but yet the body is his book

It's my birthday! We went to NASA (Space Center Houston!) because I am 41 and still a space kid at heart. I was thinking about space poems to post (or moon poems, or poems about planets), and that got me to a not-super-surprising metaphysical place and then I thought, "I miss inflicting John Donne on people my birthday." So here is a deeply weird Donne poem that I have not posted before. (I posted "The Sun Rising" in 2008, otherwise you'd obviously be getting that one.) But what is this bonkers poem about, you may ask. The body? Sex? Death? Plato? Soul bonds? Being drift compatible with a possibly dead person while sharing a grave? All of the above, probably. It also has one of my favorite and most quintessentially "this is disgusting, bro, what are you doing" Donne couplets, which is the one about the eye-stalks.

Where, like a pillow on a bed
A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best;
Our hands were firmly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring,
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string;
So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As 'twixt two equal armies, fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls (which to advance their state
Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refin'd
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He (though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same)
Might thence a new concoction take
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex,
We said, and tell us what we love;
We see by this it was not sex,
We see we saw not what did move;
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things, they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again
And makes both one, each this and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size,
(All which before was poor and scant)
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interinanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are compos'd and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But oh alas, so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we; we are
The intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air;
So soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labors to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot which makes us man,
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To'our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

—John Donne (1572-1631), "The Ecstasy" (or "The Extasie"), from Songs and Sonnets, originally published in print in 1633, although it certainly circulated in manuscript before then. This is obviously neither a song nor a sonnet.

imp my wing

Every time I post a George Herbert poem on or around Easter I think to myself, "but what if I posted 'Easter Wings' instead?!" The problem with "Easter Wings" is that it's a pattern poem, so the way it's displayed on the page is essential, and that is very annoying to code here in a way that reads effectively. Conveniently, however, the Wikipedia entry about the poem has some images of both manuscript and early print editions, and the text of the poem can be read at Poetry Foundation. So for Easter, go read "Easter Wings," if you care to, and feel some type of way!

And here's a bonus poem, because I was reading through The Temple (it's devotional poetry season) and I really love this one. I missed a day earlier in the month, so I think we can double up on Herbert—it has been a few years.

Who sayes that fictions onely and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines passe, except they do their dutie
            Not to a true, but painted chair?

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow course-spunne lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lovers loves?
Must all be vail'd, while he that reades, divines,
            Catching the sense at two removes?

Shepherds are honest people; let them sing:
Riddle who list, for me, and pull for Prime:
I envie no mans nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with losse of ryme,
            Who plainly say, My God, My King.

—George Herbert (1593-1633), "Jordan (I)" from The Temple, 1633. I took it from the Helen Wilcox edition of The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007). This isn't exactly a sonnet (it's fifteen lines), but it follows a lot of sonnet rules, including the turn after line ten. And it's very much in conversation with Sidney and Donne, especially. I love how cranky Herbert is about other poetry, like, "COME ON, GUYS, I CAN WRITE TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD LOVE POETRY ABOUT GOD, OKAY?" (Spoilers: he cannot, he's still a metaphysical poet.)

practice my art

I took a couple of years off from posting John Donne, both because I have already posted many of my top Donne poems and because sometimes you need a break from your favorite poets. In the years since I left grad school in 2016, I've also moved away—in some ways—from my early modernist roots. But I will always love the metaphysical poets for their absolutely bonkers weirdness as much as for the occasionally sublime, so here's a deeply weird poem about oral sex.

Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'er lick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a man, though better than his own?
Perfection is in unity: prefer
One woman first, and then one thing in her.
I, when I value gold, may think upon
The ductileness, the application,
The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,
From rust, from soil, from fire ever free;
But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis made
By our new nature (Use) the soul of trade.
    All these in women we might think upon
(If women had them) and yet love but one.
Can men more injure women than to say
They love them for that, by which they're not they?
Makes virtue woman? Must I cool my blood
Till I both be, and find one, wise and good?
May barren angels love so! But if we
Make love to woman, virtue is not she,
As beauty's not, nor wealth. He that strays thus
From her to hers, is more adulterous,
Then if he took her maid. Search every sphere
And firmament, our Cupid is not there;
He's an infernal god, and under ground
With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound;
Men to such gods their sacrificing coals
Did not in altars lay, but pits and holes.
Although we see celestial bodies move
Above the earth, the earth we till and love:
So we her airs contemplate, words and heart
And virtues, but we love the centrique part.
    Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit,
For love, then this, as infinite as it.
But in attaining this desired place
How much they err, that set out at the face.
The hair a forest is of ambushes,
Of springs, snares, fetters and manacles;
The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,
And when 'tis wrinkled shipwrecks us again—
Smooth, 'tis a paradise, where we would have
Immortal stay, and wrinkled 'tis our grave.
The nose (like to the first meridian) runs
Not 'twixt an East and West, but 'twixt two suns;
It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,
On either side, and then directs us where
Upon the islands fortunate we fall,
(Not faint Canaries, but Ambrosial),
Her swelling lips; to which when we are come,
We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,
For they seem all: there Sirens' songs, and there
Wise Delphic Oracles do fill the ear;
There in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,
The remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.
These, and the glorious promontory, her chin,
O'erpassed, and the straight Hellespont between
The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,
(Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests)
Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye
Some island moles may scattered there descry;
And sailing towards her India, in that way
Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay;
Though thence the current be thy pilot made,
Yet ere thou be where thou wouldst be embayed
Thou shalt upon another forest set,
Where many shipwreck and no further get.
When thou art there, consider what this chase
Misspent by thy beginning at the face.
    Rather set out below; practice my art,
Some symmetry the foot hath with that part
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,
Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at;
Least subject to disguise and change it is—
Men say the Devil never can change his.
It is the emblem that hath figured
Firmness; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.
Civility we see refined; the kiss
Which at the face began, transplanted is,
Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee,
Now at the papal foot delights to be:
If kings think that the nearer way, and do
Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too;
For as free spheres move faster far than can
Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man
Which goes this empty and ethereal way,
Then if at beauty's elements he stay.
Rich nature hath in women wisely made
Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid:
They then, which to the lower tribute owe
That way which that exchequer looks, must go:
He which doth not, his error is as great
As who by clyster gave the stomach meat.

