A kingly stateliness, from all pride clear;
His look majestic seemèd to compel
All men to love him, rather than to fear.
And yet though he were every good man’s joy, 5
And the alonely comfort of his own,
His very name with terror did annoy
His foreign foes so far as he was known.
Hell drooped for fear; the Turkey moon looked pale;
Spain trembled; and the most tempestuous sea,
(Where Behemoth, the Babylonish whale, 10
Keeps all his bloody and imperious plea)
Was swoln with rage, for fear he’d stop the tide
Of her o’er-daring and insulting pride.
_George Wither._
XCIV
_ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA._
You meaner beauties of the night,
Which poorly satisfy our eyes,
More by your number than your light,--
You common people of the skies,
What are you, when the Moon shall rise? 5
You violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own,--
What are you, when the Rose is blown? 10
You curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth dame Nature’s lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents,--what’s your praise,
When Philomel her voice doth raise? 15
So when my Mistress shall be seen
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me, if she were not designed
The eclipse and glory of her kind? 20
_Sir Henry Wotton._
XCV
_LORD STRAFFORD’S MEDITATIONS IN THE TOWER._
Go, empty joys,
With all your noise,
And leave me here alone,
In sweet sad silence to bemoan
The fickle worldly height, 5
Whose danger none can see aright,
Whilst your false splendours dim his sight.
Go, and ensnare
With your trim ware
Some other easy wight, 10
And cheat him with your flattering light;
Rain on his head a shower
Of honours, favour, wealth, and power;
Then snatch it from him in an hour.
Fill his big mind 15
With gallant wind
Of insolent applause;
Let him not fear all-curbing laws,
Nor king, nor people’s frown;
But dream of something like a crown, 20
Then, climbing towards it, tumble down.
Let him appear
In his bright sphere
Like Cynthia in her pride,
With starlike troops on every side; 25
For number and clear light
Such as may soon o’erwhelm him quite,
And blend them both in one dead night.
Welcome, sad night,
Grief’s sole delight, 30
Thy mourning best agrees
With honour’s funeral obsequies!
In Thetis’ lap he lies,
Mantled with soft securities,
Whose too much sunshine dims his eyes. 35
Was he too bold,
Who needs would hold
With curbing reins the Day,
And make Sol’s fiery steeds obey?
Then, sure, as rash was I, 40
Who with ambitious wings did fly
In Charles’s Wain too loftily.
I fall, I fall!
Whom shall I call?
Alas can he be heard, 45
Who now is neither loved nor feared?
You who have vowed the ground
To kiss, where my blest steps were found,
Come, catch me at my last rebound.
How each admires 50
Heaven’s twinkling fires,
Whilst from their glorious seat
Their influence gives light and heat;
But oh! how few there are,
Though danger from the act be far, 55
Will run to catch a falling star.
Now ’tis too late
To imitate
Those lights whose pallidness
Argues no inward guiltiness; 60
Their course one way is bent;
Which is the cause there’s no dissent
In Heaven’s High Court of Parliament.
_Anon._
XCVI
_I’LL NEVER LOVE THEE MORE._
My dear and only Love, I pray
That little world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchy:
For if confusion have a part, 5
Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a Synod in thy heart,
I’ll never love thee more.
As Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone; 10
My thoughts did evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch, 15
To gain or lose it all.
But I will reign and govern still,
And always give the law,
And have each subject at my will,
And all to stand in awe: 20
But ’gainst my batteries if I find
Thou storm, or vex me sore,
As if thou set me as a blind,
I’ll never love thee more.
And in the empire of thy heart, 25
Where I should solely be,
If others do pretend a part,
Or dare to share with me:
Or committees if thou erect,
Or go on such a score, 30
I’ll smiling mock at thy neglect,
And never love thee more.
But if no faithless action stain
Thy love and constant word,
I’ll make thee famous by my pen, 35
And glorious by my sword.
I’ll serve thee in such noble ways
As ne’er was known before;
I’ll deck and crown thy head with bays,
And love thee more and more. 40
_Marquis of Montrose._
XCVII
_TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON._
When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair, 5
And fettered to her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames, 10
Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep, 15
Know no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty
And glories of my King; 20
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make, 25
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free, 30
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
_Richard Lovelace._
XCVIII
_TO LUCASTA, ON GOING BEYOND THE SEAS._
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone
You or I were alone;
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave 5
Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.
Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated souls,
All time and space controls: 10
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.
So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i’ the skies, 15
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speak like spirits unconfined
In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.
_Richard Lovelace._
XCIX
_A CAVALIER WAR-SONG._
A steed, a steed, of matchless speed,
A sword of metal keen;
All else to noble hearts is dross,
All else on earth is mean.
The neighing of the war-horse proud, 5
The rolling of the drum,
The clangour of the trumpet loud,
Be sounds from heaven that come.
And oh! the thundering press of knights,
Whenas their war-cries swell, 10
May toll from heaven an angel bright,
And rouse a fiend from hell.
Then mount, then mount, brave gallants all,
And don your helms amain;
Death’s couriers, Fame and Honour, call 15
Us to the field again.
No shrewish tears shall fill our eye,
When the sword-hilt’s in our hand;
Heart-whole we’ll part, and no whit sigh
For the fairest in the land. 20
Let piping swain and craven wight
Thus weep and puling cry;
Our business is like men to fight,
And, like to heroes, die!
_Anon._
C
_THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD._
Preserve thy sighs, unthrifty girl,
To purify the air;
Thy tears to thread, instead of pearl,
On bracelets of thy hair.
The trumpet makes the echo hoarse, 5
And wakes the louder drum;
Expense of grief gains no remorse,
When sorrow should be dumb:
For I must go, where lazy peace
Will hide her drowsy head; 10
And, for the sport of kings, increase
The number of the dead.
But first I’ll chide thy cruel theft;
Can I in war delight,
Who, being of my heart bereft,
Can have no heart to fight? 15
Thou know’st the sacred laws of old
Ordained a thief should pay,
To quit him of his theft, sevenfold
What he had stol’n away.
Thy payment shall but double be; 20
Oh then with speed resign
My own seducèd heart to me,
Accompanied with thine.
_Sir William Davenant._
CI
_LOYALTY CONFINED._
Beat on, proud billows; Boreas, blow;
Swell, curlèd waves, high as Jove’s roof;
Your incivility doth show
That innocence is tempest-proof:
Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; 5
Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm.
That which the world miscalls a jail,
A private closet is to me,
Whilst a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty: 10
Locks, bars, and solitude together met,
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.
I, whilst I wished to be retired,
Into this private room was turned;
As if their wisdom had conspired 15
The salamander should be burned;
Or like a sophy that would drown a fish,
I am constrained to suffer what I wish.
The cynic loves his poverty;
The pelican her wilderness; 20
And ’tis the Indian’s pride to be
Naked on frozen Caucasus:
Contentment cannot smart; stoics we see
Make torments easy to their apathy.
These manacles upon my arm 25
I, as my mistress’ favours, wear;
And for to keep my ancles warm,
I have some iron shackles there:
These walls are but my garrison; this cell,
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel. 30
I’m in the cabinet locked up,
Like some high-prizèd margarite,
Or like the great mogul or pope,
Am cloistered up from public sight:
Retiredness is a piece of majesty, 35
And thus, proud sultan, I’m as great as thee.
Here sin for want of food must starve,
Where tempting objects are not seen;
And these strong walls do only serve
To keep vice out, and keep me in: 40
Malice of late’s grown charitable, sure,
I’m not committed, but am kept secure.
So he that struck at Jason’s life,
Thinking to’ have made his purpose sure,
By a malicious friendly knife 45
Did only wound him to a cure:
Malice, I see, wants wit; for what is meant
Mischief, ofttimes proves favour by the event.
When once my Prince affliction hath,
Prosperity doth treason seem; 50
And for to smooth so rough a path,
I can learn patience from him:
Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart,
When kings want ease, subjects must bear a part.
What though I cannot see my King, 55
Neither in person nor in coin;
Yet contemplation is a thing
That renders what I have not, mine:
My King from me what adamant can part,
Whom I do wear engraven on my heart? 60
Have you not seen the nightingale,
A pilgrim, coopt into a cage,
How doth she chaunt her wonted tale
In that her narrow hermitage?
Even there her charming melody doth prove 65
That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.
I am that bird, whom they combine
Thus to deprive of liberty;
But though they do my corps confine,
Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free: 70
And though immured, yet can I chirp and sing
Disgrace to rebels, glory to my King.
My soul is free as ambient air,
Although my baser part’s immewed,
Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair 75
To’ accompany my solitude:
Although rebellion do my body bind,
My King alone can captivate my mind.
_Anon._
CII
_A ROYAL LAMENTATION._
Great Monarch of the world, from whose power springs
The potency and power of [earthly] kings,
Record the royal woe my suffering sings.
