The poems of Edmund Waller

L/BRARY

OF

CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO

tbe
Mantage

/S~-

f£ibrarg.

THE POEMS

OF

EDMUND WALLER
VOL. I.

THE POEMS

OF

EDMUND

WALLER

EDITED BY

G. THORN DRURY.

NEW EDITION.
VOL. I

LONDON: NEW YORK:

A. H. SULLEN, CHARLES SCRLBNER'S SONS,
18 CECIL COURT, W.C. 153-7 FIFTH AVENUE.

1901! 1901.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.

PREFACE (1893).

IF any justification be needed for the publi-
cation of a new edition of Waller's Poems, it
will surely be found in the fact that they had
for some time ceased to be accessible, except
in the shape of second-hand copies.

I have adopted, as far as practicable, the text
of the edition of 1686, the last published during
the poet's life. I have noted the sources of
such verses as are here printed for the first
time, and I have omitted one poem, hitherto
ascribed to Waller, the lines on " The British
Princes," the MS. of which Thyer discovered
among Butler's papers, in his autograph. I
desire to express my sense of the great kindness
I have received from Edmund Waller, Esq.,
the present representative of the poet, who has
placed at my disposal everything in his posses-
sion relating to his ancestor, and has also allowed
the two portraits which accompany this book to
be reproduced from pictures in his possession —
that of Edmund Waller from the picture by

viii EDMUND WALLER.

Cornells Janssens, and that of Lady Dorothy
Sidney from a picture which was certainly in
the poet's possession, and is believed to have
been presented to him by Sacharissa herself.
My thanks are also due to H. Buxton Forman,
Esq., who very kindly allowed me to collate
two rarities in his library, the folio edition of
the " Panegyric," and the " Divine Poems " of
1685.

G. THORN DRURY.

THIS EDITION

OF
THE POEMS OF HIS ANCESTOR IS DEDICATED

TO

EDMUND WALLER, ESQ.,

OF

FARMINGTON LODGE, NORTHLEACH.

INTRODUCTION,

INTRODUCTION.

A GREAT novelist has justified the mention of his
hero's ancestors by the suggestion that he might,
if they were omitted, be in danger of being
supposed to have had none. In no sense is
such an imputation true of Edmund Waller :
the name which he has rendered familiar to so
many (albeit they mispronounce it), was known
long before his time as that of a family of great
wealth and antiquity, originally settled in the
county of Kent. From Groombridge, his seat,
near Speldhurst, Richard Waller, afterwards
sheriff of the county, set out to join Henry V.
in France, and thither he returned from
Agincourt, bringing with him Charles, Duke of
Orleans, whom he had taken prisoner in the
battle. For four-and-twenty years he kept the
the Prince " in honourable confinement," and it
is recorded of him, that during that time he
rebuilt his own house and beautified the parish
church, in the porch of which were carved his
arms with the addition, the royal shield of
France, and the motto " Hsec fructus virtutis,"
granted to him in memory of his exploit. His
eldest son, another Richard Waller, married

xiv EDMUND WALLER.

the daughter and heiress of Edmund Brudenell,
lord of the manor of Coleshill, and this union
no doubt led to the migration from Kent of
that part of the family from which the poet was
immediately descended. The exact date when the
Wallers of Beaconsfield branched off from the
main stock cannot now be ascertained, but it is
certain that well back into the sixteenth century
they were in possession of lands in Hertford-
shire and Buckinghamshire, all of which appear
to have eventually devolved upon Robert
Waller, the father of the poet. Robert Waller
had been bred to the study of the law, and for
some time practised as a barrister, but his
circumstances rendering this occupation un-
necessary, he retired into the country and
devoted himself to the improvement of his
estates. He took for his wife, Anne, daughter
of Griffith Hampden.1 Edmund, their eldest
son, was born on the 3rd of March, 1606, at
the manor-house, Coleshill, a hamlet which
then formed part of the county of Hertford, but
which, since 1832, has been absorbed into
Buckinghamshire. All traces of the mansion
have disappeared, and the site upon which it is
said to have stood is now occupied by a
dilapidated farm-house, little better than a
cottage, known as " Stocks Place," or " Old

i.— Her brother, William, was the father of the celebrated
John Hampden by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
Henry Cromwell and aunt of the Protector.

INTRODUCTION. xv

Stocks." From his birth-place, the future poet
was taken, on the gih of March, to the parish
church at Amersham, or, as it was then spelled,
Agmondesham, to be baptized.1 His father is
said to have sold his property at Coleshill and
to have betaken himself to another house of his
at Beaconsfield, which sadly weakens the
pleasant tradition that clings to a huge old oak
still standing in a little meadow at the back of
"Stocks Place." A niche cut in this tree has
been pointed out as Waller's favourite seat,
where he was wont to sit and write his verses ;
and if there are not now to be found in the
bark any initials which recall my Lady Carlisle
or Sacharissa, the swains of the neighbourhood
have done their best to make up for it by carving
almost every other conceivable combination of
letters. What little we know of his early
education is derived from Aubrey, who was
told by Waller himself that " he was bred under
severall ill, dull, and ignorant schoolmasters,
till he went to Mr. Dobson at Wickham, who
was a good schoolmaster and had been an

1 The register containing the entry of his baptism is still to
be seen, and although one at least of his editors knew of the
existence of the " writ of oustre," reciting that on Oct. 4, 1616,

Edmund Waller was ten years months old (a word is

obliterated), it never seems to have occurred to him or any one
else to examine the register and make the obvious discovery that
the birth and baptism of the poet have been wrongly assigned
to 1605, in consequence of the practice of beginning the New
Year on March 25.

VOL. I. b

xvi EDMUND WALLER.

Eaton schollar," while one Mr. Thomas Bigge,
who was in the same form with him at Mr.
Dobson's school, and "was wont to make his
exercise for him," confessed to the same author-
ity, that " he little thought then he would have
been so rare a poet."

Robert Waller died Aug. 26, 1616, lamenting
the idle life he had led, and leaving a paper of
advice to his son which, though it continued for
several generations in the possession of the
family, has now unfortunately disappeared.
The care of the poet's education then devolved
upon his mother, a lady of unusual capacity for
business, and, if we may trust Aubrey, not
without a sense of humour of a somewhat robust
order. She sent him to Eton, and thence to
Cambridge, where he was admitted a Fellow-
Commoner of King's College, March 22, 1620.
He had for his tutor a relative, who is said to
have been a very learned man, and under him
probably acquired some of that familiarity with
the Latin language which he retained to the
end of his life. His stay at the University can
hardly have been a long one, and there is no
record of his having taken a degree. He was,
says Clarendon, "nursed in parliaments," but
though the returns show that he was a member
at an unusually early age, there is some
difficulty in determining the date of his first
entrance. According to the inscription on his
monument, "nondum octodecennalis inter

INTRODUCTION, xvii

ardua regni tractantes sedem habuit a burgo
de Agmondesham missus." Now the right
of Amersham to return members was in abey-
ance till the last Parliament of James I.
(Feb. 12, 1624), when the town was
represented by Hakeville and Crew, but it
has been suggested that Waller was allowed
to sit for Amersham in the previous Parliament,
which met Jan. 16, 1621, sub silentio, without the
privilege of taking part in the debates. This
view is confirmed by his own statement in the
House, that he was but sixteen when he first
sat, which would point rather to 1621 than 1624,
and by the fact that, according to the .writer of
his"Life"(ed. 1711), who had it from Dr. Birch, the
poet's son-in-law, he always assigned to the day
of the dissolution of a Parliament of which he
was a member, a remarkable story, without which
no biography of him appears to be complete. "He
went, out of curiosity or respect, to see the King
at dinner, with whom were Dr. Andrews,
Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neal, Bishop of
Durham, standing behind his Majesty's chair ;
. . . His Majesty asked the Bishops, ' My
Lords, cannot I take my subjects' money when
I want it without all this formality in Parlia-
ment?' The Bishop of Durham readily
answered, ' God forbid, Sir, but you should, you
are the breath of our nostrils.' Whereupon the
King turned, and said to the Bishop of
Winchester, ' Well, my Lord, what say you ? '

xtiiii EDMUND WALLER.

1 Sir,' replied the Bishop, ' I have no skill to
judge of Parliamentary cases : ' The King
answered, ' No puts-off, my Lord, answer me
presently : ' ' Then, Sir,' said he, ' I think it's
lawful for you to take my Brother Neal's money,
fqr he offers it.' " It is unnecessary to relate how
James, with his customary coarseness, repaid
this with a jest at the expense of the Bishop :
the only point of the story in this connection is
its date, the next Parliament, which met Feb. 12,
1624, being only dissolved by the King's death.
In that assembly Waller's name appears as
member for Ilchester, a seat which he obtained
by favour of Nathaniel Tomkins, his brother-in-
law, whose connection with the poet was after-
wards to bring him to such a tragic fate.
Tomkins appears to have been elected for
Ilchester and Christchurch Twynham, and to
have preferred to sit for the latter. Waller was
member for Chipping Wycombe in the first
Parliament of Charles I : he appears to have
had no seat in the second, but represented
Amersham in the third and fourth. His
parliamentary career up to this time appears to
have been uneventful : as he told the House in
after years, there was then no great competition
for seats, " the neighbourhood desired him to
serve : there was a dinner, and so an end."
Whatever may have been his poetical reputa-
tion up to the year 1631, Clarendon is probably

INTRODUCTION. xix

right in saying that the first sensation Wallef
created was by his marriage.

John1 Bankes, citizen and mercer, having
amassed a considerable fortune, which he is
credited with having worthily used, died Sept.
9, 1630, leaving an only daughter, Anne. A
contest for the hand of the heiress at once
arose, and even the Court condescended to
interfere and to support with its influence the
suit of Mr. William Crofts, afterwards Baron
Crofts of Saxham, but another aspirant had
influences nearer at hand, and through the
agency of a. relative, Capt. Henry Waller (a
citizen), and his wife, Mistress Bankes was
conveyed out of the jurisdiction of the Court of
Aldermen, of which she was a ward, into the
country, and there contracted in marriage to the
poet. The marriage was celebrated July 5,
1631, at St. Margaret's Westmister.

This was too much for the Court of Aldermen
— they brought the matter before the Lords of
the Council, instituted proceedings in the Star
Chamber against Waller, and all who had aided
and abetted him, and sent a sergeant-at-arms in
search of the bride. Mrs. Edmund Waller,
having been brought back, was lodged in the
custody of the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Ducie,

1 The inscription on Waller's monument says, "Edward," but
the " Repertories" and Maitland's London (3rd edition) ii. 1151,
unite in giving " John" as the Christian name.

xx EDMUND WALLER.

and duly appeared with her husband before the
outraged City Fathers. The poet was told that
as the lady had chosen to marry him without
the consent of her guardians, she had forfeited
her portion, but that having regard to the fact
that he had, as they were informed, settled upon
her a jointure of .£1,000 a year, and had also
given her power to dispose of ,£2,000 of her
fortune at her own pleasure, the Court was
inclined, notwithstanding the custom of the City
and the expenses incurred in prosecuting the
suit against him and his accomplices before the
Lords of the Council and the Star Chamber, to
take a lenient view of the case, and to accept
a fine of five hundred marks, to be deducted out
of so much of his wife's portion as remained in
the hands of the Chamberlain, after which
the balance would be handed to him. This
generosity on the part of the Aldermen does
not appear to have been altogether spontaneous,
and Court influence, however unsuccessful in
support of Mr. Crofts' suit, prevailed on behalf
of Waller. On Dec. 15, 1631, Mrs. Waller's
ex-guardians were informed by letter from the
King, that, as he had pardoned Edmund Waller
and the rest of the defendants to the information
before the Star Chamber, he expected like
clemency on their part, and the payment of
Mrs. Waller's portion to her husband. The
fortune which Waller inherited from his father,
which must have been largely increased during

INTRODUCTION. xxi

his long minority, has been variously estimated
at from £2,000 to .£3,500 a year ; adding to this
the amount which he received with Miss Bankes,
said to have been about ,£8,000, and allowing for
the difference in the value of money, it appears
probable that, with the exception of Rogers, the
history of English literature can show no richer
poet. " Waller himself," says Oldham, meaning
no disrespect to his powers,

" Waller himself may thank inheritance
For what he else had never got by sense."

The few years during which the poet was to
enjoy the society of his first wife were spent at
Beaconsfield: there, on May 18, 1633, his eldest
son was born, and there, but a few months later,
his wife died in giving birth to a daughter,
baptized on Oct. 23, 1634, the day of her
mother's funeral, by the significant names of
Anne Marah. Waller's first marriage has
generally been regarded as a mercenary one, and
even those of his biographers who have not
been most eager to turn everything to his
disadvantage have treated his capture of the
heiress as something in the nature of an exploit ;
whatever his relations with her before and
during his married life, the poet, writing nearly
fifty years later to his niece, Lady Speke, to
console her for the death of her son, reminds
her of the grief he himself suffered in the loss of
an excellent wife, of which she was then his
witness and his comforter.

xxii EDMUND WALLER.

We have no certain information as to the
course of Waller's life during the next year or
two, but it is probable that it was about this
time that he obtained an entrance into the
society which gathered round Lucius Carey,
Lord Falkland, which, was known as his "club."
This, according to Clarendon, the poet owed to
the good offices of George Morley, afterwards
Bishop of Winchester. The writer of the
"Life" prefixed to the edition of 1711, transfers
the obligation, and says that the members of
the " club," among whom was Waller, being one
day disturbed by a noise in the street, sent to
ascertain the cause of it, and were informed
that a " son " of Ben Jonson was being arrested
for debt ; this member of the tribe of Benjamin
proved to be the future Bishop, with whose
appearance and conversation the poet was so
delighted that he immediately paid his debt,
^100, and took him home to live with him.
George Morley's pecuniary difficulties were no
doubt serious enough to justify one part of this
story, but as Clarendon was himself a member
of the society in question, his account of Waller's
introduction to it is obviously to be preferred.
It seems to be agreed that, for some time at
least, Morley was an inhabitant . of Waller's
house and directed his studies, but it is difficult
to reconcile any lengthened stay with the
position of domestic chaplain which he occupied,

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

for many years previous to 1640, in the family
of the Earl of Carnarvon.

By Lord P^alkland and his friends, among
whom were Sir Francis Wenman, Chillingworth,
and Sidney Godolphin, Waller was "received
and esteemed with great applause." His semi-
public recognition as a poet, which Clarendon
assigns to his thirtieth year, can hardly have
been separated by any long interval from his
introduction to this society. About this time
too, in all probability, began his connection with
the lady whom, as Aubrey says, "he has
eternized in his poems." The subject is involved
in uncertainty, and one is surprised to find,
upon examination, how very slender are the
links which bind together the names of Waller
and Sacharissa. Sacharissa (a name which the
poet formed, "as he used to say pleasantly,"
from sacharum, sugar), or Lady Dorothy
Sidney, was the eldest daughter of Robert,
second Earl of Leicester, and Dorothy, daughter
of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland. She
was born at Sion House, and baptized Oct. 5,
1617, at Isleworth.1

It is impossible to say exactly when she first
attracted the attention of Waller : " a very good
friend " of the poet's told the writer of his " Life"

1 This information, which Mrs. Ady (" Sacharissa," by Julia
Cartwright, 1893) appears to announce as a discovery, we
owe to Peter Cunningham, who inserted it in a note to his
edition of Johnson's " Lives."

xxiv EDMUND WALLER.

(1711) that he "believed his first wife was dead
before he became enamoured of my Lady
Dorothy Sidney" ; but it seems to me that the
key to the situation, so far as there is one, is
supplied by the poem, "To my Lord of
Leicester" (i. 47). The Earl of Leicester is in
France, and Waller begs him to return to
England to determine by his prudent choice
the contention which has arisen among them
for "one bright nymph," his daughter, and goes
on to speak of—

" That beam of beauty, which begun
To warm Jts so when than ivcrl here.''

The Earl left for France, May 17, 1636, and
though he is said, presumably before his
departure, to have loved the poet, and to have
been willing to give him one of his younger
daughters (he had a large family), I think it is
hardly likely that Waller can have begun to pay
his addresses, in any form, to Lady Dorothy till
towards the end of the year 1635. Aubrey says
that he was passionately in love with the lady,
and even goes so far as to suggest that his
rejection by her was probably the cause of a fit
of madness, from which village-gossip told him
the poet had suffered. Later critics have been
by no means inclined to accept this view of the
situation. Nothing in the verses which Waller
addressed to Sacharissa has been more re-
marked than the absence of anything like the
appearance of passion ; it does not, however,

INTRODUCTION. xxv

it seems to me, follow that the poet's love was
not real, or that it was, as has been suggested,
merely the outcome of ambition. He was no
doubt vain, and, in a sense, shallow, and if his
love did not express itself with that fervency
which burns in some of the earlier verses of
Donne, for instance, it was because his nature
was essentially different, and he gave of that he
had. Waller is the last man in the world in
whose published writings one would expect to
find anything of self-revelation, and without
materials it is worse than useless to attempt to
follow the course of his suit. It is perfectly
true that almost all the poems which we can
directly assign to the inspiration of Sacharissa,
appear to have been written upon " occasions,"
but to conclude, on that account, that the poet
only addressed her when he was "sure to make a
direct social sensation," is to misunderstand the
nature of Waller's poetical endowments.

He was practically without " invention," and
if he now and then succeeded in giving to his
verse the appearance of being " inevitable," it
was only because those happy moments which
occasionally visited so many of the lyrists of the
seventeeth century were not wholly absent from
his literary life. There is not, as far as I know,
any authority for connecting the name of
Sacharissa with the famous lines " On a Girdle"
(i . 95), or with the still more famous song, " Go,
lovely rose" (i. 128): they may, or may not,

xxvi EDMUND WALLER.

have been addressed to her ; in any case our
appreciation of them is hardly likely to be in-
creased by certain knowledge on the subject.

The exact date at which Waller abandoned
his suit is no more attainable than that of its
beginning : he was still offering his poetical
homage in the latter half of the year 1638, and
one cannot help thinking that " haughty
Sacharissa's scorn " must have been manifested,
not so much by any peremptory rejection of him,
as by a more humiliating but good-tempered
-refusal to regard his pretensions in any serious
light at all. The following letter1 has been
dated May, 1639, by the compilers of the
" Calendars of State Papers," but there is nothing
in the document itself to favour that or any
other ascription.

a Madam

"The handkercher I receaved fro Mits
Vane having so neer resemblance to a dream,
wch presents us w'h a mixture of things that
have no affinitye one w* another, I have (as
the Assirian kings did wth their dreams) con-
sulted wlh all the magicians & cunning
woemen in our countrie, & though it be easie
to see through it, I finde none that can enterpret
it ; I am sending it to Oxford to the Astrologers
to know yf ther be any constellations or fygures

1 The original is to be found among the State Papers, Dom.
Ch. i. ccccxxii. 122; it has been imperfectly and incorrectly
printed by Mrs. Ady, " Sacharissa," pp. 44-5.

INTRODUCTION. xxvii

in the upper Globe to \vch those in the 4 corners
may allude, for on Earth the Herball tells us of
nothing like them : I did first apprehend it was
as a potent charme, having power like the
wande of Cyrce, to transforme mee into some
strange shape1 but the crosses in the middle
perswading mee it was a good Christian
handkercher I ventured to wipe my face wth it,
when the golden fringe wth a rough salute told
me it was for some nobler use : Madam I
beseech your Lap use your interest in hir to
unriddle this handkercher wch so perplexes us.
I am sorrie that a Ladie of so various a phansye
hath not the power of framing living things too,
that wee might behold some new compositions
and kindes of things wch dull nature never
thought of: seriously (Madam) I humbly kiss
hir hands for this fauor, wch not being to be
wasted by use, I shall aeternally keepe for hir
sake, and doe presume shee will pardon this
rambling acknowledgement made in imitation
of the style of hir handkercher ; by (Madam)
Yr Lps most humble servant

" Edm. Waller."

On the outside, "for my Ladye Dorothye
Sidney."

Whether "Mistress Vane" was a name by
which Lady Dorothy chose to be known to her
admirer, or whether the gift simply reached the

1 After this some words have been written and obliterated,
apparently, " yf I but touched my nose wth it."

xxviii EDMUND WALLER.

poet by the hand of one Mistress Vane, one
cannot now tell, but it can hardly be that he
was writing his " acknowledgement " to
Sacharissa, and promising her "aeternally to
keep " the handkerchief of " another Kentish
young lady, a member of the Vane family," as
Mrs. Ady supposes him to have been. Though
Mr. Waller is never mentioned, there were other
possible suitors for the hand of her daughter,
upon whose eligibility Lady Leicester had to
report to her husband in Paris : now it is Lord
Russell, now Lord Devonshire, and now Lord
Lovelace who is to be the happy man, but all
these gentleman, one after another, disappointed
expectations, either by fixing their affections
elsewhere or by failing to come up to the requisite
moral standard. At last, on July 20, 1639,
Sacharissa was married at Penshurst to Lord
Spencer of Wormleighton, afterwards created
Earl of Sunderland, and for years passed com-
pletely out of Waller's life. The following
letter, (first printed in 1711) the poet addressed
to Lady Lucy, the sister of the bride, upon the
occasion of the wedding.

" Madam,

" In this common joy at Penshurst I know
none to whom complaints may come less unsea-
sonable than to your Ladyship, the loss of a
bed-fellow being almost equal to that of a mis-
tress ; and therefore you ought, at least to

INTRODUCTION. xxix

pardon, if you consent not to the imprecations
of the deserted, which just Heaven no doubt
will hear. May my Lady Dorothy, if we may
yet call her so, suffer as much and have the like
passion for this young Lord, whom she has pre-
ferred to the rest of mankind, as others have
had for her ; and may this love, before the year
go about, make her taste of the first curse im-
posed on womankind, the pains of becoming a
mother. May her first born be none of her own
sex, nor so like her, but that he may resemble
her Lord as much as herself. May she that
always affected silence and retiredness, have the
house filled with the noise and number of her
children, and hereafter of her grand-children,
and then may she arrive at that great curse so
much declined by fair ladies, old age : may she
live to be very old, and yet seem young, be told
so by her glass, and have no aches to inform
her of the truth : and when she shall appear to
be mortal, may her Lord not mourn for her, but
go hand in hand with her to that place where
we are told there is neither marrying nor giving
in marriage, that being there divorced we may
all have an equal interest in her again. My
revenge being immortal, I wish all this may also
befall their posterity to the world's end, and
afterwards.

To you, Madam, I wish all good things, and
that this loss may in good time be happily
supplied with a more constant bed-fellow of the

xxx EDMUND WALLER.

opposite sex. Madam, I humbly kiss your
hand, and beg pardon for this trouble, from
" Your Ladyship's most humble Servant,
"E. Waller."

Thus ends the Sacharissa episode in Waller's
life, and if one is disposed to take offence at
the manner in which he applied to himself the
story of Phoebus and Daphne, and the conceit
of his declaration that

" what he sung in his immortal strain,
Though unsuccessful was not sung in vain,"

it can only be said that so far at least his
remarkable confidence has been justified. How-
ever genuine his passion for Lady Dorothy, we
may be sure that his vanity would prevent him
from suffering to any serious extent for her loss,
and the story of his voyage and shipwreck on
the Bermudas may be dismissed, resting as it
does on nothing but the vaguest tradition. There
is on p. 75 a poem headed "When he was at
sea," but it is probable that Waller was no more
responsible for the title of this, than he was for
those of many other sets of verses which
appeared among his poems after his death.

The year 1640 saw Waller again returned to
Parliament as member for Amersham : an
account of the circumstances under which the
House met on April 13 belongs rather to the
history of England than to a brief review of the
life of any individual. Though it fully deserved
its title of " Short," during the few weeks that

INTRODUCTION. xxxi

this Parliament sat Waller gave unmistakable
signs of the nature of his political creed. He
was at heart a courtier, and if his relationship
to John Hampden caused him, for a time, to
throw in his lot with the popular party, he never
forgot to speak of the King in terms of exag-
gerated respect : of innovations of any sort he
had a natural horror, and the immediate pros-
pect of a serious change in the constitution of
Church or State was enough to throw him into
the arms of those who opposed it.

On April 22 he made his first great speech
in the House, upon the question of Supply,
characterized by Johnson as " one of those noisy
speeches which disaffection and discontent
regularly dictate ; a speech filled with hyper-
bolical complaints of imaginary grievances."
The reality of the grievances of which Waller
complained is hardly open to discussion, and
upon the tone of his speech one may well differ
even with Dr. Johnson. Their presence in that
House, says the poet, after such a long inter-
mission of parliaments, is sufficient evidence of
his Majesty's occasions for money : let them
give the lie to those who would have dissuaded
him from calling them together, and let them
prove to him that no new way of government is
so ready or so safe for the advancement of his
affairs as that ancient and constitutional way,
by Parliaments. They must do their best even
at that stage to comply with his Majesty's

xxxii EDMUND WALLER.

desires, in the face of the dangers that threaten
them, but they have a duty to those whom they
represent — the rights of liberty and of property
are sacred — if these be not restored to the
people, no evils that threaten can have any
terrors for them, they are undone already. The
King will surely restore these rights, for what
they have suffered they have suffered at the
hands of his ministers, else how comes it that
there was never king better beloved and never
people more dissatisfied with the ways of levy-
ing money ? The King must be told the truth,
more particularly concerning those ecclesiastics
who would persuade him that his monarchy is
absolute, a form of government unheard of in
this nation. They all know the dangers of
innovations, though to the better, — why should
so good a king be exposed to the trouble and
hazard of them, no, let him restore to his people
their fundamental liberties and the property of
their goods, and he will see that the House will
make more than ordinary haste to satisfy his
demands. — Further evidence of Waller's con-
ciliatory attitude is afforded by the story which
the writer of his "Life" (1711) tells in connection
with this Parliament. The King, it appears,
had sent to Waller to ask him to second in the
House his demand for supplies, and though the
poet was unable to do this, he strongly remon-
strated with Sir Thomas Jermyn, the Comp-
troller of the Household, for allowing to pass

INTRODUCTION. xxxiii

uncontradicted a statement of Sir Henry Vane,
that the King would accept no vote that did not
come up to his demand : " I," said the poet, "am
but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend to
know the King's mind." Sir Thomas, however,
was silent, and years afterwards, his son, the
Earl of St. Albans, told Waller that his father's
cowardice had ruined the King. This Parlia-
ment was dissolved May 5, and with that
which followed we enter upon the most
momentous period of Waller's life. In the
Long Parliament, which met Nov. 3, 1640,
Waller was returned for St. Ives. He obtained
this seat through the resignation of Lord Lisle,
who preferred to sit for Yarmouth, in the Isle
of Wight, for which he had also been elected.
In the attack on the Earl of Strafford which
followed the meeting of Parliament, Waller
abandoned the party of Pym and his adherents.
It being alleged that the Earl had attempted to
subvert " the fundamental laws of the realm,"
Waller characteristically asked in the House,
what these "fundamental laws" were, and was
told by Maynard, for his pains, that if he did
not know, he had no business to sit there.

