Poems (1872) :: :: University of Virginia Library

See, Sir, how as the sun's hot masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Nile's durty slime,
In me your fatherly yet lusty ryme
(For these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
But though the ingendring force from whence they came
Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
Seven to be born at once, I send as yet
But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your Judgment, which the same degree
Doth with her sister, your Invention, hold,
As fire, these drossie rhymes to purifie;
Or as elixar, to change them to gold.
You are that alchymist, which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.

274

TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT; OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN.

Her of your name, whose fair inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo;
An active faith so highly did advance,
That she once knew more than the Church did know,
The Resurrection; so much good there is
Deliver'd of her, that some Fathers be
Loth to believe one woman could do this,
But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame;
To their devotion add your innocence;
Take so much of th'example as of the name,
The latter half; and in some recompence,
That they did harbour Christ Himself a guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to His dear name addrest.

J. D.

291

ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARIE.

In that, O Queene of queens, thy birth was free
From that which others doth of grace bereave,
When in their mothers' wombs they life receave,
God, as his sole-borne daughter, louèd thee.

To match thee like thy birth's nobilitie,
He thee his Spirit for his spouse did leaue,
By whom thou didst his only Sonne conceave,
And so wast linkt to all the Trinity.

292

Cease then, O queens that earthly crowns do wear,
To glory in the pompe of earthly thinges;
If men such high respects unto you beare,
Which daughters, wiues, and mothers are to kinges,
What honor can unto that Queene bee done,
Who had your God for Father, Spowse, and Sonne?

316

ODE.

[Vengeance will sitt aboue our faults; but till]

Vengeance will sitt aboue our faults; but till
She there do sytt,
We see her not, nor them. Thus blynd, yet still
Wee lead her way; and thus whilst we doe ill,
Wee suffer it.

Unhappy hee whom youth makes not beware
Of doinge ill:
Enough we labour under age and care;
In number th'errors of the last place are
The greatest still.

Yet wee, that should the ill we new begin
As soone repent—
Strange thing—perceiue not; our faults are not seene,
But past us, neither felt, but only in
Our punishment.

317

But we know ourselves least; meere outward showes
Our mynds so store,
That our sowles, noe more then our eyes, disclose
But forme and colour. Only hee who knowes
Himselfe knowes more.

321

TRANSLATED OUT OF GAZÆUS,

VOTA AMICO FACTA, fol. 160.

God grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine,
Thou who dost, best friend, in best things outshine;
May thy soul, ever chearful, ne'r know cares;
Nor thy life, ever lively, know gray hairs;

322

Nor thy hand, ever open, know base holds;
Nor thy purse, ever plump, know pleits or folds;
Nor thy tongue, ever true, know a false thing;
Nor thy words, ever mild, know quarrelling;
Nor thy works, ever equal, know disguise;
Nor thy fame, ever pure, know contumelies;
Nor thy prayers know low objects, still divine.
God grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine!

343

A SHEAF OF SNAKES USED HERETOFORE TO BE MY SEAL, THE CREST OF OUR POOR FAMILY.

Adopted in God's family, and so
Our old coat lost, unto new arms I go.
The cross, my seal at baptism, spread below,
Does, by that form into an anchor grow.
Crosses grow anchors; bear, as thou shouldst do,
Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too.
But He that makes our crosses anchors thus,
Is Christ, Who there is crucifi'd for us.

344

Yet may I, with this, my first serpents hold;
God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old.
The serpent may, as wise, my pattern be;
My poison, as he feeds on dust, that's me.
And as he rounds the earth to murder sure,
My death he is; but on the cross, my cure.
Crucifie nature then, and then implore
All grace from Him, crucified there before;
When all is cross, and that cross anchor grown,
This seal's a catechism, not a seal alone.
Under that little seal great gifts I send,
Works and prayers, pawns, and fruits of a friend.
And may that saint, which rides in our Great Seal,
To you, who bear His name, great bounties deal.

345

IN SACRAM ANCHORAM PISCATORIS, G. HERBERT

THE SAME IN ENGLISH.