—John Donne (1572-1631), "Elegy XVIII: Love's Progress," although there is, as is often the case with Donne, some dispute about the title; it could be "An Elegie on Loves Progress" or "Loves Progress" or "On Loves Progress." I made a bunch of choices about the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation that are not really consistent with anything except how I think it should read, so it's a good thing I'm not actually a textual editor. This poem ends with the truly incredible metaphor of a meat enema (that is what clyster means, I am sorry), which sure is a choice.

in her heart january

It's a beautiful day today, but every other day this week is supposed to rain. Also, it is just really, really a Monday. Here is a spring poem for a Monday.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season; only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.

—Thomas Carew (1595-1640), "The Spring." Spelling obviously modernized. Carew is not, like, my favorite of the Cavalier poets, but he sure does know his tropes. Sorry she didn't want to sleep with you, Tom, but given the syphilis you can't really blame her.

insnared with flowers

I am, as some of you may have noticed, a few days behind on poems. I often hit a fatigue point in late April, and this year I also have the post-vacation blues; it's been hard to concentrate on much this week. But it's the weekend, the weather is glorious, and it's time to catch up on poetry! I'm going to post a few separate poems today, starting with one for April 22, which was Earth Day. This poem is also a little bit for my mood today—I took a long walk through the park this morning and saw many flowers and flowering trees—because I get hit with the metaphysicals in spring and start thinking about tree sex. And it's been a few years since I posted anything by my bro Andrew Marvell.

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays;
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flow’rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men;
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So am’rous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name;
Little, alas, they know or heed
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passions' heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race:
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flow’rs, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate;
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there:
Two Paradises ’twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard’ner drew
Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new,
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And as it works, th’industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flow’rs!

—Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), "The Garden," around 1668 or earlier. First published in print in 1681. Traditionally, this poem is seen as a product of Marvell's "period of retirement" from 1650-1652 at Nun Appleton in Yorkshire, where he wrote "Upon Appleton House," as well as other poems in which characters walk around in gardens and have metaphysical sex with trees. But according to the notes in my edition of Marvell, a strong case has been made to date the poem during the Restoration because of the influence of Katherine Philips, which I personally like as an argument because Philips was pretty baller. My favorite piece of my own marginalia on this poem is not "(tree sex)" written under the line about the nectarine and the curious peach, but the note at the very end of the poem where I wrote, somewhat inexplicably, "well, but, BEES," underlined twice.

the love of that fair tree

Today I went outside, and, being outside in the sunshine, in very nice parks that had way too many people in them, I thought, "I want a country house." So here's a country house poem. There were a lot of reasons I never finished my dissertation, but this poem wasn't one of them; I love country house poems. This country house poem is a patronage bid (of course), and frequently kind of hilarious, but it's also about loss and nostalgia in a way that can be sort of achy and beautiful. Also, it's pretty queer.

Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained
Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained;
And where the muses gave their full consent,
I should have power the virtuous to content;
Where princely palace willed me to indite,
The sacred story of the soul’s delight.
Farewell (sweet place) where virtue then did rest,
And all delights did harbor in her breast;
Never shall my sad eyes again behold
Those pleasures which my thoughts did then unfold.
Yet you (great Lady) Mistress of that place,
From whose desires did spring this work of grace;
Vouchsafe to think upon those pleasures past,
As fleeting worldly joys that could not last,
Or, as dim shadows of celestial pleasures,
Which are desired above all earthly treasures.
Oh how (methought) against you thither came,
Each part did seem some new delight to frame!
The house received all ornaments to grace it,
And would endure no foulness to deface it.
And walks put on their summer liveries,
And all things else did hold like similes.
The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,
Embraced each other, seeming to be glad,
Turning themselves to beauteous Canopies,
To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes;
The crystal streams with silver spangles graced,
While by the glorious sun they were embraced;
The little birds in chirping notes did sing,
To entertain both you and that sweet spring.
And Philomela with her sundry lays,
Both you and that delightful place did praise.
Oh how me thought each plant, each flower, each tree
Set forth their beauties then to welcome thee!
The very hills right humbly did descend,
When you to tread on them did intend.
And as you set your feet, they still did rise,
Glad that they could receive so rich a prize.
The gentle winds did take delight to be
Among those woods that were so graced by thee,
And in sad murmur uttered pleasing sound,
That pleasure in that place might more abound.
The swelling banks delivered all their pride
When such a Phoenix once they had espied.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree,
Thought themselves honored in supporting thee;
The pretty birds would oft come to attend thee,
Yet fly away for fear they should offend thee;
The little creatures in the burrough by
Would come abroad to sport them in your eye,
Yet fearful of the bow in your fair hand.
Would run away when you did make a stand.
Now let me come unto that stately tree,
Wherein such goodly prospects you did see;
That oak that did in height his fellows pass,
As much as lofty trees, low growing grass,
Much like a comely cedar straight and tall,
Whose beauteous stature far exceeded all.
How often did you visit this fair tree,
Which seeming joyful in receiving thee,
Would like a palm tree spread his arms abroad,
Desirous that you there should make abode;
Whose fair green leaves much like a comely veil,
Defended Phoebus when he would assail;
Whose pleasing boughs did yield a cool fresh air,
Joying his happiness when you were there.
Where being seated, you might plainly see
Hills, vales, and woods, as if on bended knee
They had appeared, your honor to salute,
Or to prefer some strange unlooked-for suit;
All interlaced with brooks and crystal springs,
A prospect fit to please the eyes of kings.
And thirteen shires appeared all in your sight,
Europe could not afford much more delight.
What was there then but gave you all content,
While you the time in meditation spent
Of their Creator’s power, which there you saw,
In all his creatures held a perfect law;
And in their beauties did you plain descry
His beauty, wisdom, grace, love, majesty.
In these sweet woods how often did you walk,
With Christ and his Apostles there to talk;
Placing his holy Writ in some fair tree
To meditate what you therein did see.
With Moses you did mount his holy hill
To know his pleasure, and perform his will.
With lowly David you did often sing
His holy hymns to Heaven’s eternal King.
And in sweet music did your soul delight
To sound his praises, morning, noon, and night.
With blessed Joseph you did often feed
Your pined brethren, when they stood in need.
And that sweet Lady sprung from Clifford’s race,
Of noble Bedford’s blood, fair stem of grace,
To honorable Dorset now espoused,
In whose fair breast true virtue then was housed,
Oh what delight did my weak spirits find
In those pure parts of her well framèd mind.
And yet it grieves me that I cannot be
Near unto her, whose virtues did agree
With those fair ornaments of outward beauty,
Which did enforce from all both love and duty.
Unconstant Fortune, thou art most to blame,
Who casts us down into so low a frame
Where our great friends we cannot daily see,
So great a difference is there in degree.
Many are placed in those orbs of state,
Partners in honor, so ordained by Fate,
Nearer in show, yet farther off in love,
In which, the lowest always are above.
But whither am I carried in conceit,
My wit too weak to conster of the great.
Why not? although we are but born of earth,
We may behold the heavens, despising death;
And loving heaven that is so far above,
May in the end vouchsafe us entire love.
Therefore sweet memory do thou retain
Those pleasures past, which will not turn again:
Remember beauteous Dorset’s former sports,
So far from being touched by ill reports,
Wherein myself did always bear a part,
While reverend love presented my true heart.
Those recreations let me bear in mind,
Which her sweet youth and noble thoughts did find,
Whereof deprived, I evermore must grieve,
Hating blind Fortune, careless to relieve,
And you sweet Cooke-ham, whom these ladies leave,
I now must tell the grief you did conceive
At their departure, when they went away,
How everything retained a sad dismay.
Nay long before, when once an inkling came,
Methought each thing did unto sorrow frame:
The trees that were so glorious in our view,
Forsook both flowers and fruit, when once they knew
Of your depart, their very leaves did wither,
Changing their colors as they grew together.
But when they saw this had no power to stay you,
They often wept, though, speechless, could not pray you,
Letting their tears in your fair bosoms fall,
As if they said, Why will ye leave us all?
This being vain, they cast their leaves away
Hoping that pity would have made you stay:
Their frozen tops, like age’s hoary hairs,
Shows their disasters, languishing in fears.
A swarthy riveled rind all over spread,
Their dying bodies half alive, half dead.
But your occasions called you so away
That nothing there had power to make you stay.
Yet did I see a noble grateful mind
Requiting each according to their kind,
Forgetting not to turn and take your leave
Of these sad creatures, powerless to receive
Your favor, when with grief you did depart,
Placing their former pleasures in your heart,
Giving great charge to noble memory
There to preserve their love continually.
But specially the love of that fair tree,
That first and last you did vouchsafe to see,
In which it pleased you oft to take the air
With noble Dorset, then a virgin fair,
Where many a learned book was read and scanned,
To this fair tree, taking me by the hand,
You did repeat the pleasures which had passed,
Seeming to grieve they could no longer last.
And with a chaste, yet loving kiss took leave,
Of which sweet kiss I did it soon bereave,
Scorning a senseless creature should possess
So rare a favor, so great happiness.
No other kiss it could receive from me,
For fear to give back what it took of thee,
So I ungrateful creature did deceive it
Of that which you in love vouchsafed to leave it.
And though it oft had given me much content,
Yet this great wrong I never could repent;
But of the happiest made it most forlorn,
To show that nothing’s free from Fortune’s scorne,
While all the rest with this most beauteous tree
Made their sad consort sorrow’s harmony.
The flowers that on the banks and walks did grow,
Crept in the ground, the grass did weep for woe.
The winds and waters seemed to chide together
Because you went away they knew not whither;
And those sweet brooks that ran so fair and clear,
With grief and trouble wrinkled did appear.
Those pretty birds that wonted were to sing,
Now neither sing, nor chirp, nor use their wing,
But with their tender feet on some bare spray,
Warble forth sorrow, and their own dismay.
Fair Philomela leaves her mournful ditty,
Drowned in deep sleep, yet can procure no pity.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree
Looks bare and desolate now for want of thee,
Turning green tresses into frosty gray,
While in cold grief they wither all away.
The sun grew weak, his beams no comfort gave,
While all green things did make the earth their grave.
Each brier, each bramble, when you went away
Caught fast your clothes, thinking to make you stay;
Delightful Echo wonted to reply
To our last words, did now for sorrow die;
The house cast off each garment that might grace it,
Putting on dust and cobwebs to deface it.
All desolation then there did appear,
When you were going whom they held so dear.
This last farewell to Cooke-ham here I give,
When I am dead thy name in this may live,
Wherein I have performed her noble hest
Whose virtues lodge in my unworthy breast,
And ever shall, so long as life remains,
Tying my life to her by those rich chains.

—Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), "The Description of Cooke-ham" originally published in 1611, at the conclusion of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Printed for Valentine Simmes for Richard Bonian). Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was entered in the Stationers' Register on October 2, 1610, and "The Description of Cooke-ham" has to have been written before then and after February 25, 1609, when Anne Clifford married and became the Countess of Dorset. Of course, the poem itself is the only real evidence that Lanyer actually spent any time at Cookham with the Cliffords, especially since the Cliffords barely lived there and the property didn't even belong to them. It also does not seem to have been a successful patronage bid on Lanyer's part, which may or may not have been her own fault for putting her poems into print. If you've heard of Aemilia Lanyer before (not from me) and are not generally familiar with seventeenth-century poetry, it's probably as a possible candidate for the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, or Shakespeare if Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare and was a lady (both of these ideas are nonsense, but the second one delights me).

Lanyer's poem was also the first printed country house poem in English, and predates Ben Jonson's "To Penshurst" by five years, which means that crediting Jonson with the foundation of the seventeenth-century country house poem tradition is absolutely a dick move. In case anyone was wondering, my favorite part of this poem is the whole thing where Margaret Clifford (the Duchess of Cumberland, to whom the poem is addressed, along with her daughter Anne, famous seventeenth-century diarist) kisses the tree, and then Aemilia TAKES THE KISS FROM THE TREE. FOR REASONS?! Is it really a country house poem if somebody isn't doing something questionable with a tree?

my soul's form bends

In this house, we post devotional poetry in multiple religions! I've alluded to this poem more than once over the years, but for various reasons I've never posted it; it seemed like it was time.

Let man's soul be a sphere, and then in this
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day
Scarce in a year their natural form obey,
Pleasure or business so our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirled by it.
Hence is't that I am carried towards the West
This day, when my soul's form bends towards the East.
There I should see a sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget;
But that Christ on this cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad I do not see
That spectacle, of too much weight for me.
Who sees God's face, that is self life, must die:
What a death were it then to see God die!
It made his own lieutenant, Nature, shrink:
It made his footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And turn all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? Or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of his,
Make dirt of dust? Or that flesh, which was worn
By God for his apparel, rag'd and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as though hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O think me worth thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rusts and my deformity;
Restore thine image so much by thy grace
That thou may'st know me, and I'll turn my face.

—John Donne (1572-1631), "Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward," also known as "Good Friday: Made as I was Riding Westward that Day," "Good Friday," "Riding Westward," "A Meditation upon Good Friday, 1613" and several other variations; presumably written on April 2, 1613. The general consensus is that Donne was riding to visit Sir Edward Herbert in Wales. I had in my head the apocryphal theory that Donne was leaving London to get away from the plague when he wrote this poem, but I don't think that's actually true—1613 doesn't seem to have been a major plague year, even if it would make a good story, here in 2020. I slightly adapted the (modernized) orthography and punctuation from the massive Longman Complete Poems of John Donne, edited by Robin Robbins (2010), but with Donne you're always editing a little, even when you choose an edition. His poetry circulated so widely that there's no true standardized text, which personally I sort of like—e.g. line 22, which could be "tune all spheres" or "turn all spheres," both of which make sense in context and look pretty much exactly the same in secretary hand.

like sky-written letters on a windy day

I'm counting this poem for yesterday (there will be another poem later today), but it's also sort of a first: this is the first year in poetry month history where I don't have a John Donne poem on my schedule. But I do have this one, which isn't exactly not a John Donne poem. 