According to his own account of the Earl of
StrafFord's case, given many years afterwards,
a state of terror prevailed among the members,
" a fellow upon a barrell in Westminster Hall
proclaimed all traitors that gave votes for him "
— he himself was one that did, and he was in

xxxiv EDMUND WALLER.

consequence obliged to pass himself off on the
mob as Sir Arthur Hazelrigg.

In the debate upon the Ecclesiastical
Petitions, Feb. 1641, Waller drew tighter the
bonds which united him to such men as
Falkland and Hyde.

His speech upon the Abolition of Episcopacy
has been praised by Johnson as cool, firm, and
reasonable, though in reality the spirit of it is
absolutely consistent with that which imbued
his previous speech upon the question of
Supply. He was not an opponent of ship-
money because he wished to substitute the
power of the people for the prerogative of the
King, but because it was an irregular method of
raising money, an innovation : similarly, he did
not oppose the abolition of episcopacy because
he thought his action would be agreeable either
to Bishops or to King, but because he saw in the
blow aimed at the former an attempt to alter
the constitution of the Church, in fine, another
innovation. Doubtless, he said, this and that
poor man has suffered at the hands of the
Bishops, but may you not soon be presented
with thousands of instances of poor men who
have received hard measure from their land-
lords ? Scripture, it is said, points out another
form of church-government : I will not dispute
it in this place, but I am confident that when-
ever an equal division of lands and goods shall
be desired, there will be as many places in

INTRODUCTION. xxxv

Scripture found out, which seem to favour that,
as there are now alleged against the Prelacy or
preferment in the Church. We have already
curbed the power of the Bishops, let us not by
acceding to this petition for the abolition of
their office lead the people to think that if they
but ask in troops we must deny them nothing.
Let our answer be nolumus mutare. — Neither
his action in the matter of the impeachment of
Stratford, nor his speech on behalf of epis-
copacy, deprived Waller of the confidence
of the popular leaders, and he was chosen to
carry up to the House of Lords the articles of
impeachment against Sir Francis Crawley, whose
judgment and extra-judicial opinions upon the
question of ship-money had rendered him
particularly obnoxious to the Commons. It
was probably thought that his relationship to
Hampden would add a bitterness to his natural
eloquence, and he appears to have realized the
expectations of the most exacting. His speech,
in presenting the charge, was delivered at a
conference of both Houses in the Painted
Chamber, July 6, 1641. It is unnecessary even
to summarize it ; Waller had joined in the groans
which greeted the judgment in the Exchequer,
and the position he took up with regard to
ship-money was that of every opponent of the
tax since its institution. His oration had
evidently been most carefully prepared, but the
scriptural and classical quotations and illustra-

xxxvi EDMUND WALLER.

tions, numerous even for Waller, give it a tone
altogether too academic for the occasion, and
deprive it of any appearance of natural indigna-
tion in the speaker : it was, however, immensely
popular among the poet's contemporaries,
and twenty thousand copies of it are said to
have been sold in one day. Waller's speeches
in the House during the months that immedi-
ately followed his attack upon Crawley have not
been preserved, but the following extract from a
letter (dated Oct. 29, 1641) from Sir Edward
Nicholas to the King leaves no doubt as to their
tendency. " I may not forbeare," the Secretary
writes, " to let yor Ma1ic know, that the Lor :
Falkland, Sr Jo. Strangwishe, Mr Waller, Mr
Ed. Hide and Mr Holborne and diverse others
stood as Champions in maynten'nce of yor
Prerogative, and shewed for it unaunswerable
reason and undenyable pesidents, whereof yor
Matie shall doe well to take some notice (as yor
Matie shall thinke best) for their encouragem't."
Upon the letter Charles has written, " I
comande you to doe it in my name telling
them that I will doe it myselfe at my return."

Before the end of the year Waller was in-
volved in a direct conflict with Pym. The
incident took place on the 5th of November,
upon the occasion of settling the instructions
for the committee on the subject of requesting
the assistance of Scotland in suppressing the
Irish Rebellion. Pym proposed to add a

1NTRODUCTTON. xxxvii

declaration that "howsoever we had engaged
ourselves for the assistance of Ireland, yet
unless the King would remove his evil coun-
sellors and take such counsellors as might be
approved of by Parliament, we should account
ourselves absolved from this engagement."
This, Waller said, was but little removed from
the advice that the Earl of Strafford had given
the King, that if Parliament did not relieve
him, he was absolved from all rules of govern-
ment. Pym took exception to the comparison.
Waller was ordered to withdraw, and the matter
having been debated in his absence, he was
called in and told by the Speaker that " the
House holds it fit that in his place he should
acknowledge his offence given by his words both
to the House in general and to Mr. Pym in
particular : which he d'd ingenuously and ex-
pressed his sorrow for it '

It is apparently to this r eriod that Clarendon's
first mention of Waller relates. The Chancellor,
for whatever reason, was no friend to the poet,
and his testimony has coloured the accounts of
later biographers. " When," he says, " the rup-
tures grew so great between the King and the
two Houses, that very many of the members
withdrew from those Councils, he, among the
rest, with equal dislike absented himself; but
at the time the Standard was set up, (Aug. 23,
1642) having intimacy and friendship with some
persons now of nearness about the King, with

xxxviii EDMUND WALLER.

the King's approbation he returned again to
London." This is distinctly contradicted by
Waller's own statement, communicated by his
son-in-law, Dr. Birch, to the writer of his " Life "
(1711), and in any case it cannot be correct as
to date, for he was certainly in his place in the
House on July gth, opposing the proposition that
Parliament should raise an army of 10,000 men.
He is said to have sent the King a thousand
broad pieces when he raised his Standard at
Nottingham. Clarendon gives him credit for
subsequently speaking in the House " upon all
occasions with great sharpness and freedom;"
indeed, when some of the members declared
that they were not allowed to express their
sentiments freely, they were told that that was
an idle allegation, " when all men knew what
liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day
with impunity against the sense and proceedings
of the House." In spite of his open declaration
of his sentiments, it has been charged against
Waller that he chose to sit and act the dis-
honourable part of a spy on behalf of the King,
instead of taking active service in the field.
The fact is, Waller had no real aptitude for
politics, and no very deep political convictions :
he found in the House of Commons a convenient
theatre for the display of his remarkable
eloquence, and his advocacy of the King's
interests was well in accord with the selfish
promptings of a rich man who has everything

INTRODUCTION. xxxix

to lose and nothing to gain by innovation : he
was " impatient," as he afterwards said " of the
inconvenience of the war," he looked upon things
with " a carnal eye " ; and he considered that
nothing would so surely conduce to his personal
comfort as an arrangement between the parties.
When, therefore, on Oct. 29, the Lords proposed
to negotiate with the King, one is not surprised
to find his voice raised two days later in urgent
appeal to the Commons to join them. The
year 1643 opened with every prospect of the
realization of his hopes. In January the desire
of the City for peace had been manifested by
petitions and clamorous assemblies, and on
Feb. i Charles accorded a gracious reception
to the Commissioners appointed by the House
to treat with him.

When Waller, who was one of them, came,
last of all in order of precedence, to kiss his
hand, the King said to him, " Mr. Waller,
though you are the last, yet you are not the
worst, nor the least in our favour." Deep signi-
ficance has been attached to these words : it
has been suggested, on the one hand, that they
betrayed a knowledge on the part of the King
that Waller was already plotting some secret
design on his behalf; on the other, that this
" affectionate reproof" so wrought upon the poet
that he was thereupon led to engage himself.
Injudicious as it was, upon any view of it, I see
no reason to suppose that this speech was any

xl EDMUND WALLER.

more than an acknowledgment, possibly that
promised in the indorsement on Nicholas's
letter, of open services in the House of Com-
mons. It is impossible now to ascertain the
date of the inception of "Waller's Plot," but it is
significant that the Commission of Array, of
which so much was afterwards made, is dated
March 16, nearly a month before the recall of
the Commissioners from Oxford, and that both
Tomkins and Chaloner, in their dying
speeches, declared that they had taken part in
the conspiracy at the instigation of Waller.

An attempt has been made to distinguish the
enterprise which bears the poet's name from
another design, said to have been set on foot
about the same time by Sir Nicholas Crispe.
Waller's object, it has been said, was to render
the continuance of the war impossible by raising
up in the City a peace-party strong enough to
defy the House and to refuse to pay the weekly
assessments, while Crispe intended nothing less
than the capture of London by force of arms.
No doubt, the dissatisfaction which many felt
at the failure of the petition for peace and the
continuance of the weekly impositions, afforded
favourable ground to build upon (it was said
that the King's friends had fomented the dis-
content by urging the citizens to carry their
grievances to the Committee at Haberdashers'
Hall, well knowing they would get no relief),
and perhaps some of the conspirators, Waller

INTRODUCTION. xli

among them, expected, or rather hoped, that
their object would be attained without blood-
shed ; but however varied their hopes and ex-
pectations as to the issue, there can be no doubt
that there was but one design, the securing of
the City of London, and that that received its
inspiration from the advisers of the King at
Oxford ; even Waller himself, at the Bar of the
House, did not attempt to deny that he knew of
the proposal to resort to arms, he only said he
" disallowed and rejected it." Though he was
probably speaking the truth when he said he
"made not this business but found it" — he was
not a man of sufficiently determined and inde-
pendent character to have originated such an
enterprise— he was undoubtedly at the head of
operations in London. He procured Nathaniel
Tomkins, Clerk of the Queen's Counsel, who
had married his sister Cecilia, and Richard
Chaloner, a wealthy linen-draper, to take the
necessary steps among the citizens, while he
himself undertook to forward the project among
the members of the two Houses. Hassell,
one of the King's messengers, and Alexander
Hampden were to take advantage of those
occasions when they came up from Oxford
with "gracious messages" from Charles to the
Parliament, to carry back with them to Lord
Falkland news of the progress of the enter-
prise.

Hassell appears to have been "horsed" by

xlii EDMUND WALLER.

Waller, and in the intervals of his service to
have lain at the poet's house at Beaconsfield.
It fell to the lot of Chaloner, Tomkins, and
others whom they had engaged, to make lists
of the inhabitants of the various parishes,
marking them according to their dispositions,
as Right-men, Roundheads, and Neuters.
Tomkins appears to have ascertained the feel-
ing in his own parish, St. Andrew's, Holborn,
by introducing an Irish bishop as lecturer,
and then calling meetings at his house for the
pretended purpose of gathering subscriptions to
reward him.

These lists, when completed, were taken to
Waller, who was then living in the neighbour-
hood of his brother-in-law, at the lower end of
Holborn, near Hatton House. It was obvious
that nothing could be done without the sinews
of war, and accordingly Hassell was despatched
to Oxford, and returned with an authority, dated
May 2, addressed to Chaloner, to receive sub-
scriptions of money and plate on behalf of
the King, who bound himself to repay them,
On May 19, Alexander Hampden arrived,
ostensibly to demand from the Parliament
an answer to the King's message of April 12,
and in his company came Lady Daubigny,
bringing with her the Commission of Array,
dated March 16, and having attached to it the
Great Seal. It is said to have been handed to
her by Charles himself, with the intimation that

INTRODUCTION. xliii

it was something that greatly concerned his
service, of which she would be relieved upon
her arrival in London. According to one ac-
count, she concealed it, during the journey, in
her hair, according to another, in the crown of
a beaver hat. It was directed to Sir Nicholas
Crispe, among others, and a former servant of
his, one Blinkhorne, a clerk in the Custom
House, fetched it from Lady Daubigny, and
delivered it to Chaloner. At various times
during the progress of the plot Waller had
assured the citizens that they would have the
co-operation of many members of both Houses
but he excused himself from giving their names
on the plea of an oath he had taken, not to
reveal them till the time of action. The con
spirators proposed to rise, if possible, when the
outworks were guarded by such of the trained
bands as contained the greatest proportion of
men friendly to themselves, to seize upon the
defences of the City, the magazines, and the
Tower, from which they intended to liberate the
Earl of Bath, and make him their general. The
King, having been warned of the day, and, if
possible, of the hour of the rising, was to be
within fifteen miles with a force of three
thousand men, which was to be admitted as
soon as any part of the defences was in the
hands of his friends. His two children
were to be secured, and also the Lord
Mayor, Lord Saye, Lord Wharton, Pym,

xliv EDMUND WALLER.

Strode, and other members of the House ot
Commons.

On Friday, May 26, there was a meeting -of
the conspirators at Waller's house, when
Chaloner flatly told him that the citizens had
done their part, and that until they were assured
of the co-operation of the Lords, of whom lie
had spoken, either by a meeting with them or
by writing under their hands, they would
proceed no farther in the business. Waller
hastened to reassure him, and submitted to him
a series of questions, which he had, so he said,
just received from one of those very Lords — he
afterwards said he had them from Conway, and
they are just such as his military instincts would
have been likely to dictate. The citizens went
off with the list of questions and returned to
Waller, the next morning, with their answers.

It appears from these that the conspirators
calculated upon having a majority of three to
one against them within the walls, but a
similar majority in their favour outside : but one
third of their whole force would be fully armed,
the remainder with halberds and such weapons
as they could lay their hands on : they had
ascertained the situations of the magazines, but
doubted of their ability to capture the Tower :
they intended to distinguish themselves by
wearing pieces of white tape or ribbon, and the
watch-word was to be " The India ship is in
the Downs " : the time at which the attempt

INTRODUCTION. xlv

should be made, and the rendezvous, they left to
be determined by the Lords, who were also to
fix upon a place, Blackheath and Banstead
were suggested, to which they could retreat
if necessary. Waller drew up a declara-
tion, which began, " We, the Knights, Gentle-
men, Citizens, Burgesses and Commons of
England," and went on to assert that " the cause
of their taking up arms was to maintain the
true reformed Protestant Religion against all
Papists and Sectaries, the Laws of the Land,
Privilege of Parliament, and Liberty of the
Subject, and to oppose all illegal Taxations,
Assessments, and the like." This was to be
printed and posted, or otherwise distributed upon
the night of the rising. Matters were considered
to be in such a satisfactory state, that Hassell
was again despatched in the afternoon of May
29 with a message to Falkland, who returned a
verbal answer, begging them to hasten the
execution of their enterprise. Hassell appears
to have rarely carried any written communica-
tions, but on this occasion he had a few lines
of instruction in Latin, which are said to have
been sewn in his saddle by Mrs. Tomkins's
maid. On the night of Tuesday, May 30,
Waller, after speaking with great confidence
in the House, returned home with his brother-
in-law in high glee — " By God ! " he cried,
"if we can bring to pass this business,
we will have anything ! '' Before morning;

xlvi EDMUND WALLER.

he and the other conspirators were under
arrest.

Various causes seem to have combined to
arouse the suspicions of the popular leaders.
An imprudent letter, possibly brought by
Hampden, from the Earl of Dover to his wife,
warning her to leave London, had fallen into
the hands of the Committee, and several days
before the actual discovery of the plot Lord
Denbigh had told them of hints which he had
received that it would be better for him to retire
to the country. On May 23, Hampden had
asked for a pass to return to Oxford, but this,
after a conference between the two Houses on
the following day, had been refused, and he was
detained, how, it is not said, to be examined
upon some informations they had received. It
had also been predicted by one, who had it from
Hassell, that in ten days London would be in
flames : the fact that Hassell was known to be
on terms of familiarity with Waller and Tom-
kins directed attention to them, and finally the
Earl of Manchester and Lord Saye succeeded
in bribing one Roe, Tomkins's clerk, and it was
upon his information that the poet and his
friends were arrested. The Earl of Dover's
letter had been publicly read at a committee of
examination, and the substance of it reported
to the House, and this, with the arrest of
Hampden, D'Ewes thinks, ought to have put
Waller on his guard, more particularly as he

INTRODUCTION. xlvii

had fallen under suspicion some months pre-
viously, when some saddles, which he had
bought, were found at his house and confiscated.
It was obviously the cue of the popular party,
once they had the conspirators under lock and
key, to make as much as possible of their dis-
covery, and one cannot help suspecting that the
manner of its announcement was arranged with
an eye to effect. Wednesday, May 31, being a
Fast Day, the members were assembled, as
usual, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster,
when the service was interrupted by the sudden
entrance of the Speaker's mace-bearer, who
summoned Pym and some of the others to follow
him at once to the House. The wildest rumours
were circulated, and the general belief was that
the Danes had landed in Kent, and, before
night, might be expected in London. Gradually
the truth leaked out, and it became known that
a plot had been discovered, that the prisons and
Laud's chamber in the Tower had been searched,
and that Waller, Tomkins, Chaloner, Hampden,
Hassell, Blinkhorne, Abbot, a scrivener, and
White, a merchant, had been arrested. A com-
mittee of the House, consisting of Pym, Sir
Gilbert Gerard, young Sir Harry Vane, the
Solicitor General, and Glyn, the Recorder of
London, was at once appointed to take such
measures as they might think best for the public
safety. The greatest reticence was maintained,
and it was not until June 6 that Pym brought
VOL. i. d

xlviii EDMUND WALLER.

up to the House of Commons the report of the
Committee, and their recommendations, which
included the " Solemn League and Covenant."
He repeated his account of the plot to the Lords
on the following day, and again on the afternoon
of Thursday the 8th, at a Common Hall, sum-
moned by the Lord Mayor.

It is impossible to maintain that Waller
played any but an ignoble part in the trans-
actions which followed, but his conduct has
lost none of its meanness in the hands of
Lord Clarendon. Confounded, he says, with
fear and apprehension, Mr. Waller "confessed
whatever he had said, heard, thought, or seen,
all that he knew of himself, and all that he
suspected of others, without concealing any
person of what degree or quality soever, or any
discourse that he had ever upon any occasion
entertained with them : what such and such
ladies of great honour, to whom, upon the
credit of his great wit, and very good reputa-
tion, he had been admitted, had spoke to him
in their chambers of the proceedings in the
Houses ; and how they had encouraged him to
oppose them : what correspondence and inter-
course they had with some ministers of State
at Oxford ; and how they derived all intelli-
gence thither." He informed them, " that the
Earl of Portland and Lord Conway had been
particular in all the agitations which had been
with the citizens, and had given frequent advice,

INTRODUCTION. xlix

and directions how they should demean them-
selves ; and that the Earl of Northumberland,
had expressed very good wishes to any attempt,
that might give a stop to the violent actions
and proceedings of the Houses, and produce a
good understanding with the King." He goes
on to say, "When the Committee were thus
furnished, they took the examination of Mr.
Tomkins, &c. Now, there is no evidence
whatever, except this statement, that the first
confession came from Waller ; on the contrary,
the accounts of those who were on the spot
rather go to show that Clarendon is as inaccu-
rate in the main charge as he most certainly is
in its details. D'Ewes says that Waller was
" drawn after much tergiversation and shuffling
to confess his own guilt," and he records,
quoting Glyn's speech in the House, that
"Mrs. Challenor said that a little after Mr.
Waller was taken there was come to her a Lady
in a hired coach and given herself a fained
name and told her she was like to come in
great danger about a writing in parchment to
which there hung a great scale, and desired her
if she had it in her custody shee would deliver
it to her, and when the said Mrs. Challenor told
her that it had been lately fetcht away in a
blacke box, shee then desired her if she could
use any possible meanes to come to her husband,
shee should go to him and tell him that Mr.
Waller had confessed nothing, and that there-

/ EDMUND WALLER.

fore shee should persuade him to doe the like.
That the said Mrs. Challenor was since brought
to see the Lady Aubigny and affirmed that it
was the same Lady who came to her in the
hackney coach." The suggestion that some
members of the Upper House were privy to the
design must have come originally from some
person other than Waller, for when it was put
to him, he denied upon oath that he had com-
municated with any of the Lords upon the
subject. Some sort of inducement was no
doubt held out to him to tell all he knew, and
it is even possible that he was " troubled in
Conscience for his solemn professing in the
presence of God that he had not spoke with
any of the Lords concerning this designe, when
he was examined, and yet had done it," but in
any case, it was not till June 12 that he men-
tioned the names of Portland and Convvay,
and, a fortnight later, that of the Earl of North-
umberland, and in his speech at the Bar of
the House he confessed that at first he had
concealed some truth, not for his own sake, but
that of others. The only ladies who were called
to account, for their share in the plot, were
Lady Daubigny and Lady Sophia Murray, and
the evidence Waller gave against them was
incidental to his charge against the Lords.
Lady Daubigny, he said, had fallen out with
him, when she heard from Portland that he
(Waller) had told him that she had brought the

INTRODUCTION. H

Commission of Array; and he had helped Lady
Sophia Murray to decipher a letter from Falk-
land, in which Northumberland was said to be
"right" in the business. Lady Daubigny
remained under arrest for some time, but she
was eventually allowed to cross to Holland
without having been further proceeded against,
while Lady Sophia Murry died before the end
of September : she had refused to take an oath
and be examined by the Committee, saying she
" did not mean to give an account to such fellows
as they were." On June 12, Portland and
Conway were committed to the charge of some
of the City officials, but the House of Lords
appears, from the first, to have made light of
the charge against them. On the next day
their servants were allowed to attend on them,
and before they were confronted with Waller,
on June 29, the Lords had taken the precau-
tion to discount his evidence by having them
both examined upon oath. They denied the
truth of all his allegations, and Portland
declared that at an interview, on June 21, at
the house where he was confined, Waller had
urged him to save them both, by casting the
blame upon Conway and Northumberland. No
one who has read the intercepted letter1 which
the poet wrote to Portland can have any
reasonable doubt of the truth of his accusation,
but it was simply oath against oath, and there

1 Sandford's " Illustrations," p. 563.

Hi EDMUND WALLER.

the Committee were obliged to leave the matter.
During the succeeding weeks both the accused
were continually petitioning for their release, and
the Commons, having no further evidence to
offer, were at last, on July 29, obliged to leave it
to the Lords to free them or not, as they deemed
advisable. They were both admitted to bail on
July 31, and in August of the following year all
restrictions upon their movements were at
an end. Waller's allegation against North-
umberland amounted to no more than this —
that he had told him of the existence of the
plot, which he said " he disliked as a thing
not feasible or like to succeed : " a speech
so characteristic of the Earl as to leave little
doubt of its truth. He, however, scoffed
at the charge, and desired to be examined
immediately, that "his innocence may the sooner
appear and he not lie under a jealousy." He
was confronted with Waller, who failed to make
good his deposition, " soe as," D'Ewes writes,
" this noble Earle, descended by the Dukes of
Lorraine in the male line from Charlemaign the
Emperour, was noe further questioned in this
folish busines." It is easy to be righteously
indignant over Waller's conduct, and impossible
to present any adequate defence of it. This
much at least should be remembered in con-
demning him — it has never, so far as I know,
been asserted, except, of course, by 'the persons
immediately concerned, that the information he

INTRODUCTION. Hit

gave was untrue— he was not endeavouring to
" swear away '' the lives of others to save his
own, nor had he the abject's craving for company
at the gallows : he struggled to deliver himself
from the jaws of death, by involving in his guilt,
men, in his opinion, as guilty as himself, who,
as they were too exalted to fall beneath the
attack of the Commons, so, might in his des-
perate hope, be the means of preserving his life
together with their own.

Whatever may be the opinions entertained as
to the " incredible dissimulation " with which
Waller " acted a remorse of conscience," a mere
recital of events is sufficient to prove that
Clarendon is in error, in saying that his trial
was " put off out of Christian compassion that
he might recover his understanding.'*

The commission, from the Earl of Essex, for
the trial of the prisoners by Martial Law,
reached London on June 26, but so unwilling
were the members of the House of Commons
to take part in the proceedings of the Council
of War that it was necessary for Glyn, upon the
authority of Dr. Dorislaus, the Judge Advocate
General, to assure them of its regularity. On
June 29, it was resolved that Waller should first
be brought to the Bar, though the other con-
spirators were to be tried on the following
Monday. The Court, under the presidency of
the Earl of Manchester, assembled on Friday,
June 30, when all the prisoners, with the excep-

Kv EDMUND WALLER.

tion of Waller, were paraded. On Monday,
July 3, Tomkins and Chaloner were brought up,
and though the former begged for some delay,
that he might prepare his defence, having only
had notice of his trial on Friday, " which was
too short a time as he conceived," the Court
" conceived the contrary," and they were both
tried and sentenced to be hanged.

Blinkhorne, White, and Abbot were also tried
and condemned within the week — they appear
to have been afterwards pardoned — and Hassell
and Hampden both died in prison. On July 5,
Tomkins and Chaloner were hanged before
their own doors, the former at the Holborn end
of Fetter Lane, the latter in Cornhill. It would
be doing less than justice to a brave man, how-
ever poor a figure the poet makes by contrast,
to omit to tell how Tomkins died. His de-
meanour before the Court had been defiant, and
such he maintained it to the end. With the
rope about his neck, he said that affection to a
brother-in-law and gratitude to a king, whose
bread he had eaten now above twenty-two years,
had drawn him into this foolish business ; he
was glad it had been discovered, for the ill con-
sequences it might have had : he begged them
not to trouble him, who would have pressed him
to declare anything further he knew of that or
any other plot, and then, " with much boldness
descended three steps lower on the ladder, and
so bid adieu to this world." About this time

INTRODUCTION. lv

Waller wrote a letter1 to Arthur Goodvvyn, his
neighbour and fellow-member, which showed
that he was fully alive to the dangers of his
position, and on July 4, at the Bar of the House,
he gave further proof of being in possession of
his understanding. Two of the members were
commissioned to repair to the house where he
was confined, and to see him safely conveyed
into the custody of the Serjeant, who brought
him to the Bar. "He was all clothed," writes
D'Ewes, " in mourning as if he had been going
to execution itself, his demeanour was also com-
posed to a despairing dejectedness, and when
he came to the Bar, he kneeled down, and so
continued kneeling, until myself and some others

who stood near the Bar bade him stand up

divers of the House seeing his sad and dejected
condition whom they had formerly heard speak
in public with so much applause, could not for-
bear shedding of tears." His depositions having
been presented to him, and their contents
acknowledged to be true, he was called upon to
say what he could for himself before they pro-
ceeded to expel him the House, " whereupon,
after a low reverence made, he spake — expres-
sing in his very tone and gesture the lowest
degree of a dejected spirit." Of Waller's sin-
cerity I cannot presume to judge— he knew
his audience, probably to a man, and for
his speech, considered as a piece of

1 Nugent's " Hampden," ii. 419.

Im EDMUND WALLER.

advocacy, no praise is too high ; indeed,
even Clarendon does not hesitate to say that it
saved his life. He is reported to have expended
as much as ^30,000 in bribery, but I can only
say that no traces of any dealing to this extent
with his estate remain among the papers in the
possession of his family, though there are to be
found draft conveyances and mortgages which
tell of the means employed to pay his fine some
months later. He was taken back to imprison-
ment, and on July 14 it was resolved that " Mr.
Edm. Waller shall be forthwith disabled for
(sic) ever sitting or serving1 as a member in this
House." Discussion upon the manner of his
trial was postponed from day to day, and on
Sept. 6 he was ordered to be removed to the
Tower, an order which was repeated, in more
stringent terms, on Sept. 14. On May 15 of the
following year, " the humble petition of Edm.
Waller late a member of this House" was read
in the House of Commons — this was probably
a petition to be allowed to put his affairs in
order— and on Aug. 29 preparations were appar-
ently being made for his trial by Court Martial,
but they were not proceeded with, and on Sept. 23
comes another petition from " Edm. Waller,
prisoner in the Tower." The poet had appar-
ently by that time received an intimation that
his life would be spared, and that he would be
punished by a fine. He " thanks the House
for enabling him to put his estate into such a

INTRODUCTION. l-vii

position that he may be able to pay the fine
imposed on him ; and is the more hopeful that,
in regard of the free and ingenuous confes-
sion and discoveries made upon promised
favour, the House will hold his life precious :
that £10,000 may be accepted out of his estate ;
and if he be not worthy to serve the House and
spend his life in their glorious cause, that they
would be pleased to banish him to some other
part of the world." It was agreed, without a
division, that his petition should be granted,
and it was ordered that the vote of the House
should be communicated to the Commissioners
for Martial Law. On Nov. 4, " An Ordinance
of Lords and Commons assembled in Parlia-
ment for the Fining and Banishment of Edmond
Waller Esquire," was read and agreed to in the
House of Lords. This instrument declares
that it was formerly intended that the said
Edmond Waller should be tried by Court
Martial, but that, "upon further consideration
and mature deliberation," it has been *' thought
convenient " that he should be fined ,£10,000 and
banished the realm : twenty-eight days, from
the 6th of November, are given him to
remove elsewhere : no further proceedings will
be taken against him, but he is not to return
to this country upon pain of incurring such
punishment as both Houses of Parliament shall
think fit."

Thus closed this incident in Waller's life : his

Iviii EDMUND WALLER.

conduct does not seem to have made him less
welcome among the exiles in France, and in after
years he himself did not hesitate to treat the part
he had played, as that of a martyr. The date of
his departure is uncertain, but it seems likely that
he stayed in England long enough to marry
his second wife, Mary Bracey, of the family
of that name, of Thamein Oxfordshire : he was
still a widower when he appeared at the Bar of
the House, and his eldest daughter by his second
marriage, Margaret, afterwards his amanuensis,
is known to have been born at Rouen. His son
Robert, who died young, for some time had
Hobbes for his tutor, while his daughter was
left in charge of her grandmother at Beacons-
field, whence, no doubt, supplies were sent to
maintain the poet and his family in France. Of
the details of his life on the continent we can
only catch a glimpse here and there in the
letters of himself and his friends. In August,
1645, Hobbes is writing to him at Calais : the
philosopher is staying at Rouen with Lord
Devonshire, and after telling the poet how he
has been spending his time in arguing for the
amusement of the company, he goes on to say,
" I beleeve you passe much of yours in meditat-
ing how you may to your contentment and
without blame passe the seas." He ends by
thanking him for having expressed a wish to
translate the " De Give " into English, a
project which Waller is said to have abandoned

INTRODUCTION. lix

on seeing a portion of the work translated by
the author himself.

Next year he is touring with Evelyn in Italy
and Switzerland, and in 1647 we hear of him at
St. Valery. In 1648 he writes to Evelyn from
Pont de 1'Arche, whither he had removed from
Rouen on account of the plague, announcing
the birth of a daughter, and in April of the fol-
lowing year he and his wife are at Rouen once
more. Towards the end of the year they appear
to have removed to Paris, and to have resided
there until their return to England. Waller
and Lord Jermyn, amid the general poverty of
the exiles, are said to have been the only people
able " to keep a table," though the former gave
out that he was living upon the proceeds of the
sale of his wife's jewels. He was in constant
communication with the members of the English
colony, and particularly with Evelyn: — now he
consults him as to what is to be done with a
child of his whom the Popish midwife had
baptized, and now he begs him to send a coach
from Paris to St. Germains to fetch a child, to
whom Mrs. Evelyn had been godmother, " to be
buried by the Common Prayer." All this time
his mother, often in the company of Cromwell,
was watching and • working on his behalf in
England. Only one of her letters to him has
survived. Addressing him as " deer ned," she
tells him his daughter is grown so handsome,
that there are already several suitors for her

Ix EDMUND WALLER.

hand, two of whom had been to see her (Mrs.
Waller) that week, one a knight of very good
fortune, the other Alderman Avery's eldest son.
She tells the poet what she has learned of the
'* prospects " of these gentlemen, and only waits
for his reply, — what will he give his daughter ?
The Alderman's son might be had, she thinks,
for ^2,000, if he intends to give so much. " I
am not in hast," she writes, " to mary hir, she is
yong enough to stay, but the danger is if she
should catch the small poxe or hir beauty should
change, it would be a great lose to hir." Then
follow details about the estate, this lease, and
that bond, and she ends, " I pray faile not to
writ a full answer to all in this letter, so praying
god to bles yu & yr wife, I rest yr louing
mother Anne Waller, as ever I shall intreat
anything of yu writ me an answer as soon as
yu can of this letter for I have past my credit
they shall haue a speedy answer." What Miss
Waller's dowery was we have no means of
knowing, but she eventually married Mr. Dormer
of Oxfordshire, and was living, his widow, in
1711.

The manner of the poet's return to England
appears to be uncertain. It has hitherto been
said that he obtained permission from Cromwell,
through the intercession of Col. Scrope, who
was his brother-in-law, but on Nov. 27, 1651,
the House of Commons, after having heard read
" the humble petition of Edmond Waller," passed

INTRODUCTION. Ixi

a resolution revoking his sentence of banish-
ment, and ordered a pardon under the Great Seal
to be prepared for him. Evelyn took leave of
him at Paris, on Jan. 13, 1652, and in August of
the same year he is writing to the diarist from
Beaconsfield, to congratulate him on the birth
of a son. We know even less of the course of
Waller's life between the date of his return to
England and the Restoration. He probably
occupied the early days in writing his Panegyric
to Cromwell, though it did not reach the Pro-
tector till 1655, as the following letter1 proves.

" Sr> lett it not trouble you that by soe un-
happy a mistake you are (as I heare) at North-
ampton, indaed I am passionately affected with
itt. I have noe guilt upon me unlesse it bee to bee
revenged, for your soe willinglye mistakinge
mee in your verses. This action will putt you to
redeeme mee from your selfe as you haue
already from the world. Ashamed I am, Yr
freind and Seruant, Oliver P." "June 13^,1655."

It is directed "For my very lovinge friend
Edward Waller, Esq. Northampton, hast, hast."
The mistake, no doubt, arising from his being
generally known as " Ned," of calling the poet,
" Edward," was by no means unfrequent among
his contemporaries, but of the subject-matter
of this letter I have no explanation to offer.
Waller appears to have lain under some sus-

1 This letter is in Mr. Waller's possession — it was communi-
cated by a relative of his to Notes and Queries, znd Series, v. 2.

Ixii EDMUND WALLER.

picion after his return ; for writing to Hobbes,
some time between 1657 and the Protector's
death, he says that he has been at his lodging to
see him to give him his opinion of the political
situation, which Lord Devonshire had requested,
" because he could write nothing safely, wch he
(Lord Devonshire) might not find in print."

In April, 1653, he lost his mother ; this, with
the exception of his appointment as one of the
Commissioners for Trade in Dec., 1655, is
the only fact affecting him which I have been
able to discover, down to the time of the death
of Cromwell.

Nothing concerning Waller is better known
than that he followed up an elegy on Cromwell
with an address of welcome to Charles II.,
except, perhaps, the famous answer, " Sir,
we poets never succeed so well in writing
truth as in fiction," by means of which
he extricated himself from the difficulty into
which the King had put him by commenting
on the inferiority of the latter poem to his
Panegyric on the Protector. One obvious
reason for this inferiority was long ago pointed
out, and even in Charles's own time it was well
summarized by the Dutch ambassador, who,
when the King complained that his masters
paid less respect to him than to the Protector,
replied, " Ah ! Sir, Oliver was quite another
man." Waller appears to have at once
entered fully into the new life of the Restora-

INTRODUCTION. Ixiii

tion, he was graciously received by the King,
and he continued till the end of his days a
favourite at Court. In May, 1661, having been
elected for Hastings, he began a fresh Par-
liamentary career, and while he lived, " it was
no House if Waller was not there." Burnet
says of him that " he was only concerned to
say that which should make him applauded, he
never laid the business of the House to heart,
being a vain and empty, though a witty, man ;"
but, though it is true that he seldom spoke
without delivering himself of an epigram or a
more or less appropriate Latin quotation, his
conduct in the House was in every way
honourable to him. Day after day his voice
was raised in appeals for toleration for Dis-
senters, more particularly for the Quakers, a
body which his son Edmund afterwards
joined. He had, he said, "a sense of kind-
ness for any persons that suffer," and he
would not have the " Church of England, like
the elder brother of the Ottoman family,
strangle all the younger brothers." He strenu-
ously opposed the passing of the Act against
Conventicles. " Revenge," said he, " makes
the bee lose his sting, and so shall we if we
pass this Bill. These people (the Quakers) are
like children's tops, whip them and they stand
up, let them alone and they fall." He spoke
against the removal of the Duke of York from
the Court, reminding the House, that Absalom
VOL. i. e

Ixiv EDMUND WALLER.

left the Court, and they knew what followed ;
but the only really important matter in which
he was directly engaged was the impeachment
of Clarendon, of which he was one of the
"managers." Then, and after Monmouth's
Rebellion, he spoke with the greatest horror
of the dangers of a military despotism and
"government by Janissaries," and Macaulay
has praised the course which his great age
and reputation emboldened him to take. He
was never weary of reminding the Members of
his long experience in the House, or of quoting
precedents to them — he even insisted upon
sitting on the steps, because " steps had been
seats and seats steps " in the Long Parliament —
and the attitude which he assumed was occa-
sionally almost paternal : " Let us look to our
Government, Fleet, and Trade, 'tis the best
advice the oldest Parliament man among you
can give you, and so God bless you."

In spite of his age and eloquence, Waller
never appears to have been in the inner circle
of politics after the Restoration, though he is
credited with having predicted that James II.
" would be left like a whale upon the strand."
His literary reputation, however, was at its
height, and he and Denham appear to have
occupied the position of unofficial dramatic
censors, for on March 22, 1663, Secretary Bennet
writes to Waller, directing him and Denham to
read, and give the King their opinions on " The

INTRODUCTION. Ixv

Cheats," a play which had been recently pro-
duced, and objected to as containing " many
things of a scandalous and offensive nature."
Nor was his fame confined to this country ; La
Fontaine wrote of him with admiration, and
Corneille was flattered to hear that whenever
he published a play, Mr. Waller made a point
of translating some portion of it. But nothing
probably that Waller had written gave him
such a hold upon his contemporaries as the
charm of his manners and conversation, a
charm which Macaulay has compared to that
which must have been exercised by Bacon.
His transgressions were overlooked, and he
was again admitted to the conversation of great
ladies — the house of the Dowager Countess of
Devonshire is said to have been his "chief
theatre " — and so powerful were the attractions
of his wit, that Henry Savile declared that no
man in England should keep him company
without drinking, except Ned Waller. The
poet appears to have been a water-drinker, and
one wonders whether this abstemiousness
had any connection with a story which Mr.
Henshaw relates in a letter of July 16, 1670, to
Sir Robert Paston, which had also reached
Aubrey's ears. " On Thursday night," writes
Mr. Henshaw, " the Earl of St. Albans treated
the King and the Mareschal (de Bellefonde) at
supper, where Mr. Waller the poet made one,
who, when the King went away, waiting on him

Ixvi EDMUND WALLER.

down the stone steps towards the water, his feet
slipping he fell and cracked his skull, which 'tis
feared will put finis to his poetry." Some mem-
ber of the company, Aubrey says, " made him
damnable drunk at Somerset House, where at
the water-stayres, he fell downe, and had a cruel
fall. 'Twas pitty to use such a sweet swan so
inhumanely." Another correspondent of Sir
Robert Paston, Sir J. Clayton, throws some
further light on the poet's conviviality : writing
on June 8, 1669, he says, " I dined at Uxbridge,
but never in all my life did I pass my day away
with greater gusto, our company being his
Grace (the Duke of Buckingham}, Mr. Waller,
Mr. Surveyor Wren, and myself, nothing but
quintessence of wit and most excellent dis-
course." The Duke appears to have been on
terms of great intimacy with Waller, for the
latter used often to wander to Cliveden to
wonder at his Grace's costly new buildings and
magnificent gardens, and he writes to his wife
from London (he lived in St. James's Street,
"next doore to the sugar loafe"), "The Duke
of Buckingham with the Lady Shrewsbury ?]
came hither last night at this tyme & carried
me to the usuall place to supper, from whence I
returned home at four aclocke this morning,
having ben earnestly entreated to supp wth them
again to-night, but such howers can not be
always kept, therfore I shall eat my 2 eggs
alone & go to bedd." A prudent determination,

INTRODUCTION. Ixvii

which he re-echoes in a letter to the beautiful
Mrs. Myddleton, who counted him and his
friend St. Evremond among her devoted
admirers : " Your ould Servant," he writes,
" having found himself extreamely indisposed, &
knowing the cause thereof to have ben the
constant eating abroad for a whole week
together, thought an immediate Abstinence &
Retirement absolutely necessary if he meant to
continue longer in the world."

Amid all these scenes of gaiety through which
the poet moved, one naturally looks for
Sacharissa. There was no romance lingering
about their relations, she wrote of him as " Old
Waller," and he, in her presence, forgot his
wonted gallantry. They met at Lady Wharton's
house, at Woburn ; " When Mr. Waller," said
the Dowager Countess of Sunderland, " when,
I wonder, will you write such beautiful verses to
me again ! " " When, Madam," replied the
poet, " your Ladyship is as young and as hand-
some again." — "Something," says M. Taine,
" to shock a Frenchman ! "

On May 2, 1677, Waller buried his second
wife, at Beaconsfield : she is said to have been
a woman of great beauty, and he appears to
have felt her loss deeply, for he retired to his
house at Hall Barn, and wrote to Mrs. Myddle-
ton, begging her to excuse him even to St.
Evremond, who had expressed an intention of
visiting him. Later he had the honour of enter-

Ixviii EDMUND WALLER.

taining there visitors more distinguished than
the French exile. "Since you writ," (Mrs.
Myddleton is again his correspondent), " I have
had the honour to receive the Dutchess (of
York} & Princess (Anne) with all their fair train,
the Lady Sunderland (probably Sacharisscts
daughter-in-law) was with them who sent me
warning but a few hours before, and yett they
eate heartily & seemed well content with what
could so hastily be gotten for them."

Charles died, and James succeeded him, and
Waller still continued a favourite at Court, but
his visits to London became less frequent, and
he was more often to be found roaming about
in his woods at Beaconsfield, though, as he
wrote to Lady Ranelagh, "he had not much joy
in walking there, where he found ye trees as
bare & withered as himselfe, but with this
difference,

That shortly they shall flourish and wax green,
But I still old and withered must be seen,
Yet if vain thoughts fall, like their leaves, away,
The nobler part improves with that decay."

He bought a small house at Coleshill, hoping
to die there, for he said, " A stagge, when he is
hunted, and neer spent, always returns home."
But this was not to be ; being alarmed at a
swelling in his leg, he went to Windsor to
consult Sir Charles Scarborough, the King's
physician, as to the cause. " I am come, Sir," he
said, " to you, as a friend as well as a physician,

INTRODUCTION. Ixix

to ask you what this swelling means." " Why,
Sir," answered the blunt doctor, " your blood
will run no longer." Waller repeated a line of
Virgil, and went home, to Hall Barn. He
gathered his children about him, received the
Sacrament with them, and died on Oct. 21,
1687. On Oct. 26 he was buried in Beacons-
field church- yard, by a curious piece of irony,
" in woollen according to a late Act of Parlia-
ment." When the question of enforcing the
penalties for not observing the Act which
required persons to be buried in wool had come
up in the House, Waller said, " Our Saviour
was buried in linen. 'Tis a thing against the
custom of nations, and I am against it."

No poetical reputation has suffered such
vicissitudes as that of Edmund Waller :
described, in the inscription upon his tomb,
as " inter poetas sui temporis facile princeps,"
it was still possible, in 1766, to introduce him to
the readers of the Biographia Britannica as
"the most celebrated Lyric Poet that ever
England produced," and when, in 1772,
Percival Stockdale wrote his " Life," in which
he declared that "his works gave a new era
to English poetry," his performance was con-
sidered to be of such merit that he was on the
point of receiving the commission to write
"The Lives of the Poets," which was after-
wards entrusted to Johnson.

The revolt against classicism extinguished

Ixx EDMUND WALLER.

the reputation of Waller, as it impaired that
of men in every way greater than he, and
though in 1885 Mr. Gosse succeeded in throw-
ing a very strong light upon him, it was
scarcely a friendly office to assert that he
revolutionized English poetry. The history of
the classical couplet has yet to be written,
but the part that Waller took in its develop-
ment was certainly not that of an inventor.
Abundant evidence has been adduced by Mr.
Churton Collins and by Dr. Henry Wood, to
show that others (Dr. Wood insists specially
upon the claims of Sandys), before his time,
were in the habit of writing distichs, confining
the sense to the couplet, as smooth and correct
as any that ever came from the pen of Waller.
That " Waller was smooth " has been generally
admitted, and smoothness was the quality at
which he particularly aimed. " When he was
a briske young sparke, and first studyed
poetry, ' Me thought,' said he, ' I never
sawe a good copie of English verses ; they
want smoothness ; then I began to essay.' "
Such is Aubrey's account, but it is scarcely
in this direction that one must look for the
reason of Waller's extraordinary popularity
among his contemporaries. The volume of
his verse, having regard to the great age to
which he lived, is small, and one is half
inclined to believe the story of his having spent
a whole summer in elaborating the lines written

INTRODUCTION. Ixxi

in the Tasso of the Duchess of York. He is
credited with having polished his poetry like
marble, but his execution is frequently careless,
and his ear was by no means exceptionally
acute. He uses the feeble expletive " so "
upwards of twenty times as a rhyme, and
occasionally he is satisfied with an assonance.
Of the " essence of poetry, invention," he was
practically destitute, but it would be difficult to
find in the whole range of English Poetry any
one more uniformly successful in improving an
occasion. To many people his verses on this
or that public occasion must have come as a
relief, after the " conceited " obscurities of
Donne. He makes no great demand on the
understanding, he is singularly free from
conceits, and his classical allusions are the
most trite and ordinary. He took Edward
Fairfax for his master, and traces of his
indebtedness to the translator of Tasso are
to be found scattered up and down his
poems. His own poetical stock was exceed-
ingly small, and probably no writer has re-
peated himself so often. He himself described
his verses as " written only to please himself,
and such particular persons to whom they
were directed," and it was precisely this quality
of appropriateness which gave him his tre-
mendous vogue in his own time. The reputa-
tion of the Court and its surroundings clung
to him, and, but for this, it would probably

Ixxii EDMUND WALLER.

have "been left for some one in this century to
revive him, as the author of the lyrics by which
his reputation must stand or fall. He lived in
the most stirring period of our domestic history,
and to some of his poems, the outcome of his
relations with persons who played no unimportant
part in- making it, a certain historical interest
must always attach. One would not wish to be
supposed to include in this category the famous
Panegyric. It has always been the custom to
brand Waller as the poet of a venal muse, but
it is difficult indeed to suppose that his two
poems on Cromwell were not inspired by
genuine admiration and regret. It is doubtful
if he owed to the Protector even the per-
mission to return to England, and he can
have been but poorly recompensed by the
monstrous Latin eulogies of Payne Fisher for the
storm of invective which the Royalist poets,
headed by Charles Cotton, showered upon him.
From Charles II. Waller did indeed obtain
the only favour he is known to have asked for
himself, the grant of the Provostship of Eton
College, but this grant was rendered inoperative
by the refusal of Clarendon to admit him to
the office, on the ground that he was not in
Orders. Poetical panegyric has had its day,
and one is almost tempted to say that it needed
such a man as Cromwell praised by such a
poet as Waller to justify its existence.

It may well be doubted if the insertion of one

INTRODUCTION.

or two of his poems in anthologies does not do
more harm than good to a man's general reputa-
tion, by a tendency to divert attention from any-
thing else he has written. Waller lives as the
author of " Go lovely rose," and the " Lines on
a Girdle," and these lyrics might almost be
chosen from English literature to serve as the
examples of the charms of simplicity and direct-
ness. It would be almost stultifying what one
has suggested to distinguish particularly other
poems of his, but it may be said that the general
level of Waller's lyrical work is distinctly high,
and there is no such disparity between these
famous pieces and the rest of his lyrics, as
exists, in the case of some other poets of the
seventeenth century, between the bulk of their
writings and what Johnson has called their
" lucky trifles."

Waller was sadly deficient in critical instinct
as applied to the writings of others. Little
attention need be paid to the commendatory
verses which good-nature prompted him to
address to such of his friends as were authors,
but his opinion of " Paradise Lost " was that it
was remarkable only for its length, and he laid
unholy hands upon " The Maid's Tragedy," and
constructed a last act in rhyme more in accord-
ance with the requirements of the morals of the
Court of Charles II. Little, from a literary point
of view, can be said in praise of his " Divine
Poems," and cynicism has not been slow to

Ixxiv EDMUND WALLER.

stamp them as the outcome of ill-health and old
age. The poet used to say that "he would blot
from his works any line that did not contain
some motive to virtue," and if they are not
didactic throughout, this at least should be
remembered in his favour, that he lived through
the period of the Restoration without suffering
anything he wrote to be disfigured by the
slightest trace of obscenity.

The date of Waller's earliest poem is uncer-
tain. I am inclined to think it was written in his
seventeenth year, though it was not printed till
1645 ;but it is certain that when he was over
eighty years of age he composed the noble
lines, " Of the last verses in the book," lines,
surely, not unworthy of any poet in the meridian
of his powers.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGE

To the Queene, &c. v

To my Lady Sophia vii

An Advertisement to the Reader xi

Of the danger His Majesty (being Prince) escaped

in the road at St. Andrews I

To the Queen, occasioned upon sight of her

Majesty's picture 8

Of His Majesty's receiving the news of the Duke

of Buckingham's death n

To the King, on his return from Scotland ... 12

OfSalle 13

To the King, on his navy 15

Upon His Majesty's repairing of Paul's 16

To Mr. Henry Lawes 19

The country to my Lady of Carlisle 21

The Countess of Carlisle in mourning 22

In answer to one who writ against a fair lady ... 24

Of her chamber 26

To Phyllis. Phyllis ! 'twas love that injured

you 27

To Mr. George Sandys 28

Upon Ben Jonson 29

ii EDMUND WALLER.

