Anthologizing an anthology
I recently finished the first volume of a battered four-volume set of Victorian poetry anthologies I bought years ago for a couple bucks: Ward's Poets. Interestingly, it was no coincidence that the great literary critic Matthew Arnold wrote its introduction: turns out he was Thomas Humphrey Ward's "uncle-in-law". And Ward's wife, Mary Ward, also contributed essays and selections and turns out to have been an even more famous writer than her husband, as well as the head of a women's anti-suffrage movement. The surprises keep coming: this family includes other famous people, including Aldous Huxley.
But I digress. Below are the poems I liked best. I've included links on the web to six of them, if you have the time and inclination to read them; the other three I reproduced here, because they seemed a bit harder to find and/or were short enough to include.
John Lydgate: "London Lickpenny"
Sir Philip Sidney: "Astrophel and Stella", Sonnet #1
Sir Edward Dyer: "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
Southwell: "Loss in Delay"
Sir Walter Raleigh: "The Lie"
John Donne: "The Will"
Henry Constable: Sonnet Prefixed to Sidney's Apology for Poetry, 1595
[An elegy for Sir Philip Sidney]
Give pardon, blessed soul! to my bold cries,
If they, importune, interrupt thy song,
Which now with joyful notes thou sing'st among
The angel-quiristers of th' heavenly skies.
Give pardon eke, sweet soul! to my slow cries,
That since I saw thee now it is so long;
And yet the tears that unto thee belong,
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice;
I did not know that thou wert dead before,
I did not feel the grief I did sustain;
The greater stroke astonisheth the more,
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain:
I stood amaz'd when others' tears begun
And now begin to weep when they have done.
William Shakespeare: A Morning Song for Imogen (from Cymbeline)
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, aris:
Arise, arise.
Sir David Lyndesay: From "The Monarchie"
[A Scottish Protestant makes a good point about the use of Latin by Catholics.]
Christ, efter his glorious Ascentioun,
Tyll his Disciplis send the Holy Spreit,
In toungis of fyre, to that intentioun,
Thay, beand of all languages repleit,
Throuch all the warld, with wordis fair and sweit,
Tyll every man the faith thay suld furth schaw
In thare owin leid [language], delyverand thame the Law.
Tharefore I thynk one gret dirisioun,
To heir thir Nunnis and Systeris nycht and day
Syngand and sayand Psalmes and Orisoun,
Nocht understandyng quhat thay syng nor say.
Bot lyke one Stirlyng or ane Papingay,
Quhilk leirnit ar to speik be lang usage:
Thame I compair to byrdis in ane cage.
Rycht so childreyng and ladyis of honouris
Prayis in Latyne, to thame ane uncuth [unknown] leid,
Mumland thair Matynis, Evinsang, and thair Houris,
Thare Pater Noster, Ave, and thare Creid.
It wer als plesand to thare spreit, in deid,
God have mercy on me, for to say thus,
As to say, Miserere mei Deus.
Sanct Jerome in his propir toung Romane
The Law of God he trewlie did translait,
Out of Hebrew and Greik, in Latyne plane,
Quhilk hes bene hid from us lang tyme, God wait,
Onto this tyme: bot, efter myne consait,
Had Sanct Jerome bene borne in tyll Argyle
In to Yrische toung his bukis had done compyle.
Prudent Sanct Paull doith mak narratioun
Twycheyng the divers leid of every land,
Sayand, there bene more edificatioun
In fyve wordis that folk doith understand,
Nor to pronounce of wordis ten thousand
In strange langage, sine wait not quhat it menis:
I thynk sic pattryng is not worth twa prenis [pins].
But I digress. Below are the poems I liked best. I've included links on the web to six of them, if you have the time and inclination to read them; the other three I reproduced here, because they seemed a bit harder to find and/or were short enough to include.
John Lydgate: "London Lickpenny"
Sir Philip Sidney: "Astrophel and Stella", Sonnet #1
Sir Edward Dyer: "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
Southwell: "Loss in Delay"
Sir Walter Raleigh: "The Lie"
John Donne: "The Will"
Henry Constable: Sonnet Prefixed to Sidney's Apology for Poetry, 1595
[An elegy for Sir Philip Sidney]
Give pardon, blessed soul! to my bold cries,
If they, importune, interrupt thy song,
Which now with joyful notes thou sing'st among
The angel-quiristers of th' heavenly skies.
Give pardon eke, sweet soul! to my slow cries,
That since I saw thee now it is so long;
And yet the tears that unto thee belong,
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice;
I did not know that thou wert dead before,
I did not feel the grief I did sustain;
The greater stroke astonisheth the more,
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain:
I stood amaz'd when others' tears begun
And now begin to weep when they have done.
William Shakespeare: A Morning Song for Imogen (from Cymbeline)
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, aris:
Arise, arise.
Sir David Lyndesay: From "The Monarchie"
[A Scottish Protestant makes a good point about the use of Latin by Catholics.]
Christ, efter his glorious Ascentioun,
Tyll his Disciplis send the Holy Spreit,
In toungis of fyre, to that intentioun,
Thay, beand of all languages repleit,
Throuch all the warld, with wordis fair and sweit,
Tyll every man the faith thay suld furth schaw
In thare owin leid [language], delyverand thame the Law.
Tharefore I thynk one gret dirisioun,
To heir thir Nunnis and Systeris nycht and day
Syngand and sayand Psalmes and Orisoun,
Nocht understandyng quhat thay syng nor say.
Bot lyke one Stirlyng or ane Papingay,
Quhilk leirnit ar to speik be lang usage:
Thame I compair to byrdis in ane cage.
Rycht so childreyng and ladyis of honouris
Prayis in Latyne, to thame ane uncuth [unknown] leid,
Mumland thair Matynis, Evinsang, and thair Houris,
Thare Pater Noster, Ave, and thare Creid.
It wer als plesand to thare spreit, in deid,
God have mercy on me, for to say thus,
As to say, Miserere mei Deus.
Sanct Jerome in his propir toung Romane
The Law of God he trewlie did translait,
Out of Hebrew and Greik, in Latyne plane,
Quhilk hes bene hid from us lang tyme, God wait,
Onto this tyme: bot, efter myne consait,
Had Sanct Jerome bene borne in tyll Argyle
In to Yrische toung his bukis had done compyle.
Prudent Sanct Paull doith mak narratioun
Twycheyng the divers leid of every land,
Sayand, there bene more edificatioun
In fyve wordis that folk doith understand,
Nor to pronounce of wordis ten thousand
In strange langage, sine wait not quhat it menis:
I thynk sic pattryng is not worth twa prenis [pins].