Metaphysical Poetry

An Anthology

Paul Negri

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486121451
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient Poetry
• Index: Literature

Metaphysical poetry, a term generally applied to the works of a group of English poets of the seventeenth century, is among the most read and studied verse in English literature, having proved enduringly popular and major influence on many twentieth-century poets. Dramatic and conversational in rhythm and tone, intriguing and complex in theme and idea, metaphysical poetry is also rich in striking and unusual imagery chosen from philosophy, theology, the arts, crafts, and sciences.
This modestly priced anthology contains the best work by major poets of the school: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, Francis Quarles, and Thomas Traherne, all of whose works were originally considered a reaction against traditional Elizabethan verse of the late sixteenth century. Included are such masterpieces as Donne’s “The Good Morrow” and `Death, Be Not Proud`; Marvell's “The Garden” and `To His Coy Mistress`; Herbert’s “Easter Wings”; Vaughan’s “The World,” and many more.
Ideal for use in classrooms from high school through college, this outstanding anthology will appeal as well to lovers of fine English poetry.

JOHN DONNE (1572–1631)

Considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets, John Donne wrote both sacred and secular verse with equal facility. His secular poems—collected as Songs and Sonnets—explore the sensual and psychological elements of human love with wit, sophistication, intelligence, and immense poetic skill. Nevertheless, Dryden complained that Donne “. . . affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love.” Donne was far too much of a thinker to be content with appealing simply to the hearts of his readers; his poems engage the mind as well. Born a Roman Catholic, he attended both Oxford and Cambridge, but took no degrees, perhaps because of the oath of allegiance to the king required at graduation. In the 1590s Donne converted to Anglicanism, eventually becoming dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621. His sermons, powerful and deeply moving, are considered among the most brilliant and eloquent of the age. In later years Donne turned this poetic genius to sacred verse, writing eloquent hymns and holy sonnets that conveyed the torment and hard-won grace of his spiritual struggles.

The Good Morrow

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest,
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Song

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou findst one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Woman’s Constancy

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav’st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers’ contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change, and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these ’scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow, I may think so too.

The Undertaking

I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t’impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, and find none.

So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon, there is,)
Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too,
And forget the he and she;

And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride:

Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, all here in one bed lay.

She is all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.
Thou sun art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

The Indifferent

I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear, that men are true, torment you?
Oh we are not, be not you so,
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travel through you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love’s sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, “Alas, some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, ‘Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them, who are false to you.’ ”

The Canonization

For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hair...