Lucasta
by
Richard Lovelace
Part 5 out of 6
To th' sov'raign salve of all his ills,
That only life and health distills.
But loe! a terror above all,
That ever yet did him befall!
Pallas, still mindful of her foe,
(Whilst they did with each fires glow)
Had to the place the spiders lar
Dispath'd before the ev'nings star.
He learned was in Natures laws,
Of all her foliage knew the cause,
And 'mongst the rest in his choice want
Unplanted had this plantane plant.
The all-confounded toad doth see
His life fled with his remedie,
And in a glorious despair
First burst himself, and next the air;
Then with a dismal horred yell
Beats down his loathsome breath to hell.
But what inestimable bliss
This to the sated virgin is,
Who, as before of her fiend foe,
Now full is of her goddess too!
She from her fertile womb hath spun
Her stateliest pavillion,
Whilst all her silken flags display,
And her triumphant banners play;
Where Pallas she ith' midst doth praise,
And counterfeits her brothers rayes,
Nor will she her dear lar forget,
Victorious by his benefit,
Whose roof inchanted she doth free
From haunting gnat and goblin bee,
Who, trapp'd in her prepared toyle,
To their destruction keep a coyle.
Then she unlocks the toad's dire head,
Within whose cell is treasured
That pretious stone, which she doth call
A noble recompence for all,
And to her lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.
<82.1> It will be seen that this poem partly turns on the
mythological tale of Arachne and Minerva, and the metamorphosis
of the former by the angry goddess into a spider (<>).
<82.2> i.e. CARAK, or CARRICK, as the word is variously spelled.
This large kind of ship was much used by the Greeks and Venetians
during the middle ages, and also by other nations.
<82.3> The poet rather awkwardly sustains his simile, and
employs, in expressing a contest between the toad and the
spider, a term signifying a naval battle, or, at least,
a fight between two ships.
<82.4> Lovelace's fondness for military similitudes is constantly
standing in the way, and marring his attempts at poetical imagery.
<82.5> A form of RAMPART, sanctioned by Dryden.
<82.6> Medicinal herb or plant.
<82.7> Blended.
<82.8> CAMPANIA may signify, in the present passage, either
a field or the country generally, or a plain. It is a clumsy
expression.
<82.9> In the sense in which it is here used this word seems
to be peculiar to Lovelace. TO PICKEAR, or PICKEER, means
TO SKIRMISH.
<82.10> So that.
THE SNAYL.
Wise emblem of our politick world,
Sage Snayl, within thine own self curl'd,
Instruct me softly to make hast,
Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.
Compendious Snayl! thou seem'st to me
Large Euclid's strict epitome;
And in each diagram dost fling
Thee from the point unto the ring.
A figure now trianglare,
An oval now, and now a square,
And then a serpentine, dost crawl,
Now a straight line, now crook'd, now all.
Preventing<83.1> rival of the day,
Th' art up and openest thy ray;
And ere the morn cradles the moon,<83.2>
Th' art broke into a beauteous noon.
Then, when the Sun sups in the deep,
Thy silver horns e're Cinthia's peep;
And thou, from thine own liquid bed,
New Phoebus, heav'st thy pleasant head.
Who shall a name for thee create,
Deep riddle of mysterious state?
Bold Nature, that gives common birth
To all products of seas and earth,
Of thee, as earth-quakes, is afraid,
Nor will thy dire deliv'ry aid.
Thou, thine own daughter, then, and sire,
That son and mother art intire,
That big still with thy self dost go,
And liv'st an aged embrio;
That like the cubbs of India,
Thou from thy self a while dost play;
But frighted with a dog or gun,
In thine own belly thou dost run,
And as thy house was thine own womb,
So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.
But now I must (analys'd king)
Thy oeconomick virtues sing;
Thou great stay'd husband still within,
Thou thee that's thine dost discipline;
And when thou art to progress bent,
Thou mov'st thy self and tenement,
As warlike Scythians travayl'd, you
Remove your men and city too;
Then, after a sad dearth and rain,
Thou scatterest thy silver train;
And when the trees grow nak'd and old,
Thou cloathest them with cloth of gold,
Which from thy bowels thou dost spin,
And draw from the rich mines within.
Now hast thou chang'd thee, saint, and made
Thy self a fane that's cupula'd;
And in thy wreathed cloister thou
Walkest thine own gray fryer too;
Strickt and lock'd up, th'art hood all ore,
And ne'r eliminat'st thy dore.
On sallads thou dost feed severe,
And 'stead of beads thou drop'st a tear,
And when to rest each calls the bell,
Thou sleep'st within thy marble cell,
Where, in dark contemplation plac'd,
The sweets of Nature thou dost tast,
Who now with time thy days resolve,
And in a jelly thee dissolve,
Like a shot star, which doth repair
Upward, and rarifie the air.
<83.1> Anticipating, forerunning.
<83.2> It can scarcely be requisite to mention that Lovelace
refers to the gradual evanescence of the moon before the growing
daylight. It is well known that the lunar orb is, at certain
times, visible sometime even after sunrise.
ANOTHER.
The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe;
Those have been sung, and lowdly too:
Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write,
Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite.
Behold! this huddle doth appear
Of horses, coach and charioteer,
That moveth him by traverse law,
And doth himself both drive and draw;
Then, when the Sunn the south doth winne,
He baits him hot in his own inne.
I heard a grave and austere clark
Resolv'd him pilot both and barque;
That, like the fam'd ship of TREVERE,
Did on the shore himself lavere:
Yet the authentick do beleeve,
Who keep their judgement in their sleeve,
That he is his own double man,
And sick still carries his sedan:
Or that like dames i'th land of Luyck,
He wears his everlasting huyck.<84.1>
But banisht, I admire his fate,
Since neither ostracisme of state,
Nor a perpetual exile,
Can force this virtue, change his soyl:
For, wheresoever he doth go,
He wanders with his country too.
<84.1> i.q. HUKE. "Huke," says Minshen, "is a mantle such as
women use in Spaine, Germanie, and the Low Countries, when they
goe abroad." Lovelace clearly adopts the word for the sake of
the metre; otherwise he might have chosen a better one.
THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILAMORE AND AMORET.
TO THE NOBLEST OF OUR YOUTH AND BEST OF FRIENDS,
CHARLES COTTON, Esquire.<85.l>
BEING AT BERISFORD, AT HIS HOUSE IN STAFFORDSHIRE.
FROM LONDON.
A POEM.
Sir, your sad absence I complain, as earth
Her long-hid spring, that gave her verdures birth,
Who now her cheerful aromatick head
Shrinks in her cold and dismal widow'd bed;
Whilst the false sun her lover doth him move
Below, and to th' antipodes make love.
What fate was mine, when in mine obscure cave
(Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave)
Your beams could reach me through this vault of night,
And canton the dark dungeon with light!
Whence me (as gen'rous Spahys) you unbound,
Whilst I now know my self both free and crown'd.
But as at Meccha's tombe, the devout blind
Pilgrim (great husband of his sight and mind)
Pays to no other object this chast prise,
Then with hot earth anoynts out both his eyes:
So having seen your dazling glories store,
It is enough, and sin for to see more.
Or, do you thus those pretious rayes withdraw
To whet my dull beams, keep my bold in aw?
Or, are you gentle and compassionate,
You will not reach me Regulus his fate?
Brave prince! who, eagle-ey'd of eagle kind,
Wert blindly damn'd to look thine own self blind!
But oh, return those fires, too cruel-nice!
For whilst you fear me cindars, see, I'm ice!
A nummed speaking clod and mine own show,<85.2>
My self congeal'd, a man cut out in snow:
Return those living fires. Thou, who that vast
Double advantage from one-ey'd Heav'n hast,
Look with one sun, though 't but obliquely be,
And if not shine, vouchsafe to wink on me.
Perceive you not a gentle, gliding heat,
And quick'ning warmth, that makes the statua sweat;
As rev'rend Ducaleon's black-flung stone,
Whose rough outside softens to skin, anon
Each crusty vein with wet red is suppli'd,
Whilst nought of stone but in its heart doth 'bide.
So from the rugged north, where your soft stay
Hath stampt them a meridian and kind day;
Where now each A LA MODE inhabitant
Himself and 's manners both do pay you rent,
And 'bout your house (your pallace) doth resort,
And 'spite of fate and war creates a court.
So from the taught north, when you shall return,
To glad those looks that ever since did mourn,
When men uncloathed of themselves you'l see,
Then start new made, fit, what they ought to be;
Hast! hast! you, that your eyes on rare sights feed:
For thus the golden triumph is decreed.
The twice-born god, still gay and ever young,
With ivie crown'd, first leads the glorious throng:
He Ariadne's starry coronet
Designs for th' brighter beams of Amoret;
Then doth he broach his throne, and singing quaff
Unto her health his pipe of god-head off.
Him follow the recanting, vexing Nine
Who, wise, now sing thy lasting fame in wine;
Whilst Phoebus, not from th' east, your feast t' adorn,
But from th' inspir'd Canaries, rose this morn.
