The Map and the Clock

by Carol Ann Duffy

  The pretty death, while each in other live.

  Poor hope’s first wealth, hostage of promist weal,

  Breakfast of love. But lo, lo, where she is,

  Cease we to praise: now pray we for a kiss.

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

  The Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer

  His stature was not very tall,

  Lean he was, his legs were small,

  Hosed within a stock of red,

  A buttoned bonnet on his head,

  From under which did hang, I ween,

  Silver hairs both bright and sheen.

  His beard was white, trimmed round,

  His countenance blithe and merry found.

  A sleeveless jacket large and wide,

  With many plights and skirts side,

  Of water camlet did he wear;

  A whittle by his belt he bare,

  His shoes were corned, broad before,

  His inkhorn at his side he wore,

  And in his hand he bore a book.

  Thus did this ancient poet look.

  ROBERT GREENE

  from Poly-Olbion

  When Watling in his words that took but small delight,

  Hearing the angry Brook so cruelly to bite;

  As one that fain would drive these fancies from his mind,

  Quoth he, I’ll tell thee things that suit thy gentler kind.

  My Song is of my self, and my three sister Streets,

  Which way each of us run, where each his fellow meets,

  Since us, his Kingly Ways, Mulmutius first began,

  From Sea, again to Sea, that through the Island ran.

  Which that in mind to keep posterity might have,

  Appointing first our course, this privilege he gave,

  That no man might arrest, or debtors goods might seize

  In any of us for his military Ways.

  And though the Fosse in length exceed me many a mile,

  That holds from shore to shore the length of all the Isle,

  From where Rich Cornwall points, to the Iberian Seas,

  Till colder Cathnes tells the scattered Orcades,

  I measuring but the breadth, that is not half his gate;

  Yet, for that I am graced with goodly Londons state,

  And Tames and Severne both since in my course I cross,

  And in much greater trade; am worthier far then Fosse.

  But O unhappy chance! through times disastrous lot,

  Our other fellow Streets lie utterly forgot:

  As Icning, that set out from Yarmouth in the East,

  By the Iceni then being generally possessed

  Was of that people first termed Icning in her race,

  Upon the Chiltern here that did my course embrace:

  Into the dropping South and bearing then outright,

  Upon the Solent Sea stopped on the Ile-of-Wight.

  And Rickneld, forth that raft from Cambria’s farther shore,

  Where South-Wales now shoots forth Saint David’s Promontory.

  And, on his mid-way near, did me in England meet;

  Then in his oblique course the lusty straggling Street

  Soon overtook the Fosse; and toward the fall of Tine,

  Into the Germane Sea dissolved at his decline.

  Here Watling would have ceased, his tale as having told:

  But now this Flood that fain the Street in talk would hold,

  Those ancient things to hear, which well old Watling knew,

  With these enticing words, her fairly forward drew.

  Right Noble Street, quoth he, thou hast lived long, gone far,

  Much traffic had in peace, much travailed in war;

  And in thy larger course surveyed as sundry grounds

  (Where I poor Flood am locked within these narrower bounds,

  And like my ruined self these ruins only see,

  And there remains not one to pity them or me)

  On with thy former speech: I pray thee somewhat say.

  For, Watling, as thou art a military Way,

  Thy story of old Streets likes me so wondrous well,

  That of the ancient folk I fain would hear thee tell.

  MICHAEL DRAYTON

  The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

  Come live with me, and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove,

  That valleys, groves, hills and fields,

  Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

  And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

  By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

  And I will make thee beds of roses,

  And a thousand fragrant posies,

  A cap of flowers and a kirtle

  Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

  A gown made of the finest wool

  Which from our pretty lambs we pull,

  Fair lined slippers for the cold,

  With buckles of the purest gold;

  A belt of straw and ivy-buds,

  With coral clasps and amber studs,

  And if these pleasures may thee move,

  Come live with me, and be my love.

  The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

  For thy delight each May-morning,

  If these delights thy mind may move;

  Then live with me, and be my love.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  from The Tempest

  Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

  And ye that on the sands with printless foot

  Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him

  When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

  By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make

  Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

  Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

  To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,

  Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed

  The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

  And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault

  Set roaring war – to the dread rattling thunder

  Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak

  With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

  Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up

  The pine and cedar; graves at my command

  Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth

  By my so potent art. But this rough magic

  I here abjure. And when I have required

  Some heavenly music – which even now I do –

  To work mine end upon their senses that

  This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

  Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

  And deeper than did ever plummet sound

  I’ll drown my book.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from King John

  Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

  Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

  Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

  Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

  Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

  Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

  Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,

  I could give better comfort than you do.

  I will not keep this form upon my head

  When there is such disorder in my wit.

  O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son,

  My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,

  My widow-comfort, and my sorrow’s cure!

