The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  The reason’s plain for Charons westerne barge

  Running a tilt at the subjunctive mood,

  Beckned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge

  To fatten padlockes with Antartick food:

  The end will be the Millponds must be laded,

  To fish for whitepots in a Country dance;

  So they that suffered wrong and were upbraded

  Shal be made friends in a left-handed trance.

  SIR JOHN SUCKLING

  Out upon it, I have lov’d

  Three whole days together;

  And am like to love three more,

  If it hold fair weather.

  Time shall moult away his wings

  Ere he shall discover

  In the whole wide world agen

  Such a constant Lover.

  But a pox upon’t, no praise

  There is due at all to me:

  Love with me had made no stay,

  Had it any been but she.

  Had it any been but she

  And that very very Face,

  There had been at least ere this

  A dozen dozen in her place.

  GEORGE DANIEL Ode. The Robin 1657

  Poore bird, I doe not envie thee;

  Pleas’d, in the gentle Melodie

  Of thy owne Song.

  Let crabbed winter Silence all

  The winged Quire; he never shall

  Chaine up thy Tongue.

  Poore Innocent,

  When I would please my selfe, I looke on thee;

  And guess some sparkes, of that Felicitie,

  That Selfe Content.

  When the bleake Face, of winter Spreads

  The Earth, and violates the Meads

  Of all their Pride;

  When Saples Trees, and Flowers are fled

  Backe, to their Causes; and lye dead

  To all beside;

  I see thee Sett,

  Bidding defiance, to the bitter Ayre;

  Upon a wither’d Spray, by cold made bare,

  And drooping yet.

  There, full in notes, to ravish all

  My Earth, I wonder what to call

  My dullness; when

  I heare thee, prettye Creature, bring

  Thy better odes of Praise, and Sing

  To pussle men.

  Poore pious Elfe!

  I am instructed, by thy harmonie,

  To sing away, the Times uncertaintie,

  Safe in my Selfe.

  Poore Redbrest, caroll out thy Laye

  And teach us mortalls what to saye.

  Here cease, the Quire

  Of ayerie Choristers; noe more

  Mingle your notes; but catch a Store

  From her Sweet Lire;

  You are but weake,

  Meere summer Chanters; you have neither wing

  Nor voice, in winter. Prettie Redbrest, Sing

  What I would speake.

  1659

  RICHARD LOVELACE The Snayl

  Wise Emblem of our Politick World,

  Sage Snayl, within thine own self curl’d;

  Instruct me softly to make hast,

  Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.

  Compendious Snayl! thou seem’st to me,

  Large Euclids strickt Epitome;

  And in each Diagram, dost Fling

  Thee from the point unto the Ring.

  A Figure now Triangulare,

  An Oval now, and now a Square;

  And then a Serpentine dost crawl

  Now a straight Line, now crook’d, now all.

  Preventing Rival of the Day,

  Th’art up and openest thy Ray,

  And ere the Morn cradles the Moon,

  Th’art broke into a Beauteous Noon.

  Then when the Sun sups in the Deep,

  Thy Silver Horns e’re Cinthia’s peep;

  And thou from thine own liquid Bed

  New Phœbus heav’st thy pleasant Head.

  Who shall a Name for thee create,

  Deep Riddle of Mysterious State?

  Bold Nature that gives common Birth

  To all products of Seas and Earth,

  Of thee, as Earth-quakes, is affraid,

  Nor will thy dire Deliv’ry aid.

  Thou thine own daughter then, and Sire,

  That Son and Mother art intire,

  That big still with thy self dost go,

  And liv’st an aged Embrio;

  That like the Cubbs of India,

  Thou from thy self a while dost play:

  But frighted with a Dog or Gun,

  In thine own Belly thou dost run,

  And as thy House was thine own womb,

  So thine own womb, concludes thy tomb.

  But now I must (analys’d King)

  Thy Oeconomick Virtues sing;

  Thou great stay’d Husband still within,

  Thou, thee, that’s thine dost Discipline;

  And when thou art to progress bent,

  Thou mov’t thy self and tenement,

  As Warlike Scythians travayl’d, you

  Remove your Men and City too;

  Then after a sad Dearth and Rain,

  Thou scatterest thy Silver Train;

  And when the Trees grow nak’d and old,

  Thou cloathest them with Cloth of Gold,

  Which from thy Bowels thou dost spin,

  And draw from the rich Mines within.

  Now hast thou chang’d thee Saint; and made

  Thy self a Fane that’s cupula’d;

  And in thy wreathed Cloister thou

  Walkest thine own Gray fryer too;

  Strickt, and lock’d up, th’art Hood all ore

  And ne’r Eliminat’st thy Dore.

  On Sallads thou dost feed severe,

  And ’stead of Beads thou drop’st a tear,

  And when to rest, each calls the Bell,

  Thou sleep’st within thy Marble Cell;

  Where in dark contemplation plac’d,

  The sweets of Nature thou dost tast;

  Who now with Time thy days resolve,

  And in a Jelly thee dissolve.

  Like a shot Star, which doth repair

  Upward, and Rarifie the Air.

  1662

  SAMUEL BUTLER from Hudibras

  [The Presbyterian Knight]

  He could raise Scruples dark and nice,

  And after solve ’em in a trice:

  As if Divinity had catch’d

  The Itch, of purpose to be scratch’d;

  Or, like a Mountebank, did wound

  And stab her self with doubts profound,

  Only to shew with how small pain

  The sores of faith are cur’d again;

  Although by woful proof we find,

  They always leave a Scar behind.

  He knew the Seat of Paradise,

  Could tell in what degree it lies:

  And as he was dispos’d, could prove it,

  Below the Moon, or else above it.

