O holy Hope! and high Humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have showed them me,
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the Just,
Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know,
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet as Angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She’ll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass:
Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.
HENRY VAUGHAN
In Praise of a Girl
Slip of loveliness, slim, seemly,
freshly fashioned, modest maiden, star serene,
sage and queenly, gracious, granting heart;
paragon, look upon
this grave song, growing sign
that I pine, my constant moon.
No beauty clear so dear I’ll hold,
not till I’m old, foam of the sea,
loveliest lily of the land,
soft of hand, white-breasted, brisk, bright, flower-created;
who’d not be charmed whose blood is warmed?
Moon of my nature, it was you
I viewed in my desire,
because your brow is like the snow,
able, notable, gifted, gay, flawless,
laughing, skilful, peerless pearl of girls.
If from all lands girls came in bands
and from a tree one could see
that sweet society of all loveliest ones,
the paragons of town and country,
dazzling, shapely, stately, fair, I declare,
Moon of Wales, your loveliness prevails.
Your praise and glory, peerless girl,
now impel me to applaud
your sweet looks, your subtle tongue,
dawn-sweet dearest, purest, prettiest, many-beautied,
unpolluted and reputed spotless rose,
there’s none to make comparison,
wave sparkling in the darkling,
with your parabling of sweet peace,
piece of goodness, fond enchantress, blithesome dove,
lucent, laughing, blameless slip of love.
From love’s curse who’ll be my nurse?
Will you listen, light of dawn, to my dole?
Deal me charity, slip of beauty;
if I win not your good will
it will kill me, girl of worth; under earth
there’s sad dearth of space for a person, in that prison;
low there my share of ash and loam.
That’s my legacy from your beauty
unless, daybreak, for my sake
my love-ache you’ll relieve, grant reprieve,
properly gentle, fluent, generous girl.
Cure my illness, dawn of sweetness,
shapely, lissom lass;
and bestow, for my woe,
a sweet lotion; maiden, listen
and endorse whilst I rehearse this true verse.
My sweetly woven, only chosen,
if my triumph makes you mine only,
life will be fine, flesh of the lily.
On this journey, soft of parley,
you’ll find endless perfect heaven, morn and even,
swift mirth and soft ease on this earth:
I’m the most faithful man yet made,
eggshell maid, still to you.
Where you dwell it will be well
for me to love, luscious, lively slip, so sprightly,
following freely your trim tread;
in spire of all, I expect
to be your fellow, fine of eyebrow;
it’s my aim, in God’s good name,
nights and days in faithful ways to live
always in the solace of your love.
O, it’s bitter, beauteous girl,
a true body can’t escape from its sickness;
cruel harshness that I suffer for your sake!
You shall see, rarity,
who adores you ceaselessly; pity me,
cherish me charitably.
If kindly you’ll my days extend
and send ending to my pain,
you shall be gloried till I’m buried:
come, to greet me, set me free, let there not be
open hurting of my diligent, good heart.
O, take my part in this story
of my weary, st ark lament;
don’t augment my suffering,
ease my unsparing, gloomy faring,
my sweet darling, with swift loving.
HUW MORUS
translated by Gwyn Williams
Nature’s Cook
Death is the cook of nature, and we find
Creatures drest several ways to please her mind;
Some Death doth roast with fevers burning hot,
And some he boils with dropsies in a pot;
Some are consumed for jelly by degrees,
And some with ulcers, gravy out to squeeze;
Some, as with herbs, he stuffs with gouts and pains,
Others for tender meat he hangs in chains;
Some in the sea he pickles up to keep,
Others he, as soused brawn, in wine doth steep;
Some flesh and bones he with the Pox chops small,
And doth a French fricassee make withall;
Some on grid-irons of calentures are broiled,
And some are trodden down, and so quite spoiled:
But some are baked, when smothered they do die,
Some meat he doth by hectick fevers fry;
In sweat sometimes he stews with savory smell,
An hodge-podge of diseases he likes well;
Some brains he dresseth with apoplexy,
Or fawce of megrims, swimming plenteously;
And tongues he dries with smoak from stomachs ill,
Which, as the second course he sends up still;
Throats he doth cut, blood puddings for to make,
And puts them in the guts, which cholicks rack;
Some hunted are by him for deer, that’s red,
And some as stall-fed oxen knocked o’th’ head;
Some singed and scald for bacon, seem most rare,
When with salt rheum and phlegm they powdered are.
MARGARET CAVENDISH,
DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
A Song of Sorrow
O Robertson of Inverawe,
You take the road as a stranger;
Though Mary Cameron lies in front,
Young did I lose any interest in you.
God, it is I who am undone,
Going to lie with another man,
With my own man behind the house,
Hunter of the brown stags and hinds.
Darling of the men of the Dale,
You took me out of the house of plague,
Where my father and mother lay,
My dear sister and five brothers.
Darling of all men under the sun,
You built me a house in the spreading woods,
Joyful there my lying down and rising,
No wond
er that – for I was new-wed.
MARY CAMERON
An Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage
Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here,
And what you do aver,
To others, courtship may appear,
’Tis sacriledge to her.
She is a publick deity,
And were’t not very odd
She should depose her self to be
A petty household god?
First make the sun in private shine,
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
In complement to you.
But if of that you do despair,
Think how you did amiss,
To strive to fix her beams which are
More bright and large than this.
KATHERINE PHILIPS
The Downfall of Charing Cross
Undone, undone the lawyers are,
They wander about the towne,
Nor can find the way to Westminster,
Now Charing-cross is downe:
At the end of the Strand, they make a stand,
Swearing they are at a loss,
And chaffing say, that’s not the way,
They must go by Charing-cross.
