Lucasta [65]
Of verse to you; It is just Heaven on beauty stamps a fame, And we, alas! its triumphs but proclaim.
II. What chains but are too light for me, should I Say that Lucasta in strange arms could lie? Or that Castara<73.2> were impure; Or Saccarisa's<73.3> faith unsure? That Chloris' love, as hair, Embrac'd each en'mies air; That all their good Ran in their blood? 'Tis the same wrong th' unworthy to inthrone, As from her proper sphere t' have vertue thrown.
III. That strange force on the ignoble hath renown; As AURUM FULMINANS, it blows vice down. 'Twere better (heavy one) to crawl Forgot, then raised, trod on [to] fall. All your defections now Are not writ on your brow; Odes to faults give A shame must live. When a fat mist we view, we coughing run; But, that once meteor drawn, all cry: undone.
IV. How bright the fair Paulina<73.4> did appear, When hid in jewels she did seem a star! But who could soberly behold A wicked owl in cloath of gold, Or the ridiculous Ape In sacred Vesta's shape? So doth agree Just praise with thee: For since thy birth gave thee no beauty, know, No poets pencil must or can do so.
<73.1> The constellation so called. In old drawings Cassiopeia is represented as a woman sitting in a chair with a branch in her hand, and hence the allusion here. Dixon, in his CANIDIA, 1683, part i. p. 35, makes his witches say:--
"We put on Berenice's hair, And sit in Cassiopeia's chair."
Randolph couples it with "Ariadne's Crowne" in the following passage:--
"Shine forth a constellation, full and bright, Bless the poor heavens with more majestick light, Who in requitall shall present you there ARIADNE'S CROWNE and CASSIOPEIA'S CHAYR." POEMS, ed. 1640, p. 14.
<73.2> William Habington published his poems under the name of CASTARA, a fictitious appellation signifying the daughter of Lord Powis. This lady was eventually his wife. The first edition of CASTARA appeared in 1634, the second in 1635, and the third in 1640.
<73.3> Waller's SACHARISSA, i.e. Lady Dorothy Sydney.
<73.4> Lollia Paulina, who first married Memmius Regulus, and subsequently the Emperor Caligula, from both of whom she was divorced. She inherited from her father enormous wealth.
THE DUELL.
I. Love drunk, the other day, knockt at my brest, But I, alas! was not within. My man, my ear, told me he came t' attest, That without cause h'd boxed him, And battered the windows of mine eyes, And took my heart for one of's nunneries.
II. I wondred at the outrage safe return'd, And stormed at the base affront; And by a friend of mine, bold faith, that burn'd, I called him to a strict accompt. He said that, by the law, the challeng'd might Take the advantage both of arms and fight.
III. Two darts of equal length and points he sent, And nobly gave the choyce to me, Which I not weigh'd, young and indifferent, Now full of nought but victorie. So we both met in one of's mother's groves, The time, at the first murm'ring of her doves.
IV. I stript myself naked all o're, as he: For so I was best arm'd, when bare. His first pass did my liver rase: yet I Made home a falsify<74.1> too neer: For when my arm to its true distance came, I nothing touch'd but a fantastick flame.
V. This, this is love we daily quarrel so, An idle Don-Quichoterie: We whip our selves with our own twisted wo, And wound the ayre for a fly. The only way t' undo this enemy Is to laugh at the boy, and he will cry.
<74.1> "To falsify a thrust," says Phillips (WORLD OF WORDS, ed. 1706, art. FALSIFY), "is to make a feigned pass." Lovelace here employs the word as a substantive rather awkwardly; but the meaning is, no doubt, the same.
II. What chains but are too light for me, should I Say that Lucasta in strange arms could lie? Or that Castara<73.2> were impure; Or Saccarisa's<73.3> faith unsure? That Chloris' love, as hair, Embrac'd each en'mies air; That all their good Ran in their blood? 'Tis the same wrong th' unworthy to inthrone, As from her proper sphere t' have vertue thrown.
III. That strange force on the ignoble hath renown; As AURUM FULMINANS, it blows vice down. 'Twere better (heavy one) to crawl Forgot, then raised, trod on [to] fall. All your defections now Are not writ on your brow; Odes to faults give A shame must live. When a fat mist we view, we coughing run; But, that once meteor drawn, all cry: undone.
IV. How bright the fair Paulina<73.4> did appear, When hid in jewels she did seem a star! But who could soberly behold A wicked owl in cloath of gold, Or the ridiculous Ape In sacred Vesta's shape? So doth agree Just praise with thee: For since thy birth gave thee no beauty, know, No poets pencil must or can do so.
<73.1> The constellation so called. In old drawings Cassiopeia is represented as a woman sitting in a chair with a branch in her hand, and hence the allusion here. Dixon, in his CANIDIA, 1683, part i. p. 35, makes his witches say:--
"We put on Berenice's hair, And sit in Cassiopeia's chair."
Randolph couples it with "Ariadne's Crowne" in the following passage:--
"Shine forth a constellation, full and bright, Bless the poor heavens with more majestick light, Who in requitall shall present you there ARIADNE'S CROWNE and CASSIOPEIA'S CHAYR." POEMS, ed. 1640, p. 14.
<73.2> William Habington published his poems under the name of CASTARA, a fictitious appellation signifying the daughter of Lord Powis. This lady was eventually his wife. The first edition of CASTARA appeared in 1634, the second in 1635, and the third in 1640.
<73.3> Waller's SACHARISSA, i.e. Lady Dorothy Sydney.
<73.4> Lollia Paulina, who first married Memmius Regulus, and subsequently the Emperor Caligula, from both of whom she was divorced. She inherited from her father enormous wealth.
THE DUELL.
I. Love drunk, the other day, knockt at my brest, But I, alas! was not within. My man, my ear, told me he came t' attest, That without cause h'd boxed him, And battered the windows of mine eyes, And took my heart for one of's nunneries.
II. I wondred at the outrage safe return'd, And stormed at the base affront; And by a friend of mine, bold faith, that burn'd, I called him to a strict accompt. He said that, by the law, the challeng'd might Take the advantage both of arms and fight.
III. Two darts of equal length and points he sent, And nobly gave the choyce to me, Which I not weigh'd, young and indifferent, Now full of nought but victorie. So we both met in one of's mother's groves, The time, at the first murm'ring of her doves.
IV. I stript myself naked all o're, as he: For so I was best arm'd, when bare. His first pass did my liver rase: yet I Made home a falsify<74.1> too neer: For when my arm to its true distance came, I nothing touch'd but a fantastick flame.
V. This, this is love we daily quarrel so, An idle Don-Quichoterie: We whip our selves with our own twisted wo, And wound the ayre for a fly. The only way t' undo this enemy Is to laugh at the boy, and he will cry.
<74.1> "To falsify a thrust," says Phillips (WORLD OF WORDS, ed. 1706, art. FALSIFY), "is to make a feigned pass." Lovelace here employs the word as a substantive rather awkwardly; but the meaning is, no doubt, the same.