Nature and law by thy divine decree,
(The only root of righteous royalty,) 5
With this dim diadem invested me:
With it the sacred sceptre, purple robe,
The holy unction, and the royal globe;
Yet am I levelled with the life of Job.
The fiercest furies, that do daily tread 10
Upon my grief, my grey discrownèd head,
Are they that owe my bounty for their bread.
With my own power my majesty they wound,
In the King’s name the King’s himself uncrowned;
So doth the dust destroy the diamond. 15
They promise to erect my royal stem,
To make me great, to’ advance my diadem,
If I will first fall down, and worship them.
My life they prize at such a slender rate,
That in my absence they draw bills of hate, 20
To prove the King a traitor to the State.
Felons obtain more privilege than I;
They are allowed to answer ere they die:
’Tis death for me to ask the reason why.
But, sacred Saviour, with thy words I woo 25
Thee to forgive, and not be bitter to
Such as Thou know’st do not know what they do.
Augment my patience, nullify my hate,
Preserve my issue, and inspire my mate;
Yet, though we perish, bless this Church and State. 30
_King Charles the First._
CIII
_HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND._
The forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
’Tis time to leave the books in dust, 5
And oil the unused armour’s rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace, 10
But through adventurous war
Urgèd his active star:
And like the three-forked lightning first,
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side 15
His fiery way divide:
For ’tis all one to courage high
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose. 20
Then burning through the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar’s head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
’Tis madness to resist or blame 25
The face of angry heaven’s flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the Man is due,
Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reservèd and austere 30
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,)
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdoms old 35
Into another mould.
Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient Rights in vain--
But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak. 40
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room,
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the Civil War 45
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art,
Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope 50
That Charles himself might chase
To Carsbrook’s narrow case;
That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armèd bands 55
Did clap their bloody hands;
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try; 60
Nor called the Gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
--This was that memorable hour 65
Which first assured the forcèd power:
So when they did design
The Capitol’s first line,
A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run; 70
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do 75
That does both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just
And fit for highest trust; 80
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic’s hand--
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!
He to the Commons’ feet presents 85
A Kingdom for his first year’s rents,
And (what he may) forbears
His fame, to make it theirs:
And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the Public’s skirt. 90
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more does search
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure, 95
The falconer has her sure.
--What may not then our Isle presume,
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year! 100
As Cæsar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all states not free
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find 105
Within his parti-coloured mind,
But from this valour, sad
Shrink underneath the plaid--
Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake, 110
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the War’s and Fortune’s son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect 115
Still kept the sword erect:
Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain. 120
_Andrew Marvell._
CIV
_ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT._
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans 5
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 10
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
_John Milton._
CV
_HYMN TO LIGHT._
First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come
From the old Negro’s darksome womb!
Which, when it saw the lovely child,
The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled:
Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know, 5
But ever ebb and ever flow!
Thou golden shower of a true Jove!
Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make love!
Say, from what golden quivers of the sky
Do all thy wingèd arrows fly? 10
Swiftness and power by birth are thine;
From thy great sire they came, thy sire, the Word Divine.
’Tis, I believe, this archery to show,
That so much cost in colours thou
And skill in painting dost bestow 15
Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.
Swift as light thoughts their empty carriere run,
Thy race is finished when begun;
Let a post-angel start with thee,
And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he. 20
Thou in the moon’s bright chariot proud and gay
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey;
And all the year dost with thee bring
Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.
Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands, above 25
The sun’s gilt tent, for ever move;
And still as thou in pomp dost go,
The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.
Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn
The humble glowworms to adorn, 30
And with those living spangles gild
(O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field.
Night and her ugly subjects dost thou fright,
And sleep, the lazy owl of night;
Ashamed and fearful to appear, 35
They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.
With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm,
Of painted dreams a busy swarm;
At the first opening of thine eye
The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly. 40
When, Goddess, thou lift’st up thy wakened head
Out of the Morning’s purple bed,
Thy choir of birds about thee play,
And all thy joyful world salutes the rising day.
All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes, 45
Is but thy several liveries;
Thou the rich dye on them bestowest,
Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou goest.
A crimson garment in the rose thou wear’st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear’st; 50
The virgin lilies, in their white,
Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.
The violet, spring’s little infant, stands
Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands;
On the fair tulip thou dost dote, 55
Thou cloth’st it in a gay and parti-coloured coat.
With flame condensed thou dost thy jewels fix,
And solid colours in it mix:
Flora herself envies to see
Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she. 60
Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea,
Which open all their pores to thee,
Like a clear river thou dost glide,
And with thy living stream through the close channels slide.
