The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, in Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657., Edited by L. I. Guiney.

Song.

I prithee let my heart alone!
Since now ’tis raised above thee:
Not all the beauty thou dost own
Again can make me love thee.

He that was shipwreck’d once before5
By such a Siren’s call,
And yet neglects to shun the [55:1] shore,
Deserves his second fall!

Each flattering kiss, each tempting smile
Thou dost in vain bestow,10
Some other lovers might beguile
Who not thy falsehood know.

But I am proof against all art:
No vows shall e’er persuade me
Twice to present a wounded heart15
To her that hath betray’d me.

Could I again be brought to love
Thy form, though more divine,
I might thy scorn as justly move
As now thou sufferest mine.20

The Loss.

Yet ere I go,
Disdainful Beauty, thou shalt be
So wretched as to know
What joys thou fling’st away with me:

A faith so bright,5
As Time or Fortune could not rust,
So firm, that lovers might
Have read thy story in my dust,

And crown’d thy name
With laurel verdant as thy youth.10
Whilst the shrill voice of Fame
Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.

This thou hast lost!
For all true lovers, when they find
That my just aims were crossed,15
Will speak thee lighter than the wind;

And none will lay
Any oblation on thy shrine,
But such as would betray
Their [56:1] faith to faiths as false as thine.20

Yet if thou choose
On such thy freedom to bestow,
Affection may excuse:
For love from sympathy doth flow.

The Self-Cruel.[57:1]

Cast off, for shame, ungentle maid,
That misbecoming joy thou wear’st!
For in my death (though long delay’d),
Unwisely cruel thou appear’st.
Insult o’er captives with disdain:5
Thou canst not triumph o’er the slain.

No, I am now no longer thine;
Nor canst thou take delight to see
Him whom thy love did once confine
Set, though by death, at liberty;10
For if my fall a smile beget,
Thou gloriest in thy own defeat.

Behold how thy unthrifty pride
Hath murthered him that did maintain it;
And wary souls who never tried15
Thy tyrant beauty, will disdain it:
But I am softer, and, (though [57:2] me
Thou wouldst not pity,) pity thee.

An Answer to a Song, “Wert thou much [?] Fairer than thou art,” by Mr. W. M.[58:1]

Wert thou by all affections sought,
And fairer than thou wouldst be thought,
Or had thine eyes as many darts
As thou believ’st they shoot at hearts,
Yet if thy love were paid to me,5
I would not offer mine to thee.

I’d sooner court a fever’s heat,
Than her that owns a flame as [58:2] great.
She that my love will entertain
Must meet it with no less disdain;10
For mutual fires themselves destroy,
And willing kisses yield no joy.

I love thee not because alone
Thou canst all beauty call thine own,
Nor doth my passion fuel seek15
In thy bright eye or softer cheek.
Then, Fairest! if thou wouldst know why:
I love thee ’cause thou canst deny.

The Relapse.[59:1]

O turn away those cruel eyes,
The stars of my undoing!
Or death, in such a bright disguise,
May tempt a second wooing.

Punish their blindly impious [59:2] pride,5
Who dare contemn thy glory!
It was my fall [59:3] that deified
Thy name, and seal’d thy story.

Yet no new sufferings can prepare
A higher praise to crown thee;10
Though my first death proclaim thee fair,
My second will unthrone thee.

Lovers will doubt thou canst entice
No other for thy fuel,
And if thou burn one victim twice,15
Both think thee poor and cruel!

APPENDIX

The Revenge.

[Ronsard.]

Fair rebel to thyself and Time,
Who laugh’st at all my tears,
When thou hast lost thy youthful prime,
And Age his trophy rears,

Weighing thy inconsiderate pride,5
Thou shalt in vain accuse it:
‘Why beauty am I now denied,
Or knew not then to use it?’

Then shall I wish, ungentle Fair,
Thou in like flames may’st burn!10
Venus, if just, will hear my prayer,
And I shall laugh my turn.

Claim to Love.

[Guarini.]

Alas! alas! thou turn’st in vain
Thy beauteous face away,
Which, like young sorcerers, rais’d a pain
Above its power to lay.

Love moves not as thou turn’st thy [60:1] look,5
But here doth firmly rest:
He long ago thine [60:2] eyes forsook
To revel in my breast.

Thy power on him why hop’st thou more
Than his on me should be?10
The claim thou lay’st to him is poor
To that he owns from me.

