Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TURTLE AND SPARROW, by MATTHEW PRIOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TURTLE AND SPARROW, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: Behind an unfrequented glade
Last Line: And knaves and prudes are six times married.
Subject(s): Animals; Death; Fables; Grief; Sparrows; Turtles; Dead, The; Allegories; Sorrow; Sadness; Tortoises


BEHIND an unfrequented glade,
Where yew and myrtle mix their shade,
A widowed turtle pensive sat,
And wept her murdered lover's fate.
The sparrow chanced that way to walk
(A bird that loves to chirp and talk);
Be sure he did the turtle greet;
She answered him as she thought meet.
Sparrows and turtles, by the bye,
Can think as well as you or I;
But how they did their thoughts express,
The margin shows by T. and S.
T. My hopes are lost, my joys are fled,
Alas! I weep Columbo dead;
Come, all ye winged lovers, come,
Drop pinks and daisies on his tomb;
Sing, Philomel, his funeral verse,
Ye pious redbreasts, deck his hearse;
Fair swans, extend your dying throats,
Columbo's death requires your notes:
'For him, my friends, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.'
Stretched on the bier Columbo lies,
Pale are his cheeks, and closed his eyes;
Those cheeks, where beauty smiling lay;
Those eyes, where love was used to play.
Ah! cruel Fate, alas! how soon
That beauty and those joys are flown!
Columbo is no more; ye floods,
Bear the sad sound to distant woods;
The sound let echo's voice restore,
And say, Columbo is no more,
'Ye floods, ye woods, ye echoes, moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.'
The dryads all forsook the wood,
And mournful naiads round me stood;
The tripping fawns and fairies came,
All conscious of our mutual flame:
'To sigh for him, with me to moan
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.'
Venus disdained not to appear,
To lend my grief a friendly ear;
But what avails her kindness now,
She ne'er shall hear my second vow.
The loves, that round their mother flew,
Did in her face her sorrows view;
Their drooping wings they pensive hung,
Their arrows broke, their bows unstrung;
They heard attentive what I said,
And wept, with me, Columbo dead:
'For him I sigh, for him I moan,
My dear Columbo, dead and gone.'
''Tis ours to weep,' great Venus said;
''Tis Jove's alone to be obeyed:
Nor birds nor goddesses can move
The just behests of fatal Jove.
I saw thy mate with sad regret,
And cursed the fowler's cruel net.
Ah, dear Columbo! how he fell,
Whom Turturella loved so well!
I saw him bleeding on the ground,
The sight tore up my ancient wound;
And, whilst you wept, alas! I cried,
Columbo and Adonis died.'
'Weep all ye streams; ye mountains, groan,
I mourn Columbo, dead and gone;
Still let my tender grief complain,
Nor day nor night that grief restrain:'
I said; and Venus still replied,
'Columbo and Adonis died.'
S. Poor Turturella, hard thy case,
And just thy tears, alas, alas!
T. And hast thou loved; and canst thou hear
With piteous heart a lover's care:
Come then, with me thy sorrows join,
And ease my woes by telling thine:
For thou, poor bird, perhaps mayst moan
Some Passerella dead and gone.
S. Dame Turtle, this runs soft in rhyme,
But neither suits the place nor time;
The fowler's hand, whose cruel care
For dear Columbo set the snare,
The snare again for thee may set;
Two birds may perish in one net,
Thou shouldst avoid this cruel field,
And sorrow should to prudence yield.
'Tis sad to die! --
T. -- It may be so;
'Tis sadder yet to live in woe.
S. When widows use this canting strain,
They seem resolved to wed again.
T. When widowers would this truth disprove,
They never tasted real love.
S. Love is soft joy and gentle strife,
His efforts all depend on life.
When he has thrown two golden darts,
And struck the lovers' mutual hearts;
Of his black shafts let death send one,
Alas! the pleasing game is done:
Ill is the poor survivor sped,
A corpse feels mighty cold in bed.
