Chapter X: Introduction: To Henry King (1)

Among the numerous possible extensions of that practice of writing _Dialogues of the Dead_ which has been, at various times, rather unusually justified of its practitioners, not the least tempting would be one which should embody the expectations and the disappointment of the pious Bishop who held the see of Chichester in Fuller's Bad and Better Times--long afterwards, between 1843 and 1888. In the former year, as most students of English poetry know, the late Archdeacon Hannah, then a young Fellow of Lincoln College, published a most admirable edition of part of King's _Poems_; and announced that the rest must be left for a separate volume 'which will be published without delay'. He lived forty-five years longer, and 'the rest' was by no means an extensive one; but, whatever may have been the reason,[1] the second volume never appeared, while, to complete the misfortune, King's one famous thing, the beautiful

Tell me no more how fair she is--

is not in the first. Nor has any one since attempted to supply the deficiency,[2] though that benefactor of the lovers of Caroline poetry, Mr. J. R. Tutin, included a fifteen-page selection of King's poems, with Donne and Walton, in one of his 'Orinda Booklets' (Hull, 1904) some little time after the plan of this collection was announced, and when its first volume was passing through the press.

There must have been many readers who, like the present writer long enough ago, have felt a sensation of mingled amazement and chagrin on buying Dr. Hannah's book and _not_ finding 'Tell me no more' in it. For that poem, though in certain 'strange and high' qualities it is the inferior of the best jets of the Caroline genius, is one of the most faultless and perfect things in this or indeed in any period of English poetry, and may be said to impart the Caroline essence in a form that can be (in the medical sense) 'borne' by all who have any feeling for poetry at all, as hardly anything else does. It enlists, with unerring art, the peculiar virtue of the metre--that of expressing settled but not violent hopelessness--which Cowper afterwards utilized, more terribly but hardly more skilfully, in 'The Castaway'. It has the 'metaphysical' fancifulness of thought and diction, tempered to a reasonable but not an excessive degree 'below proof' and so fit for general consumption. No one who possesses literary 'curiosity'--in the good old sense, not the degenerate modern one--can be indifferent to seeing what else the author of this could do.

It may be frankly and at once admitted that he has nothing exactly to match it. The once even more famous--and still perhaps not much less famous--_Sic Vita_, is not certainly his; and, though a fine thing, is very distinctly open to the metaphysical reproach of _playing with_ its subject too much--of that almost wilfully mechanical and factory-like conceit-mongering which reaches its extreme in Cleveland. If it is King's, 'The Dirge' is a sort of extended handling of it--less epigrammatic but more poetical, and brought down again to that _via media_ of metaphysicality which is King's special path. He is, in fact, a sort of Longfellow of this particular style and school of poetry--from the other side; a sort of Donne _in usum vulgi_. 'The Exequy' and 'The Elegy', 'Silence' and 'Brave Flowers', are all in this middle way; and perhaps his treading of it may be a reason why he has been comparatively neglected--the great vulgar not being grateful for poetry which never can fully please it, and the small wanting something more concentrated and '_above_ proof'. But even if he had not lacked complete presentment so long, such a collection as this would be manifestly incomplete without him. It has not, however, been thought necessary to include his verse translations of the Psalms, which form a separate volume, not much more successful than most of the attempts at that impossible task. With the admirable English of the Authorized or the Prayer-Book Versions at choice, and the admirable Latin of the Vulgate to fall back upon, nobody can want stuff like

Earth is the Lord's with her increase,
And all that there have place:
He founded it upon the Seas,
And made the floods her base.[3]

Henry King's private and public history (for he had more to do with public affairs than can have been at all comfortable to himself) had no very obvious connexion with poetry, except in so far as circumstances fed what was clearly a special taste of his for elegiac writing. He was born in 1592 at Worminghall in Bucks., for some time the abode of a family which, whether its tracing to 'the ancient Kings [by function, not name merely] of Devonshire' was fiction or fact, was, and had been for generations, highly respectable. The Kings had recently addicted themselves very specially to education at Westminster and Christ Church (there are said to have been five of the same family on the books of the House at one time) and to the clerical profession. The poet-bishop was the eldest son of John King, Prebendary of St. Paul's and Chaplain to the Queen, himself a verse-writer, and after having been Dean of Christ Church, Bishop of London from 1611 to 1621. The son--if not without some nepotism yet with results which fully justified it--became himself Prebendary of St. Paul's (as did a brother, who was still younger, in the same year) when he was only four-and-twenty; and successively received the archdeaconry of Colchester (1617); a canonry at Christ Church (1624); and the deanery of Rochester (1639). He had then the good and evil luck to be one of the large batch of Bishops made or translated by Charles on the very eve of the Rebellion. He never sat in the House of Lords before its suppression; and he had taken possession of his see but a short time when he was rabbled out of his palace at Chichester and plundered of his property, contrary to the terms of surrender of the City, by Waller's soldiers. He was also ousted from the rich living of Petworth, usually held _in commendam_ with the (poor) bishopric of Chichester, by that particularly pestilent Puritan, Francis Cheynell. He seems to have passed great part of the Interregnum with the Salters of Richkings, near Langley in Bucks. (a house well famed for hospitality at different times and under different owners and names[4]), and at the Restoration he recovered his preferments, Edmund Calamy _tertius_ having the extraordinary impudence to state that Cheynell was 'put out to make room for King'. And he held them for nearly a decade longer, dying in 1669. He left children and also grandchildren, one of whom, Elizabeth, seems to have married Isaac Houblon, Pepys's 'handsome man'.

