Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 45

'Paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus.

Hic jacet Democritus Junior, Cui vitam pariter et mortem Dedit _Melancholia_!

'Known [by name] to few, unknown [as the author of the "Anatomy"]

to fewer, here lies D. J., who owes his death [as a man] and his life [as an author] to Melancholy.'

His work is certainly a most curious and bewitching medley of thought, information, wit, learning, personal interest, and poetic fancy. We all know it was the only book which ever drew the lazy Johnson from his bed an hour sooner than he wished to rise. The subject, like the flesh of that 'melancholy' creature the hare, may be dry, but, as with that, an astute cookery prevails to make it exceedingly piquant; the sauce is better than the substance. Burton's melancholy is not, like Johnson's, a deep, hopeless, 'insp.i.s.sated gloom,' thickened by memories of remorse, and lighted up by the lurid fires of feared perdition; it is not, like Byron's, dashed with the demoniac element, and fretted into universal misanthropy; it is not, like Foster's, the sad, fixed fascination of a pure intelligence contemplating the darker side of things, as by a necessity of nature, and ignoring, without denying, the existence of the bright; nor is it, like that of the 'melancholy Jacques,' in 'As you Like it,' a wild, woodland, fantastical habit of thought, as of one living collaterally and aside to the world, and which often explodes into laughter at itself and at all things else;--Burton's is a wide- spread but tender shade, like twilight, diffused over the whole horizon of his thought, and is nourished at times into a luxury, and at times paraded as a peculiar possession. In his form of melancholy there are pleasures as well as pains. 'Most pleasant it is,' he says, 'to such as are to melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days and keep their chambers; to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook-side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject; and a most incomparable delight it is so to melancholise and build castles in the air.' Religious considerations have little to do with Burton's melancholy, and remorse or fear apparently nothing. Hence his book, although its theme be sadness, never shadows the spirit, but, on the contrary, from his dark, Lethean poppies, his readers are made to extract an element of joyful excitement, and the anatomy, and the cure, of the evil, are one and the same.

As a writer, Burton ranks, in some points, with Montaigne, and in others with Sir Thomas Browne. He resembles the first in simplicity, _bonhommie_, and miscellaneous learning, and the other in rambling manner, quaint phraseology, and fantastic imagination. Neither of the three could be said to write books, but they acc.u.mulated vast storehouses, whence thousands of volumes might be, and have been compiled. There is nothing in Burton so low as in many of the 'Essays' of Montaigne, but there is nothing so lofty as in pa.s.sages of Browne's 'Religio Medici' and 'Urn-Burial.' Burton has been a favourite quarry to literary thieves, among whom Sterne, in his 'Tristram Shandy,' stands pre-eminent. To his 'Anatomy' he prefixes a poem, a few stanzas of which we extract.

ON MELANCHOLY.

1 When I go musing all alone, Thinking of divers things foreknown, When I build castles in the air, Void of sorrow, void of fear, Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet Methinks the time runs very fleet.

All my joys to this are folly; Nought so sweet as melancholy.

2 When I go walking all alone, Recounting what I have ill-done, My thoughts on me then tyrannise, Fear and sorrow me surprise; Whether I tarry still, or go, Methinks the time moves very slow.

All my griefs to this are jolly; Nought so sad as melancholy.

3 When to myself I act and smile, With pleasing thoughts the time beguile, By a brook-side or wood so green, Unheard, unsought for, or unseen, A thousand pleasures do me bless, And crown my soul with happiness.

All my joys besides are folly; None so sweet as melancholy.

4 When I lie, sit, or walk alone, I sigh, I grieve, making great moan; In a dark grove or irksome den, With discontents and furies then, A thousand miseries at once Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce.

All my griefs to this are jolly; None so sour as melancholy.

5 Methinks I hear, methinks I see Sweet music, wondrous melody, Towns, palaces, and cities, fine; Here now, then there, the world is mine, Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine, Whate'er is lovely is divine.

All other joys to this are folly; None so sweet as melancholy,

6 Methinks I hear, methinks I see Ghosts, goblins, fiends: my fantasy Presents a thousand ugly shapes; Headless bears, black men, and apes; Doleful outcries and fearful sights My sad and dismal soul affrights.

All my griefs to this are jolly; None so d.a.m.n'd as melancholy.

THOMAS CAREW.

This delectable versifier was born in 1589, in Gloucestershire, from an old family in which he sprung. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but neither matriculated nor took a degree. After finishing his travels, he returned to England, and became soon highly distinguished, in the Court of Charles I., for his manners, accomplishments, and wit. He was appointed Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Sewer in Ordinary to the King. He spent the rest of his life as a gay and gallant courtier; and in the intervals of pleasure produced some light but exquisite poetry. He is said, ere his death, which took place in 1639, to have become very devout, and bitterly to have deplored the licentiousness of some of his verses.