His substance in my heart excels,
His shadow, in thy sight:
Fire where it burns more truly dwells15
Than where it scatters light.

The Sick Lover.

[Guarini.]

My sickly breath
Wastes in a double flame,
Whilst Love and Death
To my poor life lay claim;
The fever in whose heat I melt5
By her that causeth it [61:1] not felt.

Thou who alone
Canst, yet wilt grant no ease,
Why slight’st thou one,
To feed a new disease?10
Unequal Fair! the heart is thine:
Ah, why then should the pain be mine?

Time Recover’d.

[Casone.]

Come, my Dear, whilst youth conspires
With the warmth of our desires!
Envious Time about thee watches,
And some grace each minute snatches:
Now a spirit, now a ray5
From thy eye he steals away;
Now he blasts some blooming rose
Which upon thy fresh cheek grows;
Gold now plunders in a hair;
Now the rubies doth impair10
Of thy lips; and with sure haste
All thy wealth will take at last;
Only that of which thou mak’st
Use in time, from Time thou tak’st.

Song.

[De Voiture.]

I languish in a silent flame:
For she to whom my vows incline
Doth own perfections so divine,
That but to speak were to disclose her name.
If I should say that she the store5
Of Nature’s graces doth comprise,
(The love and wonder of all eyes,)
Who will not guess the Beauty I adore?

Or though I warily conceal
The charms her looks and soul possess,10
Should I her cruelty express,
And say she smiles at all the pains we feel,
Among such suppliants as implore
Pity, distributing her hate,
Inexorable as their fate,—15
Who will not guess the Beauty I adore?

Apollo and Daphne.

[Marino.]

When Phœbus saw a rugged bark beguile
His love, and his embraces intercept,
The leaves, instructed by his grief to smile,
Taking fresh growth and verdure as he wept,
‘How can,’ saith he, ‘my woes expect release,5
When these,[62:1] the subject of my tears, increase?’

His chang’d yet scorn-retaining Fair he kiss’d,
From the lov’d trunk plucking a little bough,
And though the conquest which he sought he miss’d,
With that triumphant spoil adorns his brow.10
Thus this disdainful maid his aim deceives:
Where he expected fruit he gathers leaves.

Song: Torment of Absence and Delay.

[Montalvan.]

Torment of absence and delay
That thus afflicts my memory!
Why dost thou kill me every day,
Yet will not give me leave to die?
Why dost thou suffer me to live5
All hope of life in life denying,
Or to my patience tortures give
Never to die, yet ever dying?

To fair Narcissa’s brighter eyes
I was by Love’s instruction guided,10
(A happiness I long did prize,)
But now am from their light divided.
Favours and gifts my suit obtain’d,
But envious Fate would now destroy them,
Which if to lose I only gain’d,15
What greater pain than to enjoy them?

A Lady Weeping.

[Montalvan.]

As when some brook flies from itself away,
The murmuring crystal loosely runs astray,
And, as about the verdant plain it winds,
The meadows with a silver ribbon binds,
Printing a kiss on every flower she meets,5
Losing herself to fill them with new sweets,
To scatter frost upon the lily’s head.
And scarlet on the gilliflower to spread,—
So melting sorrow, in the fair disguise
Of humid stars,[63:1] flow’d from bright Chloris’ eyes,10
Which, watering every flower her cheek discloses,
Melts into jasmines here, there into roses.

To his Mistress in Absence.

[Tasso.]

Far from thy dearest self, the scope
Of all my aims,
I waste in secret flames;
And only live because I hope.

O when will Fate restore5
The joys, in whose bright fire
My expectation shall expire,
That I may live because I hope no more!

The Hasty Kiss.

[Secundus.]

A kiss I begg’d, and thou didst [64:1] join
Thy [64:2] lips to mine;
Then, as afraid, snatch’d [64:3] back their treasure,
And mock’d [64:4] my pleasure.
Again, my Dearest![64:5]—for in this5
Thou only gav’st [64:6] desire, and not a kiss.

Song: When thou thy pliant arms.

[Secundus.]

When thou thy pliant arms dost wreathe
About my neck, and gently breathe
Into my breast that soft sweet air
With which thy soul doth mine repair;
When my faint life thou draw’st away,5
(My life which scorching flames decay,)
O’ercharg’d, my panting bosom boils,
Whose fever thy kind art beguiles,
And with the breath that did inspire
Doth mildly fan my glowing fire.10
Transported, then I cry: ‘Above
All other deities is Love!
Or if a deity there be
Greater than Love, ’tis only thee.’

