The Lucasta Poems online

Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat;
I reade you like my mistresse, and discry
In every line the quicknesse of her eye:
Her smoothnesse in each syllable, her grace
To marshall ev'ry word in the right place.
It is the excellence and soule of wit,
When ev'ry thing is free as well as fit:
For metaphors packt up and crowded close
Swath minds sweetnes, and display the throws,
And, like those chickens hatcht in furnaces,
Produce or one limbe more, or one limbe lesse
Then nature bids. Survey such when they write,
No clause but's justl'd with an epithite.
So powerfully you draw when you perswade,
Passions in you in us are vertues made;
Such is the magick of that lawfull shell
That where it doth but talke, it doth compell:
For no Apelles 'till this time e're drew
A Venus to the waste so well as you.
W. Rudyerd.

Only son of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Kt., known as a poet
and a friend of poets, and as a warm advocate of Episcopacy.
See MEMOIRS OF SIR B. R., edited by Manning, 1841, 8vo, p. 257.



The world shall now no longer mourne nor vex
For th' obliquity of a cross-grain'd sex;
Nor beauty swell above her bankes, (and made
For ornament) the universe invade
So fiercely, that 'tis question'd in our bookes,
Whether kils most the Amazon's sword or lookes.
Lucasta in loves game discreetly makes
Women and men joyntly to share the stakes,
And lets us know, when women scorne, it is
Mens hot love makes the antiparisthesis;
And a lay lover here such comfort finds
As Holy Writ gives to affected minds.
The wilder nymphs, lov's power could not comand,
Are by thy almighty numbers brought to hand,
And flying Daphnes, caught, amazed vow
They never heard Apollo court till now.
'Tis not by force of armes this feat is done,
For that would puzzle even the Knight o' th' Sun;
But 'tis by pow'r of art, and such a way
As Orpheus us'd, when he made fiends obay.
J. Needler, Hosp. Grayensis.

A celebrated romance, very frequently referred to by our
old writers. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his CHARACTERS, represents
a chambermaid as carried away by the perusal of it into the realms
of romance, insomuch that she can barely refrain from forsaking
her occupation, and turning lady-errant. The book is better known
under the title of THE MIRROR OF PRINCELY DEEDES AND KNIGHTHOOD,
wherein is shewed the worthinesse of the Knight of the Sunne, &c.
It consists of nine parts, which appear to have been published
at intervals between 1585 and 1601.



TO HIS NOBLE FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS POEMS.

SIR,
Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men.
These vertues now are banisht out of towne,
Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others fame his owne employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the faire blossome of each growing wit.
The ayre's already tainted with the swarms
Of insects, which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons.
The barbed censurers begin to looke
Like the grim Consistory on thy booke;
And on each line cast a reforming eye
Severer then the yong presbytery.
Till, when in vaine they have thee all perus'd,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus'd.
Some reading your LUCASTA will alledge
You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e're seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spight
(She knew what pain 't would be to lose that sight).
O no, mistake not, I reply'd: for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would dy.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or mine aid doth clime.
Him valianst men and fairest nymphs approve,
His booke in them finds judgement, with you, love.
Andr. Marvell



TO COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON THE PUBLISHING OF HIS INGENIOUS POEMS.

If the desire of glory speak a mind
More nobly operative and more refin'd,
What vast soule moves thee, or what hero's spirit
(Kept in'ts traduction pure) dost thou inherit,
That, not contented with one single fame,
Dost to a double glory spread thy name,
And on thy happy temples safely set
Both th' Delphick wreath and civic coronet?
Was't not enough for us to know how far
Thou couldst in season suffer, act and dare
But we must also witnesse, with what height
And what Ionick sweetnesse thou canst write,
And melt those eager passions, that are
Stubborn enough t' enrage the god of war
Into a noble love, which may expire
In an illustrious pyramid of fire;
Which, having gained his due station, may
Fix there, and everlasting flames display.
This is the braver path: time soone can smother
The dear-bought spoils and tropheis of the other.
How many fiery heroes have there been,
Whose triumphs were as soone forgot as seen?
Because they wanted some diviner one
To rescue from night, and make known.
Such art thou to thy selfe. While others dream
Strong flatt'ries on a fain'd or borrow'd theam,
Thou shalt remaine in thine owne lustre bright,
And adde unto 't LUCASTA'S chaster light.
For none so fit to sing great things as he,
That can act o're all lights of poetry.
Thus had Achilles his owne gests design'd,
He had his genius Homer far outshin'd.
Jo. Hall.