Indelicate choice of subject is often, in Carew, combined with great delicacy of execution. No one touches dangerous themes with so light and glove-guarded a hand. His pieces are all fugitive, but they suggest great possibilities, which his mode of life and his premature removal did not permit to be realised. Had he, at an earlier period, renounced, like George Herbert, 'the painted pleasures of a court,' and, like Prospero, dedicated himself to 'closeness,' with his marvellous facility of verse, his laboured levity of style, and his nice exuberance of fancy, he might have produced some work of Horatian merit and cla.s.sic permanence.

PERSUASIONS TO LOVE.

Think not, 'cause men flattering say, Y'are fresh as April, sweet as May, Bright as is the morning-star, That you are so;--or though you are, Be not therefore proud, and deem All men unworthy your esteem:

Starve not yourself, because you may Thereby make me pine away; Nor let brittle beauty make You your wiser thoughts forsake: For that lovely face will fail; Beauty's sweet, but beauty's frail; 'Tis sooner past, 'tis sooner done, Than summer's rain, or winter's sun: Most fleeting, when it is most dear; 'Tis gone, while we but say 'tis here.

These curious locks so aptly twined, Whose every hair a soul doth bind, Will change their auburn hue, and grow White and cold as winter's snow.

That eye which now is Cupid's nest Will prove his grave, and all the rest Will follow; in the cheek, chin, nose, Nor lily shall be found, nor rose; And what will then become of all Those, whom now you servants call?

Like swallows, when your summer's done They'll fly, and seek some warmer sun.

The snake each year fresh skin resumes, And eagles change their aged plumes; The faded rose each spring receives A fresh red tincture on her leaves; But if your beauties once decay, You never know a second May.

Oh, then be wise, and whilst your season Affords you days for sport, do reason; Spend not in vain your life's short hour, But crop in time your beauty's flower: Which will away, and doth together Both bud and fade, both blow and wither.

SONG.

Give me more love, or more disdain, The torrid, or the frozen zone Bring equal ease unto my pain; The temperate affords me none; Either extreme, of love or hate, Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love, Like Danae in a golden shower, I swim in pleasure; if it prove Disdain, that torrent will devour My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd Of heaven that's but from h.e.l.l released: Then crown my joys, or cure my pain; Give me more love, or more disdain.

TO MY MISTRESS SITTING BY A RIVER'S SIDE.

Mark how yon eddy steals away From the rude stream into the bay; There lock'd up safe, she doth divorce Her waters from the channel's course, And scorns the torrent that did bring Her headlong from her native spring.

Now doth she with her new love play, Whilst he runs murmuring away.

Mark how she courts the banks, whilst they As amorously their arms display, To embrace and clip her silver waves: See how she strokes their sides, and craves An entrance there, which they deny; Whereat she frowns, threatening to fly Home to her stream, and 'gins to swim Backward, but from the channel's brim Smiling returns into the creek, With thousand dimples on her cheek.

Be thou this eddy, and I'll make My breast thy sh.o.r.e, where thou shalt take Secure repose, and never dream Of the quite forsaken stream: Let him to the wide ocean haste, There lose his colour, name, and taste; Thou shalt save all, and, safe from him, Within these arms for ever swim.

SONG.

If the quick spirits in your eye Now languish, and anon must die; If every sweet, and every grace, Must fly from that forsaken face: Then, Celia, let us reap our joys, Ere time such goodly fruit destroys.

Or, if that golden fleece must grow For ever, free from aged snow; If those bright suns must know no shade, Nor your fresh beauties ever fade; Then fear not, Celia, to bestow What still being gather'd still must grow.

Thus, either Time his sickle brings In vain, or else in vain his wings.

A PASTORAL DIALOGUE.

SHEPHERD, NYMPH, CHORUS.

_Shep._ This mossy bank they press'd. _Nym._That aged oak Did canopy the happy pair All night from the damp air.

_Cho._ Here let us sit, and sing the words they spoke, Till the day-breaking their embraces broke.

_Shep._ See, love, the blushes of the morn appear: And now she hangs her pearly store (Robb'd from the eastern sh.o.r.e) I' th' cowslip's bell and rose's ear: Sweet, I must stay no longer here.

_Nym._ Those streaks of doubtful light usher not day, But show my sun must set; no morn Shall shine till thou return: The yellow planets, and the gray Dawn, shall attend thee on thy way.

_Shep._ If thine eyes gild my paths, they may forbear Their useless shine. _Nym._ My tears will quite Extinguish their faint light.

_Shep._ Those drops will make their beams more clear, Love's flames will shine in every tear.

_Cho._ They kiss'd, and wept; and from their lips and eyes, In a mix'd dew of briny sweet, Their joys and sorrows meet; But she cries out. _Nym._ Shepherd, arise, The sun betrays us else to spies.