Now you are come, winds in their caverns sit,
And nothing breaths, but new-inlarged wit.
Hark! One proclaims it piacle<85.3> to be sad,
And th' people call 't religion to be mad.
But now, as at a coronation,
When noyse, the guard, and trumpets are oreblown,
The silent commons mark their princes way,
And with still reverence both look and pray;
So they amaz'd expecting do adore,
And count the rest but pageantry before.
Behold! an hoast of virgins, pure as th' air
In her first face,<85.4> ere mists durst vayl her hair:
Their snowy vests, white as their whiter skin,
Or their far chaster whiter thoughts within:
Roses they breath'd and strew'd, as if the fine
Heaven did to earth his wreath of swets resign;
They sang aloud: "THRICE, OH THRICE HAPPY, THEY
THAT CAN, LIKE THESE, IN LOVE BOTH YIELD AND SWAY."
Next herald Fame (a purple clowd her bears),
In an imbroider'd coat of eyes and ears,
Proclaims the triumph, and these lovers glory,
Then in a book of steel records the story.
And now a youth of more than god-like form
Did th' inward minds of the dumb throng alarm;
All nak'd, each part betray'd unto the eye,
Chastly: for neither sex ow'd he or she.
And this was heav'nly love. By his bright hand,
A boy of worse than earthly stuff did stand;
His bow broke, his fires out, and his wings clipt,
And the black slave from all his false flames stript;
Whose eyes were new-restor'd but to confesse
This day's bright blisse, and his own wretchednesse;
Who, swell'd with envy, bursting with disdain,
Did cry to cry, and weep them out again.
And now what heav'n must I invade, what sphere
Rifle of all her stars, t' inthrone her there?
No! Phoebus, by thy boys<85.5> fate we beware
Th' unruly flames o'th' firebrand, thy carr;
Although, she there once plac'd, thou, Sun, shouldst see
Thy day both nobler governed and thee.
Drive on, Bootes, thy cold heavy wayn,
Then grease thy wheels with amber in the main,
And Neptune, thou to thy false Thetis gallop,
Appollo's set within thy bed of scallop:
Whilst Amoret, on the reconciled winds
Mounted, and drawn by six caelestial minds,
She armed was with innocence and fire,
That did not burn; for it was chast desire;
Whilst a new light doth gild the standers by.
Behold! it was a day shot from her eye;
Chafing perfumes oth' East did throng and sweat,
But by her breath they melting back were beat.
A crown of yet-nere-lighted stars she wore,
In her soft hand a bleeding heart she bore,
And round her lay of broken millions more;<85.6>
Then a wing'd crier thrice aloud did call:
LET FAME PROCLAIM THIS ONE GREAT PRISE FOR ALL.
By her a lady that might be call'd fair,
And justly, but that Amoret was there,
Was pris'ner led; th' unvalewed robe she wore
Made infinite lay lovers to adore,
Who vainly tempt her rescue (madly bold)
Chained in sixteen thousand links of gold;
Chrysetta thus (loaden with treasures) slave
Did strow the pass with pearls, and her way pave.
But loe! the glorious cause of all this high
True heav'nly state, brave Philamore, draws nigh,
Who, not himself, more seems himself to be,
And with a sacred extasie doth see!
Fix'd and unmov'd on 's pillars he doth stay,
And joy transforms him his own statua;
Nor hath he pow'r to breath [n]or strength to greet
The gentle offers of his Amoret,
Who now amaz'd at 's noble breast doth knock,
And with a kiss his gen'rous heart unlock;
Whilst she and the whole pomp doth enter there,
Whence her nor Time nor Fate shall ever tear.
But whether am I hurl'd? ho! back! awake
From thy glad trance: to thine old sorrow take!
Thus, after view of all the Indies store,
The slave returns unto his chain and oar;
Thus poets, who all night in blest heav'ns dwell,
Are call'd next morn to their true living hell;
So I unthrifty, to myself untrue,
Rise cloath'd with real wants, 'cause wanting you,
And what substantial riches I possesse,
I must to these unvalued dreams confesse.
But all our clowds shall be oreblown, when thee
In our horizon bright once more we see;
When thy dear presence shall our souls new-dress,
And spring an universal cheerfulnesse;
When we shall be orewhelm'd in joy, like they
That change their night for a vast half-year's day.
Then shall the wretched few, that do repine,
See and recant their blasphemies in wine;
Then shall they grieve, that thought I've sung too free,
High and aloud of thy true worth and thee,
And their fowl heresies and lips submit
To th' all-forgiving breath of Amoret;
And me alone their angers object call,
That from my height so miserably did fall;
And crie out my invention thin and poor,
Who have said nought, since I could say no more.
<85.1> Charles Cotton the younger, Walton's friend. He was born
on the 28th of April, 1630. He married, in 1656, Isabella,
daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, of Owthorp, co. Notts, Knight.
See Walton's ANGLER, ed. 1760, where a life of Cotton, compiled
from the notes of the laborious Oldys, will be found. The poet
died in 1687, and, two years later, his miscellaneous verses were
printed in an octavo volume.
<85.2> i.e. the shadow of myself.
<85.3> A crime, from the Latin PIACULUM which, from meaning
properly AN ATONEMENT, was afterwards used to express WHAT
REQUIRED an atonement, i.e. an offence or sin.
<85.4> The sky in the early part of the morning, before it is
clouded by mists.
<85.5> Phaeton.
<85.6> 0riginal reads, OF MILLIONS BROKEN MORE. The above is
certainly preferable; but the reader may judge for himself.
It should be borne in mind that the second part of LUCASTA
was not even printed during the poet's life. If he had survived
to republish the first portion, and to revise the second perhaps
we should have had a better text.
ADVICE TO MY BEST BROTHER,
COLL: FRANCIS LOVELACE.<86.1>
Frank, wil't live unhandsomely? trust not too far
Thy self to waving seas: for what thy star,
Calculated by sure event, must be,
Look in the glassy-epithete,<86.2> and see.
Yet settle here your rest, and take your state,
And in calm halcyon's nest ev'n build your fate;
Prethee lye down securely, Frank, and keep
With as much no noyse the inconstant deep
As its inhabitants; nay, stedfast stand,
As if discover'd were a New-found-land,
Fit for plantation here. Dream, dream still,
Lull'd in Dione's cradle; dream, untill
Horrour awake your sense, and you now find
Your self a bubbled pastime for the wind;
And in loose Thetis blankets torn and tost.
Frank, to undo thy self why art at cost?
Nor be too confident, fix'd on the shore:
For even that too borrows from the store
Of her rich neighbour, since now wisest know
(And this to Galileo's judgement ow),
The palsie earth it self is every jot
As frail, inconstant, waveing, as that blot
We lay upon the deep, that sometimes lies
Chang'd, you would think, with 's botoms properties;
But this eternal, strange Ixion's wheel
Of giddy earth ne'er whirling leaves to reel,
Till all things are inverted, till they are
Turn'd to that antick confus'd state they were.
Who loves the golden mean, doth safely want
A cobwebb'd cot and wrongs entail'd upon't;
He richly needs a pallace for to breed
Vipers and moths, that on their feeder feed;
The toy that we (too true) a mistress call,
Whose looking-glass and feather weighs up all;
And cloaths which larks would play with in the sun,
That mock him in the night, when 's course is run.
To rear an edifice by art so high,
That envy should not reach it with her eye,
Nay, with a thought come neer it. Wouldst thou know,
How such a structure should be raisd, build low.
The blust'ring winds invisible rough stroak
More often shakes the stubborn'st, prop'rest oak;
And in proud turrets we behold withal,
'Tis the imperial top declines to fall:
Nor does Heav'n's lightning strike the humble vales,
But high-aspiring mounts batters and scales.
A breast of proof defies all shocks of Fate,
Fears in the best, hopes in worser state;
Heaven forbid that, as of old, time ever
Flourish'd in spring so contrary, now never.
That mighty breath, which blew foul Winter hither,
Can eas'ly puffe it to a fairer weather.
Why dost despair then, Frank? Aeolus has
A Zephyrus as well as Boreas.
'Tis a false sequel, soloecisme 'gainst those
Precepts by fortune giv'n us, to suppose
That, 'cause it is now ill, 't will ere be so;
Apollo doth not always bend his bow;
But oft, uncrowned of his beams divine,
With his soft harp awakes the sleeping Nine.
In strictest things magnanimous appear,
Greater in hope, howere thy fate, then<86.3> fear:
Draw all your sails in quickly, though no storm
Threaten your ruine with a sad alarm;
For tell me how they differ, tell me, pray,
A cloudy tempest and a too fair day?
<86.1> One of the younger brothers of the poet. In the
year of the Restoration he filled the office of Recorder of
Canterbury, and in that capacity delivered the address of the
city to Charles II. on his passage through the place. This
speech was printed in 1660, 4to, three leaves. The following
extracts from the CALENDARS OF STATE PAPERS (Domestic Series,
1660-1, page 139), throw a little additional light on the
history of this person:--
"1660, July 1.--Petition of Fras. Lovelace, Recorder of Canterbury,
to the King, for the stewardship of the liberties of St. Augustine,
near Canterbury, for himself and his son Goldwell. Has suffered
sequestration, imprisonment, and loss of office, for his loyalty.
