The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 14

For loving well, with pain I'm rent....

Nor can I yet repent, My heart o'erflowed with deadly pleasantness.

Now wait I from no less A foe than dealt me my first blow, my last.

And were I slain full fast, 'Twould seem a sort of mercy to my mind....

My ode, I shall i' the field Stand firm; to perish flinching were a shame, In fact, myself I blame For such laments; my portion is so sweet.

Tears, sighs, and death I greet.

O reader that of death the servant art, Earth can no weal, to match my woes, impart.

His poems are full of scenes and comparisons from Nature; for the sympathy for her which goes with this modern and sentimental tone is a deep one:

In that sweet season of my age's prime Which saw the sprout and, as it were, green blade Of the wild pa.s.sion....

Changed me From living man into green laurel whose Array by winter's cold no leaf can lose.

(Ode 1.)

Love is that by which

My darknesses were made as bright As clearest noonday light. (Ode 4.)

Elsewhere it is the light of heaven breaking in his heart, and springtime which brings the flowers.

In Sonnet 44 he plays with impossibilities, like the Greek and Roman poets:

Ah me! the sea will have no waves, the snow Will warm and darken, fish on Alps will dwell, And suns droop yonder, where from common cell

The springs of Tigris and Euphrates flow, Or ever I shall here have truce or peace Or love....

and uses the same comparisons, Sestina 7:

So many creatures throng not ocean's wave, So many, above the circle of the moon, Of stars were never yet beheld by night; So many birds reside not in the groves; So many herbs hath neither field nor sh.o.r.e, But my heart's thoughts outnumber them each eve.

Many of his poems witness to the truth that the love-pa.s.sion is the best interpreter of Nature, especially in its woes. The woes of love are his constant theme, and far more eloquently expressed than its bliss:

So fair I have not seen the sun arise, When heaven was clearest of all cloudy stain-- The welkin-bow I have not after rain Seen varied with so many s.h.i.+fting dyes, But that her aspect in more splendid guise Upon the day when I took up Love's chain Diversely glowed, for nothing mortal vies Therewith.... (Sonnet 112.)

From each fair eyelid's tranquil firmament So brightly s.h.i.+ne my stars untreacherous, That none, whose love thoughts are magnanimous, Would from aught else choose warmth or guidance lent.

Oh, 'tis miraculous, when on the gra.s.s She sits, a very flower, or when she lays Upon its greenness down her bosom white.

(Sonnet 127.)

Oh blithe and happy flowers, oh favoured sod, That by my lady in pa.s.sive mood are pressed, Lawn, which her sweet words hear'st and treasurest, Faint traces, where her shapely foot hath trod, Smooth boughs, green leaves, which now raw juices load, Pale darling violets, and woods which rest In shadow, till that sun's beam you attest, From which hath all your pride and grandeur flowed; Oh land delightsome, oh thou river pure Which bathest her fair face and brilliant eyes And winn'st a virtue from their living light, I envy you each clear and comely guise In which she moves. (Sonnet 129.)

These recall Nais in Theocritus:

When she crept or trembling footsteps laid, Green bright and soft she made Wood, water, earth, and stone; yea, with conceit The gra.s.ses freshened 'neath her palms and feet.

And her fair eyes the fields around her dressed With flowers, and the winds and storms she stilled With utterance unskilled As from a tongue that seeketh yet the breast, (Sonnet 25.)

As oft as yon white foot on fresh green sod Comelily sets the gentle step, a dower Of grace, that opens and revives each flower, Seems by the delicate palm to be bestowed.

(Sonnet 132.)

I seem to hear her, hearing airs and sprays, And leaves, and plaintive bird notes, and the brook That steals and murmurs through the sedges green.

Such pleasure in lone silence and the maze Of eerie shadowy woods I never took, Though too much tow'r'd my sun they intervene.

(Sonnet 143.)

and like Goethe's:

I think of thee when the bright sunlight s.h.i.+mmers Across the sea; When the clear fountain in the moonbeam glimmers I think of thee....

