Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MEDITATION - REPLY, by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Unhappy east - not in that awe Last Line: Makes conquest of the heavenly part. Variant Title(s): Meditation | ||||||||
UNHAPPY East -- not in that awe You pay your Lords, whose will is Law, But in your own unmanly reign On the soft sex, and proud disdain, What state would bring the value down Of treasure which is all their own? Their thoughts to worthless objects move Who thus suppress the growth of love -- Love that extends the high desire, Love that improves the manly fire, And makes the price of Beauty rise And all our wishes multiplies; Such high content dwells not in sense, Nor can the captiv'd fair dispense Such sweets as these; no servile Dame Can with her beauty feed this flame; Such joys as these requires a heart In which no other love hath part. Ah, who would prize his Liberty (This faint weak pleasure to be free) Dear as the wounds which Love can give, The bond in which such servants live, Who list in wand'ring loose desire Vary his love, disperse his fire, Aim at no more than to repeat The thirst of sense, and quench that heat. Let my collected passion rise All and to one a sacrifice: I fear not her discerning breast Should be with other love imprest, Be to the proud resign'd a prey, Or to the loud, or to the gay. Why should distorted nature prove More lovely than my humble love? What taught the elder times success In Love, but Love, and humbleness? The Nymphs resign'd their virgin fears To nothing but the Shepherd's tears. Nature with wise distrust doth arm And guard that tender sex from harm; Long waiting Love doth passage find Into the slow believing mind. Jove, when he would with Love comply, Is said to lay his thunder by: Too rough he thinks the shape of man, Now in the softness of a swan, Now like another Nymph appears, And so beguiles Calisto's fears. By force he could have soon comprest That which contents the ruder East, But he by this diviner art Makes conquest of the heavenly part. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A LOVER AND HIS MISTRESS by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN A FAREWELL by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN ELEGIE ON D.D. by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN |
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