WITH A NOTE OF THE REQUESTED GRANT FOR FRAS. LOVELACE.
"Grant to Fras. Lovelace, of the office of chief steward of the
Liberties of the late monastery of St. Augustine, near Canterbury."
<86.2> Unless the poet is advising his brother, before the latter
ventures on a long sea voyage, to look in the crystal, or beryl,
so popular at that time, in order to read his fortune, I must
confess my ignorance of the meaning of "glassy-epithete."
See, for an account of the beryl, Aubrey's MISCELLANIES,
edit. 1857, p. 154.
<86.3> Than.
PARIS'S SECOND JUDGEMENT,
UPON THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF MY DEAR
BROTHER MR. R. CAESAR.<87.1>
Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous<87.2> counterfeit<87.3>
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd<87.4> honours of their own, to boot.
Paris, by fate new-wak'd from his dead cell,
Is charg'd to give his doom impossible.
He views in each the brav'ry<87.5> of all Ide;
Whilst one, as once three, doth his soul divide.
Then sighs so equally they're glorious all:
WHAT PITY THE WHOLE WORLD IS BUT ONE BALL!
<87.1> Second son of Sir John Caesar, Knt., who was the second
surviving son of Sir Julius Caesar, Knt., Master of the Rolls.
Mr. Robert Caesar married the poet's sister Johanna, by whom
he had three daughters, co-heirs--Anne, Juliana, and Johanna.
These are the ladies commemorated in the text. See Lodge's
LIFE OF SIR JULIUS CAESAR, 1827, p. 54.
<87.2> Original reads SPLENDORS.
<87.3> This word is here used to signify simply RESEMBLANCE or
COPY.
<87.4> i.e. quartered. CANTON, in heraldry, is a square space
at one of the corners of a shield of arms.
<87.5> Bravery here means, as it often does in writers of and
before the time of Lovelace, A BEAUTIFUL OR FINE SPECTACLE,
or simply BEAUTY. BRAVE in the sense of FINE (gaudy or gallant)
is still in use.
PEINTURE.
A PANEGYRICK TO THE BEST PICTURE OF FRIENDSHIP,
MR. PET. LILLY.
If Pliny, Lord High Treasurer of all<88.1>
Natures exchequer shuffled in this our ball,<88.2>
Peinture her richer rival did admire,
And cry'd she wrought with more almighty fire,
That judg'd the unnumber'd issue of her scrowl,
Infinite and various as her mother soul,
That contemplation into matter brought,
Body'd Ideas, and could form a thought.
Why do I pause to couch the cataract,<88.3>
And the grosse pearls from our dull eyes abstract,
That, pow'rful Lilly, now awaken'd we
This new creation may behold by thee?
To thy victorious pencil all, that eyes
And minds call reach, do bow. The deities
Bold Poets first but feign'd, you do and make,
And from your awe they our devotion take.
Your beauteous pallet first defin'd Love's Queen,
And made her in her heav'nly colours seen;
You strung the bow of the Bandite her son,<88.4>
And tipp'd his arrowes with religion.
Neptune as unknown as his fish might dwell,
But that you seat him in his throne of shell.
The thunderers artillery and brand,
You fancied Rome in his fantastick hand;
And the pale frights, the pains, and fears of hell
First from your sullen melancholy fell.
Who cleft th' infernal dog's loath'd head in three,
And spun out Hydra's fifty necks? by thee
As prepossess'd w' enjoy th' Elizian plain,
Which but before was flatter'd<88.5> in our brain.
Who ere yet view'd airs child invisible,
A hollow voice, but in thy subtile skill?
Faint stamm'ring Eccho you so draw, that we
The very repercussion do see.
Cheat-HOCUS-POCUS-Nature an assay<88.6>
O' th' spring affords us: praesto, and away!<88.7>
You all the year do chain her and her fruits,
Roots to their beds, and flowers to their roots.
Have not mine eyes feasted i' th' frozen Zone
Upon a fresh new-grown collation
Of apples, unknown sweets, that seem'd to me
Hanging to tempt as on the fatal tree,
So delicately limn'd I vow'd to try
My<88.8> appetite impos'd upon my eye?<88.9>
You, sir, alone, fame, and all-conqu'ring rime,
File<88.10> the set teeth of all-devouring time.
When beauty once thy vertuous paint hath on,
Age needs not call her to vermilion;
Her beams nere shed or change like th' hair of day,<88.11>
She scatters fresh her everlasting ray.
Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire
Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire,
Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years,
And do behold our grandsire[s] as our peers;
With the first father of our house compare
We do the features of our new-born heir:
For though each coppied a son, they all
Meet in thy first and true original.
Sacred! luxurious! what princesse not
But comes to you to have her self begot?
As, when first man was kneaded, from his side
Is born to's hand a ready-made-up bride.
He husband to his issue then doth play,
And for more wives remove the obstructed way:
So by your art you spring up in two noons
What could not else be form'd by fifteen suns;
Thy skill doth an'mate the prolifick flood,
And thy red oyl assimilates to blood.
Where then, when all the world pays its respect,
Lies our transalpine barbarous neglect?
When the chast hands of pow'rful Titian
Had drawn the scourges of our God and man,
And now the top of th' altar did ascend
To crown the heav'nly piece with a bright end;
Whilst he, who in<88.12> seven languages gave law,
And always, like the Sun, his subjects saw,
Did, in his robes imperial and gold,
The basis of the doubtful ladder hold.
O Charls!<88.13> a nobler monument than that,
Which thou thine own executor wert at!
When to our huffling Henry<88.14> there complain'd
A grieved earl, that thought his honor stain'd:
Away (frown'd he), for your own safeties, hast!
In one cheap hour ten coronets I'l cast;
But Holbeen's noble and prodigious worth
Onely the pangs of an whole age brings forth.<88.15>
Henry! a word so princely saving said,
It might new raise the ruines thou hast made.
O sacred Peincture! that dost fairly draw,
What but in mists deep inward Poets saw;
'Twixt thee and an Intelligence no odds,<88.16>
That art of privy council to the gods!
By thee unto our eyes they do prefer
A stamp of their abstracted character;
Thou, that in frames eternity dost bind,
And art a written and a body'd mind;
To thee is ope the Juncto o' th' abysse,
And its conspiracy detected is;
Whilest their cabal thou to our sense dost show,
And in thy square paint'st what they threat below.
Now, my best Lilly, let's walk hand in hand,
And smile at this un-understanding land;
Let them their own dull counterfeits adore,
Their rainbow-cloaths admire, and no more.
Within one shade of thine more substance is,
Than all their varnish'd idol-mistresses:
Whilst great Vasari and Vermander shall
Interpret the deep mystery of all,
And I unto our modern Picts shall show,
What due renown to thy fair art they owe
In the delineated lives of those,
By whom this everlasting lawrel grows.
Then, if they will not gently apprehend,
Let one great blot give to their fame an end;
Whilst no poetick flower their herse doth dresse,
But perish they and their effigies.
<88.1> An allusion is, of course, intended to Pliny's
NATURAL HISTORY which, through Holland's translation,
became popular in England after 1601.
<88.2> i.e. in our globe.
<88.3> A term borrowed from the medical, or rather surgical,
vocabulary. "To couch a cataract" (i.e. in the eye) is to
remove it by surgical process.
<88.4> An allusion to Lely's pictures of Venus and Cupid.
<88.5> Falsely portrayed.
<88.6> A glimpse.
<88.7> Some picture by Lely, in which the painter introduced
a spring landscape, is meant. The poet feigns the copy of Nature
to be so close that one might suppose the Spring had set in
before the usual time. The canvass is removed, and the illusion
is dispelled. "Praesto, 'tis away," would be a preferable reading.
<88.8> i.e. if my appetite, &c. Lovelace's style is elliptical
to an almost unexampled degree.
<88.9> The same story, with variations, has been told over and
over again since the time of Zeuxis.
<88.10> Original edition has FILES.
<88.11> HAIR is here used in what has become quite an obsolete
sense. The meaning is outward form, nature, or character.
The word used to be by no means uncommon; but it is now,
as was before remarked, out of fashion; and, indeed, I do not think
that it is found even in any old writer used exactly in the way
in which Lovelace has employed it.
<88.12> Original reads TO.
<88.13> Charles V.
<88.14> Henry VIII.
<88.15> A story too well known to require repetition. The Earl
is not mentioned.--See Walpole's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING, ed. 1862,
p.71.
<88.16> i.e. no difference. A compliment to Lely's spirituality.
AN ANNIVERSARY ON THE HYMENEALS OF MY NOBLE KINSMAN,<89.1>
THO. STANLEY, ESQUIRE.<89.2>
I.
