The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  Hero hath left no lampe to Guyde her love

  Thow lookest for light in vayne, and stormes arize

  Shee sleaps thy death, that erst thy danger syth-ed

  strive then no more bow down thy weery eyes

  eyes, which to all thes woes thy hart have guided

  Shee is gonn, Shee is lost, shee is found, shee is ever faire,

  Sorrow drawes weakly, wher love drawes not too

  Woes cries, sound nothinge, butt only in loves eare

  Do then by Diinge, what life cannot doo…

  Unfolde thy flockes, and leve them to the feilds

  to feed on hylls, or dales, wher likes them best

  of what the summer, or the springetyme yeildes

  for love, and tyme, hath geven thee leve to rest

  Thy hart which was their folde now in decay

  by often stormes, and winters many blasts

  all torne and rent becumes misfortunes pray,

  falce hope, my shepherds staff now age hath brast

  My pipe, which loves own hand, gave my desire

  to singe her prayses, and my wo uppon

  Dispaire hath often threatned to the fier

  as vayne to keipe now all the rest ar gonn.

  Thus home I draw, as deaths longe night drawes onn

  yet every foot, olde thoughts turne back myne eyes

  constraynt mee guides as old age drawes a stonn

  agaynst the hill, which over wayghty lyes

  for feebell armes, or wasted strenght to move

  my steapps ar backwarde, gasinge onn my loss,

  my minds affection, and my sowles sole love,

  not mixte with fances chafe, or fortunes dross,

  to god I leve it, who first gave it me,

  and I her gave, and she returnd agayne,

  as it was herrs, so lett his mercies bee,

  of my last cumforts, the essentiall meane.

  But be it so, or not, th’effects, ar past,

  her love hath end, my woe must ever last.

  (1870)

  SIR WALTER RALEGH

  Even suche is tyme that takes in trust

  our youth, our joies and what we have

  And paies us but with earth, and dust

  which in the Darke and silent grave

  when we have wandred all our waies

  shutts up the storie of our daies:

  But from this earth, this grave this dust

  The Lord will raise me up I trust.

  MICHAEL DRAYTON from Idea 1619

  61

  Since ther’s no helpe, Come let us kisse and part,

  Nay, I have done: You get no more of Me,

  And I am glad, yea glad withall my heart,

  That thus so cleanly, I my Selfe can free,

  Shake hands for ever, Cancell all our Vowes,

  And when We meet at any time againe,

  Be it not seene in either of our Browes,

  That We one jot of former Love reteyne;

  Now at the last gaspe, of Loves latest Breath,

  When his Pulse fayling, Passion speechlesse lies,

  When Faith is kneeling by his bed of Death,

  And Innocence is closing up his Eyes,

  Now if thou would’st, when all have given him over,

  From Death to Life, thou might’st him yet recover.

  ANONYMOUS

  Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight

  With feathers like a lady bright,

  Thou sing’st alone, sitting by night,

  Te whit, te whoo, te whit, te whoo.

  Thy note, that forth so freely rolls,

  With shrill command the mouse controls,

  And sings a dirge for dying souls,

  Te whit, te whoo, te whit, te whoo.

  1620

  JOHN DONNE The Canonization

  For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love,

  Or chide my palsie, or my gout,

  My five gray haires, or ruin’d fortune flout,

  With wealth your state, your minde with Arts improve,

  Take you a course, get you a place,

  Observe his honour, or his grace,

  Or the Kings reall, or his stamped face

  Contemplate, what you will, approve,

  So you will let me love.

  Alas, alas, who’s injur’d by my love?

  What merchants ships have my sighs drown’d?

  Who saies my teares have overflow’d his ground?

  When did my colds a forward spring remove?

  When did the heats which my veines fill

  Adde one more, to the plaguie Bill?

  Soldiers finde warres, and Lawyers finde out still

  Litigious men, which quarrels move,

  Though she and I do love.

  Call us what you will, wee are made such by love;

  Call her one, mee another flye,

  We’are Tapers too, and at our owne cost die,

  And wee in us finde the’Eagle and the dove;

  The Phœnix ridle hath more wit

  By us, we two being one, are it.

  So, to one neutrall thing both sexes fit,

  Wee dye and rise the same, and prove

  Mysterious by this love.

  Wee can dye by it, if not live by love,

  And if unfit for tombes and hearse

  Our legend bee, it will be fit for verse;

  And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove,

  We’ll build in sonnets pretty roomes;

  As well a well wrought urne becomes

  The greatest ashes, as halfe-acre tombes,

  And by these hymnes, all shall approve

  Us Canoniz’d for Love.

  And thus invoke us; You whom reverend love

  Made one anothers hermitage;

  You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

  Who did the whole worlds soule contract, and drove

  Into the glasses of your eyes

  So made such mirrors, and such spies,

  That they did all to you epitomize,

  Countries, Townes, Courts: Beg from above

  A patterne of your love.

