The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  If foure Atomes a World can make, then see,

  What severall Worlds might in an Eare-ring bee.

  For Millions of these Atomes may bee in

  The Head of one small, little, single Pin.

  And if thus small, then Ladies well may weare

  A World of Worlds, as Pendents in each Eare.

  1655

  HENRY VAUGHAN from Silex Scintillans II

  ¶

  They are all gone into the world of light!

  And I alone sit lingring here;

  Their very memory is fair and bright,

  And my sad thoughts doth clear.

  It glows and glitters in my cloudy brest

  Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

  Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,

  After the Sun’s remove.

  I see them walking in an Air of glory,

  Whose light doth trample on my days:

  My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,

  Meer glimering and decays.

  O holy hope! and high humility,

  High as the Heavens above!

  These are your walks, and you have shew’d them me

  To kindle my cold love,

  Dear, beauteous death! the Jewel of the Just,

  Shining nowhere, but in the dark;

  What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust;

  Could man outlook that mark!

  He that hath found some fledg’d birds nest, may know

  At first sight, if the bird be flown;

  But what fair Well, or Grove he sings in now,

  That is to him unknown.

  And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams

  Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:

  So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted theams,

  And into glory peep.

  If a star were confin’d into a Tomb

  Her captive flames must needs burn there;

  But when the hand that lockt her up, gives room,

  She’l shine through all the sphære.

  O Father of eternal life, and all

  Created glories under thee!

  Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall

  Into true liberty.

  Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill

  My perspective (still) as they pass,

  Or else remove me hence unto that hill,

  Where I shall need no glass.

  Cock-crowing

  Father of lights! what Sunnie seed,

  What glance of day hast thou confin’d

  Into this bird? To all the breed

  This busie Ray thou hast assign’d;

  Their magnetisme works all night,

  And dreams of Paradise and light.

  Their eyes watch for the morning hue,

  Their little grain expelling night

  So shines and sings, as if it knew

  The path unto the house of light.

  It seems their candle, howe’r done,

  Was tinn’d and lighted at the sunne.

  If such a tincture, such a touch,

  So firm a longing can impowre

  Shall thy own image think it much

  To watch for thy appearing hour?

  If a meer blast so fill the sail,

  Shall not the breath of God prevail?

  O thou immortall light and heat!

  Whose hand so shines through all this frame,

  That by the beauty of the seat,

  We plainly see, who made the same.

  Seeing thy seed abides in me,

  Dwell thou in it, and I in thee.

  To sleep without thee, is to die;

  Yea, ’tis a death partakes of hell:

  For where thou dost not close the eye

  It never opens, I can tell.

  In such a dark, Ægyptian border,

  The shades of death dwell and disorder.

  If joyes, and hopes, and earnest throws,

  And hearts, whose Pulse beats still for light

  Are given to birds; who, but thee, knows

  A love-sick souls exalted flight?

  Can souls be track’d by any eye

  But his, who gave them wings to flie?

  Onely this Veyle which thou hast broke,

  And must be broken yet in me,

  This veyle, I say, is all the cloke

  And cloud which shadows thee from me.

  This veyle thy full-ey’d love denies,

  And onely gleams and fractions spies.

  O take it off! make no delay,

  But brush me with thy light, that I

  May shine unto a perfect day,

  And warme me at thy glorious Eye!

  O take it off! or till it flee,

  Though with no Lilie, stay with me!

  The Night

  John 3.2

  Through that pure Virgin-shrine,

  That sacred vail drawn o’r thy glorious noon

  That men might look and live as Glo-worms shine,

  And face the Moon:

  Wise Nicodemus saw such light

  As made him know his God by night.

  Most blest believer he!

  Who in that land of darkness and blinde eyes

  Thy long expected healing wings could see,

  When thou didst rise,

  And what can never more be done,

  Did at mid-night speak with the Sun!

  O who will tell me, where

  He found thee at that dead and silent hour!

  What hallow’d solitary ground did bear

  So rare a flower,

  Within whose sacred leafs did lie

  The fulness of the Deity.

  No mercy-seat of gold,

  No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carv’d stone,

  But his own living works did my Lord hold

  And lodge alone;

  Where trees and herbs did watch and peep

  And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

  Dear night! this worlds defeat;

  The stop to busie fools; cares check and curb;

  The day of Spirits; my souls calm retreat

  Which none disturb!

  Christs progress, and his prayer time;

  The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.

  Gods silent, searching flight:

  When my Lords head is fill’d with dew, and all

  His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;

  His still, soft call;

  His knocking time; The souls dumb watch,

  When Spirits their fair kinred catch.

  Were all my loud, evil days

  Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent,

  Whose peace but by some Angels wing or voice

  Is seldom rent;

  Then I in Heaven all the long year

  Would keep, and never wander here.

  But living where the Sun

  Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tyre

  Themselves and others, I consent and run

  To ev’ry myre,

  And by this worlds ill-guiding light,

  Erre more then I can do by night.

  There is in God (some say)

  A deep, but dazling darkness; As men here

  Say it is late and dusky, because they

  See not all clear;

  O for that night! where I in him

  Might live invisible and dim.

  ABRAHAM COWLEY from Anacreontiques Translated 1656 Paraphrastically from the Greek

  II Drinking

  The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain,

  And drinks, and gapes for drink again.