The day is curl'd about agen
To view the splendor she was in;
When first with hallow'd hands
The holy man knit the mysterious bands
When you two your contracted souls did move
Like cherubims above,
And did make love,
As your un-understanding issue now,
In a glad sigh, a smile, a tear, a vow.
II.
Tell me, O self-reviving Sun,
In thy perigrination
Hast thou beheld a pair
Twist their soft beams like these in their chast air?
As from bright numberlesse imbracing rayes
Are sprung th' industrious dayes,
So when they gaze,
And change their fertile eyes with the new morn,
A beauteous offspring is shot forth, not born.
III.
Be witness then, all-seeing Sun,
Old spy, thou that thy race hast run
In full five thousand rings;<89.3>
To thee were ever purer offerings
Sent on the wings of Faith? and thou, O Night,<89.4>
Curtain of their delight,
By these made bright,
Have you not mark'd their coelestial play,
And no more peek'd the gayeties of day?
IV.
Come then, pale virgins, roses strow,
Mingled with Ios as you go.
The snowy ox is kill'd,
The fane with pros'lyte lads and lasses fill'd,
You too may hope the same seraphic joy,
Old time cannot destroy,
Nor fulnesse cloy;
When, like these, you shall stamp by sympathies
Thousands of new-born-loves with your chaste eyes.
<89.1> Lovelace was connected with the Stanleys through the
Auchers. The Kentish families, about this time, intermarried
with each other to a very large extent, partly to indemnify
themselves from the consequences of gravelkind tenure (though
many had procured parliamentary relief); and the Lovelaces,
the Stanleys, the Hammonds, the Sandyses, were all more or less
bound together by the ties of kindred. See the tree prefixed
by Sir Egerton Brydges to his edition of HAMMOND'S POEMS, 1816,
and the Introduction to STANLEY'S POEMS, 1814. Sir William
Lovelace, the poet's grandfather, married Elizabeth, daughter
of Edward Aucher, Esq., of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, while
Sir William Hammond, of St. Alban's Court, married, as his second
wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Anthony Aucher, Esq., of
Bishopsbourne, by whom he had, among other children, Mary,
who became the wife of Sir Thomas Stanley, of Cumberlow, father of
Thomas Stanley, the poet, historian, and translator of Bion, &c.
<89.2> See THE POEMS OF WILLIAM HAMMOND, 1655, edited by
Sir E. Brydges, 1816, p. 54, where there is a similar poem
on Stanley and his bride from the pen of Hammond, who also claimed
relationship with the then newly-married poet. The best account
of Stanley is in the reprint of his Poems and Translations, 1814,
8vo.
<89.3> Meaning that the earth had made 5000 revolutions round
the sun; or, in other words, that the sun was 5000 years old.
<89.4> Original reads AND THOU OF NIGHT.
ON SANAZAR'S BEING HONOURED WITH SIX HUNDRED DUCKETS
BY THE CLARISSIMI OF VENICE,
FOR COMPOSING AN ELIGIACK HEXASTICK OF THE CITY.
A SATYRE.
Twas a blith prince<90.1> exchang'd five hundred crowns
For a fair turnip. Dig, dig on, O clowns
But how this comes about, Fates, can you tell,
This more then Maid of Meurs, this miracle?
Let me not live, if I think not St. Mark
Has all the oar, as well as beasts, in's ark!
No wonder 'tis he marries the rich sea,
But to betroth him to nak'd Poesie,
And with a bankrupt muse to merchandise;
His treasures beams, sure, have put out his eyes.<90.2>
His conquest at Lepanto<90.3> I'l let pass,
When the sick sea with turbants night-cap'd was;
And now at Candie his full courage shown,
That wan'd to a wan line the half-half moon.<90.4>
This is a wreath, this is a victorie,
Caesar himself would have look'd pale to see,
And in the height of all his triumphs feel
Himself but chain'd to such a mighty wheel.
And now me thinks we ape Augustus state,
So ugly we his high worth imitate,
Monkey his godlike glories; so that we
Keep light and form with such deformitie,
As I have seen an arrogant baboon
With a small piece of glasse zany the sun.
Rome to her bard, who did her battails sing,
Indifferent gave to poet and to king;
With the same lawrells were his temples fraught,
Who best had written, and who best had fought;
The self same fame they equally did feel,
One's style ador'd as much as t' other's steel.
A chain or fasces she could then afford
The sons of Phoebus, we, an axe or cord;
Sometimes a coronet was her renown,
And ours, the dear prerogative of a crown.
In marble statu'd walks great Lucan lay,
And now we walk, our own pale statua.
They the whole year with roses crownd would dine,
And we in all December know no wine;
Disciplin'd, dieted, sure there hath bin
Ods 'twixt a poet and a Capuchin.
Of princes, women, wine, to sing I see
Is no apocrypha: for to rise high
Commend this olio of this lord 'tis fit:
Nay, ten to one, but you have part of it;
There is that justice left, since you maintain
His table, he should counter-feed your brain.
Then write how well he in his sack hath droll'd,
Straight there's a bottle to your chamber roll'd,
Or with embroider'd words praise his French suit,
Month hence 'tis yours with his mans, to boot;
Or but applaud his boss'd legs: two to none,
But he most nobly doth give you one.
Or spin an elegie on his false hair:
'Tis well, he cries, but living hair is dear.
Yet say that out of order ther's one curl,
And all the hopes of your reward you furl.<90.5>
Write a deep epick poem, and you may
As soon delight them as the opera,
Where they Diogenes thought in his tub,
Never so sowre did look so sweet a club.
You that do suck for thirst your black quil's blood,<90.6>
And chaw your labour'd papers for your food,
I will inform you how and what to praise,
Then skin y' in satin as young Lovelace plaies.
Beware, as you would your fierce guests, your lice,
To strip the cloath of gold from cherish'd vice;
Rather stand off with awe and reverend fear,
Hang a poetick pendant in her ear,
Court her as her adorers do their glasse,
Though that as much of a true substance has,
Whilst all the gall from your wild<90.7> ink you drain,
The beauteous sweets of vertues cheeks to stain;
And in your livery let her be known,
As poor and tatter'd as in her own.
Nor write, nor speak you more of sacred writ,
But what shall force up your arrested wit.
Be chast; religion and her priests your scorn,
Whilst the vain fanes of idiots you adorn.
It is a mortal errour, you must know,
Of any to speak good, if he be so.
Rayl, till your edged breath flea<90.8> your raw throat,
And burn remarks<90.9> on all of gen'rous note;
Each verse be an indictment, be not free
Sanctity 't self from thy scurrility.
Libel your father, and your dam buffoon,
The noblest matrons of the isle lampoon,
Whilst Aretine and 's bodies you dispute,
And in your sheets your sister prostitute.
Yet there belongs a sweetnesse, softnesse too,
Which you must pay, but first, pray, know to who.
There is a creature, (if I may so call
That unto which they do all prostrate fall)
Term'd mistress, when they'r angry; but, pleas'd high,
It is a princesse, saint, divinity.
To this they sacrifice the whole days light,
Then lye with their devotion all night;
For this you are to dive to the abysse,
And rob for pearl the closet of some fish.
Arabia and Sabaea you must strip
Of all their sweets, for to supply her lip;
And steal new fire from heav'n, for to repair
Her unfledg'd scalp with Berenice's hair;
Then seat her in Cassiopeia's chair.
As now you're in your coach: save you, bright sir,
(O, spare your thanks) is not this finer far
Then walk un-hided, when that every stone
Has knock'd acquaintance with your ankle-bone?
When your wing'd papers, like the last dove, nere
Return'd to quit you of your hope or fear,
But left you to the mercy of your host
And your days fare, a fortified toast.<90.10>
How many battels, sung in epick strain,
Would have procur'd your head thatch from the rain
Not all the arms of Thebes and Troy would get
One knife but to anatomize your meat,
A funeral elegie, with a sad boon,<90.11>
Might make you (hei!) sip wine like maccaroon;<90.12>
But if perchance there did a riband<90.13> come,
Not the train-band so fierce with all its drum:
Yet with your torch you homeward would retire,
And heart'ly wish your bed your fun'ral pyre.
With what a fury have I known you feed
Upon a contract and the hopes 't might speed!
Not the fair bride, impatient of delay,
Doth wish like you the beauties of that day;
Hotter than all the roasted cooks you sat
To dresse the fricace of your alphabet,
Which sometimes would be drawn dough anagrame,<90.14>
Sometimes acrostick parched in the flame;<90.15>
Then posies stew'd with sippets, mottos by:
Of minced verse a miserable pye.
How many knots slip'd, ere you twist their name
With th' old device, as both their heart's the same!
Whilst like to drills the feast in your false jaw
You would transmit at leisure to your maw;
Then after all your fooling, fat, and wine,
Glutton'd at last, return at home to pine.
Tell me, O Sun, since first your beams did play
To night, and did awake the sleeping day;
Since first your steeds of light their race did start,
Did you ere blush as now? Oh thou, that art
The common father to the base pissmire,
As well as great Alcides, did the fire
From thine owne altar which the gods adore,
Kindle the souls of gnats and wasps before?
