Part 7

But if no faithless action stain Thy love and constant word, I’ll make thee famous by my pen, 35 And glorious by my sword. I’ll serve thee in such noble ways As ne’er was known before; I’ll deck and crown thy head with bays, And love thee more and more. 40 _Marquis of Montrose._

XCVII

_TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON._

When Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, 5 And fettered to her eye, The birds, that wanton in the air, Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, 10 Our careless heads with roses crowned, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes, that tipple in the deep, 15 Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty And glories of my King; 20 When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood, Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make, 25 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, 30 Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty. _Richard Lovelace._

XCVIII

_TO LUCASTA, ON GOING BEYOND THE SEAS._

If to be absent were to be Away from thee; Or that when I am gone You or I were alone; Then, my Lucasta, might I crave 5 Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.

Though seas and land betwixt us both, Our faith and troth, Like separated souls, All time and space controls: 10 Above the highest sphere we meet Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.

So then we do anticipate Our after-fate, And are alive i’ the skies, 15 If thus our lips and eyes Can speak like spirits unconfined In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind. _Richard Lovelace._

XCIX

_A CAVALIER WAR-SONG._

A steed, a steed, of matchless speed, A sword of metal keen; All else to noble hearts is dross, All else on earth is mean. The neighing of the war-horse proud, 5 The rolling of the drum, The clangour of the trumpet loud, Be sounds from heaven that come. And oh! the thundering press of knights, Whenas their war-cries swell, 10 May toll from heaven an angel bright, And rouse a fiend from hell.

Then mount, then mount, brave gallants all, And don your helms amain; Death’s couriers, Fame and Honour, call 15 Us to the field again. No shrewish tears shall fill our eye, When the sword-hilt’s in our hand; Heart-whole we’ll part, and no whit sigh For the fairest in the land. 20 Let piping swain and craven wight Thus weep and puling cry; Our business is like men to fight, And, like to heroes, die! _Anon._

C

_THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD._

Preserve thy sighs, unthrifty girl, To purify the air; Thy tears to thread, instead of pearl, On bracelets of thy hair.

The trumpet makes the echo hoarse, 5 And wakes the louder drum; Expense of grief gains no remorse, When sorrow should be dumb:

For I must go, where lazy peace Will hide her drowsy head; 10 And, for the sport of kings, increase The number of the dead.

But first I’ll chide thy cruel theft; Can I in war delight, Who, being of my heart bereft, Can have no heart to fight? 15

Thou know’st the sacred laws of old Ordained a thief should pay, To quit him of his theft, sevenfold What he had stol’n away.

Thy payment shall but double be; 20 Oh then with speed resign My own seducèd heart to me, Accompanied with thine. _Sir William Davenant._

CI

_LOYALTY CONFINED._

Beat on, proud billows; Boreas, blow; Swell, curlèd waves, high as Jove’s roof; Your incivility doth show That innocence is tempest-proof: Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; 5 Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a jail, A private closet is to me, Whilst a good conscience is my bail, And innocence my liberty: 10 Locks, bars, and solitude together met, Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

I, whilst I wished to be retired, Into this private room was turned; As if their wisdom had conspired 15 The salamander should be burned; Or like a sophy that would drown a fish, I am constrained to suffer what I wish.

The cynic loves his poverty; The pelican her wilderness; 20 And ’tis the Indian’s pride to be Naked on frozen Caucasus: Contentment cannot smart; stoics we see Make torments easy to their apathy.

These manacles upon my arm 25 I, as my mistress’ favours, wear; And for to keep my ancles warm, I have some iron shackles there: These walls are but my garrison; this cell, Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel. 30

I’m in the cabinet locked up, Like some high-prizèd margarite, Or like the great mogul or pope, Am cloistered up from public sight: Retiredness is a piece of majesty, 35 And thus, proud sultan, I’m as great as thee.

Here sin for want of food must starve, Where tempting objects are not seen; And these strong walls do only serve To keep vice out, and keep me in: 40 Malice of late’s grown charitable, sure, I’m not committed, but am kept secure.

So he that struck at Jason’s life, Thinking to’ have made his purpose sure, By a malicious friendly knife 45 Did only wound him to a cure: Malice, I see, wants wit; for what is meant Mischief, ofttimes proves favour by the event.

When once my Prince affliction hath, Prosperity doth treason seem; 50 And for to smooth so rough a path, I can learn patience from him: Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart, When kings want ease, subjects must bear a part.

What though I cannot see my King, 55 Neither in person nor in coin; Yet contemplation is a thing That renders what I have not, mine: My King from me what adamant can part, Whom I do wear engraven on my heart? 60

Have you not seen the nightingale, A pilgrim, coopt into a cage, How doth she chaunt her wonted tale In that her narrow hermitage? Even there her charming melody doth prove 65 That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.

I am that bird, whom they combine Thus to deprive of liberty; But though they do my corps confine, Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free: 70 And though immured, yet can I chirp and sing Disgrace to rebels, glory to my King.

My soul is free as ambient air, Although my baser part’s immewed, Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair 75 To’ accompany my solitude: Although rebellion do my body bind, My King alone can captivate my mind. _Anon._

CII

_A ROYAL LAMENTATION._

Great Monarch of the world, from whose power springs The potency and power of [earthly] kings, Record the royal woe my suffering sings.

Nature and law by thy divine decree, (The only root of righteous royalty,) 5 With this dim diadem invested me:

With it the sacred sceptre, purple robe, The holy unction, and the royal globe; Yet am I levelled with the life of Job.

The fiercest furies, that do daily tread 10 Upon my grief, my grey discrownèd head, Are they that owe my bounty for their bread.

With my own power my majesty they wound, In the King’s name the King’s himself uncrowned; So doth the dust destroy the diamond. 15

They promise to erect my royal stem, To make me great, to’ advance my diadem, If I will first fall down, and worship them.

My life they prize at such a slender rate, That in my absence they draw bills of hate, 20 To prove the King a traitor to the State.

Felons obtain more privilege than I; They are allowed to answer ere they die: ’Tis death for me to ask the reason why.

But, sacred Saviour, with thy words I woo 25 Thee to forgive, and not be bitter to Such as Thou know’st do not know what they do.

Augment my patience, nullify my hate, Preserve my issue, and inspire my mate; Yet, though we perish, bless this Church and State. 30 _King Charles the First._

CIII

_HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND._

The forward youth that would appear, Must now forsake his Muses dear, Nor in the shadows sing His numbers languishing.

’Tis time to leave the books in dust, 5 And oil the unused armour’s rust, Removing from the wall The corslet of the hall.

So restless Cromwell could not cease In the inglorious arts of peace, 10 But through adventurous war Urgèd his active star:

And like the three-forked lightning first, Breaking the clouds where it was nurst, Did thorough his own side 15 His fiery way divide:

For ’tis all one to courage high The emulous, or enemy; And with such, to enclose Is more than to oppose. 20

Then burning through the air he went, And palaces and temples rent; And Cæsar’s head at last Did through his laurels blast.

’Tis madness to resist or blame 25 The face of angry heaven’s flame; And if we would speak true, Much to the Man is due,

Who, from his private gardens, where He lived reservèd and austere 30 (As if his highest plot To plant the bergamot,)

Could by industrious valour climb To ruin the great work of time, And cast the Kingdoms old 35 Into another mould.

Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the ancient Rights in vain-- But those do hold or break As men are strong or weak. 40

Nature, that hateth emptiness, Allows of penetration less, And therefore must make room, Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the Civil War 45 Where his were not the deepest scar? And Hampton shows what part He had of wiser art,

Where, twining subtle fears with hope, He wove a net of such a scope 50 That Charles himself might chase To Carsbrook’s narrow case;

That thence the royal actor borne The tragic scaffold might adorn: While round the armèd bands 55 Did clap their bloody hands;

He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe’s edge did try; 60

Nor called the Gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right; But bowed his comely head Down, as upon a bed.

--This was that memorable hour 65 Which first assured the forcèd power: So when they did design The Capitol’s first line,

A Bleeding Head, where they begun, Did fright the architects to run; 70 And yet in that the State Foresaw its happy fate!

And now the Irish are ashamed To see themselves in one year tamed: So much one man can do 75 That does both act and know.

They can affirm his praises best, And have, though overcome, confessed How good he is, how just And fit for highest trust; 80

Nor yet grown stiffer with command, But still in the Republic’s hand-- How fit he is to sway That can so well obey!