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  ‘How like a winter hath my absence been’

  How like a winter hath my absence been

  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen;

  What old December’s bareness everywhere!

  And y
et this time removed was summer’s time,

  The teeming autumn big with rich increase,

  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

  Like widowed wombs after their lord’s decease.

  Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

  But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit,

  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

  And, thou away, the very birds are mute,

  Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer

  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Antony and Cleopatra

  The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

  Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

  Purple the sails, and so perfuméd that

  The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

  Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

  The water which they beat to follow faster,

  As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

  It beggar’d all description: she did lie

  In her pavilion, – cloth-of-gold of tissue, –

  O’er-picturing that Venus where we see

  The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

  Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

  With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem

  To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

  And what they undid did.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Love’s Labour’s Lost

  SPRING

  When daisies pied and violets blue,

  And lady-smocks, all silver-white,

  And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

  Do paint the meadows with delight,

  The cuckoo then on every tree

  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

  Cuckoo!

  Cuckoo, cuckoo – O word of fear,

  Unpleasing to a married ear.

  When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

  And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks:

  When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,

  And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

  The cuckoo then on every tree

  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

  Cuckoo!

  Cuckoo, cuckoo – O word of fear,

  Unpleasing to a married ear.

  WINTER

  When icicles hang by the wall,

  And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

  And Tom bears logs into the hall,

  And milk comes frozen home in pail;

  When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,

  Then nightly sings the staring owl:

  Tu-whit, tu-whoo! – a merry note,

  While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

  When all aloud the wind doth blow,

  And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

  And birds sit brooding in the snow,

  And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;

  When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

  Then nightly sings the staring owl:

  To-who;

  Tu-whit, tu-whoo! – a merry note,

  While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Henry V

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

  Or close the wall up with our English dead.

  In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

  As modest stillness and humility,

  But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

  Then imitate the action of the tiger.

  Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,

  Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.

  Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct,

  Let it pry through the portage of the head

  Like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm it

  As fearfully as doth a galléd rock

  O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

  Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

  Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

  Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

  To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

  Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,

  Fathers that like so many Alexanders

  Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

  And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

  Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

  That those whom you calld fathers did beget you.

  Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

  And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,

  Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

  The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

  That you are worth your breeding – which I doubt not,

  For there is none of you so mean and base

  That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

  I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

  Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.

  Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

  Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from King Richard II

  This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

  This other Eden, demi-paradise,

  This fortress built by Nature for herself

  Against infection and the hand of war,

  This happy breed of men, this little world,

  This precious stone set in the silver sea,

  Which serves it in the office of a wall,

  Or as a moat defensive to a house

  Against the envy of less happier lands;

  This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

  This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

  Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,

  Renownèd for their deeds as far from home

  For Christian service and true chivalry

  As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,

  Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son;

  This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,

  Dear for her reputation through the world,

  Is now leas’d out – I die pronouncing it –

  Like to a tenement, or pelting farm.

  England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

  Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

  Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

  With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds.

  That England, that was wont to conquer others

  Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  ‘Now winter nights enlarge’

  Now winter nights enlarge

  The number of their hours,

  And clouds their storms discharge

  Upon the airy towers.

  Let now the chimneys blaze,

  And cups o’erflow with wine;

  Let well-tuned words amaze

  With harmony divine.

  Now yellow waxen lights

  Shall wait on honey Love,

  While youthful revels, masks, and courtly sights

  Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

  This time doth well dispense

  With lovers’ long discourse.

  Much speech hath some defence

  Though beauty no remorse.

  All do not all things well:

  Some measures comely tread,

  Some knotted riddles tell,

  Some poems smoothly read.

  The Summer hath his joys,

  And Winter his delights.

  Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys,

  They shorten tedious nights.

  THOMAS CAMPION

  ‘There is a garden in her face’

  There is a garden in her
face

  Where roses and white lilies grow;

  A heavenly paradise is that place

  Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

  There cherries grow which none may buy,

  Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

  Those cherries fairly do enclose

  Of orient pearl a double row,

  Which when her lovely laughter shows,

  They look like rose-buds filled with snow;

  Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,

  Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

  Her eyes like angels watch them still,

  Her brows like bended bows do stand,

  Threatening with piercing frowns to kill

  All that attempt with eye or hand

  Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

  Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

  THOMAS CAMPION

  Inviting a Friend to Supper

  Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I

  Do equally desire your company:

  Not that we think us worthy such a guest,

  But that your worth will dignify our feast,

  With those that come; whose grace may make that seem

  Something, which, else, could hope for no esteem.

  It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates

  The entertainment perfect: not the cates.

  Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,

  An olive, capers, or some better salad

  Ush’ring the mutton; with a short-legged hen,

  If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,

  Lemons, and wine for sauce: to these, a cony

  Is not to be despaired of, for our money;

  And, though fowl, now, be scarce, yet there are clerks,

  The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

  I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: