Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 34

OF ENGLISH VERSE.

Poets may boast, as safely vain, Their works shall with the world remain: Both bound together, live or die, The verses and the prophecy.

But who can hope his line should long Last, in a daily-changing tongue?

While they are new, envy prevails; And as that dies our language fails.

When architects have done their part, The matter may betray their art: Time, if we use ill-chosen stone, Soon brings a well-built palace down.

Poets, that lasting marble seek, Must carve in Latin or in Greek: We write in sand, our language grows, And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.

Chaucer his sense can only boast, The glory of his numbers lost!

Years have defac't his matchless strain, And yet he did not sing in vain.

The beauties which adorn'd that age, The s.h.i.+ning subjects of his rage, Hoping they should immortal prove, Rewarded with success his love.

This was the gen'rous poet's scope, And all an English pen can hope; To make the fair approve his flame, That can so far extend their fame.

Verse thus design'd has no ill fate, If it arrive but at the date Of fading beauty, if it prove But as long-liv'd as present love.

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confin'd Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer: My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move!

A narrow compa.s.s! and yet there Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair: Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

EDMUND WALLER, whose poetry is noticeable because he was the first English versifier to adopt the French fas.h.i.+on of writing in couplets, was born in Warwicks.h.i.+re in 1605. He was elected to Parliament at the age of seventeen, and was a member of that body during the greater part of his life. At the beginning of the difficulties between the king and the Parliament, he gained some notoriety by his opposition to the former, but when the Civil War broke out he attached himself to the Royalist cause. In 1643, being convicted of complicity in a plot against Parliament, he was fined 10,000 and imprisoned for twelve months. After his release he went to France; but in 1653 he returned to England and became reconciled to the new government, writing, soon afterward, "A Panegyric to my Lord Protector, of the present Greatness and joint Interest of his Highness and this Nation." At the Restoration he eagerly declared allegiance to Charles II., and wrote a congratulatory ode on that monarch's return. He became a court favorite, noted for his wit, was made provost of Eton, and returned to his old place in Parliament.

He died October 21, 1687. The first edition of his poems was published in 1645, and from that time to the close of the seventeenth century he was quite generally regarded as the greatest of English poets. At the present time there are few writers so little considered as he.

Waller may be regarded as the founder of the cla.s.sical school of English poetry, in which Dryden and Pope excelled, and which remained in the ascendency for more than a century after his death. "The excellence and dignity of rhyme," says Dryden, "were never fully known till Mr. Waller taught it; he first made writing easily an art, first showed us to conclude the sense, most commonly, in distichs, which in the verse of those before him runs on for so many lines together, that the reader is out of breath to overtake it."

And Dr. Johnson says: "He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. But he was rather smooth than strong: of the 'full resounding line' which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily supply."

Ben Jonson.

AN ODE TO HIMSELF.

Where dost Thou careless lie Buried in ease and sloth?

Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and [so] destroys them both.

Are all the Aonian{1} springs Dried up? lies Thespia waste?

Doth Clarius'{2} harp want strings, That not a nymph now sings; Or droop they as disgrac'd, To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies{3} defac'd?

If hence{4} thy silence be, As 'tis too just a cause, Let this thought quicken thee: Minds that are great and free Should not on fortune pause; 'Tis crown enough to virtue{5} still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry Be taken with false baits Of worded balladry, And think it poesy?

They die with their conceits, And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Then take in hand thy lyre; Strike in thy proper strain; With j.a.phet's line,{6} aspire Sol's chariot for new fire, To give the world again: Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove's brain.{7}

And, since our dainty age Cannot endure reproof, Make not thyself a page To that strumpet the stage; But sing high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull a.s.s's hoof.{8}

NOTES.

This poem is found in the collection of miscellaneous pieces, by Ben Jonson, ent.i.tled "Underwoods." The poet reproaches himself for his own indolence.

1. =Aonian springs.= The fountain Aganippe, situated in Aonia, was much frequented by the Muses, who were therefore sometimes called "Aonides."

They were also called _Thespiades_, because Mount Helicon, one of their favored resorts, was in the vicinity of Thespia, and was itself named "Thespia rupes."

2. =Clarius.= The name applied to the celebrated oracle of Apollo at Clarus, on the Ionian coast.

3. =pies.= Magpies, "who make sound without sense."

4. =hence.= For this reason.

5. =virtue . . . her own applause.= Compare:

"Virtue is her own reward."--_Dryden_, _Tyrannic Love_.

"Virtue, a reward to itself."--_Walton_, _Compleat Angler_.

"Virtue is its own reward."--_Prior_, _Imitations of Horace_.

6. =j.a.phet's line.= The line of Iapetus, the father of Prometheus, who stole fire from the chariot of the sun.

7. =issue of Jove's brain.= Athene, or Minerva.

8. "Safe from the slanderer and the fool."