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20SP_EH362A-Renaissances (cat. 1)

  • Introduction

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  • Topic 1

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  • Topic 2

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  • Topic 10

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  • Topic 11

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    Paper Due Sunday  March 15th no later than 11:59 p.m.-

    Select one or two poems by Donne and explore how he uses and transforms the work of his predecessors as shown in two or three poems you select from our earlier readings. Cast your net widely and embrace new perspectives as needed. how does Donne explore LOVE, or SELF, THE DIVINE, or NATURE, or TRUTH, or POETRY, or INTERIORITY, or some connectedness you find or assert.

    Three to four pages making a large analytical point by using your selected poems to focus and elucidate the claim you want to make--- perhaps an easy way to start is to select a few poems and see where they seem to lead you. After all, this is your paper and your deeper understanding. How does it fit together and yet evolve and grow?

    We will talk Friday and I will add some more Donne poems to our list.

    • Topic 12

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      Poems by John Donne:

      A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

      As virtuous men pass mildly away,
         And whisper to their souls to go,
      Whilst some of their sad friends do say
         The breath goes now, and some say, No:

      So let us melt, and make no noise,
         No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
      'Twere profanation of our joys
         To tell the laity our love.

      Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
         Men reckon what it did, and meant;
      But trepidation of the spheres,
         Though greater far, is innocent.

      Dull sublunary lovers' love
         (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
      Absence, because it doth remove
         Those things which elemented it.

      But we by a love so much refined,
         That our selves know not what it is,
      Inter-assured of the mind,
         Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

      Our two souls therefore, which are one,
         Though I must go, endure not yet
      A breach, but an expansion,
         Like gold to airy thinness beat.

      If they be two, they are two so
         As stiff twin compasses are two;
      Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
         To move, but doth, if the other do.

      And though it in the center sit,
         Yet when the other far doth roam,
      It leans and hearkens after it,
         And grows erect, as that comes home.

      Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
         Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
      Thy firmness makes my circle just,
         And makes me end where I begun.

      A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day


      'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
      Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
               The sun is spent, and now his flasks
               Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
                      The world's whole sap is sunk;
      The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
      Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
      Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
      Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

      Study me then, you who shall lovers be
      At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
               For I am every dead thing,
               In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
                      For his art did express
      A quintessence even from nothingness,
      From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
      He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
      Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

      All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
      Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
               I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
               Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
                      Have we two wept, and so
      Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
      To be two chaoses, when we did show
      Care to aught else; and often absences
      Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

      But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
      Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
               Were I a man, that I were one
               I needs must know; I should prefer,
                      If I were any beast,
      Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
      And love; all, all some properties invest;
      If I an ordinary nothing were,
      As shadow, a light and body must be here.

      But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
      You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
               At this time to the Goat is run
               To fetch new lust, and give it you,
                      Enjoy your summer all;
      Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
      Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
      This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
      Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.


      GOOD FRIDAY, 1613. RIDING WESTWARD


      Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

      The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

      And as the other Spheares, by being growne

      Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

      And being by others hurried every day,

      Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

      Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

      For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

      Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West

      This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

      There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

      And by that setting endlesse day beget;

      But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

      Sinne had eternally benighted all.

      Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see

      That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

      Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

      What a death were it then to see God dye?

      It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

      It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

      Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

      And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes?

      Could I behold that endlesse height which is

      Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

      Humbled below us? or that blood which is

      The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

      Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

      By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne?

      If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

      Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

      Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus

      Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?

      Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

      They'are present yet unto my memory,

      For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee,

      O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;

      I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

      Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

      O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

      Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

      Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

      That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.

      THE RELIC

      When my grave is broke up again
             Some second guest to entertain,
             (For graves have learn'd that woman head,
             To be to more than one a bed)
                      And he that digs it, spies
      A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
                      Will he not let'us alone,
      And think that there a loving couple lies,
      Who thought that this device might be some way
      To make their souls, at the last busy day,
      Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

               If this fall in a time, or land,
               Where mis-devotion doth command,
               Then he, that digs us up, will bring
               Us to the bishop, and the king,
                      To make us relics; then
      Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
                      A something else thereby;
      All women shall adore us, and some men;
      And since at such time miracles are sought,
      I would have that age by this paper taught
      What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

               First, we lov'd well and faithfully,
               Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;
               Difference of sex no more we knew
               Than our guardian angels do;
                      Coming and going, we
      Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
                      Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals
      Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free;
      These miracles we did, but now alas,
      All measure, and all language, I should pass,
      Should I tell what a miracle she was.


      HOLY SONNET #10 - DEATH BE NOT PROUD

      Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud by John Donne | Poetry Foundation
      Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
      Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
      For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
      Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
      From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
      Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
      And soonest our best men with thee do go,
      Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
      Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
      And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
      And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
      And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
      One short sleep past, we wake eternally
      And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.


      • Topic 13

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      • Topic 14

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        • Poems by Ben jonson

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          All by Ben Jonson- not my friend the retired attorney, but the contemporary of Shakespeare.


          ON MY FIRST SON:

          Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
          My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
          Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
          Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
          O, could I lose all father now! For why
          Will man lament the state he should envy?
          To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
          And if no other misery, yet age?
          Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
          Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
          For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
          As what he loves may never like too much.

          INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER:
          Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I
          Do equally desire your company;
          Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
          But that your worth will dignify our feast
          With those that come, whose grace may make that seem
          Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
          It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
          The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
          Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
          An olive, capers, or some better salad
          Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
          If we can get her, full of eggs, and then
          Lemons, and wine for sauce; to these a cony
          Is not to be despaired of, for our money;
          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 godwit, if we can;
          Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe’er, my man
          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 ought 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,
          Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine;
          Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted,
          Their lives, as so 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 Pooley, 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 tonight.

          TO PENSHURST- The Sidney Family Estate:
          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 writhèd 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.

          To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
          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 th' 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;
          Pacuvius, 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.
          Tri'umph, 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 waters 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.


          • Robert Herrick Poems

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            The Argument of his Book:

            I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,

            Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.

            I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

            Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.

            I write of youth, of love, and have access

            By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

            I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece

            Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.

            I sing of Time's trans-shifting; and I write

            How roses first came red, and lilies white.

            I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing

            The court of Mab, and of the fairy king.

            I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)

            Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

             

            The Vine:

            I dreamed this mortal part of mine

            Was metamorphosed to a vine,

            Which crawling one and every way

            Enthralled my dainty Lucia.

            Methought her long small legs and thighs

            I with my tendrils did surprise;

            Her belly, buttocks, and her waist

            By my soft nervelets were embraced.

            About her head I writhing hung,

            And with rich clusters (hid among

            The leaves) her temples I behung,

            So that my Lucia seemed to me

            Young Bacchus ravished by his tree.

            My curls about her neck did crawl,

            And arms and hands they did enthrall,

            So that she could not freely stir

            (All parts there made one prisoner).

            But when I crept with leaves to hide

            Those parts which maids keep unespied,

            Such fleeting pleasures there I took

            That with the fancy I awoke;

            And found (ah me!) this flesh of mine

            More like a stock than like a vine.

             

             

            Delight in Disorder:

            A sweet disorder in the dress

            Kindles in clothes a wantonness;

            A lawn about the shoulders thrown

            Into a fine distraction;

            An erring lace, which here and there

            Enthrals the crimson stomacher;

            A cuff neglectful, and thereby

            Ribands to flow confusedly;

            A winning wave, deserving note,

            In the tempestuous petticoat;

            A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

            I see a wild civility:

            Do more bewitch me, than when art

            Is too precise in every part.

             



            Julia's Petticoat:

            THY azure robe I did behold
            As airy as the leaves of gold,
            Which, erring here, and wandring there,
            Pleas'd with transgression ev'rywhere :
            Sometimes 'twould pant, and sigh, and heave,
            As if to stir it scarce had leave :
            But, having got it, thereupon
            'Twould make a brave expansion.
            And pounc'd with stars it showed to me
            Like a celestial canopy.
            Sometimes 'twould blaze, and then abate,
            Like to a flame grown moderate :
            Sometimes away 'twould wildly fling,
            Then to thy thighs so closely cling
            That some conceit did melt me down
            As lovers fall into a swoon :
            And all confus'd, I there did lie
            Drown'd in delights, but could not die.
            That leading cloud I follow'd still,
            Hoping t' have seen of it my fill ;
            But ah ! I could not : should it move
            To life eternal, I could love



            To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time:

            Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

            Old Time is still a-flying;

            And this same flower that smiles today

            Tomorrow will be dying.

             

            The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

            The higher he’s a-getting,

            The sooner will his race be run,

            And nearer he’s to setting.

             

            That age is best which is the first,

            When youth and blood are warmer;

            But being spent, the worse, and worst

            Times still succeed the former.

             

            Then be not coy, but use your time,

            And while ye may, go marry;

            For having lost but once your prime,

            You may forever tarry.

             

            His Prayer to Ben Jonson

            When I a verse shall make,

            Know I have pray'd thee,

            For old religion's sake,

            Saint Ben to aid me.

             

            Make the way smooth for me,

            When I, thy Herrick,

            Honouring thee, on my knee

            Offer my lyric.

             

            Candles I'll give to thee,

            And a new altar,

            And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be

            Writ in my psalter.

             

             

            The Night Piece, to Julia

            Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,

            The shooting stars attend thee;

            And the elves also,

            Whose little eyes glow

            Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

             

            No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mis-light thee,

            Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;

            But on, on thy way,

            Not making a stay,

            Since ghost there's none to affright thee.

             

            Let not the dark thee cumber;

            What though the moon does slumber?

            The stars of the night

            Will lend thee their light,

            Like tapers clear without number.

             

            Then Julia let me woo thee,

            Thus, thus to come unto me;

            And when I shall meet

            Thy silv'ry feet,

            My soul I'll pour into thee.

             

             

            Upon Julia's Clothes:

            Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

            Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows

            That liquefaction of her clothes.

             

            Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see

            That brave vibration each way free,

            O how that glittering taketh me!

             

            CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMAS.:

            COME, bring with a noise,
                   My merry, merry boys,
            The Christmas log to the firing ;
                   While my good dame, she
                   Bids ye all be free ;
            And drink to your heart's desiring.

                   With the last year's brand
                   Light the new block, and
            For good success in his spending
                   On your psaltries play,
                   That sweet luck may
            Come while the log is a-teending.

                   Drink now the strong beer,
                   Cut the white loaf here ;
            The while the meat is a-shredding
                   For the rare mince-pie,
                   And the plums stand by
            To fill the paste that's a-kneading.

             

            Art above Nature : To Julia

            WHEN I behold a forest spread

            With silken trees upon thy head,

            And when I see that other dress

            Of flowers set in comeliness;

            When I behold another grace

                    5

            In the ascent of curious lace,

            Which like a pinnacle doth shew

            The top, and the top-gallant too;

            Then, when I see thy tresses bound

            Into an oval, square, or round,

                    10

            And knit in knots far more than I

            Can tell by tongue, or true-love tie;

            Next, when those lawny films I see

            Play with a wild civility,

            And all those airy silks to flow,

                    15

            Alluring me, and tempting so:

            I must confess mine eye and heart

            Dotes less on Nature than on Art.

             


            • More Herrick Poems

              Not published to students
              Current

              ROBERT HERRICK

              Cherry-Ripe

              CHERRY-RIPE, ripe, ripe, I cry,
              Full and fair ones; come and buy.
              If so be you ask me where
              They do grow, I answer: There
              Where my Julia's lips do smile;
              There 's the land, or cherry-isle,
              Whose plantations fully show
              All the year where cherries grow.

              To Anthea Lying In Bed

              So looks Anthea, when in bed she lies
              O'ercome or half betray'd by tiffanies,
              Like to a twilight, or that simpering dawn
              That roses show when misted o'er with lawn.
              Twilight is yet, till that her lawns give way;
              Which done, that dawn turns then to perfect day.



              The Hour-Glass - Poem by Robert Herrick


              That hour-glass which there you see
              With water fill'd, sirs, credit me,
              The humour was, as I have read,
              But lovers' tears incrystalled.
              Which, as they drop by drop do pass
              From th' upper to the under-glass,
              Do in a trickling manner tell,
              By many a watery syllable,
              That lovers' tears in lifetime shed
              Do restless run when they are dead.


              Corinna's going a Maying

              Get up, get up for shame, the Blooming Morne
              Upon her wings presents the god unshorne.
                                   See how Aurora throwes her faire
                                   Fresh-quilted colours through the aire:
                                   Get up, sweet-Slug-a-bed, and see
                                   The Dew-bespangling Herbe and Tree.
              Each Flower has wept, and bow'd toward the East,
              Above an houre since; yet you not drest,
                                   Nay! not so much as out of bed?
                                   When all the Birds have Mattens seyd,
                                   And sung their thankful Hymnes: 'tis sin,
                                   Nay, profanation to keep in,
              When as a thousand Virgins on this day,
              Spring, sooner than the Lark, to fetch in May.

              Rise; and put on your Foliage, and be seene
              To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and greene;
                                   And sweet as Flora. Take no care
                                   For Jewels for your Gowne, or Haire:
                                   Feare not; the leaves will strew
                                   Gemms in abundance upon you:
              Besides, the childhood of the Day has kept,
              Against you come, some Orient Pearls unwept:
                                   Come, and receive them while the light
                                   Hangs on the Dew-locks of the night:
                                   And Titan on the Eastern hill
                                   Retires himselfe, or else stands still
              Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying:
              Few Beads are best, when once we goe a Maying.

              Come, my Corinna, come; and comming, marke
              How each field turns a street; each street a Parke
                                   Made green, and trimm'd with trees: see how
                                   Devotion gives each House a Bough,
                                   Or Branch: Each Porch, each doore, ere this,
                                   An Arke a Tabernacle is
              Made up of white-thorn neatly enterwove;
              As if here were those cooler shades of love.
                                   Can such delights be in the street,
                                   And open fields, and we not see't?
                                   Come, we'll abroad; and let's obay
                                   The Proclamation made for May:
              And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
              But my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying.

