(Griefe adding fuell) doth distill;
Too fruitfull of her selfe is anguish,
We need no cherishing to languish.
III.
Coward fate degen'rate man
Like little children uses, when
He whips us first, untill we weepe,
Then, 'cause we still a
weeping keepe.
IV.
Then from thy firme selfe never swerve;
Teares fat the griefe that they should sterve;
Iron decrees of destinie
Are ner'e wipe't out with a wet eye.
V.
But this way you may gaine the field,
Oppose but sorrow, and 'twill yield;
One
gallant thorough-made resolve
Doth
starry influence dissolve.
<52.1> Thomas Lovelace. See MEMOIR.
TO A LADY THAT DESIRED ME I WOULD BEARE MY PART WITH HER IN A SONG.
MADAM A. L.<53.1>
This is the prittiest motion:
Madam, th' alarums of a drumme
That cals your lord, set to your cries,
To mine are
sacred symphonies.
What, though 'tis said I have a voice;
I know 'tis but that hollow noise
Which (as it through my pipe doth speed)
Bitterns do carol through a reed;
In the same key with monkeys jiggs,
Or dirges of proscribed piggs,
Or the soft Serenades above
In calme of night,<53.2> when<53.3> cats make<53.4> love.
Was ever such a
consort seen!
Fourscore and fourteen with forteen?
Yet<53.5> sooner they'l agree, one paire,
Then we in our spring-winter aire;
They may imbrace, sigh, kiss, the rest:
Our
breath knows
nought but east and west.
Thus have I heard to childrens cries
The faire nurse still such lullabies,
That, well all sayd (for what there lay),
The pleasure did the sorrow pay.
Sure ther's another way to save
Your phansie,<53.6> madam; that's to have
('Tis but a petitioning kinde fate)
The organs sent to Bilingsgate,
Where they to that soft murm'ring quire
Shall teach<53.7> you all you can admire!
Or do but heare, how love-bang Kate
In
pantry darke for freage of mate,
With edge of steele the square wood shapes,
And DIDO<53.8> to it chaunts or scrapes.
The merry Phaeton oth' carre
You'l vow makes a melodious jarre;
Sweeter and sweeter whisleth He
To un-anointed<53.9> axel-tree;
Such swift notes he and 's wheels do run;
For me, I yeeld him Phaebus son.
Say, faire Comandres, can it be
You should ordaine a mutinie?
For where I howle, all accents fall,
As kings harangues, to one and all.<53.10>
Ulisses art is now withstood:<53.11>
You ravish both with sweet and good;
Saint Syren, sing, for I dare heare,
But when I ope', oh, stop your eare.
Far lesse be't aemulation
To passe me, or in trill or<53.12> tone,
Like the thin
throat of Philomel,
And the<53.13> smart lute who should excell,
As if her soft cords should begin,
And
strive for sweetnes with the pin.<53.14>
Yet can I musick too; but such
As is beyond all voice or<53.15> touch;
My minde can in faire order chime,
Whilst my true heart still beats the time;
My soule['s] so full of harmonie,
That it with all parts can agree;
If you winde up to the highest fret,<53.16>
It shall
descend an eight from it,
And when you shall
vouchsafe to fall,
Sixteene above you it shall call,
And yet, so dis-assenting one,
They both shall meet in<53.17> unison.
Come then, bright cherubin, begin!
My loudest musick is within.
Take all notes with your skillfull eyes;
Hearke, if mine do not sympathise!
Sound all my thoughts, and see exprest
The tablature<53.18> of my large brest;
Then you'l admit, that I too can
Musick above dead sounds of man;
Such as alone doth blesse the spheres,
Not to be reacht with
humane eares.
<53.1> "Madam A. L." is not in MS. copy. "The Lady A. L." and
"Madam A. L." may very probably be two different persons: for
Carew in his Poems (edit. 1651, 8vo. p. 2) has a piece "To A. L.;
Persuasions to Love," and it is possible that the A. L. of Carew,
and the A. L. mentioned above, are
identical. The following poem
is printed in Durfey's PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY, v. 120, but
whether it was written by Lovelace, and addressed to the same lady,
whom he represents above as requesting him to join her in a song,
or whether it was the production of another pen, I cannot at all
decide. It is not particularly
unlike the style of the author of
LUCASTA. At all events, I am not aware that it has been
appropriated by anybody else, and as I am
reluctant to omit any
piece which Lovelace is at all likely to have
composed, I give
these lines just as I find them in Durfey, where they are set to
music:--
"TO HIS FAIREST VALENTINE MRS. A. L.
