This poet—a bird with tropical plumage, and norland sweetness of song —was born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. His father, was an eminent goldsmith. Herrick was sent to Cambridge; and having entered into holy orders, and being patronised by the Earl of Exeter, he was, in 1629, presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. Here he resided for twenty years, till ejected by the civil war. He seems all this time to have felt little relish either for his profession or parishioners. In the former, the cast of his poems shews that he must have been 'detained before the Lord;' and the latter he describes as a 'wild, amphibious race,' rude almost as 'salvages,' and 'churlish as the seas.' When he quitted his charge, he became an author at the mature age of fifty-six—publishing first, in 1647, his 'Noble Numbers; or, Pious Pieces;' and next, in 1648, his 'Hesperides; or, Works both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq.'—his ministerial prefix being now laid aside. Some of these poems were sufficiently unclerical—being wild and licentious in cast—although he himself alleges that his life was, sexually at least, blameless. Till the Restoration he lived in Westminster, supported by the rich among the Royalists, and keeping company with the popular dramatists and poets. It would seem that he had been in the habit of visiting London previously, while still acting as a clergyman, and had become a boon companion of Ben Jonson. Hence his well-known lines—
'Ah, Ben!Say how or whenShall we, thy guests,Meet at those lyric feasts,Made at the "Sun,"The "Dog," the "Triple Tun,"Where we such clusters hadAs made us nobly wild, not mad?And yet each verse of thineOutdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.My Ben!Or come again,Or send to us,Thy wit's great overplus.But teach us yetWisely to husband it;Lest we that talent spend,And having once brought to an endThat precious stock, the storeOf such a wit, the world should have no more.'
With the Restoration, fortune began again to smile on our poet. He was replaced in his old charge, and seems to have spent the rest of his life quietly in the country, enjoying the fresh air and the old English sports—'repenting at leisure moments,' as Shakspeare has it, of the early pruriencies of his muse; or, as the same immortal bard says of Falstaff, 'patching up his old body' for a better place. The date of his death is not exactly ascertained; but he seems to have got considerably to the shady side of seventy years of age.
Herrick's poetry was for a long time little known, till worthy Nathan Drake, in his 'Literary Hours,' performed to him, as to some others, the part of a friendly resurrectionist. He may be called the English Anacreon, and resembles the Greek poet, not only in graceful, lively, and voluptuous elegance and richness, but also in that deeper sentiment which often underlies the lighter surface of his verse. It is a great mistake to suppose that Anacreon was a mere contented sensualist and shallow songster of love and wine. Some of his odes shew that, if he yielded to the destiny of being a Cicada, singing amidst the vines of Bacchus, it was despair—the despair produced by a degraded age and a bad religion—which reduced him to the necessity. He was by nature an eagle; but he was an eagle in a sky where there was no sun. The cry of a noble being, placed in the most untoward circumstances, is here and there heard in his verses, and reminds you of the voice of one of the transmuted victims of Circe, or of Ariel from that cloven pine, where he
'howl'd away twelve winters.'
Herrick might be by constitution a voluptuary,—and he has unquestionably degraded his genius in not a few of his rhymes,—but in him, as well as in Anacreon, Horace, and Burns, there lay a better and a higher nature, which the critics have ignored, because it has not found a frequent or full utterance in his poetry. In proof that our author possessed profound sentiment, mingling and sometimes half-lost in the loose, luxuriant leafage of his imagery, we need only refer our readers to his 'Blossoms' and his 'Daffodils.' Besides gaiety and gracefulness, his verse is exceedingly musical—his lines not only move but dance.
1 Gather the rose-buds, while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles to-dayTo-morrow will be dying.
2 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.
3 The age is best which is the first,When youth and blood are warmer;But being spent, the worse and worstTimes, still succeed the former.
4 Then be not coy, but use your time,And, whilst ye may, go marry;For having lost but once your prime,You may for ever tarry.
Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry;Full and fair ones; come, and buy!If so be you ask me whereThey do grow? I answer, there,Where my Julia's lips do smile;There's the land or cherry isle,Whose plantations fully show,All the year, where cherries grow.
1. Among thy fancies, tell me this: What is the thing we call a kiss?— 2. I shall resolve ye what it is:
It is a creature, born and bredBetween the lips, all cherry red;By love and warm desires 'tis fed;Chor.—And makes more soft the bridal bed:
2. It is an active flame, that fliesFirst to the babies of the eyes,And charms them there with lullabies;Chor.—And stills the bride too when she cries:
2. Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,It frisks and flies; now here, now there;'Tis now far off, and then 'tis near;Chor.—And here, and there, and everywhere.
1. Has it a speaking virtue?—2. Yes. 1. How speaks it, say?—2. Do you but this, Part your join'd lips, then speaks your kiss;Chor.—And this love's sweetest language is.
1. Has it a body?—2. Aye, and wings,With thousand rare encolourings;And, as it flies, it gently sings,Chor.—Love honey yields, but never stings.
1 Fair daffodils, we weep to seeYou haste away so soon;As yet the early-rising sunHas not attain'd his noon:Stay, stayUntil the hast'ning dayHas runBut to the even-song;And, having pray'd together, weWill go with you along!
2 We have short time to stay, as you;We have as short a spring,As quick a growth to meet decay,As you, or anything:We die,As your hours do; and dryAwayLike to the summer's rain,Or as the pearls of morning dewNe'er to be found again.
1 Why do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tearsSpeak grief in you,Who are but bornJust as the modest mornTeem'd her refreshing dew?Alas! you have not known that showerThat mars a flower;Nor felt the unkindBreath of a blasting wind;Nor are ye worn with years;Or warp'd, as we,Who think it strange to seeSuch pretty flowers, like to orphans young,To speak by tears before ye have a tongue.
2 Speak, whimpering younglings; and make knownThe reason whyYe droop and weep.Is it for want of sleep,Or childish lullaby?Or that ye have not seen as yetThe violet?Or brought a kissFrom that sweetheart to this?No, no; this sorrow shownBy your tears shed,Would have this lecture read,'That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.'
1 Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,Why do ye fall so fast?Your date is not so past,But you may stay yet here awhileTo blush and gently smileAnd go at last.
