The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  JOHN MILTON from On the Morning of Christs Nativity Compos’d 1629

  It was the Winter wilde,

  While the Heav’n-born-childe,

  All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

  Nature in aw to him

  Had doff’t her gawdy trim,

  With her great Master so to sympathize:

  It was no season then for her

  To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

  Onely with speeches fair

  She woo’s the gentle Air

  To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,

  And on her naked shame,

  Pollute with sinfull blame,

  The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw,

  Confounded, that her Makers eyes

  Should look so neer upon her foul deformities.

  But he her fears to cease,

  Sent down the meek-eyd Peace,

  She crown’d with Olive green, came softly sliding

  Down through the turning sphear

  His ready Harbinger,

  With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,

  And waving wide her mirtle wand,

  She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.

  No War, or Battails sound

  Was heard the World around:

  The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

  The hooked Chariot stood

  Unstain’d with hostile blood,

  The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,

  And Kings sate still with awfull eye,

  As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

  But peacefull was the night

  Wherin the Prince of light

  His raign of peace upon the earth began:

  The Windes with wonder whist,

  Smoothly the waters kist,

  Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean,

  Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

  While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

  The Stars with deep amaze

  Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,

  Bending one way their pretious influence,

  And will not take their flight,

  For all the morning light,

  Or Lucifer that often warn’d them thence;

  But in their glimmering Orbs did glow,

  Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

  And though the shady gloom

  Had given day her room,

  The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed,

  And hid his head for shame,

  As his inferiour flame,

  The new-enlightn’d world no more should need;

  He saw a greater Sun appear

  Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.

  The Shepherds on the Lawn,

  Or ere the point of dawn,

  Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;

  Full little thought they than,

  That the mighty Pan

  Was kindly com to live with them below;

  Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,

  Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.

  When such musick sweet

  Their hearts and ears did greet,

  As never was by mortall finger strook,

  Divinely-warbled voice

  Answering the stringed noise,

  As all their souls in blisfull rapture took:

  The Air such pleasure loth to lose,

  With thousand echo’s still prolongs each heav’nly close.

  Nature that heard such sound

  Beneath the hollow round

  Of Cynthia’s seat, the Airy region thrilling,

  Now was almost won

  To think her part was don,

  And that her raign had here its last fulfilling;

  She knew such harmony alone

  Could hold all Heav’n and Earth in happier union.

  At last surrounds their sight

  A Globe of circular light,

  That with long beams the shame-fac’t night array’d,

  The helmed Cherubim

  And sworded Seraphim,

  Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,

  Harping in loud and solemn quire,

  With unexpressive notes to Heav’ns new-born Heir.

  Such Musick (as ’tis said)

  Before was never made,

  But when of old the sons of morning sung,

  While the Creator Great

  His constellations set,

  And the well-ballanc’t world on hinges hung,

  And cast the dark foundations deep,

  And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.

  (… )

  The Oracles are dumm,

  No voice or hideous humm

  Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.

  Apollo from his shrine

  Can no more divine,

  With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.

  No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

  Inspire’s the pale-ey’d Priest from the prophetic cell.

  The lonely mountains o’re,

  And the resounding shore,

  A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;

  From haunted spring, and dale

  Edg’d with poplar pale,

  The parting Genius is with sighing sent,

  With flowre-inwov’n tresses torn

  The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

  In consecrated Earth,

  And on the holy Hearth,

  The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,

  In Urns, and Altars round,

  A drear, and dying sound

  Affrights the Flamins at their service quaint;

  And the chill Marble seems to sweat,

  While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

  Peor, and Baalim,

  Forsake their Temples dim,

  With that twise batter’d god of Palestine,

  And mooned Ashtaroth,

  Heav’ns Queen and Mother both,

  Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,

  The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,

  In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.

  And sullen Moloch fled,

  Hath left in shadows dred,

  His burning Idol all of blackest hue;

  In vain with Cymbals ring,

  They call the grisly king,

  In dismall dance about the furnace blue;

  The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

  Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.

  Nor is Osiris seen

  In Memphian Grove, or Green,

  Trampling the unshowr’d Grasse with lowings loud:

  Nor can he be at rest

  Within his sacred chest,

  Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud,

  In vain with Timbrel’d Anthems dark

  The sable-stoled Sorcerers bear his worshipt Ark.

  He feels from Juda’s Land

  The dredded Infants hand,

  The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

  Nor all the gods beside,

  Longer dare abide,

  Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

  Our Babe to shew his Godhead true,

  Can in his swadling bands controul the damned crew.

  So when the Sun in bed,

  Curtain’d with cloudy red,

  Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave,

  The flocking shadows pale,

  Troop to th’infernall jail,

  Each fetter’d Ghost slips to his severall grave,

  And the yellow-skirted Fayes,

  Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov’d maze.

  But see the Virgin blest,

  Hath laid her Babe to rest.

  Time is our tedious Song should here have ending:

  Heav’ns youngest teemed Star,

  Hath fixt h
er polisht Car,

  Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending.

  And all about the Courtly Stable,

  Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.