              There's not a budding Boy, or Girle, this day,
              But is got up, and gone to bring in May.
                                   A deale of Youth, ere this, is come
                                   Back, and with White-thorn laden home.
                                   Some have dispatcht their Cakes and Creame,
                                   Before that we have left to dreame:
              And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted Troth,
              And chose their Priest, ere we can cast off sloth:
                                   Many a green-gown has been given;
                                   Many a kisse, both odde and even:
                                   Many a glance too has been sent
                                   From out the eye, Loves Firmament:
              Many a jest told of the Keyes betraying
              This night, and Locks pickt, yet w'are not a Maying.

              Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime;
              And take the harmlesse follie of the time.
                                   We shall grow old apace, and die
                                   Before we know our liberty.
                                   Our life is short; and our dayes run
                                   As fast away as do's the Sunne:
              And as a vapour, or a drop of raine
              Once lost, can ne'r be found againe:
                                   So when or you or I are made
                                   A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
                                   All love, all liking, all delight
                                   Lies drown'd with us in endlesse night.
              Then while time serves, and we are but decaying;
              Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying.

              THE WELCOME TO SACK.
              by Robert Herrick


              SO soft streams meet, so springs with gladder smiles
              Meet after long divorcement by the isles ;
              When love, the child of likeness, urgeth on
              Their crystal natures to a union :
              So meet stolen kisses, when the moonoy nights
              Call forth fierce lovers to their wish'd delights ;
              So kings and queens, meet when desire convinces
              All thoughts but such as aim at getting princes,
              As I meet thee.   Soul of my life and fame !
              Eternal lamp of love ! whose radiant flame
              Out-glares the heaven's Osiris,* and thy gleams
              Out-shine the splendour of his mid-day beams.
              Welcome, O welcome, my illustrious spouse ;
              Welcome as are the ends unto my vows ;
              Aye ! far more welcome than the happy soil
              The sea-scourged merchant, after all his toil,
              Salutes with tears of joy ; when fires betray
              The smoky chimneys of his Ithaca.
              Where hast thou been so long from my embraces,
              Poor pitied exile ?   Tell me, did thy graces
              Fly discontented hence, and for a time
              Did rather choose to bless another clime ?
              Or went'st thou to this end, the more to move me,
              By thy short absence, to desire and love thee ?
              Why frowns my sweet ?   Why won't my saint confer
              Favours on me, her fierce idolater ?
              Why are those looks, those looks the which have been
              Time-past so fragrant, sickly now drawn in
              Like a dull twilight ?   Tell me, and the fault
              I'll expiate with suplhur, hair and salt ;
              And, with the crystal humour of the spring,
              Purge hence the guilt and kill this quarrelling.
              Wo't thou not smile or tell me what's amiss ?
              Have I been cold to hug thee, too remiss,
              Too temp'rate in embracing ?   Tell me, has desire
              To thee-ward died i' th' embers, and no fire
              Left in this rak'd-up ash-heap as a mark
              To testify the glowing of a spark ?
              Have I divorc'd thee only to combine
              In hot adult'ry with another wine ?
              True, I confess I left thee, and appeal
              'Twas done by me more to confirm my zeal
              And double my affection on thee, as do those
              Whose love grows more inflam'd by being foes.
              But to forsake thee ever, could there be
              A thought of such-like possibility ?
              When thou thyself dar'st say thy isles shall lack
              Grapes before Herrick leaves canary sack,
              Thou mak'st me airy, active to be borne,
              Like Iphiclus, upon the tops of corn.
              Thou mak'st me nimble, as the winged hours,
              To dance and caper on the heads of flowers,
              And ride the sunbeams.   Can there be a thing
              Under the heavenly Isis * that can bring
              More love unto my life, or can present
              My genius with a fuller blandishment ?
              Illustrious idol ! could th' Egyptians seek
              Help from the garlic, onion, and the leek
              And pay no vows to thee, who wast their best
              God, and far more transcendent than the rest ?
              Had Cassius, that weak water-drinker, known
              Thee in thy vine, or had but tasted one
              Small chalice of thy frantic liquor, he,
              As the wise Cato, had approv'd of thee.
              Had not Jove's son, * that brave Tirynthian swain,
              Invited to the Thesbian banquet, ta'en
              Full goblets of thy gen'rous blood, his sprite
              Ne'er had kept heat for fifty maids that night.
              Come, come and kiss me ; kiss, we will be friends
              Too strong for fate to break us.   Look upon
              Me with that full pride of complexion
              As queens meet queens, or come thou unto me
              As Cleopatra came to Anthony,
              When her high carriage did at once present
              To the triumvir love and wonderment.
              Sweel up my nerves with spirit ; let my blood
              Run through my veins like to a hasty flood.
              Fill each part full of fire, active to do
              What thy commanding soul shall put it to ;
              And till I turn apostate to thy love,
              Which here I vow to serve, do not remove
              Thy fires from me, but Apollo's curse
              Blast these-like actions, or a thing that's worse,
              When these circumstants shall but live to see
              The time that I prevaricate from thee.
              Call me the son of beer, and then confine
              Me to the tap, the toast, the turf ; let wine
              Ne'er shine upon me ; may my numbers all
              Run to a sudden death and funeral.
              And last, when thee, dear spouse, I disavow,
              Ne'er may prophetic Daphne crown my brow.

              		 Frans Hals. The Merry Drinker. 1627.
              Frans Hals. The Merry Drinker. 1627.
              Barewalls.com

                 Convinces, overcomes.
              * The sun.   (Note in the original edition.)
                 Ithaca, the home of the wanderer Ulysses.
                 Iphiclus won the foot-race at the funeral games of Pelias.
              * The moon.   (Note in the original edition.)
              * Hercules.   (Note in the original edition.)
                 Circumstants, surroundings.

              To Live Merrily, and to Trust to Good Verses

              Now is the time for mirth,
              Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
              For with the flow'ry earth
              The golden pomp is come.

              The golden pomp is come;
              For now each tree does wear,
              Made of her pap and gum,
              Rich beads of amber here.

              Now reigns the rose, and now
              Th' Arabian dew besmears
              My uncontrolled brow
              And my retorted hairs.

              Homer, this health to thee,
              In sack of such a kind
              That it would make thee see
              Though thou wert ne'er so blind.

              Next, Virgil I'll call forth
              To pledge this second health
              In wine, whose each cup's worth
              An Indian commonwealth.

              A goblet next I'll drink
              To Ovid, and suppose,
              Made he the pledge, he'd think
              The world had all one nose.

              Then this immensive cup
              Of aromatic wine,
              Catullus, I quaff up
              To that terse muse of thine.

              Wild I am now with heat;
              O Bacchus! cool thy rays!
              Or frantic, I shall eat
              Thy thyrse, and bite the bays.

              Round, round the roof does run;
              And being ravish'd thus,
              Come, I will drink a tun
              To my Propertius.

              Now, to Tibullus, next,
              This flood I drink to thee;
              But stay, I see a text
              That this presents to me.

              Behold, Tibullus lies
              Here burnt, whose small return
              Of ashes scarce suffice
              To fill a little urn.

              Trust to good verses then;
              They only will aspire,
              When pyramids, as men,
              Are lost i' th' funeral fire.

              And when all bodies meet,
              In Lethe to be drown'd,
              Then only numbers sweet
              With endless life are crown'd.

              Ceremonies for Christmas

                   Come, bring with a noise,
                   My merry, merry boys,
              The Christmas Log to the firing;
                   While my good Dame, she
                   Bids ye all be free;
              And drink to your heart's desiring.

                   With the last year's brand
                   Light the new block, and
              For good success in his spending,
                   On your Psaltries play,
                   That sweet luck may
              Come while the log is a-tinding.

                   Drink now the strong beer,
                   Cut the white loaf here,
              The while the meat is a-shredding;
                   For the rare mince-pie
                   And the plums stand by
              To fill the paste that's a-kneading.

              The Amber Bead

              I saw a fly within a bead
              Of amber cleanly burièd:
              The urn was little, but the room
              More rich than Cleopatra's tomb.


              • Cavalier and Classical Poems

                Not published to students
                Current

                Poems by Sir john Suckling:

                Song: Out upon it, I have lov’d

                Out upon it, I have lov’d
                Three whole days together;
                And am like to love three more,
                If it prove fair weather.

                Time shall moult away his wings,
                Ere he shall discover
                In the whole wide world again
                Such a constant lover.

                But the spite on’t is, no praise
                Is due at all to me;
                Love with me had made no stays,
                Had it any been but she.

                Had it any been but she,
                And that very face,
                There had been at least ere this
                A dozen dozen in her place.

                from A Ballad Upon A Wedding


                I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
                Where I the rarest things have seen;
                Oh, things without compare!
                Such sights again cannot be found
                In any place on English ground,
                Be it at wake, or fair.

                At Charing-Cross, hard by the way,
                Where we (thou know’st) do sell our hay,
                There is a house with stairs;
                And there did I see coming down
                Such folk as are not in our town,
                Vorty, at least, in pairs.

                Amongst the rest, one pest’lent fine
                (His beard no bigger though than thine)
                Walk’d on before the rest:
                Our landlord looks like nothing to him:
                The King (God bless him) ’twould undo him,
                Should he go still so drest.

                At Course-a-Park, without all doubt,
                He should have first been taken out
                By all the maids i’th’ town:
                Though lusty Roger there had been,
                Or little George upon the Green,
                Or Vincent of the Crown.

                But wot you what? the youth was going
                To make an end of all his wooing;
                The parson for him stay’d:
                Yet by his leave (for all his haste),
                He did not so much wish all past
                (Perchance), as did the maid.

                The maid (and thereby hangs a tale)
                For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
                Could ever yet produce:
                No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be
                So round, so plump, so soft as she,
                Nor half so full of juice.

                Her finger was so small, the ring
                Would not stay on, which they did bring;
                It was too wide a peck:
                And to say truth (for out it must)
                It look’d like the great collar (just)
                About our young colt’s neck.

                Her feet beneath her petticoat,
                Like little mice, stole in and out,
                As if they fear’d the light:
                But oh! she dances such a way
                No sun upon an Easter-day
                Is half so fine a sight.

                He would have kissed her once or twice,
                But she would not, she was nice,
                She would not do’t in sight,
                And then she looked as who should say
                I will do what I list to day;
                And you shall do’t at night.

                Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
                No daisy makes comparison,
                (Who sees them is undone);
                For streaks of red were mingled there,
                Such as are on a Catherine pear
                (The side that’s next the sun).

                Her lips were red, and one was thin,
                Compar’d to that was next her chin;
                (Some bee had stung it newly);
                But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face,
                I durst no more upon them gaze
                Than on the sun in July.

                Her mouth so small, when she does speak,
                Thou’dst swear her teeth her words did break,
                That they might passage get;
                But she so handled still the matter,
                They came as good as ours, or better,
                And are not spent a whit.

                If wishing should be any sin,
                The Parson himself had guilty been;
                (She looked that day so purely,)
                And did the youth so oft the feat
                At night, as some did in conceit,
                It would have spoil’d him, surely.

                Passion o’ me, how I run on!
                There’s that that would be thought upon
                (I trow) besides the bride.
                The business of the kitchen’s great,
                For it is fit that men should eat;
                Nor was it there denied.

                Just in the nick the cook knock’d thrice,
                And all the waiters in a trice
                His summons did obey:
                Each serving-man, with dish in hand,
                March’d boldly up, like our train’d band,
                Presented, and away.

                When all the meat was on the table,
                What man of knife or teeth was able
                To stay to be intreated?
                And this the very reason was,
                Before the parson could say grace,
                The company was seated.

                Now hats fly off, and youths carouse,
                Healths first go round, and then the house,
                The bride’s came thick and thick;
                And when ’twas nam’d another’s health,
                Perhaps he made it hers by stealth;
                And who could help it, Dick?

                O’ th’ sudden up they rise and dance;
                Then sit again and sigh, and glance;
                Then dance again and kiss:
                Thus sev’ral ways the time did pass,
                Whilst ev’ry woman wish’d her place,
                And ev’ry man wish’d his.

                By this time all were stol’n aside
                To counsel and undress the Bride;
                But that he must not know:
                But yet ’twas thought he guess’d her mind,
                And did not mean to stay behind
                Above an hour or so.

                When in he came (Dick) there she lay
                Like new-fal’n snow melting away,
                (’Twas time I trow to part)
                Kisses were now the only stay,
                Which soon she gave, as who would say,
                Good Boy! with all my heart.

                But just as heav’ns would have to cross it,
                In came the Bridemaids with the Posset:
                The Bridegroom eat in spite;
                For had he left the Women to’t
                It would have cost two hours to do’t,
                Which were too much that night.

                At length the candles out and out,
                All that they had not done, they do’t:
                What that is, who can tell?
                But I believe it was no more
                Then thou and I have done before
                With Bridget, and with Nell.

                A Sessions of the Poets:
                A session was held the other day,
                And Apollo himself was at it, they say;
                The laurel that had been so long resenv'd.
                Was now to be given to him best deserv'd.

                And

                Therefore the wits of the town came thither;
                'Twas strange to see how they flock'd together;
                Each, strongly confident of his own way,
                Thought to gain the laurel away that day.

                There was Selden, and he sat hard by the chair;
                Weniman not far off, which was very fair ;
                Sands with Townsend, for they kept no order ;
                Digby and Shillingsworth a little further.

                And

                There was Lucan's translator, too, and he
                That makes God speak so big in 's poetry ;
                Selwin and Waller, and Bartlets both the brothers;
                Jack Vaughan and Porter, and divers others.


                The first that broke silence was good old Ben,
                Prepar'd before with Canary wine.
                And he told them plainly he deserv'd the bays,
                For his were call'd works, where others were but plays.

                And

                Bade them remember how he had purg'd the stage
                Of errors, that had lasted many an age;
                And he hoped they did not think the "Silent Woman,"
                The "Fox," and the "Alchemist," out-done by no man.

                Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on,
                'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption,
                Must carry 't ; at which Ben turned about,
                And in great choler offer'd to go out.

                But

                Those that were there thought it not fit
                To discontent so ancient a wit ;
                And therefore Apollo called him back again.
                And made him mine host of his own New Inn.

                Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault
                That would not well stand with a laureate ;
                His muse was hard-bound, and th' issue of 's brain
                Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain.

