Ben Johnson

“Still to be neat, still to be dressed”

Still to be neat, still to be dressed, 

As you were going to a feast; 

Still to be powdered, still perfumed; 

Lady, it is to be presumed, 

Though art's hid causes are not found, 

All is not sweet, all is not sound. 

Give me a look, give me a face, 

That makes simplicity a grace; 

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;

Such sweet neglect more taketh me 

                       Than all th'adulteries of art. 

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

 

My Picture Left in Scotland 

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, 

For else it could not be 

That she, 

Whom I adore so much, should so slight me 

And cast my love behind. 

I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, 

And every close did meet 

In sentence of as subtle feet, 

As hath the youngest He 

That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. 

O, but my conscious fears, 

That fly my thoughts between, 

Tell me that she hath seen 

My hundred of gray hairs, 

Told seven and forty years 

Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace 

My mountain belly and my rocky face; 

And all these through her eyes have stopp'd her ears. 

Ben Johnson (1572-1637)

 

On My First Daughter

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes the father less to rue.
At six months' end she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother's tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

William Shakespeare (1572-1631)

Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep:  the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
                                    (Macbeth, Act 2 Scene 2)

“There’s daggers in men’s smile

                Donalbain (Act 2 Scene 3)

Double, double toil and trouble:
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
(Witches, Act 4 Scene 1)

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
(Second Witch, Act 4 Scene 1)

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” 

 ‘Cavalier lyrics’ is the term applied to lyrics by Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, John Suckling, and Robert Herrick.

Ben Johnson

 On my First Son

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; 

My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. 

Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay, 

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. 

O, could I lose all father now! For why 

Will man lament the state he should envy? 

To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage, 

And if no other misery, yet age? 

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie 

Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry." 

For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, 

As what he loves may never like too much.

William Shakespeare (1572-1631)

                                                    from Midsummer Night' Dream

Is all our company here?

(Quince, Act 1 Scene 2)

Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! Thou art translated.

(Quince, Act 3 Scene 1) Midsummer Night's Dream

What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?
(Titania, Act 3 Scene 1)

To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
(Bottom, Act 3 Scene 1)

I have had a most rare vision. I had a dream, past the wit of man 

to say what dream it was… The eye of man hath not heard, 

the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, 

his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

(Bottom, Act 4 Scene 1)

Sir John Suckling

 Love Turned To Hatred

I will not love one minute more, I swear!
No, not a minute! Not a sigh or tear
Thou gett’st from me, or one kind look again,
Though thou shouldst court me to ‘t, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do
Of debts and sins; and then I’ll curse thee too.
For thy sake woman shall be now to me
Less welcome than at midnight ghosts shall be.
I’ll hate so perfectly that it shall be
Treason to love that man that loves a she.
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That’s in thy sex, because it doth lie there, –
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit,
And all for thee! What, wilt thou love me yet? 

Richard Crashaw

 

from A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa

O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet and subtle pain!
Of intolerable joys!
Of a death, in which who dies
Loves his death, and dies again,
And would for ever so be slain;
And lives and dies, and knows not why
To live, but that he still may die!
How kindly will thy gentle heart
Kiss the sweetly-killing dart!
And close in his embraces keep
Those delicious wounds, that weep
Balsam, to heal themselves with thus,
When these thy deaths, so numerous,
Shall all at once die into one,
And melt thy soul's sweet mansion;
Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hot a fire, and wasted
Into perfuming clouds, so fast
Shalt thou exhale to heaven at last
In a resolving sigh, and then,--
O what? Ask not the tongues of men.

Richard Crashaw

Euthanasia

Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile
Age? wouldst see December smile?
Wouldst see nests of new roses grow
In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering
Winter's self into a spring?
In sum wouldst see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
Whose latest and most leaden hours,
Fall with soft wings stuck with soft flowers;
And, when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay —
A kiss, a sigh, and so away.
This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see?
Hark hither! — and thyself be he.

Richard Crashaw

Out of Catullus

Come and let us live my Deare, 

Let us love and never feare, 

What the sowrest Fathers say: 

Brightest Sol that dies to day 

Lives againe as blithe to morrow, 

But if we darke sons of sorrow 

Set; o then, how long a Night 

Shuts the Eyes of our short light! 

