The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  Good to the Poore, to kindred deare,

  To servants kind, to friendship cleare,

  To nothing but her selfe, severe.

  So though a Virgin, yet a Bride

  To every Grace, she justifi’d

  A chaste Poligamie, and dy’d.

  Learne from hence (Reader) what small trust

  We owe this world, where vertue must

  Fraile as our flesh, crumble to dust.

  THOMAS CAREW A Song

  Aske me no more whither doe stray,

  The golden Atomes of the day:

  For in pure love heaven did prepare,

  Those powders to inrich your haire.

  Aske me no more whither doth hast,

  The Nightingale when May is past:

  For in your sweet dividing throat,

  She winters and keepes warme her note.

  Aske me no more where Jove bestowes,

  When June is past the fading rose:

  For in your beauties orient deepe,

  These flowers as in their causes, sleepe.

  Aske me no more where those starres light,

  That downewards fall in dead of night:

  For in your eyes they sit and there,

  Fixed become as in their sphere.

  Aske me no more if East or West,

  The Phenix builds her spicy nest:

  For unto you at last shee flies,

  And in your fragrant bosome dyes.

  THOMAS CAREW Psalme 91

  Make the greate God thy Fort, and dwell

  In him by Faith, and doe not Care

  (Soe shaded) for the power of hell

  Or for the Cunning Fowlers snare

  Or poyson of th’infected Ayre.

  His plumes shall make a downy bedd

  Where thou shalt rest, hee shall display

  His wings of truth over thy head,

  Which like a shield shall drive away

  The feares of night, the darts of day.

  The winged plague that flyes by night,

  The murdering sword that kills by day,

  Shall not thy peacefull sleepes affright

  Though on thy right and left hand they

  A thousand and ten thousand slay.

  Yet shall thine Eyes behould the fall

  Of Sinners, but because thy heart

  Dwells with the Lord, not one of all

  Those ills, nor yett the plaguie dart

  Shall dare approach neere where thou art.

  His angells shall direct thy leggs

  And guard them in the Stony streete;

  On Lyons whelps, and Addars Eggs

  Thy Stepps shall March, and if thou meete

  With Draggons, they shall kiss thy feete.

  When thou art troubled, hee shall heare

  And help thee, for thy Love embrast

  And knewe his name, Therefore hee’l reare

  Thy honours high, and when thou hast

  Enjoyd them long, Save thee att last.

  (1870)

  WILLIAM HABINGTON Nox nocti indicat Scientiam

  When I survay the bright

  Cœlestiall spheare:

  So rich with jewels hung, that night

  Doth like an Æthiop bride appeare.

  My soule her wings doth spread

  And heaven-ward flies,

  Th’ Almighty’s Mysteries to read

  In the large volumes of the skies.

  For the bright firmament

  Shootes forth no flame

  So silent, but is eloquent

  In speaking the Creators name.

  No unregarded star

  Contracts its light

  Into so small a Charactar,

  Remov’d far from our humane sight:

  But if we stedfast looke,

  We shall discerne

  In it as in some holy booke,

  How man may heavenly knowledge learne.

  It tells the Conqueror,

  That farre-stretcht powre

  Which his proud dangers traffique for,

  Is but the triumph of an houre.

  That from the farthest North,

  Some Nation may

  Yet undiscovered issue forth,

  And ore his new got conquest sway.

  Some Nation yet shut in

  With hils of ice

  May be let out to scourge his sinne

  ‘Till they shall equall him in vice.

  And then they likewise shall

  Their ruine have,

  For as your selves your Empires fall,

  And every Kingdome hath a grave.

  Thus those Cœlestiall fires,

  Though seeming mute

  The fallacie of our desires

  And all the pride of life confute.

  For they have watcht since first

  The World had birth:

  And found sinne in it selfe accurst,

  And nothing permanent on earth.

  WILLIAM HABINGTON To Castara, Upon an Embrace

  ’Bout th’ Husband Oke, the Vine

  Thus wreathes to kisse his leavy face:

  Their streames thus Rivers joyne,

  And lose themselves in the embrace.

  But Trees want sence when they infold,

  And Waters when they meet, are cold.

  Thus Turtles bill, and grone

  Their loves into each others eare:

  Two flames thus burne in one,

  When their curl’d heads to heaven they reare.

  But Birds want soule though not desire:

  And flames materiall soone expire.

  If not prophane; we’ll say

  When Angels close, their j oyes are such.

  For we no love obey

  That’s bastard to a fleshly touch.

  Let’s close Castara then, since thus

  We patterne Angels, and they us.

  1641 ANONYMOUS On Francis Drake

  Sir Drake whom well the world’s end knew,

  Which thou did’st compasse round,

  And whom both Poles of heaven once saw

  Which North and South do bound,

  The stars above, would make thee known,

  If men here silent were;

  The Sun himself cannot forget

  His fellow traveller.

  SIR HENRY WOTTON from the Latin of Martial Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife

  He first deceas’d: She for a little tri’d

  To live without Him: lik’d it not, and di’d.

  1642 SIR JOHN DENHAM from Coopers Hill

  Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise,

  But my fixt thoughts my wandring eye betrays,

  Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top of late

  A Chappel crown’d, till in the Common Fate,

  The adjoyning Abby fell: (may no such storm

  Fall on our times, where ruine must reform.)

