Page 417. To the Countesse of Huntington.
It looks as if some lines of this poem had been lost. The first sentence has no subject unless 'That' in the second line be a demonstrative—a very awkward construction.
If written by Donne this poem must have been composed about the same time as The Storme and The Calme. He is writing apparently from the New World, from the Azores. But it is as impossible to recover the circumstances in which the poem was written as to be sure who wrote it.
Page 422. Elegie.
ll. 5-6. denounce ... pronounce. The reading of the MSS. seems to me plainly the correct one. 'In others, terror, anguish and grief announce the approach of death. Her courage, ease and joy in dying pronounce the happiness of her state.' The reading of the printed texts is due to the error by which 1635 and 1639 took 'comming' as an epithet to 'terror' as 'happy' is to 'state'. Some MSS. read 'terrors' and 'joyes'.
l. 22. Their spoyles, &c. I have adopted the MS. reading here, though with some hesitation, because (1) it is the more difficult reading: 'Soules to thy conquest beare' seems more like a conjectural emendation than the other reading, (2) The construction of the line in the printed texts is harsh—one does not bear anything 'to a conquest', (3) the meaning suits the context better. It is not souls that are spoken of, but bodies. The bodies of the wicked become the spoil of death, trophies of his victory over Adam; not so those of the good, which shall rise again. See 1 Cor. xv. 54-5.
Page 424. Psalme 137.
This Psalm is found in a MS. collection of metrical psalms (Rawlinson Poetical 161), in the Bodleian Library, transcribed by a certain R. Crane. The list of authors is Fr. Dav., Jos. Be., Rich. Cripps, Chr. Dav., Th. Carry. That Davison is the author of this particular Psalm is strongly suggested by the poetical Induction which in style and verse resembles the psalm. The induction is signed 'Fr. Dav.' The first verse runs:
Come Urania, heavenly Muse,
and infuse