Then let amorous kisses dwell 

On our lips, begin and tell 

A Thousand, and a Hundred, score 

An Hundred, and a Thousand more, 

Till another Thousand smother 

That, and that wipe of another. 

Thus at last when we have numbred 

Many a Thousand, many a Hundred; 

Wee’l confound the reckoning quite, 

And lose our selves in wild delight: 

While our joyes so multiply, 

As shall mocke the envious eye. 

Richard Crashaw

On Mr. G. Herbert's Book

Know you fair, on what you look; 

Divinest love lies in this book, 

Expecting fire from your eyes, 

To kindle this his sacrifice. 

When your hands untie these strings, 

Think you’have an angel by th’ wings. 

One that gladly will be nigh, 

To wait upon each morning sigh. 

To flutter in the balmy air 

Of your well-perfumed prayer. 

These white plumes of his he’ll lend you, 

Which every day to heaven will send you, 

To take acquaintance of the sphere, 

And all the smooth-fac’d kindred there. 

         And though Herbert’s name do owe 

         These devotions, fairest, know 

         That while I lay them on the shrine 

         Of your white hand, they are mine.

John Milton

 Sonnet XVI: Cromwell, our chief of men

To the Lord General Cromwell
On the Proposals of Certain Ministers of the Committee
for the Propagation of the Gospel

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war: new foes arise,
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

John Milton

 

Sonnet XV. To The Lord General Fairfax

Fairfax, whose Name in Arms through Europe rings,
  And fills all Mouths with Envy or with Praise,
  And all her Jealous Monarchs with Amaze.
  And Rumours loud which daunt remotest Kings,
Thy firm unshaken Valour ever brings
  Victory home, while new Rebellions raise
  Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays
  Her broken League to Imp her Serpent Wings:
O yet! a Nobler task awaits thy Hand,
  For what can War, but Acts of War still breed
  Till injur'd Truth from Violence be freed;
And publick Faith be rescu'd from the Brand
  Of publick Fraud; in vain doth Valour bleed,
  While Avarice and Rapine shares the Land.

John Milton

 V 

On The Late Massacher In Piemont 

Avenge O lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones 
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold, 
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old 
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones, 
Forget not: in thy book record their groanes 
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold 
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd 
Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans 
The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they 
To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow  
O're all th'Italian fields where still doth sway 
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow 
A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way 
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

 

Sir Walter Raleigh

 

Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son

Three things there be that prosper up apace
And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far,
But on a day, they meet all in one place,
And when they meet, they one another mar;
And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag.
The wood is that which makes the gallow tree;
The weed is that which strings the hangman's bag;
The wag, my pretty knave, betokeneth thee.
Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild,
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot,
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.
  Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray
  We part not with thee at this meeting day.  

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move,

To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,

When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,

And Philomel becometh dumb,

The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,

To wayward winter reckoning yields,

A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:

In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,

The Coral clasps and amber studs,

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,

Had joys no date, nor age no need,

Then these delights my mind might move

To live with thee, and be thy love.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before? 

The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone — 

This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

269

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

1849

A Route of Evanescence

A Route of Evanescence,

With a revolving Wheel –

A Resonance of Emerald

A Rush of Cochineal –

And every Blossom on the Bush

Adjusts it’s tumbled Head –

The Mail from Tunis – probably,

An easy Morning’s Ride –

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -

At Evening, it is not

At Morning, in a Truffled Hut

It stop opon a Spot

As if it tarried always

And yet it’s whole Career

Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay -

And fleeter than a Tare -

’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler -

The Germ of Alibi -

Doth like a Bubble antedate

And like a Bubble, hie -

I feel as if the Grass was pleased

To have it intermit -

This surreptitious Scion

Of Summer’s circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face

Or could she one contemn -

Had Nature an Apostate -

That Mushroom - it is Him!

Emily Dickinson (1830-!886)

305

The difference between Despair
And Fear-- is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck--
And when the Wreck has been--

The Mind is smooth-- no Motion--
Contented as the Eye
Upon the Forehead of a Bust--
That knows-- it cannot see--