Despite King's persecutions by the Puritans he was accused of a leaning to Puritanism, as his father had been before him,[5] but seemingly without much foundation. He appears to have been a sound Churchman, and a very good man in every way, though with a slight tendency (not to be too harshly judged by those who have lived in quieter times) to 'grizzle', as it is familiarly called, over his tribulations. He was also what was termed at the time 'a painful preacher' and a popular one. Pepys, it is true, did not like him when he first heard him, and afterwards thought a sermon of his 'mean'. But between these two he describes a third as 'good and eloquent'; and Samuel's judgements on such matters, always unliterary, were also much conditioned by circumstances, and by the curious remnant of Puritan leaven which always remained in that very far from pure lump.

King's poems must, from various signs, have been much handed about in manuscript; but how they came to be collected and published in 1657 is quite unknown. They were at first attributed by some to his brother Philip; and a reprint, or perhaps merely the remainder with a fresh title-page, in 1700 actually attributed them to Ben Jonson, which was going far even in a period which had seen Kirkman and was to see Curll.[6] One or two pieces besides _Sic Vita_ are doubtful, and one or two more certainly not his; but on the whole the collection seems to be fairly trustworthy, from Dr. Hannah's comparison of it with MS. copies. And it rarely offers _cruces_ of interpretation.

As to the origin and general character of the pieces there is nothing surprising about it either. King belonged to a time when, fortunately, churchmanship, scholarship, and literature were almost inseparably connected; and by accident or preference he seems, all his life, to have been thrown or drawn into the society of men of letters. He was a friend if not a 'son' of Ben Jonson; he was an intimate of Donne's, and one of the recipients of the famous blood-stone seals; he was for more than forty years (as he has himself recorded in a letter to Walton) a friend of 'honest Isaac' [_sic_]. And if his middle days were politically unhappy, they, and still more his earlier, were poetically fortunate. How, and in what degree, he caught the wind as it blew has been partly indicated above: the text should show the rest.[7]

[Footnote 1: I have suggested below that some slight scruples
of pudibundity may have had their influence; but if they had
been serious the Archdeacon would hardly have promised this
rest.]

[Footnote 2: Until quite recently, and after this present
edition had been long printed, one appeared in America (Yale
University Press, 1914) by Lawrence Mason, Ph.D.]

[Footnote 3: I think this will justify the critic (whoever
he was) whose sentence--'quaint mediocrity and inappropriate
metre'--offended Hannah's editorial chivalry as 'very
unjust'. Indeed, I should make it stronger and say 'irritating
inadequacy alike in metre and phrase'.]

[Footnote 4: Especially that of Percy Lodge in the eighteenth
century, when it was the Dowager Duchess of Somerset's: see
Shenstone, Lady Luxborough, and Southey's _Doctor_, chaps. 107
and 108. Between the times it had belonged to Bathurst, and
was then also a home of men of letters.]

[Footnote 5: With the complementary and not unusual libel that
he died a Romanist.]

[Footnote 6: Between the two dates there had been a fresh
_issue_ in 1664, with four new elegies. But it has been
doubted whether even this was a new _edition_.]

[Footnote 7: The text of the following poems will be found, as
far as Hannah's edition goes, to differ not greatly from his;
but it has been collated with the originals in print and MS.
by myself and, more carefully still, by Mr. Percy Simpson. The
remaining poems (including the fourth or 'King Charles' Elegy
added in 1664, which Hannah did not give) are adapted in
the same way from direct photographic copies of the
originals--collated where necessary. The variants of _Sic
Vita_ which the Archdeacon collected are of such interest and
so characteristic of seventeenth-century poetry that it seemed
desirable to reproduce them.

It may perhaps be added that the 1657 text is very carefully
and well printed, requiring so little modernization
as practically to justify the standard adopted in this
collection. To modernize Chaucer or Chatterton has always
seemed to me, though from slightly different points of view, a
grievous error or worse. But to show how close, when scholarly
writing met careful printing, the result even before the
Restoration was to what it would have been to-day, I have
printed the opening poem exactly as it originally stood,
and have drawn attention in a note to the fewness of the
differences. Because other typographers, not deacons in their
craft, and confronted perhaps with copy as bad as, say,
mine, _plus_ the eccentric _ethelorthography_ of the period,
lavished italics and capitals and superfluous _e_'s, and
strappadoed the spelling, I cannot see why the eyes of a
present-day reader should be unnecessarily vexed.--Hannah's
edition, as far as it goes, can hardly be too well spoken
of by any one who does not think that, in order to magnify
himself, it is necessary to belittle his predecessors. One
cannot but regret that he did not (as he might most easily
have done, even in the single volume) complete his work. As it
is, I am deeply indebted to him. I have, however, restored
the order of the original, which he altered partly to get
chronological sequence in the Elegies, &c., and partly to
make subject-heads for his groups--a proceeding which to me is
rarely satisfactory. But I have borrowed his useful datings of
the individual pieces under their titles.]

Table of Contents.

