J^ Metaphysical LYRICS & POEMS OF The Seventeenth Century Metaphysical LYRICS & POEMS O F The Seventeenth Century T> :J^^6 to B U r L 8 \ Selected and edited^ with an Essay By HERBERT J. C GRIERSON OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS ^ G21636 ^\ Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI CAPETOWN IBADAN Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University PR 1209 FIRST PUBLISHED 192I REPRINTED 1925, 1928, 1936, 1942, 1947. 1950, 1952 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN V CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION xiii LOVE POEMS. JOHN DONNE The good-morrow .... Song : Goe, and catche a falling staac . t^ The Sunne Rising .... Lovers inilni^enesse . Song : Sweetest love, I do not goe Aire and Angels .... The Anniversarie .... Twicknam garden .... The Dreame ..... A Valediction : of weeping The Message ..... A nocturnal] upon S. Lucies day . A Valediction : forbidding mourning The Extasie The Funerall The Blossome . The Relique Th.e Proliibition . The Expiration . JOHN HOSKINS Absence ..... ^3 SIR HENRY WOTTON On his Mistris, the Queen of Bohemia 24 AURELIAN TOWNSHEND Loves Victory .... »5 Upon kinde and true Love . S.5 vi Contmts. X' LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY page Elegy over a Tomb . .27 An Ode upon a Question moved, whether Love should continue for ever ? . .28 /( THOMAS CAREW Mediocrity in love rejected 35 To my inconstant Mistris . 54 A deposition from love 54 Ingratefull beauty threatned 55 Eternity of Love protested 56 To a Lady that desired I would love her 57 A Song : Ask me no more where Jove bestowes 58 WILLIAM HABINGTON To Roses in the bosome of Castara . .39 SIR JOHN SUCKLING I Sonnet : Of thee (kind boy) ask no red and white 40 Sonnet: Oh ! for some honest Lovers ghost . 41 OMy dearest Rival, least our Love . .42 : Out I have lov'd Song upon it, .... 43 SIR FRANCIS KYNASTON liO Cynthia. On concealment of her beauty . 44 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN . Song : Noe more unto my thoughts appeare 4J it is not disdaine . Song : Cloris, thy .46 JOHN CLEVELAND Upon Phillis walking in a morning before Sun-rising 47 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT leaves his Nest . Song : The Lark now watry 49 Song: Before we shall again behold ... 49 RICHARD CRASHAW C) Loves Horoscope . .51 I' Wishes. To his (supposed) Mistresse . 53 Contents. Vll RICHARD LOVELACE PAGE )c To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas 57 To Lucasta, Going to the Warres Grat'tana dauncing and singing 5y The Scrutinie .... 60 6\ To Althea, From Prison HENRY VAUGHAN To Amoret "one from him . JOHN HALL The Call An Epicurean Ode THOMAS STANLEY The Repulse ^r 66 To Celia pleading want of Merit La Belle Confidente . 67 The Divorce The Exequies . M HENRY KING Y is Sonnet : Tell me no more how fair she 70 ABRAHAM COWLEY The Spring The Change 7: / VANDREW MARVELL To his Coy Mistress . 73 The Gallery 75 The Fair Singer 77 TheX lie DefinitionJLytilUlLlUli ofUi LoveJ_yV-fv»_ • • • • • 77/ / The Picture of little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers 79 KATHERINE PHILIPS To my Excellent Lucasla, on our Friendship 8./ To my Lucasia, in defence of declared Friendship 81 viu Contents. DIVINE POEMS. JOHN DONNE page Holy Sonnets . 8j Thou hast made me, And shall thy worke decay ? 85 last 86 ^^his is my playes scene, here heavens appoint At the round earths imagin'd corners, blow . %6 Death be not proud, though some have called thee 87 What if this present were the worlds last night? . 87 . 88 Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you Show me deare Christ, thy spouse, so bright and clear . • . .88 Goodfriday, 161 3. Riding Westward . 89 A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany ....... 90 Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse . 91 . A Hymn to God the Father . .93 SIR HENRY WOTTON A Hymn to my God in a night of my late Sicknesse 95 IGNOTO A Dialogue betwixt God and the Soul . 94 JOHN MILTON On the Morning of Christs Nativity . '95 GEORGE HERBERT Redemption . • .105 Easter wings . • • .104 Affliction 105 Jordan . • • .107 The Church-floore 108 The Windows 108 Vertue 109 Life .110 Jesu • • .III The Collar 1 1 1 Contents. IX GEORGE HERBERT Page Aaron ...... I iz Discipline ..... 113 Love ...... FRANCIS QUARLES Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? . 