2 What, were ye born to beAn hour or half's delight,And so to bid good night?'Tis pity Nature brought ye forthMerely to show your worth,And lose you quite.
3 But you are lovely leaves, where weMay read how soon things haveTheir end, though ne'er so brave:And after they have shown their pride,Like you, awhile, they glideInto the grave.
Thus to a groveSometimes devoted unto love,Tinsell'd with twilight, he and they,Led by the shine of snails, a wayBeat with their num'rous feet, which byMany a neat perplexity,Many a turn, and many a crossTract, they redeem a bank of moss,Spongy and swelling, and far moreSoft than the finest Lemster ore,Mildly disparkling like those firesWhich break from the enjewell'd tiresOf curious brides, or like those mitesOf candied dew in moony nights;Upon this convex all the flowersNature begets by the sun and showers,Are to a wild digestion brought;As if Love's sampler here was wroughtOr Cytherea's ceston, whichAll with temptation doth bewitch.Sweet airs move here, and more divineMade by the breath of great-eyed kineWho, as they low, impearl with milkThe four-leaved grass, or moss-like silk.The breath of monkeys, met to mixWith musk-flies, are the aromaticsWhich cense this arch; and here and there,And further off, and everywhereThroughout that brave mosaic yard,Those picks or diamonds in the card,With pips of hearts, of club, and spade,Are here most neatly interlaid.Many a counter, many a die,Half-rotten and without an eye,Lies hereabout; and for to paveThe excellency of this cave,Squirrels' and children's teeth, late shed,Are neatly here inchequeredWith brownest toadstones, and the gumThat shines upon the bluer plumb.
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Art'sWise hand enchasing here those wartsWhich we to others from ourselvesSell, and brought hither by the elves.The tempting mole, stolen from the neckOf some shy virgin, seems to deckThe holy entrance; where withinThe room is hung with the blue skinOf shifted snake, enfriezed throughoutWith eyes of peacocks' trains, and trout—Flies' curious wings; and these amongThose silver pence, that cut the tongueOf the red infant, neatly hung.The glow-worm's eyes, the shining scalesOf silvery fish, wheat-straws, the snail'sSoft candlelight, the kitling's eyne,Corrupted wood, serve here for shine;No glaring light of broad-faced day,Or other over-radiant rayRansacks this room, but what weak beamsCan make reflected from these gems,And multiply; such is the light,But ever doubtful, day or night.By this quaint taper-light he windsHis errors up; and now he findsHis moon-tann'd Mab as somewhat sick,And, love knows, tender as a chick.Upon six plump dandelions high-Rear'd lies her elvish majesty,Whose woolly bubbles seem'd to drownHer Mabship in obedient down.
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And next to these two blankets, o'er-Cast of the finest gossamer;And then a rug of carded wool,Which, sponge-like, drinking in the dullLight of the moon, seem'd to comply,Cloud-like, the dainty deity:Thus soft she lies; and overheadA spinner's circle is bespreadWith cobweb curtains, from the roofSo neatly sunk, as that no proofOf any tackling can declareWhat gives it hanging in the air.
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Shapcot, to thee the fairy stateI with discretion dedicate;Because thou prizest things that areCurious and unfamiliar.Take first the feast; these dishes gone,We'll see the fairy court anon.
A little mushroom table spread;After short prayers, they set on bread,A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat,With some small glittering grit, to eatHis choicest bits with; then in a triceThey make a feast less great than nice.But, all this while his eye is served,We must not think his ear was starved;But there was in place, to stirHis spleen, the chirring grasshopper,The merry cricket, puling fly,The piping gnat, for minstrelsy.And now we must imagine firstThe elves present, to quench his thirst,A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,Brought and besweeten'd in a blueAnd pregnant violet; which done,His kitling eyes begin to runQuite through the table, where he spiesThe horns of pap'ry butterflies,Of which he eats; and tastes a littleOf what we call the cuckoo's spittle:A little furze-ball pudding standsBy, yet not blessed by his hands—That was too coarse; but then forthwithHe ventures boldly on the pithOf sugar'd rush, and eats the sagAnd well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag;Gladding his palate with some storeOf emmets' eggs: what would he moreBut beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,A bloated earwig, and a fly:With the red-capp'd worm, that is shutWithin the concave of a nut,Brown as his tooth; a little moth,Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth;With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears;Moles' eyes; to these, the slain stag's tears;The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;The broke heart of a nightingaleO'ercome in music; with a wineNe'er ravish'd from the flatt'ring rine,But gently press'd from the soft sideOf the most sweet and dainty bride,Brought in a dainty daisy, whichHe fully quaffs up to bewitchHis blood to height? This done, commendedGrace by his priest, the feast is ended.
1 Good-morrow to the day so fair;Good-morning, sir, to you;Good-morrow to mine own torn hair,Bedabbled with the dew:
2 Good-morning to this primrose too;Good-morrow to each maid,That will with flowers the tomb bestrewWherein my love is laid.
3 Ah, woe is me; woe, woe is me!Alack, and well-a-day!For pity, sir, find out this beeWhich bore my love away.
4 I'll seek him in your bonnet brave,I'll seek him in your eyes;Nay, now I think they've made his graveI' th' bed of strawberries:
5 I'll seek him there; I know ere thisThe cold, cold earth doth shake him;But I will go, or send a kissBy you, sir, to awake him.
6 Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,He knows well who do love him,And who with green turfs rear his head,And who do rudely move him.
7 He's soft and tender, pray take heed,With bands of cowslips bind him,And bring him home;—but 'tis decreedThat I shall never find him!
1 Get up, get up for shame; the blooming mornUpon her wings presents the god unshorn:See how Aurora throws her fairFresh-quilted colours through the air:Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and seeThe dew bespangling herb and tree:Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,Above an hour since; yet you are 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;When as a thousand virgins on this day,Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May!
2 Rise and put on your foliage, and be seenTo come forth like the spring-time, fresh and green,And sweet as Flora. Take no careFor jewels for your gown, or hair:Fear not, the leaves will strewGems 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 lightHangs on the dew-locks of the night,And Titan on the eastern hillRetires himself, or else stands stillTill you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying;Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying!