Original has ASPIRE.

The precocious author of HORAE VACIVAE, 1646, and
of a volume of poems which was printed in the same year.
In the LUCASTA are some complimentary lines by Lovelace
on Hall's translation of the commentary of Hierocles on
the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1657.



TO THE HONORABLE, VALIANT, AND INGENIOUS COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS EXQUISITE POEMS.

Poets and painters have some near relation,
Compar'd with fancy and imagination;
The one paints shadowed persons (in pure kind),
The other paints the pictures of the mind
In purer verse. And as rare Zeuxes fame
Shin'd, till Apelles art eclips'd the same
By a more exquisite and curious line
In Zeuxeses (with pensill far more fine),
So have our modern poets late done well,
Till thine appear'd (which scarce have paralel).
They like to Zeuxes grapes beguile the sense,
But thine do ravish the intelligence,
Like the rare banquet of Apelles, drawn,
And covered over with most curious lawn.
Thus if thy careles draughts are cal'd the best,
What would thy lines have beene, had'st thou profest
That faculty (infus'd) of poetry,
Which adds such honour unto thy chivalry?
Doubtles thy verse had all as far transcended
As Sydneyes Prose, who Poets once defended.
For when I read thy much renowned pen,
My fancy there finds out another Ben
In thy brave language, judgement, wit, and art,
Of every piece of thine, in every part:
Where thy seraphique Sydneyan fire is raised high
In valour, vertue, love, and loyalty.
Virgil was styl'd the loftiest of all,
Ovid the smoothest and most naturall;
Martiall concise and witty, quaint and pure,
Iuvenall grave and learned, though obscure.
But all these rare ones which I heere reherse,
Do live againe in Thee, and in thy Verse:
Although not in the language of their time,
Yet in a speech as copious and sublime.
The rare Apelles in thy picture wee
Perceive, and in thy soule Apollo see.
Wel may each Grace and Muse then crown thy praise
With Mars his banner and Minerva's bayes.
Fra. Lenton.

The author of the YOUNG GALLANT'S WHIRLIGIGG, 1629,
and other poetical works. Singer does not give these lines.
In the WHIRLIGIG there is a curious picture of a young gallant
of the time of Charles I., to which Lovelace might have sat,
had he been old enough at the time. But Lenton had no want
of sitters for his portrait.



TO HIS HONOURED AND INGENIOUS FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS "LUCASTA."

Chast as Creation meant us, and more bright
Then the first day in 's uneclipsed light,
Is thy LUCASTA; and thou offerest heere
Lines to her name as undefil'd and cleere;
Such as the first indeed more happy dayes
(When vertue, wit, and learning wore the bayes
Now vice assumes) would to her memory give:
A Vestall flame that should for ever live,
Plac't in a christal temple, rear'd to be
The Embleme of her thoughts integrity;
And on the porch thy name insculpt, my friend,
Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.
The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.
Tho. Rawlins.

A well known dramatist and poet. These lines are not
in Singer's reprint.



TO MY DEAR BROTHER, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE.

Ile doe my nothing too, and try
To dabble to thy memory.
Not that I offer to thy name
Encomiums of thy lasting fame.
Those by the landed have been writ:
Mine's but a yonger-brother wit;
A wit that's hudled up in scarres,
Borne like my rough selfe in the warres;
And as a Squire in the fight
Serves only to attend the Knight,
So 'tis my glory in this field,
Where others act, to beare thy shield.
Dudley Lovelace, Capt.