                And

                All that were present there did agree,
                A laureate muse should be easy and free.
                Yet sure 'twas not that, but 'twas thought that, his grace
                Considered, he was well he had a cup-bearer's place.

                Will. Davenant, asham'd of a foolish mischance,
                That he had got lately travelling in France,
                Modestly hoped the handsomeness of 's muse
                Might any deformity about him excuse.

                And

                Surely the company would have been content.
                If they could have found any precedent;
                But in all their records, either in verse or prose
                There was not one laureate without a nose.

                To Will. Bartlet sure all the wits meant well,
                But first they would see how his snow would sell:
                Will, smil'd and swore in their judgments they went less,
                That concluded of merit upon success.

                Suddenly taking his place again,
                He gave way to Selwin, who straight stepped in;
                But, alas ! he had been so lately a wit,
                That Apollo hardly knew him yet.

                Toby Matthews, (pox on him!) how came he there?
                Was whispering nothing in somebody's ear;
                When he had the honour to be named in court.
                But, sir, you may thank my Lady Carlisle for 't:

                For had not her care furnish'd you out
                With something of handsome, without all doubt
                You and your sorry Lady Muse had been
                In the number of those that were not let in.

                In haste from the court two or three came in,
                And they brought letters, forsooth, from the Queen;
                'Twas discreetly done, too, for if th' had come
                Without them, th' had scarce been let into the room.

                Suckling next was called, but did not appear;
                But straight one whispered Apollo i' th' car,
                That of all men living he cared not for 't,
                He loved not the Muses so well as his sport;

                And prized black eyes, or a lucky hit
                At bowls, above all the trophies of wit;
                But Apollo was angry, and publicly said,
                'Twere fit that a fine were set upon 's head.

                Wat Montague now stood forth to his trial.
                And did not so much as suspect a denial;
                But witty Apollo asked him first of all.
                If he understood his own pastoral.

                For, if he could do it, 'twould plainly appear.
                He understood more than any man there.
                And did merit the bays above all the rest;
                But Monsieur was modest, and silence confessed.

                During these troubles, in the crowd was hid
                One that Apollo soon missed, little Cid;
                And having spied him call'd him out of the throng,
                And advis'd him in his ear not to write so strong.

                Then Murray was summon'd, but 'twas urg'd that he
                Was chief already of another company.

                Hales set by himself most gravely did smile
                To see them about nothing keep such a coil:
                Apollo had spied him, but knowing his mind
                Passed by, and call'd Falkland that sat just behind:

                But

                He was of late so gone with divinity,
                That he had almost forgot his poetry;
                Though to say the truth, and Apollo did know it,
                He might have been both his priest and his poet.

                At length who but an Alderman did appear,
                At which Will. Davenant began to swear;
                But wiser Apollo bade him draw nigher,
                And when he was mounted a little higher,

                Openly declared that the best sign
                Of good store of wit 's to have good store of coin;
                And, without a syllable more or less said,
                He put the laurel on the Alderman's head.

                At this all the wits were in such amaze
                That for a good while they did nothing but gaze
                One upon another; not a man in the place
                But had discontent writ in great in his face.

                Only the small poets cheer'd up again,
                Out of hope, as 'twas thought, of borrowing;
                But sure they were out, for he forfeits his crown,
                When he lends any poets about the town.

                Poems by Richard Lovelace
                "To Lucasta: Going to the Wars"
                Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
                         That from the nunnery
                Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
                         To war and arms I fly.

                True, a new mistress now I chase,
                         The first foe in the field;
                And with a stronger faith embrace
                         A sword, a horse, a shield.

                Yet this inconstancy is such
                         As you too shall adore;
                I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
                         Lov’d I not Honour more.

                "Song to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair"

                Amarantha sweet and fair
                Ah braid no more that shining hair!
                As my curious hand or eye
                Hovering round thee let it fly.

                Let it fly as unconfin’d
                As its calm ravisher, the wind,
                Who hath left his darling th’East,
                To wanton o’er that spicy nest.

                Ev’ry tress must be confest
                But neatly tangled at the best;
                Like a clue of golden thread,
                Most excellently ravelled.

                Do not then wind up that light
                In ribands, and o’er-cloud in night;
                Like the sun in’s early ray,
                But shake your head and scatter day.

                See ’tis broke! Within this grove
                The bower, and the walks of love,
                Weary lie we down and rest,
                And fan each other’s panting breast.

                Here we’ll strip and cool our fire
                In cream below, in milk-baths higher:
                And when all wells are drawn dry,
                I’ll drink a tear out of thine eye,

                Which our very joys shall leave
                That sorrows thus we can deceive;
                Or our very sorrows weep,
                That joys so ripe, so little keep.

                "The Grasshopper
                Ode. To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton

                O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair
                   Of some well-fillèd oaten beard,
                Drunk every night with a delicious tear
                   Dropped thee from heaven, where now th’ art reared;

                The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
                   That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
                And, when thy poppy works, thou dost retire
                   To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

                Up with the day, the sun thou welcom’st then,
                   Sport’st in the gilt-plats of his beams,
                And all these merry days mak’st merry men,
                   Thyself, and melancholy streams.

                But ah, the sickle! Golden ears are cropped;
                   Ceres and Bacchus bid good night;
                Sharp, frosty fingers all your flowers have topped,
                   And what scythes spared, winds shave off quite.

                Poor verdant fool, and now green ice! thy joys,
                   Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass,
                Bid us lay in ’gainst winter rain, and poise
                   Their floods with an o’erflowing glass.

                Thou best of men and friends! we will create
                   A genuine summer in each other’s breast,
                And spite of this cold time and frozen fate,
                   Thaw us a warm seat to our rest.

                Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally,
                   As vestal flames; the North Wind, he
                Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly
                   This Etna in epitome.


                "To Althea: From Prison"

                When Love with unconfinèd wings
                Hovers within my Gates,
                And my divine Althea brings
                To whisper at the Grates;
                When I lie tangled in her hair,
                And fettered to her eye,
                The Gods that wanton in the Air,
                Know no such Liberty.

                When flowing Cups run swiftly round
                With no allaying Thames,
                Our careless heads with Roses bound,
                Our hearts with Loyal Flames;
                When thirsty grief in Wine we steep,
                When Healths and draughts go free,
                Fishes that tipple in the Deep
                Know no such Liberty.

                When (like committed linnets) I
                With shriller throat shall sing
                The sweetness, Mercy, Majesty,
                And glories of my King;
                When I shall voice aloud how good
                He is, how Great should be,
                Enlargèd Winds, that curl the Flood,
                Know no such Liberty.

                Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
                Nor Iron bars a Cage;
                Minds innocent and quiet take
                That for an Hermitage.
                If I have freedom in my Love,
                And in my soul am free,
                Angels alone that soar above,
                Enjoy such Liberty.


                Dropping December shall come weeping in,
                   Bewail th’usurping of his reign:
                But when in showers of old Greek we begin,
                   Shall cry he hath his crown again!

                Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip
                   From the light casements where we play,
                And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,
                   And stick there everlasting day.

                Thus richer than untempted kings are we,
                   That, asking nothing, nothing need:
                Though lords of all what seas embrace, yet he
                   That wants himself is poor indeed.



                • Poems by George Herbert

                  Not published to students
                  Current

                  From  The Temple

                  "The Altar"

                    A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
                   Made of a heart and cemented with tears:
                    Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
                  No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.
                                     A HEART alone
                                     Is such a stone,
                                    As nothing but
                                    Thy pow'r doth cut.
                                    Wherefore each part
                                    Of my hard heart
                                    Meets in this frame,
                                    To praise thy name:
                         That if I chance to hold my peace,
                   These stones to praise thee may not cease.
                     Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
                       And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

                  Easter Wings

                  Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
                        Though foolishly he lost the same,
                              Decaying more and more,
                                    Till he became
                                          Most poore:
                                          With thee
                                    O let me rise
                              As larks, harmoniously,
                        And sing this day thy victories:
                  Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

                  My tender age in sorrow did beginne
                        And still with sicknesses and shame.
                              Thou didst so punish sinne,
                                    That I became
                                          Most thinne.
                                          With thee
                                    Let me combine,
                              And feel thy victorie:
                           For, if I imp my wing on thine,
                  Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

                  "Prayer (1)"

                  Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,
                  God's breath in man returning to his birth,
                  The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
                  The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth
                  Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,
                  Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
                  The six-days world transposing in an hour,
                  A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
                  Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
                  Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
                  Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
                  The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
                  Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
                  The land of spices; something understood.

                  "Prayer (2)"

                  OF what an easie quick accesse,
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
       May our requests thine eare invade!
To shew that state dislikes not easinesse,
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not heare, then thou canst die.

       Of what supreme almightie power
Is thy great arm, which spans the east and west,
       And tacks the centre to the sphere!
By it do all things live their measur’d houre:
We cannot ask the thing, which is not there,
Blaming the shallownesse of our request.

       Of what unmeasurable love
Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die,
       Wert fain1 to take our flesh and curse,
And for our sakes in person sinne reprove,
That by destroying that which ty’d thy purse,
Thou mightst make way for liberalitie!

       Since then these three wait on thy throne,
Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so,
       That were I to leave all but one,
Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go;
I and deare prayer would together dwell,
And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.2
                  "Jordan (1)"

                  Who says that fictions only and false hair
                  Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
                  Is all good structure in a winding stair?
                  May no lines pass, except they do their duty
                  Not to a true, but painted chair?

                  Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
                  And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
                  Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
                  Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines,
                  Catching the sense at two removes?

                  Shepherds are honest people; let them sing;
                  Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime;
                  I envy no man's nightingale or spring;
                  Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,
                  Who plainly say, my God, my King.
                   

                  "Jordan (2)"

                  When first my lines of heav'nly joyes made mention,
                  Such was their lustre, they did so excell,
                  That I sought out quaint words and trim invention;
                  My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
                  Curling with metaphors a plain intention,
                  Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.

                  Thousands of notions in my brain did runne,
                  Off'ring their service, if I were not sped:
                  I often blotted what I had begunne;
                  This was not quick enough, and that was dead.
                  Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne,
                  Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head.

                  As flames do work and winde, when they ascend;
                  So did I weave myself into the sense.
                  But while I bustled, I might hear a friend
                  Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!
                  There is in love a sweetnesse ready penn'd,
                  Copie out onely that, and save expense.


                  "The Holy Communion"

                  Not in rich furniture, or fine array,
                            Nor in a wedge of gold,
                            Thou, who from me wast sold,
                      To me dost now thyself convey;
                  For so thou should'st without me still have been,
                            Leaving within me sinne:

                  But by the way of nourishment and strength,
                            Thou creep'st into my breast;
                            Making thy way my rest,
                      And thy small quantities my length;
                  Which spread their forces into every part,
                            Meeting sinnes force and art.

                  Yet can these not get over to my soul,
                            Leaping the wall that parts
                            Our souls and fleshly hearts;
                      But as th' outworks, they may controll
                  My rebel-flesh, and carrying thy name,
                            Affright both sinne and shame.

                  Onely thy grace, which with these elements comes,
                            Knoweth the ready way,
                            And hath the privie key,
                      Op'ning the soul's most subtile rooms:
                  While those to spirits refin'd, at doore attend
                            Despatches from their friend.

                  Give me my captive soul, or take
                            My body also thither.
                  Another lift like this will make
                            Them both to be together.

                  Before that sinne turn'd flesh to stone,
                            And all our lump to heaven;
                  A fervent sigh might well have blown
                            Our innocent earth to heaven.

                  For sure when Adam did not know
                                      To sinne, or sinne to another;
                  He might to heav'n from Paradise go,
                                      As from one room t' another.

                  Thou hast restor'd us to this ease
                            By this thy heav'nly bloud,
                  Which I can go to, when I please,
                            And leave th' earth to their food.

                  • More Herbert Poems

                    Not published to students
                    Current

                    The Collar:

                    I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
                                             I will abroad!
                    What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
                    My lines and life are free, free as the road,
                    Loose as the wind, as large as store.
                              Shall I be still in suit?
                    Have I no harvest but a thorn
                    To let me blood, and not restore
                    What I have lost with cordial fruit?
                              Sure there was wine
                    Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
                        Before my tears did drown it.
                          Is the year only lost to me?
                              Have I no bays to crown it,
                    No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
                                      All wasted?
                    Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
                                And thou hast hands.
                    Recover all thy sigh-blown age
                    On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
                    Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
                                 Thy rope of sands,
                    Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
                    Good cable, to enforce and draw,
                              And be thy law,
                    While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
                              Away! take heed;
                              I will abroad.
                    Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
                              He that forbears
                             To suit and serve his need
                              Deserves his load."
                    But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
                              At every word,
                    Methought I heard one calling, Child!
                              And I replied My Lord.

                    "The Pulley"

                    When God at first made man,
                    Having a glass of blessings standing by,
                    “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.
                    Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,
                    Contract into a span.”

                    So strength first made a way;
                    Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.
                    When almost all was out, God made a stay,
                    Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
                    Rest in the bottom lay.

                    “For if I should,” said he,
                    “Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
                    He would adore my gifts instead of me,
                    And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
                    So both should losers be.

                    “Yet let him keep the rest,
                    But keep them with repining restlessness;
                    Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
                    If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
                    May toss him to my breast.”

                    "The Flower"

                    How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean
                    Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;
                             To which, besides their own demean,
                    The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
                                          Grief melts away
                                          Like snow in May,
                             As if there were no such cold thing.

                             Who would have thought my shriveled heart
                    Could have recovered greenness? It was gone
                             Quite underground; as flowers depart
                    To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
                                          Where they together
                                          All the hard weather,
                             Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

                             These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
                    Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell
                             And up to heaven in an hour;
                    Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
                                          We say amiss
                                          This or that is:
                             Thy word is all, if we could spell.

                             Oh that I once past changing were,
                    Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!
                             Many a spring I shoot up fair,
                    Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither;
                                          Nor doth my flower
                                          Want a spring shower,
                             My sins and I joining together.

                             But while I grow in a straight line,
                    Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,
                             Thy anger comes, and I decline:
                    What frost to that? what pole is not the zone
                                          Where all things burn,
                                          When thou dost turn,
                             And the least frown of thine is shown?