PAGE

To my Lord Northumberland, upon the deatli ot

his Lady ... .. ... 31

To my Lord Admiral, of his late sickness and

recovery ... 33

To the Queen-Mother of France, upon her land-
ing 35

Upon the death of my Lady Rich ... ... 37

Thyrsis, Galatea 40

On my Lady Dorothy Sidney's picture ... ... 43

To Vandyck ... 44

At Penshurst. Had Sacharissa lived when

mortals made ... 46

To my Lord of Leicester ... ... ... ... 47

Of the lady who can sleep when she pleases ... 49

Of the misreport of her being painted ... ... 50

Of her passing through a crowd of people ... 51

The story of Phoebus and Daphne, applied ... 52

Fabula Phcebi et Daphnes 53

Song. Say lovely dream ! 53

To the servant of a fair lady ... 55

To a very young lady 1:7

ToAmoret. Fair I that you may truly know ... 58

On the friendship betwixt two ladies ... ... 60

On her coming to London 62

At Penshurst. While in the park I sing, the

listening deer ... ... 64

The battle of the Summer Islands 66

When he was at sea 75

To my Lord of Falkland 7 5

CONTENTS. Hi

PAGE

Of the Queen 77

The apology of Sleep, for not approaching the
lady who can do anything but sleep when

she pleaseth ... 80

Puerperium ... 82

To Amoret. Amoret ! the Milky Way 83

To Phyllis. Phyllis! why should we delay ... 84

X la malade 85

Of Love 87

For drinking of healths 89

Of my Lady Isabella, playing on the lute ... 90

Of Mrs. Arden ... 91

Of the marriage of the dwarfs ... ... ... 92

Love's farewell 93

From a child ... 94

On a girdle 95

The fall 96

Of Sylvia ... ... 9?

The bud 98

On the discovery of a lady's painting ... ... 99

Of loving at first sight 100

The self-banished ; 101

To a friend, of the different success of their

loves ... ... ... ... ... ... 102

ToZelinda 103

To a lady singing a song of his composing ... 105

To the mutable fair 106

To a lady, from whom he received a silver pen... 109

On the head of a stag no

iv EDMUND WALLER.

PAGE

The miser's speech. In a masque 1 1 1

To Chloris. Chloris ! since first our calm of

peace 112

To a lady in a garden 113

Chloris and Hylas, Made to a saraband ... 114

In answer of Sir John Suckling's verses ... 116

An apology for having loved before 120

On a brede of divers colours, woven by four

ladies 121

To Chloris. Chloris! what's eminent we know 122

Song. Stay t Phoebus ! stay ... 123

Song. Peace, babbling Muse ! ... 124

To Flavia 125

Song. Behold the brand of beauty tossed ! ... 1 26

While I listen to thy voice ... 127

Go lovely rose ! 128

TO THE QUEENE &c.

MADAM,

If your Ma'y had lived in those Tymes
which sacrifiz'd to the Sun and Moone and of
eatch glorious Creatoure made a new Dyety,
as the admiration of your sacrad persone had
supply'd them with a more excusable Idolatry,
So could no incense have been more worthie
your Altar then the odore of his Maties
Heroyck deeds. And though the court and
universities have no other mater of theer song,
yet if your Matie please to listen what Echo the
country returnes to so loud a praise, Wee shall
likwayes teach the woods to sound your royall
name, And tell how great a portion of our
present hapines is owing to those Divyne
Graces, whairin all the privat desires of our
soueraine beeing accompleished, hee is wholie
at Leasoure to confer faslicitie on others, for
continence (soe greate a miracle in the vigour
of youth and royalitie) Wee nomber amongst
the Meanest of his Vertues, whose bed soe
highly adornd with bloode and beauty presentes

him with all that Antiquitie and youth cane
VOL. i. /

vi TO THE QUEENE.

give ; Nor is our neighboure Kingdome Less
requited for the light it first shewed you in that
his Maties enjoying the fairest pairt, is so weell
content with a titill to the rest of France. But
we looke not on your Matiee as the cause only
But as the pledg of our securitie, For as
Heaven threatens a Deluge of all calamities
uppone a land condemned to be the seat of
warr ; soe may our Natione well expect the
contrary blessings being chosen for the seat of
love. A love soe famous fruitfull and religiously
observed betwixt your most excelent Maties that
like the sacrad oil (whairwith the Roiall poet
soe perfum'd his song of fraternall Amity)
diffus'd from the head doune to the skirts, the
meanest of your people, it affects us all with the
joy of so noble a president. Nore doeth
Heaven seme less to acknowleadge this Pietie
still binding your Kingdomes together with soe
many hopfull knots that wee ar now confident
no other streame of bloode shall ever devyd the
poure of this hapie Hand ; for which Graces
your Matie is not named amongst us without
prayers, that when you shall have exceeded the
comoune fate of Humane conditioune no less in
tyme thane in glorie you may recaue that
welcome amongst the glad Angels To wich

TO MY LAD V SOPHIA. vii

the resemblance you have both of thare bright-
ness and inocence Gives you alreadie so fair a
Titile.

Your Maties &c.

Thus I intended long since to have presented
to hir Matie those things which I had writtin of
the King But besids that I held thame not
ivorthie of hir the Tymes alsoe hath made this
epistle unseasonable.

TO MY LADY SOPHIA.'

MADAM,

Your commands for the gathering of
these sticks into a faggot had sooner been
obeyed, but, that intending to present you with
my whole vintage, I stayed till the latest grapes
were ripe ; for here your ladyship hath not only
all I have done, but all I ever mean to do of this
kind. Not but that I may defend the attempt
I have made upon poetry, by the examples (not
to trouble you with history) of many wise and
worthy persons of our own times ; as Sir Philip

i.— Ed. 1645, To my Lady.

viii TO MY LADY SOPHIA.

Sidney, Sir Fra : Bacon, Cardinal Perron (the
ablest of his countrymen), and the former Pope,
who, they say, instead of the Triple Crown,
wore sometimes the poet's ivy, as an ornament,
perhaps, of less weight and trouble. But,
madam, these nightingales sung only in the
spring ; it was .the diversion of their youth ; as
ladies learn to sing and. play whilst ' they are
children, what they forget when they are women.
The resemblance holds further ; for, as you quit
the lute the sooner because the posture is
suspected to draw the body awry, so this is not
always practised without some violence2 to the
mind ; wresting it from present occasions, and
accustoming us to a style somewhat removed
from common use. But, that you may not think
his case deplorable who has made verses, we are
told that Tully (the greatest wit among the
Romans) was once sick of this disease ; and yet
recovered so well, that of almost as bad a poet
as your servant, he became the most perfect
orator in the world. So that, not so much to
have made verses, as not to give over in time,
leaves a man without excuse ; the former
presenting us at least with an opportunity of
doing wisely, that is, to conceal those we have

i. — Ed. 1645, when. 2. — Ed. 1645, villany.

TO MY LADY SOPHIA. ix

made ; which I shall yet do, if my humble
request may be of as much force with your
ladyship, as your commands have been with me.
Madam, I only whisper these in your ear ; if
you publish them, they become ' your own ; and
therefore, as you apprehend the reproach of a
wit and a poet, cast them into the fire ; or, if
they come- where green boughs are in the
chimney, with the help of your fair friends (for
thus bound, it will be too stubborn 2 a task for
your hands alone), tear them in pieces, wherein
you shall3 honour me with the fate of Orpheus ;
for so his poems, whereof we only hear the
fame4 (not his limbs, as the story would have
it), I suppose were scattered by the Thracian
dames. Here, madam, I might take an oppor-
tunity to celebrate your virtues, and to instruct
the unhappy men that knew you not, who you
are, s how much you excel the most excellent of
your own, and how much you amaze the least
inclined to wonder of our sex. But as they will
be apt to take your ladyship's for a Roman

i.— Ed. 1645, are. 2. — Ed. 1645, hard. 3 — Ed. 1645, -will.

4.— Ed. 1645, heare the forme ; Park (ed. 1806^, substituted
tear, and Bell (ed. 1854,) bear for heare, without rendering
the sentence intelligible.

5. — Ed. 1645, Instruct you hoitt tinhappie you are, in that
you know not wlio you are.

x TO MY LAD Y SOPHIA.

name, so would they believe that I endeavoured
the character of a perfect nymph, worshipped an
image of my own making, and dedicated this to
the lady of the brain, not of the heart, of

Your Ladyship's most humble servant,

E. W.

AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE
READER.

Reader. This parcell of exquisit poems, have
pass'd up and downe through many hands
amongst persons of the best quallity, in loose
imperfect Manuscripts, and there is lately
obtruded to the world an adulterate Copy,
surruptitiously and illegally imprinted to the
derogation of the Author and the abuse of the
Buyer. But in this booke they apeare in their
pure originalls and true genuine colours. In so
much that they feare not (as young Eaglets use
to be tryed whither they are spurious, or of right
extraction) to look upon the Sunne in the
Meridian, in regard Apollo himselfe, the grand
Patron of Poets seemd not only to cast many
favourable aspects, but by his more then
ordinary influence to cooperate in their produc-
tion ; as will appeare to the intelligent and
cleare-sighted Reader, by that constant veine of
gold (the minerall which that planet ownes more
then any other) which runnes through every one
of them. Thus they go abroad unsophisticated
and like the present condition of the Author

xii TO THE READER.

himselfe they are expos'd to the wide world, to
travell, and try their fortunes ! And I beleeve
there is no gentle soule that pretends anything
to knowledge and the choycest sort of invention
but will give them entertainment and wellcome.

THE PRINTER TO THE READER.1

WHEN the author of these verses (written only
to please himself, and such particular persons
to whom they were directed) returned from
abroad some years since, he was troubled to find
his name in print ; but somewhat satisfied to see
his lines so ill rendered that he might justly
disown them, and say to a mistaking printer as
one did to an ill reciter,

. . . Male dum recitas, incipit esse tuum.2

Having been ever since pressed to correct the
many and gross faults (such as use to be in
impressions wholly neglected by the authors),
his answer was, that he made these when ill
verses had more favour, and escaped better,
than good ones do in this age ; the severity
whereof he thought not unhappily diverted by
those faults in the impression which hitherto
have hung upon his book, as the Turks hang old
rags, or such like ugly things, upon their fairest
horses, and other goodly creatures, to secure

i. — From the edition of 1664, the first printed after the
Restoration.
•2. — Martial, lib. i. ep. 39.

xiv TO THE READER.

them against fascination. And for those of a
more confined understanding, who pretend not
to censure, as they admire most what they least
comprehend, so his verses (maimed to that
degree that himself scarce knew what to make
of many of them) might, that way at least, have
a title to some admiration ; which is no small
matter, if what an old author observes be true,
that the aim of orators is victory, of historians
truth, and of poets admiration. He had reason,
therefore, to indulge those faults in his book,
whereby it might be reconciled to some, and
commended to others.

The printer also, he thought, would fare the
worse if those faults were amended ; for we see
maimed statues sell better than whole ones ;
and clipped and washed money go about, when
the entire and weighty lies hoarded up.

These are the reasons which, for above twelve
years past, he has opposed to our request ; to
which it was replied, that as it would be too late
to recall that which had so long been made
public, so might it find excuse from his youth,
the season it was produced in ; and for what
had been done since, and now added, if it
commend not his poetry, it might his philosophy,
which teaches him so cheerfully to bear so great

TO THE READER. xv

a calamity as the loss of the best part of his
fortune, torn from him in prison (in which, and
in banishment, the best portion of his life hath
also been spent), that he can still sing under the
burthen, not unlike that Roman,

. . . . Quern demisere Philippi'
Decisis humilem pennis, inopemque paterni
Et laris et fundi.l ....

Whose spreading wings, the civil war had clipped,
And him of his old patrimony stripped.

Who yet not long after could say,

Musis amicus, tristitiam et metus
Tradam protervis in mare Creticum
Portare ventis. 2 . . . .

They that acquainted with the muses be,
Send care and sorrow by the winds to sea.

Not so much moved with these reasons of
ours (or pleased with our rhymes), as wearied
with our importunity, he has at last given us
leave to assure the reader, that the Poems which
have been so long and so ill set forth under his
name, are here to be found as he first writ them;
as also to add some others which have since
been composed by him : and though his advice
to the contrary might have discouraged us, yet

i. — Varied from Horace, Epistles II. 2. 49-51.
2. — Horace, Odes I. 26. 1-3.

xvi TO THE READER.

observing how often they have been reprinted,
what price they have borne, and how earnestly
they have been always inquired after, but
especially of late (making good that of Horace,

. . . . Meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit. 1

"some verses being, like some wines, recom-
mended to our taste by time and age ") we have
adventured upon this new and well-corrected
edition, which, for our own sakes as well as
thine, we hope will succeed better than he
apprehended.

Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt.

i. — Epistles II. i. 34.

POSTSCRIPT.1

NOT having the same Argument as at first to
persuade the Author that I might print his
Verses more Correctly, which he found so ill
done at his Return ; I have now adventured,
without giving him farther Trouble by impor-
tuning him for a new Permission, to Collect all
that I can find, either left out of the former
Edition or such as have been since made by
him ; to which I am the more encouraged,
because the first (tho' most of them were
compos'd Fifty or Sixty years since) seem still
New, which would be more strange in so
changing a Language, had it not been by him
improv'd, which may make one think it true
that I have heard from some learned Criticks,
that Virgil when he said — Nova carmina pango
. . . meant not Verses that were never seen
before (for in that sence all at first are New) but
such as he thought might be ever New. May
these still appear to be so for the diversion of
the Readers, and interest of

THEIR HUMBLE SERVANT.

i.— From the 1686 edition.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART OF
MR. WALLER'S POEMS, PRINTED
IN THE YEAR 1690.

THE reader needs be told no more in com-
mendation of these Poems, than that they are
Mr. Waller's ; a name that carries everything
in it that is either great or graceful in poetry.
He was, indeed, the parent of English verse,
and the first that showed us our tongue had
beauty and numbers in it. Our language owes
more to him than the French does to Cardinal
Richelieu, and the whole Academy. A poet
cannot think of him without being in the same
rapture Lucretius is in when Epicurus comes
in his way.

Tu, pater, es rerum inventor ; tu patria nobis
Suppeditas praccepta ; tuisque ex, Inclute ! chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta,
Aurea ! perpetua semper dignissima vita ! 1

The tongue came into his hands like a rough
diamond: he polished it first, and to that

i. — Lib. iii. ver. 9.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART. xix

degree, that all artists since him have admired
the workmanship, without pretending to mend
it. Suckling and Carew, I must confess, wrote
some few things smoothly enough ; but as all
they did in this kind was not very considerable,
so it was a little later than the earliest pieces of
Mr. Waller. He undoubtedly stands first in the
list of refiners, and, for aught I know, last too ;
for I question whether in Charles II.'s reign
English did not come to its full perfection; and
whether it has not had its Augustan age as well
as the Latin. It seems to be already mixed
with foreign languages as far as its purity will
bear ; and, as chemists say of their men-
struums, to be quite sated with the infusion.
But posterity will best judge of this. In the
meantime, it is a surprising reflection, that
between what Spenser wrote last, and Waller
first, there should not be much above twenty
years' distance ; and yet the one's language, like
the money of that time, is as current now as
ever ; whilst the other's words are like old coins,
one must go to an antiquary to understand
their true meaning and value. Such advances
may a great genius make, when it undertakes
anything in earnest !

Some painters will hit the chief lines and

xx PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART.

masterstrokes of a face so truly, that through
all the differences of age the picture shall still
bear a resemblance. This art was Mr. Waller's :
he sought out, in this flowing tongue of ours,
what parts would last, and be of standing use
and ornament ; and this he did so successfully,
that his language is now as fresh as it was at
first setting out. Were we to judge barely by
the wording, we could not know what was
wrote at twenty, and what at fourscore. He
complains, indeed, of a tide of words that
comes in upon the English poet, and overflows
whatever he builds ; but this was less his case
than any man's that ever wrote ; and the
mischief of it is, this very complaint will last
long enough to confute itself; for though
English be mouldering stone, as he tells us
there, yet he has certainly picked the best out
of a bad quarry.

We are no less beholden to him for the new
turn of verse which he brought in, and the
improvement he made in our numbers. Before
his time men rhymed indeed, and that was all :
as for the harmony of measure, and that dance
of words which good ears are so much pleased
with, they knew nothing of it. Their poetry
then was made up almost entirely of mono-

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART, xxi

syllables ; which, when they come together in
any cluster, are certainly the most harsh,
untuneable things in the world. If any man
doubts of this, let him read ten lines in Donne,
and he will be quickly convinced. Besides,
their verses ran all into one another, and hung
together, throughout a whole copy, like the
hooked atoms that compose a body in Des
Cartes. There was no distinction of parts, no
regular stops, nothing for the ear to rest upon ;
but as soon as the copy began, down it went
like a larum, incessantly ; and the reader was
sure to be out of breath before he got to the
end of it : so that really verse, in those days,
was but downright prose tagged with rhymes.
Mr. Waller removed all these faults, brought in
more polysyllables, and smoother measures,
bound up his thoughts better, and in a cadence
more agreeable to the nature of the verse he
wrote in ; so that wherever the natural stops of
that were, he contrived the little breakings of his
sense so as to fall in with them ; and, for that
reason, since the stress of our verse lies
commonly upon the last syllable, you will
hardly ever find him using a word of no force
there. I would say, if I were not afraid the
reader would think me too nice, that he com-
VOL. i. S

xxii PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART.

monly closes with verbs, in which we know the
life of language consists.

Among other improvements we may reckon
that of his rhymes, which are always good, and
very often the better for being new. He had a
fine ear, and knew how quickly that sense was
cloyed by the same round of chiming words
still returning upon it. It is a decided case by
the great master of writing, ' Qua sunt ampla,
et pulchra, diu placere possunt; qua lepida et
concinna (amongst which rhyme must, whether
it will or no, take its place), citb satietate
afficiunt aurium sensum fastidiosissimum.
This he understood very well ; and therefore, to
take off the danger of a surfeit that way, strove
to please by variety and new sounds. Had he
carried this .observation, among others, as far
as it would go, it must, methinks, have shown
him the incurable fault of this jingling kind of
poetry, and have led his later judgment to
blank verse ; but he continued an obstinate
lover of rhyme to the very last ; it was a
mistress that never appeared unhandsome in
his eyes, and was courted by him long after
Sacharissa was forsaken. He had raised it,
and brought it to that perfection we now enjoy

i. — Cicero, Ad Herennium, lib. iv. 23, 32.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART, xxiii

it in ; and the poet's temper (which has always
a little vanity in it) would not suffer him ever to
slight a thing he had taken so much pains
to adorn. My Lord Roscommon was more
impartial ; no man ever rhymed truer and
evener than he ; yet he is so just as to confess
that it is but a trifle, and to wish the tyrant
dethroned, and blank verse set up in its room.
There is a third person,1 the living glory of our
English poetry, who has disclaimed the use of
it upon the stage, though no man ever employed
it there so happily as he. It was the strength
of his genius that first brought it into credit in
plays, and it is the force of his example that
has thrown it out again. In other kinds of
writing it continues still, and will do so till
some excellent spirit arises that has leisure
enough, and resolution, to break the charm, and
free us from the troublesome bondage of rhym-
ing, as Mr. Milton very well calls it, and has
proved it as well by what he has wrote in
another way. But this is a thought for times
at some distance ; the present age is a little too
warlike ; it may perhaps furnish out matter for
a good poem in the next, but it will hardly
encourage one now. Without prophesying, a

i.— Mr. Dryden.

xxiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART.

man may easily know what sort of laurels are
like to be in request.

Whilst I am talking of verse, I find myself, I
do not know how, betrayed into a great deal
of prose. I intended no more than to put the
reader in mind what respect was clue to any-
thing that fell from the pen of Mr. Waller. I
have heard his last-printed copies, which are
added in the several editions of his poems,
very slightly spoken of, but certainly they do
not deserve it. They do indeed discover them-
selves to be his last, and that is the worst we
can say of them. He is there

Jam senior ; sed cruda Deo viridisque senectus. !

The same censure, perhaps, will be passed on
the pieces of this Second Part. I shall not so
far engage for them, as to pretend they are all
equal to whatever he wrote in the vigour of his
youth ; yet they are so much of a piece with the
rest, that any man will at first sight know them
to be Mr. Waller's. Some of them were wrote
very early, but not put into former collections,
for reasons obvious enough, but which are now
ceased. The play was altered to please the
court ; it is not to be doubted who sat for the

i.— Virg. /En. vi. 304.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART, xxv

Two Brothers' characters. It was agreeable to
the sweetness of Mr. Waller's temper to soften
the rigour of the tragedy, as he expresses it ;
but whether it be so agreeable to the nature of
tragedy itself to make everything come off
easily, I leave to the critics. In the prologue
and epilogue there are a few verses that he has
made use of upon another occasion ; but the
reader may be pleased to allow that in him that
has been allowed so long in Homer and
Lucretius. Exact writers dress up their thoughts
so very well always, that when they have need
of the same sense, they cannot put it into other
words but it must be to its prejudice. Care has
been taken in this book to get together every-
thing of Mr. Waller's that is not put into the
former collection ; so that between both the
reader may make the set complete.

It will, perhaps, be contended, after all, that
some of these ought not to have been published ;
and Mr. Cowle^s ' decision will be urged, that
a neat tomb of marble is a better monument
than a great pile of rubbish, &c. It might be
answered to this, that the pictures and poems of
great masters have been always valued, though
the last hand were not put to them : and I

i. — In the preface to his works

xxvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART.

believe none of those gentlemen that will make
the objection would refuse a sketch of Raphael's,
or one of Titian's draughts of the first sitting.
I might tell them, too, what care has been taken
by the learned to preserve the fragments of the
ancient Greek and Latin poets ; there has been
thought to be a divinity in what they said ; and
therefore the least pieces of it have been kept up
and reverenced like religious relics ; and I am
sure, take away the mille annt, * and impartial
reasoning will tell us there is as much due to the
memory of Mr. Waller, as to the most celebrated
names of antiquity.

But, to waive the dispute now of what ought
to have been done, I can assure the reader what
would have been, had this edition been delayed.
The following poems were got abroad, and in a
great many hands ; it were vain to expect that,
among so many admirers of Mr. Waller, they
should not meet with one fond enough to publish

i.— Alluding to that verse in Juvenal—

. . . . Et uni cedit Homero

Propter mille annos. . . . — Sat. 7, 38-39.

And yields to Homer on no other score,
Than that he lived a thousand years before.

MR. C. DRYDEN.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART, xxvii

them. They might have stayed, indeed, till by
frequent transcriptions they had been corrupted
extremely, and jumbled together with things of
another kind ; but then they would have found
their way into the world ; so it was thought a
greater piece of kindness to the author to put
them out whilst they continue genuine and
unmixed and such as he himself, were he alive,
might own.

POEMS.

OF THE DANGER HIS MAJESTY [BEING
PRINCE] ESCAPED IN THE ROAD AT
SAINT ANDREWS.1

Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain,
And reached the sphere of his own power, the main ;
With British bounty in his ship he feasts
The Hesperian princes, his amazed guests
To find that watery wilderness exceed 5

The entertainment of their great Madrid.
Healths to both kings, attended with the roar
Of cannons, echoed from the affrighted shore,
With loud resemblance of his thunder, prove
Bacchus the seed of cloud-compelling Jove ; IO

While to his harp divine Arion sings
The loves and conquests of our Albion kings.
Of the Fourth Edward was his noble song,
Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautiful, and young ;

i. — 1645, Si. Andere. 1664, Saint Anderes.
VOL. I. B

2 POEMS OF

He rent the crown from vanquished Henry's head, 1 5
Raised the White Rose, and trampled on the Red ;
Till love, triumphing o'er the victor's pride,
Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquered side ;
Neglected Warwick (whose bold hand, like Fate,
Gives and resumes the sceptre of our state) 20

Woos for his master ; and with double shame,
Himself deluded, mocks the princely dame,
The Lady Bona, whom just anger burns,
And foreign war with civil rage returns.
Ah ! spare your swords, where beauty is to blame; 25
Love gave the affront, and must repair the same ;
When France shall boast of her, whose conquering

eyes

Have made the best of English hearts their prize ;
Have power to alter the decrees of Fate,
And change again the counsels of our state. 30

What the prophetic Muse intends, alone
To him that feels the secret wound is known.

With the sweet sound of this harmonious lay
About the keel delighted dolphins play,
Too sure a sign of sea's ensuing rage, 35

Which must anon this royal troop engage ;
| To whom soft sleep- seems more secure and sweet,
Within the town commanded by our fleet.

These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge,
Proud with the burden of so brave a charge, 40

: With painted oars the youths begin to sweep
• Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding -deep ;

EDMUND WALLER. 3

Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war
Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar.
As when a sort of lusty shepherds try 45

Their force at football, care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounters seem too rough for jest ;
They ply their feet, and still the restless ball,
Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all : 50

So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds,
And like effect of their contention finds.
Yet the bold Britons still securely rowed ;
Charles and his virtue was their sacred load ;
Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give, 55
That the good boat this tempest should outlive.

But storms increase, and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the Prince's face ;
The rest resign their courage, skill, and sight,
To danger, horror, and unwelcome night. 60

The gentle vessel (wont with state and pride
On the smooth back of silver Thames to ride)
Wanders astonished in l the angry main,
As Titan's car did, while the golden rein
Filled the young hand of his adventurous son, 65
When the whole world an equal hazard run
To this of ours, the light of whose desire
Waves threaten now, as that was scared by fire. >
The impatient sea grows impotent and raves,

i. — 1645, through.

B 2

4 POEMS OF

That, night assisting, his impetuous waves 70

Should find resistance from so light a thing ;

These surges ruin, those our safety bring.

The oppressed vessel doth the charge abide,

Only because assailed on every side ;

So men with rage and passion set on fire, 75

Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.

The pale Iberians had expired with fear,
But that their wonder did divert their care,
To see the Prince with danger moved no more
Than with the pleasures of their court before ; So
Godlike his courage seemed, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of death affright.
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.
Great Maro could no greater tempest feign, 85

When the loud winds usurping on the main
For angry Juno, laboured to destroy
The hated relics of confounded Troy ;
His bold ^Eneas, on like billows tossed
In a tall ship, and all his country lost, 90

Dissolves with fear ; and both his hands upheld,
Proclaims them happy whom the Greeks had quelled
In honourable fight ; our hero, set
In a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,
So near a hope of crowns and sceptres, more 95

Than ever Priam, when he flourished, wore ;
His loins yet full of ungot princes, all
His glory in the bud, lets nothing fall

EDMUND WALLER. 5

That argues fear ; if any thought annoys

The gallant youth, 'tis love's untasted joys, 100

And dear remembrance of that fatal glance,

For which he lately pawned his heart in France ;

Where he had seen a brighter nymph than she

That sprung out of his present foe, the sea.

