy angels in the van, + Descend to judge poor careless man, + Grant I may not like puddle lie + In a corrupt security, + Where, if a traveller water crave, + He finds it dead, and in a grave; + But as this restless vocal spring + All day and night doth run and sing, + And, though here born, yet is acquainted + Elsewhere, and flowing keeps untainted; + So let me all my busy age + In Thy free services engage; + And though—while here—of force I must + Have commerce sometimes with poor dust, + And in my flesh, though vile and low, + As this doth in her channel flow, + Yet let my course, my aim, my love, + And chief acquaintance be above; + So when that day and hour shall come, + In which Thy Self will be the sun, + Thou’lt find me dressed and on my way, + Watching the break of Thy great day. + + + +CHILDHOOD + + + I CANNOT reach it; and my striving eye + Dazzles at it, as at eternity. + + Were now that chronicle alive, + Those white designs which children drive, + And the thoughts of each harmless hour, + With their content too in my power, + Quickly would I make my path even, + And by mere playing go to heaven. + + Why should men love + A wolf, more than a lamb or dove? + Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams + Before bright stars and God’s own beams? + Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face, + But flowers do both refresh and grace; + And sweetly living—fie on men!— + Are, when dead, medicinal then; + If seeing much should make staid eyes, + And long experience should make wise; + Since all that age doth teach is ill, + Why should I not love childhood still? + Why, if I see a rock or shelf, + Shall I from thence cast down myself? + Or by complying with the world, + From the same precipice be hurled? + Those observations are but foul, + Which make me wise to lose my soul. + + And yet the practice worldlings call + Business, and weighty action all, + Checking the poor child for his play, + But gravely cast themselves away. + + Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span + Where weeping Virtue parts with man; + Where love without lust dwells, and bends + What way we please without self-ends. + + An age of mysteries! which he + Must live twice that would God’s face see; + Which angels guard, and with it play; + Angels! which foul men drive away. + + How do I study now, and scan + Thee more than e’er I studied man, + And only see through a long night + Thy edges and thy bordering light! + O for thy centre and mid-day! + For sure that is the narrow way! + + + +CORRUPTION + + + SURE it was so. Man in those early days + Was not all stone and earth; + He shined a little, and by those weak rays + Had some glimpse of his birth. + He saw heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence + He came, condemned, hither; + And, as first-love draws strongest, so from hence + His mind sure progressed thither. + Things here were strange unto him; sweat and till; + All was a thorn or weed; + Nor did those last, but—like himself—died still + As soon as they did seed; + They seemed to quarrel with him; for that act, + That fell him, foiled them all; + He drew the curse upon the world, and cracked + The whole frame with his fall. + This made him long for home, as loth to stay + With murmurers and foes; + He sighed for Eden, and would often say, + ‘Ah! what bright days were those!’ + Nor was heaven cold unto him; for each day + The valley or the mountain + Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay + In some green shade or fountain. + Angels lay leiger here; each bush, and cell, + Each oak and highway knew them: + Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well, + And he was sure to view them. + Almighty Love! where art Thou now? mad man + Sits down and freezeth on; + He raves, and swears to stir nor fire, nor fan, + But bids the thread be spun. + I see Thy curtains are close-drawn; Thy bow + Looks dim, too, in the cloud; + Sin triumphs still, and man is sunk below + The centre, and his shroud. + All’s in deep sleep and night: thick darkness lies + And hatcheth o’er Thy people— + But hark! what trumpet’s that? what angel cries + ‘Arise! thrust in Thy sickle’? + + + +THE NIGHT + + + THROUGH that pure virgin shrine, + That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon, + That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine, + And face the moon: + Wise Nicodemus saw such light + As made him know his God by night. + + Most blest believer he! + Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes + Thy long-expected healing wings could see + When Thou didst rise! + And, what can never more be done, + Did at midnight speak with the Sun! + + O, who will tell me where + He found Thee at that dead and silent hour? + What hallowed solitary ground did bear + So rare a flower; + Within whose sacred leaves did lie + The fulness of the Deity? + + No mercy-seat of gold, + No dead and dusty cherub nor carved stone, + But His own living works did my Lord hold + And lodge alone; + Where trees and herbs did watch, and peep, + And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. + + Dear night! this world’s defeat; + The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb; + The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat + Which none disturb! + Christ’s progress, and His prayer-time; + The hours to which high Heaven doth chime. + + God’s silent, searching flight; + When my Lord’s head is filled with dew, and all + His locks are wet with the clear drops of night; + His still, soft call; + His knocking-time; the soul’s dumb watch, + When spirits their fair kindred catch. + + Were my loud, evil days + Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, + Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice + Is seldom rent; + Then I in heaven all the long year + Would keep, and never wander here. + + But living where the sun + Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire + Themselves and others, I consent and run + To every mire; + And by this world’s ill-guiding light, + Err more than I can do by night. + + There is in God—some say— + A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here + Say it is late and dusky, because they + See not all clear. + O for that night! where I in Him + Might live invisible and dim! + + + +THE ECLIPSE + + + WHITHER, O whither didst Thou fly, + When I did grieve Thine holy eye? + When Thou didst mourn to see me lost, + And all Thy care and counsels crossed? + O do not grieve, where’er Thou art! + Thy grief is an undoing smart, + Which doth not only pain, but break + My heart, and makes me blush to speak. + Thy anger I could kiss, and will; + But O Thy grief, Thy grief, doth kill! + + + +THE RETREAT + + + HAPPY those early days when I + Shined in my angel infancy! + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy ought + But a white, celestial thought; + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love, + And looking back, at that short space, + Could see a glimpse of his bright face; + When on some gilded cloud or flower + My gazing soul would dwell an hour, + And in those weaker glories spy + Some shadows of eternity; + Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound, + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. + O how I long to travel back, + And tread again that ancient track! + That I might once more reach that plain + Where first I left my glorious train; + From whence the enlightened spirit sees + That shady city of palm-trees. + But ah! my soul with too much stay + Is drunk, and staggers in the way! + Some men a forward motion love, + But I by backward steps would move; + And, when this dust falls to the urn, + In that state I came, return. + + + +THE WORLD OF LIGHT + + + THEY are all gone into the world of light, + And I alone sit lingering here; + Their very memory is fair and bright, + And my sad thoughts doth clear. + + It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, + Like stars upon some gloomy grove, + Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, + After the sun’s remove. + + I see them walking in an air of glory, + Whose light doth trample on my days: + My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, + Mere glimmering and decays. + + O holy Hope! and high Humility, + High as the heavens above! + These are your walks, and you have shewed them me, + To kindle my cold love. + + Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just, + Shining no where, but in the dark; + What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, + Could man outlook that mark! + + He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest, may know + At first sight, if the bird be flown; + But what fair well or grove he sings in now, + That is to him unknown. + + And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams + Call to the soul, when man doth sleep: + So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, + And into glory peep. + + If a star were confined into a tomb, + Her captive flames must needs burn there; + But when the hand that locked her up gives room, + She’ll shine through all the sphere. + + O Father of eternal life, and all + Created glories under Thee! + Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall + Into true liberty. + + Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill + My perspective still as they pass; + Or else remove me hence unto that hill + Where I shall need no glass. + + + + +SCOTTISH BALLADS + + +HELEN OF KIRCONNELL + + + I WISH I were where Helen lies! + Night and day on me she cries; + O that I were where Helen lies + On fair Kirconnell lea! + + Curst be the heart that thought the thought, + And curst the hand that fired the shot, + When in my arms burd Helen dropt, + And died for sake o’ me! + + O think na but my heart was sair + When my Love dropt down and spak nae mair; + I laid her down wi’ meikle care + On fair Kirconnell lea. + + As I went down the water-side, + None but my foe to be my guide, + None but my foe to be my guide, + On fair Kirconnell lea; + + I lighted down my sword to draw, + I hacked him in pieces sma’, + I hacked him in pieces sma’, + For her that died for me. + + O Helen fair, beyond compare! + I’ll make a garland of thy hair + Shall bind my heart for evermair + Until the day I die. + + O that I were where Helen lies! + Night and day on me she cries; + Out of my bed she bids me rise, + Says, ‘Haste and come to me!’ + + O Helen fair! O Helen chaste! + If I were with thee, I were blest, + Where thou liest low and tak’st thy rest + On fair Kirconnell lea. + + I wish my grave were growing green, + A winding-sheet drawn ower my een, + And I in Helen’s arms lying, + On fair Kirconnell lea. + + I wish I were where Helen lies! + Night and day on me she cries; + And I am weary of the skies, + Since my Love died for me. + + + +THE WIFE OF USHER’S WELL + + + THESE lived a wife at Usher’s Well + And a wealthy wife was she; + She had three stout and stalwart sons, + And sent them over the sea. + + They hadna been a week from her, + A week but barely ane, + When word came to the carlin wife + That her three sons were gane. + + They hadna been a week from her, + A week but barely three, + When word came to the carlin wife + That her sons she’d never see. + + ‘I wish the wind may never cease, + Nor fashes in the flood, + Till my three sons come hame to me, + In earthly flesh and blood!’ + + It fell about the Martinmass, + When nights are lang and mirk, + The carlin wife’s three sons came hame, + And their hats were of the birk. + + It neither grew in syke nor ditch, + Nor yet in ony sheugh; + But at the gates o’ Paradise + That birk grew fair eneugh. + + ‘Blow up the fire, my maidens! + Bring water from the well; + For a’ my house shall feast this night, + Since my three sons are well.’ + + And she has made to them a bed, + She’s made it large and wide; + And she’s ta’en her mantle her about, + Sat down at the bedside. + + Up then crew the red, red cock, + And up and crew the grey; + The eldest to the youngest said, + ‘’Tis time we were awa!’ + + The cock he hadna crawed but once, + And clapped his wings at a’, + When the youngest to the eldest said, + ‘Brother, we must awa,’ + + ‘The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, + The channerin’ worm doth chide; + Gin we be mist out o’ our place, + A sair pain we maun bide. + + ‘Fare ye weel, my mother dear! + Fareweel to barn and byre! + And fare ye weel, the bonny lass + That kindles my mother’s fire!’ + + + +THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW + + + LATE at e’en, drinking the wine + And e’er they paid the lawing, + They set a combat them between, + To fight it in the dawing. + + ‘O stay at hame, my noble lord, + O stay at hame, my marrow! + My cruel brother will you betray + On the dowie houms of Yarrow.’ + + ‘O fare ye weel, my lady gay! + O fare ye weel, my Sarah! + For I maun gae, though I ne’er return + Frae the dowie banks of Yarrow.’ + + She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair, + As oft she had done before, O; + She belted him with his noble brand, + And he’s awa to Yarrow. + + As he gaed up the Terries’ bank, + I wot he gaed with sorrow, + Till down in a den he spied nine armed men + On the dowie houms of Yarrow. + + ‘O, come ye here to part your land, + The bonnie forest thorough? + Or come ye here to wield your brand + On the dowie houms of Yarrow?’ + + ‘I come not here to part my land, + And neither to beg or borrow; + I come to wield my noble brand + On the bonnie banks of Yarrow. + + ‘If I see all, ye’re nine to ane; + An’ that’s an unequal marrow: + Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand, + On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.’ + + Four has he hurt, and five has slain, + On the bloody braes of Yarrow; + Till that stubborn knight came him behind, + And ran his body thorough. + + ‘Gae hame, gae hame, good brother John, + And tell your sister Sarah, + To come and lift her leafu’ lord; + He’s sleeping sound on Yarrow.’ + + ‘Yestreen I dreamed a dolefu’ dream; + I fear there will be sorrow! + I dreamed I pu’ed the heather green + With my true love, on Yarrow. + + ‘O gentle wind that bloweth south + From where my love repaireth, + Convey a kiss from his dear mouth, + And tell me how he fareth. + + ‘But in the glen strive armed men; + They’ve wrought me dule and sorrow; + They’ve slain—the comeliest knight they’ve slain— + He bleeding lies on Yarrow.’ + + As she sped down yon high, high hill, + She gaed wi’ dule and sorrow, + And in the den spied ten slain men, + On the dowie banks of Yarrow. + + She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair, + She searched his wounds all thorough, + She kissed them till her lips grew red, + On the dowie houms of Yarrow. + + ‘Now haud your tongue, my daughter dear, + For a’ this breeds but sorrow; + I’ll wed ye to a better lord + Than him ye lost on Yarrow.’ + + ‘O haud your tongue, my father dear, + Ye mind me but of sorrow; + A fairer rose did never bloom + Than now lies cropped on Yarrow.’ + + + +SWEET WILLIAM AND MAY MARGARET + + + THERE came a ghost to Marg’ret’s door, + With many a grievous groan; + And aye he tirled at the pin, + But answer made she none. + + ‘Is that my father Philip? + Or is’t my brother John? + Or is’t my true-love Willie, + From Scotland new come home?’ + + ‘’Tis not thy father Philip, + Nor yet thy brother John, + But ’tis thy true-love Willie + From Scotland new come home. + + ‘O sweet Marg’ret, O dear Marg’ret! + I pray thee speak to me; + Give me my faith and troth, Marg’ret, + As I gave it to thee.’ + + ‘Thy faith and troth thou’s never get, + Nor it will I thee lend, + Till that thou come within my bower + And kiss me cheek and chin.’ + + ‘If I should come within thy bower, + I am no earthly man; + And should I kiss thy ruby lips + Thy days would not be lang. + + ‘O sweet Marg’ret! O dear Marg’ret, + I pray thee speak to me; + Give me my faith and troth, Marg’ret, + As I gave it to thee.’ + + ‘Thy faith and troth thou’s never get, + Nor it will I thee lend, + Till thou take me to yon kirk-yard, + And wed me with a ring.’ + + ‘My bones are buried in yon kirk-yard + Afar beyond the sea; + And it is but my spirit, Marg’ret, + That’s now speaking to thee.’ + + She stretched out her lily-white hand + And for to do her best: + ‘Hae, there’s your faith and troth, Willie; + God send your soul good rest.’ + + Now she has kilted her robe o’ green + A piece below her knee, + And a’ the live-lang winter night + The dead corp followed she. + + ‘Is there any room at your head, Willie, + Or any room at your feet? + Or any room at your side, Willie, + Wherein that I may creep?’ + + ‘There’s nae room at my head, Marg’ret, + There’s nae room at my feet; + There’s nae room at my side, Marg’ret, + My coffin’s made so meet.’ + + Then up and crew the red red cock, + And up and crew the grey; + ‘’Tis time, ’tis time, my dear Marg’ret, + That you were gane awa.’ + + + +SIR PATRICK SPENS + + + THE king sits in Dumfermline toun, + Drinking the blude-red wine; + ‘O whare will I get a skeely skipper + To sail this new ship o’ mine?’ + + O up and spake an eldern knight, + Sat at the king’s right knee; + ‘Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor + That ever sailed the sea.’ + + Our king has written a braid letter + And sealed it with his hand, + And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens + Was walking on the strand. + + ‘To Noroway, to Noroway, + To Noroway ower the faem; + The king’s daughter o’ Noroway + ’Tis thou must bring her hame.’ + + The first word that Sir Patrick read + So loud loud laughed he; + The neist word that Sir Patrick read + The tear blinded his e’e. + + ‘O wha is this has done this deed + And tauld the king o’ me, + To send us out, at this time o’ year, + To sail upon the sea? + + ‘Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, + Our ship must sail the faem; + The king’s daughter o’ Noroway + ’Tis we must fetch her hame.’ + + They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn, + Wi’ a’ the speed they may; + They hae landed in Noroway + Upon a Wodensday. + + They hadna been a week, a week, + In Noroway but twae, + When that the lords o’ Noroway + Began aloud to say: + + ‘Ye Scottishmen spend a’ our king’s goud, + And a’ our queenis fee.’ + ‘Ye lee, ye lee, ye liars loud! + Fu’ loud I hear ye lee. + + ‘For I have brought as much white monie + As gane my men and me, + And I hae brought a half-fou of gude red gould + Out o’er the sea wi’ me. + + ‘Make ready, make ready, my merry men a’! + Our good ship sails the morn.’ + ‘Now ever alack, my master dear, + I fear a deadly storm. + + ‘I saw the new moon late yestreen + Wi’ the auld moon in her arm; + And if we gang to sea, master, + I fear we’ll come to harm.’ + + They hadna sailed a league, a league, + A league but barely three, + When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud, + And gurly grew the sea. + + The ankers brak, and the top-mast lap, + It was sic a deadly storm; + And the waves cam o’er the broken ship + Till a’ her sides were torn. + + ‘O where will I get a gude sailor + To tak the helm in hand, + Till I get up to the tall top-mast, + To see if I can spy land?’ + + ‘O here am I, a sailor gude, + To tak the helm in hand, + Till you go up to the tall top-mast, + But I fear you’ll ne’er spy land.’ + + He hadna gaen a step, a step + A step but barely ane, + When a boult flew out of our goodly ship, + And the salt sea it came in. + + ‘Gae fetch a web o’ the silken claith, + Another o’ the twine, + And wap them into our ship’s side, + And let nae the sea come in.’ + + They fetched a web o’ the silken claith, + Another o’ the twine, + And they wapped them round that gude ship’s side, + But still the sea came in. + + O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords + To wet their cork-heeled shoon; + But lang or a’ the play was played + They wat their hats aboon. + + And mony was the feather bed + That floated on the faem; + And mony was the gude lord’s son + That never mair came hame. + + The ladyes wrang their fingers white, + The maidens tore their hair, + A’ for the sake o’ their true loves,— + For them they’ll see nae mair. + + O lang, lang may the ladyes sit, + Wi’ their fans into their hand, + Before they see Sir Patrick Spens + Come sailing to the strand! + + And lang, lang may the maidens sit, + With their goud kaims in their hair, + A’ waiting for their ain dear loves! + For them they’ll see nae mair. + + Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, + ’Tis fifty fathoms deep, + And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, + Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet! + + + +HAME, HAME, HAME + + + HAME! hame! hame! O hame fain wad I be! + O hame, hame, hame to my ain countrie. + When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf is on the tree, + The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countrie. + Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be! + O hame, hame, hame to my ain countrie! + + The green leaf o’ loyalty’s beginning now to fa’; + The bonnie white rose it is withering an’ a’; + But we’ll water it with the blude of usurping tyrannie, + And fresh it shall blaw in my ain countrie! + Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be! + O hame, hame, hame to my ain countrie! + + O, there’s nocht now frae ruin my countrie can save, + But the keys o’ kind heaven, to open the grave, + That a’ the noble martyrs wha died for loyaltie + May rise again and fight for their ain countrie. + Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be! + O hame, hame, hame to my ain countrie! + + The great now are gane, who attempted to save; + The green grass is growing abune their graves; + Yet the sun through the mirk seems to promise to me + I’ll shine on ye yet in your ain countrie. + Hame, hame, hame! O hame fain wad I be! + O hame, hame, hame to my ain countrie! + + + + +BORDER BALLAD + + +A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE + + + THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte, + _Every nighte and alle_, + Fire and sleet and candle-lighte, + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + When thou from hence away art past, + _Every nighte and alle_, + To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last; + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon, + _Every nighte and alle_, + Sit thee down and put them on; + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane, + _Every nighte and alle_, + The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane; + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + From Whinny-muir when thou may’st pass, + _Every nighte and alle_, + To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last, + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + From Brig o’ Dread when thou may’st pass, + _Every nighte and alle_, + To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last, + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + If ever thou gavest meat or drink, + _Every nighte and alle_, + The fire sall never make thee shrink; + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + If meat and drink thou ne’er gav’st nane, + _Every nighte and alle_, + The fire will burn thee to the bare bane, + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + This ae nighte, this ae nighte, + _Every nighte and alle_, + Fire and sleet and candle-lighte, + _And Christe receive thy saule_. + + + + +JOHN DRYDEN +1631–1700 + + +ODE + + + _To the Pious Memory of the accomplished young lady_, + _Mrs. Anne Killigrew_, _excellent in the two sister arts_ + _of Poesy and Painting_ + + THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, + Made in the last promotion of the blest; + Whose palms, new-plucked from paradise, + In spreading branches more sublimely rise, + Rich with immortal green, above the rest: + Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, + Thou roll’st above us in thy wandering race, + Or in procession fixed and regular + Moved with the heaven’s majestic pace, + Or called to more superior bliss, + Thou tread’st with seraphims the vast abyss: + Whatever happy region be thy place, + Cease thy celestial song a little space; + Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, + Since heaven’s eternal year is thine. + Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, + In no ignoble verse, + But such as thy own voice did practise here, + When thy first-fruits of poesy were given + To make thyself a welcome inmate there; + While yet a young probationer + And candidate of heaven. + + If by traduction came thy mind, + Our wonder is the less to find + A soul so charming from a stock so good; + Thy father was transfused into thy blood: + So wert thou born into the tuneful strain + (An early, rich and inexhausted vein). + But if thy pre-existing soul + Was formed at first with myriads more, + It did through all the mighty poets roll + Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, + And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. + If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! + Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore: + Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find + Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: + Return, to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. + + May we presume to say that, at thy birth, + New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth? + For sure the milder planets did combine + On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, + And even the most malicious were in trine. + Thy brother angels at thy birth + Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high, + That all the people of the sky + Might know a poetess was born on earth; + And then, if ever, mortal ears + Had heard the music of the spheres. + And if no clustering swarm of bees + On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew, + ’Twas that such vulgar miracles + Heaven had not leisure to renew: + For all the best fraternity of love + Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above. + + O gracious God! how far have we + Profaned Thy heavenly gift of poesy! + Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, + Debased to each obscene and impious use, + Whose harmony was first ordained above, + For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! + O wretched we! why were we hurried down + This lubric and adulterate age + (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own), + To increase the steaming ordures of the stage? + What can we say to excuse our second fall? + Let this thy Vestal, heaven, atone for all! + Her Arethusan stream remains unsoiled, + Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled; + Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. + Art she had none, yet wanted none, + For Nature did that want supply: + So rich in treasures of her own, + She might our boasted stores defy: + Such noble vigour did her verse adorn + That it seemed borrowed, where ’twas only born. + Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred, + By great examples daily fed, + What in the best of books, her father’s life, she read. + And to be read herself she need not fear; + Each test and every light her muse will bear, + Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. + Even love (for love sometimes her muse expressed) + Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast, + Light as the vapours of a morning dream; + So cold herself, while she such warmth expressed, + ’Twas Cupid bathing in Diana’s stream. + + * * * * * + + When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, + To raise the nations underground; + When in the valley of Jehosophat + The judging God shall close the book of Fate, + And there the last assizes keep + For those who wake and those who sleep; + When rattling bones together fly + From the four quarters of the sky; + When sinews o’er the skeletons are spread, + Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead; + The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, + And foremost from the tomb shall bound, + For they are covered with the lightest ground; + And straight with inborn vigour, on the wing, + Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing. + There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt go, + As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, + The way which thou so well hast learned below. + + + + +APHRA BEHN +1640–1689 + + +SONG, FROM ABDELAZAR + + + LOVE in fantastic triumph sat, + Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed, + For whom fresh pains he did create; + And strange tyrannic power he showed. + From thy bright eyes he took his fires, + Which round about in sport he hurled; + But ’twas from mine he took desires + Enough to undo the amorous world. + + From me he took his sighs and tears, + From thee his pride and cruelty; + From me his languishment and fears, + And every killing dart from thee. + Thus thou and I the god have armed, + And set him up a deity; + But my poor heart alone is harmed, + Whilst thine the victor is, and free. + + + + +JOSEPH ADDISON +1672–1719 + + +HYMN + + + THE spacious firmament on high, + With all the blue ethereal sky, + And spangled heavens (a shining frame!) + Their great Original proclaim, + The unwearied sun from day to day + Doth his Creator’s power display, + And publisheth to every land + The work of an almighty hand. + + Soon as the evening shades prevail, + The moon takes up the wondrous tale, + And nightly to the listening earth + Repeats the story of her birth: + Whilst all the stars that round her burn, + And all the planets in their turn, + Confirm the tidings as they roll, + And spread the truth from pole to pole. + + What though in solemn silence all + Move round this dark terrestrial ball? + What though no real voice nor sound + Amid their radiant orbs be found? + In Reason’s ear they all rejoice, + And utter forth a glorious voice, + For ever singing as they shine, + ‘The hand that made us is divine.’ + + + + +ALEXANDER POPE +1688–1744 + + +ELEGY + + + _To the Memory of an unfortunate Lady_ + + WHAT beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade + Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? + ’Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gored? + Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? + O ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, + Is it in heaven a crime to love too well, + To bear too tender or too firm a heart, + To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part? + Is there no bright reversion in the sky, + For those who greatly think or bravely die? + Why bade ye else, ye Powers! her soul aspire + Above the vulgar flight of low desire? + Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes, + The glorious fault of angels and of gods. + Thence to their images on earth it flows, + And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows. + Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age, + Dull, sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage; + Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years, + Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; + Like eastern kings, a lazy state they keep, + And close confined to their own palace, sleep. + From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) + Fate snatched her early to the pitying sky. + As into air the purer spirits flow, + And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below; + So flew the soul to its congenial place, + Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. + But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, + Thou mean deserter of thy brother’s blood! + See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, + These cheeks now fading at the blast of death; + Cold is that breath which warmed the world before, + And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. + Thus, if Eternal Justice rules the ball, + Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall: + On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, + And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates; + There passengers shall stand, and pointing say + (While the long fun’rals blacken all the way), + ‘Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steeled, + And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield. + Thus unlamented pass the proud away, + The gaze of fools, and pageants of a day! + So perish all whose breasts ne’er learned to glow + For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe.’ + What can atone (O ever injured shade!) + Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid? + No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear + Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier: + By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, + By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, + By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, + By strangers honoured and by strangers mourned. + What though no friends in sable weeds appear, + Grieve for an hour perhaps, then mourn a year, + And bear about the mockery of woe + To midnight dances, and the public show? + What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, + Nor polished marble emulate thy face? + What though no sacred earth allow thee room, + Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o’er thy tomb? + Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be dressed, + And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: + There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, + There the first roses of the year shall blow; + While angels with their silver wings o’ershade + The ground, now sacred by thy relics made. + So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, + What once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame. + How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not, + To whom related, or by whom begot; + A heap of dust alone remains of thee: + ’Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! + Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, + Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. + Ev’n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays + Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays; + Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, + And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart: + Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er, + The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more! + + + + +WILLIAM COWPER +1731–1800 + + +LINES ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER’S PICTURE + + + O THAT those lips had language! Life has passed + With me but roughly since I heard thee last. + Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smiles I see, + The same that oft in childhood solaced me; + Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, + ‘Grieve not, my child—chase all thy fears away!’ + The meek intelligence of those dear eyes + (Blest be the art that can immortalise, + The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim + To quench it) here shines on me still the same. + Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, + O welcome guest, though unexpected here! + Who bid’st me honour with an artless song, + Affectionate, a mother lost so long. + I will obey, not willingly alone, + But gladly, as the precept were her own: + And while that face renews my filial grief, + Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, + Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, + A momentary dream, that thou art she. + My mother! when I learnt that thou wast dead, + Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? + Hovered thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing son, + Wretch even then, life’s journey just begun? + Perhaps thou gav’st me, though unseen, a kiss; + Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss— + Ah, that maternal smile! it answers—yes. + I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, + I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, + And, turning from my nursery window, drew + A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! + But was it such?—It was.—Where thou art gone + Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. + May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore + The parting word shall pass my lips no more! + Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, + Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. + What ardently I wished, I long believed, + And, disappointed still, was still deceived, + By expectation every day beguiled, + Dupe of _to-morrow_ even from a child. + Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, + Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, + I learnt at last submission to my lot, + But though I less deplored thee, ne’er forgot. + Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, + Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; + And where the gardener Robin, day by day, + Drew me to school along the public way, + Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped + In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capt, + ’Tis now become a history little known, + That once we called the pastoral house our own. + Short-lived possession! but the record fair + That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, + Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced + A thousand other themes less deeply traced: + Thy nightly visits to my chamber paid + That thou might’st know me safe and warmly laid; + Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, + The biscuit, or confectionary plum; + The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed + By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed; + All this, and more endearing still than all, + Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, + Ne’er roughened by those cataracts and breaks, + That humour interposed too often makes; + All this still legible in memory’s page, + And still to be so till my latest age, + Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay + Such honours to thee as my numbers may; + Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, + Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. + Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, + When, playing with thy vesture’s tissued flowers, + The violet, the pink, the jessamine, + I pricked them into paper with a pin + (And thou wast happier than myself the while, + Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile), + Could those few pleasant days again appear, + Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? + I would not trust my heart—the dear delight + Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might— + But no—what here we call our life is such, + So little to be loved, and thou so much, + That I should ill requite thee to constrain + Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. + Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion’s coast + (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed), + Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, + Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, + There sits quiescent on the floods, that show + Her beauteous form reflected clear below, + While airs impregnated with incense play + Around her, fanning light her streamers gay; + So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore, + ‘Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,’ + And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide + Of life, long since has anchored at thy side. + But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, + Always from port withheld, always distressed— + Me howling winds drive devious, tempest-tossed, + Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost, + And day by day some current’s thwarting force + Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. + Yet, O the thought that thou art safe, and he! + That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. + My boast is not that I deduce my birth + From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth; + But higher far my proud pretensions rise— + The son of parents passed into the skies. + And now, farewell—Time unrevoked has run + His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. + By contemplation’s help, not sought in vain, + I seem to have lived my childhood o’er again; + To have renewed the joys that once were mine, + Without the sin of violating thine; + And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, + And I can view this mimic show of thee, + Time has but half succeeded in his theft— + Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. + + + + +ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD +1743–1825 + + +LIFE + + + LIFE! I know not what thou art, + But know that thou and I must part; + And when, or how, or where we met, + I own to me’s a secret yet. + + Life! we’ve been long together + Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; + ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear— + Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear; + —Then steal away, give little warning, + Choose thine own time; + Say not Good-night—but in some brighter clime + Bid me Good-morning. + + + + +WILLIAM BLAKE +1757–1828 + + +THE LAND OF DREAMS + + + AWAKE, awake, my little boy! + Thou wast thy mother’s only joy. + Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep? + Awake, thy Father does thee keep. + + ‘O, what land is the Land of Dreams, + What are its mountains and what are its streams? + O father, I saw my mother there, + Among the lilies by waters fair. + + ‘Among the lambs clothed in white, + She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight; + I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn, + O, when shall I again return?’ + + Dear child, I also by pleasant streams + Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams, + But though calm and warm the waters wide, + I could not get to the other side. + + ‘Father, O Father! what do we here, + In this land of unbelief and fear? + The Land of Dreams is better far + Above the light of the morning star.’ + + + +THE PIPER + + + PIPING down the valleys wild, + Piping songs of pleasant glee, + On a cloud I saw a child, + And he laughing said to me:— + + ‘Pipe a song about a lamb.’ + So I piped with merry cheer. + ‘Piper, pipe that song again.’ + So I piped; he wept to hear. + + ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe, + Sing thy songs of happy cheer.’ + So I sang the same again, + While he wept with joy to hear. + + ‘Piper, sit thee down and write + In a hook that all may read’: + So he vanished from my sight, + And I plucked a hollow reed; + + And I made a rural pen, + And I stained the water clear, + And I wrote my happy songs + Every child may joy to hear. + + + +HOLY THURSDAY + + + ’TWAS on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, + Came children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green; + Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow, + Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow. + + O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town! + Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own; + The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, + Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands. + + Now, like a mighty wind, they raise to heaven the voice of song, + Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among; + Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor. + Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. + + + +THE TIGER + + + TIGER, tiger, burning bright + In the forests of the night, + What immortal hand or eye + Could frame thy fearful symmetry? + + In what distant deeps or skies + Burnt the fire of thine eyes? + On what wings dare he aspire? + What the hand dare seize the fire? + + And what shoulder, and what art, + Could twist the sinews of thy heart? + And when thy heart began to beat, + What dread hand and what dread feet? + + What the hammer? what the chain? + In what furnace was thy brain? + What the anvil? what dread grasp + Dare its deadly terrors clasp? + + When the stars threw down their spears, + And watered heaven with their tears, + Did he smile his work to see? + Did He who made the lamb make thee? + + Tiger, tiger, burning bright + In the forests of the night, + What immortal hand or eye + Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? + + + +TO THE MUSES + + + WHETHER on Ida’s shady brow, + Or in the chambers of the East, + The chambers of the sun, that now + From ancient melody have ceased; + + Whether in heaven ye wander fair, + Or the green corners of the earth, + Or the blue regions of the air, + Where the melodious winds have birth; + + Whether on crystal rocks ye rove + Beneath the bosom of the sea, + Wandering in many a coral grove,— + Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry; + + How have you left the ancient love + That bards of old enjoyed in you! + The languid strings do scarcely move, + The sound is forced, the notes are few. + + + +LOVE’S SECRET + + + NEVER seek to tell thy love, + Love that never told can be; + For the gentle wind doth move + Silently, invisibly. + + I told my love, I told my love, + I told her all my heart, + Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears + Ah! she did depart. + + Soon after she was gone from me + A traveller came by, + Silently, invisibly: + He took her with a sigh. + + + + +ROBERT BURNS +1759–1796 + + +TO A MOUSE + + + _On turning her up in her nest with the plough_, _November_, 1785 + + WEE, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie, + O what a panic’s in thy breastie! + Thou need na start awa sae hasty, + Wi’ bickerin’ brattle! + I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee + Wi’ murd’ring pattle! + + I’m truly sorry man’s dominion + Has broken Nature’s social union, + An’ justifies that ill opinion + Which makes thee startle + At me, thy poor earth-born companion, + An’ fellow-mortal! + + I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; + What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! + A daimen-icker in a thrave + ’S a sma’ request: + I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave, + And never miss’t! + + Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! + Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’: + And naething, now, to big a new ane, + O’ foggage green! + An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin’ + Baith snell and keen! + + Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, + An’ weary winter comin’ fast, + An’ cozy here beneath the blast, + Thou thought to dwell, + Till crash! the cruel coulter past + Out through thy cell. + + That wee bit heap o’ leaves and stibble + Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! + Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble, + But house or hald, + To thole the winter’s sleety dribble + An’ cranreuch cauld! + + But, mousie, thou art no thy lane + In proving foresight may be vain: + The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men + Gang aft a-gley, + An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, + For promised joy. + + Still thou art blest compared wi’ me! + The present only toucheth thee: + But, och! I backward cast my e’e + On prospects drear! + An’ forward though I canna see, + I guess and fear! + + + +THE FAREWELL + + + IT was a’ for our rightfu’ king + We left fair Scotland’s strand; + It was a’ for our rightfu’ king + We e’er saw Irish land, + My dear, + We e’er saw Irish land. + + Now a’ is done that man can do, + And a’ is done in vain; + My love and native land farewell, + For I maun cross the main, + My dear, + For I maun cross the main. + + He turned him right and round about + Upon the Irish shore; + And gae his bridle-reins a shake, + With Adieu for evermore, + My dear, + Adieu for evermore. + + The sodger frae the wars returns, + The sailor frae the main; + But I hae parted frae my love, + Never to meet again, + My dear, + Never to meet again. + + When day is gane, and night is come, + And a’ folks bound to sleep; + I think on him that’s far awa’, + The lee-lang night, and weep, + My dear, + The lee-lang night, and weep. + + + + +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +1770–1850 + + +WHY ART THOU SILENT? + + + WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant + Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air + Of absence withers what was once so fair? + Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? + Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, + Bound to thy service with unceasing care— + The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant + For nought but what thy happiness could spare. + Speak!—though this soft warm heart, once free to hold + A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, + Be left more desolate, more dreary cold + Than a forsaken bird’s-nest filled with snow + ’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine— + Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! + + + +THOUGHTS OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND + + + Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea, + One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice: + In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, + They were thy chosen music, Liberty! + There came a tyrant, and with holy glee + Thou fought’st against him—but hast vainly striven: + Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, + Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. + —Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft; + Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left— + For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be + That Mountain floods should thunder as before, + And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, + And neither awful Voice be heard by thee! + + + +IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE + + + IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free; + The holy time is quiet as a Nun + Breathless with adoration; the broad sun + Is sinking down in his tranquillity; + The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea; + Listen! the mighty Being is awake, + And doth with his eternal motion make + A sound like thunder—everlastingly. + Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, + If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, + Thy nature is not therefore less divine: + Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year, + And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine + God being with thee when we know it not. + + + +ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC + + + ONCE did She hold the gorgeous East in fee, + And was the safeguard of the West; the worth + Of Venice did not fall below her birth, + Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. + She was a maiden city, bright and free; + No guile seduced, no force could violate; + And when she took unto herself a mate, + She must espouse the everlasting Sea. + And what if she had seen those glories fade, + Those titles vanish, and that strength decay— + Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid + When her long life hath reached its final day; + Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade + Of that which once was great is passed away. + + + +O FRIEND! I KNOW NOT + + + O FRIEND! I know not which way I must look + For comfort; being, as I am, oppressed + To think that now our life is only dressed + For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, + Or groom!—We must run glittering like a brook + In the open sunshine, or we are unblessed; + The wealthiest man among us is the best; + No grandeur now in nature or in book + Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,— + This is idolatry; and these we adore; + Plain living and high thinking are no more; + The homely beauty of the good old cause + Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, + And pure religion breathing household laws. + + + +SURPRISED BY JOY + + + SURPRISED by joy—impatient as the wind— + I turned to share the transport—O! with whom + But thee—deep buried in the silent tomb, + That spot which no vicissitude can find? + Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— + But how could I forget thee? Through what power, + Even for the least division of an hour, + Have I been so beguiled as to be blind + To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return + Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, + Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, + Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; + That neither present time nor years unborn + Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. + + + +TO TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE + + + TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men! + Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed + His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head + Pillowed in some dark dungeon’s noisome den— + O miserable chieftain! where and when + Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou + Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: + Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, + Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind + Powers that will work for thee: air, earth, and skies; + There’s not a breathing of the common wind + That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; + Thy friends are exultations, agonies, + And love, and man’s unconquerable mind. + + + +WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED + + + WITH ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, + Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed; + Some lying fast at anchor in the road, + Some veering up and down, one knew not why. + A goodly vessel did I then espy + Come like a giant from a haven broad; + And lustily along the bay she strode, + ‘Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.’ + This ship was naught to me, nor I to her, + Yet I pursued her with a lover’s look; + This ship to all the rest did I prefer: + When will she turn, and whither? She will brook + No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir: + On went she—and due north her journey took. + + + +THE WORLD + + + THE World is too much with us; late and soon, + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; + Little we see in Nature that is ours; + We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! + This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, + The winds that will be howling at all hours + And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,— + For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; + It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be + A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,— + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; + Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, + Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. + + + +UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802 + + + EARTH has not anything to show more fair: + Dull would he be of soul who could pass by + A sight so touching in its majesty: + This city now doth like a garment wear + The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, + Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie + Open unto the fields, and to the sky,— + All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. + Never did sun more beautifully steep + In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; + Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! + The river glideth at his own sweet will: + Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; + And all that mighty heart is lying still! + + + +WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY + + + WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed + Great nations; how ennobling thoughts depart, + What men change swords for ledgers, and desert + The student’s bower for gold,—some fears unnamed + I had, my country!—am I to be blamed? + Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, + Verily, in the bottom of my heart + Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. + For dearly must we prize thee; we do find + In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; + And I by my affection was beguiled: + What wonder if a Poet now and then, + Among the many movements of his mind, + Felt for thee as a lover or a child! + + + +THREE YEARS SHE GREW + + + THREE years she grew in sun and shower; + Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower + On earth was never sown. + This child I to myself will take: + She shall be mine, and I will make + A lady of my own. + + ‘Myself will to my darling be + Both law and impulse; and with me + The girl, in rock and plain, + In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, + Shall feel an overseeing power + To kindle or restrain. + + ‘She shall be sportive as the fawn, + That wild with glee across the lawn + Or up the mountain springs; + And hers shall be the breathing balm, + And hers the silence and the calm + Of mute insensate things. + + ‘The floating clouds their state shall lend + To her; for her the willow bend; + Nor shall she fail to see + Ev’n in the motions of the storm + Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form + By silent sympathy. + + ‘The stars of midnight shall be dear + To her, and she shall lean her ear + In many a secret place, + Where rivulets dance their wayward round, + And beauty born of murmuring sound + Shall pass into her face. + + ‘And vital feelings of delight + Shall rear her form to stately height, + Her virgin bosom swell; + Such thoughts to Lucy I will give + While she and I together live + Here in this happy dell.’ + + Thus Nature spake. The work was done— + How soon my Lucy’s race was run! + She died, and left to me + This heath, this calm and quiet scene; + The memory of what has been, + And never more will be. + + + +THE DAFFODILS + + + I WANDERED lonely as a cloud + That floats on high o’er vales and hills, + When all at once I saw a crowd, + A host of golden daffodils, + Beside the lake, beneath the trees, + Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. + + Continuous as the stars that shine + And twinkle on the milky way, + They stretched in never-ending line + Along the margin of a bay: + Ten thousand saw I at a glance + Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. + + The waves beside them danced, but they + Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:— + A Poet could not but be gay + In such a jocund company! + I gazed—and gazed—but little thought + What wealth the show to me had brought; + + For oft when on my couch I lie + In vacant or in pensive mood, + They flash upon that inward eye + Which is the bliss of solitude; + And then my heart with pleasure fills, + And dances with the daffodils. + + + +THE SOLITARY REAPER + + + BEHOLD her, single in the field, + Yon solitary Highland Lass! + Reaping and singing by herself; + Stop here, or gently pass! + Alone she cuts and binds the grain + And sings a melancholy strain; + O listen! for the vale profound + Is overflowing with the sound. + + No nightingale did ever chaunt + More welcome notes to weary bands + Of travellers in some shady haunt, + Among Arabian sands: + A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard + In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, + Breaking the silence of the seas + Among the farthest Hebrides. + + Will no one tell me what she sings? + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago: + Or is it some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day? + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been and may be again? + + Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang + As if her song could have no ending; + I saw her singing at her work, + And o’er the sickle bending;— + I listened, motionless and still; + And, as I mounted up the hill, + The music in my heart I bore + Long after it was heard no more. + + + +ELEGIAC STANZAS + + + _Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm_ + + I WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile! + Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: + I saw thee every day; and all the while + Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea. + + So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! + So like, so very like, was day to day! + Whene’er I looked, thy image still was there; + It trembled, but it never passed away. + + How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep, + No mood, which season takes away or brings: + I could have fancied that the mighty Deep + Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. + + Ah! then—if mine had been the painter’s hand + To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, + The light that never was on sea or land, + The consecration, and the Poet’s dream,— + + I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile, + Amid a world how different from this! + Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; + On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. + + Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine + Of peaceful years: a chronicle of heaven;— + Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine + The very sweetest had to thee been given. + + A picture had it been of lasting ease, + Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; + No motion but the moving tide; a breeze; + Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life. + + Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, + Such picture would I at that time have made; + And seen the soul of truth in every part, + A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. + + So once it would have been—’tis so no more; + I have submitted to a new control: + A power is gone which nothing can restore; + A deep distress hath humanized my soul. + + Not for a moment could I now behold + A smiling sea, and be what I have been; + The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old; + This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. + + Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend + If he had lived, of him whom I deplore. + This work of thine I blame not, but commend; + This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. + + O ’tis a passionate work!—yet wise and well, + Well chosen is the spirit that is here; + That hulk which labours in the deadly swell, + This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear! + + And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, + I love to see the look with which it braves,— + Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time— + The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves. + + Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, + Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind! + Such happiness, wherever it be known, + Is to be pitied, for ’tis surely blind. + + But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, + And frequent sights of what is to be borne,— + Such sights, or worse, as are before me here! + Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. + + + +TO H. C. + + + (_Hartley Coleridge_; _six years old_.) + + O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought; + Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, + And fittest to unutterable thought + The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; + Thou fairy voyager! that dost float + In such clear water that thy boat + May rather seem + To brood on air than on an earthly stream; + Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, + Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; + O blessed vision! O happy child! + That art so exquisitely wild, + I think of thee with many fears + For what may be thy lot in future years. + + I thought of times when pain might be thy guest, + Lord of thy house and hospitality; + And grief, uneasy lover! never rest + But when she sat within the touch of thee. + O! too industrious folly! + O! vain and causeless melancholy! + Nature will either end thee quite; + Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, + Preserve for thee, by individual right, + A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks. + + What hast thou to do with sorrow, + Or the injuries of to-morrow? + Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, + Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks; + Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; + A gem that glitters while it lives, + And no forewarning gives; + But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife + Slips in a moment out of life. + + + +’TIS SAID THAT SOME HAVE DIED FOR LOVE + + + ’TIS said that some have died for love: + And here and there a churchyard grave is found + In the cold North’s unhallowed ground, + Because the wretched man himself had slain,— + His love was such a grievous pain. + And there is one whom I five years have known; + He dwells alone + Upon Helvellyn’s side: + He loved—the pretty Barbara died, + And thus he makes his moan: + Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid, + When thus his moan he made: + + ‘O move, thou cottage, from behind that oak! + Or let the aged tree uprooted lie, + That in some other way yon smoke + May mount into the sky! + The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart: + I look—the sky is empty space; + I know not what I trace; + But, when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart. + + ‘O what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves, + When will that dying murmur be suppressed? + Your sound my heart of peace bereaves, + It robs my heart of rest. + Thou thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free, + Into yon row of willows flit, + Upon that alder sit; + Or sing another song, or choose another tree. + + ‘Roll back, sweet rill! back to thy mountain bounds, + And there for ever be thy waters chained! + For thou dost haunt the air with sounds + That cannot be sustained; + If still beneath that pine-tree’s ragged bough + Headlong yon waterfall must come, + O let it then be dumb!— + Be anything, sweet rill, but that which thou art now. + + ‘Thou eglantine, whose arch so proudly towers + (Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale), + Thou one fair shrub—oh, shed thy flowers, + And stir not in the gale! + For thus to see thee nodding in the air,— + To see thy arch thus stretch and bend, + Thus rise and thus descend,— + Disturbs me, till the sight is more than I can bear.’ + + The man who makes this feverish complaint + Is one of giant stature, who could dance + Equipped from head to foot in iron mail. + Ah gentle love! if ever thought was thine + To store up kindred hours for me, thy face + Turn from me, gentle love! nor let me walk + Within the sound of Emma’s voice, or know + Such happiness as I have known to-day. + + + +THE PET LAMB + + + _A Pastoral_ + + THE dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; + I heard a voice: it said, ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink!’ + And, looking o’er the hedge, before me I espied + A snow-white mountain lamb, with a maiden at its side. + + No other sheep were near, the lamb was all alone, + And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone; + With one knee on the grass did the little maiden kneel, + While to that mountain lamb she gave its evening meal. + + The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper took, + Seemed to feast with head and ears; and his tail with pleasure shook. + ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink,’ she said, in such a tone + That I almost received her heart into my own. + + ’Twas little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty rare! + I watched them with delight; they were a lovely pair. + Now with her empty can the maiden turned away; + But ere ten yards were gone, her footsteps did she stay. + + Towards the lamb she looked; and from that shady place + I, unobserved, could see the workings of her face; + If Nature to her tongue could measured numbers bring, + Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little maid might sing:— + + ‘What ails thee, young one? What? Why pull so at thy cord? + Is it not well with thee? Well both for bed and board? + Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be; + Rest, little young one, rest; what is’t that aileth thee? + + ‘What is it thou wouldst seek? What is wanting to thy heart? + Thy limbs, are they not strong? And beautiful thou art: + This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers; + And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears! + + ‘If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain, + This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain; + For rain and mountain storms, the like thou need’st not fear;— + The rain and storm are things which scarcely can come here. + + ‘Rest, little young one, rest; thou hast forgot the day + When my father found thee first in places far away: + Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none; + And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone. + + ‘He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home: + A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam? + A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee yean + Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have been. + + ‘Thou know’st that twice a day I have brought thee in this can + Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran; + And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew, + I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is, and new. + + ‘Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now, + Then I’ll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough; + My playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is cold, + Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold. + + ‘It will not, will not rest!—poor creature, can it be + That ’tis thy mother’s heart which is working so in thee? + Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear, + And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear. + + ‘Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and fair! + I’ve heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there; + The little brooks, that seem all pastime and all play, + When they are angry roar like lions for their prey. + + ‘Here thou need’st not dread the raven in the sky; + Night and day thou art safe,—our cottage is hard by. + Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain? + Sleep—and at break of day I will come to thee again!’ + + As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet, + This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat; + And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line, + That but half of it was hers, and one-half of it was mine. + + Again, and once again did I repeat the song; + ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘more than half to the damsel must belong, + For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone, + That I almost received her heart into my own.’ + + + +STEPPING WESTWARD + + + _While my fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch +Katrine_, _one fine evening after sunset_, _in our road to a hut where in + the course of our tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks + before_, _we met_, _in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary + region_, _two well-dressed women_, _one of whom said to us_, _by way of + greeting_, ‘_What_, _you are stepping westward_?’ + + ‘_What_, _you are stepping westward_?’—‘_Yea_.’ + —’Twould be a wildish destiny, + If we, who thus together roam + In a strange land, and far from home, + Were in this place the guests of chance; + Yet who would stop, or fear t’ advance, + Though home or shelter he had none, + With such a sky to lead him on? + + The dewy ground was dark and cold; + Behind, all gloomy to behold; + And stepping westward seemed to be + A kind of heavenly destiny: + I liked the greeting; ’twas a sound + Of something without place or bound; + And seemed to give me spiritual right + To travel through that region bright. + + The voice was soft, and she who spake + Was walking by her native lake; + The salutation had to me + The very sound of courtesy; + Its power was felt; and while my eye + Was fixed upon the glowing sky, + The echo of the voice enwrought + A human sweetness with the thought + Of travelling through the world that lay + Before me in my endless way. + + + +THE CHILDLESS FATHER + + + ‘UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away! + Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; + The hare has just started from Hamilton’s grounds, + And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.’ + + —Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, + On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; + With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, + The girls on the hills made a holiday show. + + The basin of boxwood, {244} just six months before, + Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door; + A coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed; + One child did it bear, and that child was his last. + + Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, + The horse and the horn, and the ‘hark! hark away!’ + Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut, + With a leisurely motion, the door of his hut. + + Perhaps to himself at that moment he said, + ‘The key I must take, for my Helen is dead.’ + But of this in my ears not a word did he speak, + And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek. + + + +ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM +RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD + + + THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, + The earth, and every common sight + To me did seem + Apparelled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream. + It is not now as it hath been of yore;— + Turn wheresoe’er I may, + By night or day, + The things which I have seen I now can see no more. + + The rainbow comes and goes, + And lovely is the rose; + The moon doth with delight + Look round her when the heavens are bare; + Waters on a starry night + Are beautiful and fair; + The sunshine is a glorious birth; + But yet I know, where’er I go, + That there hath past away a glory from the earth. + + Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, + And while the young lambs bound + As to the tabor’s sound, + To me alone there came a thought of grief: + A timely utterance gave that thought relief, + And I again am strong. + The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;— + No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: + I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, + The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, + And all the earth is gay; + Land and sea + Give themselves up to jollity, + And with the heart of May + Doth every beast keep holiday;— + Thou child of joy + Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy + Shepherd-boy! + + Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call + Ye to each other make; I see + The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; + My heart is at your festival, + My head hath its coronal, + The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. + O evil day! if I were sullen + While Earth herself is adorning + This sweet May-morning; + And the children are culling + On every side, + In a thousand valleys far and wide, + Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm + And the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:— + I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! + —But there’s a tree, of many, one, + A single field which I have looked upon, + Both of them speak of something that is gone; + The pansy at my feet + Doth the same tale repeat: + Whither is fled the visionary gleam? + Where is it now, the glory and the dream? + + Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; + The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting + And cometh from afar. + Not in entire forgetfulness, + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From God, who is our home; + Heaven lies about us in our infancy! + Shades of the prison-house begin to close + Upon the growing Boy, + But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, + He sees it in his joy; + The Youth, who daily farther from the east + Must travel, still is Nature’s priest, + And by the vision splendid + Is on his way attended; + At length the Man perceives it die away + And fade into the light of common day. + + Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; + Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, + And, even with something of a mother’s mind + And no unworthy aim, + The homely nurse doth all she can + To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man, + Forget the glories he hath known, + And that imperial palace whence he came. + + Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, + A six years’ darling of a pigmy size! + See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies, + Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses, + With light upon him from his father’s eyes! + See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, + Some fragment from his dream of human life, + Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; + A wedding or a festival, + A mourning or a funeral; + And this hath now his heart, + And unto this he frames his song: + Then will he fit his tongue + To dialogues of business, love, or strife; + But it will not be long + Ere this be thrown aside, + And with new joy and pride + The little actor cons another part; + Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’ + With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, + That life brings with her in her equipage; + As if his whole vocation + Were endless imitation. + + Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie + Thy soul’s immensity; + Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep + Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind + That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep, + Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind,— + Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! + On whom those truths do rest + Which we are toiling all our lives to find, + In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; + Thou, over whom thy Immortality + Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave, + A Presence which is not to be put by; + Thou little child, yet glorious in the might + Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height, + Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke + The years to bring the inevitable yoke, + Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? + Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, + And custom lie upon thee with a weight + Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! + + O joy! that in our embers + Is something that doth live, + That Nature yet remembers + What was so fugitive! + The thought of our past years in me doth breed + Perpetual benediction: not, indeed, + For that which is most worthy to be blest, + Delight and liberty, the simple creed + Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, + With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: + —Not for these I raise + The song of thanks and praise; + But for those obstinate questionings + Of sense and outward things, + Fallings from us, vanishings; + Blank misgivings of a creature + Moving about in worlds not realised, + High instincts, before which our mortal nature + Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: + But for those first affections, + Those shadowy recollections, + Which, be they what they may, + Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, + Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; + Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make + Our noisy years seem moments in the being + Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, + To perish never; + Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, + Nor man nor boy, + Nor all that is at enmity with joy, + Can utterly abolish or destroy! + Hence, in a season of calm weather, + Though inland far we be, + Our souls have sight of that immortal sea + Which brought us hither; + Can in a moment travel thither— + And see the children sport upon the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. + + Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! + And let the young lambs bound + As to the tabor’s sound! + We, in thought, will join your throng, + Ye that pipe and ye that play, + Ye that through your hearts to-day + Feel the gladness of the May! + What though the radiance which was once so bright + Be now for ever taken from my sight, + Though nothing can bring back the hour + Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; + We will grieve not, rather find + Strength in what remains behind; + In the primal sympathy + Which, having been, must ever be; + In the soothing thoughts that spring + Out of human suffering; + In the faith that looks through death, + In years that bring the philosophic mind. + + And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, + Forbode not any severing of our loves! + Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; + I only have relinquished one delight + To live beneath your more habitual sway: + I love the brooks which down their channels fret + Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; + The innocent brightness of a new-born day + Is lovely yet; + The clouds that gather round the setting sun + Do take a sober colouring from an eye + That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; + Another race hath been, and other palms are won. + Thanks to the human heart by which we live, + Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, + To me the meanest flower that blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. + + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT +1771–1832 + + +PROUD MAISIE + + + PROUD Maisie is in the wood, + Walking so early; + Sweet Robin sits on the bush, + Singing so rarely. + + ‘Tell me, thou bonny bird, + When shall I marry me?’ + ‘When six braw gentlemen + Kirkward shall carry ye.’ + + ‘Who makes the bridal bed, + Birdie, say truly?’ + ‘The grey-headed sexton + That delves the grave duly. + + ‘The glowworm o’er grave and stone + Shall light thee steady; + The owl from the steeple sing + Welcome, proud lady.’ + + + +A WEARY LOT IS THINE + + + ‘A WEARY lot is thine, fair maid, + A weary lot is thine! + To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, + And press the rue for wine. + A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien, + A feather of the blue, + A doublet of the Lincoln green— + No more of me you knew. + My Love! + No more of me you knew. + + ‘This morn is merry June, I trow, + The rose is budding fain; + But she shall bloom in winter snow + Ere we two meet again.’ + He turned his charger as he spake + Upon the river shore, + He gave the bridle-reins a shake, + Said, ‘Adieu for evermore, + My Love! + And adieu for evermore.’ + + + +THE MAID OF NEIDPATH + + + O LOVERS’ eyes are sharp to see, + And lovers’ ears in hearing; + And love, in life’s extremity, + Can lend an hour of cheering. + Disease had been in Mary’s bower + And slow decay from mourning, + Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower + To watch her love’s returning. + + All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, + Her form decayed by pining, + Till through her wasted hand, at night, + You saw the taper shining. + By fits a sultry hectic hue + Across her cheek was flying; + By fits so ashy pale she grew + Her maidens thought her dying. + + Yet keenest powers to see and hear + Seemed in her frame residing; + Before the watch-dog pricked his ear + She heard her lover’s riding; + Ere scarce a distant form was kenned + She knew and waved to greet him, + And o’er the battlement did bend + As on the wing to meet him. + + He came—he passed—an heedless gaze + As o’er some stranger glancing; + Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, + Lost in his courser’s prancing— + The castle-arch, whose hollow tone + Returns each whisper spoken, + Could scarcely catch the feeble moan + Which told her heart was broken. + + + + +SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE +1772–1834 + + + KUBLA KHAN + + IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan + A stately pleasure-dome decree: + Where Alph, the sacred river, ran + Through caverns measureless to man + Down to a sunless sea. + So twice five miles of fertile ground + With walls and towers were girdled round: + And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills + Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; + And here were forests ancient as the hills, + Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. + But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted + Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! + A savage place! as holy and enchanted + As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted + By woman wailing for her demon-lover! + And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, + As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, + A mighty fountain momently was forced: + Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst + Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, + Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail; + And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever + It flung up momently the sacred river. + Five miles meandering with a mazy motion + Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, + Then reached the caverns measureless to man, + And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: + And, ’mid this tumult, Kubla heard from far + Ancestral voices prophesying war! + + The shadow of the dome of pleasure + Floated midway on the waves; + Where was heard the mingled measure + From the fountain and the caves. + It was a miracle of rare device, + A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! + A damsel with a dulcimer + In a vision once I saw: + It was an Abyssinian maid, + And on her dulcimer she played, + Singing of Mount Abora. + Could I revive within me + Her symphony and song, + To such a deep delight ’twould win me, + That with music loud and long + I would build that dome in air, + That sunny dome! those caves of ice! + And all who heard should see them there, + And all should cry, Beware! Beware! + His flashing eyes, his floating hair! + Weave a circle round him thrice, + And close your eyes with holy dread, + For he on honey-dew hath fed, + And drunk the milk of Paradise. + + + +YOUTH AND AGE + + + VERSE, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying, + Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— + Both were mine! Life went a-maying + With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, + When I was young! + When I was young?—Ah, woeful when! + Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then! + This breathing house not built with hands, + This body that does me grievous wrong, + O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands + How lightly then it flashed along: + Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, + On winding lakes and rivers wide, + That ask no aid of sail or oar, + That fear no spite of wind or tide! + Nought cared this body for wind or weather + When Youth and I lived in’t together. + Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; + Friendship is a sheltering tree; + O! the joys, that came down shower-like, + Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, + Ere I was old! + Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, + Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here! + O Youth! for years so many and sweet, + ’Tis known that thou and I were one, + I’ll think it but a fond conceit— + It cannot be that thou art gone! + Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled:— + And thou wert aye a masker bold! + What strange disguise hast now put on + To make believe that thou art gone? + I see these locks in silvery slips, + This drooping gait, this altered size; + But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, + And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! + Life is but Thought: so think I will + That Youth and I are house-mates still. + Dew-drops are the gems of morning, + But the tears of mournful eve, + Where no hope is, life’s forewarning + That only serves to make us grieve, + When we are old: + That only serves to make us grieve + With oft and tedious taking-leave, + Like some poor nigh-related guest + That may not rudely be dismissed, + Yet hath out-stayed his welcome while, + And tells the jest without the smile. + + + +THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER + + + _In seven parts_ + + +ARGUMENT + + + HOW a ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold + Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her + course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the + strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancient Mariner + came back to his own Country. + + +PART I + + + IT is an ancient mariner, + And he stoppeth one of three. + ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, + Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? + + ‘The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, + And I am next of kin; + The guests are met, the feast is set: + May’st hear the merry din.’ + + He holds him with his skinny hand, + ‘There was a ship,’ quoth he. + ‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’ + Eftsoons his hand dropt he. + + He holds him with his glittering eye— + The Wedding-Guest stood still, + And listens like a three-years’ child: + The mariner hath his will. + + The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: + He cannot choose but hear; + And thus spake on that ancient man, + The bright-eyed Mariner. + + ‘The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, + Merrily did we drop + Below the kirk, below the hill, + Below the lighthouse top. + + ‘The sun came up upon the left, + Out of the sea came he! + And he shone bright, and on the right + Went down into the sea. + + ‘Higher and higher every day, + Till over the mast at noon—’ + The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, + For he heard the loud bassoon. + + The bride hath paced into the hall, + Bed as a rose is she; + Nodding their heads before her goes + The merry minstrelsy. + + The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, + Yet he cannot choose but hear; + And thus spake on that ancient man, + The bright-eyed Mariner. + + ‘And now the Storm-blast came, and he + Was tyrannous and strong: + He struck with his o’ertaking wings, + And chased us south along. + + ‘With sloping masts and dipping prow + As who pursued with yell and blow + Still treads the shadow of his foe, + And forward bends his head, + The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, + And southward aye we fled. + + ‘And now there came both mist and snow, + And it grew wondrous cold: + And ice, mast-high, came floating by, + As green as emerald. + + ‘And through the drifts the snowy clifts + Did send a dismal sheen: + Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken— + The ice was all between. + + ‘The ice was here, the ice was there, + The ice was all around: + It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, + Like noises in a swound! + + ‘At length did cross an Albatross, + Thorough the fog it came; + As it had been a Christian soul, + We hailed it in God’s name. + + ‘It ate the food it ne’er had eat, + And round and round it flew. + The ice did split with a thunder-fit; + The helmsman steered us through! + + ‘And a good south wind sprang up behind; + The Albatross did follow, + And every day, for food or play, + Came to the mariner’s hollo! + + ‘In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, + It perched for vespers nine; + Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, + Glimmered the white moon-shine.’ + + ‘God save thee, ancient Mariner! + From the fiends that plague thee thus!— + Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow + I shot the Albatross. + + +PART II + + + The sun now rose upon the right: + Out of the sea came he, + Still hid in mist, and on the left + Went down into the sea. + + And the good south wind still blew behind, + But no sweet bird did follow, + Nor any day for food or play + Came to the mariner’s hollo! + + And I had done a hellish thing, + And it would work ’em woe: + For all averred I had killed the bird + That made the breeze to blow. + Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, + That made the breeze to blow! + + Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head + The glorious Sun uprist: + Then all averred I had killed the bird + That brought the fog and mist. + ’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, + That bring the fog and mist. + + The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, + The furrow followed free; + We were the first that ever burst + Into that silent sea. + + Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, + ’Twas sad as sad could be; + And we did speak only to break + The silence of the sea! + + All in a hot and copper sky, + The bloody Sun, at noon, + Right up above the mast did stand, + No bigger than the Moon. + + Day after day, day after day, + We stuck, nor breath nor motion; + As idle as a painted ship + Upon a painted ocean. + + Water, water, every where, + And all the boards did shrink; + Water, water, every where + Nor any drop to drink. + + The very deep did rot: O Christ! + That ever this should be! + Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs + Upon the slimy sea. + + About, about, in reel and rout + The death-fires danced at night; + The water, like a witch’s oils, + Burnt green, and blue and white. + + And some in dreams assured were + Of the Spirit that plagued us so, + Nine fathom deep he had followed us + From the land of mist and snow. + + And every tongue, through utter drought, + Was withered at the root; + We could not speak, no more than if + We had been choked with soot. + + Ah! well a-day! what evil looks + Had I from old and young! + Instead of the cross, the Albatross + About my neck was hung. + + +PART III + + + There passed a weary time. Each throat + Was parched, and glazed each eye. + A weary time! a weary time! + How glazed each weary eye— + When looking westward, I beheld + A something in the sky. + + At first it seemed a little speck, + And then it seemed a mist; + It moved and moved, and took at last + A certain shape, I wist. + + A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! + And still it neared and neared: + As if it dodged a water-sprite, + It plunged and tacked and veered. + + With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, + We could nor laugh nor wail; + Through utter drought all dumb we stood! + I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, + And cried, A sail! a sail! + + With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, + Agape they heard me call: + Gramercy! they for joy did grin, + And all at once their breath drew in, + As they were drinking all. + + See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! + Hither to work us weal, + Without a breeze, without a tide, + She steadies with upright keel! + + The western wave was all aflame, + The day was well nigh done; + Almost upon the western wave + Rested the broad bright Sun; + When that strange shape drove suddenly + Betwixt us and the Sun! + + And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, + (Heaven’s Mother send us grace!) + As if through a dungeon-grate he peered + With broad and burning face. + + Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) + How fast she nears and nears! + Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, + Like restless gossameres? + + Are those her ribs through which the Sun + Did peer as through a grate? + And is that Woman all her crew? + Is that a Death? and are there two? + Is Death that woman’s mate? + + Her lips were red, her looks were free, + Her locks were yellow as gold, + Her skin was white as leprosy; + The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, + Who thicks man’s blood with cold. + + The naked hulk alongside came, + And the twain were casting dice; + ‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’ + Quoth she, and whistles thrice. + + The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out: + At one stride comes the dark; + With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea, + Off shot the spectre-bark. + + We listened and looked sideways up; + Fear at my heart, as at a cup, + My life-blood seemed to sip! + The stars were dim, and thick the night, + The steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white; + From the sails the dew did drip— + Till clomb above the eastern bar + The horned Moon, with one bright star + Within the nether tip. + + One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, + Too quick for groan or sigh, + Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, + And cursed me with his eye. + + Four times fifty living men, + (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) + With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, + They dropped down one by one. + + The souls did from their bodies fly,— + They fled to bliss or woe! + And every soul it passed me by, + Like the whizz of my cross-bow! + + +PART IV + + + ‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner! + I fear thy skinny hand! + And thou art long, and lank, and brown, + As is the ribbed sea-sand. + + ‘I fear thee and thy glittering eye, + And thy skinny hand so brown.’— + Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! + This body dropt not down. + + Alone, alone, all, all alone, + Alone on a wide wide sea! + And never a saint took pity on + My soul in agony. + + The many men, so beautiful! + And they all dead did lie; + And a thousand thousand slimy things + Lived on; and so did I. + + I looked upon the rotting sea, + And drew mine eyes away: + I looked upon the rotting deck, + And there the dead men lay. + + I looked to heaven and tried to pray; + But or ever a prayer had gusht, + A wicked whisper came and made + My heart as dry as dust. + + I closed my lids, and kept them close, + And the balls like pulses beat; + For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky + Lay like a load on my weary eye, + And the dead were at my feet. + + The cold sweat melted from their limbs, + Nor rot nor reek did they: + The look with which they looked on me + Had never passed away. + + An orphan’s curse would drag to hell + A spirit from on high; + But oh! more horrible than that + Is the curse in a dead man’s eye! + Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, + And yet I could not die. + + The moving Moon went up the sky, + And nowhere did abide: + Softly she was going up, + And a star or two beside— + + Her beams bemocked the sultry main, + Like April hoar-frost spread; + But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, + The charmed water burnt alway + A still and awful red. + + Beyond the shadow of the ship, + I watched the water-snakes: + They moved in tracks of shining white, + And when they reared, the elfish light + Fell off in hoary flakes. + + Within the shadow of the ship + I watched their rich attire: + Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, + They coiled and swam: and every track + Was a flash of golden fire. + + O happy living things! no tongue + Their beauty might declare; + A spring of love gushed from my heart, + And I blessed them unaware: + Sure my kind Saint took pity on me, + And I blessed them unaware. + + The selfsame moment I could pray; + And from my neck so free + The Albatross fell off, and sank + Like lead into the sea. + + +PART V + + + O sleep! it is a gentle thing, + Beloved from pole to pole! + To Mary Queen the praise be given! + She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, + That slid into my soul. + + The silly buckets on the deck, + That had so long remained, + I dreamt that they were filled with dew; + And when I woke, it rained. + + My lips were wet, my throat was cold, + My garments all were dank; + Sure I had drunken in my dreams, + And still my body drank. + + I moved, and could not feel my limbs; + I was so light—almost + I thought that I had died in sleep, + And was a blessed ghost. + + And soon I heard a roaring wind: + It did not come anear; + But with its sound it shook the sails, + That were so thin and sere. + + The upper air burst into life! + And a hundred fire-flags sheen, + To and fro they were hurried about! + And to and fro, and in and out, + The wan stars danced between. + + And the coming wind did roar more loud, + And the sails did sigh like sedge; + And the rain poured down from one black cloud; + The Moon was at its edge. + + The thick black cloud was cleft, and still + The Moon was at its side: + Like waters shot from some high crag, + The lightning fell with never a jag, + A river steep and wide. + + The loud wind never reached the ship, + Yet now the ship moved on! + Beneath the lightning and the Moon + The dead men gave a groan. + + They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, + Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; + It had been strange, even in a dream, + To have seen those dead men rise. + + The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; + Yet never a breeze up blew; + The mariners all ’gan work the ropes, + Where they were wont to do; + They raised their limbs like lifeless tools— + We were a ghastly crew. + + The body of my brother’s son + Stood by me, knee to knee: + The body and I pulled at one rope + But he said nought to me. + + ‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’ + Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! + ’Twas not those souls that fled in pain, + Which to their corses came again, + But a troop of spirits blest: + + For when it dawned—they dropped their arms, + And clustered round the mast; + Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, + And from their bodies passed. + + Around, around, flew each sweet sound, + Then darted to the Sun; + Slowly the sounds came back again, + Now mixed, now one by one. + + Sometimes a-dropping from the sky + I heard the sky-lark sing; + Sometimes all little birds that are, + How they seemed to fill the sea and air + With their sweet jargoning! + + And now ’twas like all instruments, + Now like a lonely flute; + And now it is an angel’s song, + That makes the heavens be mute. + + It ceased; yet still the sails made on + A pleasant noise till noon, + A noise like of a hidden brook + In the leafy month of June, + That to the sleeping woods all night + Singeth a quiet tune. + + Till noon we quietly sailed on, + Yet never a breeze did breathe; + Slowly and smoothly went the ship, + Moved onward from beneath. + + Under the keel nine fathom deep, + From the land of mist and snow, + The spirit slid: and it was he + That made the ship to go. + The sails at noon left off their tune, + And the ship stood still also. + + The Sun, right up above the mast, + Had fixed her to the ocean: + But in a minute she ’gan stir, + With a short uneasy motion— + Backwards and forwards half her length + With a short uneasy motion. + + Then like a pawing horse let go, + She made a sudden bound: + It flung the blood into my head, + And I fell down in a swound. + + How long in that same fit I lay, + I have not to declare; + But ere my living life returned, + I heard, and in my soul discerned, + Two voices in the air. + + ‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man? + By Him who died on cross, + With his cruel bow he laid full low + The harmless Albatross. + + ‘The spirit who bideth by himself + In the land of mist and snow, + He loved the bird that loved the man + Who shot him with his bow.’ + + The other was a softer voice, + As soft as honey-dew: + Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done, + And penance more will do.’ + + +PART VI + + + FIRST VOICE + + ‘But tell me, tell me! speak again, + Thy soft response renewing— + What makes that ship drive on so fast? + What is the ocean doing?’ + + SECOND VOICE + + ‘Still as a slave before his lord, + The ocean hath no blast; + His great bright eye most silently + Up to the moon is cast— + + ‘If he may know which way to go; + For she guides him smooth or grim. + See, brother, see! how graciously + She looketh down on him.’ + + FIRST VOICE + + ‘But why drives on that ship so fast, + Without or wave or wind?’ + + SECOND VOICE + + ‘The air is cut away before, + And closes from behind. + ‘Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! + Or we shall be belated: + For slow and slow that ship will go, + When the Mariner’s trance is abated.’ + + I woke, and we were sailing on + As in a gentle weather: + ’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high, + The dead men stood together. + + All stood together on the deck, + For a charnel-dungeon fitter: + All fixed on me their stony eyes, + That in the Moon did glitter. + + The pang, the curse, with which they died + Had never passed away; + I could not draw my eyes from theirs, + Nor turn them up to pray. + + And now this spell was snapt: once more + I viewed the ocean green, + And looked far forth, yet little saw + Of what had else been seen— + + Like one that on a lonesome road + Doth walk in fear and dread, + And having once turned round walks on, + And turns no more his head; + Because he knows a frightful fiend + Doth close behind him tread. + + But soon there breathed a wind on me, + Nor sound nor motion made: + Its path was not upon the sea, + In ripple or in shade. + + It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek + Like a meadow-gale of spring— + It mingled strangely with my fears, + Yet it felt like a welcoming. + + Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, + Yet she sailed softly too; + Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze— + On me alone it blew. + + O! dream of joy! is this indeed + The lighthouse top I see? + Is this the hill? is this the kirk? + Is this mine own countree? + + We drifted o’er the harbour bar, + And I with sobs did pray— + O let me be awake, my God! + Or let me sleep alway. + + The harbour-bay was clear as glass, + So smoothly it was strewn! + And on the bay the moonlight lay, + And the shadow of the Moon. + + The rock shone bright, the kirk no less + That stands above the rock: + The moonlight steeped in silentness + The steady weathercock. + + And the bay was white with silent light, + Till, rising from the same, + Full many shapes, that shadows were, + In crimson colours came. + + A little distance from the prow + Those crimson shadows were: + I turned my eyes upon the deck— + O, Christ! what saw I there! + + Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, + And, by the holy rood! + A man all light, a seraph-man, + On every corse there stood. + + This seraph-band, each waved his hand: + It was a heavenly sight! + They stood as signals to the land, + Each one a lovely light; + + This seraph-band, each waved his hand, + No voice did they impart— + No voice; but oh! the silence sank + Like music on my heart. + + But soon I heard the dash of oars, + I heard the Pilot’s cheer; + My head was turned perforce away, + And I saw a boat appear. + + The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy, + I heard them coming fast: + Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy + The dead men could not blast. + + I saw a third—I heard his voice: + It is the hermit good! + He singeth loud his godly hymns + That he makes in the wood. + He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away + The Albatross’s blood. + + +PART VII + + + This Hermit good lives in that wood + Which slopes down to the sea. + How loudly his sweet voice he rears! + He loves to talk with marineres + That come from a far countree. + + He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve,— + He hath a cushion plump: + It is the moss that wholly hides + The rotted old oak-stump. + + The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk: + ‘Why, this is strange, I trow! + Where are those lights, so many and fair, + That signal made but now?’ + + ‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said— + ‘And they answered not our cheer! + The planks looked warped! and see those sails, + How thin they are and sere! + I never saw aught like to them, + Unless perchance it were + Brown skeletons of leaves that lag + My forest-brook along; + When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, + And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, + That eats the she-wolf’s young.’ + + ‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look’— + (The Pilot made reply) + ‘I am a-feared’—‘Push on, push on!’ + Said the Hermit cheerily. + + The boat came closer to the ship, + But I nor spake nor stirred; + The boat came close beneath the ship, + And straight a sound was heard. + + Under the water it rumbled on, + Still louder and more dread; + It reached the ship, it split the bay; + The ship went down like lead. + + Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, + Which sky and ocean smote, + Like one that hath been seven days drowned + My body lay afloat; + But swift as dreams, myself I found + Within the Pilot’s boat. + + Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, + The boat spun round and round; + And all was still, save that the hill + Was telling of the sound. + + I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy Hermit raised his eyes, + And prayed where he did sit. + + I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro. + ‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see, + The Devil knows how to row.’ + + And now all in my own countree, + I stood on the firm land! + The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, + And scarcely he could stand. + + ‘O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!’ + The Hermit crossed his brow. + ‘Say quick,’ quoth he, ‘I bid thee say— + What manner of man art thou?’ + + Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched + With a woful agony, + Which forced me to begin my tale; + And then it left me free. + + Since then, at an uncertain hour, + That agony returns: + And till my ghastly tale is told, + This heart within me burns. + + I pass, like night, from land to land; + I have strange power of speech; + That moment that his face I see, + I know the man that must hear me; + To him my tale I teach. + + What loud uproar bursts from that door! + The wedding-guests are there: + But in the garden-bower the bride + And bride-maids singing are: + And hark the little vesper-bell + Which biddeth me to prayer! + + O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been + Alone on a wide wide sea: + So lonely ’twas, that God Himself + Scarce seemed there to be. + + O sweeter than the marriage-feast, + ’Tis sweeter far to me, + To walk together to the kirk + With a goodly company— + + To walk together to the kirk, + And all together pray, + While each to his great Father bends, + Old men, and babes, and loving friends, + And youths and maidens gay! + + Farewell, farewell! but this I tell + To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! + He prayeth well who loveth well + Both man and bird and beast. + + He prayeth best who loveth best + All things both great and small; + For the dear God who loveth us, + He made and loveth all. + + The Mariner, whose eye is bright, + Whose beard with age is hoar, + Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest + Turned from the bridegroom’s door. + + He went like one that hath been stunned, + And is of sense forlorn; + A sadder and a wiser man, + He rose the morrow-morn. + + + + +WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR +1775–1864 + + +ROSE AYLMER + + + AH, what avails the sceptred race, + Ah, what the form divine! + What every virtue, every grace! + Rose Aylmer, all were thine. + + Rose Aylmer, whom these watchful eyes + May weep, but never see, + A night of memories and of sighs + I consecrate to thee. + + + +EPITAPH + + + I STROVE with none, for none were worth my strife. + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art, + I warmed both hands before the fire of life; + It sinks, and I am ready to depart. + + + +CHILD OF A DAY + + + CHILD of a day, thou knowest not + The tears that overflow thine urn, + The gushing eyes that read thy lot, + Nor, if thou knewest, could’st return! + + And why the wish! the pure and blest + Watch, like thy mother, o’er thy sleep; + O peaceful night! O envied rest! + Thou wilt not ever see her weep. + + + + +THOMAS CAMPBELL +1767–1844 + + +HOHENLINDEN + + + ON Linden, when the sun was low, + All bloodless lay the untrodden snow; + And dark as winter was the flow + Of Iser, rolling rapidly. + + But Linden saw another sight, + When the drum beat at dead of night + Commanding fires of death to light + The darkness of her scenery. + + By torch and trumpet fast arrayed + Each horseman drew his battle-blade, + And furious every charger neighed + To join the dreadful revelry. + + Then shook the hills with thunder riven; + Then rushed the steed, to battle driven; + And louder than the bolts of Heaven + Far flashed the red artillery. + + But redder yet that light shall glow + On Linden’s hills of stained snow; + And bloodier yet the torrent flow + Of Iser, rolling rapidly. + + ’Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun + Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, + Where furious Frank and fiery Hun + Shout in their sulphurous canopy. + + The combat deepens. On, ye Brave, + Who rush to glory or the grave! + Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, + And charge with all thy chivalry! + + Few, few shall part, where many meet! + The snow shall be their winding-sheet, + And every turf beneath their feet + Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre. + + + +EARL MARCH + + + EARL MARCH looked on his dying child, + And, smit with grief to view her— + The youth, he cried, whom I exiled + Shall be restored to woo her. + + She’s at the window many an hour + His coming to discover: + And he looked up to Ellen’s bower + And she looked on her lover— + + But ah! so pale, he knew her not, + Though her smile on him was dwelling! + And am I then forgot—forgot? + It broke the heart of Ellen. + + In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs, + Her cheek is cold as ashes; + Nor love’s own kiss shall wake those eyes + To lift their silken lashes. + + + + +CHARLES LAMB +1775–1835 + + +HESTER. + + + WHEN maidens such as Hester die, + Their place ye may not well supply, + Though ye among a thousand try + With vain endeavour. + A month or more hath she been dead, + Yet cannot I by force be led + To think upon the wormy bed + And her together. + + A springy motion in her gait, + A rising step, did indicate + Of pride and joy no common rate + That flushed her spirit: + I know not by what name beside + I shall it call: if ’twas not pride, + It was a joy to that allied + She did inherit. + + Her parents held the Quaker rule, + Which doth the human feeling cool; + But she was trained in Nature’s school, + Nature had blest her. + A waking eye, a prying mind, + A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; + A hawk’s keen sight ye cannot blind, + Ye could not Hester. + + My sprightly neighbour! gone before + To that unknown and silent shore, + Shall we not meet, as heretofore, + Some summer morning— + When from thy cheerful eyes a ray + Hath struck a bliss upon the day, + A bliss that would not go away, + A sweet fore-warning? + + + + +ALLAN CUNNINGHAM +1784–1842 + + +A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA + + + A WET sheet and a flowing sea, + A wind that follows fast + And fills the white and rustling sail + And bends the gallant mast; + And bends the gallant mast, my boys, + While like the eagle free + Away the good ship flies, and leaves + Old England on the lee. + + O for a soft and gentle wind! + I heard a fair one cry; + But give to me the snoring breeze + And white waves heaving high; + And white waves heaving high, my lads, + The good ship tight and free— + The world of waters is our home, + And merry men are we. + + There’s tempest in yon horned moon, + And lightning in yon cloud; + But hark the music, mariners! + The wind is piping loud; + The wind is piping loud, my boys, + The lightning flashes free— + While the hollow oak our palace is, + Our heritage the sea. + + + + +GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON +1788–1823 + + +THE ISLES OF GREECE + + + THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! + Where burning Sappho loved and sung, + Where grew the arts of war and peace, + Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung! + Eternal summer gilds them yet, + But all, except their sun, is set. + + The Scian and the Teian muse, + The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute, + Have found the fame your shores refuse; + Their place of birth alone is mute + To sounds which echo further west + Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’ + + The mountains look on Marathon, + And Marathon looks on the sea; + And musing there an hour alone, + I dreamed that Greece might still be free; + For, standing on the Persians’ grave, + I could not think myself a slave. + + A king sate on the rocky brow + Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis; + And ships, by thousands, lay below, + And men in nations;—all were his! + He counted them at break of day— + And when the sun set where were they? + + And where are they? and where art thou, + My country? On thy voiceless shore + The heroic lay is tuneless now— + The heroic bosom beats no more! + And must thy lyre, so long divine, + Degenerate into hands like mine? + + ’Tis something, in the dearth of fame, + Though linked among a fettered race + To feel at least a patriot’s shame, + Even as I sing, suffuse my face; + For what is left the poet here? + For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear. + + Must _we_ but weep o’er days more blest? + Must _we_ but blush?—Our fathers bled. + Earth! render back from out thy breast + A remnant of our Spartan dead! + Of the three hundred grant but three, + To make a new Thermopylæ! + + What, silent still? and silent all? + Ah! no;—the voices of the dead + Sound like a distant torrent’s fall, + And answer, ‘Let one living head, + But one, arise,—we come, we come!’ + ’Tis but the living who are dumb. + + In vain—in vain: strike other chords; + Fill high the cup with Samian wine! + Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, + And shed the blood of Scio’s vine! + Hark! rising to the ignoble call— + How answers each bold bacchanal! + + You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, + Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? + Of two such lessons, why forget + The nobler and the manlier one? + You have the letters Cadmus gave— + Think ye he meant them for a slave? + + Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! + We will not think of themes like these! + It made Anacreon’s song divine: + He served—but served Polycrates— + A tyrant; but our masters then + Were still, at least, our countrymen. + + The tyrant of the Chersonese + Was freedom’s best and bravest friend; + _That_ tyrant was Miltiades! + Oh! that the present hour would lend + Another despot of the kind! + Such chains as his were sure to bind. + + Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! + On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore, + Exists the remnant of a line + Such as the Doric mothers bore; + And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, + The Heracleidan blood might own. + + Trust not for freedom to the Franks— + They have a king who buys and sells; + In native swords, and native ranks, + The only hope of courage dwells; + But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, + Would break your shield, however broad. + + Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! + Our virgins dance beneath the shade— + I see their glorious black eyes shine; + But gazing on each glowing maid, + My own the burning tear-drop laves, + To think such breasts must suckle slaves. + + Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep, + Where nothing, save the waves and I, + May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; + There, swan-like, let me sing and die: + A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine— + Dash down yon cup of Samian wine! + + + + +PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY +1792–1822 + + +HELLAS + + + THE world’s great age begins anew, + The golden years return, + The earth doth like a snake renew + Her winter weeds outworn: + Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, + Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. + + A brighter Hellas rears its mountains + From waves serener far; + A new Peneus rolls his fountains + Against the morning star. + Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep + Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. + + A loftier Argo cleaves the main, + Fraught with a later prize; + Another Orpheus sings again, + And loves, and weeps, and dies. + A new Ulysses leaves once more + Calypso for his native shore. + + O write no more the tale of Troy, + If earth Death’s scroll must be! + Nor mix with Laian rage the joy + Which dawns upon the free: + Although a subtler Sphinx renew + Riddles of death Thebes never knew. + + Another Athens shall arise, + And to remoter time + Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, + The splendour of its prime; + And leave, if nought so bright may live, + All earth can take or Heaven can give. + + * * * * * + + O cease! must hate and death return? + Cease! must men kill and die? + Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn + Of bitter prophecy. + The world is weary of the past, + O might it die or rest at last! + + + +WILD WITH WEEPING + + + MY head is wild with weeping for a grief + Which is the shadow of a gentle mind. + I walk into the air (but no relief + To seek,—or haply, if I sought, to find; + It came unsought); to wonder that a chief + Among men’s spirits should be cold and blind. + + + +TO THE NIGHT + + + SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, + Spirit of Night! + Out of the misty eastern cave + Where, all the long and lone daylight, + Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear + Which make thee terrible and dear,— + Swift be thy flight! + + Wrap thy form in a mantle grey + Star-inwrought; + Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, + Kiss her until she be wearied out: + Then wander o’er city and sea and land, + Touching all with thine opiate wand— + Come, long-sought! + + When I arose and saw the dawn, + I sighed for thee; + When light rode high, and the dew was gone, + And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, + And the weary Day turned to his rest + Lingering like an unloved guest, + I sighed for thee. + + Thy brother Death came, and cried + Wouldst thou me? + Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, + Murmured like a noon-tide bee, + Shall I nestle near thy side? + Wouldst thou me?—And I replied + No, not thee! + + Death will come when thou art dead, + Soon, too soon— + Sleep will come when thou art fled; + Of neither would I ask the boon + I ask of thee, beloved Night— + Swift be thine approaching flight, + Come soon, soon! + + + +TO A SKYLARK + + + HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit! + Bird thou never wert! + That from heaven, or near it, + Pourest thy full heart + In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. + + Higher still and higher + From the earth thou springest, + Like a cloud of fire, + The blue deep thou wingest, + And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. + + In the golden lightning + Of the sunken sun + O’er which clouds are brightening, + Thou dost float and run + Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. + + The pale purple even + Melts around thy flight: + Like a star of heaven + In the broad daylight + Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight; + + Keen as are the arrows + Of that silver sphere, + Whose intense lamp narrows + In the white dawn clear + Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. + + All the earth and air + With thy voice is loud, + As, when night is bare, + From one lonely cloud + The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over-flowed. + + What thou art we know not; + What is most like thee? + From rainbow clouds there flow not + Drops so bright to see + As from thy presence showers a rain of melody;— + + Like a poet hidden + In the light of thought, + Singing hymns unbidden, + Till the world is wrought + To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not; + + Like a high-born maiden + In a palace tower, + Soothing her love-laden + Soul in secret hour + With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: + + Like a glow-worm golden + In a dell of dew, + Scattering unbeholden + Its aërial hue + Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: + + Like a rose embowered + In its own green leaves, + By warm winds deflowered, + Till the scent it gives + Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. + + Sound of vernal showers + On the twinkling grass, + Rain-awakened flowers, + All that ever was + Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. + + Teach us, sprite or bird, + What sweet thoughts are thine: + I have never heard + Praise of love or wine + That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. + + Chorus hymeneal + Or triumphal chaunt + Matched with thine, would be all + But an empty vaunt— + A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. + + What objects are the fountains + Of thy happy strain? + What fields, or waves, or mountains? + What shapes of sky or plain? + What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? + + With thy clear keen joyance + Languor cannot be: + Shadow of annoyance + Never came near thee: + Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. + + Waking or asleep + Thou of death must deem + Things more true and deep + Than we mortals dream, + Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? + + We look before and after, + And pine for what is not: + Our sincerest laughter + With some pain is fraught; + Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. + + Yet if we could scorn + Hate, and pride, and fear; + If we were things born + Not to shed a tear, + I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. + + Better than all measures + Of delightful sound, + Better than all treasures + That in books are found, + Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! + + Teach me half the gladness + That thy brain must know, + Such harmonious madness + From my lips would flow, + The world should listen then, as I am listening now! + + + +TO THE MOON + + + ART thou pale for weariness + Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, + Wandering companionless + Among the stars that have a different birth,— + And ever-changing, like a joyless eye + That finds no object worth its constancy? + + + +THE QUESTION + + + I DREAMED that as I wandered by the way + Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, + And gentle odours led my steps astray, + Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring + Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay + Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling + Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, + But kissed it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream. + + There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, + Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, + The constellated flower that never sets; + Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth + The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets + Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears, + When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears. + + And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, + Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May, + And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine + Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; + And wild roses, and ivy serpentine + With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; + And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, + Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. + + And nearer to the river’s trembling edge + There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, + And starry river-buds among the sedge, + And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, + Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge + With moonlight beams of their own watery light; + And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green + As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. + + Methought that of these visionary flowers + I made a nosegay, bound in such a way + That the same hues, which in their natural bowers + Were mingled or opposed, the like array + Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours + Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, + I hastened to the spot whence I had come + That I might there present it—O! to Whom? + + + +THE WANING MOON + + + AND like a dying lady, lean and pale, + Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, + Out of her chamber, led by the insane + And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, + The moon arose up in the murky east, + A white and shapeless mass. + + + +ODE TO THE WEST WIND + + + O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, + Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead + Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, + Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, + Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou + Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed + The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, + Each like a corpse within its grave, until + Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow + Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill + (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) + With living hues and odours plain and hill: + Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; + Destroyer and Preserver: Hear, oh hear! + + Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, + Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, + Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, + Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread + On the blue surface of thine airy surge, + Like the bright hair uplifted from the head + Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge + Of the horizon to the zenith’s height— + The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge + Of the dying year, to which this closing night + Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, + Vaulted with all thy congregated might + Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere + Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear! + + Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams + The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, + Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, + Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, + And saw in sleep old palaces and towers + Quivering within the wave’s intenser day, + All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers + So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou + For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers + Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below + The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear + The sapless foliage of the ocean, know + Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear + And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! + + If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; + If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; + A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share + The impulse of thy strength, only less free + Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even + I were as in my boyhood, and could be + The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, + As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed + Scarce seemed a vision,—I would ne’er have striven + As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. + O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! + I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! + A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed + One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. + + Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: + What if my leaves are falling like its own! + The tumult of thy mighty harmonies + Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, + Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, + My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! + Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, + Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth; + And, by the incantation of this verse, + Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth + Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind + Be through my lips to unawakened earth + The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, + If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? + + + +RARELY, RARELY COMEST THOU + + + RARELY, rarely comest thou, + Spirit of Delight! + Wherefore hast thou left me now + Many a day and night? + Many a weary night and day + ’Tis since thou art fled away. + + How shall ever one like me + Win thee back again? + With the joyous and the free + Thou wilt scoff at pain. + Spirit false! thou hast forgot + All but those who need thee not. + + As a lizard with the shade + Of a trembling leaf, + Thou with sorrow art dismayed; + Even the sighs of grief + Reproach thee, that thou art not near, + And reproach thou wilt not hear. + + Let me set my mournful ditty + To a merry measure, + Thou wilt never come for pity, + Thou wilt come for pleasure. + Pity then will cut away + Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. + + I love all that thou lovest, + Spirit of Delight! + The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, + And the starry night, + Autumn evening, and the morn + When the golden mists are born. + + I love snow, and all the forms + Of the radiant frost; + I love waves, and winds, and storms— + Everything almost + Which is Nature’s, and may be + Untainted by man’s misery. + + I love tranquil solitude, + And such society + As is quiet, wise and good; + Between thee and me + What difference? but thou dost possess + The things I seek, not love them less. + + I love Love—though he has wings, + And like light can flee, + But above all other things, + Spirit, I love thee— + Thou art love and life! O come, + Make once more my heart thy home! + + + +THE INVITATION, TO JANE + + + BEST and brightest, come away! + Fairer far than this fair Day, + Which, like thee to those in sorrow, + Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow + To the rough Year just awake + In its cradle on the brake. + The brightest hour of unborn Spring, + Through the winter wandering, + Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn + To hoar February born; + Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, + It kissed the forehead of the Earth, + And smiled upon the silent sea, + And bade the frozen streams be free, + And waked to music all their fountains, + And breathed upon the frozen mountains, + And like a prophetess of May + Strewed flowers upon the barren way, + Making the wintry world appear + Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. + Away, away, from men and towns, + To the wild wood and the downs— + To the silent wilderness + Where the soul need not repress + Its music, lest it should not find + An echo in another’s mind, + While the touch of Nature’s art + Harmonizes heart to heart. + I leave this notice on my door + For each accustomed visitor:— + ‘I am gone into the fields + To take what this sweet hour yields;— + Reflection, you may come to-morrow, + Sit by the fireside with sorrow.