That pretious stone, which she doth call
A noble recompence for all,
And to her lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.
<82.1> It will be seen that this poem
partly turns on the
mythological tale of Arachne and Minerva, and the metamorphosis
of the former by the angry
goddess into a
spider (<<arachne>>).
<82.2> i.e. CARAK, or CARRICK, as the word is variously spelled.
This large kind of ship was much used by the Greeks and Venetians
during the middle ages, and also by other nations.
<82.3> The poet rather
awkwardly sustains his simile, and
employs, in expressing a
contest between the toad and the
spider, a term
signifying a naval battle, or, at least,
a fight between two ships.
<82.4> Lovelace's
fondness for military similitudes is constantly
standing in the way, and marring his attempts at
poetical imagery.
<82.5> A form of RAMPART, sanctioned by Dryden.
<82.6> Medicinal herb or plant.
<82.7> Blended.
<82.8> CAMPANIA may
signify, in the present passage, either
a field or the country generally, or a plain. It is a clumsy
expression.
<82.9> In the sense in which it is here used this word seems
to be
peculiar to Lovelace. TO PICKEAR, or PICKEER, means
TO SKIRMISH.
<82.10> So that.
THE SNAYL.
Wise
emblem of our politick world,
Sage Snayl, within thine own self curl'd,
Instruct me
softly to make hast,
Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.
Compendious Snayl! thou seem'st to me
Large Euclid's
strict epitome;
And in each
diagram dost fling
Thee from the point unto the ring.
A figure now trianglare,
An oval now, and now a square,
And then a serpentine, dost crawl,
Now a straight line, now crook'd, now all.
Preventing<83.1> rival of the day,
Th' art up and openest thy ray;
And ere the morn cradles the moon,<83.2>
Th' art broke into a
beauteous noon.
Then, when the Sun sups in the deep,
Thy silver horns e're Cinthia's peep;
And thou, from thine own
liquid bed,
New Phoebus, heav'st thy pleasant head.
Who shall a name for thee create,
Deep
riddle of
mysterious state?
Bold Nature, that gives common birth
To all products of seas and earth,
Of thee, as earth-quakes, is afraid,
Nor will thy dire deliv'ry aid.
Thou, thine own daughter, then, and sire,
That son and mother art intire,
That big still with thy self dost go,
And liv'st an aged embrio;
That like the cubbs of India,
Thou from thy self a while dost play;
But frighted with a dog or gun,
In thine own belly thou dost run,
And as thy house was thine own womb,
So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.
But now I must (analys'd king)
Thy oeconomick
virtues sing;
Thou great stay'd husband still within,
Thou thee that's thine dost discipline;
And when thou art to progress bent,
Thou mov'st thy self and tenement,
As
warlike Scythians travayl'd, you
Remove your men and city too;
Then, after a sad
dearth and rain,
Thou scatterest thy silver train;
And when the trees grow nak'd and old,
Thou cloathest them with cloth of gold,
Which from thy bowels thou dost spin,
And draw from the rich mines within.
Now hast thou chang'd thee, saint, and made
Thy self a fane that's cupula'd;
And in thy wreathed
cloister thou
Walkest thine own gray fryer too;
Strickt and lock'd up, th'art hood all ore,
And ne'r eliminat'st thy dore.
On sallads thou dost feed severe,
And 'stead of beads thou drop'st a tear,
And when to rest each calls the bell,
Thou sleep'st within thy
marble cell,
Where, in dark
contemplation plac'd,
The sweets of Nature thou dost tast,
Who now with time thy days resolve,
And in a jelly thee dissolve,
Like a shot star, which doth repair
Upward, and rarifie the air.
<83.1> Anticipating, forerunning.
<83.2> It can scarcely be
requisite to mention that Lovelace
refers to the
gradual evanescence of the moon before the growing
daylight. It is well known that the lunar orb is, at certain
times,
visiblesometime even after sunrise.
ANOTHER.
The Centaur, Syren, I foregoe;
Those have been sung, and lowdly too:
Nor of the mixed Sphynx Ile write,
Nor the renown'd Hermaphrodite.
Behold! this
huddle doth appear
Of horses, coach and charioteer,
That moveth him by
traverse law,
And doth himself both drive and draw;
Then, when the Sunn the south doth winne,
He baits him hot in his own inne.
