SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRICS Among the lyrics of the earlier part of the seventeenth century, one discerns, somewhat clearly, at least three poetical manners, which emanated, respectively, from Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, and John Donne. The sensuous beauty, playful imagery, and fluent melody of Spenser are clearly present in the poems of William Browne and George Wither. The fine finish, poise, and chastened sweetness of Jonson are a refining influence in the shorter lyrics of Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace. In John Donne, incisive and subtle thinking finds fantastic, and sometimes harsh, expression in far-fetched analogies, mystifying metaphors, and dimly suggestive images. The poetical apparatus of Donne, often, and his fancy, still more often, are essential in the passionate, soaring, and mystical outbursts of George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan. One notices, however, that Spenser, Jonson, and Donne did not exclusively dominate the poetical output of their conscious or unconscious disciples. Toward the middle of the century appears a new influence in poetical form, the heroic,' or 'closed,' couplet, practiced by Edmund Waller, John Denham, Abraham Cowley, and Andrew Marvell. This verse-form, best adapted to epic and satire, had no important influence upon lyric, except, indirectly, through repression. SONG: TO CELIA Come, my Celia, let us prove, Of a few poor household spies? These have crimes accounted been. TO HEAVEN 10 15 40 To sordid flatteries, acts of strife, And sunk in that dead sea of life, So deep, as he did then death's waters sup, But that the cork of title buoyed him up. The Antistrophe, or Counter-Turn Alas! but Morison fell young! He never fell,- thou fall'st, my tongue. He stood a soldier to the last right end, 45 A perfect patriot and a noble friend; But most, a virtuous son. All offices were done By him, so ample, full, and round, In weight, in measure, number, sound, 50 As, though his age imperfect might appear, His life was of humanity the sphere. The Epode, or Stand Go now, and tell our days summed up with And keep the one half from his Harry. But fate doth so alternate the design, Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine, IV The Strophe, or Turn And shine as you exalted are; Two names of friendship, but one star: Of hearts the union, and those not by chance |