                             And now in age I bud again,
                    After so many deaths I live and write;
                             I once more smell the dew and rain,
                    And relish versing. Oh, my only light,
                                          It cannot be
                                          That I am he
                             On whom thy tempests fell all night.

                             These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
                    To make us see we are but flowers that glide;
                             Which when we once can find and prove,
                    Thou hast a garden for us where to bide;
                                          Who would be more,
                                          Swelling through store,
                             Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

                    "Love (III)"

                    Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
                                Guilty of dust and sin.
                    But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                                From my first entrance in,
                    Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
                                If I lacked anything.

                    "A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
                                Love said, "You shall be he."
                    "I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
                                I cannot look on thee."
                    Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                                "Who made the eyes but I?"

                    "Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
                                Go where it doth deserve."
                    "And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
                                "My dear, then I will serve."
                    "You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
                                So I did sit and eat.



                    • More Metaphysicals

                      Not published to students
                      Current

                      Richard Crashaw:

                      "To the Infant Martyrs"

                      Go, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
                      In heaven you’ll learn to sing, ere here to speak,
                      Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
                                                                 Be your delay;
                      The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
                                                                 Milk all the way.

                      Upon the Infant Martyrs"

                      To see both blended in one flood,
The mothers’ milk, the children’s blood,
Makes me doubt if heaven will gather
Roses hence, or lilies rather.
                      "Upon the Ass that Bore Our Savior"

                       

                      THE ASS of old had power to chide its wilful lord;

                      And hast not thou the power to speak one praiseful word?

                      Not less a marvel, sure, this silence is in thee

                      Than that the ass of old to speak had liberty.

                      "Upon the Ass that Bore Our Savior"

                      Hath only anger an omnipotence

                                     In Eloquence?

                      With the lips of love and joy doth dwell

                                      No miracle

                      Why else had Baalam's ass a tongue to chide

                                      His master's pride?

                      And thou (heaven-burdened beast) hast ne'er a word

                                       To praise thy Lord?

                      That he should find a tongue and vocal thunder,

                                       Was a great wonder.

                      But oh methinks 'tis a far greater one

                                         That thou find'st none.


                      POEMS BY HENRY VAUGHAN

                      "The Shower"

                      'TWAS so ; I saw thy birth. That drowsy lake
                      From her faint bosom breath'd thee, the disease
                      Of her sick waters and infectious ease.
                      But now at even,
                      Too gross for heaven,
                      Thou fall'st in tears, and weep'st for thy mistake.

                      2.

                      Ah ! it is so with me : oft have I press'd
                      Heaven with a lazy breath ; but fruitless this
                      Pierc'd not ; love only can with quick access
                      Unlock the way,
                      When all else stray,
                      The smoke and exhalations of the breast.


                      3.

                      Yet, if as thou dost melt, and with thy train
                      Of drops make soft the Earth, my eyes could weep
                      O'er my hard heart, that's bound up and asleep ;
                      Perhaps at last,
                      Some such showers past,
                      My God would give a sunshine after rain.

                      "The World"

                      I saw Eternity the other night,
                      Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
                      All calm, as it was bright;
                      And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
                      Driv’n by the spheres
                      Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
                      And all her train were hurl’d.
                      The doting lover in his quaintest strain
                      Did there complain;
                      Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
                      Wit’s sour delights,
                      With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
                      Yet his dear treasure
                      All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
                      Upon a flow’r.

                      The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,
                      Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow,
                      He did not stay, nor go;
                      Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
                      Upon his soul,
                      And clouds of crying witnesses without
                      Pursued him with one shout.
                      Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,
                      Work’d under ground,
                      Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
                      That policy;
                      Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
                      Were gnats and flies;
                      It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
                      Drank them as free.

                      The fearful miser on a heap of rust
                      Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
                      His own hands with the dust,
                      Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
                      In fear of thieves;
                      Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
                      And hugg’d each one his pelf;
                      The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
                      And scorn’d pretence,
                      While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
                      Said little less;
                      The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
                      Who think them brave;
                      And poor despised Truth sate counting by
                      Their victory.

                      Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
                      And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
                      But most would use no wing.
                      O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night
                      Before true light,
                      To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
                      Because it shews the way,
                      The way, which from this dead and dark abode
                      Leads up to God,
                      A way where you might tread the sun, and be
                      More bright than he.
                      But as I did their madness so discuss
                      One whisper’d thus,
                      “This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
                      But for his bride.”

                      "The Bird"

                      Hither thou com'st: the busy wind all night
                      Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing
                      Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm
                      (For which coarse man seems much the fitter born)
                      Rained on thy bed
                      And harmless head.

                      And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
                      Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
                      Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
                      Curbed them, and clothed thee well and warm.
                      All things that be, praise Him, and had
                      Their lesson taught them when first made.

                       


                      So hills and valleys into singing break;
                      And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue,
                      While active winds and streams both run and speak,
                      Yet stones are deep in admiration.
                      Thus praise and prayer here beneath the sun
                      Make lesser mornings, when the great are done.

                      For each inclosed spirit is a star
                      Enlight'ning his own little sphere,
                      Whose light, though fetched and borrowed from far,
                      Both mornings makes and evenings there.

                      But as these birds of light make a land glad,
                      Chirping their solemn matins on each tree,
                      So in the shades of night some dark fowls be,
                      Whose heavy notes make all that hear them sad.

                      The turtle then in palm trees mourns,
                      While owls and satyrs howl:
                      The pleasant land to brimstone turns,
                      And all her streams grow foul.

                      Brightness and mirth, and love and faith, all fly,
                      Till the day-spring breaks forth again from high.

                      WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

                      "Resolution and Independence"

                      There was a roaring in the wind all night;
                      The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
                      But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
                      The birds are singing in the distant woods;
                      Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
                      The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
                      And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

                      All things that love the sun are out of doors;
                      The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
                      The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the moors
                      The hare is running races in her mirth;
                      And with her feet she from the plashy earth
                      Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
                      Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

                      I was a Traveller then upon the moor;
                      I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
                      I heard the woods and distant waters roar;
                      Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
                      The pleasant season did my heart employ:
                      My old remembrances went from me wholly;
                      And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

                      But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
                      Of joys in minds that can no further go,
                      As high as we have mounted in delight
                      In our dejection do we sink as low;
                      To me that morning did it happen so;
                      And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
                      Dim sadness—and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

                      I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;
                      And I bethought me of the playful hare:
                      Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
                      Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
                      Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
                      But there may come another day to me—
                      Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

                      My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
                      As if life's business were a summer mood;
                      As if all needful things would come unsought
                      To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
                      But how can He expect that others should
                      Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
                      Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

                      I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
                      The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
                      Of Him who walked in glory and in joy
                      Following his plough, along the mountain-side:
                      By our own spirits are we deified:
                      We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
                      But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

                      Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
                      A leading from above, a something given,
                      Yet it befell that, in this lonely place,
                      When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
                      Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven
                      I saw a Man before me unawares:
                      The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

                      As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
                      Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
                      Wonder to all who do the same espy,
                      By what means it could thither come, and whence;
                      So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
                      Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
                      Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

                      Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
                      Nor all asleep—in his extreme old age:
                      His body was bent double, feet and head
                      Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
                      As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
                      Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
                      A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

                      Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
                      Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:
                      And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
                      Upon the margin of that moorish flood
                      Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
                      That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
                      And moveth all together, if it move at all.

                      At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
                      Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
                      Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
                      As if he had been reading in a book:
                      And now a stranger's privilege I took;
                      And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
                      "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

                      A gentle answer did the old Man make,
                      In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:
                      And him with further words I thus bespake,
                      "What occupation do you there pursue?
                      This is a lonesome place for one like you."
                      Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise
                      Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes.

                      His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,
                      But each in solemn order followed each,
                      With something of a lofty utterance drest—
                      Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach
                      Of ordinary men; a stately speech;
                      Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,
                      Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

                      He told, that to these waters he had come
                      To gather leeches, being old and poor:
                      Employment hazardous and wearisome!
                      And he had many hardships to endure:
                      From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;
                      Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance;
                      And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

                      The old Man still stood talking by my side;
                      But now his voice to me was like a stream
                      Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
                      And the whole body of the Man did seem
                      Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
                      Or like a man from some far region sent,
                      To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

                      My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;
                      And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
                      Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
                      And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
                      —Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
                      My question eagerly did I renew,
                      "How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

                      He with a smile did then his words repeat;
                      And said that, gathering leeches, far and wide
                      He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
                      The waters of the pools where they abide.
                      "Once I could meet with them on every side;
                      But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
                      Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

                      While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
                      The old Man's shape, and speech—all troubled me:
                      In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
                      About the weary moors continually,
                      Wandering about alone and silently.
                      While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
                      He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

                      And soon with this he other matter blended,
                      Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
                      But stately in the main; and, when he ended,
                      I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
                      In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
                      "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
                      I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"




                    • Defining Metaphysical and Cavalier/classical

                      Not published to students
                      Current

                      Some elements to consider for the Metaphysicals: (1) Puns; (2) Paradoxes; (3) Apostrophe; (4) Persuasion; (5) Arcane References; (6) Complex Diction; (7) Challenging Persona; (8) Inward/ interior Perspective; (9) Quest for transcendent; (10) "Make it New"; (11) Reading as Decoding; (12) The Secret Life of words; (13) Platonic Ideals; (14) Microcosm/ Macrocosm; (15) Deep Emotional Engagement; (16) Surprise


                      Some elements to consider for the Cavalier/ Classical Poets: (1) Clarity; (2) Directness; (3) Oxymoron; (4) Harmony; (5) Balance; (6) Restraint; (7) Valuing Past forms and traditions; (8) Rhymed Couplets; (9) Lapidary Utterance- Quotable Lines; (10) The Adjectival Style; (11) The "Word"; (12) The Good Life; (13) Cool Persona; (14) Politics and Public Life; (15) Aristocratic Values; ( 16) The Power of Things; (17) Distrust of the Nouveau; (18) Responsibility and Authority

                      • Assignment

                        Final Exam

                        Available but not shown on course page
                        Not published to students

                    • Andrew Marvell I

                      Not published to students
                      Current

                      Poems by Andrew Marvell

                      "A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body"

                      SOUL
                      O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
                      A soul enslav’d so many ways?
                      With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands
                      In feet, and manacled in hands;
                      Here blinded with an eye, and there
                      Deaf with the drumming of an ear;
                      A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains
                      Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;
                      Tortur’d, besides each other part,
                      In a vain head, and double heart.

                      BODY
                      O who shall me deliver whole
                      From bonds of this tyrannic soul?
                      Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so
                      That mine own precipice I go;
                      And warms and moves this needless frame,
                      (A fever could but do the same)
                      And, wanting where its spite to try,
                      Has made me live to let me die.
                      A body that could never rest,
                      Since this ill spirit it possest.

                      SOUL
                      What magic could me thus confine
                      Within another’s grief to pine?
                      Where whatsoever it complain,
                      I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;
                      And all my care itself employs;
                      That to preserve which me destroys;
                      Constrain’d not only to endure
                      Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure;
                      And ready oft the port to gain,
                      Am shipwreck’d into health again.

                      BODY
                      But physic yet could never reach
                      The maladies thou me dost teach;
                      Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,
                      And then the palsy shakes of fear;
                      The pestilence of love does heat,
                      Or hatred’s hidden ulcer eat;
                      Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex,
                      Or sorrow’s other madness vex;
                      Which knowledge forces me to know,
                      And memory will not forego.
                      What but a soul could have the wit
                      To build me up for sin so fit?
                      So architects do square and hew
                      Green trees that in the forest grew.


                      "Bermudas"

                      Where the remote Bermudas ride
                      In th’ ocean’s bosom unespy’d,
                      From a small boat, that row’d along,
                      The list’ning winds receiv’d this song.

                      What should we do but sing his praise
                      That led us through the wat’ry maze
                      Unto an isle so long unknown,
                      And yet far kinder than our own?
                      Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,
                      That lift the deep upon their backs,
                      He lands us on a grassy stage,
                      Safe from the storm’s and prelates’ rage.
                      He gave us this eternal spring
                      Which here enamels everything,
                      And sends the fowls to us in care,
                      On daily visits through the air.
                      He hangs in shades the orange bright,
                      Like golden lamps in a green night;
                      And does in the pomegranates close
                      Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
                      He makes the figs our mouths to meet
                      And throws the melons at our feet,
                      But apples plants of such a price,
                      No tree could ever bear them twice.
                      With cedars, chosen by his hand,
                      From Lebanon, he stores the land,
                      And makes the hollow seas that roar
                      Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
                      He cast (of which we rather boast)
                      The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast,
                      And in these rocks for us did frame
                      A temple, where to sound his name.
                      Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
                      Till it arrive at heaven’s vault;
                      Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
                      Echo beyond the Mexic Bay.

                      Thus sung they in the English boat
                      An holy and a cheerful note,
                      And all the way, to guide their chime,
                      With falling oars they kept the time.

                      "To His Coy Mistress"

                      Had we but world enough and time,
                      This coyness, lady, were no crime.
                      We would sit down, and think which way
                      To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
                      Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
                      Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
                      Of Humber would complain. I would
                      Love you ten years before the flood,
                      And you should, if you please, refuse
                      Till the conversion of the Jews.
                      My vegetable love should grow
                      Vaster than empires and more slow;
                      An hundred years should go to praise
                      Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
                      Two hundred to adore each breast,
                      But thirty thousand to the rest;
                      An age at least to every part,
                      And the last age should show your heart.
                      For, lady, you deserve this state,
                      Nor would I love at lower rate.
                             But at my back I always hear
                      Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
                      And yonder all before us lie
                      Deserts of vast eternity.
                      Thy beauty shall no more be found;
                      Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
                      My echoing song; then worms shall try
                      That long-preserved virginity,
                      And your quaint honour turn to dust,
                      And into ashes all my lust;
                      The grave’s a fine and private place,
                      But none, I think, do there embrace.
                             Now therefore, while the youthful hue
                      Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
                      And while thy willing soul transpires
                      At every pore with instant fires,
                      Now let us sport us while we may,
                      And now, like amorous birds of prey,
                      Rather at once our time devour
                      Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
                      Let us roll all our strength and all
                      Our sweetness up into one ball,
                      And tear our pleasures with rough strife
                      Through the iron gates of life:
                      Thus, though we cannot make our sun
                      Stand still, yet we will make him run.