Venus said right -- 'Nor tears can move,
Nor plaints revoke the will of Jove.'
All must obey the general doom,
Down from Alcides to Tom Thumb.
Grim Pluto will not be withstood
By force or craft. Tall Robinhood,
As well as Little John, is dead
(You see how deeply I am read).
With Fate's lean tipstaff none can dodge,
He'll find you out where'er you lodge.
Ajax, to shun his general power,
In vain absconded in a flower;
An idle scene Tythonus acted,
When to a grasshopper contracted;
Death struck them in those shapes again,
As once he did when they were men.
For reptiles perish, plants decay;
Flesh is but grass, grass turns to hay;
And hay to dung, and dung to clay.
Thus heads extremely nice discover,
That folks may die some ten times over;
But oft, by too refined a touch,
To prove things plain, they prove too much.
Whate'er Pythagoras may say
(For each, you know, will have his way),
With great submission I pronounce,
That people die no more than once.
But once is sure; and death is common
To bird and man, including woman;
From the spread eagle to the wren,
Alas! no mortal fowl knows when;
All that wear feathers first or last
Must one day perch on Charon's mast;
Must lie beneath the cypress shade,
Where Strada's nightingale was laid;
Those fowl who seem alive to sit,
Assembled by Don Chaucer's wit,
In prose have slept three hundred years;
Exempt from worldly hopes and fears,
And, laid in state upon their hearse,
Are truly but embalmed in verse.
As sure as Lesbia's sparrow I,
Thou sure as Prior's dove, must die,
And ne'er again from Lethe's streams,
Return to Adige, or to Thames.
T. I therefore weep Columbo dead,
My hopes bereaved, my pleasures fled;
'I therefore must for ever moan
My dear Columbo dead and gone.'
S. Columbo never sees your tears,
Your cries Columbo never hears;
A wall of brass, and one of lead,
Divide the living from the dead,
Repelled by this, the gathered rain
Of tears beats back to earth again;
In the other the collected sound
Of groans, when once received, is drowned.
'Tis therefore vain one hour to grieve,
What time itself can ne'er retrieve.
By nature soft, I know a dove
Can never live without her love;
Then quit this flame, and light another;
Dame, I advise you like a brother.
T. What, I to make a second choice!
In other nuptials to rejoice!
S. Why not, my bird? -----
T. ----- No, sparrow, no!
Let me indulge my pleasing woe:
Thus sighing, cooing, ease my pain,
But never wish, nor love, again:
Distressed for ever, let me moan
'My dear Columbo, dead and gone.'
S. Our winged friends through all the grove
Contemn thy mad excess of love;
I tell thee, dame, the other day
I met a parrot and a jay,
Who mocked thee in their mimic tone,
And 'wept Columbo, dead and gone.'
T. Whate'er the jay or parrot said,
My hopes are lost, my joys are fled;
And I for ever must deplore
'Columbo dead and gone.' -- S. Encore?
For shame! forsake this Bion-style,
We'll talk an hour, and walk a mile.
Does it with sense or health agree,
To sit thus moping on a tree!
To throw away a widow's life,
When you again may be a wife!
Come on! I'll tell you my amours;
Who knows but they may influence yours;
'Example draws where precept fails,
And sermons are less read than tales.'
T. Sparrow, I take thee for my friend,
As such will hear thee; I descend;
Hop on, and talk; but, honest bird,
Take care that no immodest word
May venture to offend my ear.
S. Too saint-like turtle, never fear;
By method things are best discoursed,
Begin we then with wife the first.
A handsome, senseless, awkward fool,
Who would not yield, and could not rule;
Her actions did her charms disgrace,
And still her tongue talked of her face:
Count me the leaves on youder tree,
So many different wills had she,
And, like the leaves, as chance inclined,
Those wills were changed with every wind:
She courted the beau-monde to-night,
The assembly, her supreme delight;
The next she sat immured, unseen,
And in full health enjoyed the spleen;
She censured that, she altered this,
And with great care set all amiss;
She now could chide, now laugh, now cry,
Now sing, now pout, all God knows why;
Short was her reign, she coughed, and died.
