Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 58

Thou thoughtst, if once the public storm were past, All thy remaining life should suns.h.i.+ne be: Behold the public storm is spent at last, The sovereign is tossed at sea no more, And thou, with all the n.o.ble company, Art got at last to sh.o.r.e: But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see, All marched up to possess the promised land, Thou still alone, alas! dost gaping stand, Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.

As a fair morning of the blessed spring, After a tedious, stormy night, Such was the glorious entry of our king; Enriching moisture dropped on every thing: Plenty he sowed below, and cast about him light.

But then, alas! to thee alone One of old Gideon's miracles was shown, For every tree, and every hand around, With pearly dew was crowned, And upon all the quickened ground The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie, And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry.

It did all other threats surpa.s.s, When G.o.d to his own people said, The men whom through long wanderings he had led, That he would give them even a heaven of bra.s.s: They looked up to that heaven in vain, That bounteous heaven! which G.o.d did not restrain Upon the most unjust to s.h.i.+ne and rain.

'The Rachel, for which twice seven years and more, Thou didst with faith and labour serve, And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve, Though she contracted was to thee, Given to another, thou didst see, who had store Of fairer and of richer wives before, And not a Loah left, thy recompense to be.

Go on, twice seven years more, thy fortune try, Twice seven years more G.o.d in his bounty may Give thee to fling away Into the court's deceitful lottery: But think how likely 'tis that thou, With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive, Shouldst even able be to live; Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall In the miraculous year, when manna rain'd on all.'

Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile, That seemed at once to pity and revile: And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head, The melancholy Cowley said: 'Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid The ills which thou thyself hast made?

When in the cradle innocent I lay, Thou, wicked spirit, stolest me away, And my abused soul didst bear Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where, Thy golden Indies in the air; And ever since I strive in vain My ravished freedom to regain; Still I rebel, still thou dost reign; Lo, still in verse, against thee I complain.

There is a sort of stubborn weeds, Which, if the earth but once it ever breeds, No wholesome herb can near them thrive, No useful plant can keep alive: The foolish sports I did on thee bestow Make all my art and labour fruitless now; Where once such fairies dance, no gra.s.s doth ever grow.

'When my new mind had no infusion known, Thou gavest so deep a tincture of thine own, That ever since I vainly try To wash away the inherent dye: Long work, perhaps, may spoil thy colours quite, But never will reduce the native white.

To all the ports of honour and of gain I often steer my course in vain; Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again, Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry, By making them so oft to be The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.

Whoever this world's happiness would see Must as entirely cast off thee, As they who only heaven desire Do from the world retire.

This was my error, this my gross mistake, Myself a demi-votary to make.

Thus with Sapphira and her husband's fate, (A fault which I, like them, am taught too late,) For all that I give up I nothing gain, And perish for the part which I retain.

Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse!

The court and better king t' accuse; The heaven under which I live is fair, The fertile soil will a full harvest bear: Thine, thine is all the barrenness, if thou Makest me sit still and sing when I should plough.

When I but think how many a tedious year Our patient sovereign did attend His long misfortune's fatal end; How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend, I ought to be accursed if I refuse To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse!

Kings have long hands, they say, and though I be So distant, they may reach at length to me.

However, of all princes thou Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or slow; Thou! who rewardest but with popular breath, And that, too, after death!'

THE DESPAIR.

1 Beneath this gloomy shade, By Nature only for my sorrows made, I'll spend this voice in cries, In tears I'll waste these eyes, By love so vainly fed; So l.u.s.t of old the deluge punished.

Ah, wretched youth, said I; Ah, wretched youth! twice did I sadly cry; Ah, wretched youth! the fields and floods reply.

2 When thoughts of love I entertain, I meet no words but Never, and In vain: Never! alas! that dreadful name Which fuels the infernal flame: Never! my time to come must waste; In vain! torments the present and the past: In vain, in vain! said I, In vain, in vain! twice did I sadly cry; In vain, in vain! the fields and floods reply.