Page
1. Sonnet. The Double Rock 169
2. The Vow-Breaker 169
3. Upon a Table-Book presented to a Lady 170
4. To the same Lady upon Mr. Burton's _Melancholy_ 170
5. The Farewell 170
6. A Blackmoor Maid wooing a fair Boy:
sent to the Author by Mr. Hen. Rainolds 171
7. The Boy's Answer to the Blackmoor 171
8. To a Friend upon Overbury's Wife given to her 172
9. Upon the same 172
10. To A. R. upon the same 172
11. An Epitaph on Niobe turned to Stone 172
12. Upon a Braid of Hair in a Heart sent by Mrs. E. H. 173
13. Sonnet. 'Tell me no more how fair she is' 173
14. Sonnet. 'Were thy heart soft as thou art fair' 174
15. Sonnet. 'Go, thou that vainly' 174
16. Sonnet. To Patience 174
17. Silence. A Sonnet 175
18. Love's Harvest 175
19. The Forlorn Hope 176
20. The Retreat 176
21. Sonnet. 'Tell me, you stars' 177
22. Sonnet. 'I prithee turn that face away' 177
23. Sonnet. 'Dry those fair', &c. 177
24. Sonnet. 'When I entreat', &c. 178
25. To a Lady who sent me a copy of verses at my going
to bed 178
26. [The Pink. Omitted: not King's.]
27. To his Friends of Christ Church, &c. 179
28. The Surrender 180
29. The Legacy 181
30. The Short Wooing 182
31. St. Valentine's Day 183
32. To his unconstant Friend 184
33. Madam Gabrina, Or the Ill-favour'd Choice 185
34. The Defence 187
35. To One demanding why Wine sparkles 188
36. By occasion of the Young Prince his happy Birth 188
37. Upon the King's happy return from Scotland 190
38. To the Queen at Oxford 192
39. A Salutation of His Majesty's ship the _Sovereign_ 193
40. An Epitaph on his most honoured friend, Richard,
Earl of Dorset 194
41. The Exequy 195
42. The Anniverse. An Elegy 198
43. On Two Children, &c. 198
44. A Letter 199
45. An Acknowledgement 201
46. The Acquittance 202
47. The Forfeiture 202
48. The Departure. An Elegy 203
49. Paradox. That it is best for a young Maid to marry
an Old Man 204
50. Paradox. That Fruition destroys Love 206
51. The Change 209
52. To my sister Anne King, &c. 210
53. An Elegy upon the immature loss of the most virtuous
Lady Anne Rich 210
54. An Elegy upon Mrs. Kirk, unfortunately drowned
in Thames 212
55. An Elegy upon the death of Mr. Edward Holt 213
56. To my dead friend Ben Jonson 214
57. An Elegy upon Prince Henry's death 216
58. An Elegy upon S. W. R. 217
59. An Elegy upon the Lord Bishop of London, John King 217
60. Upon the death of my ever desired friend,
Doctor Donne, Dean of Paul's 218
61. An Elegy upon the most victorious King of Sweden,
Gustavus Adolphus 220
62. To my noble and judicious friend Sir Henry Blount
upon his Voyage 223
63. To my honoured friend Mr. George Sandys 226
64. The Woes of Esay 230
65. An Essay on Death and a Prison 232
66. The Labyrinth 234
67. Being waked out of my sleep 235
68. Sic Vita 236
69. My Midnight Meditation 238
70. A Penitential Hymn 238
71. An Elegy occasioned by Sickness 239
72. The Dirge 241
73. An Elegy occasioned by the loss of the most
incomparable Lady Stanhope, &c. 242

POEMS NOT INCLUDED IN THE EDITION OF 1657 BUT IN THAT OF 1664:

74. An Elegy upon my best friend, L. K. C. 244
75. On the Earl of Essex 245
76. An Elegy on Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle 246
77. An Elegy upon the most incomparable King
Charles the First 255

POEMS IN MANUSCRIPT:

78. A Second Elegy on the Countess of Leinster 267
79. Epigram. From Petronius Arbiter, c. 14 267
80. Epigram. From Martial, i. 14 268
81. Epigram. From Petronius Arbiter, c. 83 268
82. Epigram. From Petronius Arbiter 268
83. Epigram. _Pro captu_, &c. 268
84. Upon the Untimely Death of J. K., first born of H. K. 269
85. The Complaint 269
86. On his Shadow 270
87. Wishes to my Son, John 272
88. A Contemplation upon Flowers 273

The Publishers to the Author.

SIR,

It is the common fashion to make some address to the Readers, but we are bold to direct ours to you, who will look on this publication with anger, which others must welcome into the world with joy.

The Lord Verulam comparing ingenious authors to those who had orchards ill neighboured, advised them to publish their own labours, lest others might steal the fruit: Had you followed his example, or liked the advice, we had not thus trespassed against your consent, or been forced to an apology, which cannot but imply a fault committed. The best we can say for ourselves is, that if we have injured you, it is merely in your own defence, preventing the present attempts of others, who to their theft would (by their false copies of these Poems) have added violence, and some way have wounded your reputation.

Having been long engaged on better contemplations, you may, perhaps, look down on these _Juvenilia_ (most of them the issues of your youthful Muse) with some disdain; and yet the courteous reader may tell you with thanks, that they are not to be despised, being far from abortive, nor to be disowned, because they are both modest and legitimate. And thus if we have offered you a view of your younger face, our hope is you will behold it with an unwrinkled brow, though we have presented the mirror against your will.

We confess our design hath been set forward by friends that honour you, who, lest the ill publishing might disfigure these things from whence you never expected addition to your credit (sundry times endeavoured and by them defeated) furnished us with some papers which they thought authentic; we may not turn their favour into an accusation, and therefore give no intimation of their names, but wholly take the blame of this hasty and immethodical impression upon ourselves, being persons at a distance, who are fitter to bear it than those who are nearer related. In hope of your pardon we remain,

Your most devoted servants,

RICH. MARRIOT.

HEN. HERRINGMAN.

POEMS

Printed in 1657.

_Sonnet. The Double Rock._

Since thou hast view'd some Gorgon, and art grown
A solid stone:
To bring again to softness thy hard heart
Is past my art.
Ice may relent to water in a thaw;
But stone made flesh Loves Chymistry ne're saw.

Therefore by thinking on thy hardness, I
Will petrify;
And so within our double Quarryes Wombe,
Dig our Loves Tombe. 10
Thus strangely will our difference agree;
And, with our selves, amaze the world, to see
How both Revenge and Sympathy consent
To make two Rocks each others Monument.

[_The Double Rock._] In this very typical
metaphysicality of a good _second_ water (see note on
Introduction), it will be observed that there is nothing
archaic or irregular in the spelling except the usual
'ne'_re_' for 'ne'_er_', the insertion of the three
superfluous _e_'s in lines 9, 10, and at most two or three
gratuitous capitals with, if anybody pleases, the omission
of the apostrophe for the possessive in ll. 6, 9, 10, and
14. 'Chymistry' I should have kept, of course, even if I had
altered these others.]