3 Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, markHow each field turns a street, each street a parkMade green, and trimm'd with trees; see howDevotion gives each house a bough,Or branch; each porch, each door, ere thisAn ark, a tabernacle isMade up of whitethorn newly interwove,As if here were those cooler shades of love.Can such delights be in the streetAnd open fields, and we not see't?Come, we'll abroad; and let's obeyThe proclamation made for May,And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying!
4 There's not a budding boy or girl this dayBut is got up, and gone to bring in May:A deal of youth, ere this, is comeBack, and with whitethorn laden home:Some have despatch'd their cakes and cream,Before that we have left to dream;And some have wept, and woo'd, 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 sentFrom out the eye, love's firmament;Many a jest told of the key's betrayingThis night, and locks pick'd; yet we're not a-Maying!
5 Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,And take the harmless folly of the time:We shall grow old apace, and dieBefore we know our liberty:Our life is short, and our days runAs 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 madeA fable, song, or fleeting shade,All love, all liking, all delightLies drown'd with us in endless night.Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying!
1 O thou, the wonder of all days!O paragon and pearl of praise!O Virgin Martyr! ever bless'dAbove the restOf all the maiden train! we come,And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.
2 Thus, thus, and thus we compass roundThy harmless and enchanted ground;And, as we sing thy dirge, we willThe daffodilAnd other flowers lay uponThe altar of our love, thy stone.
3 Thou wonder of all maids! list here,Of daughters all the dearest dear;The eye of virgins, nay, the queenOf this smooth green,And all sweet meads, from whence we getThe primrose and the violet.
4 Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,By thy sad loss, our liberty:His was the bond and cov'nant; yetThou paid'st the debt,Lamented maid! He won the day,But for the conquest thou didst pay.
5 Thy father brought with him alongThe olive branch and victor's song:He slew the Ammonites, we know,But to thy woe;And, in the purchase of our peace,The cure was worse than the disease.
6 For which obedient zeal of thine,We offer thee, before thy shrine,Our sighs for storax, tears for wine;And to make fineAnd fresh thy hearse-cloth, we will hereFour times bestrew thee every year.
7 Receive, for this thy praise, our tears;Receive this offering of our hairs;Receive these crystal vials, fill'dWith tears distill'dFrom teeming eyes; to these we bring,Each maid, her silver filleting,
8 To gild thy tomb; besides, these cauls,These laces, ribands, and these fauls,These veils, wherewith we used to hideThe bashful bride,When we conduct her to her groom:All, all, we lay upon thy tomb.
9 No more, no more, since thou art dead,Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed;No more at yearly festivalsWe cowslip ballsOr chains of columbines shall makeFor this or that occasion's sake.
10 No, no; our maiden pleasures beWrapt in a winding-sheet with thee;'Tis we are dead, though not i' th' grave,Or if we haveOne seed of life left,'tis to keepA Lent for thee, to fast and weep.
11 Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,And make this place all paradise:May sweets grow here! and smoke from henceFat frankincense.Let balm and cassia send their scentFrom out thy maiden-monument.
12 May no wolf howl or screech-owl stirA wing upon thy sepulchre!No boisterous winds or stormsTo starve or witherThy soft, sweet earth! but, like a spring,Love keep it ever flourishing.
13 May all thy maids, at wonted hours,Come forth to strew thy tomb with flowers:May virgins, when they come to mourn,Male-incense burnUpon thine altar! then returnAnd leave thee sleeping in thy urn.
Sweet country life, to such unknownWhose lives are others', not their own!But serving courts and cities, beLess happy, less enjoying thee!Thou never plough'st the ocean's foamTo seek and bring rough pepper home;Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,To bring from thence the scorched clove:Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,Bring'st home the ingot from the West.No: thy ambition's masterpieceFlies no thought higher than a fleece;Or how to pay thy hinds, and clearAll scores, and so to end the year;But walk'st about thy own dear bounds,Not envying others' larger grounds:For well thou know'st, 'tis not the extentOf land makes life, but sweet content.When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost knowThat the best compost for the landsIs the wise master's feet and hands.There at the plough thou find'st thy team,With a hind whistling there to them;And cheer'st them up by singing howThe kingdom's portion is the plough.This done, then to th' enamell'd meads,Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,Thou seest a present godlike powerImprinted in each herb and flower;And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neatUnto the dewlaps up in meat;And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,To make a pleasing pastime there.These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocksOf sheep, safe from the wolf and fox;And find'st their bellies there as fullOf short sweet grass, as backs with wool;And leav'st them as they feed and fill;A shepherd piping on a hill.For sports, for pageantry, and plays,Thou hast thy eves and holidays;On which the young men and maids meet,To exercise their dancing feet;Tripping the comely country round,With daffodils and daisies crown'd.Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast;Thy May-poles too, with garlands graced;Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,Thy shearing feast, which never fail;Thy harvest-home, thy wassail-bowl,That's toss'd up after fox i' the hole;Thy mummeries, thy Twelfth-night kingsAnd queens, thy Christmas revellings;Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit;And no man pays too dear for it.To these thou hast thy times to go,And trace the hare in the treacherous snow;Thy witty wiles to draw, and getThe lark into the trammel net;Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy gladeTo take the precious pheasant made;Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pitfalls, then,To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life, if that their goodThe husbandmen but understood!Who all the day themselves do please,And younglings, with such sports as these;And, lying down, have nought to affrightSweet sleep, that makes more short the night.
This gallant knight was son to Sir Henry Fanshawe, who was Remembrancer to the Irish Exchequer, and brother to Thomas Lord Fanshawe. He was born at Ware, in Hertfordshire, in 1607-8. He became a vehement Royalist, and acted for some time as Secretary to Prince Rupert, and was, in truth, a kindred spirit, worthy of recording the orders of that fiery spirit—the Murat of the Royal cause—to whom the dust of themêléeof battle was the very breath of life. After the Restoration, Fanshawe was appointed ambassador to Spain and Portugal. He acted in this capacity at Madrid in 1666. He had issued translations of the 'Lusiad' of Camoens, and the 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini. Along with the latter, which appeared in 1648, he published some original poems of considerable merit. He holds altogether a respectable, if not a very high place among our early translators and minor poets.