— + You with the unpaid bill, Despair,— + You tiresome verse-reciter, Care,— + I will pay you in the grave,— + Death will listen to your stave. + Expectation, too, be off! + To-day is for itself enough; + Hope in pity mock not Woe + With smiles, nor follow where I go; + Long having lived on thy sweet food, + At length I find one moment’s good + After long pain—with all your love, + This you never told me of.’ + + Radiant sister of the Day, + Awake! arise! and come away! + To the wild woods and the plains, + And the pools where winter rains + Image all their roof of leaves, + Where the pine its garland weaves + Of sapless green and ivy dun + Round stems that never kiss the sun; + Where the lawns and pastures be, + And the sand-hills of the sea;— + Where the melting hoar-frost wets + The daisy-star that never sets, + The wind-flowers, and violets, + Which yet join not scent to hue, + Crown the pale year weak and new; + When the night is left behind + In the deep east, dun and blind, + And the blue noon is over us, + And the multitudinous + Billows murmur at our feet, + Where the earth and ocean meet, + And all things seem only one + In the universal sun. + + + +THE RECOLLECTION + + + NOW the last day of many days + All beautiful and bright as thou, + The loveliest and the last, is dead: + Rise, Memory, and write its praise! + Up—to thy wonted work! come, trace + The epitaph of glory fled, + For now the earth has changed its face, + A frown is on the heaven’s brow. + + We wandered to the Pine Forest + That skirts the Ocean’s foam; + The lightest wind was in its nest, + The tempest in its home. + The whispering waves were half asleep, + The clouds were gone to play, + And on the bosom of the deep + The smile of heaven lay; + It seemed as if the hour were one + Sent from beyond the skies + Which scattered from above the sun + A light of Paradise! + + We paused amid the pines that stood + The giants of the waste, + Tortured by storms to shapes as rude + As serpents interlaced,— + And soothed by every azure breath + That under heaven is blown, + To harmonies and hues beneath, + As tender as its own: + Now all the tree-tops lay asleep + Like green waves on the sea, + As still as in the silent deep + The ocean-woods may be. + + How calm it was!—The silence there + By such a chain was bound, + That even the busy woodpecker + Made stiller with her sound + The inviolable quietness; + The breath of peace we drew + With its soft motion made not less + The calm that round us grew. + There seemed, from the remotest seat + Of the white mountain waste + To the soft flower beneath our feet, + A magic circle traced,— + A spirit interfused around, + A thrilling silent life; + To momentary peace it bound + Our mortal nature’s strife;— + And still I felt the centre of + The magic circle there + Was one fair form that filled with love + The lifeless atmosphere. + + We paused beside the pools that lie + Under the forest bough; + Each seemed as ’twere a little sky + Gulfed in a world below; + A firmament of purple light + Which in the dark earth lay, + More boundless than the depth of night + And purer than the day— + In which the lovely forests grew + As in the upper air, + More perfect both in shape and hue + Than any spreading there. + There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, + And through the dark green wood + The white sun twinkling like the dawn + Out of a speckled cloud. + Sweet views, which in our world above + Can never well be seen, + Were imaged in the water’s love + Of that fair forest green: + And all was interfused beneath + With an Elysian glow, + An atmosphere without a breath, + A softer day below. + Like one beloved, the scene had lent + To the dark water’s breast + Its every leaf and lineament + With more than truth exprest; + Until an envious wind crept by, + Like an unwelcome thought + Which from the mind’s too faithful eye + Blots one dear image out. + —Though thou art ever fair and kind, + The forests ever green, + Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind + Than calm in waters seen! + + + +ODE TO HEAVEN + + + _Chorus of Spirits_ + + +FIRST SPIRIT + + + PALACE roof of cloudless nights! + Paradise of golden lights! + Deep, immeasurable, vast, + Which art now and which wert then + Of the present and the past, + Of the eternal where and when, + Presence-chamber, temple, home, + Ever canopying dome + Of acts and ages yet to come! + + Glorious shapes have life in thee, + Earth, and all earth’s company; + Living globes which ever throng + Thy deep chasms and wildernesses; + And green worlds that glide along; + And swift stars with flashing tresses; + And icy moons most cold and bright, + And mighty suns beyond the night, + Atoms of intensest light. + + Even thy name is as a God, + Heaven! for thou art the abode + Of that power which is the glass + Wherein man his nature sees. + Generations as they pass + Worship thee with bended knees. + Their unremaining gods and they + Like a river roll away: + Thou remainest such alway. + + +SECOND SPIRIT + + + Thou art but the mind’s first chamber, + Round which its young fancies clamber, + Like weak insects in a cave, + Lighted up by stalactites; + By the portal of the grave, + Where a world of new delights + Will make thy best glories seem + But a dim and noonday gleam + From the shadow of a dream! + + +THIRD SPIRIT + + + Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn + At your presumption, atom-born! + What is heaven, and what are ye + Who its brief expanse inherit? + What are suns and spheres which flee + With the instinct of that spirit + Of which ye are but a part? + Drops which Nature’s mighty heart + Drives through thinnest veins. Depart! + + What is heaven? a globe of dew, + Filling in the morning new + Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken + On an unimagined world: + Constellated suns unshaken, + Orbits measureless are furled + In that frail and fading sphere, + With ten millions gathered there, + To tremble, gleam, and disappear. + + + +LIFE OF LIFE + + + LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle + With their love the breath between them; + And thy smiles before they dwindle + Make the cold air fire; then screen them + In those looks, where whoso gazes + Faints, entangled in their mazes. + + Child of Light! thy limbs are burning + Thro’ the vest which seeks to hide them; + As the radiant lines of morning + Thro’ the clouds ere they divide them; + And this atmosphere divinest + Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest. + + Fair are others; none beholds thee, + But thy voice sounds low and tender + Like the fairest, for it folds thee + From the sight, that liquid splendour, + And all feel, yet see thee never, + As I feel now, lost for ever! + + Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest + Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, + And the souls of whom thou lovest + Walk upon the winds with lightness, + Till they fail, as I am failing, + Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing! + + + +AUTUMN + + + _A Dirge_ + + THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, + The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, + And the year + On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, + Is lying. + Come, months, come away, + From November to May, + In your saddest array; + Follow the bier + Of the dead cold year, + And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. + + The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, + The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling + For the year; + The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone + To his dwelling; + Come, months, come away; + Put on white, black, and grey; + Let your light sisters play— + Ye, follow the bier + Of the dead cold year, + And make her grave green with tear on tear. + + + +STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES + + + THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, + The waves are dancing fast and bright, + Blue isles and snowy mountains wear + The purple noon’s transparent might: + The breath of the moist earth is light + Around its unexpanded buds; + Like many a voice of one delight— + The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’— + The city’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s. + + I see the deep’s untrampled floor + With green and purple sea-weeds strown; + I see the waves upon the shore + Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown: + I sit upon the sands alone; + The lightning of the noon-tide ocean + Is flashing round me, and a tone + Arises from its measured motion— + How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. + + Alas! I have nor hope nor health, + Nor peace within nor calm around, + Nor that content, surpassing wealth, + The sage in meditation found, + And walked with inward glory crowned— + Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure; + Others I see whom these surround— + Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; + To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. + + Yet now despair itself is mild + Even as the winds and waters are; + I could lie down like a tired child, + And weep away the life of care + Which I have borne and yet must bear,— + Till death like sleep might steal on me, + And I might feel in the warm air + My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea + Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony. + + + +DIRGE FOR THE YEAR + + + ORPHAN hours, the year is dead, + Come and sigh, come and weep! + Merry hours, smile instead, + For the year is but asleep. + See, it smiles as it is sleeping, + Mocking your untimely weeping. + + As an earthquake rocks a corse + In its coffin in the clay, + So White Winter, that rough nurse, + Rocks the death-cold year to-day; + Solemn hours! wail aloud + For your mother in her shroud. + + As the wild air stirs and sways + The tree-swung cradle of a child, + So the breath of these rude days + Rocks the year:—be calm and mild; + Trembling hours, she will arise + With new love within her eyes. + + January grey is here, + Like a sexton by her grave; + February bears the bier, + March with grief doth howl and rave. + And April weeps—but O, ye hours, + Follow with May’s fairest flowers. + + + +A WIDOW BIRD + + + A WIDOW bird sat mourning for her love + Upon a wintry bough; + The frozen wind crept on above, + The freezing stream below. + + There was no leaf upon the forest bare, + No flower upon the ground, + And little motion in the air + Except the mill-wheel’s sound. + + + +THE TWO SPIRITS + + + _First Spirit_ + + O THOU, who plumed with strong desire + Wouldst float above the earth, beware! + A shadow tracks the flight of fire— + Night is coming! + Bright are the regions of the air, + And among the winds and beams + It were delight to wander there— + Night is coming! + + _Second Spirit_ + + The deathless stars are bright above; + If I would cross the shade of night, + Within my heart is the lamp of love, + And that is day! + And the moon will smile with gentle light + On my golden plumes where’er they move; + The meteors will linger round my flight, + And make night day. + + _First Spirit_ + + But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken + Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain; + See, the bounds of the air are shaken— + Night is coming! + The red swift clouds of the hurricane + Yon declining sun have overtaken; + The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain— + Night is coming! + + _Second Spirit_ + + I see the light, and I hear the sound; + I’ll sail on the flood of the tempests dark, + With the calm within and the light around + Which makes night day: + And then, when the gloom is deep and stark, + Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound; + My moon-like flight thou then may’st mark + On high, far away. + + Some say there is a precipice + Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin + O’er piles of snow and chasms of ice + ’Mid Alpine mountains; + And that the languid storm pursuing + That winged shape, for ever flies + Round those hoar branches, aye renewing + Its aëry fountains. + + Some say, when nights are dry and clear, + And the death-dews sleep on the morass, + Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, + Which make night day; + And a silver shape, like his early love, doth pass + Up-borne by her wild and glittering hair, + And when he awakes on the fragrant grass, + He finds night day. + + + + +JOHN KEATS +1795–1821 + + + LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI + + ‘O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, + Alone and palely loitering? + The sedge has withered from the lake, + And no birds sing. + + ‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! + So haggard and so woe-begone? + The squirrel’s granary is full, + And the harvest’s done. + + ‘I see a lily on thy brow + With anguish moist and fever-dew, + And on thy cheeks a fading rose + Fast withereth too.’ + + ‘I met a lady in the meads, + Full beautiful—a faery’s child, + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild. + + ‘I made a garland for her head, + And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; + She looked at me as she did love, + And made sweet moan. + + ‘I set her on my pacing steed + And nothing else saw all day long, + For sidelong would she bend, and sing + A faery’s song. + + ‘She found me roots of relish sweet, + And honey wild and manna-dew, + And sure, in language strange, she said, + “I love thee true.” + + ‘She took me to her elfin grot, + And there she wept and sighed full sore: + And there I shut her wild wild eyes + With kisses four. + + ‘And there she lulled me asleep, + And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide! + The latest dream I ever dreamed + On the cold hill’s side. + + ‘I saw pale kings and princes too, + Pale warriors, death-pale were they all: + They cried—“La belle Dame sans Merci + Hath thee in thrall!” + + ‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam + With horrid warning gaped wide, + And I awoke and found me here + On the cold hill’s side. + + ‘And this is why I sojourn here + Alone and palely loitering, + Though the sedge is withered from the lake, + And no birds sing.’ + + + +ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER + + + MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, + And many goodly states and kingdoms seen: + Round many western islands have I been + Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. + + Oft of one wide expanse had I been told + That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: + Yet did I never breathe its pure serene + Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; + + —Then felt I like some watcher of the skies + When a new planet swims into his ken; + Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes + + He stared at the Pacific—and all his men + Looked on each other with a wild surmise— + Silent, upon a peak in Darien. + + + +TO SLEEP + + + O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight, + Shutting with careful fingers and benign + Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light, + Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; + O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, + In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, + Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws + Around my bed its lulling charities; + + Then save me, or the passed day will shine + Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; + Save me from curious conscience, that still lords + Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole; + Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, + And seal the hushed casket of my soul. + + + +THE GENTLE SOUTH + + + AFTER dark vapours have oppressed our plains + For a long dreary season, comes a day + Born of the gentle South, and clears away + From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. + The anxious month, relieved from its pains, + Takes as a long-lost sight the feel of May, + The eyelids with the passing coolness play, + Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. + The calmest thoughts come round us—as of leaves + Budding; fruit ripening in stillness; autumn suns + Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves; + Sweet Sappho’s cheek; a sleeping infant’s breath; + The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs; + A woodland rivulet; a poet’s death. + + + +LAST SONNET + + + BRIGHT Star! would I were steadfast as thou art— + Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, + And watching with eternal lids apart, + Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priest-like task + Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, + Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask + Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— + + No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, + Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast, + To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, + Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, + Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, + And so live ever—or else swoon to death. + + + +ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE + + + MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains + My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, + Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains + One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: + ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, + But being too happy in thine happiness,— + That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, + In some melodious plot + Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, + Singest of summer in full-throated ease. + + O for a draught of vintage! that hath been + Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, + Tasting of Flora and the country green, + Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! + O for a beaker full of the warm South, + Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, + With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, + And purple-stained mouth; + That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, + And with thee fade into the forest dim: + + Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget + What thou among the leaves hast never known, + The weariness, the fever, and the fret + Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; + Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, + Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; + Where but to think is to be full of sorrow + And leaden-eyed despairs; + Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, + Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. + + Away! away! for I will fly to thee, + Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, + But on the viewless wings of Poesy, + Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: + Already with thee! tender is the night, + And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, + Clustered around by all her starry Fays; + But here there is no light, + Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown + Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. + + I cannot tell what flowers are at my feet, + Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, + But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet + Wherewith the seasonable month endows + The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; + White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; + Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; + And mid-May’s eldest child, + The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, + The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. + + Darkling I listen; and for many a time + I have been half in love with easeful Death, + Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, + To take into the air my quiet breath; + Now more than ever seems it rich to die, + To cease upon the midnight with no pain, + While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad + In such an ecstasy! + Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— + To thy high requiem become a sod. + + Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! + No hungry generations tread thee down; + The voice I hear this passing night was heard + In ancient days by emperor and clown: + Perhaps the self-same song that found a path + Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, + She stood in tears amid the alien corn; + The same that oft-times hath + Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. + + Forlorn! the very word is like a bell + To toll me back from thee to my sole self! + Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well + As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. + Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades + Past the near meadows, over the still stream, + Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep + In the next valley-glades: + Was it a vision or a waking dream? + Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? + + + +ODE ON A GRECIAN URN + + + THOU still unravished bride of quietness, + Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, + Sylvan historian, who canst thus express + A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: + What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape + Of deities or mortals, or of both, + In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? + What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? + What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? + What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? + + Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard + Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; + Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, + Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: + Fair youth, beneath the trees thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, + Though winning near the goal—yet do not grieve; + She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, + For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! + + Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed + Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; + And happy melodist, unwearied, + For ever piping songs for ever new; + More happy love! more happy, happy love! + For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, + For ever panting, and for ever young; + All breathing human passion far above, + That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, + A burning forehead and a parching tongue. + + Who are these coming to the sacrifice? + To what green altar, O mysterious priest, + Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, + And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? + What little town by river or sea-shore, + Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, + Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? + And, little town, thy streets for evermore + Will silent be; and not a soul to tell + Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. + + O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede + Of marble men and maidens overwrought, + With forest branches and the trodden weed; + Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought + As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! + When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest, + ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ + + + +ODE TO AUTUMN + + + SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, + Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; + Conspiring with him how to load and bless + With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; + To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, + And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; + To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells + With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, + And still more, later flowers for the bees, + Until they think warm days will never cease; + For Summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells. + + Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? + Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find + Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, + Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; + Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, + Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook + Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: + And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep + Steady thy laden head across a brook; + Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, + Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. + + Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? + Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— + While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day + And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; + Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn + Among the river-sallows, borne aloft + Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; + And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; + Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft + The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; + And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. + + + +ODE TO PSYCHE + + + O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung + By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, + And pardon that my secrets should be sung + Even into thine own soft-conched ear: + Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see + The winged Psyche with awakened eyes? + I wandered in a forest thoughtlessly, + And on the sudden, fainting with surprise, + Saw two fair creatures couched side by side + In deepest grass, beneath the whispering roof + Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran + A brooklet scarce espied: + ’Mid hushed, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed, + Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian, + They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass, + Their arms embraced, and their pinions too; + Their lips touched not, but had not bade adieu, + As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber, + And ready still past kisses to outnumber + At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: + The winged boy I knew; + But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove? + His Psyche true! + + O latest-born and loveliest vision far + Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy! + Fairer than Phoebe’s sapphire-regioned star, + Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky: + Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none, + Nor altar heaped with flowers; + Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan + Upon the midnight hours; + No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet + From chain-swung censer teeming; + No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat + Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming. + O brightest! though too late for antique vows, + Too, too late for the fond believing lyre, + When holy were the haunted forest boughs, + Holy the air, the water, and the fire; + Yet even in these days so far retired + From happy pieties, thy lucent fans, + Fluttering among the faint Olympians, + I see and sing, by my own eyes inspired. + So let me be thy choir, and make a moan + Upon the midnight hours! + Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet + From swinged censer teeming; + Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat + Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming. + + Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane + In some untrodden region of my mind, + Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain, + Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind; + Far, far around shall those dark-clustered trees + Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; + And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, + The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep; + And in the midst of this wide quietness + A rosy sanctuary will I dress + With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, + With buds, and shells, and stars without a name. + With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign, + Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same: + And there shall be for thee all soft delight + That shadowy thought can win, + A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, + To let the warm Love in! + + + +ODE TO MELANCHOLY + + + NO, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist + Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; + Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed + By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine: + Make not your rosary of yew-berries, + Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be + Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl + A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries; + For shade to shade will come too drowsily, + And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. + + But when the melancholy fit shall fall + Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud + That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, + And hides the green hill in an April shroud; + Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, + Or on the rainbow of a salt sand-wave; + Or on the wealth of globed peonies; + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, + And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. + + She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy’s grapes against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung. + + + + +HARTLEY COLERIDGE +1796–1849 + + +SHE IS NOT FAIR + + + SHE is not fair to outward view + As many maidens be; + Her loveliness I never knew + Until she smiled on me. + O then I saw her eye was bright, + A well of love, a spring of light. + + But now her looks are coy and cold, + To mine they ne’er reply, + And yet I cease not to behold + The love-light in her eye: + Her very frowns are fairer far + Than smiles of other maidens are. + + + + +NOTES + + +EPITHALAMION.—Page 3. + + +WRITTEN by Spenser on his marriage in Ireland, in 1594, with Elizabeth +Boyle of Kilcoran, who survived him, married one Roger Seckerstone, and +was again a widow. Dr. Grosart seems to have finally decided the +identity of the heroine of this great poem. It is worth while to +explain, once for all, that I do not use the accented _e_ for the longer +pronunciation of the past participle. The accent is not an English sign, +and, to my mind, disfigures the verse; neither do I think it necessary to +cut off the _e_ with an apostrophe when the participle is shortened. The +reader knows at a glance how the word is to be numbered; besides, he may +have his preferences where choice is allowed. In reading such a line as +Tennyson’s + + ‘Dear as remembered kisses after death,’ + +one man likes the familiar sound of the word ‘remembered’ as we all speak +it now; another takes pleasure in the four light syllables filling the +line so full. Tennyson uses the apostrophe as a rule, but neither he nor +any other author is quite consistent. + + + +ROSALYND’S MADRIGAL.—Page 21. + + +It may please the reader to think that this frolic, rich, and delicate +singer was Shakespeare’s very Rosalind. From Dr. Thomas Lodge’s novel, +_Euphues’ Golden Legacy_, was taken much of the story, with some of the +characters, and some few of the passages, of _As You Like It_. + + + +ROSALINE.—Page 22. + + +This splendid poem (from the same romance), written on the poet’s voyage +to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, has the fire and freshness +of the south and the sea; all its colours are clear. The reader’s ear +will at once teach him to read the sigh ‘heigh ho’ so as to give the +first syllable the time of two (long and short). + + + +FAREWELL TO ARMS.—Page 25. + + +George Peele’s four fine stanzas (which must be mentioned as dedicated to +Queen Elizabeth, but are better without that dedication) exist in another +form, in the first person, and with some archaisms smoothed. But the +third person seems to be far more touching, the old man himself having +done with verse. + + + +THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD.—Page 28. + + +The sixth stanza is perhaps by Izaak Walton. + + + +TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY.—Page 44. + + +The author of this exquisite song is by no means certain. The second +stanza is not with the first in Shakespeare, but it is in Beaumont and +Fletcher. + + + +KIND ARE HER ANSWERS.—Page 46. + + +These verses are a more subtle experiment in metre by the musician and +poet, Campion, than even the following, _Laura_, which he himself sweetly +commended as ‘voluble, and fit to express any amorous conceit.’ In _Kind +are her Answers_ the long syllables and the trochaic movement of the +short lines meet the contrary movement of the rest, with an exquisite +effect of flux and reflux. The ‘dancers’ whose time they sang must have +danced (with Perdita) like ‘a wave of the sea.’ + + + +DIRGE.—Page 44. + + +I have followed the usual practice in omitting the last and less +beautiful stanza. + + + +FOLLOW.—Page 49. + + +Campion’s ‘airs,’ for which he wrote his words, laid rules too urgent +upon what would have been a delicate genius in poetry. The airs demanded +so many stanzas; but they gave his imagination leave to be away, and they +depressed and even confused his metrical play, hurting thus the two vital +spots of poetry. Many of the stanzas for music make an unlucky repeating +pattern with the poor variety that a repeating wall-paper does not +attempt. And yet Campion began again and again with the onset of a true +poet. Take, for example, the poem beginning with the vitality of this +line, ‘touching in its majesty’— + + ‘Awake, thou spring of speaking grace; mute rest becomes not thee!’ + +Who would have guessed that the piece was to close in a jogging stanza +containing a reflection on the fact that brutes are speechless, with +these two final lines— + + ‘If speech be then the best of graces, + Doe it not in slumber smother!’ + +Campion yields a curious collection of beautiful first lines. + + ‘Sleep, angry beauty, sleep and fear not me’ + +is far finer than anything that follows. So is there a single gloom in +this— + + ‘Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!’ + +And a single joy in this— + + ‘Oh, what unhoped-for sweet supply!’ + +Another solitary line is one that by its splendour proves Campion the +author of _Cherry Ripe_— + + ‘A thousand cherubim fly in her looks.’ + +And yet ‘a thousand cherubim’ is a line of a poem full of the dullest +kind of reasoning—curious matter for music—and of the intricate knotting +of what is a very simple thread of thought. It was therefore no easy +matter to choose something of Campion’s for a collection of the finest +work. For an historical book of representative poetry the question would +be easy enough, for there Campion should appear by his glorious lyric, +_Cherry Ripe_, by one or two poems of profounder imagination (however +imperfect), and by a madrigal written for the music (however the stanzas +may flag in their quibbling). But the work of choosing among his lyrics +for the sake of beauty shows too clearly the inequality, the brevity of +the inspiration, and the poet’s absolute disregard of the moment of its +flight and departure. + +A few splendid lines may be reason enough for extracting a short poem, +but must not be made to bear too great a burden. + + + +WHEN THOU MUST HOME.—Page 50. + + +Of the quality of this imaginative lyric there is no doubt. It is fine +throughout, as we confess even after the greatness of the opening:— + + ‘When thou must home to shades of underground, + And there arrived, a new admired guest—’ + +It is as solemn and fantastic at the close as at this dark and splendid +opening, and throughout, past description, Elizabethan. This single poem +must bind Campion to that period without question; and as he lived +thirty-six years in the actual reign of Elizabeth, and printed his _Book +of Airs_ with Rosseter two years before her death, it is by no violence +that we give him the name that covers our earlier poets of the great age. +_When thou must Home_ is of the day of Marlowe. It has the qualities of +great poetry, and especially the quality of keeping its simplicity; and +it has a quality of great simplicity not at all child-like, but adult, +large, gay, credulous, tragic, sombre, and amorous. + + + +THE FUNERAL.—Page 56. + + +Donne, too, is a poet of fine onsets. It was with some hesitation that I +admitted a poem having the middle stanza of this Funeral; but the earlier +lines of the last are fine. + + + +CHARIS’ TRIUMPH.—Page 58. + + +The freshest of Ben Jonson’s lyrics have been chosen. Obviously it is +freshness that he generally lacks, for all his vigour, his emphatic +initiative, and his overhearing and impulsive voice in verse. There is a +stale breath in that hearty shout. Doubtless it is to the credit of his +honesty that he did not adopt the country-phrases in vogue; but when he +takes landscape as a task the effect is ill enough. I have already had +the temerity to find fault, for a blunder of meaning, with the passage of +a most famous lyric, where it says the contrary of what it would say— + + ‘But might I of Jove’s nectar sup + I would not change for thine;’ + +and for doing so have encountered the anger rather than the argument of +those who cannot admire a pretty lyric but they must hold reason itself +to be in error rather than allow that a line of it has chanced to get +turned in the rhyming. + + + +IN EARTH.—Page 64. + + +‘I never saw anything,’ says Charles Lamb, ‘like this funeral dirge, +except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the +_Tempest_. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, +earthy. Both have that intentness of feeling which seems to resolve +itself into the element which it contemplates.’ + + + +SONG.—Page 65. + + +All Drummond’s poems seem to be minor poems, even at their finest, except +only this. He must have known, for the creation of that poem, some more +impassioned and less restless hour. It is, from the outset to the close, +the sigh of a profound expectation. There is no division into stanzas, +because its metre is the breath of life. One might wish that the English +ode (roughly called ‘Pindaric’) had never been written but with passion, +for so written it is the most immediate of all metres; the shock of the +heart and the breath of elation or grief are the law of the lines. It +has passed out of the gates of the garden of stanzas, and walks (not +astray) in the further freedom where all is interior law. Cowley, long +afterwards, wrote this Pindaric ode, and wrote it coldly. But Drummond’s +(he calls it a song) can never again be forgotten. With admirable +judgment it was set up at the very gate of that _Golden Treasury_ we all +know so well; and, therefore, generation after generation of readers, who +have never opened Drummond’s poems, know this fine ode as well as they +know any single poem in the whole of English literature. There was a +generation that had not been taught by the _Golden Treasury_, and +Cardinal Newman was of it. Writing to Coventry Patmore of his great +odes, he called them beautiful but fragmentary; was inclined to wish that +they might some day be made complete. There is nothing in all poetry +more complete. Seldom is a poem in stanzas so complete but that another +stanza might have made a final close; but a master’s ode has the unity of +life, and when it ends it ends for ever. + +A poem of Drummond’s has this auroral image of a blush: Anthea has +blushed to hear her eyes likened to stars (habit might have caused her, +one would think, to hear the flattery with a front as cool as the very +daybreak), and the lover tells her that the sudden increase of her beauty +is futile, for he cannot admire more: ‘For naught thy cheeks that morn do +raise.’ What sweet, nay, what solemn roses! + +Again: + + ‘Me here she first perceived, and here a morn + Of bright carnations overspread her face.’ + +The seventeenth century has possession of that ‘morn’ caught once upon +its uplands; nor can any custom of aftertime touch its freshness to +wither it. + + + +TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS.—Page 75. + + +The solemn vengeance of this poem has a strange tone—not unique, for it +had sounded somewhere in mediæval poetry in Italy—but in a dreadful sense +divine. At the first reading, this sentence against inconstancy, spoken +by one more than inconstant, moves something like indignation; +nevertheless, it is menacingly and obscurely justified, on a ground as it +were beyond the common region of tolerance and pardon. + + + +THE PULLEY.—Page 91. + + +An editor is greatly tempted to mend a word in these exquisite verses. +George Herbert was maladroit in using the word ‘rest’ in two senses. +‘Peace’ is not quite so characteristic a word, but it ought to take the +place of ‘rest’ in the last line of the second stanza; so then the first +line of the last stanza would not have this rather distressing ambiguity. +The poem is otherwise perfect beyond description. + + + +MISERY.—Page 94. + + +George Herbert’s work is so perfectly a box where thoughts ‘compacted +lie,’ that no one is moved, in reading his rich poetry, to detach a line, +so fine and so significant are its neighbours; nevertheless, it may be +well to stop the reader at such a lovely passage as this— + + ‘He was a garden in a Paradise.’ + + + +THE ROSE.—Page 99. + + +There is nothing else of Waller’s fine enough to be admitted here; and +even this, though unquestionably a beautiful poem, elastic in words and +fresh in feeling, despite its wearied argument, is of the third-class. +Greatness seems generally, in the arts, to be of two kinds, and the third +rank is less than great. The wearied argument of _The Rose_ is the +almost squalid plea of all the poets, from Ronsard to Herrick: ‘Time is +short; they make the better bargain who make haste to love.’ This +thrifty business and essentially cold impatience was—time out of +mind—unknown to the truer love; it is larger, illiberal, untender, and +without all dignity. The poets were wrong to give their verses the +message of so sorry a warning. There is only one thing that persuades +you to forgive the paltry plea of the poet that time is brief—and that is +the charming reflex glimpse it gives of her to whom the rose and the +verse were sent, and who had not thought that time was brief. + + + +L’ALLEGRO.—Page 109. + + +The sock represents the stage, in _L’Allegro_, for comedy, and the +buskin, in _Il Penseroso_, for tragedy. Milton seems to think the comic +drama in England needs no apology, but he hesitates at the tragic. The +poet of _King Lear_ is named for his sweetness and his wood-notes wild. + + + +IL PENSEROSO.—Page 113. + + +It is too late to protest against Milton’s display of weak Italian. +_Pensieroso_ is, of course, what he should have written. + + + +LYCIDAS.—Page 119. + + +Most of the allusions in _Lycidas_ need no explaining to readers of +poetry. The geography is that of the western coasts from furthest north +to Cornwall. Deva is the Dee; ‘the great vision’ means the apparition of +the Archangel, St. Michael, at St. Michael’s Mount; Namancos and Bayona +face the mount from the continental coast; Bellerus stands for Belerium, +the Land’s End. + +Arethusa and Mincius—Sicilian and Italian streams—represent the pastoral +poetry of Theocritus and Virgil. + + + +ON A PRAYER-BOOK.—Page 131. + + +‘Fair and flagrant things’—Crashaw’s own phrase—might serve for a +brilliant and fantastic praise and protest in description of his own +verses. In the last century, despite the opinion of a few, and despite +the fact that Pope took possession of Crashaw’s line— + + ‘Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep,’ + +and for some time of the present century, the critics had a wintry word +to blame him with. They said of George Herbert, of Lovelace, of Crashaw, +and of other light hearts of the seventeenth century—not so much that +their inspiration was in bad taste, as that no reader of taste could +suffer them. A better opinion on that company of poets is that they had +a taste extraordinarily liberal, generous, and elastic, but not +essentially lax: taste that gave now and then too much room to play, but +anon closed with the purest and exactest laws of temperance and measure. +The extravagance of Crashaw is a far more lawful thing than the +extravagance of Addison, whom some believe to have committed none; +moreover, Pope and all the politer poets nursed something they were +pleased to call a ‘rage,’ and this expatiated (to use another word of +their own) beyond all bounds. Of sheer voluntary extremes it is not in +the seventeenth century conceit that we should seek examples, but in an +eighteenth century ‘rage.’ A ‘noble rage,’ properly provoked, could be +backed to write more trash than fancy ever tempted the half-incredulous +sweet poet of the older time to run upon. He was fancy’s child, and the +bard of the eighteenth century was the child of common sense with straws +in his hair—vainly arranged there. The eighteenth century was never +content with a moderate mind; it invented ‘rage’; it matched rage with a +flagrant diction mingled of Latin words and simple English words made +vacant and ridiculous, and these were the worst; it was resolved to be +behind no century in passion—nay, to show the way, to fire the nations. +Addison taught himself, as his hero taught the battle, ‘where to rage’; +and in the later years of the same literary age, Johnson summoned the +lapsed and absent fury, with no kind of misgiving as to the resulting +verse. Take such a phrase as ‘the madded land’; there, indeed, is a word +coined by the noble rage as the last century evoked it. ‘The madded +land’ is a phrase intended to prove that the law-giver of taste, Johnson +himself, could lodge the fury in his breast when opportunity occurred. +‘And dubious title shakes the madded land.’ It would be hard to find +anything, even in Addison, more flagrant and less fair. + +Take _The Weeper_ of Crashaw—his most flagrant poem. Its follies are all +sweet-humoured, they smile. Its beauties are a quick and abundant +shower. The delicate phrases are so mingled with the flagrant that it is +difficult to quote them without rousing that general sense of humour of +which any one may make a boast; and I am therefore shy even of citing the +‘brisk cherub’ who has early sipped the Saint’s tear: ‘Then to his +music,’ in Crashaw’s divinely simple phrase; and his singing ‘tastes of +this breakfast all day long.’ Sorrow is a queen, he cries to the Weeper, +and when sorrow would be seen in state, ‘then is she drest by none but +thee.’ Then you come upon the fancy, ‘Fountain and garden in one face.’ +All places, times, and objects are ‘Thy tears’ sweet opportunity.’ If +these charming passages lurk in his worst poems, the reader of this +anthology will not be able to count them in his best. In the Epiphany +Hymn the heavens have found means + + ‘To disinherit the sun’s rise, + Delicately to displace + The day, and plant it fairer in thy face.’ + +_To the Morning_: _Satisfaction for Sleep_, is, all through, luminous. +It would he difficult to find, even in the orient poetry of that time, +more daylight or more spirit. True, an Elizabethan would not have had +poetry so rich as in _Love’s Horoscope_, but yet an Elizabethan would +have had it no fresher. The _Hymn to St. Teresa_ has the brevities which +this poet—reproached with his _longueurs_—masters so well. He tells how +the Spanish girl, six years old, set out in search of death: ‘She’s for +the Moors and Martyrdom. Sweet, not so fast!’ Of many contemporary +songs in pursuit of a fugitive Cupid, Crashaw’s _Cupid’s Cryer_: _out of +the Greek_, is the most dainty. But if readers should be a little vexed +with the poet’s light heart and perpetual pleasure, with the late +ripeness of his sweetness, here, for their satisfaction, is a passage +capable of the great age that had lately closed when Crashaw wrote. It +is in his summons to nature and art: + + ‘Come, and come strong, + To the conspiracy of our spacious song!’ + +I have been obliged to take courage to alter the reading of the +seventeenth and nineteenth lines of the _Prayer-Book_, so as to make them +intelligible; they had been obviously misprinted. I have also found it +necessary to re-punctuate generally. + + + +WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS.—Page 139. + + +This beautiful and famous poem has its stanzas so carelessly thrown +together that editors have allowed themselves a certain freedom with it. +I have done the least I could, by separating two stanzas that repeated +the rhyme, and by suppressing one that grew tedious. + + + +ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW.—Page 157. + + +This ode has been chosen as more nobly representative than that, better +known, _On the Death of Mr. William Harvey_. In the Crashaw ode, and in +the _Hymn to the Light_, Cowley is, at last, tender. But it cannot be +said that his love-poems had tenderness. He wrote in a gay language, but +added nothing to its gaiety. He wrote the language of love, and left it +cooler than he found it. What the conceits of Lovelace and the +rest—flagrant, not frigid—did not do was done by Cowley’s quenching +breath; the language of love began to lose by him. But even then, even +then, who could have foretold what the loss at a later day would be! + + + +HYMN TO THE LIGHT.