The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  And scornd pretence

  While others slipt into a wide Excesse

  Said little lesse;

  The weaker sort slight, triviall wares Inslave

  Who think them brave,

  And poor, despised truth sate Counting by

  Their victory.

  Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,

  And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the Ring,

  But most would use no wing.

  O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night

  Before true light,

  To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day

  Because it shews the way,

  The way which from this dead and dark abode

  Leads up to God,

  A way where you might tread the Sun, and be

  More bright than he.

  But as I did their madnes so discusse

  One whisper’d thus,

  This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide

  But for his bride.

  1651 WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT No Platonique Love

  Tell me no more of minds embracing minds,

  And hearts exchang’d for hearts;

  That Spirits Spirits meet, as Winds do Winds,

  And mix their subt’lest parts;

  That two unbodi’d Essences may kiss,

  And then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.

  I was that silly thing that once was wrought

  To practice this thin Love;

  I climb’d from Sex to Soul, from Soul to Thought;

  But thinking there to move,

  Headlong, I rowl’d from Thought to Soul, and then

  From Soul I lighted at the Sex agen.

  As some strict down-look’d men pretend to fast

  Who yet in Closets Eat;

  So Lovers who profess they Spirits taste,

  Feed yet on grosser meat;

  I know they boast they Soules to Soules Convey,

  How e’r they meet, the Body is the Way.

  Come, I will undeceive thee, they that tread

  Those vain Aeriall waies,

  Are like young Heyrs, and Alchymists misled

  To waste their wealth and Daies,

  For searching thus to be for ever Rich,

  They only find a Med’cine for the Itch.

  JOHN CLEVELAND The Antiplatonick

  For shame, thou everlasting Woer,

  Still saying Grace and ne’re fall to her!

  Love that’s in Contemplation plac’t,

  Is Venus drawn but to the Wast.

  Unlesse your Flame confesse its Gender,

  And your Parley cause surrender,

  Y’are Salamanders of a cold desire,

  That live untouch’t amid the hottest fire.

  What though she be a Dame of stone,

  The Widow of Pigmalion;

  As hard and un-relenting She,

  As the new-crusted Niobe;

  Or what doth more of Statue carry

  A Nunne of the Platonick Quarrey?

  Love melts the rigor which the rocks have bred,

  A Flint will break upon a Feather-bed.

  For shame you pretty Female Elves,

  Cease for to Candy up your selves;

  No more, you Sectaries of the Game,

  No more of your calcining flame.

  Women Commence by Cupids Dart,

  As a Kings Hunting dubs a Hart.

  Loves Votaries inthrall each others soul,

  Till both of them live but upon Paroll.

  Vertue’s no more in Woman-kind

  But the green-sicknesse of the mind.

  Philosophy, their new delight,

  A kind of Charcoal Appetite.

  There is no Sophistry prevails,

  Where all-convincing Love assails,

  But the disputing Petticoat will Warp,

  As skilfull Gamesters are to seek at Sharp.

  The souldier, that man of Iron,

  Whom Ribs of Horror all inviron,

  That’s strung with Wire, in stead of Veins,

  In whose imbraces you’re in chains,

  Let a Magnetick Girle appear,

  Straight he turns Cupids Cuiraseer.

  Love storms his lips, and takes the Fortresse in,

  For all the Brisled Turn-pikes of his chin.

  Since Loves Artillery then checks

  The Breast-works of the firmest Sex,

  Come let us in Affections Riot,

  Th’are sickly pleasures keep a Diet.

  Give me a Lover bold and free,

  Not Eunuch’t with Formality;

  Like an Embassador that beds a Queen,

  With the Nice Caution of a sword between.

  JOHN CLEVELAND A Song of Marke Anthony

  When as the Nightingall chanted her Vesper,

  And the wild Forrester coutch’d on the ground,

  Venus invited me in th’ Evening whisper,

  Unto a fragrant field with Roses crown’d:

  Where she before had sent

  My wishes complement,

  Who to my soules content

  Plaid with me on the Green.

  Never Marke Anthony

  Dallied more wantonly

  With the faire Egyptian Queen.

  First on her cherry cheekes I mine eyes feasted,

  Thence feare of surfetting made me retire

  Unto her warmer lips, which, when I tasted,

  My spirits dull were made active as fire.

  This heate againe to calme

  Her moyst hand yeilded balme,

  While we join’d palme to palme

  As if they one had beene.

  Never Marke, &c.

  Then in her golden hayre I my armes twined,

  Shee her hands in my locks twisted againe,

  As if our hayre had been fetters assigned,

  Great litle Cupids loose captives to chaine.

  Then we did often dart

  Each at the others heart,

  Arrowes that knew no smart;

  Sweet lookes and smiles between.

  Never Marke, &c.

  Wanting a glasse to pleat those amber trasses,

  Which like a bracelet deckt richly mine arme;

  Gawdier than Juno weares, when as she blesses

  Jove with embraces more stately than warme,

  Then did she peepe in mine

  Eyes humour Chrystaline;

  And by reflexive shine

  I in her eye was seene.

  Never Marke, &c.

  Mysticall Grammer of amorous glances,

  Feeling of pulses, the Phisicke of Love,

  Rhetoricall courtings, and Musicall Dances;

  Numbring of kisses Arithmeticke prove.

  Eyes like Astronomy,

  Streight limbs Geometry,

  In her arts ingeny

  Our wits were sharpe and keene.

  Never Marke, &c.

  THOMAS STANLEY The Snow-ball

  Doris, I that could repell

  All those darts about thee dwell,

  And had wisely learn’d to fear,

  Cause I saw a Foe so near;

  I that my deaf ear did arm,

  ‘Gainst thy voices powerful charm,

  And the lightning of thine eye

  Durst (by closing mine) defie,

  Cannot this cold snow withstand

  From the whiter of thy hand;

  Thy deceit hath thus done more

  Then thy open force before:

  For who could suspect or fear

  Treason in a face so clear,

  Or the hidden fires descry

  Wrapt in this cold out-side lie?

  Flames might thus involv’d in ice

  The deceiv’d world sacrifice;

  Nature, ignorant of this

  Strange Antiperistasis,

  Would her falling frame admire,

  That by snow were set on fire.

  THOMAS STANLEY The Grassehopper

  Grasshop
per thrice-happy! who

  Sipping the cool morning dew,

  Queen-like chirpest all the day

  Seated on some verdant spray;

  Thine is all what ere earth brings,

  Or the howrs with laden wings;

  Thee, the Ploughman calls his Joy,

  ’Cause thou nothing dost destroy:

  Thou by all art honour’d; All

  Thee the Springs sweet Prophet call;

  By the Muses thou admir’d,

  By Apollo art inspir’d,

  Agelesse, ever singing, good,

  Without passion, flesh or blood;

  Oh how near thy happy state

  Comes the Gods to imitate!

  SIR HENRY WOTTON Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earle of Somerset, Then Falling from Favor

  Dazel’d thus, with height of place,

  Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,

  No man markes the narrow space

  ’Twixt a prison, and a smile.

  Then, since fortunes favours fade,

  You, that in her armes doe sleep,

  Learne to swim, and not to wade;

  For, the Hearts of Kings are deepe.

  But, if Greatness be so blind,

  As to trust in towers of Aire,

  Let it be with Goodness lin’d,

  That at’least, the Fall be faire.

  Then though darkned, you shall say,

  When Friends faile, and Princes frowne,

  Vertue is the roughest way,

  But proves at night a Bed of Downe.

  1652 SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE from the Latin of Horace

  Odes. IV, 7 To L. Manlius Torquatus

  The Snows are thaw’d, now grass new cloaths the earth,

  And Trees new hair thrust forth.

  The Season’s chang’d, and Brooks late swoln with rain,

  Their proper bankes contain.

  Nymphs with the Graces (linkt) dare dance around

  Naked upon the ground.

  That thou must dye, the year and howers say

  Which draw the winged day.

  First Spring, then Summer that away doth chace,

  And must it self give place

  To Apple-bearing Autumne, and that past

  Dull Winter comes at last.

  But the decays of Time, Time doth repair:

  When we once plunged are

  Where good Æneas, where rich Ancus wades,

  Ashes we are, and shades.

  Who knows if Jove unto thy life’s past score

  Will add one morning more?

  When thou art dead, and Rhadamanthus just

  Sentence hath spoke thee dust,

  Thy Blood, nor eloquence can ransome thee,

  No nor thy Piety,

  For chast Hippolytus in Stygian night

  Diana cannot light:

  Nor Theseus break with all his vertuous pains

  His dear Perithous chains.

  RICHARD CRASHAW from The Flaming Heart. Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphicall Saint Teresa

  O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art,

  Upon this carcasse of a hard, cold, hart,

  Let all thy scatter’d shafts of light, that play

  Among the leaves of thy larg Books of day,

  Combin’d against this BREST at once break in

  And take away from me my self and sin,

  This gratious Robbery shall thy bounty be;

  And my best fortunes such fair spoiles of me.

  O thou undanted daughter of desires!

  By all thy dowr of LIGHTS & FIRES;

  By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;

  By all thy lives and deaths of love;

  By thy larg draughts of intellectuall day,

  And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;

  By all thy brim-fill’d Bowles of feirce desire

  By thy last Morning’s draught of liquid fire;

  By the full kingdome of that finall kisse

  That seiz’d thy parting Soul, and seal’d thee his;

  By all the heav’ns thou hast in him

  (Fair sister of the SERAPHIM!)

  By all of HIM we have in THEE;

  Leave nothing of my SELF in me.

  Let me so read thy life, that I

  Unto all life of mine may dy.

  AURELIAN TOWNSHEND A Dialogue betwixt Time and a 1653 Pilgrime

  PILGRIM

  Aged man, that mowes these fields.

  TIME

  Pilgrime speak, what is thy will?

  PILGR.

  Whose soile is this that such sweet Pasture yields?

  Or who art thou whose Foot stand never still?

  Or where am I? TIME In love.

  PILGR.

  His Lordship lies above.

  TIME

  Yes and below, and round about

  Where in all sorts of flow’rs are growing

  Which as the early Spring puts out,

  Time falls as fast a mowing.

  PILGR.

  If thou art Time, these Flow’rs have Lives,

  And then I fear,

  Under some Lilly she I love

  May now be growing there.

  TIME

  And in some Thistle or some spyre of grasse

  My syth thy stalk before hers come may passe.

  PILGR.

  Wilt thou provide it may? TIME. No. PILGR. Allege the cause.

  TIME

  Because Time cannot alter but obey Fates laws.

  CHORUS

  Then happy those whom Fate, that is the stronger,

  Together twists their threads, and yet draws hers the longer.

  MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Of Many Worlds in This World

  Just like unto a Nest of Boxes round,

  Degrees of sizes within each Boxe are found.

  So in this World, may many Worlds more be,

  Thinner, and lesse, and lesse still by degree;

  Although they are not subject to our Sense,

  A World may be no bigger then two-pence.

  Nature is curious, and such worke may make,

  That our dull Sense can never finde, but scape.

  For Creatures, small as Atomes, may be there,

  If every Atome a Creatures Figure beare.