Those whiter lilies which the early mornSeems to have newly woven of sleaved silk,To which, on banks of wealthy Tagus born,Gold was their cradle, liquid pearl their milk.
These blushing roses, with whose virgin leavesThe wanton wind to sport himself presumes,Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receivesFor his wings purple, for his breath perfumes.
Both those and these my Caelia's pretty footTrod up; but if she should her face display,And fragrant breast, they'd dry again to the root,As with the blasting of the mid-day's ray;And this soft wind, which both perfumes and cools,Pass like the unregarded breath of fools.
The 'melancholy' and musical Cowley was born in London in the year 1618. He was the posthumous son of a worthy grocer, who lived in Fleet Street, near the end of Chancery Lane, and who is supposed, from the omission of his name in the register of St Dunstan's parish, to have been a Dissenter. His mother was left poor, but had a strong desire for her son's education, and influence to get him admitted as a king's scholar into Westminster. His mind was almost preternaturally precocious, and received early a strong and peculiar stimulus. A copy of Spenser lay in the window of his mother's apartment, and in it he delighted to read, and became the devoted slave of poetry ever after. When only ten he wrote 'The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,' and at twelve 'Constantia and Philetus.' Pope wrote a lampoon about the same age as Cowley these romantic narratives; and we have seen a pretty good copy of verses on Napoleon, written at the age of seven, by one of the most distinguished rising poets of our own day. When fifteen (Johnson calls it thirteen, but he and some other biographers were misled by the portrait of the poet being, by mistake, marked thirteen) Cowley published some of his early effusions, under the title of 'Poetical Blossoms.' While at school he produced a comedy of a pastoral kind, entitled, 'Love's Riddle,' but it was not published till he went to Cambridge. To that university he proceeded in 1636, and two years after, there appeared the above-mentioned comedy, with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, one of the marvellous men of that age; and also 'Naufragium Joculare,' a comedy in Latin, inscribed to Dr Comber, master of the college. When the Prince of Wales afterwards visited Cambridge, the fertile Cowley got up the rough draft of another comedy, called 'The Guardian,' which was repeated to His Royal Highness by the scholars. This was afterwards, to the poet's great annoyance, printed during his absence from the country. In 1643 he took his degree of A.M., and was, the same year, through the prevailing influence of the Parliament, ejected, with many others, from Cambridge. He took refuge in St John's College, Oxford, where he published a satire, entitled 'The Puritan and Papist,' and where, by his loyalty and genius, he gained the favour of such distinguished courtiers as Lord Falkland. During this agitated period he resided a good deal in the family of the Lord St Albans; and when Oxford fell into the hands of the Parliament he followed the Queen to Paris, and there acted as Secretary to the same noble lord. He remained abroad about ten years, and during that period made various journeys in the furtherance of the Royal cause, visiting Flanders, Holland, Jersey, Scotland, &c. His chief employment, however, was carrying on a correspondence in cipher between the King and the Queen. Sprat says, 'he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of the letters that passed between their Majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in other parts, which, for some years together, took up all his days and two or three nights every week.' This does not seem employment very suitable to a man of genius. He seems, however, to have found time for more congenial avocations; and, in 1647, he published his 'Mistress,' a work which seems to glow with amorous fire, although Barnes relates of the author that he was never in love but once, and then had not resolution to reveal his passion. And yet he wrote 'The Chronicle,' from which we might infer that his heart was completely tinder, and that his series of love attachments had been an infinite one!
In 1556, being of no more use in Paris, Cowley was sent back to England, that 'under pretence of privacy and retirement he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation.' For some time he lay concealed in London, but was at length seized by mistake for another gentleman of the Royal party; and being thus discovered, he was continued in confinement, was several times examined, and ultimately succeeded, although with some difficulty, in obtaining his liberation, Dr Scarborough becoming his bail for a thousand pounds. In the same year he published a collection of his poems, with a querulous preface, in which he expresses a strong desire to 'retire to some of the American plantations, and to forsake the world for ever.' Meanwhile he gave himself out as a physician till the death of Cromwell, when he returned to France, resumed his former occupation, and remained till the Restoration. In 1657 he was created Doctor of Medicine at Oxford. Having studied botany to qualify himself for his physician's degree, he was induced to publish in Latin some books on plants, flowers, and trees.
The Restoration brought him less advantage than he had anticipated. Probably he expected too much, and had expressed his sanguine hopes in a song of triumph on the occasion. He had been promised, both by Charles I. and Charles II., the Mastership of the Savoy, (a forgotten sinecure office;) but lost it, says Wood, 'by certain persons, enemies to the Muses.' He brought on the stage at this time his old comedy of 'The Guardian,' under the title of 'Cutter of Coleman Street;' but it was thought a satire on the debauchery of the King's party, and was received with coldness. Cowley, according to Dryden, 'received the news of his ill success not with so much firmness as might have been expected from so great a man.' There are few who, like Dr Johnson, have been able to declare, after the rejection of a play or poem, that they felt 'like the Monument.' Cowley not only entertained, but printed his dissatisfaction, in the form of a poem called 'The Complaint,' which, like all selfish complaints, attracted little sympathy or attention. In this he calls himself the 'melancholy Cowley,' an epithet which has stuck to his memory.
He had always, according to his own statement, loved retirement. When he was a young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, and playing with his fellows, he was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields alone with a book. This passion had been overlaid, but not extinguished, during his public life; and now, swelled by disgust, it came back upon him in great strength. He seems, too, if we can believe Sprat, to have had an extraordinary attachment to Nature, as it 'was God's;' to the whole 'compass of the creation, and all the wonderful effects of the Divine wisdom.' At all events, he retired first to Barn Elms, and then to Chertsey in Surrey. He had obtained, through Lord St Albans and the Duke of Buckingham, the lease of some lands belonging to the Queen, which brought him in an income of £300 a year. Here, then, having, at the age of forty-two, reached the peaceful hermitage,' he set himself with all his might to enjoy it. He cultivated his fields, and renewed his botanical studies in his woods and garden. He wrote letters to his friends, which are said to have been admirable, and might have ranked with those of Gray and Cowper, but unfortunately they have not been preserved. He renewed his intimacy with the Greek and Latin poets, and he set himself to retouch the 'Davideis,' which he had begun in early youth, but which he never lived to finish, and to compose his beautiful prose essays. But he soon found that Chertsey, no more than Paris, was Paradise. He had no wife nor children. He had sweet solitude, but no one near him to whom to whisper 'how sweet this solitude is!' The peasants were boors. His tenants would pay him no rent, and the cattle of his neighbours devoured his meadows. He was troubled with rheums and colds. He met a severe fall when he first came to Chertsey, of which he says, half in jest and half in earnest—'What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging.' Robert Hall said of Bishop Watson that he seemed to have wedded political integrity in early life, and to have spent all the rest of his days in quarrelling with his wife. So Cowley wedded his long- sought-for bride, Solitude, and led a miserable life with her ever after. Fortunately for him, if not for the world, his career soon came to a close.
