Poetry By English Women Read online

Nor let their bags too long be full,

  for fear that they do burst. […] [110]

  To Smithfield I must something leave,

  my parents there did dwell:

  So careless for to be of it,

  none would account it well.

  Wherefore it thrice a week shall have

  of horse and neat good store,

  And in his Spital, blind and lame

  to dwell for evermore.

  And Bedlam must not be forgot,

  for that was oft my walk: [120]

  I people there too many leave,

  That out of tune do talk.

  At Bridewell there shall beadles be,

  and Matrons that shall still

  See chalk well chopped, and spinning plied,

  and turning of the mill. […]

  And also leave I at each Inn

  of Court, or Chancery,

  Of gentlemen, a youthful rout,

  full of activity, [130]

  For whom I store of books have left,

  at each bookbinder’s stall

  And part of all that London hath

  to furnish them withal.

  And when they are with study cloyed,

  to recreate their mind,

  Of tennis courts, of dancing schools,

  and fence, they store shall find.

  And every Sunday at the least,

  I leave to make them sport, [140]

  In divers places players, that

  Of wonders shall report.

  Now London have I, for thy sake,

  within thee, and without,

  As come into my memory,

  dispersed round about

  Such needful things, as they should have

  here left now unto thee:

  When I am gone, with conscience

  let them dispersed be. […] [150]

  This xx. of October I,

  in ANNO DOMINI:

  A thousand v. hundred seventy three,

  as almanacs do descry,

  Did write this will with mine own hand

  and it to London gave:

  In witness of the standers-by,

  whose name, if you will have,

  Paper, pen and standish were,

  at that time present by, [160]

  With Time, who promised to reveal,

  so fast as she could hie,

  The same, lest of my nearer kin

  for any thing should vary.

  So finally I make an end,

  no longer can I tarry.

  FINIS. by Is. W

  LADY MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE 1561–1621

  ‘She was a beautiful Ladie and had an excellent witt, and had the best breeding that that age could afford. Shee had a pritty sharpe-ovall face. Her haire was of a reddish yellowe … She was the greatest Patronesse of witt and learning of any Lady in her time … there was so great love between [Sir Philip Sidney] and his faire sister that I have heard old Gentlemen say that they lay together’: thus, characteristically, Aubrey in his Brief Lives. The fifth child of Sir Henry and Lady Mary Sidney, of Penshurst Place in Kent; in 1577 married Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (then aged over forty); lived at Wilton near Salisbury and had three children. An important literary patron, she also oversaw the posthumous publication of her brother’s writings, translated, wrote a little verse of her own, and, most important, collaborated with Philip in translating the Psalms, completing the bulk of the work after his death. The psalms, described as her work of self-discovery as a poet, were widely praised and influential.

  J.C.A. Rathmell (ed), The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke (NY: NYUP, 1963); Elaine V. Beilin, Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987); Rivkah Zim, English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535–1601 (Cambridge: CUP, 1987); Michael G. Brennan, Literary Patronage in the Renaissance: The Pembroke Family (London: Routledge, 1988).

  Psalm 57: Miserere Mei, Deus

  Thy mercy, Lord, Lord now thy mercy show,

  On thee I lie

  To thee I fly

  Hide me, hive me as thine own,

  Till these blasts be overblown,

  Which now do fiercely blow.

  To the highest God I will erect my cry,

  Who quickly shall

  Dispatch this all.

  He shall from Heaven send [10]

  From disgrace me to defend,

  His love and verity.

  My soul encaged lies with lions’ brood,

  Villains whose hands

  Are fiery brands,

  Teeth more sharp than shaft or spear,

  Tongues far better edge do bear

  Than swords to shed my blood.

  As high as highest heav’n can give thee place,

  O Lord ascend, [20]

  And thence extend

  With most bright, most glorious show,

  Over all the earth below

  The sun-beams of thy face.

  Me to entangle, ev’ry way I go,

  Their trap and net

  Is ready set.

  Holes they dig, but their own holes

  Pitfalls make for their own souls:

  So Lord, O serve them so. [30]

  My heart prepar’d, prepared is my heart

  To spread thy praise

  With tuned lays:

  Wake my tongue, my lute awake,

  Thou my harp the consort make,

  My self will bear a part.

  My self when first the morning shall appear,

  With voice and string

  So will thee sing:

  That this earthly globe, and all [40]

  Treading on this earthly ball,

  My praising notes shall hear.

  For God, my only God, thy gracious love

  Is mounted far

  Above each star,

  Thy unchanged verity

  Heav’nly wings do lift as high

  As clouds have room to move.

  As high as highest heav’n can give thee place

  O Lord ascend [50]

  And thence extend

  With most bright, most glorious show

  Over all the earth below,

  The sun-beams of thy face.

  Psalm 58: Si Vere Utique*

  And call ye this to utter what is just,

  You that of justice hold the sov’reign throne?

  And call ye this to yield, O sons of dust,

  To wronged brethren ev’ry man his own?

  O no; it is your long malicious will

  Now to the world to make by practice known,

  With whose oppression you the balance fill,

  Just to your selves, indiff’rent else to none.

  But what could they, who ev’n in birth declin’d,

  From truth and right to lies and injuries? [10]

  To show the venom of their cankered mind

  The adder’s image scarcely can suffice;

  Nay scarce the aspic may with them contend,

  On whom the charmer all in vain applies

  His skilfull’st spells: ay missing of his end,

  While she self-deaf, and unaffected lies.

  Lord crack their teeth, Lord crush these lions’ jaws,

  So let them sink as water in the sand:

  When deadly bow their aiming fury draws

  Shiver the shaft ere past the shooter’s hand. [20]

  So make them melt as the dishoused snail

  Or as the embryo, whose vital band

  Breaks ere it holds, and formless eyes do fail

  To see the sun, though brought to lightful land.

  O let their brood, a brood of springing thorns,

  Be by untimely rooting overthrown

  Ere bushes waxed, they push with pricking horns,

  As fruits yet green are oft by tempest blown.

  The good with gladness this revenge shall see,

  And bathe his feet in blood of wicked one [30]

>   While all shall say: the just rewarded be,

  There is a God that carves to each his own.

  Psalm 92: Bonum Est Confiteri

  O lovely thing

  To sing and praises frame

  To thee, O Lord, and thy high name;

  With early spring

  Thy bounty to display,

  Thy truth when night hath vanquished day:

  Yea so to sing,

  That ten-stringed instrument

  With lute, and harp, and voice consent.

  For, Lord, my mind [10]

  Thy works with wonder fill;

  Thy doings are my comfort still.

  What wit can find,

  How bravely thou hast wrought,

  Or deeply sound thy shallow’st thought?

  The fool is blind,

  And blindly doth not know,

  How like the grass the wicked grow.

  The wicked grow

  Like frail though flow’ry grass; [20]

  And fall’n, to wrack past help do pass.

  But thou not so,

  But high thou still dost stay:

  And lo thy haters fall away.

  Thy haters lo,

  Decay and perish all;

  All wicked hands to ruin fall.

  Fresh oiled I

  Will lively lift my horn,

  And match the matchless unicorn: [30]

  Mine eye shall spy

  My spies in spiteful case;

  Mine ear shall hear my foes’ disgrace.

  Like cedar high

  And like date-bearing tree,

  For green, and growth the just shall be.

  Where God doth dwell

  Shall be his spreading place:

  God’s courts shall his fair boughs embrace.

  Even then shall swell [40]

  His blossoms fat and fair,

  When aged rind the stock shall bear.

  And I shall tell

  How God my Rock is just,

  So just, with him is nought unjust.

  Psalm 139: Domine, Probasti*

  O Lord in me there lieth nought,

  But to thy search revealed lies:

  For when I sit

  Thou markest it:

  No less thou notest when I rise:

  Yea closest closet of my thought

  Hath open windows to thine eyes.

  Thou walkest with me when I walk,

  When to my bed for rest I go,

  I find thee there, [10]

  And ev’ry where:

  Not youngest thought in me doth grow,

  No not one word I cast to talk,

  But yet unuttered thou dost know.

  If forth I march, thou goest before,

  If back I turn, thou com’st behind:

  So forth nor back

  Thy guard I lack,

  Nay on me too, thy hand I find.

  Well I thy wisdom may adore, [20]

  But never reach with earthy mind.

  To shun thy notice, leave thine eye,

  O whither might I take my way?

  To starry sphere?

  Thy throne is there.

  To dead men’s undelightsome stay?

  There is thy walk, and there to lie

  Unknown, in vain I should assay.

  O sun, whom light nor flight can match,

  Suppose thy lightful flightful wings [30]

  Thou lend to me,

  And I could flee

  As far as thee the ev’ning brings:

  Ev’n led to West he would me catch,

  Nor should I lurk with western things.

  Do thou thy best, O secret night,

  In sable veil to cover me:

  Thy sable veil

  Shall vainly fail:

  With day unmasked my night shall be, [40]

  For night is day, and darkness light,

  O father of all lights, to thee.

  Each inmost piece in me is thine:

  While yet I in my mother dwelt,

  All that me clad

  From thee I had.

  Thou in my frame hast strangely dealt:

  Needs in my praise thy works must shine

  So inly them my thoughts have felt.

  Thou, how my back was beam-wise laid, [50]

  And raft’ring of my ribs, dost know:

  Know’st ev’ry point

  Of bone and joint,

  How to this whole these parts did grow,

  In brave embroid’ry fair arrayed,

  Though wrought in shop both dark and low.

  Nay fashionless, ere form I took,

  Thy all and more beholding eye

  My shapeless shape

  Could not escape: [60]

  All these time framed successively

  Ere one had being, in the book

  Of thy foresight, enrolled did lie.

  My God, how I these studies prize,

  That do thy hidden workings show!

  Whose sum is such,

  No sum so much:

  Nay summed as sand they sumless grow.

  I lie to sleep, from sleep I rise,

  Yet still in thought with thee I go. [70]

  My God if thou but one wouldst kill,

  Then straight would leave my further chase

  This cursed brood

  Inured to blood:

  Whose graceless taunts at thy disgrace

  Have aimed oft: and hating still

  Would with proud lies thy truth outface.

  Hate not I them, who thee do hate?

  Thine, Lord, I will the censure be.

  Detest I not [80]

  The cankered knot,

  Whom I against thee banded see?

  O Lord, thou know’st in highest rate

  I hate them all as foes to me.

  Search me, my God, and prove my heart,

  Examine me, and try my thought:

  And mark in me

  If aught there be

  That hath with cause their anger wrought.

  If not (as not) my life’s each part, [90]

  Lord safely guide from danger brought.

  EMILIA LANYER (or LANIER) 1569–1645

  The illegitimate daughter of an Italian royal musician, Baptista Bassano, and Margaret Johnson; mistress of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hunsdon and, when pregnant, married off to Alphonso Lanier, another royal musician. A.L. Rowse suggested she was Shakespeare’s mistress; in 1597–1600, was involved with the astrologer Simon Forman, who described her as ‘high-minded …very brave in youth… many false conceptions…for lucre’s sake will be a good fellow’. She worked her aristocratic connections: her 1611 volume has ten dedications to the Queen and aristocratic ladies, notably to Margaret, the Dowager Countess of Cumberland, the real object of the exercise. Of the title poem, Salve Deus Rex ludaeorum, ostensibly celebrating Christ, about half actually celebrates Biblical heroines and contemporary ladies, notably the Countess, once apologizing for digressing from her praise to that of Christ.

  A.L. Rowse (ed. and intro.), The Poems of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady: ‘Salve Deus Rex ludaeorum’ (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978).

  The Description of Cooke-ham*

  Farewell (sweet Cookeham) where I first obtained

  Grace from that Grace where perfect grace remained;

  And where the Muses gave their full consent,

  I should have pow’r the virtuous to content:

  Where princely palace willed me to endite,

  The sacred story of the soul’s delight.

  Farewell (sweet place) where virtue then did rest,

  And all delights did harbour in her breast:

  Never shall my sad eyes again behold

  Those pleasures which my thoughts did then unfold: [10]

  Yet you (great Lady) mistress of that place,

  From whose desires did spring this work of grace;

  Vouchsafe to think upon those pleasures past,

  As fleeting worldly joys that could not last:

&
nbsp; Or, as dim shadows of celestial pleasures,

  Which are desired above all earthly treasures.

  Oh how (methought) against you thither came,

  Each part did seem some new delight to frame!

  The House received all ornaments to grace it,

  And would endure no foulness to deface it. [20]

  The walks put on their summer liveries,

  And all things else did hold like similes:

  The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,

  Embraced each other, seeming to be glad,

  Turning themselves to beauteous canopies,

  To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes:

  The crystal streams with silver spangles graced,

  While by the glorious sun they were embraced:

  The little birds in chirping notes did sing,

  To entertain both you and that sweeet spring. [30]

  And Philomela with her sundry lays,

  Both you and that delightful place did praise.

  Oh how methought each plant, each flow’r, each tree

  Set forth their beauties then to welcome thee:

  The very hills right humbly did descend,

  When you to tread upon them did intend.

  And as you set your feet, they still did rise,

  Glad that they could receive so rich a prize.

  The gentle winds did take delight to be

  Among those woods that were so graced by thee. [40]

  And in sad murmur uttered pleasing sound,

  That pleasure in that place might more abound:

  The swelling banks delivered all their pride,

  When such a phoenix once they had espied.

  Each arbour, bank, each seat, each stately tree,

  Thought themselves honoured in supporting thee.

  The pretty birds would oft come to attend thee,

  Yet fly away for fear they should offend thee:

  The little creatures in the burrow by

  Would come abroad to sport them in your eye; [50]

  Yet fearful of the bow in your fair hand,

  Would run away when you did make a stand.

  Now let me come unto that stately tree,

  Wherein such goodly prospects you did see;