Proceed we to my second bride;
Well born she was, genteelly bred,
And buxom both at board and bed;
Glad to oblige, and pleased to please,
And, as Tom Southern wisely says,
'No other fault had she in life,
But only that she was my wife.'
O widow turtle! every she
(So Nature's pleasure does decree)
Appears a goddess till enjoyed;
But birds, and men, and gods, are cloyed.
Was Hercules one woman's man?
Or Jove for ever Leda's swan?
Ah! madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow-bacon.
Variety alone gives joy,
The sweetest meats the soonest cloy.
What sparrow-dame, what dove alive,
Though Venus should the chariot drive,
But would accuse the harness weight,
If always coupled to one mate;
And often wish the fetter broke?
'Tis freedom but to change the yoke.
T. Impious! to wish to wed again,
Ere death dissolved the former chain!
S. Spare your remark, and hear the rest;
She brought me sons; but (Jove be blessed!)
She died in childbed on the next.
Well, rest her bones! quoth I, she's gone;
But must I therefore lie alone.
What! am I to her memory tied;
Must I not live, because she died!
And thus I logically said
('Tis good to have a reasoning head!)
Is this my wife? Probatur, not;
For death dissolved the marriage-knot;
She was, concedo, during life;
But, is a piece of clay a wife?
Again; if not a wife d'ye see,
Why then no kin at all to me;
And he, who general tears can shed
For folks that happen to be dead,
May even with equal justice mourn
For those who never yet were born.
T. Those points indeed you quaintly prove:
But logic is no friend to love.
S. My children then were just pen-feathered:
Some little corn for them I gathered,
And sent them to my spouse's mother;
So left that brood, to get another;
And, as old Harry whilom said,
Reflecting on Anne Boleyn dead,
Cocksbones! I now again do stand
The jollyest bachelor in the land.
T. Ah me! my joys, my hopes are fled;
My first, my only love, is dead.
With endless grief let me bemoan
Columbo's loss! --
S. -- Let me go on.
As yet my fortune was but narrow,
I wooed my cousin Philly Sparrow,
Of the elder house of Chirping End,
From whence the younger branch descend.
Well seated in a field of pease
She lived, extremely at her ease:
But, when the honey-moon was passed,
The following nights were soon o'ercast;
She kept her own, could plead the law,
And quarrel for a barley-straw;
Both, you may judge, became less kind,
As more we knew each other's mind;
She soon grew sullen; I hard-hearted;
We scolded, hated, fought, and parted.
To London, blessed town! I went;
She boarded at a farm in Kent.
A magpie from the country fled,
And kindly told me she was dead.
I pruned my feathers, cocked my tail,
And set my heart again to sale.
My fourth, a mere coquette, or such
I thought her; nor avails it much,
If true or false; our troubles spring
More from the fancy than the thing.
Two staring horns, I often said,
But ill became a sparrow's head;
But then, to set that balance even,
Your cuckold sparrow goes to Heaven.
The thing you fear, suppose it done,
If you inquire, you make it known.
Whilst at the root your horns are sore,
The more you scratch, they ache the more.
But turn the tables, and reflect,
All may not be, that you suspect.
By the mind's eye, the horns we mean
Are only in ideas seen;
'Tis from the inside of the head
Their branches shoot, their antlers spread;
Fruitful suspicions often bear them,
You feel them from the time you fear them.
Cuckoo! cuckoo! that echoed word
Offends the ear of vulgar bird;
But those of finer taste have found,
There's nothing in't beside the sound.
Preferment always waits on horns,
And household peace the gift adorns;
This way, or that, let factions tend,
The spark is still the cuckold's friend;
This way, or that, let madam roam,
Well pleased and quiet she comes home.