                      • Marvell- The Garden

                        Not published to students
                        Current

                        Andrew Marvell- "The Garden."

                        How vainly men themselves amaze
                        To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
                        And their uncessant labours see
                        Crown’d from some single herb or tree,
                        Whose short and narrow verged 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 passion’s 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 wond’rous 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,
                        Ensnar’d 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 prepar’d for longer flight,
                        Waves in its plumes the various light.

                        Such was that happy garden-state,
                        While man there walk’d 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 reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!


                        • Some Terms and Concepts

                          Not published to students
                          Current

                          Hortus- Garden and so much more in cultural history

                          Hortus Inclusus, Exclusus, Conclusus- The walled Garden [The Secret Garden]- gardens that enclose; gardens the exclude-- safe place to take pleasure, retirement, contemplation, love, Platonic Love, dreams, finding or creating or restoring the self, the inward journey, the vision of Heaven, ecstatic transcendentalism, temporary refuge, divine food, the fullness of being, union with nature, the satire of desire and ambition, the soul's ambrosia,temporal freedom Re-Creation, the moment of joy, "something understood," unions and re-unions, urban island, the triumph of the vision, the call to duty, the power of the moment- that embraces but accepts transience

                          Locus Amoenus Latin for a pleasant o.r ideal place- It is a classical Topos of Topographic representation. Often a meadow or garden or island. A place for magic or mystery that is bright and light and often revivifying or restorative- but always a special place with magical boundaries.

                          Pre-Existing Neo-Platonic Forms: All that exists or might exist pre-exists in the mind of God and thus exists in some real way as a potential form that our imagination might access- IT is indeed all, already written- if only we know how toread.

                          • Marvell's Mower Poems

                            Not published to students
                            Current

                            Andrew Marvell

                            "The Mower against Gardens"

                            Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
                            Did after him the world seduce,
                            And from the fields the flowers and plants allure,
                            Where nature was most plain and pure.
                            He first enclosed within the gardens square
                            A dead and standing pool of air,
                            And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
                            Which stupified them while it fed.
                            The pink grew then as double as his mind;
                            The nutriment did change the kind.
                            With strange perfumes he did the roses taint,
                            And flowers themselves were taught to paint.
                            The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
                            And learned to interline its cheek:
                            Its onion root they then so high did hold,
                            That one was for a meadow sold.
                            Another world was searched, through oceans new,
                            To find the Marvel of Peru.
                            And yet these rarities might be allowed
                            To man, that sovereign thing and proud,
                            Had he not dealt between the bark and tree,
                            Forbidden mixtures there to see.
                            No plant now knew the stock from which it came;
                            He grafts upon the wild the tame:
                            That th’ uncertain and adulterate fruit
                            Might put the palate in dispute.
                            His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
                            Lest any tyrant him outdo.
                            And in the cherry he does nature vex,
                            To procreate without a sex.
                            ’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot,
                            While the sweet fields do lie forgot:
                            Where willing nature does to all dispense
                            A wild and fragrant innocence:
                            And fauns and fairies do the meadows till,
                            More by their presence than their skill.
                            Their statues, polished by some ancient hand,
                            May to adorn the gardens stand:
                            But howsoe’er the figures do excel,
                            The gods themselves with us do dwell.

                            "Damon the Mower"

                            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.’

                            "The Mower's Song"

                            My mind was once the true survey
                                  Of all these meadows fresh and gay,
                                  And in the greenness of the grass
                                  Did see its hopes as in a glass;
                                  When Juliana came, and she
                            What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

                                  But these, while I with sorrow pine,
                                  Grew more luxuriant still and fine,
                                  That not one blade of grass you spy’d
                                  But had a flower on either side;
                                  When Juliana came, and she
                            What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

                                  Unthankful meadows, could you so
                                  A fellowship so true forgo?
                                  And in your gaudy May-games meet
                                  While I lay trodden under feet?
                                  When Juliana came, and she
                            What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

                                  But what you in compassion ought,
                                  Shall now by my revenge be wrought;
                                  And flow’rs, and grass, and I and all,
                                  Will in one common ruin fall.
                                  For Juliana comes, and she
                            What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

                                  And thus, ye meadows, which have been
                                  Companions of my thoughts more green,
                                  Shall now the heraldry become
                                  With which I shall adorn my tomb;
                                  For Juliana comes, and she
                            What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

                            "The Mower to the Glow-Worms"
                            Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
                            The nightingale does sit so late,
                            And studying all the summer night,
                            Her matchless songs does meditate;

                            Ye country comets, that portend
                            No war nor prince’s funeral,
                            Shining unto no higher end
                            Than to presage the grass’s fall;

                            Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
                            To wand’ring mowers shows the way,
                            That in the night have lost their aim,
                            And after foolish fires do stray;

                            Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
                            Since Juliana here is come,
                            For she my mind hath so displac’d
                            That I shall never find my home.



                            • Readings for 4 May 2020

                              Not published to students
                              Current

                              Thomas Grey

                              "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

                              The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
                                       The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
                              The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
                                       And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

                              Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
                                       And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
                              Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
                                       And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

                              Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
                                       The moping owl does to the moon complain
                              Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
                                       Molest her ancient solitary reign.

                              Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
                                       Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
                              Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
                                       The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

                              The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
                                       The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
                              The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
                                       No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

                              For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
                                       Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
                              No children run to lisp their sire's return,
                                       Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

                              Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
                                       Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
                              How jocund did they drive their team afield!
                                       How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

                              Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
                                       Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
                              Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
                                       The short and simple annals of the poor.

                              The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
                                       And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
                              Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
                                       The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

                              Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
                                       If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
                              Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
                                       The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

                              Can storied urn or animated bust
                                       Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
                              Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
                                       Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

                              Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
                                       Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
                              Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
                                       Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

                              But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
                                       Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
                              Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
                                       And froze the genial current of the soul.

                              Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
                                       The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
                              Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
                                       And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

                              Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
                                       The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
                              Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
                                       Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

                              Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
                                       The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
                              To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
                                       And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

                              Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
                                       Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
                              Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
                                       And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

                              The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
                                       To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
                              Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
                                       With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

                              Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
                                       Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
                              Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
                                       They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

                              Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
                                       Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
                              With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
                                       Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

                              Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
                                       The place of fame and elegy supply:
                              And many a holy text around she strews,
                                       That teach the rustic moralist to die.

                              For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
                                       This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
                              Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
                                       Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

                              On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
                                       Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
                              Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
                                       Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

                              For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
                                       Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
                              If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
                                       Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

                              Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
                                       "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
                              Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
                                       To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

                              "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
                                       That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
                              His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
                                       And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

                              "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
                                       Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
                              Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
                                       Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

                              "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
                                       Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
                              Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
                                       Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

                              "The next with dirges due in sad array
                                       Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
                              Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
                                       Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

                              THE EPITAPH
                              Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
                                     A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
                              Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
                                     And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

                              Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
                                     Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
                              He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
                                     He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

                              No farther seek his merits to disclose,
                                     Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
                              (There they alike in trembling hope repose)
                                     The bosom of his Father and his God.

                              John Keats
                              "Ode to a Nightingale":
                              My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
                                       My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
                              Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
                                       One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
                              'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
                                       But being too happy in thine happiness,—
                                              That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
                                                      In some melodious plot
                                       Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
                                              Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

                              O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
                                       Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
                              Tasting of Flora and the country green,
                                       Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
                              O for a beaker full of the warm South,
                                       Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
                                              With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
                                                      And purple-stained mouth;
                                       That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
                                              And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

                              Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
                                       What thou among the leaves hast never known,
                              The weariness, the fever, and the fret
                                       Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
                              Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
                                       Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
                                              Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
                                                      And leaden-eyed despairs,
                                       Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
                                              Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

                              Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
                                       Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
                              But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
                                       Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
                              Already with thee! tender is the night,
                                       And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
                                              Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
                                                      But here there is no light,
                                       Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
                                              Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

                              I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
                                       Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
                              But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
                                       Wherewith the seasonable month endows
                              The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
                                       White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
                                              Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
                                                      And mid-May's eldest child,
                                       The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
                                              The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

                              Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
                                       I have been half in love with easeful Death,
                              Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
                                       To take into the air my quiet breath;
                                              Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
                                       To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
                                              While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
                                                      In such an ecstasy!
                                       Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
                                                 To thy high requiem become a sod.

                              Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
                                       No hungry generations tread thee down;
                              The voice I hear this passing night was heard
                                       In ancient days by emperor and clown:
                              Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
                                       Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
                                              She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
                                                      The same that oft-times hath
                                       Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
                                              Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

                              Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
                                       To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
                              Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
                                       As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
                              Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
                                       Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
                                              Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
                                                      In the next valley-glades:
                                       Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
                                              Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?



                              • Topic Suggestion for Final Paper

                                Not published to students
                                Current

                                EH 362- Renaissances

                                What: [Hwat- the first word of Beowulf]- a paper of something like Eight Pages.

                                When It will serve as your entry ticket to the final.

                                Practicalities: Even if the question seems general, find a way to test it by a close reading of a carefully selected few works.

                                AND: If you have troubles in dealing with something, remember to “Foreground the Conflict”

                                 

                                1. Select one of our authors and a theme that runs through a work or a limited set of works.

                                 

                                2. Choose a work we did not read and offer a way to connect it to one or more of our readings.

                                 

                                3. Trace a technique or trope through a limited selection of our readings.

                                 

                                4. How do a few works suggest a deeper, richer meaning while seeming to attend to the mundane or the everyday or the incidental.

                                 

                                5. Decode and celebrate a complicated poem.

                                 

                                6. Offer a post-feminist reading of the blazon of beauty or the idealized lover.

                                 

                                7. Speaking of love, How does a small selection of our readings use the convention of romantic love to ask quite other questions and to offer surprising perspectives?

                                 

                                8. How do the poems deal with issues of time?  How is the present moment defined? What is the past? What the future? How is eternity understood and how does it affect the sense of time?

                                 

                                9. Confront the issue of “appropriation.” how do the poems and poets appropriate ideas and feelings and perspectives from the world around them? Are all identities open to “Reconstruction through renegotiation?” Here is a particularly apt place to think about the many and complex issues of religion and the divine, or issues of race, gender, class.

                                 

                                10. How do the poems create and explore a psychology, particularly a conflicted psychology of the inner self?

                                 

                                11. Let’s also think about the synecdochal world. How do the poems point to a larger world of issues and ideas by use of synecdoche?

                                 

                                12. It is a commonplace to speak of Jonson and the Cavalier’s as poets of the good life. You could either delve into this whole issue, or you could confront the claim itself, and argue that the Metaphysicals are just as much poets of the good life, but that they have a different sense of the good, or merely a different presentation of the good life.

                                 

                                13. How do the poems explore the very nature of their value as poetry? How are they all, in a sense, metapoems?

                                 

                                14. Think about some key ways our poets make sense of themselves and the world of nature. What is nature? Why do they enjoy it or fear it? Is nature part of the divine, or is the religious reading of nature an overlay disguising a more inventive artistic response to a world distinct from intellectual and theological traditions?

                                 

                                15. We are often told that Death is the ultimate meaning and measure of life, and the only measure of meaning. How do some of our poets, try your best to avoid Donne, make sense out of death? How do they use death as a measure of life and meaning?

                                 

                                16. How does our poetry explore the powers and dangers of imagination? Does the very inventiveness call itself into question? Is Hamlet a kind of Renaissance poet?

                                 

                                17. We spent much of the semester looking at dichotomies, dialogues, and multiplicities. It is easy to take a dichotomy and declare it to be the meaning or center of a poem or work. For example, we can talk about our literature as being about a conflict between the non-physical idealizing of love and a cynical interest in the sexual and the erotic. But I find this NOT an answer; not the disease but a symptom. There are other symptoms: Body/Soul; Male/Female; Heaven/Earth; Heaven/Hell; Light/Dark; Thinking/Feeling; Nature/Artifice; Real/Ideal, and almost all those other operations that seem to "govern" poetic language and thought. But, it seems to me, there is a deeper interplay, deeper dialogue or complex concern that generates these symptoms. We may not be ready to get all the way to Original or Primary Cause, but we can get closer. So, the question might be this: Why do our poets want to generate and examine the kinds of oppositions that show so obviously in most, if not all, of our poems? What purposes do such oppositions serve? How do they let poets, and other thinkers, explore possibilities yet more complex and rich? What is the evidence that the poets have doubts that these oppositions actually exist in nature? How do our readings MAP and Illuminate worlds of causality and meaning worthy to explore?

                                 

                                18. This is a kind of follow up to the previous question. How does the emphasis on the sexual and the sensual work? How does the Sensorium fit with the seemingly transcendental and infinite?

                                 

                                19. How do the poems blend the serious with what seems not so serious?

                                 

                                20. Where do our poets locate the problematic? Is it in them? In other People? In the world of Nature or the Divine? In language or perception?

                                 

                                21. Let’s think about inter-textuality and allusion. How do our poems form a complex relationship with other poems and other works and objects?

                                 

                                22. Art is a capacious term. How can we see our poems in the larger world of Renaissance art? Indeed, what are the canons of Renaissance art?  Where do we find boundaries and how precise are they?

                                 

                                23. The Renaissance is sometimes called the Age of Exploration. How do we see a seeking after the new and the strange and the arcane and even the forbidden in our poems?

                                 

                                24. Well, let’s ask them again, all those questions about love. What is it? What does it do to lover and beloved?

                                 

                                27. The poetics of learning and the leaning of poetry. How does our poetry look to intellectual and philosophical traditions? How do we see the on-going vitality of Castiglione’s and Marvell’s Platonism? How do we see the poetry doing real thinking? Indeed, we might even ask the question, do poets think or do they merely reframe and vitalize pre-existing modes of thought?

                                 

                                27. What does it mean to be human in these poems? Where is the human? What is the world of humans? How does it shape and limit the poets and persons? How do the poets and people shape and limit what it means to be human? What are the boundaries of the human? Who and what is included? Who and what is excluded?

                                 

                                28. Let’s think about another sense of life and time, the Calendar. How do the poems incorporate the world of celebration, of feasting and fasting, of Carnival and Lent? How do the poems connect to the world of cooking and eating? What of the cyclical and recurrent- and perhaps the fracturing of the circle and rupturing of the sphere?

