On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out-Confusion worse confounded: Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here, Or each is both, and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe. DONNE. Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Though God be our true glass through which we see All, since the being of all things is he; Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote ideas could be brought together? Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. CLEIVELAND. Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples: By every wind that comes this way, Send me at least a sigh or two, Such and so many l'il repay VOL. I. As shall themselves make wings to get to you. COWLEY. An universal consternation: His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp pawS Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; Echo itsslf dares scarce repeat the sound. COWLEY, Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. Of his Mistress bathing. The fish around her crowded, as they do To the false light that treacherous fishers shew, As she at first took me ; For ne'er did light so clear Among the waves appear, Though every night the sun himself set there. COWLEY. The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass: My name engrav'd herein Doth contribute my firmness to this glass; Which, ever since that charm, hath been As hard as that which grav'd it was. DONNE. Their conceits were sentiments slight and trifling. On an inconstant woman: He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, In the clear heaven of thy brow. No smallest cloud appears. He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay, And trusts the faithless April of thy May. COWLEY. Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire : Nothing yet in thee is seen, But when a genial heat warms thee within, A new-born wood of various lines there grows Here spouts a V, and there a T, And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. COWLEY. As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. Physick and chirurgery for a lover. Gently, ah gently, madam, touch The wound, which you yourself have made; The world and a clock. Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face COWLEY. 'Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace; On all the springs and smallest wheels did look Made up the whole again of every part. COWLEY. A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the sun : The moderate value of our guiltless ore Had he our pits, the Persian would admire He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer The sun's Heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. Death, a voyage: No family E'er rigg'd a soul for Heaven's discovery, DONNE. Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd and such as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding. A lover neither dead nor alive : Then down I laid my head Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled; When back to its cage again I saw it fly; Fool to resume her broken chain, And row her galley here again! Fool, to that body to return Where it condemn'd and destined is to burn! Once dead, how can it be, Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, That thou should'st come to live it o'er again in me? A lover's heart, a hand grenado : Woe to her stuborn heart if once mine come Into the self-same room; "Twill tear and blow up all within, Like a greuado shot into a magazin. Then shall love keep the ashes, and torn parts, Shall out of both one new one make: From her's th' allay, from mine the metal take. COWLEY. The poetical propagation of light; The prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all, From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall: Then from those wombs of stars, the bride's bright eyes, At every glance a constellation flies, And sowes the court with stars, and doth prevent, In light and power, the all-eyed firmament: DONNE. They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts. That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expressed: Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand, To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee. That prayer and labour should co-operate, are thus taught by Donne: In none but us are such mix'd engines found, As hands of double office; for the ground We till with them; and them to Heaven we raise; Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, Doth but one half, that's none. By the same author, a common topick, the danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated: -That which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done; And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep, all day and having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd, must then ride post. |