—Page 159. + + +It is somewhat to be regretted that this splendid poem should show Cowley +as the writer of the alexandrine that divides into two lines. For he it +was who first used (or first conspicuously used) the alexandrine that is +organic, integral, and itself a separate unit of metre. He first passed +beyond the heroic line, or at least he first used the alexandrine freely, +at his pleasure, amid heroic verse; and after him Dryden took possession +and then Pope. But both these masters, when they wrote alexandrines, +wrote them in the French manner, divided. Cowley, however, with +admirable art, is able to prevent even an accidental pause, making the +middle of his line fall upon the middle of some word that is rapid in the +speaking and therefore indivisible by pause or even by any lingering. +Take this one instance— + + ‘Like some fair pine o’erlooking all the ignobler wood.’ + +If Cowley’s delicate example had ruled in English poetry (and he surely +had authority on this one point, at least), this alexandrine would have +taken its own place as an important line of English metre, more mobile +than the heroic, less fitted to epic or dramatic poetry, but a line +liberally lyrical. It would have been the light, pursuing wave that runs +suddenly, outrunning twenty, further up the sands than these, a swift +traveller, unspent, of longer impulse, of more impetuous foot, of fuller +and of hastier breath, more eager to speak, and yet more reluctant to +have done. Cowley left the line with all this lyrical promise within it, +and if his example had been followed, English prosody would have had in +this a valuable bequest. + +Cowley probably was two or three years younger than Richard Crashaw, and +the alexandrine is to be found—to be found by searching—in Crashaw; and +he took precisely the same care as Cowley that the long wand of that line +should not give way in the middle—should be strong and supple and should +last. Here are four of his alexandrines— + + ‘Or you, more noble architects of intellectual noise.’ + + ‘Of sweets you have, and murmur that you have no more.’ + + ‘And everlasting series of a deathless song.’ + + ‘To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name.’ + +A later poet—Coventry Patmore—wrote a far longer line than even these—a +line not only speeding further, but speeding with a more celestial +movement than Cowley or Crashaw heard with the ear of dreams. + +‘He unhappily adopted,’ says Dr. Johnson as to Cowley’s diction, ‘that +which was predominant.’ ‘That which was predominant’ was as good a +vintage of English language as the cycles of history have ever brought to +pass. + + + +TO LUCASTA.—Page 163. + + +Colonel Richard Lovelace, an enchanting poet, is hardly read, except for +two poems which are as famous as any in our language. Perhaps the rumour +of his conceits has frightened his reader. It must be granted they are +now and then daunting; there is a poem on ‘Princess Louisa Drawing’ which +is a very maze; the little paths of verse and fancy turn in upon one +another, and the turns are pointed with artificial shouts of joy and +surprise. But, again, what a reader unused to a certain living symbolism +will be apt to take for a careful and cold conceit is, in truth, a +rapture—none graver, none more fiery or more luminous. But even to name +the poem where these occur might be to deliver delicate and ardent poetry +over to the general sense of humour, which one distrusts. Nor is +Lovelace easy reading at any time (the two or three famous poems +excepted). The age he adorned lived in constant readiness for the +fiddler. Eleven o’clock in the morning was as good an hour as another +for a dance, and poetry, too, was gay betimes, but intricate with +figures. It is the very order, the perspective, as it were, of the +movement that seems to baffle the eye, but the game was a free impulse. +Since the first day danced with the first night, no dancing was more +natural—at least to a dancer of genius. True, the dance could be +tyrannous. It was an importunate fashion. When the Bishop of Hereford, +compelled by Robin Hood, in merry Barnsdale, danced in his boots (‘and +glad he could so get away’), he was hardly in worse heart or trim than a +seventeenth century author here and there whose original seriousness or +work-a-day piety would have been content to go plodding flat-foot or +halting, as the muse might naturally incline with him, but whom the tune, +the grace, and gallantry of the time beckoned to tread a perpetual +measure. Lovelace was a dancer of genius; nay, he danced to rest his +wings, for he was winged, cap and heel. The fiction of flight has lost +its charm long since. Modern art grew tired of the idea, now turned to +commonplace, and painting took leave of the buoyant urchins—naughty +cherub and Cupid together; but the seventeenth century was in love with +that old fancy—more in love, perhaps, than any century in the past. Its +late painters, whose human figures had no lack of weight upon the +comfortable ground, yet kept a sense of buoyancy for this hovering +childhood, and kept the angels and the loves aloft, as though they shook +a tree to make a flock of birds flutter up. + +Fine is the fantastic and infrequent landscape in Lovelace’s poetry: + + ‘This is the palace of the wood, + And court o’ the royal oak, where stood + The whole nobility.’ + +In more than one place Lucasta’s, or Amarantha’s, or Laura’s hair is +sprinkled with dew or rain almost as freshly and wildly as in +Wordsworth’s line. + +Lovelace, who loved freedom, seems to be enclosed in so narrow a book; +yet it is but a ‘hermitage.’ To shake out the light and spirit of its +leaves is to give a glimpse of liberty not to him, but to the world. + +In _To Lucasta_ I have been bold to alter, at the close, ‘you’ to ‘thou.’ +Lovelace sent his verses out unrevised, and the inconsistency of pronouns +is common with him, but nowhere else so distressing as in this brief and +otherwise perfect poem. The fault is easily set right, and it seems even +an unkindness not to lend him this redress, offered him here as an act of +comradeship. + + + +LUCASTA PAYING HER OBSEQUIES.—Page 165. + + +That errors should abound in the text of Lovelace is the more lamentable +because he was apt to make a play of phrases that depend upon the +precision of a comma—nay, upon the precision of the voice in reading. +_Lucasta Paying her Obsequies_ is a poem that makes a kind of dainty +confusion between the two vestals—the living and the dead; they are +‘equal virgins,’ and you must assign the pronouns carefully to either as +you read. This, read twice, must surely be placed amongst the loveliest +of his lovely writings. It is a joy to meet such a phrase as ‘her brave +eyes.’ + + + +TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON.—Page 166. + + +This is a poem that takes the winds with an answering flight. Should +they be ‘birds’ or ‘gods’ that wanton in the air in the first of these +gallant stanzas? Bishop Percy shied at ‘gods,’ and with admirable +judgment suggested ‘birds,’ an amendment adopted by the greater number of +succeeding editors, until one or two wished for the other phrase again, +as an audacity fit for Lovelace. But the Bishop’s misgiving was after +all justified by one of the MSS. of the poem, in which the ‘gods’ proved +to be ‘birds’ long before he changed them. The reader may ask, what is +there to choose between birds so divine and gods so light? But to begin +with ‘gods’ would be to make an anticlimax of the close. Lovelace led +from birds and fishes to winds, and from winds to angels. + +‘When linnet-like confined’ is another modern reading. ‘When, like +committed linnets,’ daunted the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, it is +right seventeenth century, and is now happily restored; happily, because +Lovelace would not have the word ‘confined’ twice in this little poem. + + + +A HORATIAN ODE.—Page 169. + + +‘He earned the glorious name,’ says a biographer of Andrew Marvell +(editing an issue of that post’s works which certainly has its faults), +‘of the British Aristides.’ The portly dulness of the mind that could +make such a phrase, and having made, award it, is not, in fairness, to +affect a reader’s thought of Marvell himself nor even of his time. Under +correction, I should think that the award was not made in his own age; he +did but live on the eve of the day that cumbered its mouth with phrases +of such foolish burden and made literature stiff with them. Andrew +Marvell’s political rectitude, it is true, seems to have been of a +robustious kind; but his poetry, at its rare best, has a ‘wild civility,’ +which might puzzle the triumph of him, whoever he was, who made a success +of this phrase of the ‘British Aristides.’ Nay, it is difficult not to +think that Marvell too, who was ‘of middling stature, roundish-faced, +cherry-cheeked,’ a healthy and active rather than a spiritual Aristides, +might himself have been somewhat taken by surprise at the encounters of +so subtle a muse. He, as a garden-poet, expected the accustomed Muse to +lurk about the fountain-heads, within the caves, and by the walks and the +statues of the gods, keeping the tryst of a seventeenth century +convention in which there were certainly no surprises. And for fear of +the commonplaces of those visits, Marvell sometimes outdoes the whole +company of garden-poets in the difficult labours of the fancy. The +reader treads with him a ‘maze’ most resolutely intricate, and is more +than once obliged to turn back, having been too much puzzled on the way +to a small, visible, plain, and obvious goal of thought. + +And yet this poet two or three times did meet a Muse he had hardly looked +for among the trodden paths; a spiritual creature had been waiting behind +a laurel or an apple-tree. You find him coming away from such a divine +ambush a wilder and a simpler man. All his garden had been made ready +for poetry, and poetry was indeed there, but in unexpected hiding and in +a strange form, looking rather like a fugitive, shy of the poet who was +conscious of having her rules by heart, yet sweetly willing to be seen, +for all her haste. + +The political poems, needless to say, have an excellence of a different +character and a higher degree. They have so much authentic dignity that +‘the glorious name of the British Aristides’ really seems duller when it +is conferred as the earnings of the _Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return +from Ireland_ than when it inappropriately clings to Andrew Marvell, +cherry-cheeked, caught in the tendrils of his vines and melons. He shall +be, therefore, the British Aristides in those moments of midsummer +solitude; at least, the heavy phrase shall then have the smile it never +sought. + +The Satires are, of course, out of reach for their inordinate length. +The celebrated Satire on Holland certainly makes the utmost of the fun to +be easily found in the physical facts of the country whose people ‘with +mad labour fished the land to shore.’ The Satire on ‘Flecno’ makes the +utmost of another joke we know of—that of famine. Flecno, it will be +remembered, was a poet, and poor; but the joke of his bad verses was +hardly needed, so fine does Marvell find that of his hunger. Perhaps +there is no age of English satire that does not give forth the sound of +that laughter unknown to savages—that craven laughter. + + + +THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF FLOWERS.—Page 173. + + +The presence of a furtive irony of the sweetest kind is the sure sign of +the visit of that unlooked-for muse. With all spirit and subtlety does +Marvell pretend to offer the little girl T. C. (the future ‘virtuous +enemy of man’) the prophetic homage of the habitual poets. The poem +closes with an impassioned tenderness not to be found elsewhere in +Marvell. + + + +THE DEFINITION OF LOVE.—Page 179. + + +The noble phrase of the _Horatian Ode_ is not recovered again, high or +low, throughout Marvell’s book, if we except one single splendid and +surpassing passage from _The Definition of Love_— + + ‘Magnanimous despair alone + Could show me so divine a thing.’ + + + +CHILDHOOD.—Page 183. + + +One of our true poets, and the first who looked at nature with the full +spiritual intellect, Henry Vaughan was known to few but students until +Mr. E. K. Chambers gave us his excellent edition. The tender wit and +grave play of Herbert, Crashaw’s lovely rapture, are all unlike this +meditation of a soul condemned and banished into life. Vaughan’s +imagination suddenly opens a new window towards the east. The age seems +to change with him, and it is one of the most incredible of all facts +that there should be more than a century—and such a century!—from him to +Wordsworth. The passing of time between them is strange enough, but the +passing of Pope, Prior, and Gray—of the world, the world, whether +reasonable or flippant or rhetorical—is more strange. Vaughan’s phrase +and diction seem to carry the light. _Il vous semble que cette femme +dégage de la lumière en marchant_? _Vous l’aimez_! says Marius in _Les +Misérables_ (I quote from memory), and it seems to be by a sense of light +that we know the muse we are to love. + + + +SCOTTISH BALLADS.—Page 191. + + +It was no easy matter to choose a group of representative ballads from +among so many almost equally fine and equally damaged with thin places. +Finally, it seemed best to take, from among the finest, those that had +passages of genius—a line here and there of surpassing imagination and +poetry—rare in even the best folk-songs. Such passages do not occur but +in ballads that are throughout on the level of the highest of their kind. +‘None but my foe to be my guide’ so distinguishes _Helen of Kirconnell_; +the exquisite stanza about the hats of birk, _The Wife of Usher’s Well_; +its varied refrain, _The Dowie Dens of Yarrow_; the stanza spoken by +Margaret asking for room in the grave, _Sweet William and Margaret_; and +a number of passages, _Sir Patrick Spens_, such as that beginning, ‘I saw +the new moon late yestreen,’ the stanza beginning ‘O laith, laith were +our gude Scots lords,’ and almost all the stanzas following. _A Lyke +Wake Dirge_ is of surpassing quality throughout. I am sorry to have no +room for Jamieson’s version of _Fair Annie_, for _Edom o’ Gordon_, for +_The Dæmon Lover_, for _Edward_, _Edward_, and for the Scottish edition +of _The Battle of Otterbourne_. + + + +MRS. ANNE KILLIGREW.—Page 205. + + +This most majestic ode—one of the few greatest of its kind—is a model of +noble rhythm and especially of cadence. To print it whole would be +impossible, and one of the very few excisions in this book is made in the +midst of it. Dryden, so adult and so far from simplicity, bears himself +like a child who, having said something fine, caps it with something +foolish. The suppressed part of the ode is silly with a silliness which +Dryden’s age chose to dodder in when it would. The deplorable ‘rattling +bones’ of the closing section has a touch of it. + + + +SONG, FROM ABDELAZAR.—Page 209. + + +It is a futile thing—and the cause of a train of futilities—to hail +‘style’ as though it were a separable quality in literature, and it is +not in that illusion that the style of the opening of Aphra Behn’s +resounding song is to be praised. But it _is_ the style—implying the +reckless and majestic heart—that first takes the reader of these great +verses. + + + +HYMN.—Page 209. + + +Whether Addison wrote the whole of this or not,—and it seems that the +inspired passages are none of his—it is to me a poem of genius, magical +in spite of the limited diction. + + + +ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.—Page 210. + + +Also in spite of limited diction—the sign of thought closing in, as it +did fast close in during those years—are Pope’s tenderness and passion +communicated in this beautiful elegy. It would not be too much to say +that all his passion, all his tenderness, and certainly all his mystery, +are in the few lines at the opening and close. The _Epistle of Eloisa_ +is (artistically speaking) but a counterfeit. Yet Pope’s _Elegy_ begins +by stealing and translating into the false elegance of altered taste that +lovely and poetic opening of Ben Jonson’s— + + ‘What beckoning ghost, besprent with April dew, + Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?’ + +All the gravity, all the sweetness, one might fear, must be lost in such +a change as Pope makes— + + ‘What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade + Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?’ + +Yet they are not lost. Pope’s awe and ardour are authentic, and they +prevail; the succeeding couplet—inimitably modulated, and of tragic +dignity—proves, without delay, the quality of the poem. The poverty and +coldness of the passage (towards the end), in which the roses and the +angels are somewhat trivially sung, cannot mar so veritable an utterance. +The four final couplets are the very glory of the English couplet. + + + +LINES ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER’S PICTURE.—Page 213. + + +Cowper, again, by the very directness of human feeling makes his +narrowing English a means of absolutely direct communication. Of all his +works (and this is my own mere and unshared opinion) this single one +deserves immortality. + + + +LIFE.—Page 217. + + +This fragment (the only fragment, properly so called, in the present +collection) so pleased Wordsworth that he wished he had written the +lines. They are very gently touched. + + + +THE LAND OF DREAMS.—Page 217. + + +When Blake writes of sleep and dreams he writes under the very influence +of the hours of sleep—with a waking consciousness of the wilder emotion +of the dream. Corot painted so, when at summer dawn he went out and saw +landscape in the hours of sleep. + + + +SURPRISED BY JOY.—Page 229. + + +It is not necessary to write notes on Wordsworth’s sonnets—the greatest +sonnets in our literature; but it would be well to warn editors how they +print this one sonnet; ‘I wished to share the transport’ is by no means +an uncommon reading. Into the history of the variant I have not looked. +It is enough that all the suddenness, all the clash and recoil of these +impassioned lines are lost by that ‘wished’ in the place of ‘turned.’ +The loss would be the less tolerable in as much as perhaps only here and +in that heart-moving poem, _’Tis said that some have died for love_, is +Wordsworth to be confessed as an impassioned poet. + + + +STEPPING WESTWARD.—Page 243. + + +This and the preceding two exquisite poems of sympathy are far more +justified, more recollected and sincere than is that more monumental +composition, the famous poem of sympathy, _Hartleap Well_. The most +beautiful stanzas of this poem last-named are so rebuked by the truths of +nature that they must ever stand as obstacles to the straightforward view +of sensitive eyes upon the natural world. Wordsworth shows us the ruins +of an aspen-wood, a blighted hollow, a dreary place forlorn because an +innocent creature, hunted, had there broken its heart in a leap from the +rocks above; grass would not grow, nor shade linger there— + + ‘This beast not unobserved by Nature fell, + His death was mourned by sympathy divine.’ + +And the signs of that sympathy are cruelly asserted to be these arid +woodland ruins—cruelly, because the common sight of the day blossoming +over the agonies of animals and birds is made less tolerable by such +fictions. We have to shut our ears to the benign beauty of this stanza +especially— + + ‘The Being that is in the clouds and air, + That is in the green leaves among the groves, + Maintains a deep and reverential care + For the unoffending creature whom He loves.’ + +We must shut our ears because the poet offers us, as a proof of that +‘reverential care,’ the visible alteration of nature at the scene of +suffering—an alteration we are obliged to dispense with every day we pass +in the woods. We are tempted to ask whether Wordsworth himself believed +in a sympathy he asks us—upon such grounds!—to believe in? Did he think +his faith to be worthy of no more than a fictitious sign or a false +proof? + +To choose from Wordsworth is to draw close a net with very large +meshes—so that the lovely things that escape must doubtless cause the +reader to protest; but the poems gathered here are not only supremely +beautiful but exceedingly Wordsworthian. + + + +YOUTH AND AGE.—Page 256. + + +Close to the marvellous _Kubla Khan_—a poem that wrests the secret of +dreams and brings it to the light of verse—I place _Youth and Age_ as the +best specimen of Coleridge’s poetry that is quite undelirious—to my mind +the only fine specimen. I do not rate his undelirious poems highly, and +even this, charming and nimble as it is, seems to me rather lean in +thought and image. The tenderness of some of the images comes to a +rather lamentable close; the likeness to ‘some poor nigh-related guest’ +with the three lines that follow is too squalid for poetry, or prose, or +thought. + + + +THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.—Page 258. + + +This poem is surely more full of a certain quality of extreme poetry—the +simplest ‘flower of the mind,’ the most single magic—than any other in +our language. But the reader must be permitted to call the story silly. + + +Page 265. + + +Coleridge used the sun, moon, and stars as a great dream uses them when +the sleeping imagination is obscurely threatened with illness. All +through _The Ancient Mariner_ we see them like apparitions. It is a pity +that he followed the pranks also of a dream when he impossibly placed a +star _within_ the tip of the crescent. + + +Page 266. + + +The likeness of ‘the ribbed sea sand’ is said to be the one passage +actually composed by Wordsworth,—who according to the first plan should +have written _The Ancient Mariner_ with Coleridge—‘and perhaps the most +beautiful passage in the poem,’ adds one critic after another. It is no +more than a good likeness, and has nothing whatever of the indescribable +Coleridge quality. + +Coleridge reveals, throughout this poem, an exaltation of the senses, +which is the most poetical thing that can befall a simple poet. It is +necessary only to refer, for sight, to the stanza on ‘the moving Moon’ at +the bottom of page 267; for hearing, to the supernatural stanzas on page +271; and, for touch, to the line— + + ‘And still my body drank.’ + + + +ROSE AYLMER.—Page 281. + + +Never was a human name more exquisitely sung than in these perfect +stanzas. + + + +THE ISLES OF GREECE.—Page 286. + + +One really fine and poetic stanza—of course, the third; three stanzas +that are good eloquence—the fourth, fifth, and seventh; and one that is a +fair bit of argument—the tenth—may together perhaps carry the rest. + + + +HELLAS.—Page 290. + + +The profounder spirit of Shelley’s poem yet leaves it a careless piece of +work in comparison with Byron’s. The two false rhymes at the outset may +not be of great importance, but there is something annoying in the +dissyllabic rhymes of the second stanza. Dissyllabic rhymes are +beautiful and enriching when they fall in the right place; that is, where +there is a pause for the second little syllable to stand. For example, +they could not be better placed than they would have been at the end of +the shorter lines of this same stanza, where they would have dropped into +a part of the pause. Another sin of sheer heedlessness—the lapse of +grammar in _The Skylark_, at the top of page 296—will remind the reader +of the special habitual error of Drummond of Hawthornden. + + + +THE WANING MOON.—Page 298. + + +In these few lines the Shelley spirit seems to be more intense than in +any other passage as brief. + + + +ODE TO THE WEST WIND.—Page 299. + + +This magnificent poem is surely the greatest of a great post’s writings, +and one of the most splendid poems on nature and on poetry in a +literature resounding with odes on these enormous themes. + + + +THE INVITATION.—Page 303. + + +No need to point to a poem that so shines as does this lucent verse. + + + +LA BELLE DAME BANS MERCI.—Page 316. + + +Keats is here the magical poet, as he is the intellectual poet in the +great sonnet following; and it is his possession or promise of both +imaginations that proves him greater than Coleridge. In his day they +seem to have found Coleridge to be a thinker in his poetry. To me he +seems to have had nothing but senses, magic, and simplicity, and these he +had to the utmost yet known to man. Keats was to have been a great +intellectual poet, besides all that in fact he was. + + + +ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.—Page 320. + + +Of the five odes of Keats, the _Nightingale_ is perhaps the most perfect, +and certainly the most imaginative. But the _Grecian Urn_ is the finest, +even though it has fancy rather than imagination, for never was fancy +more exquisite. The most conspicuous idea—the emptying of the town +because its folk are away at play in the tale of the antique urn—is +merely a fancy, and a most antic fancy—a prank; it is an irony of man, a +rallying of art, a mockery of time, a burlesque of poetry, divine with +tenderness. The six lines in which this fancy sports are amongst the +loveliest in all literature: the ‘little town,’ the ‘peaceful +citadel,’—were ever simple adjectives more happy? But John Keats’s final +moral here is undeniably a failure; it says so much and means so little. +The _Ode to Autumn_ is an exterior ode, and not in so high a rank, but +lovely and perfect. The _Psyche_ I love the least, because its fancy is +rather weak and its sentiment effusive. It has a touch of the deadly +sickliness of _Endymion_. None the less does it remain just within the +group of the really fine odes of English poets. The eloquent +_Melancholy_ more narrowly escapes exclusion from that group. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + at the Edinburgh University Press + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES. + + +{168} Evidently of love. + +{244} In several parts of the north of England, when a funeral takes +place, a basin full of sprigs of boxwood is placed at the door of the +house from which the coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the +funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this boxwood, and throws it into the +grave of the deceased. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE MIND*** + + +******* This file should be named 2080-0.txt or 2080-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/8/2080 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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