One hot day in summer, he stayed too long among his labourers in the meadows, and was seized with a cold, which, being neglected, carried him off on the 28th of July 1667. He was not forty-nine years old. He died at the Porch House, Chertsey, and his remains were buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King Charles, who had neglected him during life, pronounced his panegyric after death, declaring that 'Mr Cowley had not left behind him a better man in England.' It was in keeping with the character of Charles to make up for his deficiency in action, by his felicity of phrase.
If we may differ from such a high authority as 'Old Rowley,' we would venture to doubt whether Cowley was the best—certainly he was not the greatest—man then in England. Milton was alive, and the 'Paradise Lost' appeared in the very year when the author of the 'Davideis' departed. Cowley gives us the impression of having been an amiable and blameless, rather than a good or great man. At all events, there was nothingactivein his goodness, and his greatness could not be called magnanimity. He was a scholar and a poet misplaced during early life; and when he gained that retirement for which he sighed, he had, by his habits of life, lost his capacity of relishing it. 'He that would enjoy solitude,' it has been said, 'must either be a wild beast or a god;' and Cowley was neither. How different his grounds of dissatisfaction with the world from those of Milton! Cowley was wearied of ciphering, and his 'Cutter of Coleman Street' had been cut; that was nearly the whole matter of his complaint; while Milton had fallen from being the second man in England into poverty, blindness, contempt, danger, and the disappointment of the most glorious hopes which ever heaved the bosom of patriot or saint.
We find the want of greatness which marked the man characterising the poet. Infinite ingenuity, a charming flexibility and abundance of fancy, a perception of remote analogies almost unrivalled, great command of versification and language, learning without bounds, and an occasional gracefulness and sparkling ease (as in 'The Chronicle') superior to even Herrick or Suckling, are qualities that must be conceded to Cowley. But the most of his writings are cold and glittering as the sun-smitten glacier. He is seldom warm, except when he is proclaiming his own merits, or bewailing his own misfortunes. Hence his 'Wish,' and even his 'Complaint,' are very pleasing and natural specimens of poetry. But his 'Pindaric Odes,' his 'Hymn to Light,' and most of his 'Davideis,' while displaying great power, shew at least equal perversion, and are more memorable for their faults than for their beauties. In the 'Davideis,' he describes the attire of Gabriel in the spirit and language of a tailor; and there is no path so sacred or so lofty but he must sow it with conceits,—forced, false, and chilly. His 'Anacreontics,' on the other hand, are in general felicitous in style and aerial in motion. And in his Translations, although too free, he is uniformly graceful and spirited; and his vast command of language and imagery enables him often to improve his author—to gild the refined gold, to paint the lily, and to throw a new perfume on the violet, of the Grecian and Roman masters.
In prose, Cowley is uniformly excellent. The prefaces to his poems, especially his defence of sacred song in the prefix to the 'Davideis,' his short autobiography, the fragments of his letters which remain, and his posthumous essays, are all distinguished by a rich simplicity of style and by a copiousness of matter which excite in equal measure delight and surprise. He had written, it appears, three books on the Civil War, to the time of the battle of Newbury, which he destroyed. It is a pity, perhaps, that he had not preserved and completed the work. His intimacy with many of the leading characters and the secret springs of that remarkable period,—his clear and solid judgment, always so except when he was following the Daedalus Pindar upon waxen Icarian wings, or competing with Dr Donne in the number of conceits which he could stuff, like cloves, into his subject-matter,—and the bewitching ease and elegance of his prose style, would have combined to render it an important contribution to English history, and a worthy monument of its author's highly-accomplished and diversified powers.
1 Margarita first possess'd,If I remember well, my breast,Margarita first of all;But when a while the wanton maidWith my restless heart had play'd,Martha took the flying ball.
2 Martha soon did it resignTo the beauteous Catharine:Beauteous Catharine gave place(Though loth and angry she to partWith the possession of my heart)To Eliza's conquering face.
3 Eliza till this hour might reign,Had she not evil counsels ta'en:Fundamental laws she brokeAnd still new favourites she chose,Till up in arms my passions rose,And cast away her yoke.
4 Mary then, and gentle Anne,Both to reign at once began;Alternately they sway'd,And sometimes Mary was the fair,And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,And sometimes both I obey'd.
5 Another Mary then arose,And did rigorous laws impose;A mighty tyrant she!Long, alas! should I have beenUnder that iron-sceptred queen,Had not Rebecca set me free.
6 When fair Rebecca set me free,'Twas then a golden time with me:But soon those pleasures fled;For the gracious princess diedIn her youth and beauty's pride,And Judith reign'd in her stead.
7 One month, three days, and half an hour,Judith held the sovereign power:Wondrous beautiful her face,But so weak and small her wit,That she to govern was unfit,And so Susanna took her place.
8 But when Isabella came,Arm'd with a resistless flame,And the artillery of her eye,Whilst she proudly march'd about,Greater conquests to find out,She beat out Susan by the bye.
9 But in her place I then obey'dBlack-eyed Bess, her viceroy made,To whom ensued a vacancy.Thousand worst passions then possess'dThe interregnum of my breast.Bless me from such an anarchy!
10 Gentle Henrietta then,And a third Mary, next began:Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria;And then a pretty Thomasine,And then another Catharine,And then a longet caetera.