That noble ardour, more than mortal fire, 105

The conquered ocean could not make expire ;

Nor angry Thetis raise her waves above

The heroic Prince's courage or his love ;

'Twas indignation, and not fear he felt,

The shrine should perish where that image dwelt. 1 10

Ah, Love forbid ! the noblest of thy train

Should not survive to let her know his pain ;

Who nor his peril minding nor his flame,

Is entertained with some less serious game,

Among the bright nymphs of the Gallic court, 115

All highly born, obsequious to her sport ;

They roses seem, which in their early pride

But half reveal, and half their beauties hide ;

She the glad morning, which her beams does throw

Upon their smiling leaves, and gilds them so ; 120

Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent ray

Foretells the fervour of ensuing day,

And warns the shepherd with his flocks retreat

To leafy shadows from the threatened heat.

From Cupid's string1 of many shafts, that fled 125

i. — 1645. Strings in 1664 and subsequent editions.

6 POEMS OF

Winged with those plumes which noble Fame had

shed,

As through the wondering world she flew, and told
Of his adventures, haughty, brave, and bold ;
Some had already touched the royal maid,
But Love's first summons seldom are obeyed ; 130
Light was the wound, the Prince's care unknown,
She might not, would not, yet reveal her own.
His glorious name had so possessed her ears,
That with delight those antique tales she hears
Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old, 135

As with his story best resemblance hold.
And now she views, as on the wall it hung,
What old MUSDSUS so divinely sung ;
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That she discerns and favours that desire, 140

Which there provokes the adventurous youth to swim,
And in Leander's danger pities him ;
Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeks
To frame his story like that 1 amorous Greek's.
For from the stern of some good ship appears 145
A friendly light, which moderates their fears ;
New courage from reviving hope they take,
And climbing o'er the waves that taper make,
On which the hope of all their lives depends,
As his on that fair Hero's hand extends. 150

The ship at anchor, like a fixed rock,

i. — 1664 and 1682, the.

EDMUND WALLER. ^

Breaks the proud billows which her large sides knock ;
Whose rage restrained, foaming higher swells,
And from her port the weary barge repels,
Threatening to make her, forced out again, 155

Repeat the dangers of the troubled main.
Twice was the cable hurled in vain ; the Fates
Would not be moved for our sister states ;
For England is the third successful throw,
And then the genius of that land they know, 160

Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)
Lord of the scene where now his l danger lies.

Well sung the Roman bard, "All human things
Of dearest value hang on slender strings."
O see the then sole hope, and, in design 165

Of Heaven, our joy, supported by a line !
Which for that instant was Heaven's care, above2
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove,
On which the fabric of our world depends ;
One link dissolved, the whole creation ends. 170

i.— 1664, tlu.

2.— In the edition of 1686 at the end of this line there is a
comma, which is not found in the previous editions.

POEMS OF

TO THE QUEEN,

OCCASIONED UPON SIGHT OF HER MAJESTY'S
PICTURE.

WELL fare the hand ! which to our humble sight
Presents that beauty, which the dazzling light
Of royal splendour hides from weaker eyes,
And all access, save by this art, denies.
Here only we have courage to behold 5

This beam of glory ; here we dare unfold
In numbers thus the wonders we conceive ;
The gracious image, seeming to give leave,
Propitious stands, vouchsafing to be seen,
And by our muse saluted, Mighty Queen, 10

In whom the extremes of power and beauty move,
The Queen of Britain, and the Queen of Love !
As the bright sun (to which we owe no sight
Of equal glory to your beauty's light)
Is wisely placed in so sublime a seat, 1 5

To extend his light, and moderate his heat ;
So, happy 'tis you move in such a sphere,
As your high Majesty with awful fear
In human breasts might qualify that fire,
Which, kindled by those eyes, had flamed higher 20

EDMUND WALLER. 9

Than when the scorched world like hazard run,
By the approach of the ill-guided sun.

No other nymphs have title to men's hearts,
But as their meanness larger hope imparts ;
Your beauty more the fondest lover moves 25

With admiration than his private loves ;
With admiration ! for a pitch so high
(Save sacred Charles his) never love durst fly.
Heaven that preferred a sceptre to your hand,
Favoured our freedom more than your command ; 30
Beauty had crowned you, and you must have been
The whole world's mistress, other than a Queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spared,
Or killed, and tyrannized, without a guard.
No power achieved, either by arms or birth, 35

Equals love's empire both in heaven and earth.
Such eyes as yours on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own ;
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to the Hesperian dame ; 40

When, like a lion, finding, in his way
To some intended spoil, a fairer prey,
The royal youth pursuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic court ;
There public care with private passion fought 45

A doubtful combat in his noble thought :
Should he confess his greatness, and his love,
And the free faith of your great brother prove ;
With his Achates breaking through the cloud

io POEMS OF

Of that disguise which did their graces shroud ; 5°

And mixing with those gallants at the ball,

Dance with the ladies, and outshine them all ?

Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride ? —

So when the fair Leucothoe he espied,

To check his steeds impatient Phoebus yearned, 55

Though all the world was in his course concerned.

What may hereafter her meridian do,

Whose dawning beauty warmed his bosom so ?

Not so divine a flame, since deathless gods

Forbore to visit the defiled abodes 60

Of men, in any mortal breast did burn ;

Nor shall, till piety and they return.1

i. — The first half of this poem was boldly " conveyed " and
printed with a few verbal alterations in Jane Barker's " Poetical
Recreations," 1688, Pt. II. p. 190.

EDMUND WALLER. 11

OF HIS MAJESTY'S RECEIVING THE NEWS
OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM'S
DEATH.

So earnest with thy God ! can no new care,

No sense of danger, interrupt thy prayer ?

The sacred wrestler, till a blessing given,

Quits not his hold, but halting conquers Heaven ;

Nor was the stream of thy devotion stopped, 5

When from the body such a limb was lopped,

As to thy present state was no less maim,

Though thy wise choice has since repaired the same.

Bold Homer durst not so great virtue feign

In his best pattern : for Patroclus slain,1 10

With such amazement as weak mothers use,

And frantic gesture, he receives the news.

Yet fell his darling by the impartial chance

Of war, imposed by royal Hector's lance ;

Thine in full peace, and by a vulgar hand 15

Torn from thy bosom, left his high command.

The famous painter could allow no place
For private sorrow in a prince's face :
Yet, that his piece might not exceed belief,
He cast a veil upon supposed grief. 20

'Twas want of such a precedent as this
Made the old heathen frame their gods amiss.

i. — 1686, In his best pattern, of Patroclus slain ', for is the
reading of the 1645 edition, but there the line ends with a full
stop, which I have ventured to remove.

12 POEMS OF

Their Phoebus should not act a fonder part

For their1 fair boy,2 than he did for his hart ;

Nor blame for Hyacinthus' fate his own, 25

That kept from him wished death, hadst thou been

known.

He that with thine shall weigh3 good David's deeds,
Shall find his passion, not his love, exceeds :
He cursed the mountains where his brave friend died,
But let4 false Ziba with his heir divide ; 30

Where thy immortal love to thy best5 friends,
Like that of Heaven, upon their seed descends.
Such huge extremes inhabit thy great mind,
Godlike, unmoved, and yet, like woman, kind !
Which of the ancient poets had not brought 35

Our Charles's pedigree from Heaven, and taught
How some bright dame, compressed by mighty Jove,
Produced this mixed Divinity and Love ?

TO THE KING,
ON HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND.

SEDIBUS emigrans solitis, comitatus inermi
Rex turba, simplex et diadema gerens,

Ecce ! redit bino Carolus diademate cinctus :
Hsec ubi nuda dedit pompa, quid arma dabunt ?

i.— 1645, 1664, 1668, the. 2.— Cyparissus.

3. — 1645, Yet he that weighs with thine.

4.— 1645, lets. 5.— 1645, blest.

EDMUND WALLER. . 13

OF SALLE.

OF Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,

Light seem the tales antiquity has told ;

Such beasts and monsters as their force oppressed

Some places only, and some times, infest.

Salle, that scorned all power and laws of men, 5

Goods with their owners hurrying to their den,

And future ages threatening with a rude 1

And savage race, successively renewed ;

Their king despising with rebellious pride,

And foes professed to all the world beside ; 10

This pest of mankind gives our hero fame,

And through the obliged world dilates his name.

The Prophet once to cruel Agag said,
"As thy fierce sword has mothers childless made,
So shall the sword make thine ; " and with that word 1 5
He hewed the man in pieces with his sword.
Just Charles-like measure has returned to these
Whose Pagan hands had stained the troubled seas ;
With ships they made the spoiled merchant mourn ;
With ships their city and themselves are torn. 20

i. — 1645, crude.

14 POEMS OF

One squadron of our winged castles sent,

O'erthrew their fort, and all their navy rent ;

For not content the dangers to increase,

And act the part of tempests in the seas,

Like hungry wolves, these pirates from our shore 25

Whole flocks of sheep, and ravished cattle bore.

Safely they might l on other nations prey, —

Fools to provoke the sovereign of the sea !

Mad Cacus so, whom like ill fate persuades,

The herd of fair Alcmena's seed invades, 30

Who for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,

Sacked the dark cave, and crushed that horrid thief.

Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in person to have seen and known 35

The injured world's revenger and his own.
Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportioned s presents bears,
To the renowned for piety and force,
Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse. 40

i. — 1645, did. 2. — 1645, well-cJwsen.

EDMUND WALLER. 15

TO THE KING, ON HIS NAVY.

WHERE'ER thy navy spreads her canvas wings,

Homage to thee, and peace to all she brings ;

The French and Spaniard, when thy flags appear,

Forget their hatred, and consent to fear.

So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey, 5

And when he pleased to thunder part the fray.

Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped,

The mighty still upon the smaller * fed ;

Thou on the deep imposest nobler 2 laws,

And by that justice hast removed the cause 10

Of those rude tempests, which for rapine sent,

Too oft, alas ! involved the innocent.

Now shall the ocean, as thy Thames, be free

From both those fates, of storms and piracy.

But we most happy, who can fear no force 15

But winged troops, or Pegasean horse.

'Tis not so hard for greedy foes to spoil

Another nation, as to touch our soil.

Should nature's self invade the world again,

And o'er the centre spread the liquid main, 20

Thy power were safe, and her destructive hand

Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command ;

Thy dreadful fleet would style thee lord of all,

And ride in triumph o'er the drowned ball ;

i. — In all editions previous to ifl86, The mightiest ttill upon
the smallest fed.
•2. — 1645, stricter.

1 6 POEMS OF

Those towers of oak o'er fertile plains might go, 25
And visit mountains where they once did grow.

The world's restorer never could x endure
That finished Babel should those men secure,
Whose pride designed that fabric to have stood
Above the reach of any second flood ; 30

To thee, his chosen, more indulgent, he
Dares trust such power with so much piety.

UPON HIS MAJESTY'S REPAIRING OF
PAUL'S.

THAT shipwrecked vessel which the Apostle bore,
Scarce suffered more upon Melita's shore,
Than did his temple in the sea of time,
Our nation's glory, and our nation's crime.
When the first monarch of this happy isle, 5

Moved with the ruin of so brave a pile,
This work of cost and piety begun,
To be accomplished by his glorious son,
Whc all that came within the ample thought
Of his wise sire has to perfection brought ; 10

He, like Amphion, makes those quarries leap
Into fair figures from a confused heap ;
For in his art of regiment is found
A power like that of harmony in sound. [15

Those antique minstrels sure were Charles-like kings,

i. — 1645, once could not.

EDMUND WALLER. 17

Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings,

On which with so divine a hand they strook,

Consent of motion from their breath they took :

So all our minds with his conspire to grace

The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface 20

Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain

Seemed to confine and fetter him again ;

Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,

As once the viper from his sacred hand :

So joys the aged oak, when we divide 25

The creeping ivy from his injured side.

Ambition rather would affect the fame
Of some new structure, to have borne her name.
Two distant virtues in one act we find,
The modesty and greatness of his mind ; 30

Which not content to be above the rage,
And injury of all-impairing age,
In its own worth secure, doth higher climb,
And things half swallowed from the jaws of Time
Reduce ; an earnest of his grand design, 35

To frame no new church, but the old refine ;
Which, spouse-like, may with comely grace command,
More than by force of argument or hand.
For doubtful reason few can apprehend,
And war brings ruin where it should amend ; 40

But beauty, with a bloodless conquest, finds
A welcome sovereignty in rudest minds.

Not aught which Sheba's wondering queen beheld
Amongst the works of Solomon, excelled

VOL. I. C

1 8 POEMS OF

His ships, and building ; emblems of a heart 45

Large both in magnanimity and art.

While the propitious heavens this work attend,
Long-wanted showers they forget to send ;
As if they meant to make it understood
Of more importance than our vital food. 50

The sun, which riseth to salute the quire
Already finished, setting shall admire
How private bounty could so far extend :
The King built all, but Charles the western end.
So proud a fabric to devotion given, 55

At once it threatens and obliges heaven !

Laomedon, that had the gods in pay,
Neptune, with him that rules the sacred day,
Could no such structure raise : Troy walled so high,
The Atrides might as well have forced the sky. 60

Glad, though amazed, are our neighbour kings,
Te see such power employed in peaceful things ;
They list not urge it to the dreadful field ;
The task is easier to destroy than build.

. . . .Sic gratia regum

Pieriis tentata modis — HORAT.I

i. — This quotation (Ars Poetica, 404-5) does not occur in the
edition of 1645.

EDMUND WALLER. ig

TO MR. HENRY LAWES,

WHO HAD THEN NEWLY SET A SONG OF MINE IN
THE YEAR I635-1

VERSE makes heroic virtue live ;

But you can life to verses give.

As when in open air we blow,

The breath, though strained, sounds flat and low ;

But if a trumpet take the blast, 5

It lifts it high, and makes it last :

So in your airs our numbers dressed,

Make a shrill sally from the breast

Of nymphs, who, singing what we penned,

Our passions to themselves commend ; 10

While love, victorious with thy art,

Governs at once their voice and heart.

You by the help of tune and time,
Can make that song that was but rhyme.
Noy pleading, no man doubts the cause ; 15

Or questions verses set by Lawes.

i.— This poem was first printed in " Ayres and Dialogues,
For one, two, and three voices." By Henry Lawes, London,
1653. Folio.

C 2

20 POEMS OF

As a church window,1 thick with paint,
Lets in a light but dim and faint ;
So others, with division, hide
The light of sense, the poet's pride : 20

But you alone may truly boas1
That not a syllable is lost ;
The writer's, and the setter's skill
At once the ravished ears2 do fill.
Let those which only warble long, 25

And gargle in their throats a song,
Content themselves with Ut, Re, Mi :
Let words, and sense, be set by thee.

i. — " Ayres and Dialogues," For as a window.
2. — " Ayres and Dialogues," ear.

EDMUND WALLER. 21

THE COUNTRY TO MY LADY OF CARLISLE.

MADAM, of all the sacred Muse inspired,

Orpheus alone could with the woods comply ;

Their rude inhabitants his song admired,

And Nature's self, in those that could not lie :

Your beauty next our solitude invades, 5

And warms us, shining through the thickest shades.

Nor ought the tribute which the wondering court

Pays your fair eyes, prevail with you to scorn

The answer and consent to that1 report

Which, echo-like, the country does return : 10

Mirrors are taught to flatter, but our springs

Present the impartial images of things.

A rural judge disposed of beauty's prize ;

A simple shepherd was preferred to Jove ;

Down to the mountains from the partial skies, 15

Came Juno, Pallas, and the Queen of Love,

To plead for that which was so justly given

To the bright Carlisle of the court of heaven.

Carlisle ! a name which all our woods are taught,
Loud as his Amaryllis, to resound ; 20

Carlisle ! a name which on the bark is wrought
Of every tree that's worthy of the wound.
From Phoebus' rage our shadows and our streams
May guard us better than from Carlisle's beams.

22 POEMS OF

THE COUNTESS OF CARLISLE IN
MOURNING.

WHEN from black clouds no part of sky is clear,

But just so much as lets the sun appear,

Heaven then would seem thy image, and reflect

Those sable vestments, and that bright aspect.

A spark of virtue by the deepest shade 5

Of sad adversity is fairer made ;

Nor less advantage doth thy beauty get ;

A Venus rising from a sea of jet !

Such was the appearance of new formed light,

While yet it struggled with eternal night. 10

Then mourn no more, lest thou admit increase

Of glory by thy noble lord's decease.

We find not that the laughter-loving dame

Mourned for Anchises ; 'twas enough she came

To grace the mortal with her deathless bed, 15

And that his living eyes such beauty fed ;

Had she been there, untimely joy, through all

Men's hearts diffused, had marred the funeral.

Those eyes were made to banish grief : as well

Bright Phcebus might affect in shades to dwell, 20

As they to put on sorrow : nothing stands,

But power to grieve, exempt from thy commands.

EDMUND WALLER. 23

If thou lament, thou must do so alone ;

Grief in thy presence can lay hold on none.

Yet still persist the memory to love 25

Of that great Mercury of our mighty Jove,

Who, by the power of his enchanting tongue,

Swords from the hands of threatening monarchs wrung.

War he prevented, or soon made it cease,

Instructing princes in the arts of peace ; 30

Such as made Sheba's curious queen resort

To the large-hearted Hebrew's famous court.

Had Homer sat amongst his wondering guests,

He might have learned at those stupendous feasts,

With greater bounty, and more sacred state, 35

The banquets of the gods to celebrate.

But oh ! what elocution might he use,

What potent charms, that could so soon infuse

His absent master's love into the heart

Of Henrietta ! forcing her to part 40

From her loved brother, country, and the sun,

And, like Camilla, o'er the waves to run

Into his arms ! while the Parisian dames

Mourn for their ravished glory ; at their1 flames

No less amaz'd than the amazed stars, 45

When the bold charmer of Thessalia wars

With Heaven itself, and numbers does repeat,

Which call descending Cynthia from her seat.

i.— 1645, her.

24 POEMS OF

IN ANSWER TO ONE WHO WRIT
AGAINST A FAIR LADY.1

WHAT fury has provoked thy wit to dare,

With Diomede, to wound the Queen of Love ?

Thy mistress' envy, or thine own despair ?

Not the just Pallas in thy breast did move

So blind a rage, with such a different fate ; 5

He honour won where thou hast purchased hate.

She gave assistance to his Trojan foe ;

Thou, that without a rival thou mayst love,

Dost to the beauty of this lady owe,

While after her the gazing world does move. 10

Canst thou not be content to love alone ?

Or is thy mistress not content with one ?

Though Ceres' child could not avoid the rape

Of the grim god that hurried her to hell,

Yet there her beauty did from slander 'scape, 15

When thou art there, she shall not speed so well :

The spiteful owl, whose tale detains her there,

Is not so blind to say she is not fair.

i. — 1645, In Answer too. libell against her,&c., immediately
following the preceding poem, which is headed as in the text.

EDMUND WALLER. 25

Hast thou not read of Fairy Arthur's shield.

Which, but disclosed, amazed the weaker eyes 20

Of proudest foes, and won the doubtful field ?

So shall thy rebel wit become her prize.

Should thy iambics swell into a book,

All were confuted with one radiant look.

Heaven he obliged that placed her in the skies ; 25

Rewarding Phcebus, for inspiring so

His noble brain, by likening to those eyes

His joyful beams ; but Phoebus is thy foe,

And neither aids thy fancy nor thy sight

So ill thou rhym'st against so fair a light. 30

26 POEMS OF

OF HER CHAMBER.

THEY taste of death that do at heaven arrive ;

But we this paradise approach alive.

Instead of death, the dart of love does strike,

And renders all within these walls alike.

The high in titles, and the shepherd, here 5

Forgets his greatness, and forgets his fear.

All stand amazed, and gazing on the fair,

Lose thought of what themselves or others are ;

Ambition lose, and have no other scope,

Save Carlisle's favour, to employ their hope. 10

The Thracian could (though all those tales were true

The bold Greeks tell) no greater wonders do ;

Before his feet so sheep and lions lay,

Fearless and wrathless while they heard him play.

The gay, the wise, the gallant, and the grave, 15

Subdued alike, all but one passion have ;

No worthy mind but finds in hers there is

Something proportioned to the rule of his ;

While she with cheerful, but impartial grace,

(Born for no one, but to delight the race 20

Of men) like Phoebus so divides her light,

And warms us, that she stoops not from her height.

EDMUND WALLER. 27

TO PHYLLIS.

PHYLLIS ! 'twas love that injured you,
And on that rock your Thyrsis threw ;
Who for proud Celia could have died,
Whilst you no less accused his pride.

Fond Love his darts at random throws, 5

And nothing springs from what he sows ;
From foes discharged, as often meet
The shining points of arrows fleet,
In the wide air creating fire,
As souls that join in one desire. 10

Love made the lovely Venus burn
In vain, and for the cold youth mourn,
Who the pursuit of churlish beasts
Preferred to sleeping on her breasts.

Love makes so many hearts the prize 15

Of the bright Carlisle's conquering eyes
Which she regards no more than they
The tears of lesser beauties weigh.
So have I seen the lost clouds pour
Into the sea a useless shower ; 20

And the vexed sailors curse the rain
For which poor shepherds prayed in vain.
Then, Phyllis, since our passions are

28 POEMS OF

Governed by chance ; and not the care,

But sport of Heaven, which takes delight 25

To look upon this Parthian fight1

Of love, still flying, or in chase,

Never encountering face to face

No more to love we'll sacrifice,

But to the best of deities ; 30

And let our hearts, which love disjoined,

By his kind mother be combined.

TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF SOME PARTS OF THE BIBLE.

How bold a work attempts that pen,
Which would enrich our vulgar tongue
With the high raptures of those men
Who, here, with the same spirit sung
Wherewith they now assist the choir 5

Of angels, who their songs admire !

Whatever those inspired souls

Were urged to express, did shake

The aged deep, and both the poles ;

Their numerous thunder could awake 10

Dull earth, which does with Heaven consent

To all they wrote, and all they meant.

\.—iGM>, flight.

EDMUND WALLER. 29

Say, sacred bard ! what could bestow

Courage on thee to soar so high ?

Tell me, brave friend ! what helped thee so 15

To shake off all mortality ?

To light this torch, thou hast climbed higher

Than he who stole celestial fire.

UPON BEN JONSON.

MIRROR of poets ! mirror of our age !

Which her whole face beholding on thy stage,

Pleased, and displeased, with her own faults, endures

A remedy like those whom music cures.

Thou hast alone1 those various inclinations 5

Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations,

So traced2 with thy all-resembling pen,

That whate'er3 custom has imposed on men,

Or ill-got habit (which deforms them so,

That scarce a brother can his brother know)4 IO

Is represented to the wondering eyes

Of all that see, or read, thy comedies.

i. — Thou not alone. — " Jonsonus VIrbius," 1638.

2. — Hast traced Ibid.

3.— But all that Ibid.

4. — Or ill-got habits (which distort them so

That scarce the brother can the brother know). Ibid.

30 POEMS OF

Whoever in those glasses looks, may find

The spots returned, or graces, of his mind ;

And by the help of so divine an art, 1 5

At leisure view, and dress, his nobler part.

Narcissus, cozened by that flattering well,

Which nothing could but of his beauty tell,

Had here, discovering the deformed estate

Of his fond mind, preserved himself with hate. 20

But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad

In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had

Beheld, what his high fancy once embraced,

Virtue with colours, speech, and motion graced.

The sundry postures of thy copious Muse 25

Who would express, a thousand tongues must use ;

Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art ;

For as thou couldst all characters impart,

So none could render thine, which still escapes,

Like Proteus, in variety of shapes ; 30

Who was nor this, nor that, but all we find,

And all we can imagine, in mankind.

EDMUND WALLER. 31

TO MY LORD NORTHUMBERLAND,

UPON THE DEATH OF HIS LADY.

To this great loss a sea of tears is due ;
But the whole debt not to be paid by you.
Charge not yourself with all, nor render vain
Those showers the eyes of us your servants rain.
Shall grief contract the largeness of that heart, 5

In which nor fear, nor anger, has a part ?
Virtue would blush if time should boast (which dries,
Her sole child dead, the tender mother's eyes)
Your mind's relief, where reason triumphs so
Over all passions, that they ne'er could grow 10

Beyond their limits in your noble breast,
To harm another, or impeach your rest.
This we observed, delighting to obey
One who did never from his great self stray ;
Whose mild example seemed to engage 15

The obsequious seas, and teach them not to rage.
The brave ^Emilius, his great1 charge laid down,
(The force of Rome, and fate of Macedon)
In his lost sons did feel the cruel stroke
Of changing fortune, and thus highly spoke 20

i.— This word is omitted in the edition of 1645.

32 POEMS OF

Before Rome's people : "We did oft implore,

That if the heavens had any bad1 in store

For your yEmilius, they would pour that ill

On his own house, and let you2 flourish still."

You on the barren seas, my lord, have spent 25

Whole springs and summers to the public lent ;

Suspended all the pleasures of your life,

And shortened the short joy of such a wife ;

For which your country's more obliged then

For many lives of old less happy men. 30

You, that have sacrificed so great a part

Of youth, and private bliss, ought to impart

Your sorrow too, and give your friends a right

As well in your affliction as delight.

Then with -dimilian courage bear this cross, 35

Since public persons only public loss

Ought to affect. And though her form and youth,

Her application to your will and truth,

That noble sweetness, and that humble statte,

(All snatched away by such a hasty fate !) 40

Might give excuse to any common breast,

With the huge weight of so just grief oppressed ;

Yet let no portion of your life be stained

With passion, but your character maintained

To the last act. It is enough her stone 45

May honoured be with superscription

Of the sole lady who had power to move "

The great Northumberland to grieve, and love.

i. — 1645, ill. 2. — 1664, yours.

EDMUND WALLER. 33

TO MY LORD ADMIRAL,

OF HIS LATE SICKNESS AND RECOVERY.

WITH joy like ours, the Thracian youth invades

Orpheus, returning from the Elysian shades ;

Embrace the hero, and his stay implore ;

Make it their public suit he would no more

Desert them so, and for his spouse's sake, 5

His vanished love, tempt the Lethean lake.

The ladies, too, the brightest of that time,

(Ambitious all his lofty bed to climb)

Their doubtful hopes with expectation feed,

Who shall the fair Eurydice succeed : IO

Eurydice ! for whom his numerous moan

Makes listening trees and savage mountains groan ;

Through all the air his sounding strings dilate

Sorrow, like that which touched our hearts of late.

Your pining sickness, and your restless pain, 15

At once the land affecting, and the main,

When the glad news that you were admiral

Scarce through the nation spread, 'twas feared by all

That our great Charles, whose wisdom shines in you,

Would be perplexed how to choose a new. 20

So more than private was the joy and grief,

VOL. I. D

34 POEMS OF

That at the worst it gave our souls relief,

That in our age such sense of virtue lived,

They joyed so justly, and so justly grieved.

Nature (her fairest lights eclipsed) seems 25

Herself to suffer in those sharp extremes ;

While not from thine alone thy blood retires,

But from those cheeks which all the world admires.

The stem thus threatened, and the sap in thee,

Droop all the branches of that noble tree ! 30

Their beauty they, and we our love suspend ;

Nought can our wishes, save thy health, intend.

As lilies overcharged with rain, they bend

Their beauteous heads, and with high heaven contend ;

Fold thee within their snowy arms, and cry — 35

" He is too faultless, and too young, to die ! "

So like immortals round about thee they

Sit, that they fright approaching death away.

Who would not languish, by so fair a train

To be lamented, and restored again ? 40

Or, thus withheld, what hasty soul would go,

Though to be1 blest ? O'er her2 Adonis so

Fair Venus mourned, and with the precious shower

Of her warm tears cherished the springing flower.

The next support, fair hope of your great name, 45
And second pillar of that noble frame,
By loss of thee would no advantage have,
But step by step pursue thee to the grave.

i. — 1645, the. 2. — 1645, young.

EDMUND WALLER. 35

And now relentless Fate, about to end
The line which backward does so far extend 50

That antique stock, which still the world supplies
With bravest spirits, and with brightest eyes,
Kind Phcebus, interposing, bid me say,
Such storms no more shall shake that house ; but they,
Like Neptune, and his sea-born niece, shall be 55
The shining glories of the land and sea ;
With courage guard, and beauty warm, our age,
And lovers fill with like poetic rage.

TO THE QUEEN MOTHER OF FRANCE,
UPON HER LANDING.

GREAT Queen of Europe ! where thy offspring wears

All the chief crowns ; where princes are thy heirs ;

As welcome thou to sea-girt Britain's shore,

As erst Latona (who fair Cynthia bore)

To Delos was ; here shines a nymph as bright, 5

By thee disclosed, with like increase of light.

Why was her joy in Belgia confined P1

Or why did you so much regard the wind ?

Scarce could the ocean, though enraged, have tossed

Thy sovereign bark, but where the obsequious coast IO

Pays tribute to thy bed. Rome's conquering hand

i,— 1645, so confined.

36 POEMS OF

More vanquished nations under her command

Never reduced. Glad Berecynthia so

Among her deathless progeny did go ;

A wreath of towers1 adorned her reverend head, 15

Mother of all that on ambrosia fed.

Thy godlike race must sway the age to come,

As she Olympus peopled with her womb.

Would those commanders of mankind obey
Their honoured parent, all pretences lay 20

Down at your royal feet, compose their jars,
And on the growing Turk discharge these wars,
The Christian knights that sacred tomb should wrest
From Pagan hands, and triumph o'er the East ;
Our England's Prince, and Gallia's Dauphin, might
Like young Rinaldo and Tancredo fight ; [25

In single combat by their swords again
The proud Argantes and fierce Soldan slain ;
Again might we their valiant deeds recite,
And with your Tuscan Muse exalt the fight. 30

i. — This is the reading of the edition of 1645 ; the later editions

EDMUND WALLER. 37

UPON THE DEATH OF MY LADY RICH.

MAY those already cursed Essexian plains,

Where hasty death and pining sickness reigns,

Prove all <» desert ! and none there make stay,

But savage beasts, or men as wild as they !

There the fair light which all our island graced, 5

Like Hero's taper in the window placed,

Such fate from the malignant air did find,

As that exposed to the boisterous wind.

Ah, cruel Heaven ! to snatch so soon away
Her for whose life, had we had time to pray, 10

With thousand vows and tears we should have

sought

That sad decree's suspension to have wrought.
But we, alas, no whisper of her pain
Heard, till 'twas sin to wish her here again.
That horrid word, at once, like lightning spread, 15
Struck all our ears — The Lady Rich is dead !
Heartrending news ! and dreadful to those few
Who her resemble, and her steps pursue ;
That Death should license have to rage among
The fair, the wise, the virtuous, and the young ! 20

The Paphian queen from that fierce battle borne,
With gored hand, and veil so rudely torn,

38 POEMS OF

Like terror did among the immortals breed,
Taught by her wound that goddesses may1 bleed.

All stand amazed ! but beyond the rest 25

The heroic dame whose happy womb she blessed,
Moved with just grief, expostulates with Heaven,
Urging the2 promise to the obsequious given,
Of longer life ; for ne'er was pious soul
More apt to obey, more worthy to control. 3°

A skilful eye at once might read the race
Of Caledonian monarchs in her face,
And sweet humility ; her look and mind
At once were lofty, and at once were kind.
There dwelt the scorn of vice, and pity too, 35

For those that did what she disdained to do ;
So gentle and severe, that what was bad,
At once her hatred and her pardon had.
Gracious to all ; but where her love was due,
So fast, so faithful, loyal, and so true, 40

That a bold hand as soon might hope to force
The rolling lights of Heaven as change her course.

Some happy angel, that beholds her there,
Instruct us to record what she was here !
And when this cloud of sorrow's overblown, 45

Through the wide world we'll make her graces known.
So fresh the wound is, and the grief so vast,
That all our art and power of speech is waste.
Here passion sways, but there the Muse shall raise
Eternal monuments of louder praise. 50

i.— 1645, might. 2.— 1645, that.

EDMUND WALLER. 39

There our delight, complying with her fame,
Shall have occasion to recite thy name,
Fair Sacharissa ! — and now only fair !
To sacred friendship we'll an altar rear,
(Such as the Romans did erect of old) 55

Where, on a marble pillar, shall be told
The lovely passion each to other bare,
With the resemblance of that matchless pair.
Narcissus to the thing for which he pined,
Was not more like than yours to her fair mind, 60
Save that she graced the several parts of life,
A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife.
Such was the sweet converse 'twixt her and you,
As that she holds with her associates now.

How false is hope, and how regardless fate, 65
That such a love should have so short a date !
Lately I saw her sighing part from thee ;
(Alas that such1 the last farewell should be !)
So looked Astrsea, her remove designed,
On those distressed friends she left behind. 70

Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot, in spite of death, does last ;
For as your tears, and sorrow- wounded soul,
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole,
So all we know of what they do above, 75

Is that they happy are, and that they love.
Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave,

i.— 1645, that.

4o POEMS Of

Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have ;

Well chosen love is never taught to die,

But with our nobler part invades the sky. 80

Then grieve no more that one so heavenly shaped

The crooked hand of trembling age escaped ;

Rather, since we beheld not her decay,

But that she vanished so entire away,

Her wondrons beauty, and her goodness, merit 85

We should suppose that some propitious spirit

In that celestial form frequented here,

And is not dead, but ceases to appear.

THYRSIS, GALATEA.

THYRSIS.

As lately I on silver Thames did ride,
Sad Galatea on the bank I spied ;
Such was her look as sorrow taught to shine,
And thus she graced me with a voice divine.

GALATEA.

You that can tune your sounding strings so well,
Of ladies' beauties, and of love to tell,
Once change your note, and let your lute report
The justest grief that ever touched the Court.

EDMUND WALLER. 41

THYRSIS.

Fair nymph ! I have in your delights no share,
Nor ought to be concerned in your care ;
Yet would I sing if I your sorrows knew,
And to my aid invoke no muse but you.

Hear then, and let your song augment our grief,
Which is so great as not to wish relief.
She that had all which Natures gives, or Chance, 15
Whom Fortune joined with Virtue to advance
To all the joys this island could afford,
The greatest mistress, and the kindest lord ;
Who with the royal mixed her noble blood,
And in high grace with Gloriana stood ; 20

Her bounty, sweetness, beauty, goodness, such,
That none e'er thought her happiness too much ;
So well-inclined her favours to confer,
And kind to all, as Heaven had been to her !
The virgin's part, the mother, and the wife, 25

So well she acted in this span of life,
That though few years (too few, alas !) she told,
She seemed in all things, but in beauty, old.
As unripe fruit, whose verdant stalks do1 cleave
Close to the tree, which grieves no less to leave 30

i. — 1645, stalk does.

42 POEMS OF

The smiling pendant which adorns her so,

And until autumn on the bough should grow ;

So seemed her youthful soul not easily forced,

Or from so fair, so sweet, a seat divorced.

Her fate at once did hasty seem and slow ; 35

At once too cruel, and unwilling too.

THYRSIS.

Under how hard a law are mortals born !
Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn ;
What Heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize,
Is soon removed from our wondering eyes ! 40

But since the Sisters did so soon untwine
So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line.
Vouchsafe, sad nymph ! to let me know the dame,
And to the muses I'll commend her name ;
Make the wide country echo to your moan, 45

The listening trees and savage mountains groan.
What rock's not moved when the death is sung
Of one so good, so lovely, and so young?

Twas Hamilton ! — whom I had named before,
But naming her, grief lets me say no more. 5°

EDMUND WALLER. 43

ON MY LADY DOROTHY SIDNEY'S
PICTURE.

SUCH was Philoclea, such Musidorus' flame ! *

The matchless Sidney, that immortal frame

Of perfect beauty on two pillars placed ;

Not his high fancy could one pattern, graced

With such extremes of excellence, compose ; 5

Wonders so distant in one face disclose !

Such cheerful modesty, such humble state,

Moves certain love, but with a2 doubtful fate

As when, beyond our greedy reach, we see

Inviting fruit on too sublime a tree. 10

All the rich flowers through his Arcadia found,

Amazed we see in this one garland bound.

Had but this copy (which the artist took

From the fair picture of that noble book)

Stood at Calander's, the brave friends had jarred, 15

And, rivals made, the ensuing story marred.

Just nature, first instructed by his thought,

In his own house thus practised what he taught ;

This glorious piece transcends what he could think,

So much his blood is nobler than his ink ! 20

i. — 1645, Such was Philocleas, such Darns' _fla.mc.
2. — 1664 and 1682, as.

44 POEMS OF

TO VANDYCK.

RARE Artisan, whose pencil moves
Not our delights alone, but loves !
From thy shop of beauty we
Slaves return, that entered free.
The heedless lover does not know
Whose eyes they are that wound him so ;
But, confounded with thy art,
Inquires her name that has his heart.
Another, who did long refrain,
Feels his old wound bleed fresh again
With dear remembrance of that face,
Where now he reads new hopes of grace :
Nor scorn nor cruelty does find,
But gladly suffers a false wind
To blow the ashes of despair
From the reviving brand of care.
Fool ! that forgets her stubborn look
This softness from thy finger took.
Strange ! that thy hand should not inspire
The beauty only, but the fire ;
Not the form alone, and grace,
But act and power of a face.
Mayst thou yet thyself as well,

EDMUND WALLER. 45

As all the world besides, excel !

So you the unfeigned truth rehearse 25

(That I may make it live in verse)

Why thou couldst not at one assay

That face to aftertimes convey,

Which this admires. Was it thy wit

To make her oft before thee sit ? 30

Confess, and we'll forgive thee this ;

For who would not repeat that bliss ?

And frequent sight of such a dame

Buy with the hazard of his fame ?

Yet who can tax thy blameless skill, 35

Though thy good hand had failed still,

When nature's self so often errs ?

She for this many thousand years

Seems to have practised with much care,

To frame the race of women fair ; 40

Yet never could a perfect birth

Produce before to grace the earth,

Which waxed old ere it could see

Her that amazed thy art and thee.

But now 'tis done, O let me know 45

Where those immortal colours grow,
That could this deathless piece compose !
In lilies ? or the fading rose ?
No ; for this theft thou hast climbed higher
Than did Prometheus for his fire. 50

46 POEMS OF

AT PENSHURST.

HAD Sacharissa1 lived when mortals made

Choice of their deities, this sacred shade

Had held an altar to her2 power, that gave

The peace and glory which these alleys have ;

Embroidered so with flowers where she stood,

That it became a garden of a wood.

Her presence has such more than human grace,

That it can civilize the rudest place ;

And beauty too, and order, can impart,

Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art.

The plants acknowledge this, and her admire,

No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre ;

If she sit down, with tops all towards her bowed,

They round about her into arbours crowd ;

Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand,

Like some well-marshalled and obsequious band.

Amphion so made stones and timber leap

Into fair figures from a confused heap ;

And in the symmetry of her parts is found

A power like that of harmony in sound.

Ye lofty beeches, tell this matchless dame,
That if together ye fed all one flame,

i. — 1645, Dorothea. a. — 1645, the.

EDMUND WALLER. 47

It could not equalize the hundredth part

Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart !

Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark 25

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark

Of noble Sidney's birth ; when such benign,

Such more than mortal making stars did shine,

That there they cannot but for ever prove

The monument and pledge of humble love ; 30

His humble love whose hope shall ne'er rise higher,

Than for a pardon that he dares admire.

TO MY LORD OF LEICESTER.

NOT that thy trees at Penshurst groan,

Oppressed with their timely load,

And seem to make their silent moan,

That their great lord is now abroad :

They to delight his taste, or eye, 5

Would spend themselves in fruit, and die.

Not that thy harmless deer repine,

And think themselves unjustly slain

By any other hand than thine,

Whose arrows they would gladly stain ; 10

No, nor thy friends, which hold too dear

That peace with France which keeps thee there-

48 POEMS OF

All these are less than that great cause

Which now exacts your presence here,

Wherein there meet the divers laws 15

Of public and domestic care.

For one bright nymph our youth contends,

And on your prudent choice depends.

Not the bright shield of Thetis' son,

(For which such stern debate did rise, 20

That the great Ajax Telamon

Refused to live without the prize)

Those Achive peers did more engage,

Than she the gallants of our age.

That beam of beauty, which begun 25

To warm us so when thou wert here,

Now scorches like the raging sun,

When Sirius does first appear.

O fix this flame ! and let despair

Redeem the rest from endless care. 30

EDMUND WALLER. 49

OF THE LADY WHO CAN SLEEP WHEN
SHE PLEASES.

No wonder sleep from careful lovers flies,

To bathe himself in Sacharissa's eyes.

As fair Astrsea once from earth to heaven,

By strife and loud impiety was driven ;

So with our plaints offended, and our tears, 5

Wise Somnus to that paradise repairs ;

Waits on her will, and wretches does forsake,

To court the nymph for whom those wretches wake.

More proud than Phoebus of bis throne of gold

Is the soft god those softer limbs to hold ; 10

Nor would exchange with Jove to hide the skies

In darkening clouds, the power to close her eyes ;

Eyes which so far all other lights control,

They warm our mortal parts, but these our soul !

Let her free spirit, whose unconquered breast 15
Holds such deep quiet and untroubled rest,
Know that though Venus and her son should spare
Her rebel heart, and never teach her care,
Yet Hymen may enforce her1 vigils keep,
And for another's joy suspend her sleep. 20

i. — Fenton altered this, admittedly without authority, but,
as he hoped, for the better, to Yet Hynien may in force his
vigils keep.

VOL. I. E

50 POEMS OF

OF THE MISREPORT OF HER BEING
PAINTED.

As when a sort of wolves infest the night
With their wild howlings at fair Cynthia's light,
The noise may chase sweet slumber from our eyes,
But never reach the mistress of the skies ;
So with the news of Sacharissa's wrongs 5

Her vexed servants blame those envious tongues ;
Call Love to witness that no painted fire
Can scorch men so, or kindle such desire ;
While, unconcerned, she seems moved no more
With this new malice than our loves before ; 10

But from the height of her great mind looks down
On both our passions without smile or frown.
So little care of what is done below
Hath the bright dame whom heaven affecteth so !
Paints her, 'tis true, with the same hand which
spreads 15

Like glorious colours through the flowery meads,
When lavish Nature, with her best attire,
Clothes the gay spring, the season of desire ;
Paints her, 'tis true, and does her cheek adorn
With the same art wherewith she paints the morn ; 20
With the same art wherewith she gildeth so
Those painted clouds which form Thaumantias' bow.

EDMUND WALLER.

OF HER PASSING THROUGH A CROWD
OF PEOPLE.

As in old chaos (heaven with earth confused,

And stars with rocks together crushed and bruised)

The sun his light no further could extend

Than the next hill, which on his shoulders leaned ;

So in this throng bright Sacharissa fared, 5

Oppressed by those who strove to be her guard ;

As ships, though never so obsequious, fall

Foul in a tempest on their admiral.

A greater favour this disorder brought

Unto her servants than their awful thought 10

Durst entertain, when thus compelled they pressed

The yielding marble of her snowy breast.

While love insults, disguised in the cloud,

And welcome force, of that unruly crowd.

So the amorous tree, while yet the air is calm, 15

Just distance keeps from his desired palm ;

But when the wind her ravished branches throws

Into his arms, and mingles all their boughs,

Though loath he seems her tender leaves to press,

More loath he is that friendly storm should cease, 20

From whose rude bounty he the double use

At once receives, of pleasure and excuse.

52 POEMS OF

THE STORY OF PHCEBUS AND DAPHNE,
APPLIED.

THYRSIS, a youth of the inspired train,

Fair Sacharissa loved, but loved in vain.

Like Phoebus sung the no less amorous boy ;

Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy !

With numbers he the flying nymph pursues, 5

With numbers such as Pho?.bus' self might use !

Such is the chase when Love and Fancy leads,

O'er craggy mountains, and through flowery meads ;

Invoked to testify the lover's care,

Or form some image of his cruel fair. 10

Urged with his fury, like a wounded deer,

O'er these he fled ; and now approaching near,

Had reached the nymph with his harmonious lay,

Whom all his charms could not incline to stay.

Yet what he sung in his immortal strain, 15

Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain ;

All, but the nymph that should redress his wrong,

Attend his passion, and approve his song.

Like Phoebus thus, acquiring unsought praise,

He catched at love, and filled his arm with bays. 20

EDMUND WALLER. . 53

FABULA PHCEBI ET DAPHNES.

ARCADMJ juvenis Thyrsis, Phoebique sacerdos,
Ingenti frustra Sacharissre1 ardebat amore.
Haud Deus ipse olim Daphni majora canebat ;
Nee fuit asperior Daphne, nee pulchrior ilia :
Carminibus Phoebo dignis premit ille fugacem 5

Per rupes, per saxa, volans per florida vates
Pascua : formosam nunc his componere nympham,
Nunc illis crudelem insana mente solebat.
Audiit ilia procul miserum, cytharamque sonantem ;
Audiit, at nullis respexit mota querelis ! IO

Ne tamen omnino caneret desertus, ad alta
Sidera perculsi referunt nova carmina montes.
Sic, non quaesitis cumulatus laudibus, olim
Elapsa reperit Daphne sua laurea Phoebus.

SONG.

SAY, lovely dream ! where couldst thou find
Shades2 to counterfeit that face ?
Colours of this glorious kind
Come not from any mortal place.

In heaven itself thou sure wert dressed
With that angel-like disguise :
Thus deluded am I blessed,
And see my joy with closed eyes.

i.— 1645, Ga/atete. 2.— 1686, Shadows.

54 POEMS OF

But ah ! this image is too kind

To be other than a dream ; IO

Cruel Sacharissa's mind

Never put on that sweet extreme !

Fair dream ! if thou intend'st me grace,

Change that heavenly face1 of thine ;

Paint despised love in thy face, 15

And make it to appear like mine.

Pale, wan, and meagre let it look,

With a pity-moving shape,

Such as wander by the brook

Of Lethe, or from graves escape. 20

Then to that matchless nymph appear,
In whose shape thou shinest so ;
Softly in her sleeping ear,
With humble words, express my woe.

Perhaps from greatness, state, and pride, 25

Thus surprised she may fall ;
Sleep does disproportion hide,
And, death resembling, equals all.

i. — 1645, this heavenly form.

EDMUND WALLER. 55

TO THE SERVANT OF A FAIR LADY.1

FAIR fellow-servant ! may your gentle ear
Prove more propitious to my slighted care
Than the bright dame's we serve : for her relief
(Vexed with the long expressions of my grief)
Receive these plaints ; nor will her high disdain 5
Forbid my humble muse to court her train.

So, in those nations which the sun adore,
Some modest Persian, or some weak-eyed Moor,
No higher dares advance his dazzled sight,
Than to some gilded cloud, which near the light IO
Of their ascending god adorns the east,
And, graced with his beams, outshines the rest.

Thy skilful hand contributes to our woe,
And whets those arrows which confound us so.
A thousand Cupids in those curls do sit, 15

Those curious nets thy slender fingers knit.
The Graces put not more exactly on
The attire of Venus, when the ball she won,
Than that young Beauty2 by thy care is dressed,

i.— In the edition of 1645 these lines are headed, To Mistris
Braughton; they were omitted from the editions of 1664^ and
1668, but reappeared in that of 1682 (with the above heading),
with the exception of six lines, beginning at So in those nations,
which Keck says were omitted by the author's direction.

2. — 1645, Sacharissa.

56 POEMS OF

When all our youth prefers her to the rest. 20

You the soft season1 know when best her mind
May be to pity, or to love, inclined :
In some well-chosen hour supply his fear,
Whose hopeless love durst never tempt the ear
Of that stern goddess. You, her priest, declare 25
What offerings may propitiate the fair ;
Rich orient pearl, bright stones that ne'er decay,
Or polished lines, which longer last than they ;
For if I thought she took delight in those,
To where the cheerful morn does first disclose, 30
(The shady night removing with her beams)
Winged with bold love, I'd fly to fetch such gems.
But since her eyes, her teeth, her lip excels
All that is found in mines or fishes' shells,
Her nobler part as far exceeding these, 35

None but immortal gifts her mind should2 please.
The shining jewels Greece and Troy bestowed
On Sparta's queen,3 her lovely neck did load,
And snowy wrists ; but when the town was burned,
Those fading glories were to ashes turned ; 40

Her beauty, too, had perished, and her fame,
Had not the muse redeemed them from the flame.

i. — 1645, seasons. 2. — 1645, can.

3. — 1645, Those shining jewels Greeceand Troy bestow'd,

The snowy wrists and lovely neck did lode

Of Sparta's Queen.

EDMUND WALLER. 57

TO A VERY YOUNG LADY.1

WHY came I so untimely forth
Into a world which, wanting thee,
Could entertain us with no worth
Or shadow of felicity,
That time should me so far remove
From that which I was born to love ?

Yet, fairest blossom ! do not slight

That age which you may know so soon ;

The rosy morn resigns her light,

And milder glory, to the noon ; IO

And then what wonders shall you do,

Whose dawning beauty warms us so ?

Hope waits upon the flowery prime ;

And summer, though it be less gay,

Yet is not looked on as a time 15

Of declination or decay ;

For with a full hand that does bring

All that was promised by the spring.

I. — 1645, To my young Lady Lucy Sidney.

58 POEMS OF

TO AMORET.

FAIR ! that you may truly know
What you unto Thyrsis owe,
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love and you.

Joy salutes me, when I set 5

My blessed eyes on Amoret ;
But with wonder I am strook,
When I on the other look.

If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains ; 10

But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die.

All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret ! is thine ;

Sacharissa's captive fain 15

Would untie his iron chain,
And, those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.

If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection, 20

I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn ;
But 'tis sure some power above

EDMUND WALLER. 59

Which controls our will in love !

If not love, a strong desire 25

To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret ! for thee

'Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move ; 30

If less splendour wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light ;
But as hard 'tis to destroy 35

That high flame, as to enjoy ;
Which how easily I may do,
Heaven (as easily scaled) does know!

Amoret ! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food, 40

Which, but tasted, does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.

Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline ;
Such a liquor as no brain 45

That is mortal can sustain.

Scarce can I to heaven excuse
The devotion which I use
Unto that adored dame
For 'tis not unlike the same 50

Which I thither ought to send ;
So that if it could take end,

60 POEMS OF

'Twould to heaven itself be due

To succeed her, and not you,

Who already have of me 55

All that's not idolatry ;

Which, though not so fierce a flame,

Is longer like to be the same.

Then smile on me, and I will prove
Wonder is shorter-lived than love. 60

ON THE FRIENDSHIP BETWIXT TWO
LADIES.1

TELL me, lovely, loving pair !
Why so kind, and so severe ?
Why so careless of our care,
Only to yourselves so dear ?

By this cunning change of hearts, 5

You the power of love control ;
» While the boy's deluded darts

Can arrive at neither2 soul.

i. — 1645, On the Friendship betwixt Sacharissa and
A moret,
•t. — 1645, neithei's.

EDMUND WALLER. 61

For in vain to either breast

Still beguiled love does come, 10

Where he finds a foreign guest,

Neither of your hearts at home.