Every reader loves the way he tells off

the sun, shouting busy old fool

into the English skies even though they

were likely cloudy on that seventeenth-century morning. 

And it's a pleasure to spend this sunny day

pacing the carpet and repeating the words, 

feeling the syllables lock into rows

until I can stand and declare, 

the book held closed by my side, 

that hours, days, and months are but the rags of time. 

But after a few steps into stanza number two, 

wherein the sun is blinded by his mistress's eyes, 

I can feel the first one begin to fade

like sky-written letters on a windy day. 

And by the time I have taken in the third, 

the second is likewise gone, a blown-out candle now, 

a wavering line of acrid smoke. 

So it's not until I leave the house

and walk three times around this hidden lake

that the poem begins to show

any interest in walking by my side. 

Then, after my circling, 

better than the courteous dominion

of her being all states and him all princes, 

better than love's power to shrink 

the wide world to the size of a bedchamber, 

and better even than the compression 

of all that into the rooms of these three stanzas

is how, after hours stepping up and down the poem, 

testing the plank of every line, 

it goes with me now, contracted into a little spot within. 

—Billy Collins, "Memorizing 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne," from Horoscopes for the Dead, 2011. I posted "The Sun Rising" back in 2008.

that square & speckled stone

Notre Dame is on fire and I'm depressed about it; I really love that cathedral. I was sadly texting with K about it, and she requested this poem, and, well, yeah. Nobody does church architecture like Herbert does, and he still makes me cry sometimes. 

Mark you the floore? that square & speckled stone,

                         Which looks so firm and strong,

                                             Is Patience:

And th' other black and grave, wherewith each one

                         Is checker'd all along,

                                             Humilitie:

The gentle rising, which on either hand

                         Leads to the Quire above,

                                             Is Confidence:

But the sweet cement, which in one sure band

                         Ties the whole frame, is Love

                                             And Charitie.

     Hither sometimes Sinne steals, and stains 

     The marbles neat and curious veins: 

But all is cleansed when the marble weeps. 

     Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore, 

     Blows all the dust about the floore: 

But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps. 

     Blest be the Architect, whose art 

     Could build so strong in a weak heart. 

—George Herbert (1593-1633), "The Church-floore" from The Temple, 1633, and in this case from the excellent Helen Wilcox edition (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 

For Herbert, the church is always a heart (and the heart, a church).

new spheres

Speaking of poets who are gay for God, here's a little of our good friend John Donne, for April 17:

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic sprite,
But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and oh both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more.
But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

—John Donne (1572-1631), Holy Sonnet V. My favorite thing about the Holy Sonnets is how little chill Donne has about his kinky God feelings. Like, he's got a LOT of kinky God feelings, and he doesn't care who knows about them.

shine forth, thou star of poets

Today is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, as well as his alleged birthday. There are a lot of celebrations happening, and I did think about a more creative poetry selection. But the truth is, this is still and always my favorite celebratory Shakespeare poem, however overplayed it might be, and however often I have posted it in years past.

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind Affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seem'd to raise.
These are as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
I mean, with great but disproportion'd Muses.
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence, to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth; or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm.
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poet's matter Nature be
His art doth give the fashion. And that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil, turn the same
(And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!
For a good Poet's made as well as born;
And such wert thou! Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue; even so, the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned and true-filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance
As brandish'd at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage;
Which since thy flight from hence hath mourn'd like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

—Ben Jonson (1572-1637), "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and What He Hath Left Us," prefatory poem to the First Folio of 1623 (and, speaking of the First Folio, check out the Folger Library's First Folio Tour, which includes a digital version).

fainting I follow

I spent today at a pretty great one-day conference sponsored by my department and organized by some of my colleagues. In the last talk, the speaker brought Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)—who, serendipitously, I posted yesterday—into conversation with Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)—who, serendipitously, I have only posted once before. This is not the Wyatt poem that was discussed in the talk, but it's one of the most famous, and up there among my favorites.

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, 

But as for me, hélas, I may no more. 

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, 

I am of them that farthest cometh behind. 

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind 

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore 

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, 

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind. 

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, 

As well as I may spend his time in vain. 

And graven with diamonds in letters plain 

There is written, her fair neck round about: 

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, 

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

—Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), "Whoso List to Hunt." 

