Essays, Henry David Thoreau [ebook reader with android os txt] 📗

Sylvester’s version of Guillaume Salluste du Bartas’s Divine Weeks and Works, pp. 102⁠–⁠3 of the edition of 1613. Sylvester adds, at the end of those quoted, continuing the sentence⁠—

But shine in vain, and have no charge precise
But to be walking in Heaven’s galleries,
And through that Palace up and down to clamber
As Golden Gulls about a Prince’s Chamber.

This conceit of the influence of the stars was general in Ralegh’s day. His friend Sidney, in his Sonnet XXVI, has the same thought as Ralegh, but turns it to a compliment to Stella⁠—

Though dusty wits dare scorn Astrology,
And (fools) can think those lamps of purest light
Whose numbers, way, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do invite,
To have for no cause birthright in the sky,
But for to spangle the black weeds of Night;
Or for some brawl, which in that chamber high
They should still dance, to please a gazer’s sight.

For me, I do Nature unidle know,
And know great causes great effects procure,
And know, those bodies high rule o’er the low;
And if these rules did fail, proof makes me sure⁠—
Who oft forejudge my after-following race
By only those two stars in Stella’s face.

In what follows, concerning the powers and bodily nature of man, Ralegh uses what was a commonplace of his period, but expresses this quaint conceit with more grace than was customary, and closes it with that touch of regret so familiar in him, though in expression he may borrow from the Sicilian lament of Moschus for Bion. And so poetical is his prose at times, that Thoreau very properly calls the passage on the decay of oracles a “poem.” —⁠F. B. Sanborn ↩

Aubrey says, “I well remember his study [at Durham-house] which was on a little turret that looked into and over the Thames, and had the prospect, which is as pleasant, perhaps, as any in the world, and which not only refreshes the eie-sight, but cheers the spirits, and (to speake my mind) I believe enlarges an ingeniose man’s thoughts.” Perhaps it was here that he composed some of his poems. ↩

A Description of the Country’s Recreations

Quivering fears, heart-tearing cares,
Anxious sighs, untimely tears,
Fly, fly to courts;
Fly to fond worldlings’ sports,
Where strain’d sardonic smiles are glosing still,
And grief is forc’d to laugh against her will;
Where mirth’s but mummery;
And sorrows only real be!

Fly from our country pastimes! fly,
Sad troop of human misery;
Come, serene looks,
Clear as the crystal brooks,
Or the pure azur’d heaven, that smiles to see
The rich attendance of our poverty.
Peace, and a secure mind,
Which all men seek, we only find.

Abused mortals! did you know
Where joy, heart’s-ease, and comforts grow,
You’d scorn proud towers,
And seek them in these bowers,
Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake,
But blustering care could never tempest make;
Nor murmurs e’er come nigh us,
Saving of fountains that glide by us.

Here’s no fantastic masque, nor dance,
But of our kids, that frisk and prance:
Nor wars are seen,
Unless upon the green

Two harmless lambs are butting one the other,
Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother;
And wounds are never found,
Save what the plough-share gives the ground.

Here are no false entrapping baits,
To hasten too too hasty fates;
Unless it be
The fond credulity
Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look
Upon the bait, but never on the hook:
Nor envy, unless among
The birds, for prize of their sweet song.

Go! let the diving negro seek
For gems hid in some forlorn creek;
We all pearls scorn,
Save what the dewy morn
Congeals upon each little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass;
And gold ne’er here appears,
Save what the yellow Ceres bears.

Blest, silent groves! O may ye be
For ever mirth’s best nursery!
May pure contents
For ever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains!
Which we may every year
Find when we come a fishing here!

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The Soul’s Errand27

Go, soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best
The truth shall be thy warrant
Go, since I needs must die,
And give them all the lie.

Go, tell the court it glows,
And shines like painted wood;
Go, tell the church it shows
What’s good, but does no good.
If court and church reply,
Give court and church the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting, but O their actions!
Not lov’d, unless they give;
Nor strong, but by their factions.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That rule affairs of state,
Their purpose is ambition;
Their practice only hate.
And if they do reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell those that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending;
Who in their greatest cost
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

Tell zeal it lacks devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honor how it alters;
Tell beauty that it blasteth;
Tell favor that she falters:
And as they do reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In fickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness:
And if they do reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And if they yield reply,
Then give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they do reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they lack profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood, shakes off pity;
Tell virtue, least preferreth.
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So, when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing;
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill.

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The allusion here