Th' antiperistasis of age
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n the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinionconcerning manna: Variety I ask not: give me oneTo live perpetually upon.The person love does to us fit,Like manna, has the taste of all in it. Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastick verses: In every thing there naturally growsA balsamum to keep it fresh and new,If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows;Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.But you, of learning and religion,And virtue and such ingredients, have madeA mithridate, whose operationKeeps off, or cures what can be done or said. Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, havesomething in them too scholastick, they are not inelegant: This twilight of two years, not past nor next,Some emblem is of me, or I of this,Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,Whose what and where in disputation is,If I should call me any thing, should miss.I sum the years and me, and find me notDebtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new.That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot;Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce trueThis bravery is, since these times shew'd me you. Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as amicrocosm: If men be worlds, there is in every oneSomething to answer in some proportionAll the world's riches: and in good men, thisVirtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is. Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural,all their books are full. To a lady, who wrote poesies for rings: They, who above do various circles find,Say, like a ring, th' equator heaven does bind.When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee,(Which then more heaven than 'tis will be,)'Tis thou must write the poesy there,For it wanteth one as yet,Then the sun pass through 't twice a year,The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit. COWLEY. The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy,are, by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love: Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you,For which you call me most inconstant now;Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;For I am not the same that I was then:No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me;And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see.The same thoughts to retain still, and intents,Were more inconstant far; for accidentsMust of all things most strangely inconstant prove,If from one subject they t' another move;My members, then, the father members were,From whence these take their birth which now are here.If then this body love what th' other did,'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared totravels through different countries: Hast thou not found each woman's breast(The land where thou hast travelled)Either by savages possest,Or wild, and uninhabited?What joy could'st take, or what repose,In countries so unciviliz'd as those? Lust, the scorching dogstar, hereRages with immoderate heat;Whilst pride, the rugged northern bear,In others makes the cold too great.And where these are temperate known,The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. COWLEY. A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt: The fate of Egypt I sustain,And never feel the dew of rainFrom clouds which in the head appear;But all my too much moisture oweTo overflowings of the heart below. COWLEY. The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury,and rites of sacrifice: And yet this death of mine, I fear,Will ominous to her appear:When sound in every other part,Her sacrifice is found without an heart.For the last tempest of my deathShall sigh out that too, with my breath. That the chaos was harmonized, has been recited of old; but whence thedifferent sounds arose remained for a modern to discover: Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew;An artless war from thwarting motions grew;Till they to number and fixt rules were brought.Water and air he for the tenor chose;Earth made the base; the treble,flame arose. COWLEY. The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne hasextended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, theymay be read again: On a round ballA workman, that hath copies by, can layAn Europe, Afric, and an Asia,And quickly make that, which was nothing, all. So doth each tear,Which thee doth wear,A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflowThis world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. On reading the following lines, the reader may, perhaps, cry out,"Confusion worse confounded:" Here lies a she-sun, and a he-moon here,She gives the best light to his sphere,Or each is both, and all, and soThey unto one another nothing owe. DONNE. Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Though God be our true glass, through which we seeAll, since the being of all things is he,Yet are the trunks, which do to us deriveThings in proportion fit, by perspectiveDeeds of good men; for by their living here,Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. Who would imagine it possible, that in a very few lines so many remoteideas could be brought together? Since 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve,Why this reprieve?Why doth my she-advowson flyIncumbency?To sell thyself dost thou intendBy candle's end,And hold the contrast thus in doubt,Life's taper out?Think but how soon the market fails,Your sex lives faster than the males;And if, to measure age's span,The sober Julian were th' account of man,Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. CLEIVELAND. Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples: By every wind that comes this way,Send me, at least, a sigh or two,Such and so many I'll repayAs shall themselves make winds to get to you. COWLEY. In tears I'll waste these eyes,By love so vainly fed;So lust of old the deluge punished. COWLEY. All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war,(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.The sun himself started with sudden fright,To see his beams return so dismal bright. COWLEY.
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