                                 

                                29. Let’s close with a darker consequence. How do the poems deal with questions of health and the body and illness?

                                 

                                 

                                 


                                • D. H. Lawrence Poems

                                  Not published to students
                                  Current

                                  Poems by D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

                                  "Mountain Lion"

                                  Climbing through the January snow, into the Lobo Canyon
                                  Dark grow the spruce-trees, blue is the balsam, water sounds still unfrozen, and the trail is still evident

                                  Men!
                                  Two men!
                                  Men! The only animal in the world to fear!

                                  They hesitate.
                                  We hesitate.
                                  They have a gun.
                                  We have no gun.

                                  Then we all advance, to meet.

                                  Two Mexicans, strangers, emerging our of the dark and 
                                  snow and inwardness of the Lobo valley.
                                  What are they doing here on this vanishing trail?

                                  What is he carrying?
                                  Something yellow.
                                  A deer?

                                  Que' tiene amigo?
                                  Leon-

                                  He smiles foolishly as if he were caught doing wrong. 
                                  And we smile, foolishly, as if we didn't know.
                                  He is quite gentle and dark-faced.

                                  It is a mountain lion, 
                                  A long, long, slim cat, yellow like a lioness.
                                  Dead.

                                  He trapped her this morning, he says, smiling foolishly.

                                  Life up her face,
                                  Her round, bright face, bright as frost.
                                  Her round, fine-fashioned head, with two dead ears;
                                  And stripes in the brilliant frost of her face, sharp, fine dark rays,
                                  Dark, keen, fine rays in the brilliant frost of her face.
                                  Beautiful dead eyes.

                                  Hermoso es!

                                  They go out towards the open;
                                  We go out into the gloom of Lobo.
                                  And above the trees I found her lair,
                                  A hole in the blood-orange brilliant rocks that stick up, a little cave.
                                  And bones, and twigs, and a perilous ascent.

                                  So, she will never leap up that way again, with the yellow flash of a mountain lion's long shoot!
                                  And her bright striped frost-face will never watch any more, out of the shadow of the cave in the blood- orange rock,
                                  Above the trees of the Lobo dark valley-mouth!

                                  Instead, I look out.
                                  And out to the dim of the desert, like a dream, never real;
                                  To the snow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the ice of the mountains of Picoris,
                                  And near across at the opposite steep of snow, green trees motionless standing in snow, like a Christmas toy.

                                  And I think in this empty world there was room for me and a mountain lion.
                                  And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two humans
                                  And never miss them.
                                  Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white frost-face of that slim yellow mountain lion!

                                  "Bavarian Gentians" (1929)

                                  Not every man has gentians in his house
                                  in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.

                                  Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
                                  darkening the daytime torch-like with the smoking blueness
                                  of Pluto’s gloom,
                                  ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread
                                  blue
                                  down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of
                                  white day
                                  torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto’s dark-
                                  blue daze,
                                  black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
                                  giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter’s pale lamps
                                  give off light,
                                  lead me then, lead me the way.

                                  Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
                                  let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower
                                  down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on
                                  blueness,
                                  even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted
                                  September
                                  to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
                                  and Persephone herself is but a voice
                                  or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
                                  of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense
                                  gloom,
                                  among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding
                                  darkness on the lost bride and her groom.

                                   

                                  "Gloire di Dijon"

                                  When she rises in the morning

                                  I linger to watch her;

                                  She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window

                                  And the sunbeams catch her

                                  Glistening white on the shoulders,

                                  While down her sides the mellow

                                  Golden shadow glows as

                                  She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts

                                  Sway like full-blown yellow

                                  Gloire de Dijon roses.

                                   

                                  She drips herself with water, and her shoulders

                                  Glisten as silver, they crumple up

                                  Like wet and falling roses, and I listen

                                  For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.

                                  In the window full of sunlight

                                  Concentrates her golden shadow

                                  Fold on fold, until it glows as

                                  Mellow as the glory roses.

                                   

                                  Snake


                                  A snake came to my water-trough

                                  On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

                                  To drink there.
                                   

                                  In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree

                                  I came down the steps with my pitcher

                                  And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.
                                   

                                  He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom

                                  And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough

                                  And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,

                                  And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,

                                  He sipped with his straight mouth,

                                  Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,

                                  Silently.
                                   

                                  Someone was before me at my water-trough,

                                  And I, like a second-comer, waiting.
                                   

                                  He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,

                                  And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,

                                  And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,

                                  And stooped and drank a little more,

                                  Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth

                                  On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
                                   

                                  The voice of my education said to me

                                  He must be killed,

                                  For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
                                   

                                  And voices in me said, if you were a man

                                  You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
                                   

                                  But must I confess how I liked him,

                                  How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough

                                  And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,

                                  Into the burning bowels of this earth ?
                                   

                                  Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him ?

                                  Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him ?

                                  Was it humility, to feel so honoured ?

                                  I felt so honoured.
                                   

                                  And yet those voices :

                                  If you were not afraid, you would kill him !
                                   

                                  And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,

                                  But even so, honoured still more

                                  That he should seek my hospitality

                                  From out the dark door of the secret earth

                                   

                                  He drank enough

                                  And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,

                                  And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,

                                  Seeming to lick his lips,

                                  And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,

                                  And slowly turned his head,

                                  And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,

                                  Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round

                                  And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
                                   

                                  And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,

                                  And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,

                                  A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,

                                  Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,

                                  Overcame me now his back was turned.
                                   

                                  I looked round, I put down my pitcher,

                                  I picked up a clumsy log

                                  And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
                                   

                                  I think it did not hit him,

                                  But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste,

                                  Writhed like lightning, and was gone

                                  Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,

                                  At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
                                   

                                  And immediately I regretted it.

                                  I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act !

                                  I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
                                   

                                  And I thought of the albatross,

                                  And I wished he would come back, my snake.
                                   

                                  For he seemed to me again like a king,

                                  Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,

                                  Now due to be crowned again.

                                  And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords

                                  Of life.

                                  And I have something to expiate :

                                  A pettiness.

                                   



                                  • Ted Hughes Poems

                                    Not published to students
                                    Current

                                    Selections from Ted Hughes Crow

                                    These are dark poems from a dark time

                                    "Examination at the Womb Door"

                                    Who owns those scrawny little feet?    Death.
                                    Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face?    Death.
                                    Who owns these still-working lungs?    Death.
                                    Who owns this utility coat of muscles?    Death.
                                    Who owns these unspeakable guts?    Death.
                                    Who owns these questionable brains?    Death.
                                    All this messy blood?    Death.
                                    These minimum-efficiency eyes?    Death.
                                    This wicked little tongue?    Death.
                                    This occasional wakefulness?    Death.

                                    Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
                                    Held.

                                    Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth?    Death.
                                    Who owns all of space?    Death.

                                    Who is stronger than hope?    Death.
                                    Who is stronger than the will?    Death.
                                    Stronger than love?    Death.
                                    Stronger than life?    Death.

                                    But who is stronger than Death?
                                                              Me, evidently.
                                    Pass, Crow.


                                    That Moment"

                                    When the pistol muzzle oozing blue vapour
                                    Was lifted away
                                    Like a cigarette lifted from an ashtray

                                    And the only face left in the world
                                    Lay broken
                                    Between hands that relaxed, being too late

                                    And the trees closed forever
                                    And the streets closed forever

                                    And the body lay on the gravel
                                    Of the abandoned world
                                    Among abandoned utilities
                                    Exposed to infinity forever

                                    Crow had to start searching for something to eat.

                                    "Crow's Theology"

                                    Crow realized God loved him-
                                    Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
                                    So that was proved.
                                    Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.

                                    And he realized that God spoke Crow-
                                    Just existing was His revelation.

                                    But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
                                    They seemed to exist too.
                                    And what spoke that strange silence
                                    After his clamour of caws faded?

                                    And what loved the shot-pellets 
                                    That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows? 
                                    What spoke the silence of lead? 

                                    Crow realized there were two Gods- 

                                    One of them much bigger than the other 
                                    Loving his enemies 
                                    And having all the weapons. 

                                    "Crowego"

                                    Crow followed Ulysses till he turned

                                    As a worm, which Crow ate.

                                    Grappling with Hercules' two puff adders

                                    He strangled in error Dejanira.

                                    The gold melted out of Hercules' ashes

                                    Is an electrode in Crow;s brain.

                                    Drinking Beowulf's blood and wrapped in his hide,

                                    Crow communes with poltergeists out of old ponds.

                                    His wings are the stiff back of his only book,

                                    Himself the only page--- of solid ink.

                                    So he gazes into the quag of the past

                                    Like a gypsy into the crystal of the future,

                                    Like a leopard into a fat land.


                                    "Crow's Song of Himself"

                                    When God hammered Crow
                                    He made gold
                                    When God roasted Crow in the sun
                                    He made diamond
                                    When God crushed Crow under weights
                                    He made alcohol
                                    When God tore Crow to pieces
                                    He made money
                                    When God blew Crow up
                                    He made day
                                    When God hung Crow on a tree
                                    He made fruit
                                    When God buried Crow in the earth
                                    He made man
                                    When God tried to chop Crow in two
                                    He made woman
                                    When God said: "You, win, Crow,"
                                    He made the Redeemer.

                                    When God went off in despair
                                    Crow stropped his beak and started in on the two thieves.

                                    “Truth Kills Everybody”

                                     

                                    So Crow found Proteus--- steaming in the sun

                                    Stinking with sea-bottom growths

                                    Like the plug of the earth’s sump outlet.

                                    There he lay ---belching quakily.

                                     

                                    Crow pounced and buried his talons---

                                     

                                    And it was the famous bulging Achilles ---but he held him

                                    The oesophagus of a staring shark--- but he held it

                                    A wreath of lashing mambas--- but he held it

                                     

                                    It was a naked powerline, 2,000 volts ---

                                    He stood aside, watching his body go blue

                                    As he held it and held it

                                     

                                    It was a screeching woman--- and he had her by the throat

                                    He held it

                                     

                                    A gone steering wheel bouncing toward a cliff edge---

                                    He held it

                                     

                                    A trunk of jewels dragging him into a black depth--- he held it

                                     

                                    The ankle of a rising fiery angel--- he held it

                                     

                                    Christ’s hot pounding heart--- he held it

                                     

                                    The earth sunk to the size of a hand grenade

                                     

                                    And he held it and held it and held it and

                                     

                                    BANG!

                                     

                                    He was blasted to nothing.



                                    • Final Readings

                                      Not published to students
                                      Current

                                      Some Favorites- an unending source of delight and inspiration.

                                      William Wordsworth

                                      "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798"

                                      Five years have past; five summers, with the length

                                      Of five long winters! and again I hear

                                      These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

                                      With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

                                      Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

                                      That on a wild secluded scene impress

                                      Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

                                      The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

                                      The day is come when I again repose

                                      Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

                                      These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

                                      Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

                                      Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

                                      'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

                                      These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

                                      Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

                                      Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

                                      Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

                                      With some uncertain notice, as might seem

                                      Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

                                      Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

                                      The Hermit sits alone.

                                       

                                                                                    These beauteous forms,

                                      Through a long absence, have not been to me

                                      As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

                                      But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

                                      Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

                                      In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

                                      Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

                                      And passing even into my purer mind

                                      With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

                                      Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

                                      As have no slight or trivial influence

                                      On that best portion of a good man's life,

                                      His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

                                      Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

                                      To them I may have owed another gift,

                                      Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

                                      In which the burthen of the mystery,

                                      In which the heavy and the weary weight

                                      Of all this unintelligible world,

                                      Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

                                      In which the affections gently lead us on,—

                                      Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

                                      And even the motion of our human blood

                                      Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

                                      In body, and become a living soul:

                                      While with an eye made quiet by the power

                                      Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

                                      We see into the life of things.

                                       

                                                                                              If this

                                      Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

                                      In darkness and amid the many shapes

                                      Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

                                      Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

                                      Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

                                      How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

                                      O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

                                               How often has my spirit turned to thee!

                                       

                                         And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

                                      With many recognitions dim and faint,

                                      And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

                                      The picture of the mind revives again:

                                      While here I stand, not only with the sense

                                      Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

                                      That in this moment there is life and food

                                      For future years. And so I dare to hope,

                                      Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

                                      I came among these hills; when like a roe

                                      I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

                                      Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

                                      Wherever nature led: more like a man

                                      Flying from something that he dreads, than one

                                      Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

                                      (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

                                      And their glad animal movements all gone by)

                                      To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

                                      What then I was. The sounding cataract

                                      Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

                                      The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

                                      Their colours and their forms, were then to me

                                      An appetite; a feeling and a love,

                                      That had no need of a remoter charm,

                                      By thought supplied, nor any interest

                                      Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

                                      And all its aching joys are now no more,

                                      And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

                                      Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

                                      Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

                                      Abundant recompense. For I have learned

                                      To look on nature, not as in the hour

                                      Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

                                      The still sad music of humanity,

                                      Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

                                      To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt

                                      A presence that disturbs me with the joy

                                      Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

                                      Of something far more deeply interfused,

                                      Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

                                      And the round ocean and the living air,

                                      And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

                                      A motion and a spirit, that impels

                                      All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

                                      And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

                                      A lover of the meadows and the woods

                                      And mountains; and of all that we behold

                                      From this green earth; of all the mighty world

                                      Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

                                      And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

                                      In nature and the language of the sense

                                      The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

                                      The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

                                      Of all my moral being.

                                       

                                                                                  Nor perchance,

                                      If I were not thus taught, should I the more

                                      Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

                                      For thou art with me here upon the banks

                                      Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

                                      My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

                                      The language of my former heart, and read

                                      My former pleasures in the shooting lights

                                      Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

                                      May I behold in thee what I was once,

                                      My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

                                      Knowing that Nature never did betray

                                      The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

                                      Through all the years of this our life, to lead

                                      From joy to joy: for she can so inform

                                      The mind that is within us, so impress

                                      With quietness and beauty, and so feed

                                      With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

                                      Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

                                      Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

                                      The dreary intercourse of daily life,

                                      Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

                                      Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

                                      Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

                                      Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

                                      And let the misty mountain-winds be free

                                      To blow against thee: and, in after years,

                                      When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

                                      Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

                                      Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

                                      Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

                                      For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

                                      If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

                                      Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

                                      Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

                                      And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—

                                      If I should be where I no more can hear

                                      Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

                                      Of past existence—wilt thou then forget

                                      That on the banks of this delightful stream

                                      We stood together; and that I, so long

                                      A worshipper of Nature, hither came

                                      Unwearied in that service: rather say

                                      With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal

                                      Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

                                      That after many wanderings, many years

                                      Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

                                      And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

                                      More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

                                       

                                      THE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Temple

                                      apple, pear, and banana,
                                      Gooseberry ... They all speak of
                                      Death and life in the mouth ... I have a presentiment ...
                                      Read it from a child’s expression

                                      If she savours them. It comes from far, from far ...
                                      Aren’t you slowly becoming aware of something inexpressible in your mouth?
                                      Where a moment ago were words, a flowing discovery
                                      Is released, startling, from the fruit’s flesh.