Now weigh the pleasure with the pain,
The plus and minus, loss and gain,
And what La Fontaine laughing says,
Is serious truth, in such a case;
'Who slights the evil, finds it least;
And who does nothing, does the best.'
I never strove to rule the roast,
She ne'er refused to pledge my toast;
In visits if we chanced to meet,
I seemed obliging, she discreet;
We neither much caressed nor strove,
But good dissembling passed for love.
T. Whate'er of light our eye may know,
'Tis only light itself can show;
Whate'er of love our heart can feel,
'Tis mutual love alone can tell.
S. My pretty, amorous, foolish bird,
A moment's patience! In one word,
The three kind sisters broke the chain,
She died, I mourned, and wooed again.
T. Let me with juster grief deplore
My dear Columbo, now no more;
Let me with constant tears bewail;
S. Your sorrow does but spoil my tale.
My fifth, she proved a jealous wife,
Lord shield us all from such a life;
'Twas doubt, complaint, reply, chitchat,
'Twas this, to-day; to-morrow, that.
Sometimes, forsooth, upon the brook
I kept a miss; an honest rook
Told it a snipe, who told a steer,
Who told it those who told it her.
One day a linnet and a lark
Had met me strolling in the dark;
The next a woodcock and an owl,
Quick-sighted, grave, and sober fowl,
Would on their corporal oath allege,
I kissed a hen behind the hedge.
Well, madam turtle, to be brief,
(Repeating but renews our grief)
As once she watched me from a rail,
(Poor soul!) her footing chanced to fail,
And down she fell, and broke her hip;
The fever came, and then the pip:
Death did the only cure apply:
She was at rest, and so was I.
T. Could love unmoved these changes view;
His sorrows, as his joys, are true.
S. My dearest dove, one wise man says,
Alluding to our present case,
'We're here to-day and gone to-morrow:'
Then what avails superfluous sorrow!
Another, full as wise as he,
Adds; that 'a married man may see
Two happy hours;' and which are they;
The first and last, perhaps you'll say!
'Tis true, when blithe she goes to bed,
And when she peaceably lies dead;
'Women 'twixt sheets are best, 'tis said,
Be they of holland, or of lead.'
Now, cured of Hymen's hopes and fears,
And sliding down the vale of years,
I hoped to fix my future rest,
And took a widow to my next,
(Ah, turtle! had she been like thee,
Sober, yet gentle, wise, yet free!)
But she was peevish, noisy, bold,
A witch ingrafted on a scold.
Jove in Pandora's box confined
A hundred ills, to vex mankind;
To vex one bird, in her bandore,
He had at least a hundred more.
And, soon as time that veil withdrew,
The plagues o'er all the parish flew;
Her stock of borrowed tears grew dry,
And native tempests armed her eye;
Black clouds around her forehead hung,
And thunder rattled on her tongue.
We, young or old, or cock or hen,
All lived in AEolus's den;
The nearest her, the more accursed,
Ill fared her friends, her husband worst.
But Jove amidst his anger spares,
Remarks our faults, but hears our prayers.
In short, she died. Why then she's dead,
Quoth I, and once again I'll wed.
Would heaven, this mourning year were past!
One may have better luck at last.
Matters at worst are sure to mend,
The Devil's wife was but a fiend.
T. Thy tale has raised a turtle's spleen,
Uxorious inmate! bird obscene!
Dar'st thou defile these sacred groves,
These silent seats of faithful loves!
Begone, with flagging wings sit down
On some old penthouse near the town;
In brewers' stables peck thy grain,
Then wash it down with puddled rain;
And hear thy dirty offspring squall
From bottles on a suburb wall.
Where thou hast been, return again,
Vile bird! thou hast conversed with men;
Notions like these from men are given,
Those vilest creatures under Heaven.
To cities and to courts repair,
Flattery and falsehood flourish there;
There all thy wretched arts employ,
Where riches triumph over joy;
Where passion does with interest barter,
And Hymen holds by Mammon's charter;
Where truth by point of law is parried,
And knaves and prudes are six times married.





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