There's a fairly widespread assumption that Wyatt wrote this poem about Anne Boleyn, which may or may not change a person's reading of the poem. Wyatt is widely credited (along with the Earl of Surrey and some others) with bringing the sonnet into English, and this is certainly a sonnet; it's also one of Wyatt's closest imitations of Petrarch, and can arguably be considered a (loose) translation of sonnet 190 from Petrarch's Canzoniere. Like a lot of poetry of the period, this poem appears in many different variant forms, punctuated in a variety of ways; I snagged this version from the good old Poetry Foundation and have preserved their punctuation and style choices, though they do not attribute their version. The poem was first published in Tottel's Miscellany in 1557. 

this is the second of our reign

I was going to wait until I was home with my three different editions of Donne, but I have a few minutes now, between a full day of work and my dinner plans, so here we go. IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. IT'S A DONNE YEAR. IT'S TIME FOR THIS POEM.

All kings, and all their favourites,
    All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun itself, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
    Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

    Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
    If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
    But souls where nothing dwells but love
—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

    And then we shall be throughly blest;
    But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
    True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.

—John Donne (1572-1621), "The Anniversarie" or, sometimes, "The Anniversary" (not to be confused with the Anniversaries) from Songs and Sonnets, here with modernized spelling and punctuation courtesy of E. K. Chambers, I think. I mean, honestly, whatever. I could yell about editorial practices for years, but let's just let the poem be, today.

like those knowing flowers

I am trying to recuperate my sense of wonder and joy in what I do, today, so here is a poem about books and the people who love them. K. posted this poem yesterday, and reminded me how much I love it; plus, I think it's time for something from before 1700.

Bright books! the perspectives to our weak sights,
The clear projections of discerning lights,
Burning and shining thoughts, man’s posthume day,
The track of fled souls, and their milkie way,
The dead alive and busie, the still voice
Of enlarged spirits, kind Heaven’s white decoys!
Who lives with you lives like those knowing flowers,
Which in commerce with light spend all their hours;
Which shut to clouds, and shadows nicely shun,
But with glad haste unveil to kiss the sun.
Beneath you all is dark, and a dead night,
Which whoso lives in wants both health and sight.
     By sucking you, the wise, like bees, do grow
Healing and rich, though this they do most slow,
Because most choicely; for as great a store
Have we of books as bees of herbs, or more:
And the great task to try, then know, the good,
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
Is a rare scant performance. For man dyes
Oft ere ’tis done, while the bee feeds and flyes.
But you were all choice flowers; all set and dressed
By old sage florists, who well knew the best;
And I amidst you all am turned a weed,
Not wanting knowledge, but for want of heed.
Then thank thyself, wild fool, that wouldst not be
Content to know—what was too much for thee!

—Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), "To His Books."

what we discovered in the renaissance

Better than even odds that I got this one from wintercreek.

I don't believe in it myself, that lost world

of absolute coherence:

Vermeer's The Kitchen Maid where light glazes the jug

and the milk of paradise pours into the basin.

The girl's grip is steady as she gauges the flow,

it's a task two hands

can manage. The milk still steams

from the cow, the cow flicks her tail

and goes on grazing in a field of gold.

Heraldic crows inscribe arrows from heaven:

the path all good news travels.

The farmer wipes his brow but when he

looks up all he sees is the sun, a cloud

of midges, the distance left

to plough.

In Les Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berri the frame

is frozen, the farmer perfected

as in an attitude of prayer, but this

is art. Say he is praying—suppose

his youngest boy has diphtheria.

His wife sat up all night brewing herbal tea but the farmer

needed to sleep. There's been too much sun, a hail

of poisoned darts, they're going to lose

the crop. Crows, after all, are carrion birds;

see how they circle the thatched roof

of the hut?

And as for Vermeer's bountiful maiden, note

her pensive face.

She's careful not to spill a drop because

she's a servant, indentured at ten

to a prosperous family.

From the swell of her bodice we might guess

she's carrying the burgher's child.

We could make it a sad story.
What we discovered in the Renaissance was perspective.

—Susan Glickman (b. 1953), "For My Students In English 108 Who Complain That All Modern Literature Is Too Depressing" from The Power to Move (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1986).

body politic

I spent today (and yesterday and Thursday) at a big academic conference, having a lot of feelings about the Renaissance. Relatedly, I have been sitting on this poem for a few years, waiting for the right moment.

Elizabeth, The Lodge at Woodstock, 1554

Less than the charting of each dawn’s resolutions,
less than each evening’s trickle of doubt,
less than a crown’s weight in silver, a diamond’s                
scratch against glass, less than the touted

ill luck of my rich beginnings—and yet
more than Eve’s silence, my mute ingratitude.
More than music’s safe passage, its rapturous net,
more than this stockpile of words, their liquid solicitude;
       
more desired than praise (the least-prized of my dreams),
less real than dreaming (castle keep for my sins),
more than no more, which seems
much less than hoped-for, again—

one mutiny, quelled; one wish lost, a forgotten treasure:
to live without scrutiny, beyond constant measure.

