Part 11 (1/2)

Think, when't was grown to most, 't was a poor inn, A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age.

But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee; Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty; Think, that a rusty piece discharg'd is flown In pieces, and the bullet is his own, And freely flies; this to thy soul allow, Think thy sh.e.l.l broke, think thy soul hatched but now.

They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophizes beauty:

--Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! Thou murderer, which hast kill'd, and devil, which would'st d.a.m.n me.

Thus he addresses his mistress:

Thou who, in many a propriety, So truly art the sun to me.

Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, And let me and my sun beget a man.

Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:

Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been So much as of original sin, Such charms thy beauty wears as might Desires in dying confest saints excite.

Thou with strange adultery Dost in each breast a brothel keep; Awake, all men do l.u.s.t for thee, And some enjoy thee when they sleep.

The true taste of tears:

Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, And take my tears, which are Love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home; For all are false, that taste not just like mine.

--_Donne_.

This is yet more indelicate:

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early East, Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast.

And on her neck her skin such l.u.s.tre sets, They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets: Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.

--_Donne_.

Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be pathetic:

As men in h.e.l.l are from diseases free, So from all other ills am I.

Free from their known formality: But all pains eminently lie in thee.

--_Cowley_.

They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their ill.u.s.trations were true; it was enough that they were popular. Bacon remarks that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions.

It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke; In vain it something would have spoke: The love within too strong for't was, Like poison put into a Venice-gla.s.s.

--_Cowley_.

In forming descriptions, they looked out, not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows:

Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest: Time's dead low-water; when all minds divest To-morrow's business, when the labourers have Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this; Now when the client, whose last hearing is To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man, Who when he opens his eyes, must shut them then Again by death, although sad watch he keep, Doth practise dying by a little sleep, Thou at this midnight seest me.

It must be, however, confessed of these writers that if they are upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle, yet where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention:

Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is, Alike if it succeed, and if it miss; Whom good or ill does equally confound, And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound.

Vain shadow, which dost vanish quite, Both at full noon and perfect night!

The stars have not a possibility Of blessing thee; If things then from their end we happy call, 'T is hope is the most hopeless thing of all.