Poems, and phancies :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poems, and phancies

written By the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, And Excellent Princess The Lady Marchioness of Newcastle [i.e. Margaret Cavendish]. The Second Impression, much Altered and Corrected

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish (1624?-1674)

[section]

TO THE LADY MARCHIONESS OF NEWCASTLE, On Her Book of POEMS.

TO SIR CHARLS CAVENDISH, My Noble Brother-in-Law.

[But at all other things let Fancy fly]

The Poetresses hasty Resolution.

The Poetresses Petition.

An Apology for Writing so much upon this Book.

Part I.

Nature calls a Council, which is Motion, Figure, Matter, and Life, to advise about making the World.

Death's endeavour to hinder and obstruct Nature.

A VVorld made by Atomes.

Of the four Principal sorts of Atomes.

Of the Sympathy of these four Principal Figur'd Atomes.

The four Principal Figur'd Atomes make the four Elements.

Of Aiery Atomes.

Of Air.

Of Earth.

The weight of Atomes.

The Bigness of Atomes.

Of Loose Atomes.

Change is made by several Figur'd Atomes, and Motion.

Of Sharp Atomes.

Of Atomes that make Flame.

Of Fire and Flame.

Of Fire in the Flint.

VVhat Atomes make Fire Burn, and what Flame.

Of Burning, why it causes Pain.

The Increasing, and Decreasing of Visible Fire.

Fire compared to Stings.

Flame compared to the Tide of the Sea.

Of Quenching out Fire.

The Quenching out, and Smothering of Heat and Light, doth not change the Propriety nor Shape of sharp Atomes.

The reason Water quenches Fire.

Of the Sound of Water, Air, and Flame.

The Agility of Water.

The reason of the Roaring of the Sea.

What is Liquid.

Of Fire and Moisture.

Air begot by Heat and Moisture.

The Temper of the Earth.

VVhat Atomes make Vegetables, Minerals, and Animals.

What Atomes make Life.

What Atomes make Death.

What Atomes cause Sickness.

What Atomes make a Dropsie.

What Atomes make a Consumption.

What Atomes make the Wind-colick.

What Atomes make a Palsie, or Apoplexie.

In all other Diseases Atomes are mixed, taking Parts and Factions.

All things are Govern'd by Atomes.

A Warr betwixt Atomes.

Atomes and Motion fall out.

An agreement of some Kind of Motion with some Kind of Atomes.

Motion directs while Atomes Dance.

The difference of Atomes and Motion in Youth and Age.

Motion makes Atomes a Bawd for Figure.

Motion is according to the Figure.

Of the Subtilty of Motion.

Motion is the Life of all things.

Of the Motion of the Sea.

Of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea.

Of Vacuum.

Vacuum in Atomes.

Of Contracting and Dilating, whereby Vacuum must needs follow.

What Atomes the Sun is made of.

Of the Rays of the Sun.

Of the Beams of the Sun.

The cause of the Breaking of the Sun-beams.

Whether the Sun doth set the Air on a Light, as some Opinions hold.

Of the Motion of the Sun.

Of the Sun's Weakness.

What Atomes make the Sun and the Sea go round.

The Traffick betwixt the Sun and the Earth.

The Sun is Nurse to all the Earth bears.

Of the Attraction of the Sun.

Of the Attraction of the Earth.

Of the Attraction of the Poles, and of Frost.

Of Vapour.

Of Dews and Mists coming from the Earth.

Wind is made in the Air, not in the Earth.

Of Cold Winds.

Thunder is a VVind in the Middle Region.

Of Stars.

Of the Centre of the World.

All sharp Atomes do run to the Centre, and those that settle not, by reason of the straightness of the place, fly out to the Circumference. Sharp Atomes running to the Centre make the Sun.

A Fire is in the Centre of the Earth.

In the Centre Atomes never separate.

If Infinite Worlds, there must be Infinite Centres.

Of Infinite Matter.

A World made by four Kinds of Atomes.

Of the Elements.

The Joyning of several Figur'd Atomes make other Figures.

What Atomes make Change.

What Atomes make Heat and Cold.

All things last or dissolve according to the Composure of Atomes.

Of Light.

Of Light and Sight.

Of the Sound and Eccho.

What makes Eccho.

VVhat makes Eccho rebound.

Of Shadow and Eccho.

The Objects of every Sense are according to their Motions in the Brain.

According as the Motions of the Heart or Brain are, such Passions are produced.