The youngest brother of the poet. Besides the present
lines, and some to be found in the posthumous volume, of which
he was the editor, this gentleman contributed the following
commendatory poem to AYRES AND DIALOGUES [by Thomas Stanley Esq.]
set by John Gamble, 1656. The verses themselves have little merit;
and the only object which I had in introducing them, was to add
to the completeness of the present edition: -

TO MY MUCH HONORED COZEN, MR. STANLEY,
UPON HIS POEMS SET BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.

I.
Enough, enough of orbs and spheres,
Reach me a trumpet or a drum,
To sound sharp synnets in your ears,
And beat a deep encomium.

II.
I know not th' Eight Intelligence:
Those that do understand it, pray
Let them step hither, and from thence
Speak what they all do sing or say:

III.
Nor what your diapasons are,
Your sympathies and symphonies;
To me they seem as distant farre
As whence they take their infant rise.

IV.
But I've a grateful heart can ring
A peale of ordnance to your praise,
And volleys of small plaudits bring
To clowd a crown about your baies.

V.
Though laurel is thought thunder free,
That storms and lightning disallows,
Yet Caesar thorough fire and sea
Snatches her to twist his conquering brows.

VI.
And now me thinks like him you stand
I' th' head of all the Poets' hoast,
Whilest with your words you do command,
They silent do their duty boast.

VII.
Which done, the army ecchoes o're,
Like Gamble Ios one and all,
And in their various notes implore,
Long live our noble Generall.
Dudley Posthumus Lovelace.



DE DOMINO RICHARDO LOVELACIO,
ARMIGERO ET CHILIARCHA, VIRO INCOMPARABILI.

Ecce tibi, heroi claris natalibus orto;
Cujus honoratos Cantia vidit avos.
Cujus adhuc memorat rediviva Batavia patrem,
Inter et Herculeos enumerare solet.
Qui tua Grollaferox, laceratus vulnere multo,
Fulmineis vidit moenia Pacta globis.
Et cum saeva tuas fudisset Iberia turmas,
Afflatu pyrii pulveris ictus obit.
Haec sint magna: tamen major majoribus hic est,
Nititur et pennis altius ire novis.
Sermonem patrium callentem et murmura Celtae,
Non piguit linguas edidicisse duas.
Quicquid Roma vetus, vel quicquid Graecia jactat,
Musarum nutrix alma Calena dedit.
Gnaviter Hesperios compressit Marte cachinnos,
Devictasque dedit Cantaber ipse manus.
Non evitavit validos Dunkerka lacertos,
Non intercludens alta Lacuna vias,
Et scribenda gerens vivaci marmore digna,
Scribere Caesareo more vel ipse potest.
Cui gladium Bellona dedit, calamumque Minerva,
Et geminae Laurus circuit umbra comam.
Cujus si faciem spectes vultusque decorem,
Vix puer Idalius gratior ore fuit.

Strictly speaking, the officer in command of a thousand men,
from the Greek , or , but in the
present instance meaning nothing more than Colonel.

I have amended the text of these lines, which in the
original is very corrupt. I suppose that the compositor was
left to himself, as usual.



AD EUNDEM.

Herrico succede meo: dedit ille priora
Carmina, carminibus non meliora tuis.

Herrick's HESPERIDES had appeared in 1648.




Scripsit Jo. Harmarus,
Oxoniensis, C. W. M.

A celebrated scholar and philologist. An account of him
will be found in Bliss's edition of Wood's ATHENAE. He published
an Elegy on St. Alban the Protomartyr and an Apology for Archbishop
Williams, and edited Scapula. These lines are omitted by Singer.



POEMS.



SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.
TO LUCASTA. GOING BEYOND THE SEAS.