Who would delight in his chast eyes to see
Dormise to strike at lights of poesie?
Faction and envy now are<90.16> downright rage.
Once a five-knotted whip there was, the stage:
The beadle and the executioner,
To whip small errors, and the great ones tear;
Now, as er'e Nimrod the first king, he writes:
That's strongest, th' ablest deepest bites.
The muses weeping fly their hill, to see
Their noblest sons of peace in mutinie.
Could there nought else this civil war compleat,
But poets raging with poetic heat,
Tearing themselves and th' endlesse wreath, as though
Immortal they, their wrath should be so, too?
And doubly fir'd Apollo burns to see
In silent Helicon a naumachie.
Parnassus hears these at his first alarms;
Never till now Minerva was in arms.
O more then conqu'ror of the world, great Rome!
Thy heros did with gentleness or'e come
Thy foes themselves, but one another first,
Whilst envy stript alone was left, and burst.
The learn'd Decemviri, 'tis true, did strive,
But to add flames to keep their fame alive;
Whilst the eternal lawrel hung ith' air:
Nor of these ten sons was there found one heir.
Like to the golden tripod, it did pass
From this to this, till 't came to him, whose 'twas.
Caesar to Gallus trundled it, and he
To Maro: Maro, Naso, unto thee?
Naso to his Tibullus flung the wreath,
He to Catullus thus did bequeath.
This glorious circle, to another round,
At last the temples of their god it bound.
I might believe at least, that each might have
A quiet fame contented in his grave,
Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite:
For after death all men receave their right.<90.17>
If it be sacriledge for to profane
Their holy ashes, what is't then their flame?
He does that wrong unweeting<90.18> or in ire,
As if one should put out the vestal fire.
Let earths four quarters speak, and thou, Sun, bear
Now witnesse for thy fellow-traveller.
I was ally'd, dear Uncle,<90.19> unto thee
In blood, but thou, alas, not unto me;
Your vertues, pow'rs, and mine differ'd at best,
As they whose springs you saw, the east and west.<90.20>
Let me awhile be twisted in thy shine,
And pay my due devotions at thy shrine.
Might learned Waynman<90.21> rise, who went with thee
In thy heav'ns work beside divinity,
I should sit still; or mighty Falkland<90.22> stand
To justifie with breath his pow'rful hand;
The glory, that doth circle your pale urn,
Might hallow'd still and undefiled burn:
But I forbear. Flames, that are wildly thrown
At sacred heads, curle back upon their own;
Sleep, heavenly Sands, whilst what they do or write,
Is to give God himself and you your right.
There is not in my mind one sullen<90.23> fate
Of old, but is concentred in our state:
Vandall ore-runners, Goths in literature:
Ploughmen that would Parnassus new-manure;
Ringers of verse that all-in-chime,
And toll the changes upon every rime.
A mercer now by th' yard does measure ore
An ode, which was but by the foot before;
Deals you an ell of epigram, and swears
It is the strongest and the finest wears.
No wonder, if a drawer verses rack,
If 'tis not his, 't may be the spir't of sack;
Whilst the fair bar-maid stroaks the muses teat,
For milk to make the posset up compleat.
Arise, thou rev'rend shade, great Johnson, rise!
Break through thy marble natural disguise!
Behold a mist of insects, whose meer breath
Will melt thy hallow'd leaden house of death.
What was Crispinus,<90.24> that you should defie
The age for him?<90.25> He durst not look so high
As your immortal rod, he still did stand
Honour'd, and held his forehead to thy brand.
These scorpions, with which we have to do,
Are fiends, not only small but deadly too.
Well mightst thou rive thy quill up to the back,
And scrue thy lyre's grave chords, untill they crack.
For though once hell resented musick, these
Divels will not, but are in worse disease.
How would thy masc'line spirit, father Ben,
Sweat to behold basely deposed men,
Justled from the prerog'tive of their bed,
Whilst wives are per'wig'd with their husbands head?
Each snatches the male quill from his faint hand,
And must both nobler write and understand,
He to her fury the soft plume doth bow:
O pen, nere truely justly slit till now!
Now as her self a poem she doth dresse.
And curls a line, as she would do a tresse;
Powders a sonnet as she does her hair,
Then prostitutes them both to publick aire.
Nor is 't enough, that they their faces blind
With a false dye; but they must paint their mind,
In meeter scold, and in scann'd order brawl,
Yet there's one Sapho<90.26> left may save them all.
But now let me recal my passion.
Oh! (from a noble father, nobler son)
You, that alone are the Clarissimi,
And the whole gen'rous state of Venice be,
It shall not be recorded Sanazar
Shall boast inthron'd alone this new made star;
You, whose correcting sweetnesse hath forbad
Shame to the good, and glory to the bad;
Whose honour hath ev'n into vertue tam'd
These swarms, that now so angerly I nam'd.
Forgive what thus distemper'd I indite:
For it is hard a SATYRE not to write.
Yet, as a virgin that heats all her blood
At the first motion of bad<90.27> understood,
Then, at meer thought of fair chastity,
Straight cools again the tempests of her sea:
So when to you I my devotions raise,
All wrath and storms do end in calm and praise.
<90.1> Louis XI. of France was the prince here intended. See
MERY TALES AND QUICKE ANSWERS, No. 23 (ed. Hazlitt). I fear
that if Lovelace had derived his knowledge of this incident
rom the little work mentioned, he would have been still more
sarcastic; for Louis, in the TALES AND QUICKE ANSWERS, is made
to give, not 500 crowns for a turnip, but 1000 crowns for a radish.
<90.2> Perhaps Lovelace is rather too severe on Sannazaro. That
writer is said to have occupied twenty years in the composition
of his poem on the Birth of the Saviour, for which he probably
did not receive a sixth part of the sum paid to him for his
hexastic on Venice; and so he deserved this little windfal, which
came out of the pocket of a Government rich enough to pay it ten
times over. See Corniano's VITA DI JACOPO SANNAZARO, prefixed to
the edition of his ARCADIA, published at Milan in 1806. Amongst
the translations printed at the end of LUCASTA, and which it seems
very likely were among the earliest poetical essays of Lovelace,
is this very epigram of Sannazaro. As in the case of THE ANT,
I have little doubt that the satire was suggested by the
translation.
<90.3> The battle of Lepanto, in which Don John of Austria and
the Venetians defeated the Turks, 1571.
<90.4> The Turkish crescent.
<90.5> Close, or shut up.
<90.6> i.e. write as a means of subsistence.
<90.7> Unrefined.
<90.8> Flay, excoriate.
<90.9> Original reads ALL MARKS.
<90.10> A hard toasted crust.
<90.11> A fee or gratuity given to a poet on a mournful occasion,
and made more liberal by the circumstances of affliction in which
the donors are placed.
<90.12> Generally, a mere coxcomb or dandy; but here the poet
implies a man about town who is rich enough to indulge
in fashionable luxuries.
<90.13> The ribbon by which the star of an order of knighthood
was attached to the breast of the fortunate recipient. It
sometimes also stood for the armlet worn by gentlemen in our
poet's day, as a mark of some lady's esteem. See Shirley's
POEMS (Works, vi. 440).
<90.14> A crude anagram.
<90.15> An imperfect acrostic. Few readers require to be told
that anagrams and acrostics were formerly one of the most
fashionable species of composition. Lovelace here pictures
a poetaster "stewing" his brains with a poem of this description,
which of course demanded a certain amount of tedious and minute
attention to the arrangement of the name of the individual
to whom the anagram or acrostic was to be addressed, and this
was especially the case, where the writer contemplated
a DOUBLE acrostic.
<90.16> Original reads IS.
<90.17> Ovid. EL. 15.
<90.18> Unwitting.
<90.19> The Lovelaces were connected, not only with the Hammonds
Auchers, &c., but on the mother's side with the family of Sandys.
See Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, which, however, are not by any means
invariably reliable. The subjoined is partly from Berry:--
Edwin Sandys, === Cecilia, da. of Thomas
Archbishop of ! Wilford, of Cranbrook,
York, ob. 1588. ! Co. Kent, Esq. ob. 1610.
!
--------------------------------------------
! ! !
[Sir]===(4thly)Catherine, George, trans- Anne===Sir William
Edwin ! da. of Sir R. lator of the Barnes, of
Sandys ! Bulkeley, of Psalms, &c., Woolwich,
! Anglesey. ob. 1643-4, the poet's
! Lovelace's maternal
! GREAT-uncle. grandfather.
!
Richard Sandys Esq.===Hester, da. of Edwin Aucher, second
son of Anthony Aucher, Esq., of
Bishopsbourne.
<90.20> [George] Sandys published, in 1615, his "Relation
of a Journey Begun A.D. 1610," &c., which became very popular,
and was frequently reprinted.
<90.21> "There was Selden, and he sat close by the chair;
Wainman not far off, which was very fair."
Suckling's SESSION OF THE POETS.
<90.22> "Hales set by himself, most gravely did smile
To see them about nothing keep such a wil;
APOLLO had spied him, but knowing his mind
Past by, and call'd FALKLAND, that sat just behind.