The Motion of Thoughts.

The reason why the Thoughts are only in the Head.

Of the Motion of the Blood.

Of many Worlds in this World.

A World in an Ear-ring.

It is hard to believe that there may be other Worlds in this World.

Several Worlds in several Circles.

The Clasp.

The Circle of the Brain cannot be Squared.

The Circle of Honesty Squared.

The Arithmetick of Passions.

II.

Part II.

A Dialogue between two Supernatural Opinions Concerning Fame.

Another Dialogue of Fame between two Natural Opinions.

A Simple Natural Opinion of the Mind.

The Purchase of Poets, or a Dialogue betwixt the Poets and Fame, and Homer's Marriage.

A Dialogue betwixt Man and Nature.

A Dialogue betwixt the Body and the Mind.

A Complaint of VVater, Earth and Air against the Sun, by way of Dialogue.

A Dialogue between Earth and Cold.

A Dialogue betwixt Earth and Darkness.

A Dialogue between an Oak, and a Man Cutting it down.

A Dialogue betwixt Birds.

A Dialogue between Melancholy and Mirth.

A Dialogue betwixt Joy and Discretion.

A Dialogue betwixt Wit and Beauty.

A Dialogue between Love and Hate.

A Dialogue betwixt Learning and Ignorance.

A Dialogue betwixt Riches and Poverty.

A Dialogue betwixt Anger and Patience.

A Dialogue between a Bountifull Knight and a Castle Ruin'd in Warr.

A Dialogue betwixt Peace and VVarr.

MORAL DISCOURSES.

A Discourse of Love, the Parent of Passions.

A Discourse of Love Neglected, and Burnt up with Grief.

A Discourse of Man's Pride, or seeming Prerogative.

Of Foolish Ambition.

Of Humility.

Of Riches, or Covetousness.

Of Poverty.

Of Tranquillity.

Of the Shortness of Man's Life, and his Foolish Ambition.

A Moral Discourse of Man and Beast.

Of the Ant.

A Moral Discourse of Corn.

Of the Knowledge of Beasts.

Of Fish.

Of Birds.

Earths Complaint.

A Discourse of a Knave.

Of a Fool.

Of Melancholy.

A Discourse of the Devils Power.

THE CLASP

[Give me a free and noble Style, that goes]

The Hunting of the Hare.

The Hunting of a Stag.

A Description of an Island.

The Ruine of this Island.

III.

The Third Part

[dedication]

Of Poets, and their Theft.

Upon the same Subject.

Wherein Poetry chiefly Consists.

FANCIES.

The several Keys of Nature, which Unlock the several Boxes of her Cabinet.

A Posset for Nature's Breakfast.

An Olio Drest for Nature's Dinner.

A Bisk for Nature's Table.

A Hodge-podge for Nature's Table.

A Heart Drest.

Head and Brain Dress'd.

Nature's Musical Instruments.

Nature's Musick.

A Picture hung in Nature's House.

Nature's Exercise and Pastime.

Nature's City.

Nature's Market.

Nature's Fields and Meadows.

The Actions of the Mind Similized.

Of Navigation.

The Sea Similized to Meadows and Pastures, the Mariners to Shepherds, the Mast to a May-pole, the Fish to Beasts.

A Storm upon the Seas compared to a Rebellion.

Man's Head Similized to the Globe of the World.

The Head of Man compared to a Hive of Bees.

The Prey of Thoughts.

Fancies Similized to Gnats.

Of a Spider's Webb.

A Comparison between Gold and the Sun.

Poets have most Pleasure in this Life.

The Head of Man compared to a Church.

The Mine of Wit.

The Conclusion of this Part.

THE CLASP.

Phantasm's Masque.

IV.

The Fourth PART.

UPON THE THEAM OF LOVE.

The Brain compar'd to the Elysium.

A Description of a Shepherds, and Shepherdesses Life.

The Allegory of Shepherds is too Mean for Noble Persons.

The House of Shame wherein Dishonour Lives.

The Temple of Honour.

Fame.

The Temple of Fame.

Fame's Library within the Temple.

The Fairy Queen's Kingdome.

The Pastime and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies in Fairy-Land, the Centre of the Earth.

The Pastime of the Queen of Fairies, when she comes upon the Earth out of the Centre.

The Palace of the Fairy Queen.

The Windy Gyants.

Of the Witches in Lapland that make Winds.

Of the Sun and the Earth.