11 But should I now to you relateThe strength and riches of their state,The powder, patches, and the pins,The ribands, jewels, and the rings,The lace, the paint, and warlike things,That make up all their magazines:
12 If I should tell the politic artsTo take and keep men's hearts,The letters, embassies, and spies,The frowns, the smiles, and flatteries,The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,Numberless, nameless mysteries!
13 And all the little lime-twigs laidBy Mach'avel the waiting-maid;I more voluminous should grow(Chiefly if I like them should tellAll change of weathers that befell)Than Holinshed or Stow.
14 But I will briefer with them be,Since few of them were long with me.An higher and a nobler strainMy present Emperess does claim,Heleonora! first o' the name,Whom God grant long to reign.
In a deep vision's intellectual scene,Beneath a bower for sorrow made,The uncomfortable shadeOf the black yew's unlucky green,Mixed with the mourning willow's careful gray,Where rev'rend Cam cuts out his famous way,The melancholy Cowley lay;And, lo! a Muse appeared to his closed sight(The Muses oft in lands of vision play,)Bodied, arrayed, and seen by an internal light:A golden harp with silver strings she bore,A wondrous hieroglyphic robe she wore,In which all colours and all figures wereThat Nature or that Fancy can create.That Art can never imitate,And with loose pride it wantoned in the air,In such a dress, in such a well-clothed dream,She used of old near fair Ismenus' streamPindar, her Theban favourite, to meet;A crown was on her head, and wings were on her feet.
She touched him with her harp and raised him from the ground;The shaken strings melodiously resound.'Art thou returned at last,' said she,'To this forsaken place and me?Thou prodigal! who didst so loosely wasteOf all thy youthful years the good estate;Art thou returned here, to repent too late?And gather husks of learning up at last,Now the rich harvest-time of life is past,And winter marches on so fast?But when I meant to adopt thee for my son,And did as learned a portion assignAs ever any of the mighty nineHad to their dearest children done;When I resolved to exalt thy anointed nameAmong the spiritual lords of peaceful fame;Thou changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and show,Wouldst into courts and cities from me go;Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a shareIn all the follies and the tumults there;Thou wouldst, forsooth, be something in a state,And business thou wouldst find, and wouldst create:Business! the frivolous pretenceOf human lusts, to shake off innocence;Business! the grave impertinence;Business! the thing which I of all things hate;Business! the contradiction of thy fate.
'Go, renegado! cast up thy account,And see to what amountThy foolish gains by quitting me:The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty,The fruits of thy unlearned apostasy.Thou thoughtst, if once the public storm were past,All thy remaining life should sunshine be:Behold the public storm is spent at last,The sovereign is tossed at sea no more,And thou, with all the noble company,Art got at last to shore:But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,All marched up to possess the promised land,Thou still alone, alas! dost gaping stand,Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.As a fair morning of the blessed spring,After a tedious, stormy night,Such was the glorious entry of our king;Enriching moisture dropped on every thing:Plenty he sowed below, and cast about him light.But then, alas! to thee aloneOne of old Gideon's miracles was shown,For every tree, and every hand around,With pearly dew was crowned,And upon all the quickened groundThe fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie,And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry.It did all other threats surpass,When God to his own people said,The men whom through long wanderings he had led,That he would give them even a heaven of brass:They looked up to that heaven in vain,That bounteous heaven! which God did not restrainUpon the most unjust to shine and rain.
'The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more,Thou didst with faith and labour serve,And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve,Though she contracted was to thee,Given to another, thou didst see, who had storeOf fairer and of richer wives before,And not a Loah left, thy recompense to be.Go on, twice seven years more, thy fortune try,Twice seven years more God in his bounty mayGive thee to fling awayInto the court's deceitful lottery:But think how likely 'tis that thou,With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough,Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive,Shouldst even able be to live;Thou! to whose share so little bread did fallIn the miraculous year, when manna rain'd on all.'
Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile,That seemed at once to pity and revile:And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,The melancholy Cowley said:'Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraidThe ills which thou thyself hast made?When in the cradle innocent I lay,Thou, wicked spirit, stolest me away,And my abused soul didst bearInto thy new-found worlds, I know not where,Thy golden Indies in the air;And ever since I strive in vainMy ravished freedom to regain;Still I rebel, still thou dost reign;Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain.There is a sort of stubborn weeds,Which, if the earth but once it ever breeds,No wholesome herb can near them thrive,No useful plant can keep alive:The foolish sports I did on thee bestowMake all my art and labour fruitless now;Where once such fairies dance, no grass doth ever grow.
'When my new mind had no infusion known,Thou gavest so deep a tincture of thine own,That ever since I vainly tryTo wash away the inherent dye:Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite,But never will reduce the native white.To all the ports of honour and of gainI often steer my course in vain;Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again,Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry,By making them so oft to beThe tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.Whoever this world's happiness would seeMust as entirely cast off thee,As they who only heaven desireDo from the world retire.This was my error, this my gross mistake,Myself a demi-votary to make.Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate,(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late,)For all that I give up I nothing gain,And perish for the part which I retain.Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse!The court and better king t' accuse;The heaven under which I live is fair,The fertile soil will a full harvest bear:Thine, thine is all the barrenness, if thouMakest me sit still and sing when I should plough.When I but think how many a tedious yearOur patient sovereign did attendHis long misfortune's fatal end;How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear,On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend,I ought to be accursed if I refuseTo wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse!Kings have long hands, they say, and though I beSo distant, they may reach at length to me.However, of all princes thouShouldst not reproach rewards for being small or slow;Thou! who rewardest but with popular breath,And that, too, after death!'
1 Beneath this gloomy shade,By Nature only for my sorrows made,I'll spend this voice in cries,In tears I'll waste these eyes,By love so vainly fed;So lust of old the deluge punished.Ah, wretched youth, said I;Ah, wretched youth! twice did I sadly cry;Ah, wretched youth! the fields and floods reply.
2 When thoughts of love I entertain,I meet no words but Never, and In vain:Never! alas! that dreadful nameWhich fuels the infernal flame:Never! my time to come must waste;In vain! torments the present and the past:In vain, in vain! said I,In vain, in vain! twice did I sadly cry;In vain, in vain! the fields and floods reply.
