The Ayre’s already tainted with the swarms
Of Insects which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, Paper-rats, Book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted, the unfashion’d Sons.
The barbed Censurers begin to looke
Like the grim consistory on the Booke;
And on each line cast a reforming eye,
Severer then the young Presbytery.
Till when in vaine they have thee all perus’d,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus’d.
Some reading your Lucasta, will alledge
You wrong’d in her the Houses Priviledge.
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre,
And one the Book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
ANDREW MARVELL: ‘To his Noble Friend Mr. Richard Lovelace, upon his poems’ (1649)
Educated at Charterhouse and Gloucester Hall, Oxford, Lovelace was extremely wealthy and, having left Oxford, became a courtier, serving in the Scottish expeditions of 1639. He was thrown into the Gatehouse Prison for presenting a ‘Kentish Petition’ to the House of Commons in 1642, where he was said to have written ‘To Althea, from prison’. The petition demanded ‘that the militia might not be otherwise exercised in that county than the known law permitted, and that the Book of Common Prayer established by law might be observed’. Lovelace rejoined Charles I in 1645, served with the French king in 1646 and was wounded at Dunkirk. Two years later he was imprisoned once more, during which time he prepared his Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, etc. for publication. Like Suckling, he served in the Bishops’ Wars. He spent his entire fortune in support of the Royalist cause, and, according to Anthony à Wood, died wretchedly in Gunpowder Alley, London. He was a patron of the arts and associated with the poet Andrew Marvell (see Marvell’s poem), the painter Peter Lely and the composer Henry Lawes. Marvell’s poem hints at the neglect into which Lovelace’s poetry had fallen (‘The Ayre’s already tainted with the swarms/Of Insects which against you rise in arms’), and it was only in the second half of the eighteenth century that interest in his work was rekindled, after Percy had printed two of his poems (‘To Althea, from prison’ and ‘To Lucasta, Going to the Warres’) in his Reliques (1765).
Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkinde,
That from the Nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde,
To Warre and Armes I flie.2
True; a new Mistresse now I chase,
The first Foe in the Field;
And with a stronger Faith imbrace
A Sword, a Horse, a Shield.
Yet this Inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Deare) so much,
Lov’d I not Honour more.
(Laniere, Somervell)
When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my Gates;
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates:
When I lye tangled in her haire,
Or fetterd to her eye;
The Gods2 that wanton3 in the Aire,
Know no such Liberty.
When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our carelesse heads with Roses bound,
Our hearts with Loyall Flames;
When thirsty griefe in Wine we steepe,
And Healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the Deepe,
Know no such Libertie.
[When (like committed Linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, Mercy, Majesty,
And glories of my KING;
When I shall voyce aloud, how Good
He is, how Great should be,
Inlarged Winds that curle the Flood,
Know no such Liberty.]
Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor I’ron bars a Cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage;
If I have freedome in my Love,
And in my soule am free;
Angels alone that soar above,
Injoy such Liberty.
(Quilter, Wilson)
See! with what constant Motion
Even, and glorious, as the Sunne,
Gratiana steers that Noble Frame.
Soft as her breast, sweet as her voyce
That gave each winding Law and poyze,
And swifter then the wings of Fame.
[She beat the happy Pavement
By such a Starre made Firmament,
Which now no more the Roofe envies;
But swells up high with Atlas ev’n,
Bearing the brighter, nobler Heav’n,
And in her, all the Dieties.]
Each step trod out a Lovers thought
And the Ambitious hopes he brought,
Chain’d to her brave feet with such arts,
Such sweet command, and gentle awe,
As when she ceas’d, we sighing saw
The floor lay pav’d with broken hearts.
So did she move; so did she sing
Like the Harmonious spheres that bring
Unto their Rounds their musick’s ayd;
Which she performed such a way,
As all th’inamoured world will say
The Graces danced, and Apollo play’d.