Song: ’Tis no kiss.

[Secundus.]

’Tis no kiss my Fair bestows!
Nectar ’tis, whence new life flows.
All the sweets which nimble bees
In their osier treasuries
With unequall’d art repose,5
In one kiss, her lips disclose.
These, if I should many take,
Soon would me immortal make,
Rais’d to the divine abodes,
And the banquets of the gods.10
Be not, then, too lavish, Fair!
But this heavenly treasure spare,
’Less thou’lt, too, immortal be:
For without thy company
What to me were the abodes15
Or the banquets of the gods?

Translated from Anacreon.

I. The Chase.

With a whip of lilies, Love
Swiftly me before him drove:
On we cours’d it through deep floods,
Hollow valleys, and rough woods,
Till a snake that lurking lay5
Chanc’d to sting me by the way.

Now my soul was nigh to death,
Ebbing, flowing, with my breath,
When Love, fanning with his wings,
Back my fleeting spirit brings:10
‘Learn,’ saith he, ’another day,
Love without constraint t’obey!’

II.

Vex no more thyself and me
With demure philosophy,
Hollow precepts, only fit
To amuse the busy wit.
Teach me brisk Lyæus’ rites;5
Teach me Venus’ blithe delights.
Jove [65:1] loves water: give me wine,
That my soul ere I resign
May this cure of sorrow have.
There’s no drinking in the grave!10

III. The Spring.

See, the Spring herself discloses,
And the Graces gather roses;
See how the becalmed seas
Now their swelling waves appease;
How the duck swims; how the crane5
Comes from ’s winter home again;
See how Titan’s cheerful ray
Chaseth the dark clouds away!

Now in their new robes of green
Are the ploughman’s labours seen;10
Now the lusty teeming earth
Springs, each hour, with a new birth;
Now the olive blooms; the vine
Now cloth with plump pendants shine,
And with leaves and blossoms now15
Freshly bourgeons every bough.

IV. The Combat.

Now will I a lover be!
Love himself commanded me.
Full at first of stubborn pride,
To submit, my soul denied.20
He his quiver takes, and bow,
Bids defiance: forth I go.
Armed with spear and shield we meet:
On he charges: I retreat,

Till, perceiving in the fight25
He had wasted every flight,
Into me, with fury hot,
Like a dart himself he shot.
And my cold heart melts; my shield
Useless, no defence could yield;30
For what boots an outward screen,
When, alas, the fight’s within?

On this verdant lotus laid,
Underneath the myrtle’s shade,
Let us drink our sorrows dead,
Whilst Love plays the Ganymed.

Life like to [66:1] a wheel runs round:5
And, ere long, we underground
Ta’en by death asunder, must
Moulder in forgotten dust.

Why then graves should we bedew,
Why the ground with odours strew?10
Better, whilst alive, prepare
Flowers and unguents for our hair.

Come, my Fair,[66:2] and come away!
All our cares behind us lay,
That these pleasures we may know,15
Ere we come to those below.

E. Catalectis Vet[erum] Poet[arum].

A small well-gotten stock, and country seat
I have, yet my content makes both seem great.
My quiet soul to fears is not inur’d,
And from the sins of idleness secur’d.
Others may seek the camp, others the town,5
And fool themselves with pleasure or renown;
Let me, unminded in the common crowd,
Live, master of the time that I’m allow’d!

Seven Epigrams.[67:1]

[Plato.]

I. Upon One named Aster.

The stars, my Star! thou view’st: heaven I would be,
That I with thousand eyes might gaze on thee.

II. Upon Aster’s Death.

A Phosphor ’mongst the living late wert thou,
But shin’st, among the dead, a Hesper now.

III. On Dion, engraved on his Tomb at Syracuse.

Old Hecuba, the Trojan matron’s, years
Were interwoven by the Fates with tears,
But thee, with blooming hopes, my Dion! deck’d,
Gods did a trophy of their power erect.
Thy honour’d relics in thy country rest,5
Ah, Dion! whose love rages in my breast.

IV. On Alexis.

‘Fair is Alexis,’ I no sooner said,
When every one his eyes that way convey’d.
My soul, as when some dog a bone we show
Who snatcheth it,—lost we not Phaedrus so?

