Poetry By English Women

by R. E. ; Pritchard

  That oak that did in height his fellows pass,

  As much as lofty trees, low growing grass:

  Much like a comely cedar straight and tall,

  Whose beauteous stature far exceeded all:

  How often did you visit this fair tree,

  Which seeming joyful in receiving thee, [60]

  Would like a palm tree spread his arms abroad,

  Desirous that you there should make abode;

  Whose fair green leaves much like a comely veil,

  Defended Phoebus when he would assail:

  Whose pleasing boughs did yield a cool fresh air,

  Joying his happiness when you were there.

  Where being seated, you might plainly see,

  Hills, vales, and woods, as if on bended knee

  They had appeared, your honour to salute,

  Or to prefer some strange unlooked-for suit: [70]

  All interlaced with brooks and crystal springs,

  A prospect fit to please the eyes of kings:

  And thirteen shires appeared all in your sight,

  Europe could not afford much more delight.

  What was there then but gave you all content,

  While you the time in meditation spent,

  Of their Creator’s pow’r, which there you saw,

  In all his creatures held a perfect law;

  And in their beauties did you plain descry,

  His beauty, wisdom, grace, love, majesty. [80]

  In these sweet woods how often did you walk,

  With Christ and his Apostles there to talk;

  Placing his holy writ in some fair tree,

  To meditate what you therein did see:

  With Moses did you mount his holy hill,

  To know his pleasure, and perform his will.

  With lovely David you did often sing,

  His holy hymns to Heaven’s eternal king.

  And in sweet music did your soul delight,

  To sound his praises, morning, noon, and night. [90]

  With blessed Joseph you did often feed

  Your pined brethren, when they stood in need.

  And that sweet Lady sprung from Clifford’s race,

  Of noble Bedford’s blood, fair stream of grace;

  To honourable Dorset now espoused,

  In whose fair breast true virtue then was housed:

  Oh what delight did my weak spirits find

  In those pure parts of her well framed mind:

  And yet it grieves me that I cannot be

  Near unto her, whose virtues did agree [100]

  With those fair ornaments of outward beauty,

  Which did enforce from all both love and duty.

  Unconstant Fortune, thou art most to blame,

  Who casts us down into so low a frame:

  Where our great friends we cannot daily see,

  So great a diff’rence is there in degree.

  Many are placed in those orbs of state,

  Nearer in show, yet farther off in love,

  In which, the lowest always are above. [110]

  But whither I am carried in conceit?

  My wit too weak to conster of the great.

  Why not? although we are but born of earth,

  We may behold the heavens, despising death;

  And loving heaven that is so far above,

  May in the end vouchsafe us entire love.

  Therefore sweet Memory do thou retain

  Those pleasures past, which will not turn again;

  Remember beauteous Dorset’s former sports,

  So far from being touched by ill reports; [120]

  Wherein my self did always bear a part,

  While reverend love presented my true heart:

  Those recreations let me bear in mind,

  Which her sweet youth and noble thoughts did find:

  Whereof deprived, I evermore must grieve,

  Hating blind Fortune, careless to relieve.

  And you sweet Cookham, whom these ladies leave,

  I now must tell the grief you did conceive

  At their departure; when they went away,

  How everything retained a sad dismay: [130]

  Nay long before, when once an inkling came,

  Me thought each thing did unto sorrow frame:

  The trees that were so glorious in our view,

  Forsook both flow’rs and fruit, when once they knew

  Of your depart, their very leaves did wither,

  Changing their colours as they grew together.

  But when they saw this had no pow’r to stay you,

  They often wept, though, speechless, could not pray you;

  Letting their tears in your fair bosoms fall,

  As if they said, Why will ye leave us all? [140]

  This being vain, they cast their leaves away,

  Hoping that pity would have made you stay:

  Their frozen tops, like age’s hoary hairs,

  Shows their disasters, languishing in fears:

  A swarthy rivelled rind all over spread,

  Their dying bodies half alive, half dead.

  But your occasions called you so away,

  That nothing there had pow’r to make you stay:

  Yet did I see, a noble grateful mind,

  Requiting each according to their kind, [150]

  Forgetting not to turn and take your leave

  Of these sad creatures, pow’rless to receive

  Your favour, when with grief you did depart,

  Placing their former pleasures in your heart;

  Giving great charge to noble Memory,

  There to preserve their love continually:

  But specially the love of that fair tree,

  That first and last you did vouchsafe to see:

  In which it pleased you oft to take the air,

  With noble Dorset, then a virgin fair: [160]

  Where many a learned book was read and scanned.

  To this fair tree, taking me by the hand,

  You did repeat the pleasures which had passed,

  Seeming to grieve they could no longer last.