But where firm bodies thy free course oppose, 65
Gently thy source the land o’erflows;
Takes there possession, and does make,
Of colours’ mingled light, a thick and standing lake:
But the vast ocean of unbounded day
In the empyrean heaven does stay; 70
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below
From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.
_Abraham Cowley._
CVI
_TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY._
Philosophy! the great and only heir
Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man’s rebellious sin,
Though full of years he do appear,
(Philosophy! I say, and call it He, 5
For whatsoe’er the painter’s fancy be,
It a male virtue seems to me)
Has still been kept in nonage till of late,
Nor managed or enjoyed his vast estate.
Three or four thousand years, one would have thought, 10
To ripeness and perfection might have brought
A science so well bred and nursed,
And of such hopeful parts, too, at the first;
But oh! the guardians and the tutors then,
(Some negligent, some ambitious men) 15
Would ne’er consent to set him free,
Or his own natural powers to let him see,
Lest that should put an end to their authority.
That his own business he might quite forget,
They’ amused him with the sports of wanton wit; 20
With the deserts of poetry they fed him,
Instead of solid meats to’ increase his force;
Instead of vigorous exercise they led him
Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse:
Instead of carrying him to see 25
The riches which do hoarded for him lie
In Nature’s endless treasury,
They chose his eye to entertain
(His curious, but not covetous, eye)
With painted scenes and pageants of the brain. 30
Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown,
That laboured to assert the liberty
(From guardians who were now usurpers grown)
Of this old minor still, captived Philosophy;
But ’twas rebellion called, to fight 35
For such a long-oppressèd right.
Bacon, at last, a mighty man! arose,
Whom a wise King and Nature chose
Lord Chancellor of both their laws,
And boldly undertook the injured pupil’s cause. 40
Authority, which did a body boast,
Though ’twas but air condensed, and stalked about
Like some old giant’s more gigantic ghost,
To terrify the learnèd rout,
With the plain magic of true reason’s light 45
He chased out of our sight,
Nor suffered living men to be misled
By the vain shadows of the dead:
To graves, from whence it rose, the conquered phantom fled.
He broke that monstrous god which stood, 50
In midst of the orchard, and the whole did claim,
Which with a useless scythe of wood,
And something else not worth a name,
(Ridiculous and senseless terrors!) made
Children and superstitious men afraid. 55
The orchard’s open now, and free:
Bacon has broke that scarecrow deity:
Come, enter all that will,
Behold the ripened fruit, come, gather now your fill!
Yet still, methinks, we fain would be 60
Catching at the forbidden tree;
We would be like the Deity;
When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we
Without the senses’ aid within ourselves would see;
For ’tis God only who can find 65
All nature in his mind.
From words, which are but pictures of the thought
(Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew,)
To things, the mind’s right object, he it brought;
Like foolish birds to painted grapes we flew. 70
He sought and gathered for our use the true;
And when on heaps the chosen bunches lay,
He pressed them wisely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one vessel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine, 75
The thirsty soul’s refreshing wine.
Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Must not from others’ work a copy take;
No, not from Rubens or Vandyck;
Much less content himself to make it like 80
The ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory:
No, he before his sight must place
The natural and the living face;
The real object must command 85
Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.
From these, and all long errors of the way,
In which our wandering predecessors went,
And, like the old Hebrews, many years did stray
In deserts, but of small extent, 90
Bacon! like Moses, led us forth at last;
The barren wilderness he passed,
Did on the very border stand
Of the blessed Promised Land,
And from the mountain’s top of his exalted wit, 95
Saw it himself, and showed us it.
But life did never to one man allow
Time to discover worlds, and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line sufficient be
To fathom the vast deeps of Nature’s sea: 100
The work he did we ought to admire,
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided ’twixt the excess
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his sight, 105
That’s always in a triumph or a fight?
From you, great champions! we expect to get
These spacious countries but discovered yet;
Countries where yet, instead of Nature, we
Her images and idols worshipped see: 110
These large and wealthy regions to subdue,
Though Learning has whole armies at command,
Quartered about in every land,
A better troop she ne’er together drew.
Methinks, like Gideon’s little band, 115
God with design has picked out you,
To do these noble wonders by a few.
When the whole host He saw, they are, said He,
Too many to o’ercome for Me:
And now He chooses out his men, 120
Much in the way that He did then:
Not those many, whom He found
Idly extended on the ground,
To drink, with their dejected head,
The stream, just so as by their mouths it fled: 125
No; but those few who took the waters up,
And made of their laborious hands the cup.