Debtors thus with like design,

When they never mean to pay,

That they may the law decline, 15

To some friend make all away.

Not the silver doves that fly,

Yoked in Cytherea's car ;

Not the wings that lift so high,

And convey her son so far ; 20

Are so lovely, sweet, and fair,
Or do more ennoble love ;
Are so choicely matched a pair,
Or with more consent do move.

62 POEMS OF

ON HER COMING TO LONDON.

WHAT'S she, so late from Penshurst come,
More gorgeous than the mid-day sun,

That all the world amazes ?
Sure 'tis some angel from above,
Or 'tis the Cyprian Queen of Love

Attended by the Graces.

Or is't not Juno, Heaven's great dame,
Or Pallas armed, as on she came

To assist the Greeks in fight,
Or Cynthia, that huntress bold,
Or from old Tithon's bed s,o cold,

Aurora chasing night ?

No, none of those, yet one that shall
Compare, perhaps exceed them all,

For beauty, wit, and birth ; 15

As good as great, as chaste as fair,
A brighter nymph none breathes the air,

Or treads upon the earth.

EDMUND WALLER. 63

Tis Dorothee, a maid high-born,

And lovely as the blushing morn, 20

Of noble Sidney's race,
Oh ! could you see into [her] mind,
The beauties there locked-up outshine

The beauties of her face.

Fair Dorothea, sent from heaven 25

To add more wonders to the seven,

And glad each eye and ear,
Crown of her sex, the Muse's port,
The glory of our English court,

The brightness of our sphere. 3°

To welcome her the Spring breathes forth
Elysian sweets, March strews the earth

With violets and posies,
The sun renews his [dajrting fires,
April puts on her best attires, 35

And May her crown of roses.

Go, happy maid, increase the store
Of graces born with you, [and] more

Add to their number still ;

So neither all-consuming age, 4°

Nor envy's blast, nor fortune's rage

Shall ever work you ilL

64 POEMS OF

AT PENSHURST.

WHILE in the1 park I sing, the listening deer

Attend my passion, and forget to fear.

When to the beeches I report my flame,

They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.

To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers 5

With loud complaints, they answer me in showers.

To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,

More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven !

Love's foe professed ! why dost thou falsely feign

Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain 10

He sprung, that could so far exalt the name

Of love, and warm our nation with his flame ;

That all we can of love, or high desire,

Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.

Nor call her mother, who so well does prove 15

One breast may hold both chastity and love.

Never can she, that so exceeds the spring

In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring

One so destructive. To no human stock

We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock, 20

That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side

Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

x. — 1645, this.

EDMUND WALLER. 65

Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs,
Which not more help, than that destruction, brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged1 stone, 25

I might, like Orpheus, with my numerous moan
Melt to compassion ; now, my traitorous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong ;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes ; 30

But with my own breath still foment the fire,
With flames as high as fancy can aspire !

This last complaint the indulgent ears did2 pierce
Of just Apollo, president of verse ;
Highly concerned that the muse should bring 35

Damage to one whom he had taught to sing,
Thus he advised me : " On yon aged tree
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion3 find." 40
Ah, cruel nymph ! from whom her humble swain
Flies for relief unto the raging main,
And from the winds and tempests does expect
A milder fate than from her cold neglect !
Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove 45
Blessed in her choice ; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,
But from those gifts which heaven has heaped on her.

i. — 1645, that ragged. ' 2. — 1645, does.

3.— 1645, may with affection find.
VOL. I.

66 POEMS OF

THE BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.

CANTO I.

What fruits they have, and how Heaven smiles
Upon those late-discovered isles.

AID me, Bellona ! while the dreadful fight
Betwixt a nation and two whales I write.
Seas stained with gore I sing, adventurous toil,
And how these monsters did disarm an isle.

Bermudas, walled with rocks, who does not know ?
That happy island where huge lemons grow, [5

And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear,
The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair ;
Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found. 10

The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The prince of trees ! is fuel for their fires ;
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn ;
Their private roofs on odorous timber borne, 15

Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows. 20

EDMUND WALLER. 67

Figs there implanted through the fields do grow,

Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,

With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil

Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.

The naked rocks are not unfruitful there, 25

But, at some constant seasons, every year,

Their barren tops with luscious food abound,

And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned.

Tobacco is the worst of things, which they

To English landlords, as their tribute, pay. 30

Such is the mould, that the blessed tenant feeds

On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.

With candied plantains, and the juicy pine,

On choicest melons, and sweet grapes, they dine,

And with potatoes fat their wanton swine. 35

Nature these cates with such a lavish hand

Pours out among them, that our coarser land

Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,

Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn ;

For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, 40

Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.

Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live ;

At once they promise what at once they give.

So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,

None sickly lives, or dies before his time. 45

Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed.

To show how all things were created first.

The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed,

Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste.

68 POEMS OF

There a small grain in some few months will be 50

A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.

The palma-christi, and the fair papa,

Now but a seed, (preventing nature's law)

In half the circle of the hasty year

Project a shade, and lovely fruit do wear. 55

And as their trees, in our dull region set,

But faintly grow, and no perfection get ;

So, in this northern tract, our hoarser throats,

Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,

Where the supporter of the poets' style, 60

Phoebus, on them eternally does smile.

Oh ! how I long my careless limbs to lay

Under the1 plantain's shade, and all the day

With amorous airs my fancy entertain,

Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein ! 65

No passion there in my free breast should move,

None but the sweet and best of passions, love.

There while I sing, if gentle love be by,

That tunes my lute, and winds the strings so high,

With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name 70

I'll make the listening savages grow tame.

But while I do these pleasing dreams indite,
I am diverted from the promised fight.

i.— 1645, «•

EDMUND WALLER. 69

Of their alarm,1 and how their foes
Discovered were, this Canto shows.

THOUGH rocks so high about this island rise,
That well they may the numerous Turk despise,
Yet is no human fate exempt from fear,
Which shakes their hearts, while through the isle they

hear

A lasting noise, as horrid and as loud 5

As thunder makes before it breaks the cloud.
Three days they dread this murmur, ere they know
From what blind cause the unwonted sound may grow.
At length two monsters of unequal size,
Hard by the shore, a fisherman espies ; 10

Two mighty whales ! which swelling seas had tossed,
And left them prisoners on the rocky coast.
One as a mountain vast ; and with her came
A cub, not much inferior to his dam.
Here in a pool, among the rocks engaged, 15

They roared, like lions caught in toils, and raged.
The man knew what they were, who heretofore
Had seen the like lie murdered on the shore ;
By the wild fury of some tempest cast,
The fate of ships, and shipwrecked men, to taste. 20
As careless dames, whom wine and sleep betray
To frantic dreams, their infants overlay :

i.— 1645, affright.

70 POEMS OF

So there, sometimes, the raging ocean fails,
And her own brood exposes ; when the whales
Against sharp rocks, like reeling vessels quashed, 25
Though huge as mountains, are in pieces dashed ;
Along the shore their dreadful limbs lie scattered,
Like hills with earthquakes shaken, torn, and shattered.
Hearts sure of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.
The welcome news through all the nation spread, [30
To sudden joy and hope converts their dread ;
What lately was their public terror, they
Behold with glad eyes as a certain prey ;
Dispose already of the untaken spoil, 35

And, as the purchase of their future toil,
These share the bones, and they divide the oil.
So was the huntsman by the bear oppressed,
Whose hide he sold — before he caught the beast !

They man their boats, and all their young men arm
With whatsoever may the monsters harm ; [40

Pikes, halberts, spits, and darts that wound so far,
The tools of peace, and instruments of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love, or honour, could invite them to ; 45

A goodly theatre ; where rocks are round
With reverend age, and lovely lasses, crowned.
Such was the lake which held this dreadful pair,
Within the bounds of noble Warwick's share ;
Warwick's bold Earl ! than which no title bears 50
A greater sound among our British peers ;

EDMUND WALLER. 71

And worthy he the memory to renew,
The fate and honour to that title due,
Whose brave adventures have transferred his name, [55
And through the new world spread his growing fame.
But how they fought, and what their valour gained,
Shall in another Canto be contained.

CANTO III.

The bloody fight, successless toil,
And how the fishes sacked the isle.

THE boat which on the first assault did go,

Struck with a harping-iron the younger foe ;

Who, when he felt his side so rudely gored,

Loud as the sea that nourished him he roared.

As a broad bream, to please some curious taste, 5

While yet alive, in boiling water cast,

Vexed with unwonted heat, bounds,1 flings about

The scorching brass, and hurls the liquor out ;

So with the barbed javelin stung, he raves,

And scourges with his tail the suffering waves. 10

Like Spenser's2 Talus with his iron flail,

He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail ;

Dissolving at one stroke the battered boat,

And down the men fall drenched in the moat ;

With every fierce encounter they are forced 15

To quit their boats, and fare like men unhorsed.

i.— Editions after 1645, boils. ±.—1645, Fairy,

72 POEMS OF

The bigger whale like some huge carrack lay,
Which wanteth sea-room with her foes to play ;
Slowly she swims ; and when, provoked she would
Advance her tail, her head salutes the mud ; 20

The shallow water doth her force infringe,
And renders vain her tail's impetuous swinge ;
The shining steel her tender sides receive,
And there, like bees, they all their weapons leave.

This sees the cub, and does himself oppose 25

Betwixt his cumbered mother and her foes ;
With desperate courage he receives her wounds,
And men and boats his active tail confounds.
Their forces joined, the seas with billows fill,
And make a tempest, though the winds be still. 30

Now would the men with half their hoped prey
Be well content, and wish 1 this cub away ;
Their wish they have : he (to direct his dam
Unto the gap through which they thither came)
Before her swims, and quits the hostile lake, 35

A prisoner there, but for his mother's sake.
She, by the rocks compelled to stay behind,
Is by the vastness of her bulk confined.
They shout for joy ! and now on her alone
Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown. 40
Their lances spent, one bolder than the rest,
With his broad sword provoked 2 the sluggish beast ;
Her oily side devours both blade and haft,

i. — 1645, wish'd. 2. — 1645, provokes.

EDMUND WALLER. 73

And there his steel the bold Bermudian left.

Courage the rest from his example take, 4$

And now they change the colour of the lake ;

Blood flows in rivers from her wounded side,

As if they would prevent the tardy tide,

And raise the flood to that propitious height,

As might convey her from this fatal strait. 50

She swims in blood, and blood does spouting throw

To heaven, that heaven men's cruelties might know.

Their fixed javelins in her side she wears,

And on her back a grove of pikes appears ;

You would have thought, had you the monster seen

Thus dressed, she had another island been. [55

Roaring she tears the air with such a noise,

As well resembled the conspiring voice

Of routed armies, when the field is won,

To reach the ears of her escaped son. 60

He, though a league removed from the foe,

Hastes to her aid ; the pious Trojan so,

Neglecting for Creusa's life his own,

Repeats the danger of the burning town.

The men, amazed, blush to see the seed 65

Of monsters human piety exceed.

Well proves this kindness, what the Grecians sung,

That Love's bright mother from the ocean sprung.

Their courage droops, and, hopeless now, they wish

For composition with the unconquered fish ; 70

So she their weapons would restore again.

Through rocks they'd hew her passage to the main.

74 POEMS OF

But how instructed in each other's mind ?

Or what commerce can men with monsters find ?

Not daring to approach their wounded foe, 75

Whom her courageous son protected so,

They charge their muskets, and, with hot desire

Of fell revenge, renew the fight with fire ;

Standing aloof, with lead they bruise the scales,

And tear the flesh of the incensed whales. 80

But no success their fierce endeavours found,

Nor this way could they give one fatal wound.

Now to their fort they are about to send

For the loud engines which their isle defend ;

But what those pieces framed to batter walls, 85

Would have effected on those mighty whales,

Great Neptune will not have us know, who sends

A tide so high that it relieves his friends.

And thus they parted with exchange of harms ; [90

Much blood the monsters lost, and they their arms.

EDMUND WALLER. 75

WHEN HE WAS AT SEA.

WHILST I was free I wrote with high conceit,

And love and beauty raised above their height ;

Love, that bereaves us both of brain and heart,

Sorrow and silence doth at once impart.

What hand at once can wield a sword and write 5

Or battle paint, engaged in the fight ?

Who will describe a storm must not be there :

Passion writes well, neither in love nor fear.

Why on the naked boy have poels then

Feathers and wings bestowed, that wants a pen ? 10

TO MY LORD OF FALKLAND.

BRAVE Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes.

Who hears this told, and does not straight suppose

We send the Graces and the Muses forth,

To civilize and to instruct the north ?

Not that these ornaments make swords less sharp ; 5

Apollo bears as well his bow as harp ;

And though he be the patron of that spring,

Where, in calm peace, the sacred virgins sing,

He courage had to guard the invaded throne

Of Jove, and cast the ambitious giants down. 10

Ah, noble friend ! with what impatience all
That know thy worth, and know how prodigal

76 POEMS OF

Of thy great soul thou art, (longing to twist

Bays with that ivy which so early kissed

Thy youthful temples) with what horror we 15

Think on the blind events of war and thee !

To fate exposing that all -knowing breast

Among the throng, as cheaply as the rest ;

Where oaks and brambles (if the copse be burned)

Confounded lie, to the same ashes turned. 20

Some happy wind over the ocean blow
This tempest yet, which frights our island so !
Guarded with ships, and all the sea our own,
From heaven this mischief on our heads is thrown.

In a late dream, the Genius of this land, 25

Amazed, I saw, like the fair Hebrew stand,
When first she felt the twins begin to jar,
And found her womb the seat of civil war.
Inclined to whose relief, and with presage
Of better fortune for the present age, 30

Heaven sends, quoth I, this discord for our good,
To warm, perhaps, but not to waste our blood ;
To raise our drooping spirits, grown the scorn
Of our proud neighbours, who ere long shall mourn
(Though now they joy in our expected harms) 35
We had occasion to resume our arms.

A lion so with self-provoking smart,
(His rebel tail scourging his noble part)
Calls up his courage ; then begins to roar
And charge his foes, who thought him mad before. 40

EDMUND WALLER. 77

OF THE QUEEN.1

THE lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field ;
But if the promise of a cloudless day,
Aurora smiling, bids her rise and play,
Then straight she shows 'twas not for want of voice, 5
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice ;
Singing she mounts ; her airy wings are stretched
Towards heaven, as if from heaven her note she fetched.

So we, retiring from the busy throng,
Use to restrain the ambition of our song ; IO

But since the light which now informs our age
Breaks from the court, indulgent to her rage,
Thither my muse, like bold Prometheus, flies,
To light her torch at Gloriana's eyes.

Those sovereign beams which heal the wounded
soul, 15

And all our cares, but once beheld, control ;
There the poor lover, that has long endured
Some proud nymph's scorn, of his fond passion cured,
Fares like the man who first upon the ground
A glow-worm spied, supposing he had found 20

i. — 1645, Of and to the Queeiie.

78 POEMS OF

A moving diamond, a breathing stone ;
For life it had, and like those jewels shone ;
He held it dear, till by the springing day
Informed, he threw the worthless worm away.

She saves the lover, as we gangrenes stay, 25

By cutting hope, like a lopped limb, away ;
This makes her bleeding patients to accuse
High Heaven, and these expostulations use :
" Could Nature then no private woman grace,
Whom we might dare to love, with such a face, 30
Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies ?
Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight,
What envious power has placed this glorious light ? "

Thus, in a starry night, fond children cry 35

For the rich spangles that adorn the sky,
Which, though they shine for ever fixed there,
With light and influence relieve us here.
All her affections are to one inclined ;
Her bounty and compassion to mankind ; 40

To whom, while she so far extends her grace,
She makes but good the promise of her face ;
For Mercy has, could Mercy's self be seen,
No sweeter look than this propitious queen.
Such guard, and comfort, the distressed find 45

From her large power, and from her larger mind,
That whom ill Fate would ruin, it prefers,
For all the miserable are made hers.
So the fair tree whereon the eagle builds,

EDMUND WALLER. 79

Poor sheep from tempests, and their shepherd
shields ; . 50

The royal bird possesses all the boughs,
But shade and shelter to the flock allows.

Joy of our age, and safety of the next !
For which so oft thy fertile womb is vexed ;
Nobly contented, for the public good, 55

To waste thy spirits and diffuse thy blood,
What vast hopes may these islands entertain,
Where monarchs, thus descended, are to reign ?
Led by commanders of so fair a line,
Our seas no longer shall our power confine. 60

A brave romance who would exactly frame,
First brings his knight from some immortal dame,
And then a weapon, and a flaming shield,
Bright as his mother's eyes, he makes him wield.
None might the mother of Achilles be, 65

But the fair pearl and glory of the sea ;
The man to whom great Maro gives such fame,
From the high bed of heavenly Venus came ;
And our next Charles, whom all the stars design
Like wonders to accomplish, springs from thine. 70

So POEMS OF

THE APOLOGY OF SLEEP,

FOR NOT APPROACHING THE LADY WHO CAN DO
ANYTHING BUT SLEEP WHEN SHE PLEASETH.

MY charge it is those breaches to repair
Which Nature takes from sorrow, toil, and care ;
Rest to the limbs, and quiet I confer
On troubled minds ; but nought can add to her
Whom Heaven and her transcendent thoughts have
placed 5

Above those ills which wretched mortals taste.

Bright as the deathless gods, and happy, she
From all that may infringe delight is free ;
Love at her royal feet his quiver lays,
And not his mother with more haste obeys. 10

Such real pleasures', such true joys' suspense,
What dream can I present to recompense?

Should I with lightning fill her awful hand,
And make the clouds seem all at her command ;
Or place her in Olympus' top, a guest 1 5

Among the immortals, who with nectar feast ;
That power would seem, that entertainment, short
Of the true splendour of her present court,
Where all the joys, and all the glories, are

EDMUND WALLER. 81

Of three great kingdoms, severed from the care. 20

I, that of fumes and humid vapours made,

Ascending, do the seat of sense invade,

No cloud in so serene a mansion find,

To overcast her ever-shining mind,

Which holds resemblance with those spotless skies, 25

Where flowing Nilus want of rain supplies ;

That crystal heaven, where Phoebus never shrouds

His golden beams, nor wraps his face in clouds.

But what so hard which numbers cannot force ?

So stoops the moon, and rivers change their course. 30

The bold Mseonian made me dare to steep

Jove's dreadful temples in the dew of sleep ;

And since the Muses do invoke my power,

I shall no more decline that sacred bower

Where Gloriana their great mistress lies ; 35

But, gently taming those victorious eyes,

Charm all her senses, till the joyful sun

Without a rival half his course has run ;

Who, while my hand that fairer light confines,

May boast himself the brightest thing that shines. 40

VOL. I.

82 POEMS OF

PUERPERIUM.

You gods that have the power

To trouble, and compose,

All that's beneath your bower,

Calm silence on the seas, on earth impose.

Fair Venus ! in thy soft arms 5

The God of Rage confine ;
For thy whispers are the charms
Which only can divert his fierce design.

What though he frown, and to tumult do incline ?
Thou the flame 10

Kindled in his breast canst tame
With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.

Great goddess ! give this thy sacred island rest ;
Make heaven smile,

That no storm disturb us while 1 5

Thy chief care, our halcyon, builds her nest.

Great Gloriana ! fair Gloriana !

Bright as high heaven is, and fertile as earth

Whose beauty relieves us,

Whose royal bed gives us 20

Both glory and peace,

Our present joy, and all our hopes' increase.1

i. — 1645, Our present joy, our hopes increase.

EDMUND WALLER^ 83

TO AMORET.

AMORET ! the Milky Way
Framed of many nameless stars !
The smooth stream where none can say
He this drop to that prefers !

Amoret ! my lovely foe !
Tell me where thy strength does lie ?
Where the power that charms us so ?
In thy soul, or in thy eye ?

By that snowy neck alone,

Or thy grace in motion seen, IO

No such wonders could be done ;

Yet thy waist is straight and clean

As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod,

And powerful, too, as either god.

84 POEMS OF

TO PHYLLIS.

PHYLLIS ! why should we delay

Pleasures shorter than the day

Could we (which we never can

Stretch our lives beyond their span,

Beauty like a shadow flies, 5

And our youth before us dies.

Or would youth and beauty stay,

Love hath wings, and will away.

Love hath swifter wings than Time ;

Change in love to heaven does climb. 10

Gods, that never change their state,

Vary oft their love and hate.

Phyllis ! to this truth we owe
All the love betwixt us two.
Let not you and I inquire 1 5

What has been our past desire ;
On what shepherds you have smiled,
Or what nymphs I have beguiled ;
Leave it to the planets too,
What we shall hereafter do ; 20

For the joys we now may prove,
Take advice of present love.

EDMUND WALLER. 85

A LA MALADE.

AH, lovely Amoret ! the care

Of all that know what's good or fair !

Is heaven become our rival too ?

Had the rich gifts, conferred on you

So amply thence, the common end 5

Of giving lovers — to pretend ?

Hence, to this pining sickness (meant
To weary thee to a consent
Of leaving us) no power is given
Thy beauties to impair ; for heaven 10

Solicits thee with such a care,
As roses from their stalks we tear,
When we would still preserve them new
And fresh, as on the bush they grew.

With such a grace you entertain, 15

And look with such contempt on pain,
That languishing you conquer more,
And wound us deeper than before.
So1 lightnings which in storms appear,
Scorch more than when the skies are clear. 20

i.— 1643, The.

86 POEMS OF

And as pale sickness does invade
Your frailer part, the breaches made
In that fair lodging, still more clear
Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.
So nymphs o'er pathless mountains borne, 25
Their light robes by the brambles torn
From their fair limbs, exposing new
And unknown beauties to the view
Of following gods, increase their flame,
And haste to catch the flying game. 30

EDMUND WALLER. 87

OF LOVE.

ANGER, in hasty words or blows,

Itself discharges on our foes ;

And sorrow, too, finds some relief

In tears, which wait upon our grief ;

So every passion, but fond love, 5

Unto its own redress does move ;

But that alone the wretch inclines

To what prevents his own designs ;

Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,

Disordered, tremble, fawn, and creep ; 10

Postures which render him despised,

Where he endeavours to be prized.

For women (born to be controlled)

Stoop to the forward and the bold ;

Affect the haughty and the proud, 15

The gay, the frolic, and the loud.

Who first the generous steed oppressed,

Not kneeling did salute the beast ;

But with high courage, life, and force,

Approaching, tamed the unruly horse. 20

Unwisely we the wiser East
Pity, supposing them oppressed
With tyrants' force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill :
Each nymph, but moderately fair, 25

Commands with no less rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among

88 POEMS OF

His twenty lasses, bright and young,

And beckons to the willing dame,

Preferred to quench his present flame, 30

Behold as many gallants here,

With modest guise and silent fear,

All to one female idol bend,

While her high pride does scarce descend

To mark their follies, he would swear 35

That these her guard of eunuchs were,

And that a more majestic queen,

Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.

All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke 40

Of mighty Love ; that conquering look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.

So the tall stag, upon the brink 45

Of some smooth stream about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame remembers that he fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combat next ; but if their cry 50

Invades again his trembling ear,
He straight resumes his wonted care,1
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, winged with fear, outflies the wind.

i. — i6.,s, fear.

EDMUND WALLER. 89

FOR DRINKING OF HEALTHS.

AND is antiquity of no more force !

Whoe'er opposed that ancient friendly course,

And free expression of our absent love,

Against the custom of all nations strove

And lost his labour, it does still prevail, 5

And shall, while there is friendship, wine, or ale.

Let brutes and vegetals, that cannot think,

So far as drought and nature urges, drink ;

A more indulgent mistress guides our sprites,

Reason, that dares beyond our appetites, 10

(She would our care, as well as thirst, redress)

And with divinity rewards excess.

Deserted Ariadne, thus supplied,

Did perjured Theseus' cruelty deride ;

Bacchus embraced, from her exalted thought 15

Banished the man, her passion, and his fault.

Bacchus and Phoebus are by Jove allied,

And each by other's timely heat supplied ;

All that the grapes owe to his ripening fires

Is paid in numbers which their juice inspires. 20

Wine fills the veins, and healths are understood

To give our friends a title to our blood ;

Who, naming me, doth warm his courage so,

Shows for my sake what his bold hand would do.

'Twere slender kindness that would not dispense 25

With health itself, to breed a confidence

Of true love in a friend, and he that quits

go POEMS OF

Each custom which the rude plebeian gets,

For his reserv'dness will too dearly pay,

Employ the night and loose the cheerful day : 30

The burnished face oft decked with hoary hairs

Shows drinking brings no death, but to our cares.

Who with a full red countenance ends his days,

He sets like Phoebus and discerns his bays.

OF MY LADY ISABELLA,

PLAYING ON THE LUTE.

SUCH moving sounds from such a careless touch !

So unconcerned herself, and we so much !

What art is this, that with so little pains

Transports us thus, and o'er our1 spirit reigns ?

The trembling strings about her fingers crowd, 5

And tell their joy for every kiss aloud.

Small force there needs to make them tremble so ;

Touched by that hand, who would not tremble too ?

Here love takes stand, and while she charms the ear,

Empties his quiver on the listening deer. 10

Music so softens and disarms the mind,

That not an arrow does resistance find.

Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize,

And acts herself the triumph of her eyes :

So Nero once, with harp in hand, surveyed 15

His flaming Rome, and as it burned he played

i. — 1645, the

EDMUND WALLER, 91

OF MRS. ARDEN.

BEHOLD, and listen, while the fair
Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air,
And with her own breath fans the fire
Which her bright eyes do first inspire.
What reason can that love control,
Which more than one way courts the soul ?

So when a flash of lightning falls
On our abodes, the danger calls
For human aid, which hopes the flame
To conquer, though from heaven it came ;
But if the winds with that conspire,
Men strive not, but deplore the fire.

92 POEMS OF

OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS.