_The Vow-Breaker._

When first the magic of thine eye,
Usurp'd upon my liberty,
Triumphing in my heart's spoil, thou
Didst lock up thine in such a vow;
_When I prove false, may the bright day_
_Be governed by the Moon's pale ray!_
(As I too well remember.) This
Thou said'st, and seal'dst it with a kiss.

O Heavens! and could so soon that tie
Relent in slack apostacy? 10
Could all thy oaths, and mortgag'd trust,
Vanish? like letters form'd in dust
Which the next wind scatters. Take heed,
Take heed, Revolter; know this deed
Hath wrong'd the world, which will fare worse
By thy example than thy curse.

Hide that false brow in mists. Thy shame
Ne'er see light more, but the dim flame
Of funeral lamps. Thus sit and moan,
And learn to keep thy guilt at home. 20
Give it no vent; for if again
Thy Love or Vows betray more men,
At length (I fear) thy perjur'd breath
Will blow out day, and waken Death.

[Line: 9 Orig. 'Ty', no doubt on the Spenserian principle of
eye-rhyme. This and some others of the shorter poems which
follow have been found by Mr. Thorn-Drury in miscellanies of
the period, not merely well-known ones like _Wits'
Recreations_ (1641), but more obscure collections such as
_Parnassus Biceps_, 1651, and _Wits' Interpreter_, 1655. The
usual variants occur; but they are seldom, if ever, _me
judice_ of interest. One or two I have borrowed with
acknowledgement.]

_Upon a Table-Book presented to a Lady._

When your fair hand receives this little book
You must not there for prose or verses look.
Those empty regions which within you see,
May by yourself planted and peopled be:
And though we scarce allow your sex to prove
Writers (unless the argument be Love);
Yet without crime or envy you have room
Here, both the scribe and author to become.

[_Upon a Table-Book, &c._] The title in one of
Hannah's MS. copies has '_Noble_ Lady'. The person addressed
does not seem to have been identified.]

_To the same Lady upon Mr. Burton's Melancholy._

If in this Glass of Humours you do find
The passions or diseases of your mind,
Here without pain, you safely may endure,
Though not to suffer, yet to read your cure.
But if you nothing meet you can apply,
Then, ere you need, you have a remedy.
And I do wish you never may have cause
To be adjudg'd by these fantastic laws;
But that this book's example may be known,
By others' Melancholy, not your own. 10

[Line: 6 _MS._ '_before_ you need'--perhaps better. The lady
to whom the _Anatomy_ was likely to be congenial must have
been worth knowing.]

_The Farewell._

_Splendidis longùm valedico nugis._

Farewell, fond Love, under whose childish whip,
I have serv'd out a weary prenti'ship;
Thou that hast made me thy scorn'd property,
To doat on rocks, but yielding loves to fly:
Go, bane of my dear quiet and content,
Now practise on some other patient.

Farewell, false Hope, that fann'd my warm desire
Till it had rais'd a wild unruly fire,
Which nor sighs cool, nor tears extinguish can,
Although my eyes out-flow'd the Ocean: 10
Forth of my thoughts for ever, Thing of Air,
Begun in error, finish'd in despair.

Farewell, vain World, upon whose restless stage
'Twixt Love and Hope I have fool'd out my age;
Henceforth, ere sue to thee for my redress,
I'll woo the wind, or court the wilderness;
And buried from the day's discovery,
Study a slow yet certain way to die.

My woful monument shall be a cell,
The murmur of the purling brook my knell; 20
My lasting epitaph the rock shall groan:
Thus when sad lovers ask the weeping stone,
What wretched thing does in that centre lie?
The hollow Echo will reply, 'twas I.

[_The Farewell._] The following are the variants of
Malone MS. 22:

Lines: 4-6

To doat on those that lov'd not and to fly
Love that woo'd me. Go, bane of my content,
And practise ...
]

[Line: 21

And for an epitaph the rock shall groan
Eternally: if any ask the stone.
]

[Line: 23 centre] compass.]

_A Blackmoor Maid wooing a fair Boy: sent to the Author by Mr. Hen. Rainolds._

Stay, lovely boy, why fly'st thou me
That languish in these flames for thee?
I'm black, 'tis true: why so is Night,
And Love doth in dark shades delight.
The whole world, do but close thine eye,
Will seem to thee as black as I;
Or ope 't, and see what a black shade
Is by thine own fair body made,
That follows thee where'er thou go;
(O who, allow'd, would not do so?) 10
Let me for ever dwell so nigh,
And thou shall need no other shade than I.
_Mr. Hen. Rainolds._

_The Boy's Answer to the Blackmoor._

Black maid, complain not that I fly,
When Fate commands antipathy:
Prodigious might that union prove,
Where Night and Day together move,
And the conjunction of our lips
Not kisses make, but an eclipse;
In which the mixed black and white
Portends more terror than delight.
Yet if my shadow thou wilt be,
Enjoy thy dearest wish: but see 10
Thou take my shadow's property,
That hastes away when I come nigh:
Else stay till death hath blinded me,
And then I will bequeath myself to thee.

[_A Blackmoor Maid_, and _Answer._] I do not know
whether the exact connexion between these two poems and
Cleveland's 'Fair Nymph scorning a Black Boy' (_v. sup._, p.
42) has ever been discussed. But if 'Mr. Hen. Rainolds' is
Drayton's friend, the verses printed above must have the
priority, for nothing seems to be known of him after 1632.

In Rawlinson MS. 1092, fol. 271, there are curious versions
of these poems (the first is ascribed to William Strode),
inverting the parts 'A black boy in love with a fair maid',
and 'The fair maid's answer'.]

