The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

In this world (the Isle of Dreames)

  While we sit by sorrowes streames,

  Teares and terrors are our theames

  Reciting:

  But when once from hence we flie,

  More and more approaching nigh

  Unto young Eternitie

  Uniting:

  In that whiter Island, where

  Things are evermore sincere;

  Candor here, and lustre there

  Delighting:

  There no monstrous fancies shall

  Out of hell an horrour call,

  To create (or cause at all)

  Affrighting.

  There in calm and cooling sleep

  We our eyes shall never steep;

  But eternall watch shall keep,

  Attending

  Pleasures, such as shall pursue

  Me immortaliz’d, and you;

  And fresh joyes, as never too

  Have ending.

  RICHARD LOVELACE from Lucasta 1649

  Song. To Lucasta, Going to the Warres

  Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkinde,

  That from the Nunnerie

  Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde,

  To Warre and Armes I flie.

  True; a new Mistresse now I chase,

  The first Foe in the Field;

  And with a stronger Faith imbrace

  A Sword, a Horse, a Shield.

  Yet this Inconstancy is such,

  As you too shall adore;

  I could not love thee (Deare) so much,

  Lov’d I not Honour more.

  To Althea from Prison

  When Love with unconfined wings

  Hovers within my Gates;

  And my divine Althea brings

  To whisper at the Grates:

  When I lye tangled in her haire,

  And fetterd to her eye;

  The Gods that wanton in the Aire,

  Know no such Liberty.

  When flowing Cups run swiftly round

  With no allaying Thames,

  Our carelesse heads with Roses bound,

  Our hearts with Loyall Flames;

  When thirsty griefe in Wine we steepe,

  When Healths and draughts go free,

  Fishes that tipple in the Deepe,

  Know no such Libertie.

  When (like committed Linnets) I

  With shriller throat shall sing

  The sweetnes, Mercy, Majesty,

  And glories of my KING;

  When I shall voyce aloud, how Good

  He is, how Great should be;

  Inlarged Winds that curie the Flood,

  Know no such Liberty.

  Stone Walls doe not a Prison make,

  Nor Iron bars a Cage;

  Mindes innocent and quiet take

  That for an Hermitage;

  If I have freedome in my Love,

  And in my soule am free;

  Angels alone that sore above,

  Injoy such Liberty.

  The Grasse-hopper

  To My Noble Friend, Mr. CHARLES COTTON. Ode

  Oh thou that swing’st upon the waving haire

  Of some well-filled Oaten Beard,

  Drunke ev’ry night with a Delicious teare

  Dropt thee from Heav’n, where now th’ art reard.

  The Joyes of Earth and Ayre are thine intire,

  That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;

  And when thy Poppy workes thou dost retire

  To thy Carv’d Acron-bed to lye.

  Up with the Day, the Sun thou welcomst then,

  Sportst in the guilt-plats of his Beames,

  And all these merry dayes mak’st merry men,

  Thy selfe, and Melancholy streames.

  But ah the Sickle! Golden Eares are Cropt;

  Ceres and Bacchus bid good night;

  Sharpe frosty fingers all your Flowr’s have topt,

  And what sithes spar’d, Winds shave off quite.

  Poore verdant foole! and now green Ice, thy Joys

  Large and as lasting, as thy Peirch of Grasse,

  Bid us lay in ’gainst Winter, Raine, and poize

  Their flouds, with an o’reflowing glasse.

  Thou best of Men and Friends! we will create

  A Genuine Summer in each others breast;

  And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate

  Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.

  Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally

  As Vestall Flames, the North-wind, he

  Shall strike his frost-stretch’d Winges, dissolve and flye

  This Ætna in Epitome.

  Dropping December shall come weeping in,

  Bewayle th’usurping of his Raigne;

  But when in show’rs of old Greeke we beginne

  Shall crie, he hath his Crowne againe!

  Night as cleare Hesper shall our Tapers whip

  From the light Casements where we play,

  And the darke Hagge from her black mantle strip,

  And sticke there everlasting Day.

  Thus richer then untempted Kings are we,

  That asking nothing, nothing need:

  Though Lord of all what Seas imbrace; yet he

  That wants himselfe, is poore indeed.

  WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN from the French of Jean Passerat

  Song

  AMINTAS, DAPHNÈ

  D. Shephard loveth thow me vell?

  A. So vel that I cannot tell.

  D. Like to vhat, good shephard, say?

  A. Like to the, faire, cruell May.

  D. Ah! how strange thy vords I find!

  But yet satisfie my mind;

  Shephard vithout flatterie,

  Beares thow any love to me,

  Like to vhat, good shephard, say?

  A. Like to the, faire, cruell May.

  D. Better answer had it beene

  To say, I love thee as mine eine.

  A. Voe is me, I love them not,

  For be them love entress got,

  At the time they did behold

  Thy sveet face and haire of gold.

  D. Like to vhat, good shephard, say?

  A. Like to thee, faire cruell May.

  D. But, deare shephard, speake more plaine,

  And I sal not aske againe;

  For to end this gentle stryff

  Doth thow love me as thy lyff?

  A. No, for it doth eb and flow

  Vith contrare teeds of grief and voe;

  And now I thruch loves strange force

  A man am not, but a dead corse.

