And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,

The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:
Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some
May yet be there; and god-wit if we can;
Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe'er, my man 20
Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,
Livy, or of some better book to us,

Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat;
And I'll profess no verses to repeat.

To this if aught appear, which I not know of,
That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;
But that which most doth take my muse and me
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,

31

Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine:
Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted,
Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.
Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,
Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing.
Of this we will sup free, but moderately,
And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by;
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men,
But at our parting we will be as when
We innocently met. No simple word,
That shall be uttered at our mirthful board,
Shall make us sad next morning, or affright
The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.

JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)

SONG

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil's foot; Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find

What wind

40

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.

Yet do not; I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet. Though she were true when you met her, And last till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

THE INDIFFERENT

I can love both fair and brown;

18

27

Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;

Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;

Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town;

Her who believes, and her who tries;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork and never cries.

I can love her, and her, and you, and you;

I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?

Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?

Or have you all old vices spent and now would find out others?

Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?

O we are not, be not you so;

Let me and do you

twenty know;

Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.

She went, examined, and return'd ere long,
And said, "Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,

Which think to stablish dangerous constancy. 25
But I have told them, 'Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who're false to you.""

THE CANONIZATION

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love; Or chide my palsy, or my gout;

My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout;

Call's what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,

We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns all shall approve
Us canonized for love;

27

36

That Love is weak where Fear's as strong as he; 'Tis not all spirit pure and brave

If mixture it of Fear, Shame, Honour have.
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me.
Thou cam'st to kindle, go'st to come: then I 29
Will dream that hope again, but else would die.

LOVE'S DEITY

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost
Who died before the god of love was born.

I cannot think that he who then loved most
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.

7

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,

Nor he in his young godhead practiced it. But when an even flame two hearts did touch, His office was indulgently to fit Actives to passives. Correspondency Only his subject was; it cannot be Love till I love her who loves me.

But every modern god will not extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O! were we waken'd by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her who loves not me.

14

21

Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

6

12

II

So doth the base, and the fore-barren brain,
Soon as the raging wine begins to reign.
One higher pitch'd doth set his soaring thought
On crowned kings, that fortune hath low brought;
Or some upreared, high-aspiring swain,
As it might be the Turkish Tamberlain:
Then weeneth he his base drink-drowned spright,
Rapt to the threefold loft of heaven hight,
When he conceives upon his feigned stage
The stalking steps of his great personage,
Graced with huff-cap terms and thund'ring
threats,

That his poor hearers' hair quite upright sets.
Such soon as some brave-minded hungry youth
Sees fitly frame to his wide-strained mouth,
He vaunts his voice upon an hired stage,
With high-set steps and princely carriage;
Now swooping in side robes of royalty,
That erst did scrub in lousy brokery.
There if he can with terms Italianate,
Big-sounding sentences and words of state,
Fair patch me up his pure iambic verse,
He ravishes the gazing scaffolders.
Then certes was the famous Corduban
Never but half so high tragedian.

20

30

A goodly grace to sober tragic muse,
When each base clown his clumsy fist doth bruise,
And show his teeth in double rotten row,
For laughter at his self-resembled show.
Meanwhile our poets in high parliament
Sit watching every word and gesturement,
Like curious censors of some doughty gear,
Whispering their verdict in their fellow's ear.
Woe to the word whose margent in their scroll
Is noted with a black condemning coal.
But if each period might the synod please,
Ho! — bring the ivy boughs, and bands of bays.
Now when they part and leave the naked stage,
'Gins the bare hearer, in a guilty rage,

50

To curse and ban, and blame his likerous eye, That thus hath lavish'd his late halfpenny. Shame that the Muses should be bought and

sold,

For every peasant's brass, on each scaffold.

JOHN MARSTON (1575-1634)

FROM THE SCOURGE OF VILLAINY

In Lectores prorsus indignos

Fie, Satire, fie! shall each mechanic slave,
Each dunghill peasant, free perusal have
Of thy well-labour'd lines? — each satin suit,
Each quaint fashion-monger, whose sole repute
Rests in his trim gay clothes, lie slavering,
Tainting thy lines with his lewd censuring?
Shall each odd puisne of the lawyer's inn,
Each barmy-froth, that last day did begin
To read his little, or his ne'er a whit,
Or shall some greater ancient, of less wit
That never turn'd but brown tobacco leaves,
Whose senses some damn'd occupant bereaves,
Lie gnawing on thy vacant time's expense,
Tearing thy rhymes, quite altering the sense?
Or shall perfum'd Castilio censure thee,
Shall he o'erview thy sharp-fang'd poesy

IO

Who ne'er read further than his mistress lips, Ne'er practised ought but some spruce cap'ring skips,

Ne'er in his life did other language use,

But "Sweet lady, fair mistress, kind heart, dear cuz"

Shall this phantasma, this Coloss peruse,

20

And blast, with stinking breath, my budding muse?

Fie! wilt thou make thy wit a courtezan
For every broken handcraft's artisan?
Shall brainless cittern-heads, each jobbernoul,
Pocket the very genius of thy soul?

60

To some vile tune, when that thy master's laid.
But will you needs stay? am I forced to bear
The blasting breath of each lewd censurer?
Must naught but clothes, and images of men,
But spriteless trunks, be judges of thy pen?
Nay then, come all! I prostitute my muse,
For all the swarms of idiots to abuse.
Read all, view all; even with my full consent,
So you will know that which I never meant;
So you will ne'er conceive, and yet dispraise
That which you ne'er conceived, and laughter
raise,

70

Where I but strive in honest seriousness
To scourge some soul-polluting beastliness.
So you will rail, and find huge errors lurk
In every corner of my cynic work.
Proface! read on, for your extrem'st dislikes
Will add a pinion to my praise's flights.
O how I bristle up my plumes of pride,
O how I think my satire's dignifi'd,
When I once hear some quaint Castilio,
Some supple-mouth'd slave, some lewd Tubrio,
Some spruce pedant, or some span-new-come
fry

Of inns-o'court, striving to vilify

My dark reproofs! Then do but rail at me,
No greater honour craves my poesy.

GEORGE SANDYS (1578-1644)

A PARAPHRASE UPON THE PSALMS OF DAVID

PSALM XXX, PART II

In my prosperity I said,

My feet shall ever fix'd abide;

I, by Thy favour fortifi'd,

Am like a steadfast mountain made.

But when Thou hid'st Thy cheerful face,
How infinite my troubles grew;
My cries then with my grief renew,
Which thus implor'd Thy saving grace.

80