  And with a chaste, yet loving kiss took leave,

  Of which sweet kiss I did it soon bereave:

  Scorning a senseless creature should possess

  So rare a favour, so great happiness.

  No other kiss it could receive from me,

  For fear to give back what it took of thee: [170]

  So I ingrateful creature did deceive it,

  Of that which you vouchsafed in love to leave it.

  And that it oft had giv’n me much content,

  Yet this great wrong I never could repent:

  But of the happiest made it most forlorn,

  To show that nothing’s free from Fortune’s scorn,

  While all the rest with this most beauteous tree,

  Made their sad concert sorrow’s harmony.

  The flow’rs that on the banks and walls did grow,

  Crept in the ground, the grass did weep for woe. [180]

  The winds and waters seem to chide together

  Because you went away they knew not whither:

  And those sweet brooks that ran so fair and clear,

  With grief and trouble wrinkled did appear.

  Those pretty birds that wonted were to sing,

  Now neither sing nor chirp, nor use their wing;

  But with their tender feet on some bare spray,

  Warble forth sorrow, and their own dismay.

  Fair Philomela leaves her mournful ditty,

  Drowned in dead sleep, yet can procure no pity: [190]

  Each arbour, bank, each seat, each stately tree,

  Looks bare and desolate for want of thee;

  Turning green tresses into frosty gray,

  While in cold grief they wither all away.

  The sun grew weak, his beams no comfort gave,

  While all green things did make the earth their grave:

  Each
briar, each bramble, when you went away,

  Caught fast your clothes, thinking to make you stay:

  Delightful Echo wonted to reply

  To our last words, did now for sorrow die: [200]

  The house cast off each garment that might grace it,

  Putting on dust and cobwebs to deface it.

  All desolation then there did appear,

  When you were going whom they held so dear.

  This last farewell to Cookham here I give,

  When I am dead thy name in this may live,

  Wherein I have performed her noble hest,

  Whose virtues lodge in my unworthy breast,

  And ever shall, so long as life remains,

  Tying my heart to her by those rich chains. [210]

  LADY MARY WROTH 1587?–1652?

  Then if with grief I now must coupled be,

  Sorrow I’ll wed: Despair thus governs me

  Niece of Lady Mary Herbert and of Sir Philip Sidney, and eldest daughter of Lady Barbara (Gamage) and Sir Robert Sidney. In 1603 was, as Ber Jonson later put it, ‘unworthily married to a jealous husband’, Sir Robert Wroth, who did not share her interests (the only book dedicated to him was A treatise on Madde Dogges). He died in 1614, leaving her a month-old son and considerable debts; on the son’s death in 1616 she lost the estate, and thereafter suffered financial difficulties. She became scandalous for her relationship (perhaps before 1614) with her first cousin, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and bore him two illegitimate children. In 1621 published under her own name (equally scandalously) a romance (the first by a woman), The Countess of Montgomerie’s Urania, with a sonnet-sequence, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: the mode is Petrarchan, the love clandestine, the themes, constancy, frustration and insecurity, the atmosphere claustrophobic. In this selection, punctuation also has been modernized.

  Josephine A. Roberts (ed), The Poems of Lady Mary Wroth (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State UP, 1983).

  Sonnets from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

  9

  Led by the pow’r of grief, to wailings brought

  By false conceit of change fall’n on my part,

  I seek for some small ease by lines which, bought,

  Increase the pain; grief is not cured by art:

  Ah! how unkindness moves within the heart

  Which still is true, and free from changing thought;

  What unknown woe it breeds, what endless smart

  With ceaseless tears, which causelessly are wrought.

  It makes me now to shun all shining light,

  And seek for blackest clouds me light to give, [10]

  Which to all others, only darkness drive:

  They on me shine, for sun disdains my sight.

  Yet though I dark do live, I triumph may;

  Unkindness nor this wrong shall love allay.

  24

  When last I saw thee, I did not thee see,

  It was thine image, which in my thoughts lay

  So lively figured, as no time’s delay

  Could suffer me in heart to parted be;

  And sleep so favourable is to me,

  As not let thy loved remembrance stray,

  Lest that I, waking, might have cause to say

  There was one minute found to forget thee;

  Then since my faith is such, so kind my sleep

  That gladly thee presents into my thought: [10]

  And still true-lover-like, thy face doth keep,

  So as some pleasure shadow-like is wrought.

  Pity my loving, nay, of conscience give

  Reward to me in whom thy self doth live.

  39

  Take heed mine eyes, how you your looks do cast,

  Lest they betray my heart’s most secret thought;

  Be true unto your selves, for nothing’s bought

  More dear than doubt, which brings a lover’s fast.