_To a Friend upon Overbury's Wife given to her._

I know no fitter subject for your view
Than this, a meditation ripe for you,
As you for it. Which, when you read, you'll see
What kind of wife yourself will one day be:
Which happy day be near you, and may this
Remain with you as earnest of my wish;
When you so far love any, that you dare
Venture your whole affection on his care,
May he for whom you change your virgin-life
Prove good to you, and perfect as this Wife. 10

[_To a Friend upon Overbury's Wife, &c._] King
seems to have been fond of giving this popular production as
a present, for the first of the three poems is certainly
not addressed to the recipient of the others, and it seems
probable that 2 and 3 are also independent. Hannah, without
giving any reason, save the initials, suggests that 'A. R.'
was Lady Anne Rich (_v. inf._).]

_Upon the same._

Madam, who understands you well would swear,
That you the Life, and this your Copy were.

_To A. R. upon the same._

Not that I would instruct or tutor you
What is a wife's behest, or husband's due,
Give I this Widow-Wife. Your early date
Of knowledge makes such precepts slow and late.
This book is but your glass, where you shall see
What yourself are, what other wives should be.

[_To A. R._]

[Line: 3 Widow-] Overbury himself being dead.]

_An Epitaph on Niobe turned to Stone._

This pile thou seest built out of flesh, not stone,
Contains no shroud within, nor mould'ring bone.

This bloodless trunk is destitute of tomb
Which may the soul-fled mansion enwomb.

This seeming sepulchre (to tell the troth)
Is neither tomb nor body, and yet both.

_Upon a Braid of Hair in a Heart sent by Mrs. E. H._

In this small character is sent
My Love's eternal monument.
Whilst we shall live, know this chain'd heart
Is our affection's counterpart.
And if we never meet, think I
Bequeath'd it as my legacy.

[_Upon a Braid of Hair, &c._] There is something
rather out of the common way about this little piece. King
married early and his wife died after a few years. How he
loved her _The Exequy_ and _The Anniverse_ will tell in a few
pages. But her initials were A. B. (Anne Berkeley) not E.
H. On the other hand, his sister _E_lizabeth married Edward
_H_olt, groom of the bedchamber to Charles I, who died in
attendance on his master (see Elegy on him, _inf._). The
verses might be fraternal, and are certainly sincere.]

_Sonnet._

Tell me no more how fair she is,
I have no mind to hear
The story of that distant bliss
I never shall come near:
By sad experience I have found
That her perfection is my wound.

And tell me not how fond I am
To tempt a daring Fate,
From whence no triumph ever came,
But to repent too late: 10
There is some hope ere long I may
In silence dote myself away.

I ask no pity, Love, from thee,
Nor will thy justice blame,
So that thou wilt not envy me
The glory of my flame:
Which crowns my heart whene'er it dies,
In that it falls her sacrifice.

[_Tell me no more, &c._] The heading of this famous
thing as 'Sonnet' has, of course, nothing surprising in it: in
fact, the successive attachment of the title to five poems in
a batch here and to four more a little lower down--no one
of which is a quatorzain, and hardly two of which agree in
form--is a capital example of the looseness with which that
title was used. MS. copies appear to have 'Sonnet' with _no_
particular addition in some cases.

On 'Tell me no more' itself see Introduction. The last two
lines are, as they should be, the finest part--with the
fullness of contrasted vowel-sound in 'crowns', 'heart',
'e'er', and 'dies', and the emphasis of 'her'.]

_Sonnet._

Were thy heart soft as thou art fair,
Thou wer't a wonder past compare:
But frozen Love and fierce disdain
By their extremes thy graces stain.
Cold coyness quenches the still fires
Which glow in lovers' warm desires;
And scorn, like the quick lightning's blaze,
Darts death against affections gaze.
O Heavens, what prodigy is this
When Love in Beauty buried is! 10
Or that dead pity thus should be
Tomb'd in a living cruelty.

[_Were thy heart, &c._] This is not much inferior
except as concerns the metre.]

_Sonnet._

Go, thou that vainly dost mine eyes invite
To taste the softer comforts of the night,
And bid'st me cool the fever of my brain
In those sweet balmy dews which slumber pain;
Enjoy thine own peace in untroubled sleep,
Whilst my sad thoughts eternal vigils keep.

O couldst thou for a time change breasts with me,
Thou in that broken glass shouldst plainly see
A heart which wastes in the slow smoth'ring fire
Blown by Despair, and fed by false Desire, 10
Can only reap such sleeps as sea-men have,
When fierce winds rock them on the foaming wave.

[_Go, thou that, &c._] What made the excellent
Archdeacon-to-be select this in preference to 'Tell me no
more' as a specimen of King's presumed 'juvenile productions'
it is difficult to discover. But

Blown by Despair, and fed by false Desire

is certainly a fine line.]

_Sonnet. To Patience._

Down, stormy passions, down; no more
Let your rude waves invade the shore
Where blushing reason sits, and hides
Her from the fury of your tides.
Fit only 'tis, where you bear sway,
That fools or frantics do obey;
Since judgement, if it not resists,
Will lose itself in your blind mists.

Fall easy, Patience, fall like rest
Whose soft spells charm a troubled breast: 10
And where those rebels you espy,
O in your silken cordage tie
Their malice up! so shall I raise
Altars to thank your power, and praise
The sovereign vertue of your balm,
Which cures a tempest by a calm.

[_To Patience._] So also he gave this very
commonplace 'production' and the next, which is a little
better.]

_Silence. A Sonnet._

Peace, my heart's blab, be ever dumb,
Sorrows speak loud without a tongue:
And, my perplexed thoughts, forbear
To breathe yourselves in any ear:
'Tis scarce a true or manly grief,
Which gads abroad to find relief.

Was ever stomach that lack'd meat
Nourish'd by what another eat?
Can I bestow it, or will woe
Forsake me, when I bid it go? 10
Then I'll believe a wounded breast
May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.

