Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HIS MISTRESS FOR HER TRUE PICTURE, by EDWARD HERBERT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HIS MISTRESS FOR HER TRUE PICTURE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Death, my life's mistress, and the sovereingn queen
Last Line: Who from my mouth-grate and eye-window bawl.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cherbury, 1st Baron Herbert Of; Herbert Of Cherbury, Edward Herbert, 1st Baron; Herbert Of Cherbury, Lord
Subject(s): Beauty; Love


DEATH, my life's mistress, and the sovereign queen
Of all that ever breath'd, though yet unseen,
My heart doth love you best; but I confess,
Your picture I beheld, which doth express
No such eye-taking beauty; you seem lean,
Unless you 're mended since. Sure he did mean
No honour to you that did draw you so:
Therefore I think it false: besides, I know
The picture Nature drew (which sure 's the best)
Doth figure you by sleep and sweetest rest:
Sleep, nurse of our life, care's best reposer,
Nature's high'st rapture, and the vision-giver;
Sleep, which when it doth seize us, souls go play,
And make man equal as he was first day.
Yet some will say, Can pictures have more life
Than the original? To end this strife,
Sweet mistress, come, and show yourself to me
In your true form, while then I think to see
Some beauty angelic that comes t' unlock
My body's prison, and from life unyoke
My well-divorced soul, and set it free
To liberty eternal. Thus you see
I find the painter's error, and protect
Your absent beauties ill-drawn by th' effect.
For grant it were your work, and not the grave's,
Draw love by madness then, tyrants by slaves,
Because they make men such. Dear mistress, then,
If you would not be seen by owl-ey'd men,
Appear at noon i' th' air, with so much light
The sun may be a moon, the day a night;
Clear to my soul, but dark'ning the weak sense
Of those the other world's Cimmeriens;
And in your fatal robe, embroidered
With star-characters, teaching me to read
The destiny of mortals, while your clear brow
Presents a majesty to instruct me how
To love or dread naught else. May your bright hair,
Which are the threads of life, fair crown'd appear
With that your crown of immortality;
In your right hand the keys of Heaven be;
In th' other those of the Infernal Pit,
Whence none retires, if once he enter it.
And here let me complain how few are those
Whose souls you shall from earth's vast dungeon loose
To endless happiness! few that attend
You, the true guide, unto their journey's end;
And if of old virtue's way narrow were,
'Tis rugged now, having no passenger.
Our life is but a dark and stormy night,
To which sense yields a weak and glimmering light,
While wand'ring man thinks he discerneth all
By that which makes him but mistake and fall.
He sees enough who doth his darkness see;
These are great lights, by which less dark'ned be.
Shine then sun-brighter through my sense's veil,
A day-star of the light doth never fail;
Show me that goodness which compounds the strife
'Twixt a long sickness and a weary life;
Set forth that justice which keeps all in awe,
Certain and equal more than any law;
Figure that happy and eternal rest,
Which till man do enjoy he is not blest.
Come and appear then, dear soul-ravisher,
Heaven's light-usher, man's deliverer,
And do not think, when I new beauties see,
They can withdraw my settled love from thee.
Flesh-beauty strikes me not at all: I know,
When thou dost leave them to the grave, they show
Worse than they now show thee: they shall not move
In me the least part of delight or love,
But as they teach your power. Be she nut-brown,
The loveliest colour which the flesh doth crown,
I 'll think her like a nut, a fair outside.
Within which worms and rottenness abide;
If fair, then like the worm itself to be;
If painted, like their slime and sluttery.
If any yet will think their beauties best,
And will against you, spite of all, contest,
Seize them with age: so in themselves they 'll hate
What they scorn'd in your picture, and too late
See their fault and the painter's. Yet if this,
Which their great'st plague and wrinkled torture is,
Please not, you may to the more wicked sort,
Or such as of your praises make a sport,
Denounce an open war, send chosen bands
Or worms, your soldiers, to their fairest hands,
And make them leprous-scabb'd; upon their face
Let those your pioneers, ring-worms, take their place,
And safely near with strong approaches got,
Entrench it round, while their teeth's rampire, rot
With other worms, may with a damp inbred
Stink to their senses, which they shall not dead:
And thus may all that ere they prided in
Confound them now. As for the parts within,
Send gut-worms, which may undermine a way
Unto their vital parts, and so display
That your pale ensign on the walls; then let
Those worms, your veterans, which never yet
Did fail, enter pell-mell and ransack all,
Just as they see the well-rais'd building fall;
While they do this, your foragers command,
The caterpillars, to devour their land,
And with them wasps, your wing'd-worm-horsemen, bring,
To charge, in troop, those rebels with their sting:
All this, unless your beauty they confess.
And now, sweet mistress, let m' a while digress,
T' admire these noble worms whom I invoke,
And not the Muses---You that eat through oak
And bark, will you spare paper and my verse,
Because your praises they do here rehearse?

Brave legions then, sprung from the mighty race
Of man corrupted, and which hold the place
Of his undoubted issue; you that are
Brain-born, Minerva-like, and like her war,
Well-arm'd complete-mail-jointed soldiers,
Whose force Herculean links in pieces tears;
To you the vengeance of all spill-blood falls,
Beast-eating men, men-eating cannibals.
Death-privileg'd, were you in sunder smit
You do not lose your life but double it;
Best-framed types of the immortal soul,
Which in yourselves and in each part are whole;
Last-living creatures, heirs of all the earth,
For when all men are dead, it is your birth:
When you die, your brave self-kill'd general
(For nothing else can kill him) doth end all.
What vermin-breeding body then thinks scorn
His flesh should be by your brave fury torn?

Willing to you this carcase I submit,
A gift so free I do not care for it;
Which yet you shall not take until I see
My mistress first reveal herself to me.

Meanwhile, great mistress whom my soul admires.
Grant me your true picture who it desires,
That he your matchless beauty might maintain
'Gainst all men that will quarrels entertain
For a flesh-mistress; the worst I can do
Is but to keep the way that leads to you,
And howsoever the event doth prove,
To have revenge below, reward above;
Hear, from my body's prison, this my call,
Who from my mouth-grate and eye-window bawl.





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