3 No more shall fields or floods do so,For I to shades more dark and silent go:All this world's noise appears to meA dull, ill-acted comedy:No comfort to my wounded sight,In the sun's busy and impert'nent light.Then down I laid my head,Down on cold earth, and for a while was dead,And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
4 Ah, sottish soul! said I,When back to its cage again I saw it fly:Fool! to resume her broken chain,And row her galley here again!Fool! to that body to return,Where it condemned and destined is to burn!Once dead, how can it beDeath should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?
1 Tell me, O tell! what kind of thing is Wit,Thou who master art of it;For the first matter loves variety less;Less women love it, either in love or dress:A thousand different shapes it bears,Comely in thousand shapes appears:Yonder we saw it plain, and here 'tis now,Like spirits, in a place, we know not how.
2 London, that vends of false ware so much store,In no ware deceives us more:For men, led by the colour and the shape,Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.Some things do through our judgment pass,As through a multiplying-glass;And sometimes, if the object be too far,We take a falling meteor for a star.
3 Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame,Grows such a common name;And wits by our creation they become,Just so as tit'lar bishops made at Rome.'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest,Admired with laughter at a feast,Nor florid talk, which can that title gain;The proofs of wit for ever must remain.
4 'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meetWith their five gouty feet;All everywhere, like man's, must be the soul,And reason the inferior powers control.Such were the numbers which could callThe stones into the Theban wall.Such miracles are ceased; and now we seeNo towns or houses raised by poetry.
5 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part;That shows more cost than art.Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;Rather than all things wit, let none be there.Several lights will not be seen,If there be nothing else between.Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky,If those be stars which paint the galaxy.
6 'Tis not when two like words make up one noise,Jests for Dutch men and English boys;In which who finds out wit, the same may seeIn an'grams and acrostics poetry.Much less can that have any placeAt which a virgin hides her face;Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis justThe author blush there where the reader must.
7 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage,When Bajazet begins to rage:Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way,Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca:Nor upon all things to obtrudeAnd force some old similitude.What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,We only can by negatives define?
8 In a true piece of wit all things must be,Yet all things there agree:As in the ark, joined without force or strife,All creatures dwelt, all creatures that had life.Or as the primitive forms of all,If we compare great things with small,Which without discord or confusion lie,In that strange mirror of the Deity.
1 Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!Hail, ye plebeian underwood!Where the poetic birds rejoice,And for their quiet nests and plenteous foodPay with their grateful voice.
2 Hail the poor Muse's richest manor-seat!Ye country houses and retreat,Which all the happy gods so love,That for you oft they quit their bright and greatMetropolis above.
3 Here Nature does a house for me erect,Nature! the fairest architect,Who those fond artists does despiseThat can the fair and living trees neglect,Yet the dead timber prize.
4 Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,Hear the soft winds above me flying,With all their wanton boughs dispute,And the more tuneful birds to both replying,Nor be myself, too, mute.
5 A silver stream shall roll his waters near,Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,On whose enamelled bank I'll walk,And see how prettily they smile,And hear how prettily they talk.
6 Ah! wretched, and too solitary he,Who loves not his own company!He'll feel the weight of it many a day,Unless he calls in sin or vanityTo help to bear it away.
7 O Solitude! first state of humankind!Which bless'd remained till man did findEven his own helper's company:As soon as two, alas! together joined,The serpent made up three.
8 Though God himself, through countless ages, theeHis sole companion chose to be,Thee, sacred Solitude! alone,Before the branchy head of number's treeSprang from the trunk of one;
9 Thou (though men think thine an unactive part)Dost break and tame the unruly heart,Which else would know no settled pace,Making it move, well managed by thy art,With swiftness and with grace.
10 Thou the faint beams of reason's scattered lightDost, like a burning glass, unite,Dost multiply the feeble heat,And fortify the strength, till thou dost brightAnd noble fires beget.
11 Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I seeThe monster London laugh at me;I should at thee, too, foolish city!If it were fit to laugh at misery;But thy estate I pity.
12 Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,And all the fools that crowd thee so,Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,A village less than Islington wilt grow,A solitude almost.
Lest the misjudging world should chance to sayI durst not but in secret murmurs pray,To whisper in Jove's earHow much I wish that funeral,Or gape at such a great one's fall;This let all ages hear,And future times in my soul's picture seeWhat I abhor, what I desire to be.
I would not be a Puritan, though heCan preach two hours, and yet his sermon beBut half a quarter long;Though from his old mechanic tradeBy vision he's a pastor made,His faith was grown so strong;Nay, though he think to gain salvationBy calling the Pope the Whore of Babylon.
I would not be a Schoolmaster, though to himHis rods no less than Consuls' fasces seem;Though he in many a place,Turns Lily oftener than his gowns,Till at the last he makes the nounsFight with the verbs apace;Nay, though he can, in a poetic heat,Figures, born since, out of poor Virgil beat.
I would not be a Justice of Peace, though heCan with equality divide the fee,And stakes with his clerk draw;Nay, though he sits upon the placeOf judgment, with a learned faceIntricate as the law;And whilst he mulcts enormities demurely,Breaks Priscian's head with sentences securely.
I would not be a Courtier, though heMakes his whole life the truest comedy;Although he be a manIn whom the tailor's forming art,And nimble barber, claim more partThan Nature herself can;Though, as he uses men, 'tis his intentTo put off Death too with a compliment.
From Lawyers' tongues, though they can spin with easeThe shortest cause into a paraphrase,From Usurers' conscience(For swallowing up young heirs so fast,Without all doubt they'll choke at last)Make me all innocence,Good Heaven! and from thy eyes, O Justice! keep;For though they be not blind, they're oft asleep.
From Singing-men's religion, who areAlways at church, just like the crows, 'cause thereThey build themselves a nest;From too much poetry, which shinesWith gold in nothing but its lines,Free, O you Powers! my breast;And from astronomy, which in the skiesFinds fish and bulls, yet doth but tantalise.
From your Court-madam's beauty, which doth carryAt morning May, at night a January;From the grave City-brow(For though it want an R, it hasThe letter of Pythagoras)Keep me, O Fortune! now,And chines of beef innumerable send me,Or from the stomach of the guard defend me.
This only grant me, that my means may lieToo low for envy, for contempt too high.Some honour I would have,Not from great deeds, but good alone:The unknown are better than ill known:Rumour can ope the grave.Acquaintance I would have, but when 't dependsNot from the number, but the choice of friends.
Books should, not business, entertain the light,And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.My house a cottage moreThan palace, and should fitting beFor all my use, not luxury;My garden, painted o'erWith Nature's hand, not Art's, that pleasure yieldHorace might envy in his Sabine field.
Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well twice runs his race;And in this true delight,These unbought sports, and happy state,I would not fear, nor wish my fate,But boldly say each night,To-morrow let my sun his beams display,Or in clouds hide them, I have lived to-day.
1 Mark that swift arrow, how it cuts the air,How it outruns thy following eye!Use all persuasions now, and tryIf thou canst call it back, or stay it there.That way it went, but thou shalt findNo track is left behind.
2 Fool! 'tis thy life, and the fond archer thou.Of all the time thou'st shot away,I'll bid thee fetch but yesterday,And it shall be too hard a task to do.Besides repentance, what canst findThat it hath left behind?
3 Our life is carried with too strong a tide,A doubtful cloud our substance bears,And is the horse of all our years:Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride.We and our glass run out, and mustBoth render up our dust.
4 But his past life who without grief can see,Who never thinks his end too near,But says to Fame, Thou art mine heir;That man extends life's natural brevity—This is, this is the only wayTo outlive Nestor in a day.
'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone,Though high as our ambition;'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which canGive life to the ashes of a man,But verses only; they shall fresh appear,Whilst there are men to read or hear,When time shall make the lasting brass decay,And eat the pyramid away,Turning that monument wherein men trustTheir names, to what it keeps, poor dust;Then shall the epitaph remain, and beNew graven in eternity.Poets by death are conquered, but the witOf poets triumph over it.What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus tookHis lyre, and gently on it strook,The learned stones came dancing all along,And kept time to the charming song.With artificial pace the warlike pine,The elm and his wife, the ivy-twine,With all the better trees which erst had stoodUnmoved, forsook their native wood.The laurel to the poet's hand did bow,Craving the honour of his brow;And every loving arm embraced, and madeWith their officious leaves a shade.The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be,Forgetting their old tyranny.The fearful hart next to the lion came,And wolf was shepherd to the lamb.Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air,And Muses of the place, were there;Who, when their little windpipes they had foundUnequal to so strange a sound,O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire,And fell upon the conquering lyre.Happy, oh happy they! whose tomb might be,Mausolus! envied by thee!
What shall I do to be for ever known,And make the age to come my own?I shall like beasts or common people die,Unless you write my elegy;Whilst others great by being born are grown,Their mother's labour, not their own.In this scale gold, in the other fame does lie;The weight of that mounts this so high.These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright,Brought forth with their own fire and light.If I, her vulgar stone, for either look,Out of myself it must be strook.Yet I must on: What sound is't strikes mine ear?Sure I Fame's trumpet hear:It sounds like the last trumpet, for it canRaise up the buried man.Unpass'd Alps stop me, but I'll cut through all,And march, the Muse's Hannibal.Hence, all the flattering vanities that layNets of roses in the way;Hence, the desire of honours or estate,And all that is not above Fate;Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days,Which intercepts my coming praise.Come, my best friends! my books! and lead me on,'Tis time that I were gone.Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me nowAll I was born to know:Thy scholar's victories thou dost far outdo;He conquered th' earth, the whole world you,Welcome, learn'd Cicero! whose bless'd tongue and witPreserves Rome's greatness yet;Thou art the first of orators; only heWho best can praise thee next must be.Welcome the Mantuan swan! Virgil the wise,Whose verse walks highest, but not flies;Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age,And made that art which was a rage.Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I doTo be like one of you?But you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sitOn the calm flourishing head of it,And whilst, with wearied steps, we upward go,See us and clouds below.
The friendship betwixt Jonathan and David; and, upon that occasion, a digression concerning the nature of love. A discourse between Jonathan and David, upon which the latter absents himself from court, and the former goes thither to inform himself of Saul's resolution. The feast of the New-moon; the manner of the celebration of it; and therein a digression of the history of Abraham. Saul's speech upon David's absence from the feast, and his anger against Jonathan. David's resolution to fly away. He parts with Jonathan, and falls asleep under a tree. A description of Fancy. An angel makes up a vision in David's head. The vision itself; which is a prophecy of all the succession of his race, till Christ's time, with their most remarkable actions. At his awaking, Gabriel assumes a human shape, and confirms to him the truth of his vision.
But now the early birds began to callThe morning forth; up rose the sun and Saul:Both, as men thought, rose fresh from sweet repose;But both, alas! from restless labours rose:For in Saul's breast Envy, the toilsome sin,Had all that night active and tyrannous been:She expelled all forms of kindness, virtue, grace,Of the past day no footstep left, or trace;The new-blown sparks of his old rage appear,Nor could his love dwell longer with his fear.So near a storm wise David would not stay,Nor trust the glittering of a faithless day:He saw the sun call in his beams apace,And angry clouds march up into their place:The sea itself smooths his rough brow awhile,Flatt'ring the greedy merchant with a smile;But he whose shipwrecked bark it drank before,Sees the deceit, and knows it would have more.Such is the sea, and such was Saul;But Jonathan his son, and only good,Was gentle as fair Jordan's useful flood;Whose innocent stream, as it in silence goes,Fresh honours and a sudden spring bestowsOn both his banks, to every flower and tree;The manner how lies hid, the effect we see:But more than all, more than himself, he lovedThe man whose worth his father's hatred moved;For when the noble youth at Dammin stood,Adorned with sweat, and painted gay with blood,Jonathan pierced him through with greedy eye,And understood the future majestyThen destined in the glories of his look:He saw, and straight was with amazement strook,To see the strength, the feature, and the graceOf his young limbs; he saw his comely face,Where love and reverence so well-mingled were,And head, already crowned with golden hair:He saw what mildness his bold sp'rit did tame,Gentler than light, yet powerful as a flame:He saw his valour by their safety proved;He saw all this, and as he saw, he loved.