He to the Commons’ feet presents 85 A Kingdom for his first year’s rents, And (what he may) forbears His fame, to make it theirs:

And has his sword and spoils ungirt To lay them at the Public’s skirt. 90 So when the falcon high Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having killed, no more does search But on the next green bough to perch, Where, when he first does lure, 95 The falconer has her sure.

--What may not then our Isle presume, While victory his crest does plume? What may not others fear, If thus he crowns each year! 100

As Cæsar he, ere long, to Gaul, To Italy an Hannibal, And to all states not free Shall climacteric be.

The Pict no shelter now shall find 105 Within his parti-coloured mind, But from this valour, sad Shrink underneath the plaid--

Happy, if in the tufted brake The English hunter him mistake, 110 Nor lay his hounds in near The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the War’s and Fortune’s son, March indefatigably on; And for the last effect 115 Still kept the sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright The spirits of the shady night, The same arts that did gain A power, must it maintain. 120 _Andrew Marvell._

CIV

_ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT._

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans 5 Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 10 O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. _John Milton._

CV

_HYMN TO LIGHT._

First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old Negro’s darksome womb! Which, when it saw the lovely child, The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled:

Thou tide of glory which no rest dost know, 5 But ever ebb and ever flow! Thou golden shower of a true Jove! Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make love!

Say, from what golden quivers of the sky Do all thy wingèd arrows fly? 10 Swiftness and power by birth are thine; From thy great sire they came, thy sire, the Word Divine.

’Tis, I believe, this archery to show, That so much cost in colours thou And skill in painting dost bestow 15 Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow.

Swift as light thoughts their empty carriere run, Thy race is finished when begun; Let a post-angel start with thee, And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he. 20

Thou in the moon’s bright chariot proud and gay Dost thy bright wood of stars survey; And all the year dost with thee bring Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.

Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands, above 25 The sun’s gilt tent, for ever move; And still as thou in pomp dost go, The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn The humble glowworms to adorn, 30 And with those living spangles gild (O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field.

Night and her ugly subjects dost thou fright, And sleep, the lazy owl of night; Ashamed and fearful to appear, 35 They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes the alarm, Of painted dreams a busy swarm; At the first opening of thine eye The various clusters break, the antic atoms fly. 40

When, Goddess, thou lift’st up thy wakened head Out of the Morning’s purple bed, Thy choir of birds about thee play, And all thy joyful world salutes the rising day.

All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes, 45 Is but thy several liveries; Thou the rich dye on them bestowest, Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou goest.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear’st; A crown of studded gold thou bear’st; 50 The virgin lilies, in their white, Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, spring’s little infant, stands Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands; On the fair tulip thou dost dote, 55 Thou cloth’st it in a gay and parti-coloured coat.

With flame condensed thou dost thy jewels fix, And solid colours in it mix: Flora herself envies to see Flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she. 60

Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea, Which open all their pores to thee, Like a clear river thou dost glide, And with thy living stream through the close channels slide.

But where firm bodies thy free course oppose, 65 Gently thy source the land o’erflows; Takes there possession, and does make, Of colours’ mingled light, a thick and standing lake:

But the vast ocean of unbounded day In the empyrean heaven does stay; 70 Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow. _Abraham Cowley._

CVI

_TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY._

Philosophy! the great and only heir Of all that human knowledge which has been Unforfeited by man’s rebellious sin, Though full of years he do appear, (Philosophy! I say, and call it He, 5 For whatsoe’er the painter’s fancy be, It a male virtue seems to me) Has still been kept in nonage till of late, Nor managed or enjoyed his vast estate. Three or four thousand years, one would have thought, 10 To ripeness and perfection might have brought A science so well bred and nursed, And of such hopeful parts, too, at the first; But oh! the guardians and the tutors then, (Some negligent, some ambitious men) 15 Would ne’er consent to set him free, Or his own natural powers to let him see, Lest that should put an end to their authority.

