Lives of the Poets Part 2

Love was with thy life entwin'd, Close as heat with fire is join'd; A powerful brand prescrib'd the date Of thine, like Meleager's fate

Th' antiperistasis of age More enflam'd thy amorous rage.

In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion concerning manna:

Variety I ask not: give me one To live perpetually upon.

The person love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it.

Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastick verses:

In every thing there naturally grows A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows; Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.

But you, of learning and religion, And virtue and such ingredients, have made A mithridate, whose operation Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.

Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too scholastick, they are not inelegant:

This twilight of two years, not past nor next, Some emblem is of me, or I of this, Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, Whose what and where in disputation is, If I should call me any thing, should miss.

I sum the years and me, and find me not Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new.

That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot; Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true This bravery is, since these times shew'd me you.

Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as a microcosm:

If men be worlds, there is in every one Something to answer in some proportion All the world's riches: and in good men, this Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is.

Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full.

To a lady, who wrote poesies for rings:

They, who above do various circles find, Say, like a ring, th' equator heaven does bind.

When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, (Which then more heaven than 'tis will be,) 'Tis thou must write the poesy there, For it wanteth one as yet, Then the sun pa.s.s through 't twice a year, The sun, which is esteem'd the G.o.d of wit. COWLEY.

The difficulties which have been raised about ident.i.ty in philosophy, are, by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love:

Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you, For which you call me most inconstant now; Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; For I am not the same that I was then: No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me; And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see.

The same thoughts to retain still, and intents, Were more inconstant far; for accidents Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t' another move; My members, then, the father members were, From whence these take their birth which now are here.

If then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid.

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels through different countries:

Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The land where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited?

What joy could'st take, or what repose, In countries so unciviliz'd as those?

l.u.s.t, the scorching dogstar, here Rages with immoderate heat; Whilst pride, the rugged northern bear, In others makes the cold too great.

And where these are temperate known, The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. COWLEY.

A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:

The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain From clouds which in the head appear; But all my too much moisture owe To overflowings of the heart below. COWLEY.

The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury, and rites of sacrifice:

And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear: When sound in every other part, Her sacrifice is found without an heart.

For the last tempest of my death Shall sigh out that too, with my breath.

That the chaos was harmonized, has been recited of old; but whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover:

Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew; An artless war from thwarting motions grew; Till they to number and fixt rules were brought.

Water and air he for the tenor chose; Earth made the base; the treble, flame arose. COWLEY.

The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again:

On a round ball A workman, that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.

So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so.

On reading the following lines, the reader may, perhaps, cry out, "Confusion worse confounded:"

Here lies a she-sun, and a he-moon here, She gives the best light to his sphere, 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 G.o.d be our true gla.s.s, through which we see All, since the being of all things is he, Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Things in proportion fit, by perspective Deeds of good men; for by their living here, Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.

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 Inc.u.mbency?

To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out?

Think but how soon the market fails, Your s.e.x 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 I'll repay As shall themselves make winds to get to you. COWLEY.

In tears I'll waste these eyes, By love so vainly fed; So l.u.s.t of old the deluge punished. COWLEY.

All arm'd in bra.s.s, the richest dress of war, (A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.

The sun himself started with sudden fright, To see his beams return so dismal bright. COWLEY.

An universal consternation:

His b.l.o.o.d.y eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about, Las.h.i.+ng his angry tail, and roaring out.

Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; Silence and horror fill the place around; Echo itself 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, And all with as much ease might taken be, 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.