—Rita Dove (b. 1952), "Lines Composed on the Body Politic: An Accounting" from Shakespeare’s Sisters: Women Writers Bridge Five Centuries (Folger Shakespeare Library,  2012). Shoutout to both the wonderful Folger Shakespeare Library, and the wonderful Rita Dove.

wiser far than I

I missed yesterday because I was feeling like death. I am still kind of feeling like death, but here are two poems that go together, for yesterday and today. I may have posted the first one, back in 2008 when I posted a Renaissance Poetry Miscellany, but it's been a long time, and I've never posted the second. They do, I feel, play best together.

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

—Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love," in print in 1599, but certainly in manuscript before then, with a terminus ad quem of 1593. Spelling and punctuation modernized, mostly to my preferences.

*

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we shall some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun,
And there th'enamoured fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee than thou him.

If thou to be so seen be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if my heart have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling-reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treach'rously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare or windowy net:

Let coarse, bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or, curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait;
That fish that is not caught thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.

—John Donne (1572-1631), "The Bait," uncertain date, but likely 1590s; 1633 in print. Spelling and punctuation modernized to my preferences, but with reference to the Longman Donne (ed. Robin Robbins), which has the most excessive extensive editing of any Donne edition in my possession.

To do this properly I should probably also include The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, generally attributed to Walter Ralegh. But I like the strict juxtaposition of Marlowe and Donne, which is all one really needs to be like, "SO METAPHYSICAL POETRY."

the mower mown

I have been shamefully neglecting my own literary period, this year. Let's do something about that, shall we? This is my favorite of the Mower Poems, because it is the most self-aware and self-consciously ridiculous, and because it knows its own genre so very well. (I am also pretty fond of The Mower to the Glow-Worms. How can you not love a poem about glow-worms?)

Hark how the Mower Damon sung,
With love of Juliana stung!
While everything did seem to paint
The scene more fit for his complaint.
Like her fair eyes the day was fair,
But scorching like his am’rous care.
Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was,
And withered like his hopes the grass.

‘Oh what unusual heats are here,
Which thus our sunburned meadows sear!
The grasshopper its pipe gives o’er;
And hamstringed frogs can dance no more.
But in the brook the green frog wades;
And grasshoppers seek out the shades.
Only the snake, that kept within,
Now glitters in its second skin.

‘This heat the sun could never raise,
Nor Dog Star so inflame the days.
It from an higher beauty grow’th,
Which burns the fields and mower both:
Which mads the dog, and makes the sun
Hotter than his own Phaëton.
Not July causeth these extremes,
But Juliana’s scorching beams.

‘Tell me where I may pass the fires
Of the hot day, or hot desires.
To what cool cave shall I descend,
Or to what gelid fountain bend?
Alas! I look for ease in vain,
When remedies themselves complain.
No moisture but my tears do rest,
Nor cold but in her icy breast.

‘How long wilt thou, fair shepherdess,
Esteem me, and my presents less?
To thee the harmless snake I bring,
Disarmèd of its teeth and sting;
To thee chameleons, changing hue,
And oak leaves tipped with honey dew.
Yet thou, ungrateful, hast not sought
Nor what they are, nor who them brought.

‘I am the Mower Damon, known
Through all the meadows I have mown.
On me the morn her dew distills
Before her darling daffodils.
And, if at noon my toil me heat,
The sun himself licks off my sweat.
While, going home, the evening sweet
In cowslip-water bathes my feet.

‘What, though the piping shepherd stock
The plains with an unnumbered flock,
This scythe of mine discovers wide
More ground than all his sheep do hide.
With this the golden fleece I shear
Of all these closes every year.
And though in wool more poor than they,
Yet am I richer far in hay.

‘Nor am I so deformed to sight,
If in my scythe I lookèd right;
In which I see my picture done,
As in a crescent moon the sun.
The deathless fairies take me oft
To lead them in their dances soft:
And, when I tune myself to sing,
About me they contract their ring.

‘How happy might I still have mowed,
Had not Love here his thistles sowed!
But now I all the day complain,
Joining my labour to my pain;
And with my scythe cut down the grass,
Yet still my grief is where it was:
But, when the iron blunter grows,
Sighing, I whet my scythe and woes.’

While thus he threw his elbow round,
Depopulating all the ground,
And, with his whistling scythe, does cut
Each stroke between the earth and root,
The edgèd steel by careless chance
Did into his own ankle glance;
And there among the grass fell down,
By his own scythe, the Mower mown.

‘Alas!’ said he, ‘these hurts are slight
To those that die by love’s despite.
With shepherd’s-purse, and clown’s-all-heal,
The blood I staunch, and wound I seal.
Only for him no cure is found,
Whom Juliana’s eyes do wound.
’Tis death alone that this must do:
For Death thou art a Mower too.’

—Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), "Damon the Mower." Probably July-August 1652, first publication 1681.

(Just in case you were wondering, my favorite Marvell poem—and, indeed, one of my favorite poems of all time—will always be the gloriously insane wonderland that is Upon Appleton House.)

this world's profane loveliness

This is a particularly rough week for my friend K, and she asked if she could make a request. Then she sent me this poem.