But if, imparting it, I do
Not ease myself, but trouble two,
'Tis better I alone possess
My treasure of unhappiness:
Engrossing that which is my own
No longer than it is unknown.

If silence be a kind of death,
He kindles grief who gives it breath; 20
But let it rak'd in embers lie,
On thine own hearth 'twill quickly die:
And spite of fate, that very womb
Which carries it, shall prove its tomb.

_Love's Harvest._

Fond Lunatic forbear, why dost thou sue
For thy affection's pay ere it is due?
Love's fruits are legal use; and therefore may
Be only taken on the marriage day.
Who for this interest too early call,
By that exaction lose the principal.

Then gather not those immature delights,
Until their riper autumn thee invites.
He that abortive corn cuts off his ground,
No husband but a ravisher is found: 10
So those that reap their love before they wed,
Do in effect but cuckold their own bed.

[_Love's Harvest._]

[Lines: 11, 12, Malone MS. 22 has the singular: 'So he', &c.]

_The Forlorn Hope._

How long, vain Hope, dost thou my joys suspend?
Say! must my expectation know no end?
Thou wast more kind unto the wand'ring Greek
Who did ten years his wife and country seek:
Ten lazy winters in my glass are run,
Yet my thought's travail seems but new begun.

Smooth quicksand which the easy world beguiles,
Thou shall not bury me in thy false smiles.
They that in hunting shadows pleasure take,
May benefit of thy illusion make. 10
Since thou hast banish'd me from my content
I here pronounce thy final banishment.

Farewell, thou dream of nothing! thou mere voice!
Get thee to fools that can feed fat with noise:
Bid wretches mark'd for death look for reprieve,
Or men broke on the wheel persuade to live.
Henceforth my comfort and best hope shall be,
By scorning Hope, ne'er to rely on thee.

[_The Forlorn Hope._]

[Line: 10 _MS._ 'illusions'--perhaps better.]

[Line: 14 can] _MS._ 'will'.]

_The Retreat._

Pursue no more (my thoughts!) that false unkind,
You may as soon imprison the North-wind;
Or catch the lightning as it leaps; or reach
The leading billow first ran down the breach;
Or undertake the flying clouds to track
In the same path they yesterday did rack.
Then, like a torch turn'd downward, let the same
Desire which nourish'd it, put out your flame.

Lo! thus I do divorce thee from my breast,
False to thy vow, and traitor to my rest! 10
Henceforth thy tears shall be (though thou repent)
Like pardons after execution sent.
Nor shalt thou ever my love's story read,
But as some epitaph of what is dead.
So may my hope on future blessings dwell,
As 'tis my firm resolve and last farewell.

[_The Retreat._]

[Line: 4 'first' of course = 'that first'. One naturally asks
'beach'? but perhaps unreasonably.]

[Line: 6 'rack' as a verb in this sense is interesting, and
certainly not common.]

_Sonnet._

Tell me, you stars that our affections move,
Why made ye me that cruel one to love?
Why burns my heart her scorned sacrifice,
Whose breast is hard as crystal, cold as ice?

God of Desire! if all thy votaries
Thou thus repay, succession will grow wise;
No sighs for incense at thy shrine shall smoke,
Thy rites will be despis'd, thy altars broke.

O! or give her my flame to melt that snow
Which yet unthaw'd does on her bosom grow; 10
Or make me ice, and with her crystal chains
Bind up all love within my frozen veins.

[_Tell me, &c._]

[Line: 6 succession] = 'those who come after us'.]

_Sonnet._

I prithee turn that face away
Whose splendour but benights my day.
Sad eyes like mine, and wounded hearts
Shun the bright rays which beauty darts.
Unwelcome is the Sun that pries
Into those shades where sorrow lies.

Go, shine on happy things. To me
That blessing is a misery:
Whom thy fierce Sun not warms, but burns,
Like that the sooty Indian turns. 10
I'll serve the night, and there confin'd
Wish thee less fair, or else more kind.

[_I prithee, &c._] Part of this is very neat and
good, but it tails off.]

_Sonnet._

Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which like growing fountains rise
To drown their banks. Grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks.
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shore of discontent.

Then clear those wat'rish stars again
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there
Prolong my winter all the year: 10
And the example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.

[_Dry those fair, &c._] This piece is also claimed
for Lord Pembroke (see _Preface_ to this volume). It might be
his, King's, or the work of almost any lyrical poet in this
collection and of many outside of it.]

_Sonnet._

When I entreat, either thou wilt not hear,
Or else my suit arriving at thy ear
Cools and dies there. A strange extremity!
To freeze i' th' Sun, and in the shade to fry.
Whilst all my blasted hopes decline so soon,
'Tis evening with me, though at high noon.

For pity to thyself, if not to me,
Think time will ravish, what I lose, from thee.
If my scorch'd heart wither through thy delay,
Thy beauty withers too. And swift decay 10
Arrests thy youth. So thou whilst I am slighted
Wilt be too soon with age or sorrow nighted.

[_When I entreat, &c._]

[Line: 6 'E-ven-ing'.]

_To a Lady who sent me a copy of verses at my going to bed._

Lady, your art or wit could ne'er devise
To shame me more than in this night's surprise.
Why, I am quite unready, and my eye
Now winking like my candle, doth deny
To guide my hand, if it had aught to write;
Nor can I make my drowsy sense indite
Which by your verses' music (as a spell
Sent from the Sybellean Oracle)
Is charm'd and bound in wonder and delight,
Faster than all the leaden chains of night. 10

What pity is it then you should so ill
Employ the bounty of your flowing quill,
As to expend on him your bedward thought,
Who can acknowledge that large love in nought
But this lean wish; that fate soon send you those
Who may requite your rhymes with midnight prose?
Meantime, may all delights and pleasing themes
Like masquers revel in your maiden dreams,
Whilst dull to write, and to do more unmeet,
I, as the night invites me, fall asleep. 20

[_To a Lady._] Malone MS. 22, at fol. 34, has a
first draft of this poem, in which ll. 1-10 appear thus:

Doubtless the Thespian Spring doth overflow
His learned bank: else how should ladies grow
Such poets as to court th' unknowing time
In verse, and entertain their friends in rhyme?
Or you some Sybil are, sent to untie
The knotty riddles of all poetry,
Whilst your smooth numbers such perfections tell
As prove yourself a modern oracle.

ll. 11-20 follow as in the text.]