"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a
goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
And
warble forth, ye virgins nine,
Some music to my Valentine.
"Her bosom is love's paradise,
There is no heav'n but in her eyes;
She's chaster than the turtle-dove,
And fairer than the queen of love:
Yet all perfections do combine
To beautifie my Valentine.
"She's Nature's choicest cabinet,
Where honour, beauty, worth and wit
Are all united in her breast.
The graces claim an interest:
All virtues that are most divine
Shine clearest in my Valentine."
<53.2> Nights--Editor's MS.
<53.3> Where--Ibid.
<53.4> Do--Ibid.
<53.5> There is here either an interpolation in the printed copy,
or an HIATUS in the MS. The latter reads:--
"Yet may I 'mbrace, sigh, kisse, the rest," &c.,
thus leaving out a line and a half or
upward of the poem,
as it is printed in LUCASTA.
<53.6> MS. reads:--"Youre phansie, madam," omitting "that's to
have."
<53.7> Original and MS. have REACH.
<53.8> This must refer, I suppose, to the
ballad of Queen Dido,
which the woman sings as she works. The signification of LOVE-BANG
is not easily determined. BANG, in Suffolk, is a term applied
to a particular kind of
cheese; but I
suspect that "love-bang Kate"
merely signifies "noisy Kate" here. As to the old
ballad of Dido,
see Stafford Smith's MUSICA ANTIQUA, i. 10, ii. 158; and Collier's
EXTRACTS FROM THE REGISTERS OF THE STATIONERS' COMPANY, i. 98.
I subjoin the first
stanza of "Dido" as printed in the MUSICA
ANTIQUA:--
"Dido was the Carthage Queene,
And lov'd the Troian knight,
That wandring many coasts had seene,
And many a dreadfull fight.
As they a-hunting road, a show'r
Drove them in a
loving bower,
Down to a darksome cave:
Where Aenaeas with his charmes
Lock't Queene Dido in his armes
And had what he would have."
A somewhat different
version is given in Durfey's PILLS TO PURGE
MELANCHOLY, vi. 192-3.
<53.9> AN UNANOYNTED--MS.
<53.10> This and the three
preceding lines are not in MS.
<53.11> Alluding of course to the very familiar legend of
Ulysses and the Syrens.
<53.12> A quaver (a
well-knownmusical expression).
<53.13> A--MS.
<53.14> A
musical peg.
<53.15> AND--MS.
<53.16> A piece of wire attached to the finger-board of a guitar.
<53.17> Original and MS. read AN.
<53.18> The tablature of Lovelace's time was the application
of letters, of the
alphabet or
otherwise, to the purpose of
expressing the sounds or notes of a composition.
VALIANT LOVE.
I.
Now fie upon that
everlasting life! I dye!
She hates! Ah me! It makes me mad;
As if love fir'd his torch at a moist eye,
Or with his joyes e're crown'd the sad.
Oh, let me live and shout, when I fall on;
Let me ev'n
triumph in the first attempt!
Loves duellist from
conquest 's not exempt,
When his fair murdresse shall not gain one groan,
And he
expire ev'n in ovation.
II.
Let me make my approach, when I lye downe
With counter-wrought and travers eyes;<54.1>
With peals of confidence
batter the towne;
Had ever
beggar yet the keyes?
No, I will vary stormes with sun and winde;
Be rough, and offer calme condition;
March in and pread,<54.2> or
starve the garrison.
Let her make sallies hourely: yet I'le find
(Though all beat of) shee's to be undermin'd.
III.
Then may it please your little excellence
Of hearts t' ordaine, by sound of lips,
That
henceforth none in tears dare love comence
(Her thoughts ith' full, his, in th' eclipse);
On paine of having 's launce broke on her bed,