The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 47

How long shall the page to please You stand for to surrender up the keys Of the glad house? Come, come, Or Lar will freeze to death at home._

11.

"_Welcome at last unto the Threshold, Time Throned in a saffron evening, seems to chime All in, kiss and so enter. If A prayer must be said, be brief, The easy G.o.ds For such neglect have only myrtle rods To stroke, not strike; fear you Not more, mild Nymph, than they would have you do; But dread that you do more offend In that you do begin than end._

12 [7].

"And now y'are entered, see the coddled cook Runs from his Torrid Zone to pry and look And bless his dainty mistress; see _How_ th' aged point out: 'This is she Who now must sway _Us_ (_and G.o.d_ shield her) with her yea and nay,'

And the smirk Butler thinks it Sin in _his_ nap'ry not t' express his wit; Each striving to devise Some gin wherewith to catch _her_ eyes.

13.

"_What though your laden Altar now has won The credit from the table of the Sun For earth and sea; this cost On you is altogether lost Because you feed Not on the flesh of beasts, but on the seed Of contemplation: your, Your eyes are they, wherewith you draw the pure Elixir to the mind Which sees the body fed, yet pined._

14 [14].

"If _you must needs_ for ceremonie's sake Bless a sack posset, Luck go with _you_, take The night charm quickly; you have spells And magic for to end, and h.e.l.ls To pa.s.s, but such And of such torture as no _G.o.d_ would grutch To live therein for ever: fry, _Aye_ and consume, and grow again to die, And live, and in that case Love the _d.a.m.nation_ of _that_ place. [the

15 [8].

"To Bed, to Bed, _sweet_ Turtles now, and write This the shortest day, this the longest night _And_ yet too short for you; 'tis we Who count this night as long as three, Lying alone _Hearing_ the clock _go_ Ten, Eleven, Twelve, One: Quickly, quickly then prepare.

And let the young men and the Bridemaids share Your garters, and their joints Encircle with the Bridegroom's points.

16 [9].

"By the Bride's eyes, and by the teeming life Of her green hopes, we charge you that no strife, _Further_ than _virtue lends_, gets place Among _you catching at_ her Lace.

Oh, do not fall Foul in these n.o.ble pastimes, lest you call Discord in, and so divide The _gentle_ Bridegroom and the _fragrous_ Bride, Which Love forefend: but spoken Be't to your praise: 'No peace was broken'.

17[10].

"Strip her of spring-time, tender whimpering maids, Now Autumn's come, when all _those_ flowery aids Of her delays must end, dispose That Lady-smock, that pansy and that Rose Neatly apart; But for p.r.i.c.k-madam, and for gentle-heart, And soft maiden-blush, the Bride Makes holy these, all others lay aside: Then strip her, or unto her Let him come who dares undo her.

18 [11].

"And to enchant _you_ more, _view_ everywhere [ye About the roof a Syren in a sphere, As we think, singing to the din Of many a warbling cherubin: _List, oh list!_ how _Even heaven gives up his soul between you_ now, [ye _Mark how_ thousand Cupids fly To light their Tapers at the Bride's bright eye; To bed, or her they'll tire, Were she an element of fire.

19 [12].

"And to your more bewitching, see the proud Plump bed bear up, and _rising_ like a cloud, Tempting _thee, too, too_ modest; can You see it brussle like a swan And you be cold To meet it, when it woos and seems to fold The arms to hug _you_? throw, throw Yourselves into _that main, in the full_ flow Of _the_ white pride, and drown The _stars_ with you in floods of down.

20 [13].

"_You see 'tis_ ready, and the maze of love Looks for the treaders; everywhere is wove Wit and new mystery, read and Put in practice, to understand And know each wile, Each Hieroglyphic of a kiss or smile; And do it _in_ the full, reach High in your own conceipts, and _rather_ teach Nature and Art one more _Sport_ than they ever knew before.

21.

To the Maidens:]

"_And now y' have wept enough, depart; yon stars [the Begin to pink, as weary that the wars Know so long Treaties; beat the Drum Aloft, and like two armies, come And guild the field, Fight bravely for the flame of mankind, yield Not to this, or that a.s.sault, For that would prove more Heresy than fault In combatants to fly 'Fore this or that hath got the victory._

22 [15].

"But since it must be done, despatch and sew Up in a sheet your Bride, and what if so It be with _rib of Rock and_ Bra.s.s, _Yea_ tower her up, as Danae was, [ye Think you that this, Or h.e.l.l itself, a powerful Bulwark is?