  The Plants suck in the Earth, and are

  With constant drinking fresh and fair.

  The Sea it self, which one would think

  Should have but little need of Drink,

  Drinks ten thousand Rivers up,

  So fill’d that they or’eflow the Cup.

  The busie Sun (and one would guess

  B
y’s drunken fiery face no less)

  Drinks up the Sea, and when h’as done,

  The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun.

  They drink and dance by their own light,

  They drink and revel all the night.

  Nothing in Nature’s Sober found,

  But an eternal Health goes round.

  Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high,

  Fill all the Glasses there, for why

  Should every creature drink but I,

  Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?

  X The Grashopper

  Happy Insect, what can be

  In happiness compar’d to Thee?

  Fed with nourishment divine,

  The dewy Mornings gentle Wine!

  Nature waits upon thee still,

  And thy verdant Cup does fill,

  ’Tis fill’d where ever thou dost tread,

  Nature selfe’s thy Ganimed.

  Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing;

  Happier then the happiest King!

  All the Fields which thou dost see,

  All the Plants belong to Thee,

  All that Summer Hours produce,

  Fertile made with early juice.

  Man for thee does sow and plow;

  Farmer He, and Land-Lord Thou!

  Thou doest innocently joy;

  Nor does thy Luxury destroy;

  The Shepherd gladly heareth thee,

  More Harmonious then He.

  Thee Country Hindes with gladness hear,

  Prophet of the ripened year!

  Thee Phœbus loves, and does inspire;

  Phœbus is himself thy Sire.

  To thee of all things upon earth,

  Life is no longer then thy Mirth.

  Happy Insect, happy Thou,

  Dost neither Age, nor Winter know.

  But when thou’st drunk, and danc’d, and sung,

  Thy fill, the flowry Leaves among

  (Voluptuous, and Wise with all,

  Epicurcean Animal!)

  Sated with thy Summer Feast,

  Thou retir’est to endless Rest.

  ABRAHAM COWLEY from Davideis

  [Lot’s Wife]

  Behind his wife stood, ever fixed alone;

  No more a woman, not yet quite a stone.

  A lasting death seized on her turning head;

  One cheek was rough and white, the other red,

  And yet a cheek; in vain to speak she strove;

  Her lips, though stone, a little seemed to move.

  One eye was closed, surprised by sudden night;

  The other trembled still with parting light.

  The wind admired, which her hair loosely bore,

  Why it grew stiff, and now would play no more.

  To Heav’n she lifted up her freezing hands,

  And to this day a suppliant pillar stands.

  She tried her heavy foot from ground to rear,

  And raised the heel, but her toe’s rooted there.

  Ah, foolish woman, who must always be

  A sight more strange than that she turned to see!

  WILLIAM STRODE Song

  I saw faire Cloris walke alone

  When featherd raine came softly downe

  And Jove descended from his Towre

  To court her in a Silver showre.

  The wanton Snow flew on her breast

  As little birdes unto their nest

  But overcome in whiteness there

  For greife it thawd into a Teare

  Then falling on her garments hemme

  To deck her freezd into a Gemme.

  WILLIAM STRODE On Westwell Downes

  When Westwell Downes I gan to treade

  Where cleanly windes the Greene doe sweepe,

  Me thought a Landskipp there was spread

  Here a bush and there a sheepe

  The pleated wrinkles on the face

  Of wave-swoln Earth did lend such grace

  As shaddowings in Imagrie

  Which both deceave and please the Eye.

  The sheepe sometimes doe treade a Mase

  By often winding in and in,

  And sometimes rounde about they trace,

  Which Milke-maids call a Fairy ring

  Such Semicircles they have run,

  Such lines acrosse soe trimly spun

  That sheapheardes learne whenere they please

  A new Geometry with Ease.

  The slender foode upon the Downe

  Is allway even, allway bare

  Which nether spring nor winters frowne

  Can ought improve or ought impayre

  Such is the barren Eunuchs chin

  Which thus doth ever more begin

  With tender downe to be orecast

  Which never comes to hayre at last.

  Here and there two hilly Crests

  Amidst them hugg a pleasant Greene

  And these are like two swelling breasts

  That close a tender Vale betweene

  Here could I reade or sleepe or play

  From Early morne till flight of Day

  But harke a Sheeps-bell calls me up

  Like Oxford Colledg bells to supp.

  (1907)

  JOHN TAYLOR and ANONYMOUS Non-sense

  Oh that my Lungs could bleat like butter’d pease;

  But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch,

  And are as mangy as the Irish Seas,

  That doth ingender windmills on a Bitch.

  I grant that Rainbowes being lull’d asleep,

  Snort like a woodknife in a Ladies eyes;

  Which maks her grieve to see a pudding creep

  For creeping puddings onely please the wise.

  Not that a hard-row’d Herring should presum

  To swing a tyth pig in a Cateskin purse;

  For fear the hailstons which did fall at Rome

  By lesning of the fault should make it worse.

  For ’tis most certain Winter wool-sacks grow

  From geese to swans, if men could keep them so,

  Till that the sheep shorn Planets gave the hint

  To pickle pancakes in Geneva print.

  Some men there were that did supose the skie

  Was made of Carbonado’d Antidotes;

  But my opinion is a Whales left eye,

  Need not be coyned all in King Harry groates