Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 54

The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent, In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.

What needed he fetch that from furthest Spain.

His grandam could have lent with lesser pain?

Though he perhaps ne'er pa.s.s'd the English sh.o.r.e, Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, One lock, Amazon-like, dishevelled, As if he meant to wear a native cord, If chance his fates should him that bane afford.

All British bare upon the bristled skin, Close notched is his beard both lip and chin; His linen collar labyrinthian set, Whose thousand double turnings never met: His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings, As if he meant to fly with linen wings.

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below, What monster meets mine eyes in human show?

So slender waist with such an abbot's loin, Did never sober nature sure conjoin, Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field, Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield; Or if that semblance suit not every deal, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

Despised nature, suit them once aright, Their body to their coat, both now misdight.

Their body to their clothes might shapen be, That nill their clothes shape to their body.

Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back, Whiles the empty guts loud rumblen for long lack: The belly envieth the back's bright glee, And murmurs at such inequality.

The back appears unto the partial eyne, The plaintive belly pleads they bribed been: And he, for want of better advocate, Doth to the ear his injury relate.

The back, insulting o'er the belly's need, Says, Thou thyself, I others' eyes must feed.

The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain The back's great pride, and their own secret pain.

Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts, That sets such discord 'twixt agreeing parts, Which never can be set at onement more, Until the maw's wide mouth be stopt with store.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

This unlucky cavalier and bard was born in 1618. He was the son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich, in Kent. He was educated some say at Oxford, and others at Cambridge--took a master's degree, and was afterwards presented at Court. Anthony Wood thus describes his personal appearance at the age of sixteen:--'He was the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld,--a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the fair s.e.x.' Soon after this, he was chosen by the county of Kent to deliver a pet.i.tion from the inhabitants to the House of Commons, praying them to restore the King to his rights, and to settle the government.

Such offence was given by this to the Long Parliament, that Lovelace was thrown into prison, and only liberated on heavy bail. His paternal estate, which amounted to 500 a-year, was soon exhausted in his efforts to promote the royal cause. In 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the King of France, became its colonel, and was wounded at Dunkirk. Ere leaving England, he had formed a strong attachment to a Miss Lucy Sacheverell, and had written much poetry in her praise, designating her as _Lux-Casta_. Unfortunately, hearing a report that Lovelace had died at Dunkirk of his wounds, she married another, so that, on his return home in 1648, he met a deep disappointment; and to complete his misery, the ruling powers cast him again into prison, where he lay till the death of Charles. Like some other men of genius, he beguiled his confinement by literary employment; and in 1649, he published a book under the t.i.tle of 'Lucasta,' consisting of odes, sonnets, songs, and miscellaneous poems, most of which had been previously composed. After the execution of the King, he was liberated; but his funds were exhausted, his heart broken, and his const.i.tution probably injured. He gradually sunk; and Wood says that he became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, 'went in ragged clothes, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places.' Alas for the Adonis of sixteen, the beloved of Lucasta, and the envied of all! Some have doubted these stories about his extreme poverty; and one of his biographers a.s.serts, that his daughter and sole heir (but who, pray, was his wife and her mother?) married the son of Lord Chief-Justice c.o.ke, and brought to her husband the estates of her father at Kingsdown, in Kent. Aubrey however, corroborates the statements of Wood; and, at all events, Lovelace seems to have died, in 1658, in a wretched alley near Shoe Lane.

There is not much to be said about his poetry. It may be compared to his person--beautiful, but dressed in a stiff mode. We do not, in every point, h.o.m.ologate the opinions of Prynne, as to the 'unloveliness of love-locks;' but we do certainly look with a mixture of contempt and pity on the self-imposed trammels of affectation in style and manner which bound many of the poets of that period. The wits of Charles II.

were more disgustingly licentious; but their very carelessness saved them from the conceits of their predecessors; and, while lowering the tone of morality, they raised unwittingly the standard of taste. Some of the songs of Lovelace, however, such as 'To Althea, from Prison,' are exquisitely simple, as well as pure. Sir Egerton Brydges has found out that Byron, in one of his be-praised paradoxical beauties, either copied, or coincided with, our poet. In the 'Bride of Abydos' he says of Zuleika--

'The mind, the _music_ breathing from her face.'

Lovelace had, long before, in the song of 'Orpheus Mourning for his Wife,' employed the words--

'Oh, could you view the melody Of every grace, And _music of her face_, You'd drop a tear; Seeing more harmony In her bright eye Than now you hear.'

While many have praised, others have called this idea nonsense; although, if we are permitted to speak of the harmony of the tones of a cloud, why not of the harmony produced by the consenting lines of a countenance, where every grace melts into another, and the various features and expressions fluctuate into a fine whole? Whatever, whether it be the beauty of the human face, or the quiet l.u.s.tre of statuary, or the mild glory of moonlight, gives the effects of music, and, like that divine art,

'Pours on mortals a beautiful disdain,'

may surely become music's metaphor and poetic a.n.a.logy.

SONG.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON.

1 When Love, with unconfined wings, Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at my grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fetter'd to her eye, The birds, that wanton in the air, Know no such liberty.

2 When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes, that tipple in the deep, Know no such liberty.

3 When, like committed linnets, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, And glories of my king;[1]

When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, Enlarged winds, that curl the flood, Know no such liberty.

4 Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.

[1] Charles I., in whose cause Lovelace was then in prison.

SONG.

1 Amarantha, sweet and fair, Forbear to braid that shining hair; As my curious hand or eye, Hovering round thee, let it fly:

2 Let it fly as unconfined As its ravisher, the wind, Who has left his darling east, To wanton o'er this spicy nest.

3 Every tress must be confess'd But neatly tangled at the best, Like a clew of golden thread Most excellently ravelled:

4 Do not then wind up that light In ribands, and o'ercloud the night; Like the sun in his early ray, But shake your head and scatter day.

A LOOSE SARABAND.

1 Ah me! the little tyrant thief, As once my heart was playing, He s.n.a.t.c.h'd it up, and flew away, Laughing at all my praying.

2 Proud of his purchase, he surveys, And curiously sounds it; And though he sees it full of wounds, Cruel, still on he wounds it.

3 And now this heart is all his sport, Which as a ball he boundeth, From hand to hand, from breast to lip, And all its rest confoundeth.

4 Then as a top he sets it up, And pitifully whips it; Sometimes he clothes it gay and fine, Then straight again he strips it.

5 He cover'd it with false belief, Which gloriously show'd it; And for a morning cushionet On's mother he bestow'd it.

6 Each day with her small brazen stings A thousand times she raced it; But then at night, bright with her gems, Once near her breast she placed it.

7 Then warm it 'gan to throb and bleed, She knew that smart, and grieved; At length this poor condemned heart, With these rich drugs reprieved.

8 She wash'd the wound with a fresh tear, Which my Lucasta dropped; And in the sleeve silk of her hair 'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

9 She probed it with her constancy, And found no rancour nigh it; Only the anger of her eye Had wrought some proud flesh nigh it.

10 Then press'd she hard in every vein, Which from her kisses thrilled, And with the balm heal'd all its pain That from her hand distilled.

11 But yet this heart avoids me still, Will not by me be owned; But, fled to its physician's breast, There proudly sits enthroned.

ROBERT HERRICK.

This poet--a bird with tropical plumage, and norland sweetness of song --was born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. His father, was an eminent goldsmith. Herrick was sent to Cambridge; and having entered into holy orders, and being patronised by the Earl of Exeter, he was, in 1629, presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire.