[Ed. Note: Carew bases this poem on the commonly-held distinction between things divinely created, which were perfect, and those created by Nature, which were not and upon which Man could improve. --Nelson]
[Ed. Note: Saxham was the country estate of Sir John Crofts with whose family Carew had a close relationship; the poem is patterned on Ben Jonson's "To Penshurst." --Nelson]
THOUGH frost and snow lock'd from mine eyes
That beauty which without door lies,
Thy gardens, orchards, walks, that so
I might not all thy pleasures know,
Yet, thou within thy gate
Art of thyself so delicate,
So full of native sweets, that bless
Thy roof with inward happiness,
As neither from nor to thy store
Winter takes aught, or spring adds more.
The cold and frozen air had
starv'd* [killed]
Much poor, if not by thee preserv'd,
Whose prayers have made thy table blest
With plenty, far above the rest.
The season hardly did afford
Coarse cates* unto thy neighbors'
board, [foods]
Yet thou hadst dainties, as the sky
Had only been thy
volary*; [aviary]
Or else the birds, fearing the snow
Might to another Deluge grow,
The pheasant, partridge, and the lark
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing ox of himself came
Home to the slaughter, with the lamb,
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering.
The scaly herd more pleasure took,
Bath'd in thy dish, than in the brook;
Water, earth, air, did all conspire
To pay their tributes to thy fire,
Whose cherishing flames themselves divide
Through every room, where they deride
The night, and cold aboard; whilst they,
Like suns within, keep endless day.
Those cheerful beams send forth their light
To all that wander in the night,
And seem to beckon from
aloof* [a distance]
The weary pilgrim to thy roof,
Where if, refresh'd, he will away,
He's faily welcome; or if stay,
Far more; which he shall hearty find
Both from the master and the
hind*. [servant]
The stranger's welcome each man there
Stamp'd on his cheerful brow doth wear,
Nor doth this welcome or his cheer
Grow less 'cause he stays longer here;
There's none observes, much less
repines*, [criticizes]
[Ed. Note: In the poem's concluding quatrain, Carew refers to the "two flamens" (priests) who are buried; he is stating that Donne was, as a poet, a priest of Apollo and, as a preacher, a priest of God. This poem appeared in Poems by J. D., published in 1633, two years after Donne's death. --Nelson]
CAN we not force from widow'd poetry,
Now thou art dead, great Donne, one elegy
To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust,
Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd* prose, thy
dust* [dull]
Such as the unscissor'd* churchman, from the
flower [unshorn]
Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,
Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay
Upon thy ashes on the funeral day?
Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispense
Through all our language both the words and sense?
'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain
And sober Christian precepts still retain;
Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame,
Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame
Of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light
As burnt our earth, and made our darkness bright,
Committed holy rapes upon our will,
Did through the eye the melting heart distill,
And the deep knowledge of dark* truths so
teach, [hidden]
As sense might judge what fancy could not reach,
Must be desir'd forever. So the fire
That fills with spirit and heat the Delphic
choir*, [Apollo's
oracle]
Which, kindled first by thy Promethean breath,
Glow'd here awhile, lies quench'd now in thy death.
The Muses' garden, with pedantic weed
O'erspread, was purg'd by thee; the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention plant'd. Thou didst pay
The debts of our penurious bankrupt age;
Licentious thefts, that make poetic rage
A mimic fury, when our souls must be
Possess'd, or with Anacreon's ecstacy,
Or Pindar's, not their own; the subtle cheat
Of sly exchanges, and the juggling feat
Of two-edg'd words, or whatsoever wrong
By ours was done the Greek, or Latin tongue,
Thou hast redeem'd, and open'd us a mine
Of rich and pregnant fancy; drawn a line
Of masculine expression, which had good
Old Orpheus see, or all the ancient brood
Our superstitious fools admire, and hold
Their lead more precious than thy burnish'd gold,
Thou hadst been their exchequer, and no more
They each in other's dust had rak'd for ore.
Thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time,
And the blind fate of language, whose tun'd chime
More charms the outward sense; yet thou mayst claim
From so great disadvantage greater fame,
Since to the awe of thy imperious wit
Our stubborn language bends, made only fit
With her tough thick-ribb'd hoops to gird about
Thy giant fancy, which had prov'd too stout
For their soft melting phrases. As in time
They had the start, so did they cull the prime
Buds of invention many a hundred year,
And left the rifl'd fields, besides the fear
To touch their harvest; yet from those bare lands
Of what is purely thine, thy only hands,
(And that thy smallest work) have gleaned more
Than all those times and tongues could reap before.
But thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be
Too hard for libertines in poetry.
They will repeal the goodly exil'd train
Of gods and goddesses, which in thy just reign
Were banish'd nobler poems; now, with these,
The silenc'd tales o'th' Metamorphoses
Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page,
Till verse, refin'd by thee, in this last age
Turn ballad-rhyme*, or those old idols
be [crude
poetry]
Ador'd again with new apostasy.
O pardon me, that break with untun'd verse
The reverend silence that attends thy hearse,
Whose aweful solemn murmurs were to thee,
More than these faint lines, a loud elegy,
That did proclaim in a dumb eloquence
The death of all the arts, whose influence
Grown feeble, in these panting numbers lies
Gasping short-wind'd accents, and so dies.
So doth the swiftly turning wheel not stand
In th'instant we withdraw the moving hand,
But some small time maintain a faint weak course,
By virtue of the first impulsive force;
And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile
Thy crown of bays, oh, let it crack awhile,
And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes.
I will not draw the envy to
engross* &nbs; [enlarge
upon]
All thy perfections, or weep all our loss;
Those were too numerous for an elegy,
And this too great to be express'd by me.
Though ev'ry pen should share a distinct part,
Yet art thou theme enough to 'tire* all
art; [attire]