The “ibid., &c.” is delightful; in other words, “find out the meaning of posse for yourself.” Though dark to Mr. Hazlitt, the word has not the least obscurity in it. It is only another form of push, nearer the French pousser, from Latin pulsare, and “the context here requires” nothing more than that an editor should read a poem if he wish to understand it. The plain meaning is,—
“But, as she heard Lucasta, smiles
Possess her round.”
That is, when she heard the name Lucasta,—for thus far in the poem she has passed under the pseudonyme of Amarantha. “Possess her round” is awkward, but mildly so for Lovelace, who also spells “commandress” in the same way with a single s. Process is spelt prosses in the report of those who absented themselves from Church in Stratford.
“O thou, that swing’st upon the waving eare,
Of some well-filled oaten beard.” (p. 94.)
Mr. Hazlitt, for some inscrutable reason, has changed “haire” to “eare” in the first line, preferring the ear of a beard to its hair!
Mr. Hazlitt prints,—
“Poor verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joys
Large and as lasting as thy peirch of grass,
Bid us lay in ’gainst winter raine and poize
Their flouds with an o’erflowing glasse.” (p. 95.)
Surely we should read:—
“Poor verdant foole and now green ice, thy joys,
Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass,
Bid,” &c.
i. e. “Poor fool now frozen, the shortness of thy joys, who mad’st no provision against winter, warns us to do otherwise.”