  RICHARD CRASHAW from Divine Epigrams 1646

  Upon Our Saviours Tombe Wherein Never Man was Laid

  How Life and Death in Thee

  Agree?

  Thou had’st a virgin Wombe

  And Tombe.

  A Joseph did betroth

  Them both.

  Upon the Infant Martyrs

  To see both blended in one flood

  The Mothers Milke, the Childrens blood,

  Makes me doubt if Heaven will gather,

  Roses hence, or Lillies rather.

  RICHARD CRASHAW Musicks Duell

  Now Westward Sol had spent the richest Beames

  Of Noons high Glory, when hard by the streams

  Of Tiber, on the sceane of a greene plat,

  Under protection of an Oake; there sate

  A sweet Lutes-master: in whose gentle aires

  Hee lost the Dayes heat, and his owne hot cares.

  Close in the covert of the leaves there stood

  A Nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood:

  (The sweet inhabitant of each glad Tree,

  Their Muse, their Syren. harmlesse Syren shee)

  There stood she listning, and did entertaine

  The Musicks soft report: and mold the same

  In her owne murmures, that what ever mood

  His curious fingers lent, her voyce made good:

  The man perceiv’d his Rivall, and her Art,

  Dispos’d to give the light-foot Lady sport

  Awakes his Lute, and ’gainst the fight to come

  Informes it, in a sweet Præludium

  Of closer straines, and ere the warre begin,

  Hee lightly skirmishes on every string

  Charg’d with a flying touch: and streightway shee

  Carves out her dainty voyce as readily,

  Into a thousand sweet distinguish’d Tones,

  And reckons up in soft divisions,

  Quicke volumes of wild Notes; to let him know

  By that shrill taste, shee could doe something too.

  His nimble hands instinct then taught each string

  A capring cheerefullnesse; and made them sing

  To their owne dance; now negligently rash

  Hee throwes his Arme, and with a long drawne dash

  Blends all together; then distinctly tripps

  From this to that; then quicke returning skipps

  And snatches this againe, and pauses there.

  Shee measures every measure, every where

  Meets art with art; sometimes as if in doubt

  Not perfect yet, and fearing to bee out

  Trayles her playne Ditty in one long-spun note,

  Through the sleeke passage of her open throat:

  A cleare unwrinckled song, then doth shee point it

  With tender accents, and severely joynt it

  By short diminutives, that being rear’d

  In controverting warbles evenly shar’d,

  With her sweet selfe shee wrangles; Hee amazed

  That from so small a channell should be rais’d

  The torrent of a voyce, whose melody

  Could melt into such sweet variety

  Straines higher yet; that tickled with rare art

  The tatling strings (each breathing in his part)

  Most kindly doe fall out; the grumbling Base

  In surly groanes disdaines the Trebles Grace.

  The high-perch’t treble chirps at this, and chides,

  Untill his finger (Moderatour) hides

  And closes the sweet quarrell, rowsing all

  Hoarce, shrill, at once; as when the Trumpets call

  Hot Mars to th’ Harvest of Deaths field, and woo

  Mens hearts into their hands; this lesson too

  Shee gives him backe; her supple Brest thrills out

  Sharpe Aires, and staggers in a warbling doubt

  Of dallying sweetnesse, hovers ore her skill,

  And folds in wav’d notes with a trembling bill,

  The plyant Series of her slippery song.

  Then starts shee suddenly into a Throng

  Of short thicke sobs, whose thundring volleyes float,

  And roule themselves over her lubricke throat

  In panting murmurs, still’d out of her Breast

  That ever-bubling spring; the sugred Nest

  Of her delicious soule, that there does lye

  Bathing in streames of liquid Melodie;

  Musicks best seed-plot, whence in ripend Aires

  A Golden-headed Harvest fairely reares

  His Honey-dropping tops, plow’d by her breath

  Which there reciprocally laboureth

  In that sweet soyle. It seemes a holy quire

  Founded to th’ Name of great Apollo’s lyre.

  Whose sylver-roofe rings with the sprightly notes

  Of sweet-lipp’d Angell-Imps, that swill their throats

  In creame of Morning Helicon, and then

  Preferre soft Anthems to the Eares of men,

  To woo them from their Beds, still murmuring

  That men can sleepe while they their Mattens sing:

  (Most divine service) whose so early lay,

  Prevents the Eye-lidds of the blushing day.

  There might you heare her kindle her soft voyce,

  In the close murmur of a sparkling noyse.

  And lay the ground-worke of her hopefull song,

  Still keeping in the forward streame, so long

  Till a sweet whirle-wind (striving to gett out)

  Heaves her soft Bosome, wanders round about,

  And makes a pretty Earthquake in her Breast,

  Till the fledg’d Notes at length forsake their Nest;

  Fluttering in wanton shoales, and to the Sky

  Wing’d with their owne wild Eccho’s pratling fly.

  Shee opes the floodgate, and lets loose a Tide

  Of streaming sweetnesse, which in state doth ride

  On the wav’d backe of every swelling straine,

  Rising and falling in a pompous traine.

  And while shee thus discharges a shrill peale

  Of flashing Aires; shee qualifies their zeale

  With the coole Epode of a graver Noat,