Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RETIREMENT; PINDARIC ODE MADE IN THE TIME OF GREAT SICKNESS, 1665, by THOMAS FLATMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RETIREMENT; PINDARIC ODE MADE IN THE TIME OF GREAT SICKNESS, 1665, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the mild close of a hot summer's day
Last Line: Magnificent and tall without, but dead men's bones within.
Subject(s): Plague


Stanza I.

IN the mild close of an hot summer's day,
When a cool breeze had fann'd the air,
And heaven's face look'd smooth and fair;
Lovely as sleeping infants be,
That in their slumber smiling lie
Dandled on their mother's knee,
You hear no cry,
No harsh, nor inharmonious voice,
But all is innocence without a noise:
When every sweet, which the sun's greedy ray
So lately from us drew,
Began to trickle down again in dew;
Weary, and faint, and full of thought,
Though for what cause I knew not well,
What I ail'd I could not tell,
I sate me down at an aged poplar's root,
Whose chiding leaves excepted and my breast,
All the impertinently busied world inclin'd to rest.

II.

I list'ned heedfully around,
But not a whisper there was found.
The murmuring brook hard by,
As heavy, and as dull as I,
Seem'd drowsily along to creep;
It ran with undiscover'd pace,
And if a pebble stopp'd the lazy race,
'Twas but as if it started in its sleep.
Echo herself, that ever lent an ear
To any piteous moan,
Wont to groan with them that groan,
Echo herself was speechless here.
Thrice did I sigh, thrice miserably cry,
Ai me! the Nymph, ai me! would not reply,
Or churlish, or she was asleep for company.

III.

There did I sit and sadly call to mind
Far and near, all I could find
All the pleasures, all the cares,
The jealousies, the fears,
All the incertainties of thirty years,
From that most inauspicious hour
Which gave me breath;
To that in which the fair Amira's power
First made me wish for death:
And yet Amira's not unkind;
She never gave me angry word,
Never my mean address abhorr'd;
Beauteous her face, beauteous her mind:
Yet something dreadful in her eyes I saw
Which ever kept my falt'ring tongue in awe,
And gave my panting soul a law.
So have I seen a modest beggar stand,
Worn out with age and being oft denied,
On his heart he laid his hand;
And though he look'd as if he would have died
The needy wretch no alms did crave:
He durst not ask for what he fear'd he should not have.

IV.

I thought on every pensive thing,
That might my passion strongly move,
That might the sweetest sadness bring;
Oft did I think on Death, and oft of Love,
The triumphs of the little God, and that same ghastly King.
The ghastly King, what has he done?
How his pale territories spread!
Strait scantlings now of consecrated ground
His swelling empire cannot bound,
But every day new colonies of dead
Enhance his conquests, and advance his throne.
The mighty City sav'd from storms of War,
Exempted from the crimson flood,
When all the land o'erflow'd with blood,
Stoops yet once more to a new conqueror:
The City which so many rivals bred,
Sackcloth is on her loins, and ashes on her head.

V.

When will the frowning Heav'n begin to smile?
Those pitchy clouds be overblown,
That hide the mighty town,
That I may see the mighty pile!
When will the angry Angel cease to slay,
And turn his brandish'd sword away
From that illustrious Golgotha,
London, the great Aceldama!
When will that stately landscape open lie,
The mist withdrawn that intercepts my eye!
That heap of Pyramids appear,
Which, now, too much like those of Egypt are:
Eternal monuments of pride and sin,
Magnificent and tall without, but dead men's bones within.





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