That his own business he might quite forget, They’ amused him with the sports of wanton wit; 20 With the deserts of poetry they fed him, Instead of solid meats to’ increase his force; Instead of vigorous exercise they led him Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse: Instead of carrying him to see 25 The riches which do hoarded for him lie In Nature’s endless treasury, They chose his eye to entertain (His curious, but not covetous, eye) With painted scenes and pageants of the brain. 30 Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown, That laboured to assert the liberty (From guardians who were now usurpers grown) Of this old minor still, captived Philosophy; But ’twas rebellion called, to fight 35 For such a long-oppressèd right. Bacon, at last, a mighty man! arose, Whom a wise King and Nature chose Lord Chancellor of both their laws, And boldly undertook the injured pupil’s cause. 40

Authority, which did a body boast, Though ’twas but air condensed, and stalked about Like some old giant’s more gigantic ghost, To terrify the learnèd rout, With the plain magic of true reason’s light 45 He chased out of our sight, Nor suffered living men to be misled By the vain shadows of the dead: To graves, from whence it rose, the conquered phantom fled. He broke that monstrous god which stood, 50 In midst of the orchard, and the whole did claim, Which with a useless scythe of wood, And something else not worth a name, (Ridiculous and senseless terrors!) made Children and superstitious men afraid. 55 The orchard’s open now, and free: Bacon has broke that scarecrow deity: Come, enter all that will, Behold the ripened fruit, come, gather now your fill! Yet still, methinks, we fain would be 60 Catching at the forbidden tree; We would be like the Deity; When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we Without the senses’ aid within ourselves would see; For ’tis God only who can find 65 All nature in his mind.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought (Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew,) To things, the mind’s right object, he it brought; Like foolish birds to painted grapes we flew. 70 He sought and gathered for our use the true; And when on heaps the chosen bunches lay, He pressed them wisely the mechanic way, Till all their juice did in one vessel join, Ferment into a nourishment divine, 75 The thirsty soul’s refreshing wine. Who to the life an exact piece would make, Must not from others’ work a copy take; No, not from Rubens or Vandyck; Much less content himself to make it like 80 The ideas and the images which lie In his own fancy or his memory: No, he before his sight must place The natural and the living face; The real object must command 85 Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.

From these, and all long errors of the way, In which our wandering predecessors went, And, like the old Hebrews, many years did stray In deserts, but of small extent, 90 Bacon! like Moses, led us forth at last; The barren wilderness he passed, Did on the very border stand Of the blessed Promised Land, And from the mountain’s top of his exalted wit, 95 Saw it himself, and showed us it. But life did never to one man allow Time to discover worlds, and conquer too; Nor can so short a line sufficient be To fathom the vast deeps of Nature’s sea: 100 The work he did we ought to admire, And were unjust if we should more require From his few years, divided ’twixt the excess Of low affliction and high happiness: For who on things remote can fix his sight, 105 That’s always in a triumph or a fight?

From you, great champions! we expect to get These spacious countries but discovered yet; Countries where yet, instead of Nature, we Her images and idols worshipped see: 110 These large and wealthy regions to subdue, Though Learning has whole armies at command, Quartered about in every land, A better troop she ne’er together drew. Methinks, like Gideon’s little band, 115 God with design has picked out you, To do these noble wonders by a few. When the whole host He saw, they are, said He, Too many to o’ercome for Me: And now He chooses out his men, 120 Much in the way that He did then: Not those many, whom He found Idly extended on the ground, To drink, with their dejected head, The stream, just so as by their mouths it fled: 125 No; but those few who took the waters up, And made of their laborious hands the cup.

Thus you prepared, and in the glorious fight Their wondrous pattern too you take: Their old and empty pitchers first they brake, 130 And with their hands then lifted up the light. Iö! sound too the trumpets here! Already your victorious lights appear; New scenes of heaven already we espy, And crowds of golden worlds on high, 135 Which from the spacious plains of earth and sea Could never yet discovered be By sailor’s or Chaldean’s watchful eye. Nature’s great works no distance can obscure, No smallness her near objects can secure: 140 You’ have taught the curious sight to press Into the privatest recess Of her imperceptible littleness: You’ have learned to read her smallest hand, And well begun her deepest sense to understand. 145

Mischief and true dishonour fall on those Who would to laughter or to scorn expose So virtuous and so noble a design, So human for its use, for knowledge so divine. The things which these proud men despise, and call 150 Impertinent, and vain, and small, Those smallest things of nature let me know, Rather than all their greatest actions do. Whoever would deposèd truth advance Into the throne usurped from it, 155 Must feel at first the blows of ignorance, And the sharp points of envious wit. So when, by various turns of the celestial dance, In many thousand years A star, so long unknown, appears, 160 Though heaven itself more beauteous by it grow, It troubles and alarms the world below, Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show.