Here is a thing about graduate school: it can be miserable, and lonely, and isolating, but when you form a real and lasting friendship in the grad school trenches, it matters. It matters for its rarity, and because you've gone through a particular kind of hell together that also comes with some truly glorious high points; on the one hand, you're crying on the phone at two in the morning because you might need to quit the program, and on the other hand, the next day you spend three hours talking about John Donne. Which is all to say that this is for K, who is, along with John Donne and poems like this one, my light in the darkness of graduate school.

1.

The stars! the stars have fled the sky!—
Scratch that—the stars have skyed the flood, the sea
glimmering in pale beneath a starless black. . .

2.

No, scratch that too. I'm all exotic
metaphor, inkhorn snarls, never content
with the unelaborated thing;

always the forced apotheosis,
every least sparrow a visible sign,
strong-arming water to wine. So tenderly

I love this world's profane loveliness,
its small, scarce loveliness, like a puritan
I batter magnitude out of homespun.

3.

Faithless my zeal, for the puritan's faith
imputes us all with a roughhouse grace, most
lovely in our brokenness, bruised and bent

to glory. Scratch that—to sufficiency.
Start again: The stars are black with storms
blown shoreward; the dinoflagellates

smacked on the shoals leak light from shattered cells;
they phosphoresce the breakers in their roister.
Let me sing, then, the beauty of creatures

microscopic, who make the vastness gleam
in smithereens.

4.

                       See: starlike, after all.

—Kimberly Johnson (b. 1971), "Easter, Looking Westward." Originally published in The Journal, Ohio State University, 2006.

I heard Kimberly Johnson read some of her poetry last year, and—as I think this poem demonstrates very well—she's really extraordinary. She's also a professor of Renaissance literature, which is sort of reassuring to me personally. I think this poem is breathtaking regardless of its references, but that said, John Donne's Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward is certainly worth reading or rereading, especially today.

with all that hospitality doth know

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show,
Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row
Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold;
Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told,
Or stair, or courts; but stand’st an ancient pile,
And, these grudged at, art reverenced the while.
Thou joy’st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport;
Thy mount, to which the dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set
At his great birth where all the Muses met.
There in the writhed bark are cut the names
Of many a sylvan, taken with his flames;
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns to reach thy Lady’s Oak.
Thy copse too, named of Gamage, thou hast there,
That never fails to serve thee seasoned deer
When thou wouldst feast or exercise thy friends.
The lower land, that to the river bends,
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do feed;
The middle grounds thy mares and horses breed.
Each bank doth yield thee conies; and the tops,
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sidney’s copse,
To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant with the speckled side;
The painted partridge lies in every field,
And for thy mess is willing to be killed.
And if the high-swollen Medway fail thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat aged carps that run into thy net,
And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat,
As loath the second draught or cast to stay,
Officiously at first themselves betray;
Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land
Before the fisher, or into his hand.
Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours.
The early cherry, with the later plum,
Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come;
The blushing apricot and woolly peach
Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach.
And though thy walls be of the country stone,
They’re reared with no man’s ruin, no man’s groan;
There’s none that dwell about them wish them down;
But all come in, the farmer and the clown,
And no one empty-handed, to salute
Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit.
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,
Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses bring them, or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands, and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum or pear.
But what can this (more than express their love)
Add to thy free provisions, far above
The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow
With all that hospitality doth know;
Where comes no guest but is allowed to eat,
Without his fear, and of thy lord’s own meat;
Where the same beer and bread, and selfsame wine,
This is his lordship’s shall be also mine,
And I not fain to sit (as some this day
At great men’s tables), and yet dine away.
Here no man tells my cups; nor, standing by,
A waiter doth my gluttony envy,
But gives me what I call, and lets me eat;
He knows below he shall find plenty of meat.
The tables hoard not up for the next day;
Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray
For fire, or lights, or livery; all is there,
As if thou then wert mine, or I reigned here:
There’s nothing I can wish, for which I stay.
That found King James when, hunting late this way
With his brave son, the prince, they saw thy fires
Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires
Of thy Penates had been set on flame
To entertain them; or the country came
With all their zeal to warm their welcome here.
What (great I will not say, but) sudden cheer
Didst thou then make ’em! and what praise was heaped
On thy good lady then, who therein reaped
The just reward of her high housewifery;
To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,
When she was far; and not a room but dressed
As if it had expected such a guest!
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all.
Thy lady’s noble, fruitful, chaste withal.
His children thy great lord may call his own,
A fortune in this age but rarely known.
They are, and have been, taught religion; thence
Their gentler spirits have sucked innocence.
Each morn and even they are taught to pray,
With the whole household, and may, every day,
Read in their virtuous parents’ noble parts
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see
Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else,
May say their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.

—Ben Jonson (1572-1637), "To Penshurst" from The Forest, from The Works of Benjamin Jonson, 1616. This poem is so virtuosic in a way that only Jonson can ever really sell. Like, I love it for all the usual reasons, but I think it really repays some rigorous close reading and a healthy dose of contextual skepticism. The class politics alone are kind of amazing, not to even mention the whole thing where the rabbits are like "please eat us!" I LOVE COUNTRY HOUSE POEMS.