115 Ev'n like two little bank-dividing brookes 117 WILLIAM HABINGTON Nox iiocii indlcat Scientiam 119 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN Lord when the wise men came from farr 121 RICHARD CRASHAW To the Countesse of Denbigh Hymn of the Nativity 124 Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament Saint Alary Alagdakne, or The Weeper Hymn to Saint Teresa . HENRY VAUGHAN Regeneration The Retreate And do they so ? have they a Sense Man Ascension-Hymn As time one day by me did pass The dwelling-place The Night The Water-fail Quickness JOHN HALL A Pastorall Hymnc . EDWARD SHERBURNE The proud JEgyptian Queen, her Roman Guest SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT The Christians reply to the Phylosopher Contents. ANDREW MARVELL page A Dialogue between The Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure . .1^9 The Coronet . .162 the A Dialogue between Soul and Body . .1^^ MISCELLANIES. Elegies, Epistles, Satires, and Meditations. JOHN DONNE Elegie. His Picture . , . i6j Elegie. On his Mistris ..... \66 Satyre . .168 To Sir H. W. at his going Ambassador to Venice 171 of . • 1 To the Countesse Bedford . 7 3 IGNOTO Farewel ye guilded follies, pleasing troubles . 175 / THOMAS CAREW An Elegie upon the death of the Deane of Pauls, D"^. John Donne . .177 friend . To my worthy M"^. George Sandys . rSo Maria JVentivorth, Thorns Comitis Cleveland filia prasmortua prima . ., . .181 ^JOHN MILTON On Shahespear. 1630 . .i8i > JOHN CLEVELAND on Ben. Jonson . An Elegy .. .183 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT To the Queen, entertain'd at night by the Countess oi Anglesey . .184 the Oltvia Porter a Present a A'Vrf- For Lady ; upon years Day . , , . , .184 Contents. XI RICHARD LOVELACE PAGE The Grasse-hopper 185 ABRAHAM COWLEY Ode. Of Wit . 187 Against Hope . 190 RICHARD CRASHAW Answer for Hope 191 ABRAHAM COWLEY On the Death of Mr. Crashaiv Destinie .... Hymn. To Light 197 JOHN HALL On an Houre-glasse . 201 HENRY KING The Exequy 203 A Contemplation upon flowers 207 ANDREW MARVELL On a Drop of Dew 208 The Garden 209 SAMUEL BUTLER The Metaphysical Sectarian 21 2 NOTES 217 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 241 INTRODUCTION. I ,'Metaphysical Poetry, in the full sense of the term, is a poetry which, like that of the Divina Commedia, the De Natura has Rerum, perhaps Goethe's Faust, been inspired by ji ..philo- sophical conception of the universe and the r6le assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. These poems / were written because a definite interpretation of the riddle, the atoms of Epicurus rushing through infinite empty space, the theology of the schoolmen as elaborated in the catechetical vision life disquisitions of St. Thomas, Spinoza's of sub specie aeternltat'ts, beyond good and evil, laid hold on the mind and the imagination of a great poet, unified and illumined his comprehen- sion of life, intensified and heightened his personal consciousness of joy and sorrow, of hope and fear, by broadening their signifi- cance, revealing to him in the history of his own soul a brief abstract of the drama of human destiny. 'Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge— it is as immortal as the heart of man.' Its themes are the simplest experiences of the surface pXlife, sorrow and joy, love and battle, the peace of the country, tlie bustle and stir of towns, but equally the boldest conceptions, the pro- foundest intuitions, the subtlest and most complex classifications and 'discourse of reason', if into these too the poet can 'carry sensation make of them communicable in ', passionate_experiences vivid and moving imagery, in rich_and varied harmonies. It is no such great metaphysical poetry as that of Lucretius and Dante that the present essay deals with, which this xiv Introduction. volume seeks to illustrate. Of the poets from whom it culls, Donne is familiar with the definitions and distinctions of Mediaeval Scholasticism and ; Cowley's bright alert, if not pro- found mind, is attracted by the achievements of science and the systematic materialism of Hobbes. /Donne, moreover is not in virtue of metaphysical only his scholasticism, but by his of which deej)j:eflectire_jnteisstjnjhe^experiences his_ j)oetry is the the new expression, psychological curiosity with which he writes of and Jove religion. The divine poets who follow Donne have each the inherited if one so call metaphysic, may it, of the Church to whfch he is attached, Catholic or Anglican. But none of the Ifes for his main poets theme 3 hietaphysic like that of or Epicurus St. Thomas passionately apprehended and imaginatively expounded. (Donne, the most thoughtful and of them is imaginative all, more aware of disintegration than of clash between the comprehensive harmony, of)the older physics and metaphysics on the one hand and the new science of and Galileo and Vesalius and Copernicus Bacon on the other : The new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is out quite put ; The sun is lost and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And men confess that this freely world's spent, When in the planets and the firmament seek so new see They many ; they that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. Have not all souls thought For many ages that our body is wrought Of air and fire and other elements ? And now think of new they ingredients ; And one soul thinks one, and another way Another and 'tis thinks, an even lay.