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.
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.