3 No more shall fields or floods do so, For I to shades more dark and silent go: All this world's noise appears to me A dull, ill-acted comedy: No comfort to my wounded sight, In the sun's busy and impert'nent light.

Then down I laid my head, Down on cold earth, and for a while was dead, And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

4 Ah, sottish soul! said I, When back to its cage again I saw it fly: Fool! to resume her broken chain, And row her galley here again!

Fool! to that body to return, Where it condemned and destined is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?

OF WIT.

1 Tell me, O tell! what kind of thing is Wit, Thou who master art of it; For the first matter loves variety less; Less women love it, either in love or dress: A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears: Yonder we saw it plain, and here 'tis now, Like spirits, in a place, we know not how.

2 London, that vends of false ware so much store, In no ware deceives us more: For men, led by the colour and the shape, Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.

Some things do through our judgment pa.s.s, As through a multiplying-gla.s.s; And sometimes, if the object be too far, We take a falling meteor for a star.

3 Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame, Grows such a common name; And wits by our creation they become, Just so as t.i.t'lar bishops made at Rome.

'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest, Admired with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that t.i.tle gain; The proofs of wit for ever must remain.

4 'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet With their five gouty feet; All everywhere, like man's, must be the soul, And reason the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceased; and now we see No towns or houses raised by poetry.

5 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part; That shows more cost than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; Rather than all things wit, let none be there.

Several lights will not be seen, If there be nothing else between.

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky, If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

6 'Tis not when two like words make up one noise, Jests for Dutch men and English boys; In which who finds out wit, the same may see In an'grams and acrostics poetry.

Much less can that have any place At which a virgin hides her face; Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just The author blush there where the reader must.

7 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage, When Bajazet begins to rage: Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way, Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca: Nor upon all things to obtrude And force some old similitude.

What is it then, which, like the Power Divine, We only can by negatives define?

8 In a true piece of wit all things must be, Yet all things there agree: As in the ark, joined without force or strife, All creatures dwelt, all creatures that had life.

Or as the primitive forms of all, If we compare great things with small, Which without discord or confusion lie, In that strange mirror of the Deity.

OF SOLITUDE.

1 Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!

Hail, ye plebeian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food Pay with their grateful voice.

2 Hail the poor Muse's richest manor-seat!

Ye country houses and retreat, Which all the happy G.o.ds so love, That for you oft they quit their bright and great Metropolis above.

3 Here Nature does a house for me erect, Nature! the fairest architect, Who those fond artists does despise That can the fair and living trees neglect, Yet the dead timber prize.

4 Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds above me flying, With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying, Nor be myself, too, mute.

5 A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Gilt with the sunbeams here and there, On whose enamelled bank I'll walk, And see how prettily they smile, And hear how prettily they talk.

6 Ah! wretched, and too solitary he, Who loves not his own company!

He'll feel the weight of it many a day, Unless he calls in sin or vanity To help to bear it away.

7 O Solitude! first state of humankind!

Which bless'd remained till man did find Even his own helper's company: As soon as two, alas! together joined, The serpent made up three.

8 Though G.o.d himself, through countless ages, thee His sole companion chose to be, Thee, sacred Solitude! alone, Before the branchy head of number's tree Sprang from the trunk of one;

9 Thou (though men think thine an unactive part) Dost break and tame the unruly heart, Which else would know no settled pace, Making it move, well managed by thy art, With swiftness and with grace.

10 Thou the faint beams of reason's scattered light Dost, like a burning gla.s.s, unite, Dost multiply the feeble heat, And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright And n.o.ble fires beget.

11 Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see The monster London laugh at me; I should at thee, too, foolish city!

If it were fit to laugh at misery; But thy estate I pity.

12 Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And all the fools that crowd thee so, Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington wilt grow, A solitude almost.