I.
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone;
Then my LUCASTA might I crave
Pity from blustring winde or swallowing wave.

II.
But I'le not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my saile,
Or pay a teare to swage
The foaming blew-gods rage;
For whether he will let me passe
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.

III.
Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated soules,
All time and space controules:
Above the highest sphere wee meet,
Unseene, unknowne, and greet as angels greet

IV.
So then we doe anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i'th' skies,
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speake like spirits unconfin'd
In Heav'n, their earthy bodies left behind.

Of Henry and William Lawes an account may be found in Burney
and Hawkins. Although the former (H. Lawes) set many of Lovelace's
pieces to music, only two occur in the AYRES AND DIALOGUES FOR ONE,
TWO, AND THREE VOYCES, 1653-55-8, folio.



SONG.
SET BY MR. JOHN LANIERE.
TO LUCASTA. GOING TO THE WARRES.

I.
Tell me not, (sweet,) I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde
To warre and armes I flie.

II.
True: a new Mistresse now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

III.
Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more.



A PARADOX.

I.
Tis true the beauteous Starre
To which I first did bow
Burnt quicker, brighter far,
Than that which leads me now;
Which shines with more delight,
For gazing on that light
So long, neere lost my sight.

II.
Through foul we follow faire,
For had the world one face,
And earth been bright as ayre,
We had knowne neither place.
Indians smell not their neast;
A Swisse or Finne tastes best
The spices of the East.

III.
So from the glorious Sunne
Who to his height hath got,
With what delight we runne
To some black cave or grot!
And, heav'nly Sydney you
Twice read, had rather view
Some odde romance so new.

IV.
The god, that constant keepes
Unto his deities,
Is poore in joyes, and sleepes
Imprison'd in the skies.
This knew the wisest, who
From Juno stole, below
To love a bear or cow.

i.e. LUCASTA.

The East was celebrated by all our early poets as the land
of spices and rich gums: -

"For now the fragrant East,
The spicery o' th' world,
Hath hurl'd
A rosie tincture o'er the Phoenix nest."
OTIA SACRA, by Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland, 1648, p. 37.



SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.
TO AMARANTHA; THAT SHE WOULD DISHEVELL HER HAIRE.

I.
Amarantha sweet and faire,
Ah brade no more that shining haire!
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it flye.

II.
Let it flye as unconfin'd
As it's calme ravisher, the winde,
Who hath left his darling, th' East,
To wanton o're that spicie neast.

III.
Ev'ry tresse must be confest:
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.

IV.
Doe not then winde up that light
In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night,
Like the sun in's early ray;
But shake your head, and scatter day.

V.
See, 'tis broke! within this grove,
The bower and the walkes of love,
Weary lye we downe and rest,
And fanne each other's panting breast.

VI.
Heere wee'll strippe and coole our fire,
In creame below, in milk-baths higher:
And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a teare out of thine eye.

VII.
Which our very joys shall leave,
That sorrowes thus we can deceive;
Or our very sorrowes weepe,
That joyes so ripe so little keepe.

A portion of this song is printed, with a few orthographical
variations, in the AYRES AND DIALOGUES, part i. 1653; and it is
also found in Cotgrave's WITS INTERPRETER, 1655, where it is called
"Amarantha counselled." Cotgrave used the text of Lawes, and only
gives that part of the production which he found in AYRES AND
DIALOGUES.

Forbear to brade - Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES, and Cotgrave.

This - Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES. Cotgrave reads HIS.

Milk-baths have been a favourite luxury in all ages.
Peele had probably in his mind the custom of his own time and
country when he wrote the following passage: -

"Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower,
In water mix'd with purest almond flower,
And bathe her beauty in the milk of kids."
KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, 1599.



SONNET.
SET BY MR. HUDSON.

I.
Depose your finger of that ring,
And crowne mine with't awhile;
Now I restor't. Pray, dos it bring
Back with it more of soile?
Or shines it not as innocent,
As honest, as before 'twas lent?

