OTHER POETS
1. Abraham Cowley (1618–67) was born in London, the son of a wealthy citizen. He was educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. In the Civil War he warmly supported the King; followed the royal family into exile, where he performed valuable services; returned to England at the Restoration; and for the remainder of his life composed books in retirement.
Cowley, even more than Pope and Macaulay, is the great example of the infant prodigy. When he was ten he wrote a long epical romance, Piramus and Thisbe (1628), and two years later produced an even longer poem called Constantia and Philetus (1630). All through his life he was active in the production of many kinds of work—poems, plays, essays, and histories. His best-known poem was The Davideis (1637), a rather dreary epic on King David, in heroic couplets. Other poems were The Mistress (1647), a collection of love-poems, and the Pindarique Odes, which are a curious hybrid between the early freedom of the Elizabethans and the classicism of the later generation. His prose works included his Essays and Discourse concerning Oliver Cromwell (1661).
Both in prose and poetry Cowley was a man of various methods, showing the wavering moods of the transitional poet. His heroic couplets and irregular odes foreshadow the vogue of the approaching “correctness”; his essays, in their pleasant egoism and miscellaneous subject-matter, suggest Addison; and his prose style, plain and not inelegant, draws near to the mode of Dryden. His variety pleased many tastes; hence the popularity that was showered upon him during his day. But he excelled in no particular method; and hence the partial oblivion that has followed.
2. The Metaphysical Poets. The works of this group of poets have several features in common: (i) the poetry is to a great extent lyrical; (ii) in subject it is chiefly religious or amatory; (iii) there is much metrical facility, even in complicated lyrical stanzas; (iv) the poetic style is sometimes almost startling in its sudden beauty of phrase and melody of diction, but there are unexpected turns of language and figures of speech (hence the name of the group).
(a) Robert Herrick (1591–1674) was born in London, and educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge, where he lived for fourteen years. He was appointed to a living in Devonshire, where he died.
His two volumes of poems are Noble Numbers (1647) and Hesperides (1648). Both are collections of short poems, sacred and profane. In them he reveals lyrical power of a high order; fresh, passionate, and felicitously exact, but at the same time meditative and observant. Herrick was strongly influenced by Jonson and the classics; he delighted in the good things of this world; but that did not prevent his having a keen enjoyment of nature and a fresh outlook upon life. Among the best known of his shorter pieces are To Anthea, To Julia, and Cherry Ripe.
(b) George Herbert (1593–1633) was born at Montgomery Castle, educated at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was appointed Fellow and reader, took holy orders, and was given in turn livings near Huntingdon and at Bemerton, near Salisbury.
None of his poems was published during his lifetime. On his death-bed he gave to a friend the manuscript of The Temple, a collection of religious poems in various meters. The poems, of a high quality, are inspired with a devout piety which is often fantastically expressed and quaintly figured. His poetry is not so “metaphysical” as that of some others of his group; but neither does it rise to the great heights that they sometimes achieve.
(c) Richard Crashaw (1613–50), the son of a clergyman, was born in London, and educated at the Charterhouse and at Cambridge. During the Civil War, in which he was a strong Royalist, he was compelled to escape to France, where he became a Roman Catholic. At a later stage he went to Rome and to Loretto. At the latter place he died and was buried.
Crashaw represents the best and the worst of the Metaphysical poets. At his best he has an energy and triumphant rapture that, outside the poems of Shelley, are rarely equaled in English; at his worst he is shrill, frothy, and conceited. His style at its best is harmonious, precise, and nobly elevated; at its worst it is disfigured by obscurity, perversity, and unseemly images. His chief work is Steps to the Temple (1646).
We quote an extract to show the exalted mood to which his poetry can ascend:
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart;[124] and love, and die, and kill;
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.
Let this immortal life where’er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on’t; and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,
Upon this carcase of a hard cold heart....
Oh thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy power of lights and fires;...
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire;
By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee his;...
Leave nothing of myself in me.
The Flaming Heart
(d) Henry Vaughan (1622–95) was born in Wales, and was descended from an ancient family. He went to London to study law, then turned to medicine, and practiced at Brecon. His books include Poems (1646), Olor Iscanus (1647), Silex Scintillans (1650), and Thalia Rediviva (1678).
Vaughan’s love-poems, though they are often prettily and sometimes beautifully phrased, are inferior to his religious pieces, especially those in Silex Scintillans. His religious fervor is nobly imaginative, and strikes out lines and ideas of astonishing strength and beauty. His regard for nature, moreover, has a closeness and penetration that sometimes (for example, in The Retreat) suggests Wordsworth.
(e) Thomas Carew (1595–1645) was born in Kent, educated at Oxford, and studied law in the Middle Temple. He attained to some success as a courtier, but later died in obscurity. The date of his death is uncertain, but it was probably 1645.
His Poems (1640) show his undoubted lyrical ability. The pieces are influenced by Donne and Jonson, but they have a character of their own. The fancy is warmly colored, though it is marred by license and bad taste. We quote a lyric which can be taken as representative of the best of its kind. Its fancy is too rich and beautiful to be called fantastic, and its golden felicity of diction is rarely equaled.
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose,
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day,
For, in pure love, heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past,
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phœnix builds her spicy nest,
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
3. The Cavalier poets are lyrical poets, and deal chiefly with love and war.
(a) Richard Lovelace (1618–58) was born at Woolwich, was educated at the Charterhouse and at Oxford, and became an officer in the King’s household. When the Civil War broke out he was imprisoned by the Roundheads; and, being liberated on parole, could do little actively to assist Charles. At a later stage he saw some soldiering in France, returned to England, and died in obscure circumstances.
His volume Lucasta (1649) contains the best of his shorter pieces, which had appeared at different times previously. He is essentially the poet of attractive scraps and fancies, elegantly and wittily expressed. Some of his lyrics, such as To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, Going to the Wars, have retained their popularity.
(b) Sir John Suckling (1609–42) was born in Middlesex, and at the age of eighteen fell heir to a large fortune. He was educated at Oxford, traveled on the Continent, served as a volunteer under Gustavus Adolphus, and became a favorite of Charles I. He was implicated in Royalist plots, and escaped abroad (1640), where he died under conditions that are somewhat mysterious.
To some extent (for he seems to have lacked physical courage) Suckling was the cavalier of the romances and the Restoration plays—gay, generous, and witty. His poems largely reflect these characteristics. As a poet he has great ability, but he is usually the elegant amateur, disdaining serious and sustained labor. Some of his poems, such as the Ballad upon a Wedding (see p. [186]), and “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?” show the tricksy elegance that is his chief attraction.