Lucasta [71]
heav'st thy pleasant head.
Who shall a name for thee create, Deep riddle of mysterious state? Bold Nature, that gives common birth To all products of seas and earth, Of thee, as earth-quakes, is afraid, Nor will thy dire deliv'ry aid.
Thou, thine own daughter, then, and sire, That son and mother art intire, That big still with thy self dost go, And liv'st an aged embrio; That like the cubbs of India, Thou from thy self a while dost play; But frighted with a dog or gun, In thine own belly thou dost run, And as thy house was thine own womb, So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.
But now I must (analys'd king) Thy oeconomick virtues sing; Thou great stay'd husband still within, Thou thee that's thine dost discipline; And when thou art to progress bent, Thou mov'st thy self and tenement, As warlike Scythians travayl'd, you Remove your men and city too; Then, after a sad dearth and rain, Thou scatterest thy silver train; And when the trees grow nak'd and old, Thou cloathest them with cloth of gold, Which from thy bowels thou dost spin, And draw from the rich mines within.
Now hast thou chang'd thee, saint, and made Thy self a fane that's cupula'd; And in thy wreathed cloister thou Walkest thine own gray fryer too; Strickt and lock'd up, th'art hood all ore, And ne'r eliminat'st thy dore. On sallads thou dost feed severe, And 'stead of beads thou drop'st a tear, And when to rest each calls the bell, Thou sleep'st within thy marble cell, Where, in dark contemplation plac'd, The sweets of Nature thou dost tast, Who now with time thy days resolve, And in a jelly thee dissolve, Like a shot star, which doth repair Upward, and rarifie the air.
<83.1> Anticipating, forerunning.
<83.2> It can scarcely be requisite to mention that Lovelace refers to the gradual evanescence of the moon before the growing daylight. It is well known that the lunar orb is, at certain times, visible sometime even after sunrise.
ANOTHER.
The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe; Those have been sung, and lowdly too: Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write, Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite. Behold! this huddle doth appear Of horses, coach and charioteer, That moveth him by traverse law, And doth himself both drive and draw; Then, when the Sunn the south doth winne, He baits him hot in his own inne. I heard a grave and austere clark Resolv'd him pilot both and barque; That, like the fam'd ship of TREVERE, Did on the shore himself lavere: Yet the authentick do beleeve, Who keep their judgement in their sleeve, That he is his own double man, And sick still carries his sedan: Or that like dames i'th land of Luyck, He wears his everlasting huyck.<84.1> But banisht, I admire his fate, Since neither ostracisme of state, Nor a perpetual exile, Can force this virtue, change his soyl: For, wheresoever he doth go, He wanders with his country too.
<84.1> i.q. HUKE. "Huke," says Minshen, "is a mantle such as women use in Spaine, Germanie, and the Low Countries, when they goe abroad." Lovelace clearly adopts the word for the sake of the metre; otherwise he might have chosen a better one.
THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILAMORE AND AMORET.
TO THE NOBLEST OF OUR YOUTH AND BEST OF FRIENDS, CHARLES COTTON, Esquire.<85.l>
BEING AT BERISFORD, AT HIS HOUSE IN STAFFORDSHIRE. FROM LONDON.
A POEM.
Sir, your sad absence I complain, as earth Her long-hid spring, that gave her verdures birth, Who now her cheerful aromatick head Shrinks in her cold and dismal widow'd bed; Whilst the false sun her lover doth him move Below, and to th' antipodes make love.
What fate was mine, when in mine obscure cave (Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave) Your beams could reach me through this vault of night, And canton the dark dungeon with light! Whence me (as gen'rous Spahys) you unbound, Whilst I now know my self both free and crown'd.
But as at Meccha's tombe, the devout blind Pilgrim (great husband of his sight and mind) Pays to no other object this chast prise, Then with hot earth anoynts out
Who shall a name for thee create, Deep riddle of mysterious state? Bold Nature, that gives common birth To all products of seas and earth, Of thee, as earth-quakes, is afraid, Nor will thy dire deliv'ry aid.
Thou, thine own daughter, then, and sire, That son and mother art intire, That big still with thy self dost go, And liv'st an aged embrio; That like the cubbs of India, Thou from thy self a while dost play; But frighted with a dog or gun, In thine own belly thou dost run, And as thy house was thine own womb, So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.
But now I must (analys'd king) Thy oeconomick virtues sing; Thou great stay'd husband still within, Thou thee that's thine dost discipline; And when thou art to progress bent, Thou mov'st thy self and tenement, As warlike Scythians travayl'd, you Remove your men and city too; Then, after a sad dearth and rain, Thou scatterest thy silver train; And when the trees grow nak'd and old, Thou cloathest them with cloth of gold, Which from thy bowels thou dost spin, And draw from the rich mines within.
Now hast thou chang'd thee, saint, and made Thy self a fane that's cupula'd; And in thy wreathed cloister thou Walkest thine own gray fryer too; Strickt and lock'd up, th'art hood all ore, And ne'r eliminat'st thy dore. On sallads thou dost feed severe, And 'stead of beads thou drop'st a tear, And when to rest each calls the bell, Thou sleep'st within thy marble cell, Where, in dark contemplation plac'd, The sweets of Nature thou dost tast, Who now with time thy days resolve, And in a jelly thee dissolve, Like a shot star, which doth repair Upward, and rarifie the air.
<83.1> Anticipating, forerunning.
<83.2> It can scarcely be requisite to mention that Lovelace refers to the gradual evanescence of the moon before the growing daylight. It is well known that the lunar orb is, at certain times, visible sometime even after sunrise.
ANOTHER.
The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe; Those have been sung, and lowdly too: Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write, Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite. Behold! this huddle doth appear Of horses, coach and charioteer, That moveth him by traverse law, And doth himself both drive and draw; Then, when the Sunn the south doth winne, He baits him hot in his own inne. I heard a grave and austere clark Resolv'd him pilot both and barque; That, like the fam'd ship of TREVERE, Did on the shore himself lavere: Yet the authentick do beleeve, Who keep their judgement in their sleeve, That he is his own double man, And sick still carries his sedan: Or that like dames i'th land of Luyck, He wears his everlasting huyck.<84.1> But banisht, I admire his fate, Since neither ostracisme of state, Nor a perpetual exile, Can force this virtue, change his soyl: For, wheresoever he doth go, He wanders with his country too.
<84.1> i.q. HUKE. "Huke," says Minshen, "is a mantle such as women use in Spaine, Germanie, and the Low Countries, when they goe abroad." Lovelace clearly adopts the word for the sake of the metre; otherwise he might have chosen a better one.
THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILAMORE AND AMORET.
TO THE NOBLEST OF OUR YOUTH AND BEST OF FRIENDS, CHARLES COTTON, Esquire.<85.l>
BEING AT BERISFORD, AT HIS HOUSE IN STAFFORDSHIRE. FROM LONDON.
A POEM.
Sir, your sad absence I complain, as earth Her long-hid spring, that gave her verdures birth, Who now her cheerful aromatick head Shrinks in her cold and dismal widow'd bed; Whilst the false sun her lover doth him move Below, and to th' antipodes make love.
What fate was mine, when in mine obscure cave (Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave) Your beams could reach me through this vault of night, And canton the dark dungeon with light! Whence me (as gen'rous Spahys) you unbound, Whilst I now know my self both free and crown'd.
But as at Meccha's tombe, the devout blind Pilgrim (great husband of his sight and mind) Pays to no other object this chast prise, Then with hot earth anoynts out