To characterize the Cavalier school by one phrase, we might call them lyrical poets in lighter vein. They usually wrote on such subjects as the color in a maiden's cheek and lips, blossoms, meadows, May days, bridal cakes, the paleness of a lover, and—
"…wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink."
but sometimes weightier subjects were chosen, when these lighter things failed to satisfy.
Religious Verse.—Three lyrical poets, George Herbert (1593-1633), Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), and Richard Crashaw (1612?-1650?), usually chose religious subjects. George Herbert, a Cambridge graduate and rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury, wrote The Temple, a book of religious verse. His best known poem is Virtue:—
"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep the fall to night;
For thou must die."
The sentiment in these lines from his lyric Providence has the genuine Anglo-Saxon ring:—
"Hard things are glorious; easy things good cheap.
The common all men have; that which is rare,
Men therefore seek to have, and care to keep."
Henry Vaughan, an Oxford graduate and Welsh physician, shows the influence of George Herbert. Vaughan would have been a great poet if he could have maintained the elevation of these opening lines from The World:—
"I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright."
Richard Crashaw, a Cambridge graduate and Catholic mystic, concludes his poem, The Flaming Heart, with this touching prayer to Saint Teresa:—