II.
So then inrich me with that treasure,
'Twill but increase your store,
And please me (faire one) with that pleasure
Must please you still the more.
Not to save others is a curse
The blackest, when y'are ne're the worse.



ODE.
SET BY DR. JOHN WILSON.
TO LUCASTA. THE ROSE.

I.
Sweet serene skye-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower;
From thy long clowdy bed
Shoot forth thy damaske head.

II.
New-startled blush of FLORA!
The griefe of pale AURORA,
Who will contest no more,
Haste, haste, to strowe her floore.

III.
Vermilion ball, that's given
From lip to lip in Heaven;
Loves couches cover-led,
Haste, haste, to make her bed.

IV.
Dear offspring of pleas'd VENUS,
And jollie plumpe SILENUS;
Haste, haste, to decke the haire,
Of th' only sweetly faire.

V.
See! rosie is her bower,
Her floore is all this flower;
Her bed a rosie nest
By a bed of roses prest.

VI.
But early as she dresses,
Why fly you her bright tresses?
Ah! I have found, I feare;
Because her cheekes are neere.

Dr. John Wilson was a native of Feversham in Kent,
a gentleman of Charles the First's chapel, and chamber-musician
to his majesty. For an account of his works,
see Burney's HISTORY OF MUSIC, vol. iii. pp. 399-400,
or Hawkins' HISTORY OF MUSIC, iii. 57, where a portrait
of Wilson, taken from the original painting, will be found.
Wood, author of the FASTI and ATHENAE, says that he was
in his time, "the best at the lute in all England." Herrick,
in his HESPERIDES, 1648, has these lines in reference to
Henry Lawes: -

"Then if thy voice commingle with the string,
I hear in thee the rare Laniere to sing,
OR CURIOUS WILSON."

In a MS. copy of the poem contemporary with the author,
now before me, this word is omitted.



LOVE CONQUER'D.
A SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.

I.
The childish god of love did sweare
Thus: By my awfull bow and quiver,
Yon' weeping, kissing, smiling pair,
I'le scatter all their vowes i' th' ayr,
And their knit imbraces shiver.

II.
Up then to th' head with his best art
Full of spite and envy blowne,
At her constant marble heart,
He drawes his swiftest surest dart,
Which bounded back, and hit his owne.

III.
Now the prince of fires burnes;
Flames in the luster of her eyes;
Triumphant she, refuses, scornes;
He submits, adores and mournes,
And is his votresse sacrifice.

IV.
Foolish boy! resolve me now
What 'tis to sigh and not be heard?
He weeping kneel'd, and made a vow:
The world shall love as yon' fast two;
So on his sing'd wings up he steer'd.



A LOOSE SARABAND.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.

I.
Ah me! the little tyrant theefe!
As once my heart was playing,
He snatcht it up and flew away,
Laughing at all my praying.

II.
Proud of his purchase, he surveys
And curiously sounds it,
And though he sees it full of wounds,
Cruel one, still he wounds it.

III.
And now this heart is all his sport,
Which as a ball he boundeth
From hand to breast, from breast to lip,
And all its rest confoundeth.

IV.
Then as a top he sets it up,
And pitifully whips it;
Sometimes he cloathes it gay and fine,
Then straight againe he strips it.

V.
He cover'd it with false reliefe,
Which gloriously show'd it;
And for a morning-cushionet
On's mother he bestow'd it.

VI.
Each day, with her small brazen stings,
A thousand times she rac'd it;
But then at night, bright with her gemmes,
Once neere her breast she plac'd it.

VII.
There warme it gan to throb and bleed;
She knew that smart, and grieved;
At length this poore condemned heart
With these rich drugges repreeved.

VIII.
She washt the wound with a fresh teare,
Which my LUCASTA dropped,
And in the sleave-silke of her haire
'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

IX.
She proab'd it with her constancie,