Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MEDITATION - REPLY, by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MEDITATION - REPLY, by                 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.





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