  What Adam dreamt of when his Bride

  Came from her Closet in his side:

  Whether the Devil tempted her

  By a High Dutch Interpreter:

  If either of them had a Navel;

  Who first made Musick malleable:

  Whether the Serpent at the fall

  Had cloven Feet, or none at all.

  All this without a Gloss or Comment,

  He would unriddle in a moment:

  In proper terms, such as men smatter

  When they throw out and miss the matter.

  For his Religion it was fit

  To match his Learning and his Wit:

  ’Twas Presbyterian true blew,

  For he was of that stubborn Crew

  Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant

  To be the true Church Militant:

  Such as do build their Faith upon

  The holy Test of Pike and Gun;

  Decide all Controversies by

  Infallible Ar
tillery;

  And prove their Doctrine Orthodox

  By Apostolick Blows and Knocks;

  Call Fire and Sword and Desolation,

  A godly-thorough-Reformation,

  Which always must be carry’d on,

  And still be doing, never done:

  As if Religion were intended

  For nothing else but to be mended.

  A Sect, whose chief Devotion lies

  In odd perverse Antipathies;

  In falling out with that or this,

  And finding somewhat still amiss:

  More peevish, cross, and splenetick,

  Than Dog distract, or Monky sick.

  That with more care keep Holy-day

  The wrong, than others the right way:

  Compound for Sins, they are inclin’d to;

  By damning those they have no mind to;

  Still so perverse and opposite,

  As if they worshipp’d God for spight,

  The self-same thing they will abhor

  One way, and long another for.

  Free-will they one way disavow,

  Another, nothing else allow.

  All Piety consists therein

  In them, in other Men all Sin.

  Rather than fail, they will defie

  That which they love most tenderly,

  Quarrel with minc’d Pies, and disparage

  Their best and dearest friend, Plum-porridge;

  Fat Pig and Goose it self oppose,

  And blaspheme Custard through the Nose.

  Th’ Apostles of this fierce Religion,

  Like Mahomet’s, were Ass and Widgeon,

  To whom our Knight, by fast instinct

  Of Wit and Temper was so linkt,

  As if Hipocrise and Non-sence

  Had got th’ Advouson of his Conscience.

  1663

  ABRAHAM COWLEY Ode. Upon Dr. Harvey

  1

  Coy Nature, (which remain’d, though aged grown,

  A Beauteous virgin still, injoy’d by none,

  Nor seen unveil’d by any one)

  When Harveys violent passion she did see,

  Began to tremble, and to flee,

  Took Sanctuary like Daphne in a tree:

  There Daphnes lover stop’t, and thought it much

  The very Leaves of her to touch,

  But Harvey our Apollo, stopt not so,

  Into the Bark, and root he after her did goe:

  No smallest Fibres of a Plant,

  For which the eiebeams Point doth sharpness want,

  His passage after her withstood.

  What should she do? through all the moving wood

  Of Lives indow’d with sense she took her flight,

  Harvey persues, and keeps her still in sight.

  But as the Deer long-hunted takes a flood,

  She leap’t at last into the winding streams of blood;

  Of mans Meander all the Purple reaches made,

  Till at the heart she stay’d,

  Where turning head, and at a Bay,

  Thus, by well-purged ears, was she o’re-heard to say:

  2.

  Here sure shall I be safe (said she)

  None will be able sure to see

  This my retreat, but only He

  Who made both it and me.

  The heart of Man, what Art can e’re reveal?

  A wall impervious between

  Divides the very Parts within,

  And doth the Heart of man ev’n from its self conceal.

  She spoke, but e’re she was aware,

  Harvey was with her there,

  And held this slippery Proteus in a chain,

  Till all her mighty Mysteries she descry’d,

  Which from his wit the attempt before to hide

  Was the first Thing that Nature did in vain.

  3

  He the young Practise of New life did see,

  Whil’st to conceal its toilsome Poverty,

  It for a living wrought, both hard, and privately.

  Before the Liver understood

  The noble Scarlet Dye of Blood,

  Before one drop was by it made,

  Or brought into it, to set up the Trade;

  Before the untaught Heart began to beat

  The tuneful March to vital Heat,

  From all the Souls that living Buildings rear,

  Whether imply’d for Earth, or Sea, or Air,

  Whether it in the Womb or Egg be wrought,

  A strict account to him is hourly brought,

  How the Great Fabrick does proceed,

  What time and what materials it does need.

  He so exactly does the work survey,

  As if he hir’d the workers by the day.

  4

  Thus Harvey sought for Truth in Truth’s own Book

  The Creatures, which by God himself was writ;

  And wisely thought ’twas fit,

  Not to read Comments only upon it,

  But on th’original it self to look.

  Methinks in Arts great Circle others stand

  Lock’t up together, Hand in Hand,

  Every one leads as he is led,

  The same bare path they tread,

  A Dance like Fairies a Fantastick round,

  But neither change their motion, nor their ground:

  Had Harvey to this Road confin’d his wit,

  His noble Circle of the Blood, had been untroden yet.

  Great Doctor! Th’ Art of Curing’s cur’d by thee,

  We now thy patient Physick see,

  From all inveterate diseases free,

  Purg’d of old errors by thy care,

  New dieted, put forth to clearer air,

  It now will strong and healthful prove,

  It self before Lethargick lay, and could not move.

  5

  These useful secrets to his Pen we owe,

  And thousands more ’twas ready to bestow;

  Of which a barb’rous Wars unlearned Rage

  Has robb’d the ruin’d age;

  O cruel loss! as if the Golden Fleece,

  With so much cost, and labour bought,

  And from a far by a Great Heroe brought

  Had sunk ev’n in the Ports of Greece.

  O cursed Warr! who can forgive thee this?

  Houses and Towns may rise again,