  Tell me (my Muse) what monstrous dire offence,

  What crime could any Christian King incense

  To such a rage? was’t Luxury, or Lust?

  Was he so temperate, so chast, so just?

  Were these their crimes? they were his own much more:

  But wealth is Crime enough to him that’s poor,

  Who having spent the Treasures of his Crown,

  Condemns their Luxury to feed his own.

  And yet this Act, to varnish o’re the shame

  Of sacriledge, must bear devotions name.

  No Crime so bold, but would be understood

  A real, or at least a seeming good.

  Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the Name,

  And free from Conscience, is a slave to Fame.

  Thus he the Church at once protects, and spoils:

  But Princes swords are sharper than their stiles.

  And thus to th’ages past he makes amends,

  Their Charity destroys, their Faith defends.

  Then did Religion in a lazy Cell,

  In empty, ai
ry contemplations dwell;

  And like the block, unmoved lay: but ours,

  As much too active, like the stork devours.

  Is there no temperate Region can be known,

  Betwixt their Frigid, and our Torrid Zone?

  Could we not wake from that Lethargick dream,

  But to be restless in a worse extream?

  And for that Lethargy was there no cure,

  But to be cast into a Calenture?

  Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance

  So far, to make us wish for ignorance?

  And rather in the dark to grope our way,

  Than led by a false guide to erre by day?

  Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand

  What barbarous Invader sackt the land?

  But when he hears, no Goth, no Turk did bring

  This desolation, but a Christian King;

  When nothing, but the Name of Zeal, appears

  ’Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs,

  What does he think our Sacriledge would spare,

  When such th’effects of our devotions are?

  Parting from thence ’twixt anger, shame, and fear,

  Those for whats past, and this for whats too near:

  My eye descending from the Hill, surveys

  Where Thames amongst the wanton vallies strays.

  Thames, the most lov’d of all the Oceans sons,

  By his old Sire to his embraces runs,

  Hasting to pay his tribute to the Sea,

  Like mortal life to meet Eternity.

  Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

  Whose foam is Amber, and their Gravel Gold;

  His genuine, and less guilty wealth t’explore,

  Search not his bottom, but survey his shore;

  Ore which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,

  And hatches plenty for th’ensuing Spring.

  Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,

  Like Mothers which their Infants overlay.

  Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,

  Like profuse Kings, resumes the wealth he gave.

  No unexpected inundations spoyl

  The mowers hopes, nor mock the plowmans toyl:

  But God-like his unwearied Bounty flows;

  First loves to do, then loves the Good he does.

  Nor are his Blessings to his banks confin’d,

  But free, and common, as the Sea or Wind;

  When he to boast, or to disperse his stores

  Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,

  Visits the world, and in his flying towers

  Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;

  Finds wealth where ’tis, bestows it where it wants

  Cities in deserts, woods in Cities plants.

  So that to us no thing, no place is strange,

  While his fair bosom is the worlds exchange.

  O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

  My great example, as it is my theme!

  Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,

  Strong without rage, without ore-flowing full.

  (1642–68)

  1645 EDMUND WALLER Song

  Go lovely Rose,

  Tell her that wastes her time and me,

  That now she knows

  When I resemble her to thee

  How sweet and fair she seems to be.

  Tell her that’s young,

  And shuns to have her graces spy’d

  That hadst thou sprung

  In desarts where no men abide,

  Thou must have uncommended dy’d.

  Small is the worth

  Of beauty from the light retir’d;

  Bid her come forth,

  Suffer her self to be desir’d,

  And not blush so to be admir’d.

  Then die that she,

  The common fate of all things rare

  May read in thee

  How small a part of time they share,

  That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

  EDMUND WALLER Of the Marriage of the Dwarfs

  Design, or chance, makes others wive:

  But Nature did this match contrive;

  Eve might as well have Adam fled,

  As she denied her little bed

  To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame,

  And measure out, this only dame.

  Thrice happy is that humble pair,

  Beneath the level of all care!

  Over whose heads those arrows fly

  Of sad distrust and jealousy;

  Secured in as high extreme,

  As if the world held none but them.

  To him the fairest nymphs do show

  Like moving mountains, topped with snow;

  And every man a Polypheme

  Does to his Galatea seem;

  None may presume her faith to prove;

  He proffers death that proffers love.

  Ah, Chloris, that kind Nature thus

  From all the world had severed us;

  Creating for ourselves us two,

  As love has me for only you!

  EDMUND WALLER To a Lady in a Garden

  Sees not my love how Time resumes

  The glory which he lent these flowers;

  Though none should tast of their perfumes,

  Yet must they live but some few hours,

  Time what we forbear devours.

  Had Hellen, or the Egyptian Queen,

  Been nere so thrifty of their graces,

  Those beauties must at length have been

  The spoyle of Age which finds out faces

  In the most retired places.

  Should some malignant Planet bring

  A barren drought, or ceaseless shower

  Upon the Autumn, or the Spring,

  And spare us neither fruit nor flower;

  Winter would not stay an hour.

  Could the resolve of loves neglect

  Preserve you from the violation

  Of comming years, then more respect

  Were due to so divine a fashion,

  Nor would I indulge my passion.