Although the Cross could not Christ here detain,
Though nail'd unto 't, but He ascends again,
Nor yet thy eloquence here keep Him still,
But only while thou speak'st, this Anchor will.
Nor canst thou be content, unless thou to
This certain Anchor add a seal, and so
The water and the earth both unto thee
Do owe the symbole of their certainty.

When Love, being weary, made an end
Of kind expressions to his friend,

346

He writ: when's hand could write no more,
He gave the Seal, and so left o're.
How sweet a friend was he, who, being griev'd
His letters were broke rudely up, believ'd
'Twas more secure in great Love's Common-weal,
Where nothing should be broke, to adde a Seal!

Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure;
This holy cable's of all storms secure.

347

LAMENT FOR HIS WIFE.

[Is Death so greate a gamster, that he throwes]

Is Death so greate a gamster, that he throwes
Still at the fairest? must I ever lose?
Are we all but as tarriers, first begun,
Made, and togeather put, to be undone?
Will all the ranke of frendes in whom I trust,
Like Sodome's trees, yeild me no fruit but dust?
Must all I love, as carelesse sparkes that flye
Out of a flinte, but shew their worth and dye?

O where do my-for-ever-losses tend?
I could already by some buried frend
Count my unhappy yeares: and should the sun
Leave me in darkenesse as her losse hath done,
By those few frendes I have yet to entombe
I might, I feare, account my yeares to come.

What neede our canons then be so precise
In registers for our nativities?
They keep us but in bondes, and strike with feares
Rich parents, till their children be of yeares.

348

For should all lose and mourne, they might, as I,
Number their yeares by every elegie.

Those bookes to summe our dayes might well have stood
In use with those that liv'd before the Flood.
When she indeed that forceth me to write
Should have been borne, had Nature done her right,
And at five hundred yeares be lesse decayd
Than now at twenty is the fairest mayd.
But Nature had not her perfection then,
Or, being loath for such longe-liveinge men
To spend the treasure which she held so pure,
She gave them women apter to endure;
Or providently knowinge there were more
Countreyes which askd for people from her store,
Nature was thrifty, and did thinke it well
If for some one parte each one did excell—
As this for her neate hand, that for her hayre,
A third for her fine foote, a fourth was fayre.
And seld' all beauties mett in one, till she—
All others' lands els stor'd—came finally
To people our sweet Isle, and seeinge now
Her substance infinite, she 'gan to bowe
To Lavishnes in every nuptiall bed,
And she her fairest was that now is dead.

Dead, as my ioyes for ever, ever be!
And if a woman fayre and good as she

349

Tread on her, grant O may she there become
A statue like Lott's wife, and be her tombe!

Or let the purple violett grow there,
And knowe no revolution of the yeare,
But full of dew with ever-droopinge head,
Shew how I live since my best hopes are dead.

Dead as the world to virtue. Murthers, theeves,
Can have their pardons, or at least repreives;
The sword of Iustice hath beene often won
By letters from an execution.
Yet vowes nor prayers could not keepe thee here,
Nor shall I see thee next returninge yeare;
Thee, with the roses, springe and live againe.
Th'art lost for ever as a drop of raine
Falne in a river: for as soone I may
Take up that drop, or meet the same at sea
And knowe it there, as e'er redeeme thee gone,
Or knowe thee in the grave when I have one.

O had that hollow vault where thou dost lye
An eccho in it, my stronge phantasy
Would winne me soone to thinke her wordes were thine,
And I would howerly come, and to thy shrine
Talke, as I often did to talke with thee,
And frame my wordes, that thou shouldst answer me
As when thou livedst. I'd sigh and say I lov'd,
And thou shouldst doe so too, till we had mov'd,

350

With our complaints, to teares each marble cell
Of those dead neighbours which about thee dwell.

And when the holy Father came to say
His orisons, wee'd aske him if the day
Of miracles were past, or whether he
Knowes any one whose fayth and pietie
Could raise the dead; but he would answere, None
Can bringe thee backe to life: though many one
Our cursed dayes afford, that dare to thrust
Their hands prophane, to raise the sacred dust
Of holy saintes out of their beds of rest.
Abhorred crimes! Oh may there none molest
Thy quiet peace, but in thy arke remaine
Untoucht, as those the old one did containe;
Till He that can reward thy greatest worth
Shall send the peacefull Dove to fetch thee forth!