Of a Garden.

Of an Oak in a Grove.

Of a Wrought Carpet, presented to the View of Working Ladies.

A Man to his Mistress.

THE CLASP.

Of Fairies in the Brain.

The City of these Fairies is the Brain.

The Fairies in the Brain may be the Causes of many Thoughts.

Of the Animal Spirits.

The Warr of the Animal Spirits.

Peace betwixt Animal Spirits.

The Body is the World of the Animal Spirits.

The Body Similized to many Countries.

A Complement sent to the Fairy Queen.

PART V.

[dedication]

THE FORT OR CASTLE OF HOPE.

Doubts Assault, and Hopes Defence.

A Battel between Courage and Prudence.

A Description of the Fight.

A Battel between Honour and Dishonour.

A Battel between King Oberon and the Pigmies.

The Temple of Fortune.

A Battel between Life and Death.

Of a Travelling Thought.

A REGISTER OF MOURNFUL VERSES.

On a Melting Beauty.

On a Furious Sorrow.

On a Mourning Beauty.

Of Sorrow's Tears.

An Elegy on a Widow.

On a Mother that Dyed for Grief of the Death of her only Daughter.

On a Beautifull Young Maid that Dyed, Daughter to the Grieved Mother.

The Funeral of Calamity.

Upon the Funeral of my Dear Brother, Kill'd in these Unhappy Warrs.

An Elegy upon the Death of my Brother.

Of the Death and Burial of Truth.

THE CONCLUSION.

The Common Fate of Books.

Another of the Same.

Of the Style of this Book.

[A poet I am neither Born nor Bred]

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The Motion of Thoughts.

Musing one time alone, mine Eyes were fixt
Upon the Ground, my Sight with Gravel mixt;
My Feet did walk without Direction's guide,
My Thoughts did travel far, and wander wide;
At last they chanc'd up on a Hill to climb,
And being there, saw things that were Divine.

First when they saw, a Glorious Light did blaze,
Whose Splendour pain'd their Sight upon't to gaze,
No Shadows it, nor Separations made,
No Darkness did obstruct this Light with shade;
This Light had no Dimension, nor no bound,
No Limits, but it fill'd all places round;
Always in Motion 'twas, yet fixt did prove,
Like to the twinkling Stars which never move;

This Motion working, running several ways,
Seem'd as if Contradictions it would raise;
For with it Self it seem'd not to agree,
Like to a Skein of Thread if't Knoted be;
For some did go strait in an even Line,
But some again did Cross, and some did Twine;
Yet at the last all several Motions run
Into the first prime Motion, which begun.
In various Forms and Shapes did Life run through,
Which was Eternal, but the Shapes were new;
And these not sooner made, but pass'd away,
Yet while they were, they did desire to stay:
But Motion, which is Life, can never be
Constant to one, but loves Variety.
And as first Motion every thing can make,
But cannot add unto it Self nor take;
So it could not another Matter frame,
It self was all, and in it self the same.
Perceiving now this fixed point of Light,
I spied a Union, Knowledge, Power and Might,
Wisdome, Truth, Justice, Providence all One,
No attribute was by it self alone;
Not like as several Lines drawn to one point,
For what doth meet, may be again Disjoynt;
But this same point, from whence all Lines did flow,
Nothing can Diminish nor make it Grow;
'Tis its own Centre and Circumference round,
Yet neither has a limit nor a bound,
But fix'd Eternally, and so will last,
All present is, nothing to come, nor past.
A fix't Perfection, nothing can add more,
All things is It, and doth It self adore.

My thoughts then wond'ring at what they did see,
Found at the last themselves the same to be,
Yet were so small a Branch, as they could not
Know whence they sprung, nor how they were begot.
Some say, all what we know of Heav'n above,
Is, we shall have a perfect Joy and Love;
But who can tell that? for what we do call
Below here Joy and Love, these Passions all
May by excess such other Passions grow,
None in the VVorld is capable to know;
Just like our Bodies, although they shall rise,
And, as Saint Paul says, see God with our Eyes,
Yet may we in the Change such difference find,
Both in our Bodies and also in Mind,
As if we never had been of Mankind,
And that those Eyes we see with now, were blind.
Say, we can measure all the Planets high,
And number every Star that's in the Skie,
And we can Circle all the VVorld about,
And can find all th'Effects of Nature out:
Yet all the Wise and Learned cannot tell,
What's done in Heav'n, or how we there shall dwell.