                                      Venture to say what your apple is called.
                                      This sweetness, which originally condensed itself,
                                      Spreading out, slowly in being tasted rose up
                                      To achieve a clarity, awake and of transparency,
                                      Resonant of opposites, sunny, earthy, of the here and now -:
                                      Oh the experience of it, the feeling, the joy -, immense!

                                      Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875–1926) - Duino Elegies


                                       

                                      Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic

                                      Orders? And even if one were to suddenly

                                      take me to its heart, I would vanish into its

                                      stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but

                                      the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,

                                      and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains

                                      to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.

                                      And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry

                                      of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can

                                      we make use of? Not Angels: not men,

                                      and the resourceful creatures see clearly

                                      that we are not really at home

                                      in the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains

                                      some tree on a slope, that we can see

                                      again each day: there remains to us yesterday’s street,

                                      and the thinned-out loyalty of a habit

                                      that liked us, and so stayed, and never departed.

                                      Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind full of space

                                      wears out our faces – whom would she not stay for,

                                      the longed-for, gentle, disappointing one, whom the solitary heart

                                      with difficulty stands before. Is she less heavy for lovers?

                                      Ah, they only hide their fate between themselves.

                                      Do you not know yet? Throw the emptiness out of your arms

                                      to add to the spaces we breathe; maybe the birds

                                      will feel the expansion of air, in more intimate flight.

                                      Yes, the Spring-times needed you deeply. Many a star

                                      must have been there for you so you might feel it. A wave

                                      lifted towards you out of the past, or, as you walked

                                      past an open window, a violin

                                      gave of itself. All this was their mission.

                                      But could you handle it? Were you not always,

                                      still, distracted by expectation, as if all you experienced,

                                      like a Beloved, came near to you? (Where could you contain her,

                                      with all the vast strange thoughts in you

                                      going in and out, and often staying the night.)

                                      But if you are yearning, then sing the lovers: for long

                                      their notorious feelings have not been immortal enough.

                                      Those, you almost envied them, the forsaken, that you

                                      found as loving as those who were satisfied. Begin,

                                      always as new, the unattainable praising:

                                      think: the hero prolongs himself, even his falling

                                      was only a pretext for being, his latest rebirth.

                                      But lovers are taken back by exhausted Nature

                                      into herself, as if there were not the power

                                      to make them again. Have you remembered

                                      Gastara Stampa sufficiently yet, that any girl,

                                      whose lover has gone, might feel from that

                                      intenser example of love: ‘Could I only become like her?’

                                      Should not these ancient sufferings be finally

                                      fruitful for us? Isn’t it time that, loving,

                                      we freed ourselves from the beloved, and, trembling, endured

                                      as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be, in its flight,

                                      something more than itself? For staying is nowhere.

                                      Voices, voices. Hear then, my heart, as only

                                      saints have heard: so that the mighty call

                                      raised them from the earth: they, though, knelt on

                                      impossibly and paid no attention:

                                      such was their listening. Not that you could withstand

                                      God’s voice: far from it. But listen to the breath,

                                      the unbroken message that creates itself from the silence.

                                      It rushes towards you now, from those youthfully dead.

                                      Whenever you entered, didn’t their fate speak to you,

                                      quietly, in churches in Naples or Rome?

                                      Or else an inscription exaltedly impressed itself on you,

                                      as lately the tablet in Santa Maria Formosa.

                                      What do they will of me? That I should gently remove

                                      the semblance of injustice, that slightly, at times,

                                      hinders their spirits from a pure moving-on.

                                      It is truly strange to no longer inhabit the earth,

                                      to no longer practice customs barely acquired,

                                      not to give a meaning of human futurity

                                      to roses, and other expressly promising things:

                                      no longer to be what one was in endlessly anxious hands,

                                      and to set aside even one’s own

                                      proper name like a broken plaything.

                                      Strange: not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange

                                      to see all that was once in place, floating

                                      so loosely in space. And it’s hard being dead,

                                      and full of retrieval, before one gradually feels

                                      a little eternity. Though the living

                                      all make the error of drawing too sharp a distinction.

                                      Angels (they say) would often not know whether

                                      they moved among living or dead. The eternal current

                                      sweeps all the ages, within it, through both the spheres,

                                      forever, and resounds above them in both.

                                      Finally they have no more need of us, the early-departed,

                                      weaned gently from earthly things, as one outgrows

                                      the mother’s mild breast. But we, needing

                                      such great secrets, for whom sadness is often

                                      the source of a blessed progress, could we exist without them?

                                      Is it a meaningless story how once, in the grieving for Linos,

                                      first music ventured to penetrate arid rigidity,

                                      so that, in startled space, which an almost godlike youth

                                      suddenly left forever, the emptiness first felt

                                      the quivering that now enraptures us, and comforts, and helps.




                                      • Final Exam is Here

                                        Not published to students
                                        Current

                                        EH 362

                                        Renaissances

                                         

                                        Section One: Brief Answers:

                                        IN 40 MINUTES OR SO, ANSWER AN APPROPRIATE ARRAY [ FOUR OR FIVE WOULD BE FINE] OF THE FOLLOWING TOPICS. Be sure to read all choices.

                                        1. Can Donne really be serious in his conflation of sexuality and divinity?

                                        2. What does Donne really like about women?

                                        3. What would you do in Marvell's Garden? Do you really want melons to insist that you eat them?

                                        4. Is my office really the whole world?

                                        5. Donne works in such close proximity to the physical details of life that we are permitted to ask, "What would Donne's God look like?"

                                        6. Does Wyatt want a lover or a faithful pet?

                                        7. Are there Metaphysical Conceits in T. S. Eliot's Wasteland?

                                        8. If you could place one of my colleagues in Marvell’s Garden, who would it be? How long would that colleague stay? Why would someone leave?

                                        9. If you were a female poet in the 16th or 17th century, how would you write poems in response to one or more of our poets?

                                        10. Does Donne think we are voyeurs?

                                        11. Does our poetry think we are voyeurs?

                                        12. Is there any way to tell from Herrick’s poems that he might have never had a real “girlfriend”?

                                        13. Does the poetic language of hyperbolic compliment and self-sacrifice find expression in our culture?

                                        14. Who has greater agency in Boccaccio- god or the crafty individual?

                                        15. You are a firefighter and proud of it. As you don your uniform, how does it symbolize your commitment to God and purity?

                                        16. You are a topless dancer and proud of it. As you "don your uniform," how does it symbolize your commitment to God and purity?

                                        17. You are dead and on the dissecting table. For some reason you are also conscious. How do you feel?

                                        18. The love of your life wants to play, but expects you to choose the game. All you have is a rather faded map of the world. How do you use that map to get where you desire?

                                        19. Did the “love” poetry we read actually end up sexualizing the world? And if so, did the poets end up shrinking the world to a hormonal microcosm?

                                        20. You are completely broke. The love of your life is a greedy, money-grubbing swine. How do you ask that person to run off with you and live on the beach or in the woods?

                                        21. Are the poems addressed to women inherently sexual and seductive, or are they just chatter between men?

                                        22. How would modern psychotherapy affect one of our poets? Would such therapy improve their poetry?

                                        23. Is the Cavalier ideal of making one's life a beautiful and perfectly integrated whole a Utopian scheme destined to failure?

                                        24. Does the metaphysical impulse survive in popular arts and culture today?

                                        25. Why did Romantic poets like Coleridge so admire Donne?

                                        26. If you had to live the life implied by the poetry of one of our poets, who would it be and why?

                                        27. If Boccaccio were to write a tale that praises the potential greatness in you, what would he celebrate and how would he do it?

                                        28. You are on the first flight to Jupiter. The love of your life is sad to see you go. How do you persuade that person that your trip is actually an act of fidelity?

                                        29. There is a knock at your door. It is God. He (She, It, Them) is (are) selling magazine subscriptions to win a free trip to Disney world. How do you get rid of the visitor and keep your money?

                                        30. You harvest your prize Cantaloupe. As you lift it from the ground the bottom cracks and the inside spills out, an orange mass of half-digested melon and the slugs digesting it. How do you turn that moment into an image of God and eternity?

                                        31. You awaken one Kafkaesque morning and your stomach, or your libido, is actually, literally, truly talking to you. Perhaps it sits in a chair and offers you a cup of coffee and a bagel, or some other food more appropriate to this choice. How do you talk back to yourself and what do the two of you say?

                                        32. We live in the enclosed world of campus, in the ivory tower of academe. Argue that our world is the real world and all others just reflections of this ideal space.

                                        32a. Let the Hilltop be Penshurst, what do we praise about this “ancient Pile?” what are our woods, our fish ponds, our ripe cheeses and ripe “maidens”? What are our aristocrats and our aristocratic function in life?

                                        33. What would Boccaccio offer as the essential features of his own narrative?

                                        34. Argue that T. S. Eliot is, in fact, Donne reborn- that his essential modernism is little more than the past reanimated and adapted to current circumstances.

                                         35. If there is another world more real than ours, more perfect than ours, shouldn’t we try to live in that world, to make our world that world, shouldn’t we scour the bookstores for the Encyclopedia of Tlon?”

                                        36. Are Ted Hughes’ Crows migratory metaphysicals?

                                        37. Is the Renaissance ideal of making one's life a beautiful and perfectly integrated whole a Utopian scheme destined to failure? This, too, might become a long answer question.

                                        38. Is Herbert's God sexual; does he have any sexual thoughts at all toward that God, or any sexual thoughts at all?

                                        39. Which of the metaphysical poets is actually God's best friend?

                                        40. Are any of the classical poets friends, or antagonists, with God?

                                        41. Did Garcia Marquez spend 100 years of solitude reading metaphysical poetry translated by Borges?

                                        42. Poetry delights in sensual language, but where is the poetry of the papillae?

                                        43. Which of our poetic styles seems most/least to exploit women?

                                        44. Would Lawrence’s Mountain lion eat Keats’s nightingale only to be consumed in turn by Hughes’s Crow in the twilight of a rural hillside churchyard? How permeable is the boundary between human and animal in a select few of our readings?

                                        45. If you were his "mistress," would Marvell's poem about your coyness persuade you?

                                        46. Is Herbert too sweet? Is he the Mr. Rogers of Metaphysical Poetry?

                                        47. What if your being divided (like a divided cell) and that other version of you lived its own life?  What would happen when you met?

                                        48. If Rilke were to write an elegy that follows one of our poets into the land of the dead, what poet would you choose and what would that land be like?

                                        49. You are God throwing a cocktail party. Ben Jonson comes to the door. You want to welcome him, yet you are not sure if you have enough food and wine. What do you say without ever identifying yourself as God?

                                        50. Is the Cavalier delight in connoisseurship really just bunkum. Can you flavor cheap wine with spices and peat moss and persuade the Jonson's of the world it is 29 Latour, which is past its prime by the way? The 28 is still drinking beautifully.

                                        51. Science fiction images for us a world of the virtual. Could the Platonic love we have encountered find its object in a virtual person?

                                        52. Why did we read so few works by women?

                                        52A. What do we need to bring with us as we “dive into the wreck” of the artistic and cultural past?- What do we need to bring to a new surface life that deep values of the past without becoming lost in a pale simulacrum of the underworld? This asks for a metaphorical but inventive apparatus.

                                        53. Are the Ninja Turtles actually cloaccan metaphysical fungoids?

                                        54. Does the Petrarchan impulse survive today?

                                        55. If you worked in a video store- are there any surviving? - and Robert Herrick came in, what DVD would you recommend to him in an effort to get his repeat business?

                                        56. Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa! Cast some of our poets as the Simpsons.

                                        57. Adult/ post modern cartoons- What would a few of our authors watch and why? How does the deep aesthetic past find vitality in the popular modern arena?

                                        58. How do you know you are alive? How does that knowledge express itself?

                                        59. Why is the ideal women we have encountered so often silent and accepting?

                                        60. Is it easier to understand why poets might persist in pursuing the unreachable political goal instead of the tangible romantic object?

                                        61. If there were “poetic steroids” and a covert dose would make your pen flow free, how would your poem confess and celebrate your inspiring transgression?

                                        62. You are drawn to a person with a large Chaucerian “wen” prominently visible, in spite of that person’s effort to diminish or conceal. How do you make that excrescence the basis of your seductive imagery?

                                        63. Would a LBGT+ sonneteer have to change much in the language and images available?

                                        64. Let’s think about “The Garden” and “Penshurst” again. If nature in those worlds is both real and almost perfect, how could the poet include leaf mold, worms, and Platonic manure?

                                        65. From Mickey to Donald to Barney to Brian and on, we have made animals into humans. Are they indeed our fellows or is it just an effort to convince ourselves that we are more real than they?

                                        666. The Literary Stock Market: Will your investment in Wyatt rise? Are Sappho Futures sound? Should you sell Lawrence or Ted Hughes?

                                        67. The Blazon of Beauty is all red and white and pink. Would an African Sonneteer need to change more than the hues to make the tradition work?

                                        68. In a world without God (or gods) would our poets have to revalue all their poetic values?

                                        69. You and Snoop D – remember him- are having a party. How do you publicly invite your friends in a way that makes them want to attend without the feds busting you again?

                                        70. You know the rules are everywhere and have always been, yet you do not feel bound by them, what do you say when you discover that you still must pay the price, that there is no escape from their world?

                                        71. Does poetry, or art, free the poet from the role society constructs? Is art a refuge where we can close the door and be ourselves? How would we know that self is authentic?