V. On Archaeanassa.

To Archaeanassa, on whose furrow’d brow
Love sits in triumph, I my service vow.
If her declining graces shine so bright,
What flames felt you who saw her noon of light?

VI. Love Sleeping.

Within the covert of a shady grove
We saw the little red-cheek’d god of Love:
He had nor bow nor quiver: these among
The neighbouring trees upon a bow were hung.
Upon a bank of tender rosebuds laid,5
He smiling slept; bees with their noise invade
His rest, and on his lips their honey made.

VII. On a Seal.

Five oxen, grazing in a flowery mead,
A jasper seal, (done to the life,) doth hold;
The little herd away long since had fled,
Were’t not enclos’d within a pale of gold.

TEXTUAL NOTES

This is most probably Dorothy Spencer, born Sidney, Countess of Sunderland, Waller’s ‘Saccharissa,’ then a widow: a woman entirely worthy of Stanley’s admiration, and within his circle of personal friends. The Holy Court, a practical and devotional treatise by Nicolas Caussin, S.J., was first translated into English by Sir Thomas Hawkins, and published in London in 1626. There was a fine five-volume edition printed in 1650. A copy of this may, very likely, have been Stanley’s gift. The poem, 1651, is preceded by ‘Madam’ in formal address.

The Editor guesses this young lady, the ‘bright dawn,’ who will ‘challenge every heart,’ later, to be the future Marchioness of Halifax, the little Dorothy, daughter of the Earl of Sunderland (who was killed at Newbury when she was three years old), and ‘Saccharissa.’ She was eleven in 1651. Waller, Sedley, and others, have left happier poems addressed to children, in the same forced tone, which was quite characteristic of the time.

3:1. P. 10, line 15. A final couplet difficult to scan. If correctly printed, it has a dissyllable rhyme, with the accentual stress on ‘wi’ thee.’

4:1. P. 12. The 1647 title is ‘The Innocence of Love.’

4:2. P. ” line 1. 1647 reads:

‘See how this ivy, Dear, doth twine.’

4:3. P. ” line 7. 1647: ‘To one another whispering there.’

4:4. P. ” lines 9-12. 1647:

‘Then blush not, Fair, that flame to show,
Which, like thyself, no crime can know.
Thus, led by those chaste guides, we may
Embrace and kiss as free as they.’

4:5. Pp. 12-13, lines 20-21. 1647:

‘As are our flames, ’bove reach of words.
Thus, Doris, we of these may learn.’

6:1. P. 13, line 2. 1647 has:

‘This living star of earth.’

But Stanley’s sensitive sequence, ‘A star thought,’ etc., seems to forbid our recurring to the ‘living star’ as better than the ‘animated gem.’

6:2. P. 14, line 4. 1647: ‘deceiv’d.’

6:3. P. ” line 12. 1647:

‘Which doth deceive.’

Title, in Stanley, 1651, reads: ‘On the Edition of Mr. Fletcher’s Works.’

8:2. P. 15, line 5. 1651: ‘did.’

8:3. P. ” line 11. 1651: ‘could.’

8:4. P. 16, line 19. 1647: ‘doth.’

8:5. P. ” line 29. 1647 has ‘ris’’; 1651, ‘rise.’

8:6. P. ” line 30. ‘With’ reads ‘not’ in all texts: clearly a misprint.

This poem, under the title, ‘To my most honour’d Aunt, the Lady Dormer,’ is the dedication of 1647. Who this lady was is not clear to the Editor, unless she was Alice, daughter to Sir Richard Molyneux, Bart., of Sefton, Lancashire, widow of Sir William Dormer, and mother of the splendid first Earl of Carnarvon, killed in the King’s cause at Newbury, 1643. It is rather noticeable that many of Stanley’s friends and kinsfolk, like the Dormers, were Catholics.

Title in Stanley, 1647: ‘On Mr. I. S. his Poems.’

11:2. P. 18, line 7. 1647:

‘Next like some skilful artist, who to wonder.’

11:3. P. ” line 8. 1651 has ‘a piece.’

11:4. P. 19, line 19. 1647: ‘speech.’

11:5. P. ” line 21. ‘Voice’ tentative. Original texts have ‘veil.’

11:6. P. ” line 30. 1651: ‘poetry.’

11:7. P. 19, lines 31-32 omitted in 1647.

11:8. P. ” line 33. Thus, 1647. 1651, erroneously:

‘And hast so far even future aims surpass’d.’