  Catch you all watching eyes ere they be past,

  Or take yours, fixed where your best love hath sought

  The pride of your desires; let them be taught

  Their faults, for shame they could no truer last.

  Then look, and look with joy, for conquest won

  Of those that searched your hurt in double kind; [10]

  So you kept safe, let them themselves look blind,

  Watch, gaze, and mark, till they to madness run;

  While you, mine eyes, enjoy full sight of love,

  Contented that such happinesses move.

  40

  False hope, which feeds but to destroy, and spill

  What it first breeds; unnatural to the birth

  Of thine own womb; conceiving but to kill,

  And plenty gives to make the greater dearth;

  So tyrants do who, falsely ruling earth,

  Outwardly grace them, and with profit’s fill

  Advance those, who appointed are to death,

  To make their greater fall to please their will.

  Thus shadow they their wicked vile intent,

  Colouring evil with a show of good, [10]

  While in fair shows their malice so is spent;

  Hope kills the heart, and tyrants shed the blood.

  For hope deluding brings us to the pride

  Of our desires, the farther down to slide.

  68*

  My pain, still smothered in my grieved breast,

  Seeks for some ease, yet cannot passage find

  To be discharged of this unwelcome guest;

  When most I strive, more fast his burdens bind:

  Like to a ship on Goodwins cast by wind,

  The more she strives, more deep in sand is pressed

  Till she be lost; so am I, in this kind,

  Sunk, and devoured, and swallowed by unrest,

  Lost, shipwrecked, spoiled, debarred of smallest hope,

  Nothing of pleasure left; save thoughts have scope [10]

  Which wander may: Go then, my thoughts, and cry

  Hope’s perished; Love tempest-beaten; Joy lost.

  Killing despair hath all these blessings crossed,

  Yet faith still cries, Love will not falsify.

  101

  No time, no room, no thought, or writing can

  Give rest, or quiet to my loving heart,

  Nor can my memory or fancy scan

  The measure of my still renewing smart,

  Yet would I not, dear Love, thou should’st depart,

  But let my passions as they first began

  Rule, wound, and please; it is thy choicest art

  To give disquiet, which seems ease to man;

  When all alone, I think upon thy pain,

  How thou dost travail our best selves to gain, [10]

  Then hourly thy lessons I do learn,

  Think on thy glory, which shall still ascend

  Until the world come to a final end,

  And then shall we thy lasting pow’r discern.

  from The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania

  33

  Loss, my molester, at last patient be,

  And satisfied with thy curst self, or move

  Thy mournful force thus oft on perjured love,

  To waste a life which lives by mischief’s fee.

  Who will behold true misery, view me,

  And find, what wit hath feigned, I fully prove:

  A heaven-like blessing changed, thrown from above

  Into despair, whose worst ill I do see,

  Had I not happy been, I had not known

  So great a loss: a king deposed, feels most [10]

  The torment of a throne-like want, when lost,

  And up must look to what late was his own.

  Lucifer down cast, his loss doth grieve,

  My Paradise of joy gone, do I live?

  45

  Did I boast of liberty?

  ’Twas an insolency vain:

  I do only look on thee,

  And I captive am again.

  ANNE BRADSTREET
1613?–1672

  One of the best-known of all the English – or American – women poets of the century. Born in Northamptonshire, the second child of Dorothy (York) and Thomas Dudley, who later became prominent among Puritans in Leicestershire; in 1628 married Simon Bradstreet; in 1630, the Dudleys and Bradstreets joined the Puritan emigration, going to Salem in Massachusetts. There Anne bore eight children, and wrote poetry on a wide range of subjects, including lengthy works on Biblical and recent English history, though it is her more personal and domestic verse for which she is usually now regarded. In 1652 The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America was entered in the Stationers’ Register, a revised edition appearing in Boston in 1678. Simon later became governor of Salem during the period of witchcraft persecutions.

  John H. Ellis (ed), The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse (Chesterton, Mass., 1867; facsimile reprint, Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, 1962); Elizabeth Wade White, Anne Bradstreet: ‘The Tenth Muse’ (NY: OUP, 1971).

  The Prologue*

  To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,

  Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,

  For my mean pen are too superior things:

  Or how they all, or each their dates have run

  Let poets and historians set these forth,

  My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth.

  But when my wondering eyes and envious heart

  Great Bartas’ sugared lines do but read o’er,

  Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part

  ‘Twixt him and me that overfluent store; [10]

  A Bartas can do what a Bartas will

  But simple I according to my skill.

  From schoolboy’s tongue no rhet’ric we expect,

  Nor yet a sweet consort from broken strings,

  Nor perfect beauty where’s a main defect:

  My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings,