Had found and left the Mandrake's tenant, runs, Thoughtless of change: when her firm destiny Confined and enjailed her, that seemed so free, Into a small blue shell; the which a poor Warm bird o'erspread, and sat still evermore Till her enclosed child kicked and picked itself a door.
Out crept a Sparrow, this Soul's moving inn, On whose raw arms stiff feathers now begin, As children's teeth through gums, to break with pain. His flesh is jelly yet, and his bones threads; All a new downy mantle overspreads ;
A mouth he opes which would as much contain As his late house; and the first hour speaks plain, And chirps aloud for meat; meat fit for men His father steals for him; and so feeds then
One that within a month will beat him from his hen.
Into an embryon fish our Soul is thrown ; And, in due time, thrown out again; and grown To such vastness as if unmannaclèd
From Greece Morea were, and that, by some Earthquake unrooted, loose Morea swom; Or seas from Afric's body had severèd And torn the hopeful Promontory's1 head :
This fish would seem these; and, when all hopes fail, A great ship, overset or without sail
Hulling, might, when this was a whelp, be like this Whale,
At every stroke his brazen fins do take, More circles in the broken sea they make Than cannons' voices when the air they tear. His ribs are pillars, and his high-arched roof, Of bark that blunts best steel, is thunder-proof. Swim in him swallowed dolphins without fear, And feel no sides; as if his vast womb were Some inland sea; and, ever as he went, He spouted rivers up, as if he meant
To join our seas with seas above the firmament.
He hunts not fish ; but, as an officer Stays in his court, at his own net, and there All suitors of all sorts themselves enthrall,
So on his back lies this Whale wantoning, And in his gulf-like throat sucks everything
Fish chaseth fish, and all,
Flier and follower, in this whirlpool fall.
O, might not states of more equality
Consist? And is it of necessity
That thousand guiltless smalls, to make one great, must die?
Now drinks he up seas, and he eats up flocks; He jostles islands, and he shakes firm rocks: Now in a room-full house this Soul doth float; And, like a Prince, she sends her faculties To all her limbs, distant as provinces.
The Sun hath twenty times both Crab and Goat1 Parched, since first launched forth this living boat; 'Tis greatest now, and to destruction
Nearest there's no pause at perfection; Greatness a period hath, but hath no station.
It quickened next a toyful Ape; and so Gamesome it was that it might freely go From tent to tent, and with the children play. His features now so like theirs he doth find That why he cannot laugh and speak his mind He wonders. Much with all, most he doth stay With Adam's fifth daughter Siphateria,-
Doth gaze on her, and, where she passeth, pass, Gathers her fruits, and tumbles on the grass, And, wisest of that kind, the first true lover was.
He was the first that more desired to have One than another; first that ere did crave Love by mute signs and had no power to speak; First that could make love-faces; or could do The vaulter's somersaults; or used to woo With hoiting gambols, his own limbs to break To make his Mistress merry, or to wreak Her anger on himself.
1 Two signs of the Zodiac, corresponding with June and December.
FROM THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL (1612).
THE SOUL'S FLIGHT TO HEAVEN.
Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie After, enabled but to suck and cry;
Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn, A province packed up in two yards of skin, And that usurped, or threatened, with a rage Of sicknesses or their true mother, Age.
But think that Death hath now enfranchised thee: Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty.
Think that a rusty piece, discharged, is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies; this to thy Soul allow.
Think thy shell broke; think thy Soul hatched but now: And think this slow-paced Soul, which late did cleave To a body, and went but, by the body's leave, Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day,
Despatches in a minute all the way
'Twixt heaven and earth. She stays not in the air, To look what meteors there themselves prepare ; She carries no desire to know, nor sense, Whether the air's middle region be intense; For the element of fire, she doth not know Whether she passed by such a place, or no ; She baits not at the moon; nor cares to try Whether in that new world men live and die; Venus retards her not, to inquire how she Can, being one star, Hesper and Vesper be. He that charmed Argus' eyes, sweet Mercury, Works not on her who now is grown all eye; Who, if she meet the body of the Sun, Goes through, not staying till her course be run; Who finds in Mars his camp no corps of guard; Nor is by Jove, nor by his father, barred; But, ere she can consider how she went, At once is at, and through, the firmament. And, as these stars were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguished leads Her through those spheres, as through those beads a string, Whose quick succession makes it still one thing: As doth the pith which, lest our bodies slack, Strings fast the little bones of neck and back, So by the Soul doth death string Heaven and Earth.
JOSEPH HALL.
(1574-1656.)
JOSEPH HALL, Chaplain to Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., and Bishop successively of Exeter in 1627 and of Norwich in 1641, is remembered chiefly for his prose theological works written in the reigns of James and Charles. His only poems were a collection of Satires composed at Cambridge University before his twenty-third year. These Satires, of which there are altogether about three dozen, of lengths varying from twelve lines to three hundred, are grouped with reference to their subjects into six Books. The first three Books were published anonymously in 1597, and were entitled Toothless Satyres, poetical, academical, moral. The remaining three Books followed in the next year, and were called Virgidemiarum: The three last Bookes of Byting Satyres. The two collections were printed together in 1599. They are written upon the classic model of Juvenal and Persius, as distinct from that of the English writers of satirical poetry, of whom Langland and Skelton are examples. Although Donne's Satires, in the same style, were written earlier, they were not printed for some time after Hall's; and Hall has consequently enjoyed the distinction of priority to which he himself laid claim.
"I first adventure: follow me who list, And be the second English Satirist.
Hall's Satires were condemned to be burnt in 1599 by an order of Bishop Bancroft; from which time they sank into oblivion, and were not included in the early editions of his Works. In 1641, Milton, during the Smectymnuan Controversy, dragged them to light and criticised them mercilessly. Pope saw them late in his life, and wished he had seen them sooner. And Warton, in 1778, wrote an elaborate and eulogistic account of them in his History of English Poetry. These Satires contain much interesting criticism on the literature and manners of the period in which they were written, and they are remarkable also as having been the vigorous and solitary attempt in verse of one of our most notable English divines.
Nor lady's wanton love, nor wandering knight, Legend I out in rhymes all richly dight; Nor fright the reader with the pagan vaunt Of mighty Mahound and great Termagaunt; Nor list I sonnet of my mistress' face
To paint some Blowess with a borrowed grace; Nor can I bide to pen some hungry scene For thick-skin ears and undiscerning een ;2 Nor ever could my scornful Muse abide With tragic shoes her ancles for to hide; Nor can I crouch, and writhe my fawning tail To some great Patron, for my best avail :- Such hunger-starven trencher poetry, Or let it never live, or timely die !— Nor under every bank and every tree Speak rhymes unto my oaten minstrelsy; Nor carol out so pleasing lively lays
As might the Graces move my mirth to praise. Trumpet, and reeds, and socks, and buskins fine, I them bequeath whose statues wandering twine3 Of ivy mixt with bays encircle round,
Their living temples likewise laurel-bound. Rather had I, all-be in careless rhymes, Check the misordered world and lawless times.
FARMER LOLIO AND HIS SON HODGE.4
Old drivelling Lolio drudges all he can To make his eldest son a gentleman.
Nought spendeth he for cheer nor spares for cost; And all he spends and spares besides is lost. Himself goes patched like some bare cottier, Lest he might aught the future stock appair".
Let sweet-mouthed Mercia bid what crowns she please For half-red cherries, or green garden peas, Or the first artichokes of all the year, To make so lavish cost for little cheer: When Lolio feasteth in his revelling fit, Some starvèd pullet scours the rusted spit. For, else, how should his son maintainèd be At Inns of Court or of the Chancery,
1 From Book I. Satire I.
4 From Book IV. Satire II.
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