[Line: 8 'Sybellean', though an incorrect, is a rather pretty
form and good to keep. It will be remembered that as a girl's
name 'Syb_e_lla' or 'Sib_e_lla' is not unknown, beside 'Sybilla'
and 'Sybil'.]

[Line: 20 This outrageous assonance may have been meant in
character--the poet being too much 'in the arms of Porpus' to
notice it.]

[There follows in the original a piece called _The Pink_,
but in the Errata acknowledgement is made that King did
not write it. It is therefore omitted here.]

_To his Friends of Christ Church upon the mislike of the Marriage of the Arts acted at Woodstock._

But is it true, the Court mislik'd the play,
That Christ Church and the Arts have lost the day;
That _Ignoramus_ should so far excel,
Their hobby-horse from ours hath born the bell?

Troth! you are justly serv'd, that would present
Ought unto them, but shallow merriment;
Or to your marriage-table did admit
Guests that are stronger far in smell than wit.

Had some quaint bawdry larded ev'ry scene,
Some fawning sycophant, or courted quean; 10
Had there appear'd some sharp cross-garter'd man
Whom their loud laugh might nickname Puritan,
Cas'd up in factious breeches and small ruff,
That hates the surplice, and defies the cuff:
Then sure they would have given applause to crown
That which their ignorance did now cry down.

Let me advise, when next you do bestow
Your pains on men that do but little know,
You do no Chorus nor a comment lack,
Which may expound and construe ev'ry Act: 20
That it be short and slight; for if 't be good
Tis long, and neither lik'd nor understood.

Know 'tis Court fashion still to discommend
All that which they want brain to comprehend.

[_To his Friends of Christ Church._] The occasion of
this piece was one of those 'sorrowful chances' which befall
those who endeavour to please kings, whatever their name. 'The
play' was Barton Holyday's _Technogamia_, and the 'misliking'
(James actually 'offered' to go away twice, though, being
a good-natured person, he was persuaded to sit it out) is
chronicled by Antony Wood under the author's name. It had
been acted with great applause in the House itself, and two
of King's younger brothers were among the performers. Also the
'frost' was made more unkind by the success at Cambridge of
Ruggles's _Ignoramus_. So King's spleen, if unwise, was not
quite unmotived. The date was August, 1621.]

[Line: 14 There is no probable reference to Malvolio, despite
the association of 'cross-garter'd' and 'Puritan'; but the
tone of the passage enables one to some extent to understand
why the Puritan party conceived themselves to be deserted by
King.]

_The Surrender._

My once dear Love! hapless that I no more
Must call thee so; the rich affection's store
That fed our hopes, lies now exhaust and spent,
Like sums of treasure unto bankrupts lent.

We, that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them, set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget.

We, that did nothing wish that Heav'n could give,
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live 10
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.

Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
Witness the chaste desires that never brake
Into unruly heats; witness that breast
Which in thy bosom anchor'd his whole rest,
'Tis no default in us; I dare acquite
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white,
As thy pure self. Cross planets did envy
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie 20
Faster than vows could bind. O that the stars,
When lovers meet, should stand oppos'd in wars!

Since then some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive nor labour to withstand
What is past help. The longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief;
And though we waste ourselves in moist laments,
Tears may drown us, but not our discontents.

Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves 30
Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself, so thou again art free.
Thou in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that lover ere did lend.

Now turn from each. So fare our sever'd hearts,
As the divorc'd soul from her body parts.

[_The Surrender._] Title 'An Elegy' in Malone MS.
22.]

[Line: 13 Yet] _MS._ 'But'.]

[Line: 17 'acquite' may be for rhyme only; but if 'requite',
why not?]

[Line: 34 so] _MS._ 'lo'.]

[This piece and the next must be interpreted as each reader
chooses. They are not without touches of sincerity, but might
as well be exercises in the school of King's great friend and
master, Donne.]

_The Legacy._

My dearest Love! when thou and I must part,
And th' icy hand of death shall seize that heart
Which is all thine; within some spacious will
I'll leave no blanks for legacies to fill:
'Tis my ambition to die one of those,
Who, but himself, hath nothing to dispose.

And since that is already thine, what need
I to re-give it by some newer deed?
Yet take it once again. Free circumstance
Does oft the value of mean things advance: 10
Who thus repeats what he bequeath'd before,
Proclaims his bounty richer than his store.

But let me not upon my love bestow
What is not worth the giving. I do owe
Somewhat to dust: my body's pamper'd care,
Hungry corruption and the worm will share.
That mould'ring relic which in earth must lie,
Would prove a gift of horror to thine eye.

With this cast rag of my mortality,
Let all my faults and errors buried be. 20
And as my cere-cloth rots, so may kind fate
Those worst acts of my life incinerate.
He shall in story fill a glorious room,
Whose ashes and whose sins sleep in one tomb.

If now to my cold hearse thou deign to bring
Some melting sighs as thy last offering,
My peaceful exequies are crown'd. Nor shall
I ask more honour at my funeral.
Thou wilt more richly balm me with thy tears,
Than all the nard fragrant Arabia bears. 30

And as the Paphian Queen by her grief's show'r
Brought up her dead Love's spirit in a flow'r:
So by those precious drops rain'd from thine eyes,
Out of my dust, O may some virtue rise!
And like thy better Genius thee attend,
Till thou in my dark period shall end.