DESIGN,1 or chance, makes others wive ;

But Nature did this match contrive ;

Eve might as well have Adam fled,

As she denied her little bed

To him, for whom Heaven seemed to frame, 5

And measure out, this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care !
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy ; 10

Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains, topped with snow ;
And every man a Polypheme 15

Does to his Galatea seem ;
None may presume her faith to prove ;
He proffers death that proffers love.

Ah, Chloris, that kind Nature thus
From all the world had severed us ; 20

Creating for ourselves us two,
As love has me for only you !

i.— 1645, Thesigne.

EDMUND WALLER. 93

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

TREADING the path to nobler ends,
A long farewell to love I gave,
Resolved my country, and my friends,
All that remained of me should have.

And this resolve no mortal dame, 5

None but those eyes could have o'erthrown,
The nymph I dare not, need not name,
So high, so like herself alone.

Thus the tall oak, which now aspires

Above the fear of private fires, 10

Grown and designed for nobler use,

Not to make warm, but build the house,

Though from our meaner flames secure,

Must that which falls from heaven endure.

94 POEMS OF

FROM A CHILD.

MADAM, as in some climes the warmer sun

Makes it full summer ere the spring's begun,

And with ripe fruit the bending boughs can load,

Before our violets dare look abroad ;

So measure not by any common use 5

The early love your brighter eyes produce. .

When lately your fair hand in woman's weed

Wrapped my glad head, I wished me so indeed,

That hasty time might never make me grow

Out of those favours you afford me now ; 10

That I might ever such indulgence find,

And you not blush, or think yourself too kind ;

Who now, I fear, while I these joys express,

Begin to think how you may make them less.

The sound of love makes your soft heart afraid, 15

And guard itself, though but a child invade,

And innocently at your white breast throw

A dart as white, a ball of new fall'n sndw.

EDMUND WALLER. 95

ON A GIRDLE.

THAT which her slender waist confined,
Shall now my joyful temples bind ;
No monarch but would give^his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

It was1 my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that2 lovely deer.
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did3 all within this circle move !

A narrow compass ! and yet there
Dwelt4 all that's good, and all that's fair ;
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.8

i.— 1645, is. 2.— 1645, the.

3.— 1645, Do. 4.— 1645, Dwells.

5.— 1645, Give me but -what this Ribbon ty'd,
Take all tJie sun goes round beside.

96 POEMS OF

THE FALL.

SEE ! how the willing earth gave way,

To take the impression where she lay.

See ! how the mould, as loth to leave

So sweet a burden, still doth cleave

Close to the nymph's stained garment. Here 5

The coming spring would first appear,

And all this place with roses strow,

If busy feet would let them grow.

Here Venus smiled to see blind chance

Itself before her son advance, 10

And a fair image to present,

Of what the boy so long had meant.

'Twas such a chance as this, made all

The world into this order fall ;

Thus the first lovers on the clay, 15

Of which they were composed, lay ;

So in their prime, with equal grace,

Met the first patterns of our race.

Then blush not, fair ! or on him frown,

Or wonder how you both came down ; 20

But touch him, and he'll tremble straight,

How could he then support your weight ?

How could the youth, alas ! but bend,

When his whole heaven upon him leaned ?

If aught by him amiss were done, 25

'Twas that he let you rise so soon.

EDMUND WALLER. 97

OF SYLVIA.

OUR sighs are heard ; just Heaven declares

The sense it has of lover's cares ;

She that so far the rest outshined,

Sylvia the fair, while she was kind,

As if her frowns impaired her brow, 5

Seems only not unhandsome now.

So when the sky makes us endure

A storm, itself becomes obscure.

Hence 'tis that I conceal my flame,

Hiding from Flavia's self her name, 10

Lest she, provoking Heaven, should prove

How it rewards neglected love.

Better a thousand such as I,

Their grief untold, should pine and die.

Than her bright morning, overcast 15

With sullen clouds, should be defaced.

POEMS OF

THE BUD.

LATELY on yonder swelling bush,

Big with many a coming rose,

This early bud began to blush,

And did but half itself disclose ;

I plucked it, though no better grown, 5

And now you see how full 'tis blown.

Still as I did the leaves inspire,

With such a purple light they shone,

As if they had been made of fire,

And spreading so, would flame anon. 10

All that was meant by air or sun,

To the young flower, my breath has done.

If our loose breath so much can do,

What may the same in forms1 of love,

Of purest love, and music too, 15

When Flavia it aspires to move ?

When that, which lifeless buds persuades

To wax more soft, her youth invades ?

i.— This is the reading of the edition of 1645, and I have
preferred to retain it, although the other editions have
inform's, and in that of 1682 inform 'd in the text is corrected to
informs in the Errata.

EDMUND WALLER. 99

ON THE DISCOVERY OF A LADY'S
PAINTING.

PYGMALION'S fate reversed is mine ;

His marble love took flesh and blood ;

All that I worshipped as divine,

That beauty ! now 'tis understood,

Appears to have no more of life 5

Than that whereof he framed his wife.

As women yet, who apprehend

Some sudden cause of causeless fear,

Although that seeming cause take end,

And they behold no danger near, IO

A shaking through their limbs they find,

Lake leaves saluted by the wind :

So though the beauty do appear

No beauty, which amazed me so ;

Yet from my breast I cannot tear 15

The passion which from thence did grow ;

Nor yet out of my fancy raze

The print of that supposed face.

A real beauty, though too near,

The fond Narcissus did admire ! 20

I dote on that which is nowhere ;

The sign of beauty feeds my fire.

No mortal flame was e'er so cruel

As this, which thus survives the fuel !

ioo POEMS OF

OF LOVING AT FIRST SIGHT.

NOT caring to observe the wind,
Or the new sea explore,
Snatched from myself, how far behind
Already I behold the shore !

May not a thousand dangers sleep 5

In the smooth bosom of this deep ?

No ; 'tis so rockless and so clear,

That the rich bottom does appear,

Paved all with precious things, not torn

From shipwrecked vessels, but there born. 10

Sweetness, truth, and every grace
Which time and use are wont to teach,
The eye may in a moment reach,
And read distinctly in her face.

Some other nymphs, with colours faint, 15

And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,

And a weak heart in time destroy ;

She has a stamp, and prints the boy ;

Can, with a single look, inflame

The coldest breast, the rudest tame. 20

EDMUND WALLER. 101

THE SELF-BANISHED.

IT is not that I love you less,
Than when before your feet I lay
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain, alas ! for everything 5

Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring, from the new sun,
Already has a fever got, 10

Too late begins those shafts to shun,
Which Phrebus through his veins has shot ;

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire ;

About with him he bears the rage, 15

And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vowed I have, and never must

Your banished servant trouble you ;

For if I break, you may mistrust

The vow I made — to love you too. 20

102 POEMS OF

TO A FRIEND,

OF THE DIFFERENT SUCCESS OF THEIR LOVES.1

THRICE happy pair ! of whom we cannot know

Which first began to love, or loves most now ;

Fair course of passion ! where two lovers start,

And run together, heart still yoked with heart ;

Successful youth ! whom love has taught the way 5

To be victorious in the first essay.

Sure love's an art best practised at first,

And where the experienced still prosper worst !

I, with a different fate, pursued in vain

The haughty Celia, till my just disdain IO

Of her neglect, above that passion borne,

Did pride to pride oppose, and scorn to scorn.

Now she relents ; but all too late to move

A heart directed lo a nobler love.

The scales are turned, her kindness weighs no more

Now than my vows and service did before. [15

So in some well-wrought hangings you may see

How Hector leads, and how the Grecians flee ;

Here, the fierce Mars his courage so inspires,

That with bold hands the Argive fleet he fires ; 20

But there, from heaven the blue-eyed virgin falls,

And frighted Troy retires within her walls ;

They that are foremost in that bloody race,

Turn head anon, and give the conquerors chase.

i. — 1645, To A. H., of the different success of their Loves.

EDMUND WALLER. 103

So like the chances are of love and war, 25

That they alone in this distinguished are,
In love the victors from the vanquished fly ;
They fly that wound, and they pursue that die.

TO ZELINDA.

FAIREST piece of well-formed earth !

Urge not thus your haughty birth ;

The power which you have o'er us lies

Not in your race, but in your eyes.

" None but a prince !" — Alas ! that voice 5

Confines you to a narrow choice.

Should you no honey vow to taste,

But what the master-bees have placed

In compass of their cells, how small

A portion to your share would fall ! 10

Nor all appear, among those few,

Worthy the stock from whence they grew.

The sap which at the root is bred

In trees, through all the boughs is spread ;

But virtues which in parents shine, 15

Make not like progress through the line.

'Tis not from whom, but where, we live ;

The place does oft those graces give.

104 POEMS OF

Great Julius, on the mountains bred,

A flock perhaps, or herd, had led. 20

He that the world subdued had been

But the best wrestler on the green.

'Tis art and knowledge which draw forth

The hidden seeds of native worth ;

They blow those sparks, and make them rise 25

Into such flames as touch the skies.

To the old heroes hence was given

A pedigree which reached to heaven ;

Of mortal seed they were not held,

Which other mortals so excelled. 30

And beauty, too, in such excess

As yours, Zelinda ! claims no less.

Smile but on me, and you shall scorn,

Henceforth, to be of princes born.

I can describe the shady grove 35

Where your loved mother slept with Jove ;

And yet excuse the faultless dame,

Caught with her spouse^s shape and name.

Thy matchless form will credit bring

To all the wonders I shall sing. 40

EDMUND WALLER. 105

TO A LADY

SINGING A SONG OF HIS COMPOSING.

CHLORIS ! yourself you so excel,

When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought,

That, like a spirit, with this spell

Of my own teaching, I am caught.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Had Echo, with so sweet a grace,
Narcissus' loud complaints returned,
Not for reflection of his face,
But of his voice, the boy had burned.1

i. — 1645, 'noumed.

106 POEMS OF

TO THE MUTABLE FAIR.

HERE, Celia ! for thy sake I part

With all that grew so near my heart ;

The passion that I had for thee,

The faith, the love, the constancy '.

And, that I may successful prove, 5

Transform myself to what you love.

Fool that I was ! so much to prize
Those simple virtues you despise ;
Fool ! that with such dull arrows strove,
Or hoped to reach a flying dove ; IO

For you, that are in motion still,
Decline our force, and mock our skill ;
Who, like Don Quixote, do advance
Against a windmill our vain lance.

Now will I wander through the air, 15

Mount, make a stoop at every fair ;
And, with a fancy unconfined,
(As lawless as the sea or wind)
Pursue you wheresoe'er you fly,
And with your various thoughts comply. 20

The formal stars do travel so,
As we their names and courses know ;

EDMUND WALLER. 107

And he that on their changes looks,

Would think them governed by our books ;

But never were the clouds reduced 25

To any art ; the motions l used

By hose free vapours are so light,

So frequent, that the conquered sight

Despairs to find the rules that guide

Those gilded shadows as they slide ; 30

And therefore of the spacious air

Jove's royal consort had the care ;

And by that power did once escape,

Declining bold Ixion's rape ;

She, with her own resemblance, graced 35

A shining cloud, which he embraced.

Such was that image, so it smiled
With seeming kindness, which beguiled
Your Thyrsis lately, when he thought
He had his fleeting Celia caught. 40

'Twas shaped like her, but, for the fair,
He filled his arms with yielding air.

A fate for which he grieves the less,
Because the gods had like success ;
For in their story, one, we see, 45

Pursues a nymph, and takes a tree;
A second, with a lover's haste,
Soon overtakes whom he had chased,

I.— In all the editions motion, but I have ventured to alter it
in accordance with Mr. Waller's MS.

io8 POEMS OF

But she that did a virgin seem,

Possessed, appears a wandering stream ; 50

For his supposed love, a third

Lays greedy hold upon a bird,

And stands amazed to find his dear

A wild inhabitant of the air.

To these old tales such nymphs as you 55

Give credit, and still make them new ;
The amorous now like wonders find
In the swift changes of your mind.

But, Celia, if you apprehend
The muse of your incensed friend, 60

Nor would that he record your blame,
And make it live, repeat the same ;
Again deceive him, and again,
And then he swears he'll not complain ;
For still to be deluded so, 65

Is all the pleasure lovers know ;
Who, like good falconers, take delight,
Not in the quarry, but the flight.

EDMUND WALLER. 109

TO A LADY,

FROM WHOM HE RECEIVED A SILVER PEN.

MADAM ! intending to have tried

The silver favour which you gave,

In ink the shining point I dyed,

And drenched it in the sable wave ;

When, grieved to be so foully stained, 5

On you it thus to me complained :

" Suppose you had deserved to take

From her fair hand so fair a boon,

Yet how deserved I to make

So ill a change, who ever won 10

Immortal praise for what I wrote,1

Instructed by her noble thought ?

" I, that expressed her commands

To mighty lords, and princely dames,

Always most welcome to their hands, 15

Proud that I would record their names,

Must now be taught an humble style,

Some meaner beauty to beguile !"

So I, the wronged pen to please,

Make it my humble thanks express, 20

Unto your ladyship, in these :

And now 'tis forced to confess

That your great self did ne'er indite,

Nor that, to one more noble, write.

i. — 1645,

1 10 POEMS OF

ON THE HEAD OF A STAG.

So we some antique hero's strength

Learn by his lance's weight and length ;

As these vast beams express the beast,

Whose shady brows alive they dressed.

Such game, while yet the world was new, 5

The mighty Nimrod did pursue.

What huntsman of our feeble race,

Or dogs, dare such a monster chase,

Resembling, with each blow he strikes,

The charge of a whole troop of pikes ? 10

O fertile head ! which every year

Could such a crop of wonder bear !

The teeming earth did never bring

So soon, so hard, so huge a thing ;

Which might it never have been cast, 15

(Each year's growth added to the last)

These lofty branches had supplied

The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride ;

Heaven with these engines had been scaled,

When mountains heaped on mountains failed.1 20

i.— In a MS. in the British Museum (from Bliss's sale) :
With Ladders Jove's high seat to scale,
When Hills on Hills could not J>revaile.

EDMUND WALLER. in

THE MISER'S SPEECH.

IN A MASQUE.

BALLS of this metal slacked Atlanta's pace,

And on the amorous youth 1 bestowed the race ;

Venus, (the nymph's mind measuring by her own)

Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown

Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise 5

The adventurous lover how to gain the prize.

Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe ;

For, when he turned himself into a bribe,

Who can blame Danae, or the brazen tower,

That they withstood not that2 almighty shower ? 10

Never till then did love make Jove put on

A form more bright, and nobler3 than his own ;

Nor were it just, would he resume that shape,

That slack devotion should his thunder 'scape.

'Twas not revenge for grieved Apollo's wrong, 15

Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung,

But fond repentance of his happy wish,

Because his meat grew metal like his dish.

Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold

Unto my wish, and die creating gold. 20

H2 POEMS OF

TO CHLORIS.

CHLORIS ! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kind.
So the fair tree, which still preserves
Her fruit and state while no wind blows,
In storms from that uprightness swerves,
And the glad earth about her strows
With treasure, from her yielding boughs.

EDMUND WALLER. 113

TO A LADY IN A GARDEN.1

SEES not my love how time resumes
The glory which he lent these flowers ?
Though none should taste of their2 perfumes,
Yet must they live but some few hours ;
Time what we forbear devours ! 5

Had Helen, or the Egyptian Queen,

Been ne'er so thrifty of their graces,

Those beauties must at length have been

The spoil of age, which finds out faces

In the most retired places. 10

Should some malignant planet bring

A barren drought, or ceaseless shower,

Upon the autumn or the spring,

And spare us neither fruit nor flower ;

Winter would not stay an hour. 15

Could the resolve of love's neglect

Preserve you3 from the violation

Of coming years, then more respect

Were due to so divine a fashion,

Nor would I indulge my passion. 20

i.— 1645, To a Lady in retirement.
2. — 16451 these sweet.
3.— 1645, thee.
VOL. I. I

Ii4 POEMS OF

CHLORIS AND HYLAS.

MADE TO A SARABAND.1
CHLORIS.

HYLAS, oh Hylas ! why sit we mute,
Now that each bird saluteth2 the spring
Wind up the slack'ned3 strings of thy lute,
Never canst thou want matter to sing ;
For love thy breast does fill with such a fire,
That whatsoe'er is fair moves thy desire.

Sweetest ! you know, the sweetest of things
Of various flowers the bees do compose ;
Yet no particular taste it brings
Of violet, woodbine, pink, or rose ;
So love the result4 is of all the graces
Which flow from a thousand several faces.

i.— 1645, headed simply Chloris and Hilas.

s. — 1682, salutes.

3-— Thus 1645 ; 1686, slackned.

4.— 1645, 1664, 1668, resultance.

EDMUND WALLER. ii<

» •*

CHLORIS.

Hylas ! the birds which chant in this grove,

Could we but know the language they use,

They would instruct us better in love, 15

And reprehend thy inconstant Muse ;

For love their breasts does fill with such a fire,

That what they once do choose, bounds their desire.

HYLAS.

Chloris ! this change the birds do approve,

Which the warm season hither does bring ; 20

Time from yourself does further remove

You, than the winter from the gay spring ;

She that like lightning shined while her face lasted,

The oak now resembles which lightning hath blasted.

ii6 POEMS OF

IN ANSWER OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING'S
VERSES.

Stay here, fond youth ! and ask no more ; be wise ;
Knowing too much, long since lost Paradise.

PRO.

And, by your knowledge, we should be bereft
Of all that paradise which yet is left.

CON.

The virtuous joys thou hast, thou wouldst should still
Last in their pride ; and wouldst not take it ill [5
If rudely from sweet dreams, and for a toy,
Thou wert awaked y1 he wakes himself that does enjoy.

PRO.

How can the joy, or hope, which you allow
Be styled virtuous, and the end not so ? 10

Talk in your sleep, and shadows still admire !
'Tis true, he wakes that feels this real fire ;
But to sleep batter ; for whoe'er drinks deep
Of this Nepenthe, rocks himself asleep.

i.— 1686, Thou awaked. Suckling's " Fragmenta Aurea,"
1646, Tito' wert waKi.

EDMUND WALLER. 117

CON.

Fruition adds no new wealth, but destroys, 15

And while it pleaseth much, yet still it cloys.^

Who thinks he should" be happier made for that,
As reasonably might hope he might grow fat
By eating to a surfeit ; this once passed,

What relishes ? even kisses lose their taste. 20

PRO.

Blessings may be repeated while they cloy ;
But shall we starve, 'cause surfeitings destroy ?
And if fruition did the taste impair
Of kisses, why should yonder happy pair,
Whose3 joys just Hymen warrants all the night, 25
Consume the day, too, in this less delight ?

CON.

Urge not 'tis necessary ; alas ! we know

The homeliest thing that* mankind does is so.

The world is of a large5 extent we see,

And must be peopled ; children there must be : — 30

So must bread too ; but since there are enough

Born to that6 drudgery, what need we plough ?

i. — "Frag. Aur.," And while it pleaseth much the palate,
cloyes.

2.— 1645, shall. "Frag. Aur.," Who thinks he shall be
happier for that.

3.— 1645, Where. 4.— "Frag. Aur.," which.

5.—" Frag. Aur.," vast. 6.—" Frag. Aur.," the.

u8 POEMS OF

PRO.

I need not plough, since what the stooping hind x

Gets of my pregnant land, must all be mine ;

But in this nobler tillage 'tis not so ; 35

For when Anchises did fair Venus know,

What interest had poor Vulcan in the boy,

Famous ^Eneas, or the present joy ?

CON.

Women enjoyed, -whatever before 2 they've been,
Are like romances read, or scenes once seen ; 40

Fruition dulls or 3 spoils the play much more
Than if one read, or knew, the plot before.

PRO.

Plays and romances read and seen, do fall

In our opinions ; yet not seen at all,

Whom would they please ? To an heroic tale 45

Would you not listen, lest it should grow stale ?

CON.

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear ;

Heaven were not heaven if we knew what it were.

i. — 1645, hint.

2.— The reading of " Frag. Aur." All the editions of Waller
have what e'retofore.
3.—" Frag. Aur.," Fruition's dull and spoils, &c.

EDMUND WALLER. 119

PRO.

If 'twere not heaven if we knew what it were,
'Twould not be heaven to those1 that now are there.

[SO

CON.

A s 2 in prospects -we are there pleased most,
WJiere something keeps the eye from being lost,
And leaves us room to guess ; so here, restraint
Holds up delight, that -with excess -would faint.

PRO.

Restraint preserves the pleasure we have got, 55

But he ne'er has it that enjoys it not.

In goodly prospects, who contracts the space,

Or takes not all the bounty of the place ?

We wish removed what standeth in our light,

And nature blame for limiting our sight ; 60

Where you stand wisely winking, that the view

Of the fair prospect may be always new.

CON.

They, wJio know all the wealth they have, are poor;
Hes only rich that cannot tell his store.

PRO.

Not he that knows the wealth he has is poor, 65

But he that dares not touch, nor use, his store.

i. — 1645. tJtem. 2. — " Frag. Aur. " And as in, &c.

120 POEMS OF

AN APOLOGY FOR HAVING LOVED
BEFORE.

THEY that never had the use

Of the grape's surprising juice,

To the first delicious cup

All their reason render up ;

Neither do, nor care to know, 5

Whether it be best1 or no.

So they that are to love inclined

Swayed by chance, not choice, or art,

To the first that's fair, or kind,

Make a present of their heart ; IO

'Tis not she that first we love,

But whom dying we approve.

To man, that was in the evening made,

Stars gave the first delight,

Admiring, in the gloomy shade, 15

Those little drops of light ;

Then at Aurora, whose fair hand

Removed them from the skies,

He gazing toward the east did stand,

She entertained his eyes. 20

i. — 1645, the test.

EDMUND WALLER. 121

But when the bright sun did appear,

All those he 'gan1 despise ;

His wonder was determined there,

And'2 could no higher rise ;

He neither might, nor wished to know 25

A more refulgent light ;

For that (as mine your beauties now)

Employed his utmost sight

ON A BREDE OF DIVERS COLOURS,

WOVEN BY FOUR LADIES.

TWICE twenty slender virgin-fingers twine
This curious web, where all their fancies shine.
As Nature them, so they this shade have wrought,
Soft as their hands, and various as their thought.
Not Juno's bird, when his fair train dispread,
He woos the female to his painted bed ;
No, not the bow, which so adorns the skies,
So glorious is, or boasts so many dyes.

i.— 1686, can. 2.— 1645, Hee.

122 POEMS OF

TO CHLORIS.

CHLORIS ! what's eminent, we know
Must for some cause be valued so ;
Things without use, though they be good,
Are not by us so understood.
The early rose, made to display
Her blushes to the youthful May,
Doth yield her sweets, since he is fair,
And courts her with a gentle air.
Our stars do show their excellence
Not by their light, but influence ;
When brighter comets, since still known
Fatal to all, are liked by none.
So your admired beauty still
Is, by effects, made good or ill.

EDMUND WALLER. 123

SONG.

STAY, Phoebus I stay ;

The world to which you fly so fast,

Conveying day

From us to them, can pay your haste

With no such object, nor salute your rise, 5

With no such wonder as De Mornay's eyes.

Well does this prove

The error of those antique books,

Which made you move

About the world ; her charming looks IO

Would fix your beams, and make it ever day,

Did not the rolling earth snatch her away.

I24 POEMS OF

SONG.1

PEACE, babbling Muse !

I dare not sing what you indite ;

Her eyes refuse

To read the passion which they write.

She strikes my lute, but, if it sound, 5

Threatens to hurl it on the ground ;

And I no less her anger dread,

Than the poor wretch that feigns him dead,

While some fierce lion does embrace

His breathless corpse, and licks his face ro

Wrapped up in silent fear he lies,

Torn all in pieces if he cries.

i.— In Mr. Waller's MS. this piece is headed, Banist if he
made Lout.

EDMUND WALLER. 125

TO FLAVIA.

A SONG.

'Tis not your beauty can engage

My wary heart ;

The sun, in all his pride and rage,

Has not that art ;

And yet he shines as bright as you, 5

If brightness could our souls subdue.

'Tis not the pretty things you say,

Nor those you write,

Which can make Thyrsis' heart your prey ;

For that delight, IO

The graces of a well- taught mind,

In some of our own sex we find.

No, Flavia ! 'tis your love I fear ;

Love's surest darts,

Those which so seldom fail him, are 15

Headed with hearts ;

Their very shadows make 1 us yield ;

Dissemble well, and win the field.

i. — 1645, shadow makes.

126 POEMS OF

A SONG.

BEHOLD the brand of beauty tossed !

See how the motion does dilate the flame !

Delighted love his spoils does boast,

And triumph in this game.

Fire, to no place confined, $

Is both our wonder and our fear ;

Moving the mind,

As * lightning hurled through the air.

High heaven the glory does increase

Of all her shining lamps, this artful way ; 10

The sun in figures, such as these,

Joys with the moon to play ;

To the 2 sweet strains they advance,

Which do result from their own spheres,

As this nymph's dance i$

Moves with the numbers which she hears.

4

i. — 1645, Like. 2. — 1645, these.

EDMUND WALLER. 127

WHILE I LISTEN TO THY VOICE.

WHILE I listen to thy voice,

Chloris ! I feel my life decay ;

That powerful noise

Calls my flitting J soul away.

Oh ! suppress that magic sound, 5

Which destroys without a wound.

Peace, Chloris ! peace ! or singing die,

That together you and I

To heaven may go ;

For all we know IO

Of what the blessed do above,

Is, that they sing, and that they love.

i. — 1645, fleeting.

128 POEMS OF EDMUND WALLER.

GO, LOVELY ROSE!

Go, lovely Rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be. 5

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts, where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died. 10

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired ;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired. 15

Then die 1 that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee ;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair ! 20

END OF VOL. I.

University of California Library
Los Angeles

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

enewa

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

A 000 742 869 1