I hear thee, when the tossing waves' low rumbling Creeps up the hill; I go to the lone wood and listen trembling When all is still....

So Petrarch sings in Ode 15:

Now therefore, when in youthful guise I see The world attire itself in soft green hue, I think that in this age unripe I view That lovely girl, who's now a lady's mien.

Then, when the sun ariseth all aglow, I trace the wonted show Of amorous fire, in some fine heart made queen...

When leaves or boughs or violets on earth I see, what time the winter's cold decays, And when the kindly stars are gathering might, Mine eye that violet and green portrays (And nothing else) which, at my warfare's birth, Armed Love so well that yet he worsts me quite.

I see the delicate fine tissue light In which our little damsel's limbs are dressed....

Oft on the hills a feeble snow-streak lies, Which the sun smiteth in sequestered place.

Let sun rule snow! Thou, Love, my ruler art, When on that fair and more than human face I muse, which from afar makes soft my eyes....

I never yet saw after mighty rain The roving stars in the calm welkin glide And glitter back between the frost and dew, But straight those lovely eyes are at my side....

If ever yet, on roses white and red, My eyes have fallen, where in bowl of gold They were set down, fresh culled by virgin hands, There have I seemed her aspect to behold....

But when the year has flecked Some deal with white and yellow flowers the braes, I forthwith recollect That day and place in which I first admired Laura's gold hair outspread, and straight was fired....

That I could number all the stars anon And shut the waters in a tiny gla.s.s Belike I thought, when in this narrow sheet I got a fancy to record, alas, How many ways this Beauty's paragon Hath spread her light, while standing self-complete, So that from her I never could retreat....

She's closed for me all paths in earth and sky.

The reflective modern mind is clear in this, despite its loquacity.

He was yet more eloquent and intense, more fertile in comparisons, when his happiest days were over.

In Ode 24, standing at a window he watches the strange forms his imagination conjures up--a wild creature torn in pieces by two dogs, a s.h.i.+p wrecked by a storm, a laurel shattered by lightning:

Within this wood, out of a rock did rise A spring of water, mildly rumbling down, Whereto approached not in any wise The homely shepherd nor the ruder clown, But many muses and the nymphs withal....

But while herein I took my chief delight, I saw (alas!) the gaping earth devour The spring, the place, and all clean out of sight-- Which yet aggrieves my heart unto this hour....

At last, so fair a lady did I spy, That thinking yet on her I burn and quake, On herbs and flowers she walked pensively....

A stinging serpent by the heel her caught, Wherewith she languished as the gathered flower.

Now Zephyrus the blither days brings on, With flowers and leaves, his gallant retinue, And Progne's chiding, Philomela's moan, And maiden spring all white and pink of hue; Now laugh the meadows, heaven is radiant grown, And blithely now doth Love his daughter view; Air, water, earth, now breathe of love alone, And every creature plans again to woo.

Ah me! but now return the heaviest sighs, Which my heart from its last resources yields To her that bore its keys to heaven away.

And songs of little birds and blooming fields And gracious acts of ladies, fair and wise, Are desert land and uncouth beasts of prey.

(Sonnet 269.)

The nightingale, who maketh moan so sweet Over his brood belike or nest-mate dear, So deft and tender are his notes to hear, That fields and skies are with delight replete; And all night long he seems with me to treat, And my hard lot recall unto my ear.

(Sonnet 270.)

In every dell The sands of my deep sighs are circ.u.mfused.

(Ode 1.)

Oh banks, oh dales, oh woods, oh streams, oh fields Ye vouchers of my life's o'erburdened cause, How often Death you've heard me supplicate.

(Ode 8.)

Whereso my foot may pa.s.s, A balmy rapture wakes When I think, here that darling light hath played.

If flower I cull or gra.s.s, I ponder that it takes Root in that soil, where wontedly she strayed Betwixt the stream and glade, And found at times a seat Green, fresh, and flower-embossed. (Ode 13.)