                                        72. A package arrives in the mail- Inside you find Gyges’ ring. With this ring, you can be invisible and fly invisibly wherever you want on earth, but you can only use the ring for a month- maybe just a week. Where do you go? What do you do? What would one of our poets do?

                                        73. Why does fidelity seem to matter so much?

                                        74. What would be the minimum price to get you to sell your chance to be president?

                                        75. If you could live forever, what would be your ambitions?

                                        76. Can we ever tell the truth? Is it worth telling? If everyone believes our lies, do they cease to be lies; if no one believes our truth, is it true?

                                        77. Arctic or Tropics- Iceland or Barbados?

                                        78. When you stand at the edge of the Valley of Not Knowing and call out- who answers? Who do you want to answer?

                                        79. When you are wayfaring, what if you meet the other half of your sheared soul? And what if you must pass on and depart from the Platonic wholeness?

                                        80. Is “Eternity” a great ring of endless light- glowing in unchanging incandescence? Is Edmund Spenser right when he claims eternal perfection can be always mutable?

                                         

                                        BONUS: List five critical terms or phrases introduced in this class.

                                         

                                        Questions with Longer Answers

                                        [In These Answers You Should Show the Range and depth of Your Reading]

                                        Instructions: Do one from Column A and another one or two from Columns B, C, and D- but only one from each column [Thus a total of two OR three essays]:

                                        You may include Wyatt, Surrey in Column A or B.

                                        You must EXCLUDE the Metaphysical poets from Column B.

                                        You may do a total of One Reading answer

                                        COLUMN A:

                                         1. We are often told that Death is the ultimate meaning and measure of life, and the only measure of meaning. How do some of our poets, try your best to avoid Donne, make sense out of death? How do they use death as a measure of life and meaning?

                                        2. This is a kind of parallel to #1. Is there a kind of Elegiac sadness for the impermanence of the good and the beautiful that echoes through our readings? Through what transforming mists does that elegiac tone sometimes pass?

                                        3. How does Herbert try to relocate Donne's subject matter and technique? In some sense your answer to this question will get at the originality of Herbert's poetry.

                                        4. How does Metaphysical poetry [Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell, ?Eliot?] explore the powers and dangers of imagination? Does the very inventiveness call itself into question? Is Hamlet a kind of metaphysical poet?

                                        5. Stand up for the Herdsmen in Gray’s Elegy Argue that their Bucolic country life is a truer and deeper experience than the urban visitors melancholic encounter. Claim that The Herdsman’s is the true experience of the power and mystery of the natural. Run with discovery.

                                        6. Almost all the poems- let’s not forget The Decameron -  we read came from a culture that valued oral presentation and oral performance. In what sense are our readings acts of performance? What is created in/by such a performance? Are the Writers (performers) in some way afraid to make themselves public? Do they create a false face to wear in their performance? OR is their performance a way to get beyond/behind the public mask to the real being? Where is the real person in the poetry we encounter? Is there a real person? How would that person be RE-Presented in the poems?

                                        7. We spoke often of the Natural world in our examination of poems. How do our readings show the poets thinking about the natural world in ways that are a form of exploration and discovery? Be sure to include some obvious poems and poets and some not so obvious. Feel free to Explore the Garden/ Forest dimension.

                                        8. Most of our poets were “Men” of the world. How does that complex political, social, economic world (you may add to the list) become part of the poetry?

                                        9. What might be the Metaphysical definition of the Good Life that is so celebrated in Classical verse [mostly Jonson and Herrick]? What are the values the metaphysical poets are at odds to protect and uphold?

                                        10. Read a poem by Herbert. Try “The Pulley” if you want a new challenge, but any H. poem will do

                                        10A. Read a Donne poem. What about Holy Sonnet 2. Again any D poem will do.

                                        10B. Read a Marvell poem as exemplary of the Metaphysical.

                                        11. Argue that Marvell's Garden poem is either Metaphysical or Classical. Be sure to show your sense of the tradition and how Marvell works with it.

                                        12. We have wandered far together over the hillsides and through the forest thickets? How does Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” function as a summary and culmination of of our travels in common/

                                         

                                         

                                         

                                        COLUMN B

                                        13. If we take seriously the notion of the Cavalier interest in “The Good Life,” we bump into questions about the nature and worth of Cavalier poetry, with which we include the poems of Jonson and Herrick. Some of the questions might be these: How can such poetic topics produce significant art? How can we take seriously poems of such light and playful tone? Are these poems where craft dominates content? Isn’t the persona in the poems rather evanescent, almost frivolous compared to, say, Yeats and Eliot?

                                        How do we see the Cavalier tradition in our more general context of substantial or significant poetry?

                                        14.  Place Jonson's "On My First Son (xlv), “Farewell thou child,” in the context of some of his other poems.

                                        15. Discuss the FIGURE of the LADY/lover/woman in some readings that illuminate the issue.

                                        16. In what sense is The Decameron a collection of portraits, or perhaps sketches? In what sense can we read the one hundred tales as a kind of self-portrait?

                                        17. The aesthetic of the Renaissance often valued works that were finished, perfected, not to be changed. How does that aesthetic appear in our poems and how do those poems debate with that aesthetic? After some well-focused general comments, look closely at one or two key works. Feel free to range to other works that help explore and non-brutally- interrogate that aesthetic.

                                        18. In what sense are most of our works implicit dialogues for which Marvell’s “Dialogue of Body and Soul” provides a paradigm? Select a few poems that seem particularly dialogic.

                                        19. Read one or more short pieces by Herrick, and demonstrate the "seriousness" of Herrick's art.

                                        20. Sidney and Shakespeare explore the divine dimensions of love in ther poems. Herrick celebrates the world of romantic dream and desire. Is their poetic vision in opposition or parallel? If united in our imagination, would they annihilate each other, like particles and anti-particles, or would they reveal a long-hidden wholeness?

                                        21. Celebrate metonymy!

                                        21A. Celebrate Otium*. What is it? Why is it central to understanding Classical and Cavalier verse? Is Otium limited to a specific slice of culture and politics? A poetic Fantasia on the theme of Otium would be grand.

                                        *The idealized leisure that lets the individual explore and create beyond the mundane and practical.

                                         

                                        21B. Without falling into the clichés of self-help books, celebrate the on-going value and utility of one of our poets.

                                        21C. Is the “Pastoral” a literary form that fears and tames the forest?

                                         

                                        COLUMN C

                                        22. In what important ways do many of our works explore the story of a man who falls and is transformed by his persistence in that fall and by his stubborn clinging to his sense of imaginative creation that produces an alternative to the CREATED and the CREATING. That man becomes a creature who forgoes the divine and even the human in himself. He is finally reduced to a figure fatally ensnared in his own reductive images. (This is a question for those of you who like a challenge.... And for those of you who don't, you may want to try it anyway.)

                                        23. Compare/contrast a modern poet’s’s appreciation of human beauty with the appreciation of the same in the works of one of the following poets: Donne, Herrick, Shakespeare or Marvell- or Petrarch or Dante—.

                                        24. If Petrarch or Boccaccio or even Dante had lived four hundred or four hundred and fifty years later, would he have written a novel instead of the works we encountered? In what ways would the conventions of the novel have altered Petrarch’s poems or Boccaccio’s narrative or Dante’s poems about Beatrice as he is striving to celebrate her? Is the novel as traditionally practiced a form amenable to their interests?

                                        25. Using Forest and Garden as deep and broad metaphors, assign some of our authors as “Gardeners” or “Foresters” How are the authors creating spaces that let us examine loss, or, perhaps, more accurately, not having, or wanting what can't be had. How do the authors deal with this both specifically and generally? How are works about what can't be had? Is that the easy answer, that what can't be had becomes attractive in its absence?

                                        26. In what sense is The Decameron a metaphor for a world "Unperfected"? How does the very texture of tale-telling and issues of agency suggest a world of “dis-ordered” creation- not a fallen world, but a world open and partially transformable?  What creates meaning? How stable and wide-spread is that meaning. How does literary form explore openness of form?

                                        27. Can we read a sequence or collection of poems as a plain tale, as a narrative without symbolic reference? Can we retreat from meaning and find comfort in Character and Event-  or perhaps Rhetorical Craft?

                                        28. How is Eliot's “Prufrock” or “Wasteland” a kind of response to Renaissance notions of idealized gardens and communities?

                                        29. In what sense is Herrick living in the Forest of Magic and mystery or perhaps a manifestation of a Platonic forest.

                                        31. Read with care one of Shakespeare’s sonnets

                                        32. Read Wyatt’s “They Flee from Me”

                                        32a. Read a sonnet by Petrarch.

                                        33. Wyatt’s translations ask challenging questions about Imitatio and originality [Invention]. Where is the real invention in Wyatt or Shakespeare or Donne or Marvell? How is that invention a dialogue with Imitatio?

                                        34. It is often said that the story of the fall is an effort to understand the psychology of the fallen. How is this true for Wyatt, Herbert, or Marvell? How do the poems attempt to explain and represent the weak and fallen who inhabit a world they did not fully create and one they do not fully control?

                                         

                                        COLUMN D

                                        35. Argue that the artist actually finds immortality!

                                        36. Think back to Boccaccio. Is the first story of the Decameron an “Inverse” of poetic idealism?

                                        37. Argue that a poet’s women are a comment on and critique of the women we have encountered in other readings? That is- explore, possibly, whether poet’s vision is finally more comprehensive and transcendent that other traditions with their deep doubts and fears.

                                        38. Which of our author’s sense of self and selfhood is the most modern we have encountered? Does his fascination with the ego-driven self and his attention to the many faces we have, the many roles we take on, the multiple and contradictory lives we choose to perform, mark him as a post-modernist visionary?

                                        39. If, as people like C. S. Lewis sometime argue, Dante and his predecessors and his culture “Invented Love,” What might have served the role of love before they invented it?

                                        40. The question of author’s innerlife- the question of the author’s belief- How and why does the faith of Dante or Boccaccio or Eliot or Lawrence or Wordsworth matter?  If he is an atheist or a faithful son of mother church, what does it matter? How does it matter. When the author sends off the work to the public- like one of Dante’s Envois- does that “child” now have its own life and its own DNA?

                                        41. Is Hamlet a variation on themes in one of our readings?

                                        42. Boccaccio acknowledges the plague and the troubles of “actual life,” but almost at once we are in an enclosed garden, as it were. Working with Boccaccio and a few others, explore how our authors confront the practical difficulties of life.

                                        42a. Is Plato right when he wants to exclude poets from the good state? What do the poets have to offer? Does the good state want or need Boccaccio, Rilke, Donne, Herrick, and any poet? Does the artist do best when Blast-ing the surrounding world?

                                        42b.  Philip Sidney argues poetry can tell greater truths than history. By looking at a specific text, does that provide a kind of answer to 42a?

                                        43. For Dante, Immortality is the eternal vision of God, how would Sappho or Guillaume or the Boccaccio of our selections define immortality?

                                        44. Explore a dimension of one of our works that calls your name- a dimension we have neglected or given insufficient attention.

                                        45. “This, too, must be said with sadness- the Duchess herself is dead”. How is the Nostalgia for the past a kind of Nostos- a journey home? Is that idealized past merely a dream world, or is it a world of the safely dead who remind us of the fear and doubt with which we live each day? How do our readings interrogate our idealizing of the past which we hope to see reborn? What comfort is there in the wish to reanimate the past? Is the Forest and Garden the true home that embraces and transforms the Duchess and Beatrice and Laura and all the mortal selves we know and love? Is the Portrait the unconscious wish to be transported to the real home where we become truly ourselves in Forest or Garden?

                                        46. Renaissance Neo-platonism- Pico della Mirandola, seems to suggest that humans have unlimited potential, that we might soar beyond angels and transform the very stuff of our being into some greater numinous whole. Can the deeply drinking reader really transcend the world itself and become, though serving, a higher being.

                                        47. “Come the revolution, there’ll be no more strawberries and cream!” find avatars of the revolution in our readings. How do the readings express indirectly ideas beyond the practical scope of the speaker and perhaps even beyond the rational logical-positivist poetic self of the writer? In what sense is the artist a prophet of revolution covertly imaging forth those powers suppressed still for decades if not centuries.

                                        48. Beauty seduces, beauty transforms, beauty is an attribute of the divine, beauty is spirit and matter in ecstatic fusion. How does the poetic escape and transform the narrow confines of the “beautified”? How does the poetic get beyond the painted chair and the plain chair to the searing heat of the desert to the cobbled ugly spaces and places that are equally profound and beloved if only our voyaging Odysseus would share with us the seductive magic that keeps him bound so tightly to the mast?

                                        49. In a final retrospective mastery- what is “the good life” our literature offers to share with us?

                                         

                                        But what

                                        Loved the stones and spoke stone?

                                        They seemed to exist too

                                        And what spoke that strange silence

                                        After his clamour of caws faded?

                                         

                                        A question of its own to substitute for any column

                                        Another Chance to Explore

                                        We have spent much of the semester looking at dichotomies, dialogues, and multiplicities. It is easy to take a dichotomy and declare it to be the meaning or center of a poem or work. For example, we can talk about our literature as being about a conflict between the non-physical idealizing of love and a cynical interest in the sexual and the erotic. But I find this NOT an answer, not the disease but a symptom. There are other symptoms: Body/Soul; Male/Female; Heaven/Earth; Heaven/Hell; Light/Dark; Thinking/Feeling; Nature/Artifice; Real/Ideal, and almost all those other operations that seem to "govern" poetic language and thought. But, it seems to me, there is a deeper interplay, deeper dialogue or complex concern that generates these symptoms. We may not be ready to get all the way to Original or Primary Cause, but we can get closer. So, the question might be this: Why do our authors want to generate and examine the kinds of oppositions that show so obviously in most, if not all, of our works? What purposes do such oppositions serve? How do they let artists, and other thinkers, explore possibilities yet more complex and rich? What is the evidence that the artists have doubts that these oppositions actually exist in nature? How do our readings MAP and Illuminate worlds of causality and meaning worthy to explore?

                                         

                                        A kind of Bonus

                                        List three or four of your favorites from our readings- specifics are good. And briefly but intently suggest why they are your favorites.

                                         


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