The parliament to vote it down
Conceived it very fitting,
For fear it should fall, and kill them all,
In the house, as they were sitting.
They were told, god-wot, it had a plot,
Which made them so hard-hearted,
To give command, it should not stand,
But be taken down and carted.
But neither man, woman, nor child,
Will say, I’m confident,
They ever heard it speak one word
Against the parliament.
An informer swore, it letters bore,
Or else it had been freed;
I’ll take, in troth, my Bible oath,
It could neither write, nor read.
The committee said, that verily
To popery it was bent;
For ought I know, it might be so,
For to church it never went.
What with excise, and such device,
The kingdom doth begin
To think you’ll leave them ne’er a cross,
Without doors nor within.
Methinks the common-council should
Of it have taken pity,
’Cause, good old cross, it always stood
So firmly to the city.
Since crosses you so much disdain,
Faith, if I were as you,
For fear the king should rule again,
I’d pull down Tiburn too.
ANON
‘If all the world were paper’
If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were inke;
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we do for drinke?
If all the world were sand ’o,
Oh, then what should we lack ’o;
If as they say there were no clay,
How should we make tobacco?
If all our vessels ran ’a,
If none but had a crack ’a;
If Spanish apes eat all the grapes,
What should we do for sack ‘a?
If fryers had no bald pates,
Nor nuns had no dark cloysters,
If all the seas were beans and pease,
What should we do for oysters?
If there had been no projects,
Nor none that did great wrongs;
If fidlers shall turne players all,
What should we doe for songs?
If all things were eternall,
And nothing their end bringing;
If this should be, then how should we
Here make an end of singing?
ANON
The Drowned Blackbird
Lovely daughter of Conn O’Neill,
You are in shock. Sleep a long sleep.
After the loss of what was dearest,
Don’t let your people hear you weep.
The song of the quick-quick flitting bird
Has fled, sweet girl, left you forlorn.
Always what’s dearest is endangered
So bear up now, no beating of hands.
Instead of keens and beating hands
Be silent, girl, as dew in air.
Lovely daughter of Conn O’Neill,
The bird is dead, don’t shed a rear.
Child of that high-born kingly Ulster line,
Show what you’re made of, don’t let yourself go wild
Even though the loveliest bird in the leaf-and-branch scrim
Is drowned, washed white in whitewash: water and lime.
SÉAMAS DALL MAC CUARTA
translated by Seamus Heaney
Verses Said to be Written on the Union
The Queen has lately lost a part
Of her entirely English heart,
For want of which by way of botch,
She pieced it up again with Scotch.
Blessed revolution, which creates
Divided hearts, united states.
See how the double nation lies;
Like a rich coat with skirts of frieze:
As if a man in making posies
Should bundle thistles up with roses.
Whoever yet a union saw
Of kingdoms, without faith or law.
Henceforward let no statesman dare,
A kingdom to a ship compare;
Lest he should call our commonweal,
A vessel with a double keel:
Which just like ours, new rigged and manned,
And got about a league from land,
By change of wind to leeward side
The pilot knew not how to guide
So tossing faction will o’erwhelm
Out crazy double-bottomed realm.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The Liberty
Shall I be one of those obsequious fools
That square their lives by Custom’s scanty rules?
Condemned forever to the puny curse
Of precepts taught at boarding-school or nurse,
That all the business of my life must be
Foolish, dull, trifling formality?
Confined to a strict magic complaisance
And round a circle of nice visits dance,
Nor for my life beyond the chalk advance?
The devil Censure stands to guard the same;
One step awry, he tears my venturous fame,
So when my friends, in a facetious vein
With mirth and wit a while can entertain,
Though ne’er so pleasant, yet I must not stay,
If a commanding clock bids me away,
But with a sudden start, as in a fright,
‘I must be gone indeed! ’Tis after eight!’
Sure these restraints with such regret we bear
That dreaded Censure can’t be more severe,
Which has no terror if we did not fear,
But let the bugbear timorous infants fright.
I’ll not be scared from innocent delight.
Whatever is not vicious I dare do.
I’ll never to the idol Custom bow
Unless it suits with my own humour too.
Some boast their fetters of formality,
Fancy they ornamental bracelets be;
I’m sure they’re gyves and manacles to me.
To their dull, fulsome rules I’ll not be tied,
For all the flattery that exalts their pride.
My sex forbids I should my silence break;
I lose my jest, ’cause women must not speak.
Mysteries must not be with my search profaned;
My closet not with books but sweetmeats crammed,
A little china to advance the show,
My prayerbook and Seven Champions or so.
My pen, if ever used, employed must be
In lofty themes of useful housewifery,
Transcribing old receipts of cookery,
And what is necessary among the rest,
Good cures for agues and a cancered breast,
But I can’t here write my probatum est.
My daring pen will bolder sallies make
And, like myself, an unchecked freedom take,
Not chained to the nice order of my sex,
And with restraints my wishing soul perplex.
I’ll blush at sin, and not what some call shame,
Secure my virtue, slight precarious fame.
This courage speaks me brave. ’Tis surely worse
To keep those rules which privately we curse,
And I’ll appeal to all the formal saints
With what reluctance they endure restraints.
SARAH FYGE
A Grey Eye Weeping
That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom,
That foreign devils have made our land a tomb,
That the sun that was Munster’s glory has gone down
Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.
That royal Cashel is bare of house and guest,
That Brian’s turreted home is the otter’s nest,
That the kings of the land have neither land nor crown
Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.
Garnish away in the west with its master banned,
Hamburg the refuge of him who has lost his land,
An old grey eye, weeping for lost renown,
Have made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.
AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE
translated by Frank O’Connor
The Glamoured
Brightening brightness, alone on the road, she appears,
The Map and the Clock Page 12