The Flower of the Mind

by Alice Meynell

Yet, when young April’s husband show’rs
Shall bless the fruitful Maia’s bed,
We’ll bring the first-born of her flowers,
To kiss Thy feet and crown Thy head.
To Thee, dread Lamb! whose love must keep
The shepherds while they feed their sheep.

To Thee, meek Majesty, soft King
Of simple graces and sweet loves!
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves!
At last, in fire of Thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice!

MUSIC’S DUEL

Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams
Of noon’s high glory, when, hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection of an oak, there sat
A sweet lute’s master: in whose gentle airs
He lost the day’s heat, and his own hot cares.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood:—
The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their muse, their Syren, harmless Syren she,—
There stood she list’ning, and did entertain
The music’s soft report, and mould the same
In her own murmurs, that whatever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good.
The man perceived his rival, and her art;
Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport,
Awakes his lute, and ’gainst the fight to come
Informs it, in a sweet præludium
Of closer strains; and ere the war begin
He slightly skirmishes on every string,
Charged with a flying touch; and straightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily
Into a thousand sweet distinguished tones;
And reckons up in soft divisions
Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know
By that shrill taste she could do something too.
His nimble hand’s instinct then taught each string
A cap’ring cheerfulness; and made them sing
To their own dance; now negligently rash
He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash
Blends all together, then distinctly trips
From this to that, then, quick returning, skips
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
She measures every measure, everywhere
Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt—
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out—
Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note
Through the sleek passage of her open throat:
A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that, being reared
In controverting warbles evenly shared,
With her sweet sell she wrangles; he, amazed
That from so small a channel should be raised
The torrent of a voice whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,
Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art,
The tattling strings—each breathing in his part—
Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling bass
In surly groans disdains the treble’s grace;
The high-perched treble chirps at this, and chides
Until his finger—moderator—hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all,
Hoarse, shrill, at once: as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th’ harvest of death’s field, and woo
Men’s hearts into their hands; this lesson, too,
She gives him back, her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o’er her skill,
And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,
The pliant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng
Of short thick sobs, whose thund’ring volleys float
And roll themselves over her lubric throat
In panting murmurs, ’stilled out of her breast,
That ever-bubbling spring, the sugared nest
Of her delicious soul, that there does lie
Bathing in streams of liquid melody,—
Music’s best seed-plot; when in ripened ears
A golden-headed harvest fairly rears
His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath,
Which there reciprocally laboureth.
In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire
Founded to th’ name of great Apollo’s lyre;
Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon; and then
Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,
To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their matins sing;—
Most divine service! whose so early lay
Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day.
There might you hear her kindle her soft voice
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise,
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song;
Still keeping in the forward stream so long,
Till a sweet whirlwind, striving to get out,
Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast;
Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky,
Winged with their own wild echos, pratt’ling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the waved back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train;
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note;
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voice of war’s hoarse bird;
Her little soul is ravished; and so poured
Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed
Above herself—music’s enthusiast!
Shame now and anger mixed a double stain
In the musician’s face: Yet once again,
Mistress, I come. Now reach a strain, my lute,
Above her mock, or be for ever mute;
Or tune a song of victory to me,
Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy!
So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings,
And with a quivering coyness tastes the strings:
The sweet-lipped sisters, musically frighted,
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted:
Trembling as when Apollo’s golden hairs
Are fanned and frizzled in the wanton airs
Of his own breath, which, married to his lyre,
Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven’s self look higher;
From this to that, from that to this, he flies,
Feels music’s pulse in all her arteries;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads,
Following those little rills, he sinks into
A sea of Helicon; his hand does go
Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe’s cup:
The humorous strings expound his learned touch
By various glosses; now they seem to grutch
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle
In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single;
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke,
Gives life to some new grace: thus doth he invoke
Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus—
Fraught with a fury so harmonious—
The lute’s light Genius now does proudly rise,
Heaved on the surges of swoll’n rhapsodies,
Whose flourish, meteor-like, doth curl the air
With flash of high-born fancies; here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone,
Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs,
Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares;
Because those precious mysteries that dwell
In music’s ravished soul he dare not tell,
But whisper to the world: thus do they vary,
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their master’s blest soul, snatched out at his ears
By a strong ecstasy, through all the spheres
Of music’s heaven; and seat it there on high
In th’ empyræum of pure harmony.
At length—after so long, so loud a strife
Of all the strings, still breathing the best life
Of blest variety, attending on
His fingers’ fairest revolution,
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall—
A full-mouthed diapason swallows all.
This done, he lists what she would say to this;
And she, although her breath’s late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note.
Alas, in vain! for while, sweet soul, she tries
To measure all those wild diversities
Of chatt’ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone,
She fails; and failing, grieves; and grieving, dies;
She dies, and leaves her life the victor’s prize,
Falling upon his lute. O, fit to have—
That lived so sweetly—dead, so sweet a grave!

THE FLAMING HEART

Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint
Teresa, as she is usually expressed with
a Seraphim beside her

Well-meaning readers! you that come as friends
And catch the precious name this piece pretends,
Make not too much haste t’ admire
That fair-cheeked fallacy of fire.
That is a seraphim, they say,
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be ruled by me, and make
Here a well-placed and wise mistake;
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right;
Read Him for Her, and Her for Him,
And call the saint the seraphim.
Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand?
See, even the years and size of him
Shows this the mother seraphim.
This is the mistress flame, and duteous he
Her happy fireworks, here, comes down to see:
O, most poor-spirited of men!
Had thy cold pencil kissed her pen,
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us this faint shade for her.
Why, man, this speaks pure mortal frame,
And mocks with female frost love’s manly flame;
One would suspect thou meant’st to paint
Some weak, inferior woman Saint.
But, had thy pale-faced purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright book,
Thou wouldst on her have heaped up all
That could be found seraphical;
Whate’er this youth of fire wears fair,
Rosy fingers, radiant hair,
Glowing cheek, and glist’ring wings,
All those fair and flagrant things;
But, before all, that fiery dart
Had filled the hand of this great heart.
Do, then, as equal right requires,
Since his the blushes be, and hers the fires,
Resume and rectify thy rude design,
Undress thy seraphim into mine;
Redeem this injury of thy art,
Give him the veil, give her the dart.
Give him the veil, that he may cover
The red cheeks of a rivalled lover,
Ashamed that our world now can show
Nests of new Seraphims here below.
Give her the dart, for it is she,
Fair youth, shoots both thy shaft and thee;
Say, all ye wise and well-pierced hearts
That live and die amidst her darts,
What is’t your tasteful spirits do prove
In that rare life of her and love?
Say and bear witness. Sends she not
A seraphim at every shot?
What magazines of immortal arms there shine!
Heav’n’s great artillery in each love-spun line!
Give, then, the dart to her who gives the flame,
Give him the veil who gives the shame.
But if it be the frequent fate
Of worst faults to be fortunate,
If all’s prescription, and proud wrong
Hearkens not to an humble song,
For all the gallantry of him,
Give me the suff’ring seraphim.
His be the bravery of those bright things,
The glowing cheeks, the glistering wings,
The rosy hand, the radiant dart;
Leave her alone the flaming heart.
Leave her that, and thou shalt leave her
Not one loose shaft, but Love’s whole quiver.
For in Love’s field was never found
A nobler weapon than a wound.
Love’s passives are his activ’st part,
The wounded is the wounding heart.
O, heart! the equal poise of Love’s both parts,
Big alike with wounds and darts,
Live in these conquering leaves, live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame!
Live here, great heart, 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 the 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 carcass of a hard, cold heart;
Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast, at once break in
And take away from me myself and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O, thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires,
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove,
By all thy lives and deaths of love,
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirst of love more large than they;
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;
By all the heav’ns thou hast in Him,
Fair sister of the seraphim!
By all of Him we have in thee,
Leave nothing of myself in me:
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

ABRAHAM COWLEY
1618–1667

ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW

Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the muses banished slaves abide,
And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;
Like Moses, thou (though spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly back home to their Holy Land.
Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou
Wert living the same poet which thou’rt now.
Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,
And join in an applause so great as thine,
Equal society with them to hold,
Thou need’st not make new songs, but say the old.
And they (kind spirits!) shall all rejoice to see
How little less than they exalted man may be.
Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell,
The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up hell.
Nor have we yet quite purged the Christian land;
Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand.
And though Pan’s death long since all oracles broke,
Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke:
Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage we
(Vain men!) the monster woman deify;
Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,
And paradise in them, by whom we lost it, place.
What different faults corrupt our muses thus!
Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!
Thy spotless muse, like Mary, did contain
The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain
That her eternal verse employed should be
On a less subject than eternity;
And for a sacred mistress scorned to take
But her whom God Himself scorned not His spouse to make.
It (in a kind) her miracle did do;
A fruitful mother was and virgin too.
How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death,
And make thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great Mistress’ arms, thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto’s shrine!
Where, like some holy sacrifice to expire,
A fever burns thee, and love lights the fire.
Angels (they say) brought the famed chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air.
’Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.