I tell _you_ no; but like a [ye Bold bolt of thunder he will make his way, And rend the cloud, and throw The sheet about, like flakes of snow.

23 [16].

"All now is hushed in silence: Midwife-moon With all her Owl-ey'd issue begs a boon Which you must grant; that's entrance with Which extract, all we call pith And quintessence Of Planetary bodies; so commence, All fair constellations Looking upon _you_ that _the_ Nations Springing from to such Fires May blaze the virtue of their Sires."

--R. HERRICK.

The variants in this version are not very important; one of the most noteworthy, _round_ for _ground_, in stanza 5 [4], was overlooked by Dr.

Grosart in his collation. Of the seven stanzas subsequently omitted several are of great beauty. There are few happier images in Herrick than that of _Time throned in a saffron evening_ in stanza 11. It is only when the earlier version is read as a whole that Herrick's taste in omitting is vindicated. Each stanza is good in itself, but in the MSS. the poem drags from excessive length, and the reduction of its twenty-three stanzas to sixteen greatly improves it.

286. _Ever full of pensive fear._ Ovid, _Heroid._ i. 12: Res est solliciti plena timoris amor.

287. _Reverence to riches._ Perhaps from Tacit. _Ann._ ii. 33: Neque in familia et argento quaeque ad usum parantur nimium aliquid aut modic.u.m, nisi ex fortuna possidentis.

288. _Who forms a G.o.dhead._ From Martial, VIII. xxiv. 5:--

Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus Non facit ille deos: qui rogat, ille facit.

290. _The eyes be first that conquered are._ From Tacitus, _Germ._ 43: Primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vinc.u.n.tur.

293. _Oberon's Feast._ For a note on Herrick's Fairy Poems and on the _Description of the King and Queene of the Fayries_ (1635), in which part of this poem was first printed, see Appendix. Add. MS. 22, 603, at the British Museum, and Ashmole MS. 38, at the Bodleian, contain early versions of the poem substantially agreeing. I transcribe the Museum copy:--

"A little mushroom table spread After _the dance_, they set on bread, A _yellow corn of hecky_ wheat With some small _sandy_ grit to eat His choice bits; with _which_ in a trice They make a feast less great than nice.

But all _the_ while his eye _was_ served We _dare_ not think his ear was sterved: But that there was in place to stir His _fire_ the _pittering_ Gra.s.shopper; The merry Cricket, puling Fly, The piping Gnat for minstralcy.

_The Humming Dor, the dying Swan, And each a choice Musician._ And now we must imagine first, The Elves present to quench his thirst A pure seed-pearl of infant dew, Brought and _beswetted_ in a blue And pregnant violet; which done, His kitling eyes begin to run Quite through the table, where he spies The horns of papery b.u.t.terflies: Of which he eats, _but with_ a little _Neat cool allay_ of Cuckoo's spittle; A little Fuz-ball pudding stands By, yet not blessed by his hands-- That was too coa.r.s.e, but _he not spares To feed upon the candid hairs Of a dried canker, with a_ sagg And well _bestuffed_ Bee's sweet bag: _Stroking_ his pallet with some store Of Emme_t_ eggs. What would he more, But Beards of Mice, _an Ewt's_ stew'd thigh, _A pickled maggot and a dry Hipp, with a_ Red cap worm, that's shut Within the concave of a Nut Brown as his tooth, _and with the fat And well-boiled inchpin of a Bat.

A bloated Earwig with the Pith Of sugared rush aglads him with; But most of all the Glow-worm's fire.

As most betickling his desire To know his Queen, mixt with the far- Fetcht binding-jelly of a star.

The silk-worm's seed_, a little moth _Lately_ fattened in a piece of cloth; Withered cherries; Mandrake's ears; Mole's eyes; to these the slain stag's tears; The unctuous dewlaps of a Snail; The broke heart of a Nightingale O'er-come in music; with a wine Ne'er ravished from the flattering Vine, But gently pressed from the soft side Of the most sweet and dainty Bride, Brought in a _daisy chalice_, which He fully quaffs _off_ to bewitch His blood _too high_. This done, commended Grace by his Priest, the feast is ended."

The Shapcott to whom this _Oberon's Feast_ and _Oberon's Palace_ are dedicated is Herrick's "peculiar friend, Master Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer," of a later poem. Dr. Grosart again suggests that it may have been a character-name, but, as in the case of John Merrifield, the owner was a West country-man and a member of the Inner Temple, where he was admitted in 1632 as the "son and heir of Thomas Shapcott," of Exeter.

298. _That man lives twice._ From Martial, X. xxiii. 7:--