Poetry By English Women Page 7

  The powerful spirit’s subtler flight,

  But ’twill bid him long good night:

  And so the sun, if it arise

  Half so glorious as his eyes, [20]

  Like this infant, takes a shroud,

  Buried in a morning cloud.

  Lucasia, Rosania and Orinda parting at a Fountain, July 1663*

  I

  Here, here are our enjoyments done,

  And since the love and grief we wear

  Forbids us either word or tear,

  And art wants here expression,

  See Nature furnish us with one.

  II

  The kind and mournful nymph which here

  Inhabits in her humble cells,

  No longer her own sorrow tells

  Nor for it now concerned appears,

  But for our parting sheds these tears. [10]

  III

  Unless she may afflicted be,

  Lest we should doubt her innocence,

  Since she hath lost her best pretence

  Unto a matchless purity;

  Our love being clearer far than she.

  IV

  Cold as the streams that from her flow,

  Or (if her privater recess

  A greater coldness can express)

  Then cold as those dark beds of snow

  Our hearts are at this parting blow. [20]

  V

  But Time, that has both wings and feet,

  Our suffering minutes being spent,

  Will visit us with new content;

  And sure, if unkindness be so sweet

  ’Tis harder to forget than meet.

  VI

  Then though the sad adieu we say,

  Yet as the wine we hither bring

  Revives, and then exalts the spring;

  So let our hopes to meet allay

  The fears and sorrows of this day. [30]

  APHRA BEHN 1640–1689

  Little is certain about her early years: possibly the daughter of Bartholomew and Elizabeth Johnson of Kent; in her youth probably went to Surinam, where her (foster?) father had been given a colonial post but died en route. While there, was involved with a slave rising (see her prose romance Oroonoko, 1688); returning to England presumably married a (Dutch?) tradesman who soon died. In 1666, was sent as a spy to Holland; was not paid adequately, returned to London, and was briefly imprisoned for debt. In 1670 began her career as the first professional woman writer, producing some sixteen plays (notably The Forc’d Marriage and The Rover) in nineteen years. Royalist, pro-Catholic, libertine, her acquaintance ranged from the Earl of Rochester to Nell Gwynne. A vicious lampoon survives from her declining years:

  Doth that lewd harlot, that poetic queen

  Fam’d through Whitefriars, you know who I mean,

  Mend for reproof, others set up in spight

  To flux, take glisters, vomits, purge and write.

  Long with a sciatica, she’s beside lame,

  Her limbs distortur’d, nerves shrunk up with pain,

  And therefore I’ll all sharp reflections shun,

  Poverty, poetry, pox, are plagues enough for one.

  Perhaps surprisingly, is buried in Westminster Abbey, under a stone reading, ‘Here lies a Proof that wit can never be / Defence enough against Mortality’.

  Poems upon several occasions, with a voyage to the island of Love (London, 1684); Lycidus, or the Lover in Fashion … Poems by Several Hands (London, 1688); Montague Summers (ed.), The Works of Aphra Behn (London: Heinemann, 1915); Maureen Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn 1640–1689 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977).

  Love Arm’d

  Love in fantastic triumph sat,

  Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed,

  For whom fresh pains he did create,

  And strange tyrannic power he showed;

  From thy bright eyes he took his fire,

  Which round about, in sport he hurled;

  But ’twas from mine, he took desire,

  Enough to undo the amorous world.

  From me he took his sighs and tears,

  From thee his pride and cruelty; [10]

  From me his languishments and fears,

  And every killing dart from thee;

  Thus thou and I, the god have armed,

  And set him up a deity;

  But my poor heart alone is harmed,

  Whilst thine the victor is, and free.

  Song: The Willing Mistriss

  Amyntas led me to a grove

  Where all the trees did shade us;

  The sun it self, though it had strove,

  It could not have betrayed us:

  The place secured from human eyes,

  No other fear allows,

  But when the winds that gently rise,

  Does kiss the yielding boughs.

  Down there we sat upon the moss,

  And did begin to play [10]

  A thousand amorous tricks, to pass

  The heat of all the day.

  A many kisses he did give;

  And I returned the same

  Which made me willing to receive

  That which I dare not name.

  His charming eyes no aid required

  To tell their soft’ning tale;

  On her that was already fired

  ’Twas easy to prevail. [20]

  He did but kiss and clasp me round,

  Whilst those his thoughts expressed:

  And laid me gently on the ground;

  Ah who can guess the rest?

  The Disappointment*

  I

  One day the amorous Lysander

  By an impatient passion swayed,

  Surprised fair Cloris, that loved maid,

  Who could defend herself no longer.

  All things did with his love conspire;

  The gilded planet of the day,

  In his gay chariot drawn by fire,

  Was now descending to the sea,

  And left no light to guide the world,

  But what from Cloris’ brighter eyes was hurled. [10]

  II

  In a lone thicket made for love,

  Silent as a yielding maid’s consent,

  She with a charming languishment,

  Permits his force, yet gently strove;

  Her hands his bosom softly meet,

  But not to put him back designed,

  Rather to draw him on inclined:

  Whilst he lay trembling at her feet,

  Resistance ’tis in vain to show;

  She wants the power to say – Ah! What d’ye do? [20]

  III

  Her bright eyes sweet, and yet severe,

  Where love and shame confus’dly strive,

  Fresh vigour to Lysander give;

  And breathing faintly in his ear,

  She cried – Cease, cease your vain desire,

  Or I’ll call out – What would you do?

  My dearer honour ev’n to you

  I cannot, must not give – Retire

  Or take this life, whose chiefest part

  I gave you with the conquest of my heart. [30]

  IV

  But he as much unused to fear,

  As he was capable of love,

  The blessed minutes to improve,

  Kisses her mouth, her neck, her hair;

  Each touch her new desire alarms,

  His burning trembling hand he pressed

  Upon her swelling snowy breast,

  While she lay panting in his arms.

  All her unguarded beauties lie

  The spoils and trophies of the enemy. [40]

  V

  And now without respect or fear,

  He seeks the object of his vows,

  (His love no modesty allows)

  By swift degrees advancing – where

  His daring hand that altar seized,

  Where gods of love do sacrifice:

  That awful throne, that paradise

  Wher
e rage is calmed, and anger pleased;

  That fountain where delight still flows,

  And gives the universal world repose. [50]

  VI

  Her balmy lips encount’ring his,

  Their bodies, as their souls, are joined;

  Where both in transports unconfined

  Extend themselves upon the moss.

  Cloris half dead and breathless lay;

  Her soft eyes cast a humid light,

  Such as divides the day and night;

  Or falling stars, whose fires decay:

  And now no signs of life she shows,

  But what in short-breathed sighs returns and goes. [60]

  VII

  He saw how at her length she lay;

  He saw her rising bosom bare;

  Her loose thin robes, through which appear

  A shape designed for love and play;

  Abandoned by her pride and shame.

  She does her softest joys dispense,

  Off’ring her virgin-innocence

  A victim to love’s sacred flame;

  While the o’er-ravished shepherd lies

  Unable to perform the sacrifice. [70]

  VIII

  Ready to taste a thousand joys,

  The too transported hapless swain

  Found the vast pleasure turned to pain;

  Pleasure which too much love destroys:

  The willing garments by he laid,

  And heaven all opened to his view,

  Mad to possess, himself he threw

  On the defenceless lovely maid.

  But Oh what envying gods conspire

  To snatch his power, yet leave him the desire! [80]

  IX

  Nature’s support (without whose aid

  She can no humane being give)

  It self now wants the art to live:

  Faintness its slackened nerves invade:

  In vain th’enraged youth essayed

  To call its fleeting vigour back,

  No motion ’twill from motion take;

  Excess of love his love betrayed:

  In vain he toils, in vain commands;

  The insensible fell weeping in his hand. [90]

  X

  In this so amorous cruel strife,

  Where Love and Fate were too severe,

  The poor Lysander in despair

  Renounced his reason with his life:

  Now all the brisk and active fire

  That should the nobler part inflame,

  Served to increase his rage and shame,

  And left no spark for new desire:

  Not all her naked charms could move

  Or calm that rage that had debauched his love. [100]

  XI

  Cloris returning from the trance

  Which love and soft desire had bred,

  Her timorous hand she gently laid

  (Or guided by design or chance)

  Upon that fabulous Priapas,

  That potent god, as poets feign;

  But never did young shepherdess,

  Gath’ring of fern upon the plain,

  More nimbly draw her fingers back,

  Finding beneath the verdant leaves a snake: [110]

  XII

  Than Cloris her fair hand withdrew,

  Finding that god of her desires

  Disarmed of all his awful fires,

  And cold as flow’rs bathed in the morning dew.

  Who can the nymph’s confusion guess?

  The blood forsook the hinder place,

  And strewed with blushes all her face,

  Which both disdain and shame expressed:

  And from Lysander’s arms she fled,

  Leaving him fainting on that gloomy bed. [120]

  XIII

  Like lightning through the grove she flies,

  Or Daphne from the Delphic god,

  No print upon the grassy road

  She leaves, t’instruct pursuing eyes.

  The wind that wantoned in her hair,

  And with her ruffled garments played,

  Discovered in the flying maid

  All that the gods e’er made, if fair.

  So Venus, when her love was slain,

  With fear and haste flew o’er the fatal plain. [130]

  XIV

  The nymph’s resentments none but I

  Can well imagine or condole:

  But none can guess Lysander’s soul,

  But those who swayed his destiny.

  His silent griefs swell up to storms,

  And not one god his fury spares;

  He cursed his birth, his fate, his stars;

  But more the shepherdess’s charms,

  Whose soft bewitching influence

  Had damned him to the hell of impotence. [140]

  To Alexis in Answer to his Poem against Fruition*

  Ah hapless sex! who bear no charms,

  But what like lightning flash and are no more,

  False fires sent down for baneful harms,

  Fires which the fleeting lover feebly warms

  And given like past beboches o’er,

  Like songs that please, (though bad,) when new,

  But learned by heart neglected grew.

  In vain did Heav’n adorn the shape and face

  With beauties which by angels’ forms it drew:

  In vain the mind with brighter glories grace, [10]

  While all our joys are stinted to the space

  Of one betraying interview,

  With one surrender to the eager will

  We’re short-lived nothing, or a real ill.

  Since Man with that inconstancy was born,

  To love the absent, and the present scorn,

  Why do we deck, why do we dress

  For such a short-lived happiness?

  Why do we put attraction on,

  Since either way ’tis we must be undone? [20]

  They fly if Honour take our part,

  Our virtue drives them o’er the field.

  We lose ’em by too much desert,

  And Oh! they fly us if we yield.

  Ye Gods! is there no charm in all the fair

  To fix this wild, this faithless wanderer.

  Man! our great business and our aim.

  For whom we spread our fruitless snares,

  No sooner kindles the designing flame,

  But to the next bright object bears [30]

  The trophies of his conquest and our shame:

  Inconstancy’s the god supreme

  The rest is airy notion, empty dream!

  Then, heedless nymph, be ruled by me

  If e’er your swain the bliss desire;

  Think like Alexis he may be

  Whose wished possession damps his fire;

  The roving youth in every shade

  Has left some sighing and abandoned maid,

  For ’tis a fatal lesson he has learned, [40]

  After fruition ne’er to be concerned.

  To the fair Clarinda, who made Love to me, imagin’d more than Woman*

  Fair lovely maid, or if that title be

  Too weak, too feminine for nobler thee,

  Permit a name that more approaches truth:

  And let me call thee, lovely charming youth.

  This last will justify my soft complaint;

  While that may serve to lessen my constraint;

  And without blushes I the youth pursue,

  When so much beauteous woman is in view.

  Against thy charms we struggle but in vain:

  With thy deluding form thou giv’st us pain, [10]

  While the bright nymph betrays us to the swain.

  In pity to our sex sure thou wert sent,

  That we might love, and yet be innocent:

  For sure no crime with thee we can commit;

  Or if we should – thy form excuses it.

  For who, that gathers fairest flowers believes

  A snake lies hid beneath the fragra
nt leaves.

  Thou beauteous wonder of a different kind,

  Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis joined;

  When e’er the manly part of thee would plead, [20]

  Thou tempts us with the image of the maid.

  While we the noblest passions do extend

  The love to Hermes, Aphrodite the friend.

  LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH 1656–1710

  Father, Richard Lee, of Winslade, Devon; in 1674 married Sir George Chudleigh, of Ashton, Devon, and had three children. Widely read in classical and English literature, and an admirer of the feminist writer Mary Astell. Her verse is very assured and polished, high-minded and judgemental, celebrating female friendships and severe on husbands. The Ladies Defence was a response to a sermon by a Nonconformist minister, Mr Sprint, printed in 1699, about women’s weak moral nature and need for absolute obedience to their husbands: it is for four speakers, Sir John Brute, a stupid, tyrannical husband, a Parson, not unrelated to Mr Sprint, Sir William Loveall, dim and chivalrous, and one Melissa, who has a few sharp things to say.

  The Ladies Defence or, The Bride-Woman’s Counsellor Answer’d: a poem (London, 1701); Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1710).

  from The Ladies Defence Or, the Bride-Woman’s Counsellor Answered

  Melissa: Unhappy they, who by their duty led,

  Are made the partners of a hated bed;

  And by their father’s avarice or pride,

  To empty fops, or nauseous clowns are tied;

  Or else constrained to give up all their charms

  Into an old ill-humoured husband’s arms,

  Who hugs his bags, and never was inclined