  (1633)

  JOHN DONNE A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, Being the Shortest Day

  ’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,

  Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,

  The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks

  Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;

  The world’s whole sap is sunke:

  The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk,

  Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,

  Dead and enterr’d; yet all these seeme to laugh,

  Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.

  Study me then, you who shall lovers bee

  At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:

  For I am every dead thing,

  In whom love wrought new Alchimie.

  For his art did expresse

  A quintessence even from nothingnesse,

  From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:

  He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot

  Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

  All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,

  Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;

  I, by loves limbecke, am the grave

  Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood

  Have wee two wept, and so

  Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

  To be two Chaosses, when we did show

  Care to ought else; and often absences

  Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

  But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)

  Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;

  Were I a man, that I were one,

  I needs must know; I should preferre,

  If I were any beast,

  Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea ston
es detest,

  And love; all, all some properties invest;

  If I an ordinary nothing were,

  As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

  But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.

  You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne

  At this time to the Goat is runne

  To fetch new lust, and give it you,

  Enjoy your summer all;

  Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,

  Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call

  This houre her Vigill, and her eve, since this

  Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

  (1633)

  JOHN DONNE Loves Growth

  I scarce beleeve my love to be so pure

  As I had thought it was,

  Because it doth endure

  Vicissitude, and season, as the grasse;

  Me thinkes I lyed all winter, when I swore,

  My love was infinite, if spring make’it more.

  But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow

  With more, not onely bee no quintessence,

  But mixt of all stuffes, paining soule, or sense,

  And of the Sunne his working vigour borrow,

  Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use

  To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse,

  But as all else, being elemented too,

  Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

  And yet not greater, but more eminent,

  Love by the spring is growne;

  As, in the firmament,

  Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg’d, but showne.

  Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,

  From loves awaken’d root do bud out now.

  If, as in water stir’d more circles bee

  Produc’d by one, love such additions take,

  Those like to many spheares, but one heaven make,

  For, they are all concentrique unto thee;

  And though each spring doe adde to love new heate,

  As princes doe in times of action get

  New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

  No winter shall abate the springs encrease.

  (1633)

  JOHN DONNE A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

  As virtuous men passe mildly away,

  And whisper to their soules, to goe,

  Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,

  The breath goes now, and some say, no:

  So let us melt, and make no noise,

  No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,

  ‘Twere prophanation of our joyes

  To tell the layetie our love.

  Moving of th’earth brings harmes and feares,

  Men reckon what it did and meant,

  But trepidation of the spheares,

  Though greater farre, is innocent.

  Dull sublunary lovers love

  (Whose soule is sense) cannot admit

  Absence, because it doth remove

  Those things which elemented it.

  But we by a love, so much refin’d,

  That our selves know not what it is,

  Inter-assured of the mind,

  Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

  Our two soules therefore, which are one,

  Though I must goe, endure not yet

  A breach, but an expansion,

  Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

  If they be two, they are two so

  As stiffe twin compasses are two,

  Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show

  To move, but doth, if the’other doe.

  And though it in the center sit,

  Yet when the other far doth rome,

  It leanes, and hearkens after it,

  And growes erect, as that comes home.

  Such wilt thou be to mee, who must

  Like th’other foot, obliquely runne;

  Thy firmnes makes my circle just,

  And makes me end, where I begunne.

  (1633)

  JOHN DONNE The Exstasie

  Where, like a pillow on a bed,

  A Pregnant banke swel’d up, to rest

  The violets reclining head,

  Sat we two, one anothers best;

  Our hands were firmely cimented

  With a fast balme, which thence did spring,

  Our eye-beames twisted, and did thred

  Our eyes, upon one double string;

  So to’entergraft our hands, as yet

  Was all our meanes to make us one,

  And pictures in our eyes to get

  Was all our propagation.

  As ’twixt two equal Armies, Fate

  Suspends uncertaine victorie,

  Our soules, (which to advance their state,

  Were gone out,) hung ’twixt her, and mee.

  And whil’st our soules negotiate there,

  Wee like sepulchrall statues lay;

  All day, the same our postures were,

  And wee said nothing, all the day.

  If any, so by love refin’d,

  That he soules language understood,

  And by good love were growen all minde,

  Within convenient distance stood,

  He (though he knew not which soule spake,

  Because both meant, both spake the same)

  Might thence a new concoction take,

  And part farre purer then he came.

  This Extasie doth unperplex

  (We said) and tell us what we love,

  Wee see by this, it was not sexe,

  Wee see, we saw not what did move:

  But as all severall soules containe

  Mixture of things, they know not what,

  Love, these mixt soules, doth mixe againe,

  And makes both one, each this and that.

  A single violet transplant,

  The strength, the colour, and the size,

  (All which before was poore, and scant,)

  Redoubles still, and multiplies.

  When love, with one another so

  Interinanimates two soules,

  That abler soule, which thence doth flow,

  Defects of lonelinesse controules.

  Wee then, who are this new soule, know,

  Of what we are compos’d, and made,

  For, th’Atomies of which we grow,

  Are soules, whom no change can invade.

  But O alas, so long, so farre

  Our bodies why doe wee forbeare?