Lastly, my constant truth let me commend
To him thou choosest next to be thy friend.
For (witness all things good) I would not have
Thy youth and beauty married to my grave, 40
'T would show thou didst repent the style of wife,
Shouldst thou relapse into a single life.

They with preposterous grief the world delude,
Who mourn for their lost mates in solitude;
Since widowhood more strongly doth enforce
The much lamented lot of their divorce.
Themselves then of their losses guilty are,
Who may, yet will not, suffer a repair.

Those were barbarian wives, that did invent
Weeping to death at th' husband's monument; 50
But in more civil rites she doth approve
Her first, who ventures on a second love;
For else it may be thought, if she refrain,
She sped so ill, she durst not try again.

Up then, my Love, and choose some worthier one,
Who may supply my room when I am gone;
So will the stock of our affection thrive
No less in death, than were I still alive.
And in my urn I shall rejoice, that I
Am both testator thus and legacy. 60

[_The Legacy._] The remark made above applies
especially to _The Legacy_, for there are no known or likely
circumstances in King's life corresponding to it; while at the
same time it might be the fancy of a young lover-husband. The
first six stanzas have something of the 'yew-and-roses' charm
of their great originals: the last four justify the ancients
in holding that extravagance too often comports frigidity.]

_The Short Wooing._

Like an oblation set before a shrine,
Fair one! I offer up this heart of mine.
Whether the Saint accept my gift or no,
I'll neither fear nor doubt before I know.
For he whose faint distrust prevents reply,
Doth his own suit's denial prophesy.

Your will the sentence is; who free as Fate
Can bid my love proceed, or else retreat.
And from short views that verdict is decreed
Which seldom doth one audience exceed. 10
Love asks no dull probation, but like light
Conveys his nimble influence at first sight.

I need not therefore importune or press;
This were t' extort unwilling happiness:
And much against affection might I sin:
To tire and weary what I seek to win.
Towns which by ling'ring siege enforced be
Oft make both sides repent the victory.

Be Mistress of yourself: and let me thrive
Or suffer by your own prerogative. 20
Yet stay, since you are Judge, who in one breath
Bear uncontrolled power of Life and Death,
Remember (Sweet) pity doth best become
Those lips which must pronounce a suitor's doom.

If I find that, my spark of chaste desire
Shall kindle into Hymen's holy fire:
Else like sad flowers will these verses prove,
To stick the coffin of rejected Love.

[_The Short Wooing._] A fair average
metaphysicality.]

_St. Valentine's Day_

Now that each feather'd chorister doth sing
The glad approaches of the welcome Spring:
Now Ph[oe]bus darts forth his more early beam
And dips it later in the curled stream,
I should to custom prove a retrograde
Did I still dote upon my sullen shade.

Oft have the seasons finish'd and begun;
Days into months, those into years have run,
Since my cross stars and inauspicious fate
Doom'd me to linger here without my mate 10
Whose loss ere since befrosting my desire,
Left me an Altar without gift or fire.

I therefore could have wish'd for your own sake
That Fortune had design'd a nobler stake
For you to draw, than one whose fading day
Like to a dedicated taper lay
Within a tomb, and long burnt out in vain,
Since nothing there saw better by the flame.

Yet since you like your chance, I must not try
To mar it through my incapacity. 20
I here make title to it, and proclaim
How much you honour me to wear my name;
Who can no form of gratitude devise,
But offer up myself your sacrifice.

Hail, then, my worthy lot! and may each morn
Successive springs of joy to you be born:
May your content ne'er wane until my heart
Grown bankrupt, wants good wishes to impart.
Henceforth I need not make the dust my shrine,
Nor search the grave for my lost Valentine. 30

[_St. Valentine's Day._] I suppose, though I do
not remember an instance, that in the good days before the
prettiest of English customs succumbed--partly to the growth
of Vulgarity and partly to the competition of the much less
interesting Christmas Card--some one, or more than one, must
have made a collection of _literary_ Valentines. In that case
this should have figured. It has a good deal of 'Henry King,
his mark'--good taste, freedom from mawkishness, melody, and
enough poetical essence to save it from the merely mediocre.
The coincidence of l. 24 with the more passionate close
of 'Tell me no more' should not escape notice.--I have not
altered '_ere_ since' to '_e'er_ since' in text, because the
emendation, though almost, is not quite certain.]

_To his unconstant Friend._

But say, thou very woman, why to me
This fit of weakness and inconstancy?
What forfeit have I made of word or vow,
That I am rack'd on thy displeasure now?
If I have done a fault, I do not shame
To cite it from thy lips, give it a name:
I ask the banes, stand forth, and tell me why
We should not in our wonted loves comply?
Did thy cloy'd appetite urge thee to try
If any other man could love as I? 10
I see friends are like clothes, laid up whilst new,
But after wearing cast, though ne'er so true.
Or did thy fierce ambition long to make
Some lover turn a martyr for thy sake?
Thinking thy beauty had deserv'd no name
Unless someone do perish in that flame:
Upon whose loving dust this sentence lies,
Here 's one was murther'd by his mistress' eyes.

Or was't because my love to thee was such,
I could not choose but blab it? swear how much 20
I was thy slave, and doting let thee know,
I better could myself than thee forgo.

Hearken! ye men that e'er shall love like me,
I'll give you counsel gratis: if you be
Possess'd of what you like, let your fair friend
Lodge in your bosom, but no secrets send
To seek their lodging in a female breast;
For so much is abated of your rest.
The steed that comes to understand his strength
Grows wild, and casts his manager at length: 30
And that tame lover who unlocks his heart
Unto his mistress, teaches her an art
To plague himself; shows her the secret way
How she may tyrannize another day.