He was of late so gone with divinity,
That he had almost forgot his poetry,
Though to say the truth (and APOLLO did know it)
He might have been both his priest and poet."
Suckling's SESSION OF THE POETS.
Lord Falkland was a contributor to JONSONUS VIRBIUS, 1638,
and was well known in his day as an occasional writer.
<90.23> SULLEN is here used in the sense of MISCHIEVOUS.
In Worcester's Dictionary an example is given of its employment
by Dryden in a similar signification.
<90.24> Thomas Decker, the dramatist and poet, whom Jonson
attacked in his POETASTER, 1602, under the name of CRISPINUS.
Decker retorted in SATIROMASTIX, printed in the same year,
in which Jonson appears as YOUNG HORACE.
<90.25> An allusion to the lines:
"Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age,"
prefixed to the NEW INNE, 1631, 8vo. Jonson's adopted son Randolph
expostulated with him on this occasion in the ode beginning:--
"Ben, doe not leave the stage,
'Cause 'tis a loathsome age."
Randolph's POEMS, 1640, p. 64.
Carew and others did the same.
<90.26> Katherine Philips, the MATCHLESS ORINDA, b. 1631, d. 1664.
Jeremy Taylor addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of
Friendship," 1657, and Cowley wrote an ode upon her death.
<90.27> By MOTION OF BAD I presume the poet means WICKED IMPULSE.
COMMENDATORY VERSES,
PREFIXED TO VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS BETWEEN 1652 AND 1657.
TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. E[LDRED] R[EVETT].<91.1>
ON HIS POEMS MORAL AND DIVINE.
Cleft as the top of the inspired hill,
Struggles the soul of my divided quill,
Whilst this foot doth the watry mount aspire,
That Sinai's living and enlivening fire,
Behold my powers storm'd by a twisted light
O' th' Sun and his, first kindled his sight,
And my lost thoughts invoke the prince of day,
My right to th' spring of it and him do pray.
Say, happy youth, crown'd with a heav'nly ray
Of the first flame, and interwreathed bay,
Inform my soul in labour to begin,
Ios or Anthems, Poeans or a Hymne.
Shall I a hecatombe on thy tripod slay,
Or my devotions at thy altar pay?
While which t' adore th' amaz'd world cannot tell,
The sublime Urim or deep oracle.
Heark! how the moving chords temper our brain,
As when Apollo serenades the main,
Old Ocean smooths his sullen furrow'd front,
And Nereids do glide soft measures on't;
Whilst th' air puts on its sleekest, smoothest face,
And each doth turn the others looking-glasse;
So by the sinewy lyre now strook we see
Into soft calms all storm of poesie,
And former thundering and lightning lines,
And verse now in its native lustre shines.
How wert thou hid within thyself! how shut!
Thy pretious Iliads lock'd up in a nut!
Not hearing of thee thou dost break out strong,
Invading forty thousand men in song;
And we, secure in our thin empty heat,
Now find ourselves at once surprised and beat,
Whilst the most valiant of our wits now sue,
Fling down their arms, ask quarter too of you.
So cabin'd up in its disguis'd coarse<91.2> rust,
And scurf'd all ore with its unseemly crust,
The diamond, from 'midst the humbler stones,
Sparkling shoots forth the price of nations.
Ye safe unriddlers of the stars, pray tell,
By what name shall I stamp my miracle?
Thou strange inverted Aeson, that leap'st ore
From thy first infancy into fourscore,
That to thine own self hast the midwife play'd,
And from thy brain spring'st forth<91.3> the heav'nly maid!
Thou staffe of him bore<91.4> him, that bore our sins,
Which, but set down, to bloom and bear begins!
Thou rod of Aaron, with one motion hurl'd,
Bud'st<91.5> a perfume of flowers through the world!
You<91.6> strange calcined<91.7> seeds within a glass,
Each species Idaea spring'st as 'twas!
Bright vestal flame that, kindled but ev'n now,
For ever dost thy sacred fires throw!
Thus the repeated acts of Nestor's age,
That now had three times ore out-liv'd the stage,
And all those beams contracted into one,
Alcides in his cradle hath outdone.
But all these flour'shing hiews, with which I die
Thy virgin paper, now are vain as I:
For 'bove the poets Heav'n th' art taught to shine
And move, as in thy proper crystalline;
Whence that mole-hill Parnassus thou dost view,
And us small ants there dabbling in its dew;
Whence thy seraphic soul such hymns doth play,
As those to which first danced the first day,
Where with a thorn from the world-ransoming wreath
Thou stung, dost antiphons and anthems breathe;
Where with an Angels quil dip'd i' th' Lambs blood,
Thou sing'st our Pelicans all-saving flood,
And bath'st thy thoughts in ever-living streams,
Rench'd<91.8> from earth's tainted, fat and heavy steams.
There move translated youth inroll'd i' th' quire,
That only doth with wholy lays inspire;
To whom his burning coach Eliah sent,
And th' royal prophet-priest his harp hath lent;
Which thou dost tune in consort unto those
Clap wings for ever at each hallow'd close:
Whilst we, now weak and fainting in our praise,
Sick echo ore thy Halleluiahs.
<91.1> Revett has some verses to the memory of Lovelace,
which will be found among the Elegies at the end of the volume.
The present lines were apparently written for a projected edition
of Revett's poems, which, for some unknown reason, was never
published. Revett has also verses prefixed to THE ROYAL GAME
OF CHESSE PLAY, 1656; to AYRES AND DIALOGUES, by John Gamble,
1656; and to Hall's translation of the COMMENT OF HIEROCLES UPON
THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS, 1657.
<91.2> Original has COURSE.
<91.3> This is only one instance among many which might be cited
from LUCASTA of the employment of an intransitive verb in a
transitive signification.
<91.4> i.e. THAT BORE HIM.
<91.5> i.e. THAT BUD'ST.
<91.6> Orig. has THOU.
<91.7> This word, now employed only in a special sense, was
formerly a very common and favourite metaphor. Thus Lord
Westmoreland, in his OTIA SACRA, 1648, p. 19, says:--
"When all the vertue we can here put on
Is but refined imperfection,
Corruption calcined--"
See also p. 137 of the same volume.
<91.8> Rinsed.
ON THE BEST, LAST, AND ONLY REMAINING COMEDY
OF MR. FLETCHER.
THE WILD GOOSE CHASE.<92.1>
I'm un-ore-clowded, too! free from the mist!
The blind and late Heaven's-eyes great Occulist,
Obscured with the false fires of his sceme,
Not half those souls are lightned by this theme.
Unhappy murmurers, that still repine
(After th' Eclipse our Sun doth brighter shine),
Recant your false grief, and your true joys know;
Your blisse is endlesse, as you fear'd your woe!
What fort'nate flood is this! what storm of wit!
Oh, who would live, and not ore-whelm'd in it?
No more a fatal Deluge shall be hurl'd:
This inundation hath sav'd the world.
Once more the mighty Fletcher doth arise,
Roab'd in a vest studded with stars and eyes
Of all his former glories; his last worth
Imbroiderd with what yet light ere brought forth.
See! in this glad farewel he doth appear
Stuck with the Constellations of his Sphere,
Fearing we numb'd fear'd no flagration,
Hath curl'd all his fires in this one ONE:
Which (as they guard his hallowed chast urn)
The dull aproaching hereticks do burn.
Fletcher at his adieu carouses thus
To the luxurious ingenious,
As Cleopatra did of old out-vie,
Th' un-numb'red dishes of her Anthony,
When (he at th' empty board a wonderer)
Smiling she<92.2> calls for pearl and vinegar,
First pledges him in's BREATH, then at one draught
Swallows THREE KINGDOMS of To HIS BEST THOUGHT.
Hear, oh ye valiant writers, and subscribe;
(His force set by) y'are conquer'd by this bribe.
Though you hold out your selves, he doth commit
In this a sacred treason in your wit;
Although in poems desperately stout,
Give up: this overture must buy you out.
Thus with some prodigal us'rer 't doth fare,
That keeps his gold still vayl'd, his steel-breast bare;
That doth exceed his coffers all but's eye,
And his eyes' idol the wing'd Deity:
That cannot lock his mines with half the art
As some rich beauty doth his wretched heart;
Wild at his real poverty, and so wise
To win her, turns himself into a prise.
First startles her with th' emerald Mad-Lover<92.3>
The ruby Arcas,<92.4> least she should recover
Her dazled thought, a Diamond he throws,
Splendid in all the bright Aspatia's woes;<92.5>
Then to sum up the abstract of his store,
He flings a rope of Pearl of forty<92.6> more.
Ah, see! the stagg'ring virtue faints! which he
Beholding, darts his Wealths Epitome;<92.7>
And now, to consummate her wished fall,
Shows this one Carbuncle, that darkens all.
<92.1> "THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE. A Comedie: As it hath been acted
with singular applause at the BLACKFRIERS. Being the Noble,
Last, and Onely REMAINES of those Incomparable DRAMATISTS,
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gent. London: Printed for
Humphrey Moseley, 1652," folio.
<92.2> Singer reads HE, but original SHE, as above. Of course
Cleopatra is meant.
<92.3> Fletcher's MAD LOVER.
<92.4> Fletcher's FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.
<92.5> THE MAID'S TRAGEDY, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1619.
<92.6> Should we not read FIFTY, and understand the collected
edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works in 1647?
<92.7> The WILD-GOOSE CHASE, which is also apparently the CARBUNCLE
mentioned two lines lower down.
TO
MY NOBLE KINSMAN THOMAS STANLEY,<93.1> ESQ.
ON HIS LYRICK POEMS COMPOSED
BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.<93.2>
I.
What means this stately tablature,
The ballance of thy streins,
Which seems, in stead of sifting pure,
T' extend and rack thy veins?
Thy Odes first their own harmony did break:
For singing, troth, is but in tune to speak.
II.
Nor trus<93.3> thy golden feet and wings.
It may<93.4> be thought false melody<93.5>
T' ascend to heav'n by silver strings;
This is Urania's heraldry.
Thy royal poem now we may extol,
As<93.6> truly Luna blazon'd upon Sol.
III.
As when Amphion first did call
Each listning stone from's den;
And with his<93.7> lute did form the<93.8> wall,
But with his words the men;
So in your twisted numbers now you thus
Not only stocks perswade, but ravish us.
IV.
Thus do your ayrs eccho ore
The notes and anthems of the sphaeres,
And their whole consort back restore,
As if earth too would blesse Heav'ns ears;
But yet the spoaks, by which they scal'd so high,
Gamble hath wisely laid of UT RE MI.<>
<93.1> Thomas Stanley, Esq., author of the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY,
and an elegant poet and translator, v. SUPRA.
Lovelace wrote these lines for AYRES AND DIALOGUES. TO BE SUNG
TO THE THEORBO, LUTE, OR BASE-VIOLL: By John Gamble, London,
Printed by William Godbid for the Author, 1656. folio. [The words
are by Stanley.]
<93.2> "Wood, in his account of this person, vol. i. col. 285,
conjectures that many of the songs in the above collection
(Gamble's AYRES, &c. 1659), were written by the learned Thomas
Stanley, Esq., author of the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, and seemingly
with good reason, for they resemble, in the conciseness and elegant
turn of them, those poems of his printed in 1651, containing
translations from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus and others."--Hawkins.
<93.3> LUCASTA and AYRES AND DIALOGUES read THUS, which leaves
no meaning in this passage.
<93.4> Old editions have MAY IT.
<93.5> Harmonie--AYRES AND DIALOGUES, &c.
<93.6> Original reads AND, and so also the AYRES AND DIALOGUES.
<93.7> Old editions have THE.
<93.8> So the AYRES AND DIALOGUES. LUCASTA has HIS.
<> P. 249. UT RE MI.
See LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, 1598, iv. 3:--
"Hol. Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not,
loves thee not--UT, RE, SOL, la, mi, FA"----
And Singer's SHAKESPEARE, ed. 1856, ii. 257, NOTE 15.
TO DR. F. B[EALE]; ON HIS BOOK OF CHESSE.<94.1>
Sir, how unravell'd is the golden fleece:
Men, that could only fool at FOX AND GEESE,
Are new-made polititians<94.2> by thy book,
And both can judge and conquer with a look.
The hidden fate<94.3> of princes you unfold;
Court, clergy, commons, by your law control'd.
Strange, serious wantoning all that they
Bluster'd and clutter'd for, you PLAY.
<94.1> These lines, among the last which Lovelace ever wrote,
were originally prefixed to "The Royal Game of Chesse-Play.
Sometimes the Recreation of the late King, with many of the
Nobility. Illustrated with almost an hundred gambetts. Being
the Study of Biochino, the famous Italian [Published by Francis
Beale.]" Lond. 1656, 12mo.
<94.2> The text of 1656 has, erroneously no doubt, POLITIANS.
<94.3> Text of 1656 has FATES.
TO THE GENIUS OF MR. JOHN HALL.
ON HIS EXACT TRANSLATION OF HIEROCLES
HIS COMMENT UPON THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS.<95.1>
Tis not from cheap thanks thinly to repay
Th' immortal grove of thy fair-order'd bay
Thou planted'st round my humble fane,<95.2> that I
Stick on thy hearse this sprig of Elegie:
Nor that your soul so fast was link'd in me,
That now I've both, since't has forsaken thee:
That thus I stand a Swisse before thy gate,
And dare, for such another, time and fate.
Alas! our faiths made different essays,
Our Minds and Merits brake two several ways;
Justice commands I wake thy learned dust,
And truth, in whom all causes center must.
Behold! when but a youth, thou fierce didst whip
Upright the crooked age, and gilt vice strip;
A senator praetext,<95.3> that knew'st to sway<95.4>
The fasces, yet under the ferula;
Rank'd with the sage, ere blossome did thy chin,
Sleeked without, and hair all ore within,
Who in the school could'st argue as in schools:
Thy lessons were ev'n academie rules.
So that fair Cam saw thee matriculate,
At once a tyro and a graduate.
At nineteen, what ESSAYES<95.5> have we beheld!
That well might have the book of Dogmas swell'd;
Tough Paradoxes, such as Tully's, thou
Didst heat thee with, when snowy was thy brow,
When thy undown'd face mov'd the Nine to shake,
And of the Muses did a decad make.
What shall I say? by what allusion bold?
NONE BUT THE SUN WAS ERE SO YOUNG AND OLD.
Young reverend shade, ascend awhile! whilst we
Now celebrate this posthume victorie,
This victory, that doth contract in death
Ev'n all the pow'rs and labours of thy breath.
Like the Judean Hero,<95.6> in thy fall
Thou pull'st the house of learning on us all.
And as that soldier conquest doubted not,
Who but one splinter had of Castriot,<95.7>
But would assault ev'n death so strongly charmd,
And naked oppose rocks, with his<95.8> bone<95.9> arm'd;
So we, secure in this fair relique, stand<95.10>
The slings and darts shot by each profane hand.
These soveraign leaves thou left'st us are become
Sear clothes against all Times infection.
Sacred Hierocles, whose heav'nly thought
First acted ore this comment, ere it wrote,<95.11>
Thou hast so spirited, elixir'd, we
Conceive there is a noble alchymie,
That's turning of this gold to something more
Pretious than gold, we never knew before.
Who now shall doubt the metempsychosis
Of the great Author, that shall peruse this?
Let others dream thy shadow wandering strays
In th' Elizian mazes hid with bays;
Or that, snatcht up in th' upper region,
'Tis kindled there a constellation;
I have inform'd me, and declare with ease
THY SOUL IS FLED INTO HIEROCLES.
<95.1> These lines were originally prefixed to "Hierocles
upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras. Teaching a Virtuous
and Worthy Life. Translated by John Hall, of Durham, Esquire.
OPUS POSTHUMUM." Lond. 1657, 12mo. (The copy among the King's
pamphlets in the British Museum appears to have been purchased
on the 8th Sept. 1656.) The variations between the texts of 1656
and 1659 are chiefly literal, but a careful collation has enabled
me to rectify one or two errors of the press in LUCASTA.
<95.2> Lovelace refers to the lines which Hall wrote in
commendation of LUCASTA, 1649.
<95.3> The HORAE VACIVAE of Hall, 1646, 16mo., are here meant.
<95.4> See Beloe's translation of Aulus Gellius, ii. 86.
<95.5> HORAE VACIVAE, or Essays and some Occasional Considerations.
Lond. 1646, 16mo., with a portrait of Hall by William Marshall,
au. aet. 19.
<95.6> Sampson.
<95.7> Scanderbeg, whose real name was George Castriot.
CASTRIOT is also one of the DRAMATIS PERSONAE in Fletcher'
KNIGHT OF MALTA.
<95.8> So the text of 165 , .e. of the lines as originally
written by the poet. Lucasta, <1>659, erroneously has THIS.
<95.9> "And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth
his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith."
--JUDGES, xv. 15.
<95.10> i.e. withstand.
<95.11> So the text of 1656. LUCASTA has WROUGHT.
TRANSLATIONES / TRANSLATIONS.
<-------------------->
SANAZARI HEXASTICON.
Viderat Adriacis quondam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem et toto ponere Jura mari:
Nunc mihi Tarpeias<96.1> quantumvis, Jupiter, Arces
Objice et illa mihi moenia Martis, ait,
Seu pelago Tibrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque,
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.
SANAZAR'S HEXASTICK.
In Adriatick waves when Neptune saw,
The city stand, and give the seas a law:
Now i' th' Tarpeian tow'rs Jove rival me,
And Mars his walls impregnable, said he;
Let seas to Tyber yield; view both their ods!<96.2>
You'l grant that built by men, but this by gods.
<96.1> Rome.
<96.2> Points of difference or contrast. For LET SEAS, &c., we
ought to read SHALL SEAS, &c.
<-------------------->
IN VIRGILIUM. PENTADII.