I heard a grave and
austere clark
Resolv'd him pilot both and barque;
That, like the fam'd ship of TREVERE,
Did on the shore himself lavere:
Yet the authentick do beleeve,
Who keep their
judgement in their sleeve,
That he is his own double man,
And sick still carries his sedan:
Or that like dames i'th land of Luyck,
He wears his
lasting" target="_blank" title="a.永久的,无尽的">
everlasting huyck.<84.1>
But banisht, I admire his fate,
Since neither ostracisme of state,
Nor a
perpetual exile,
Can force this
virtue, change his soyl:
For, wheresoever he doth go,
He wanders with his country too.
<84.1> i.q. HUKE. "Huke," says Minshen, "is a
mantle such as
women use in Spaine, Germanie, and the Low Countries, when they
goe abroad." Lovelace clearly adopts the word for the sake of
the metre;
otherwise he might have chosen a better one.
THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILAMORE AND AMORET.
TO THE NOBLEST OF OUR YOUTH AND BEST OF FRIENDS,
CHARLES COTTON, Esquire.<85.l>
BEING AT BERISFORD, AT HIS HOUSE IN STAFFORDSHIRE.
FROM LONDON.
A POEM.
Sir, your sad
absence I
complain, as earth
Her long-hid spring, that gave her verdures birth,
Who now her
cheerful aromatick head
Shrinks in her cold and
dismal widow'd bed;
Whilst the false sun her lover doth him move
Below, and to th' antipodes make love.
What fate was mine, when in mine obscure cave
(Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave)
Your beams could reach me through this vault of night,
And
canton the dark
dungeon with light!
Whence me (as gen'rous Spahys) you unbound,
Whilst I now know my self both free and crown'd.
But as at Meccha's tombe, the
devout blind
Pilgrim (great husband of his sight and mind)
Pays to no other object this chast prise,
Then with hot earth anoynts out both his eyes:
So having seen your dazling glories store,
It is enough, and sin for to see more.
Or, do you thus those pretious rayes withdraw
To whet my dull beams, keep my bold in aw?
Or, are you gentle and compassionate,
You will not reach me Regulus his fate?
Brave prince! who, eagle-ey'd of eagle kind,
Wert
blindly damn'd to look thine own self blind!
But oh, return those fires, too cruel-nice!
For
whilst you fear me cindars, see, I'm ice!
A nummed
speaking clod and mine own show,<85.2>
My self congeal'd, a man cut out in snow:
Return those living fires. Thou, who that vast
Double
advantage from one-ey'd Heav'n hast,
Look with one sun, though 't but obliquely be,
And if not shine,
vouchsafe to wink on me.
Perceive you not a gentle, gliding heat,
And quick'ning
warmth, that makes the statua sweat;
As rev'rend Ducaleon's black-flung stone,
Whose rough outside softens to skin, anon
Each crusty vein with wet red is suppli'd,
Whilst
nought of stone but in its heart doth 'bide.
So from the
rugged north, where your soft stay
Hath stampt them a
meridian and kind day;
Where now each A LA MODE inhabitant
Himself and 's manners both do pay you rent,
And 'bout your house (your pallace) doth resort,
And 'spite of fate and war creates a court.
So from the taught north, when you shall return,
To glad those looks that ever since did mourn,
When men uncloathed of themselves you'l see,
Then start new made, fit, what they ought to be;
Hast! hast! you, that your eyes on rare sights feed:
For thus the golden
triumph is decreed.
The twice-born god, still gay and ever young,
With ivie crown'd, first leads the
glorious throng:
He Ariadne's
starry coronet
Designs for th' brighter beams of Amoret;
Then doth he broach his
throne, and singing quaff
Unto her health his pipe of god-head off.
Him follow the recanting, vexing Nine
Who, wise, now sing thy
lasting fame in wine;
Whilst Phoebus, not from th' east, your feast t' adorn,
But from th' inspir'd Canaries, rose this morn.
Now you are come, winds in their caverns sit,
And nothing breaths, but new-inlarged wit.
Hark! One proclaims it piacle<85.3> to be sad,
And th' people call 't religion to be mad.
But now, as at a coronation,
When noyse, the guard, and trumpets are oreblown,