  D. Like to vhat, good shephard, say?

  A. Like to thee, faire, cruel May.

  D. This like to thee, O leave, I pray,

  And as my selfe, good shephard, say.

  A. Alas! I do not love my selff,

  For I me split on beuties shelff.

  D. Like to vhat, good shephard, say?

  A. Like to the, faire, cruel May.

  (1711)

  JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE On Himself, upon Hearing What was His Sentence 1650

  Let them bestow on ev’ry Airth a Limb;

  Open all my Veins, that I may swim

  To Thee my Saviour, in that Crimson Lake;

  Then place my pur-boil’d Head upon a Stake;

  Scatter my Ashes, throw them in the Air:

  Lord (since Thou know’st where all these Atoms are)

  I’m hopeful, once Thou’lt recollect my Dust,

  And confident Thou’lt raise me with the Just.

  (1711)

  ANONYMOUS from The Second Scottish Psalter

  Psalm 124

  Now Israel

  may say, and that truly,

  If that the Lord

  had not our cause maintain’d;

  If that the Lord

  had not our right sustain’d,

  When cruel men

  against us furiously

  Rose up in wrath,

  to make of us their prey
;

  Then certainly

  they had devour’d us all,

  And swallow’d quick,

  for ought that we could deem;

  Such was their rage,

  as we might well esteem.

  And as fierce floods

  before them all things drown,

  So had they brought

  our soul to death quite down.

  The raging streams,

  with their proud swelling waves,

  Had then our soul

  o’erwhelmed in the deep.

  But bless’d be God,

  who doth us safely keep.

  And hath not giv’n

  us for a living prey

  Unto their teeth,

  and bloody cruelty.

  Ev’n as a bird

  out of the fowler’s snare

  Escapes away,

  so is our soul set free:

  Broke are their nets,

  and thus escaped we.

  Therefore our help

  is in the Lord’s great name,

  Who heav’n and earth

  by his great pow’r did frame.

  HENRY VAUGHAN from Silex Scintillans, Or Sacred Poems

  The Retreate

  Happy those early dayes! when I

  Shin’d in my Angell-infancy.

  Before I understood this place

  Appointed for my second race,

  Or taught my soul to fancy ought

  But a white, Celestiall thought,

  When yet I had not walkt above

  A mile, or two, from my first love,

  And looking back (at that short space,)

  Could see a glimpse of his bright-face;

  When on some gilded Cloud, or flowre

  My gazing soul would dwell an houre,

  And in those weaker glories spy

  Some shadows of eternity;

  Before I taught my tongue to wound

  My Conscience with a sinfull sound,

  Or had the black art to dispence

  A sev’rall sinne to ev’ry sence,

  But felt through all this fleshly dresse

  Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.

  O how I long to travell back

  And tread again that ancient track!

  That I might once more reach that plaine,

  Where first I left my glorious traine,

  From whence th’ Inlightned spirit sees

  That shady City of Palme trees;

  But (ah!) my soul with too much stay

  Is drunk, and staggers in the way.

  Some men a forward motion love,

  But I by backward steps would move,

  And when this dust falls to the urn

  In that state I came return.

  ¶

  Silence, and stealth of dayes! ’tis now

  Since thou art gone,

  Twelve hundred houres, and not a brow

  But Clouds hang on.

  As he that in some Caves thick damp

  Lockt from the light,

  Fixeth a solitary lamp,

  To brave the night

  And walking from his Sun, when past

  That glim’ring Ray

  Cuts through the heavy mists in haste

  Back to his day,

  So o’r fled minutes I retreat

  Unto that hour

  Which shew’d thee last, but did defeat

  Thy light, and pow’r,

  I search, and rack my soul to see

  Those beams again,

  But nothing but the snuff to me

  Appeareth plain;

  That dark, and dead sleeps in its known,

  And common urn,

  But those fled to their Makers throne,

  There shine, and burn;

  O could I track them! but souls must

  Track one the other,

  And now the spirit, not the dust

  Must be thy brother.

  Yet I have one Pearle by whose light

  All things I see,

  And in the heart of Earth, and night

  Find Heaven, and thee.

  The World

  I saw Eternity the other night

  Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,

  All calm, as it was bright,

  And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years

  Driv’n by the spheres

  Like a vast shadow mov’d, In which the world

  And all her train were hurl’d;

  The doting Lover in his queintest strain

  Did their Complain,

  Neer him, his Lute, his fancy, and his flights,

  Wits sour delights,

  With gloves, and knots the silly snares of pleasure

  Yet his dear Treasure

  All scatter’d lay, while he his eys did pour

  Upon a flowr.

  The darksome States-man hung with weights and woe

  Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow

  He did nor stay, nor go;

  Condemning thoughts (like sad Ecclipses) scowl

  Upon his soul,

  And Clouds of crying witnesses without

  Pursued him with one shout.

  Yet dig’d the Mole, and lest his ways be found

  Workt under ground,

  Where he did Clutch his prey, but one did see

  That policie,

  Churches and altars fed him, Perjuries

  Were gnats and flies,

  It rain’d about him bloud and tears, but he

  Drank them as free.

  The fearfull miser on a heap of rust

  Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust

  His own hands with the dust,

  Yet would not place one peece above, but lives

  In feare of theeves.

  Thousands there were as frantick as himself

  And hug’d each one his pelf,

  The down-right Epicure plac’d heav’n in sense