Pastor, arator, eques; pavi, colui, superavi;
Capras, rus, hostes; fronde, ligone, manu.
IN ENGLISH.
A swain, hind, knight: I fed, till'd, did command:
Goats, fields, my foes: with leaves, a spade, my hand.
<-------------------->
DE SCAEVOLA.
Lictorem pro rege necans nunc mutius ultro
Sacrifico propriam concremat igne manum:
Miratur Porsenna virum, paenamque relaxans
Maxima cum obscessis faedera a victor init,
Plus flammis patriae confert quam fortibus armis,
Una domans bellum funere dextra sua.
ENGLISHED.
The hand, by which no king but serjeant<97.1> dies,
Mutius in fire doth freely sacrifice;
The prince admires the Hero, quits his pains,
And Victor from the seige peace entertains;
Rome's more oblig'd to flames than arms or pow'r,
When one burnt hand shall the whole war devour.<97.2>
<97.1> A somewhat imperfect rendering of LICTOR.
<97.2> The reader will easily judge for himself of the valueless
character of these translations; but it is only just to Lovelace
to suggest that they were probably academic exercises only,
and at the same time to submit that they are not much worse than
Marlowe's translation of Ovid, and many other versions of the
Classics then current.
<-------------------->
DE CATONE.
Invictus victis in partibus omnia Caesar
Vincere qui potuit, te, Cato, non potuit.
OF CATO.
The world orecome, victorious Caesar, he
That conquer'd all, great Cato, could not thee.
<-------------------->
ITEM.
Ictu non potuit primo Cato solvere vitam;
Defecit tanto vulnere victa manus:
Altius inseruit digitos, qua spiritus ingens
Exiret, magnum dextera fecit iter.
Opposuit fortuna moram, involvitque, Catonis
Scires ut ferro plus valuisse manum.
ANOTHER.
One stabbe could not fierce Cato's<98.1> life unty;
Onely his hand of all that wound did dy.
Deeper his fingers tear to make a way
Open, through which his mighty soul might stray.
Fortune made this delay to let us know,
That Cato's hand more then his sword could do.
<98.1> Cato of Utica.
<-------------------->
ITEM.
Jussa manus sacri pectus violare Catonis
Haesit, et inceptum victa reliquit opus.
Ille ait, infesto contra sua vulnera vultu:
Estne aliquid, magnus quod Cato non potuit?
ANOTHER.
The hand of sacred Cato, bad to tear
His breast, did start, and the made wound forbear;
Then to the gash he said with angry brow:
And is there ought great Cato cannot do?
<-------------------->
ITEM.
Dextera, quid dubitas? durum est jugulare Catonem;
Sed modo liber erit: jam puto non dubitas!
Fas non est vivo quenquam servire Catone,
Nedum ipsum vincit nunc Cato si moritur.
ANOTHER.
What doubt'st thou, hand? sad Cato 'tis to kill;
But he'l be free: sure, hand, thou doubt'st not still!
Cato alive, 'tis just all men be free:
Nor conquers he himself, now if he die.
<-------------------->
PENTADII.
Non est, fulleris, haec beata non est
Quod vos creditis esse, vita non est:
Fulgentes manibus videre gemmas
Et testudineo jacere lecto,
Aut pluma latus abdidisse molli,
Aut auro bibere, aut cubare cocco;
Regales dapibus gravare mensas,
Et quicquid Lybico secatur arvo;
Non una positum tenere cella:
Sed nullos trepidum timere casus,
Nec vano populi favore tangi,
Et stricto nihil aestuare ferro:
Hoc quisquis poterit, licebit illi
Fortunam moveat loco superbus.
ENGLISHED.
It is not, y' are deceav'd, it is not blisse
What you conceave a happy living is:
To have your hands with rubies bright to glow,
Then on your tortoise-bed your body throw,
And sink your self in down, to drink in gold,
And have your looser self in purple roll'd;
With royal fare to make the tables groan,
Or else with what from Lybick fields is mown,
Nor in one vault hoard all your magazine,
But at no cowards fate t' have frighted bin;
Nor with the peoples breath to be swol'n great,
Nor at a drawn stiletto basely swear.
He that dares this, nothing to him's unfit,
But proud o' th' top of fortunes wheel may sit.
<-------------------->
AD M. T. CICERONEM.
CATUL EP. 50.
Disertissime Romuli nepotum,
Quot sunt, quotque fuere, Marce Tulli,
Quotque post alios erunt in annos,
Gratias tibi maximas Catullus
Agit, pessimus omnium poeta:
Tanto pessimus omnium poeta,
Quanto tu optimus omnium patronus.
TO MARCUS T. CICERO.
IN AN ENGLISH PENTASTICK.
Tully to thee, Rome's eloquent sole heir,
The best of all that are, shall be, and were,
I the worst poet send my best thanks and pray'r:
Ev'n by how much the worst of poets I,
By so much you the best of patrones be.
<-------------------->
AD JUVENCIUM. CAT. EP. 49.
Mellitos oculos tuos, Juvenci,
Si quis me sinat usque basiare,
Usque ad millia basiem trecenta;
Nec unquam videat satur futurus:
Non si densior aridis aristis,
Sit nostrae seges osculationis.
TO JUVENCIUS.
Juvencius, thy fair sweet eyes
If to my fill that I may kisse,
Three hundred thousand times I'de kisse,
Nor future age should cloy this blisse;
No, not if thicker than ripe ears
The harvest of our kisses bears.
<-------------------->
DE PUERO ET PRAECONE. CATUL.
Cum puero bello praeconem qui videt esse,
Quid credat, nisi se vendere discupere?
CATUL.
With a fair boy a cryer we behold,
What should we think, but he would not be sold?<99.1>
<99.1> Lovelace has made nonsense of this passage. We ought
to read rather, "but that he would be sold!"
<-------------------->
PORTII LICINII.
Si Phoebi soror es, mando tibi, Delia, causam,
Scilicet, ut fratri quae peto verba feras:
Marmore Sicanio struxi tibi, Delphice, templum,
Et levibus calamis candida verba dedi.
Nunc, si nos audis, atque es divinus Apollo,
Dic mihi, qui nummos non habet unde petat.
ENGLISHED.
If you are Phoebus sister, Delia, pray,
This my request unto the Sun convay:
O Delphick god, I built thy marble fane,
And sung thy praises with a gentle cane,<100.1>
Now, if thou art divine Apollo, tell,
Where he, whose purse is empty, may go fill.
<100.1> Reed or pipe.
<-------------------->
SENECAE EX CLEANTHE.
Duc me, Parens celsique Dominator poli,
Quocunque placuit, nulla parendi mora est;
Adsum impiger; fac nolle, comitabor gemens,
Malusque patiar facere, quod licuit bono.
Ducunt volentem Fata, nolentem trahunt.
ENGLISHED.
Parent and Prince of Heav'n, O lead, I pray,
Where ere you please, I follow and obey.
Active I go, sighing, if you gainsay,
And suffer bad what to the good was law.
Fates lead the willing, but unwilling draw.
<-------------------->
QUINTI CATULI.
Constiteram exorientem Auroram forte salutans,
Cum subito a laeva Roscius exoritur.
Pace mihi liceat, coelestes, dicere vestra.
Mortalis visu pulchrior esse deo.
Blanditur puero satyrus vultuque manuque;
Nolenti similis retrahit ora puer:
Quem non commoveat, quamvis de marmore? fundit
Pene preces satyrus, pene puer lachrymas.
ENGLISHED.
As once I bad good morning to the day,
O' th' sudden Roscius breaks in a bright ray:
Gods with your favour, I've presum'd to see
A mortal fairer then a deitie.
With looks and hands a satyre courts the boy,
Who draws back his unwilling cheek as coy.
Although of marble hewn, whom move not they?
The boy ev'n seems to weep, the satyre, pray.
<-------------------->
FLORIDI. DE EBRIOSO.
Phoebus me in somnis vetuit potare Lyaeum,
Pareo praeceptis: tunc bibo cum vigilo.
OF A DRUNKARD.
Phoebus asleep forbad me wine to take:
I yield; and now am only drunk awake.
<-------------------->
DE ASINO QUI DENTIBUS AENEIDEM CONSUMPSIT.
Carminis iliaci libros consumpsit asellus;
Hoc fatum Troiae est: aut equus, aut asinus.
THE ASSE EATING THE AENEIDS.
A wretched asse the Aeneids did destroy:
A horse or asse is still the fate of Troy.
<-------------------->
AUSONIUS LIB. EPIG.
Trinarii quodam currentem in littoris ora
Ante canes leporem caeruleus rapuit;
At<101.1> lepus: in me omnis terrae pelagique rapina est,
Forsitan et coeli, si canis astra tenet.
ENGLISHED.
On the Sicilian strand a hare well wrought
Before the hounds was by a dog-fish caught;
Quoth she: all rape of sea and earth's on me,
Perhaps of heav'n, if there a dog-star be.
<101.1> Qu. a contraction of AIT.
<-------------------->
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