Cupid’s Conflict.

MEL.—Not so, Cleanthes, for if bad it be,
Myself must bleed afresh by wounding thee:

But what it is, my slow, uncertain wit
Cannot well judge. But thou shalt sentence give
How manfully of late myself I quit,
When with that lordly lad by chance I strive.

CLE.—Of friendship, Mela! let’s that story hear.

MEL.—Sit down, Cleanthes, then, and lend thine ear.

Upon a day as best did please my mind,
Walking abroad amidst the verdant field,
Scattering my carefull thoughts i’ th’ wanton wind,
The pleasure of my path so farre had till’d
My feeble feet, that without timely rest,
Uneath it were to reach my wonted nest.

In secret shade farre moved from mortalls’ sight,
In lowly dale my wandering limbs I laid,
On the cool grasse where nature’s pregnant wit
A goodly bower of thickest trees had made.
Amongst the leaves the chearful birds did fare
And sweetly carol’d to the echoing air.

Hard at my feet ran down a crystall spring,
Which did the cumbrous pebbles hoarsly chide
For standing in the way. Though murmuring,
The broken stream his course did rightly guide,
And strongly pressing forward with disdain
The grassy flore divided into twain.

The place awhile did feed my foolish eye,
As being new, and eke mine idle ear
Did listen oft to that wild harmonie,
And oft my curious phansie would compare
How well agreed the brook’s low muttering base
With the birds’ trebbles perch’d on higher place.

But sense’s objects soon do glut the soul,
Or rather weary with their emptinesse;
So I, all heedless how the waters roll
And mindless of the mirth the birds expresse,
Into myself ‘gin softly to retire
After hid heavenly pleasures to enquire.

While I this enterprise do entertain,
Lo! on the other side in thickest bushes,
A mighty noise! with that a naked swain
With blew and purple wings streight rudely rushes,
He leaps down light upon the floury green,
Like sight before mine eyes had never seen.

At ‘s snowy back the boy a quiver wore,
Right fairly wrought and gilded all with gold;
A silver bow in his left hand he bore,
And in his right a ready shaft did hold.
Thus armed stood he, and betwixt us tway,
The labouring brook did break its toilsome way.

The wanton lad, whose sport is others’ pain,
Did charge his bended bow with deadly dart,
And drawing to the head with might and main,
With fell intent he aimed to hit my heart.
But ever as he shot his arrows still
In their mid course dropt down into the rill.

Of wondrous virtues that in waters been,
Is needlesse to rehearse, all brooks do sing
Of those strange rarities. But ne’re was seen
Such virtue as resided in this spring.
The noveltie did make me much admire,
But stirr’d the hasty youth to ragefull ire.

As heedlesse fowls that take their per’lous flight
Over that bane of birds, Averno lake,
Do drop down dead; so dead his shafts did light
Amid the stream, which presently did slake
Their fiery points, and all their feathers wet,
Which made the youngster Godling inly fret.

Thus lustfull Love (this was that love I ween,)
Was wholly changed to consuming ire,
And eath it was, sith they’re so near of kin,
They be both born of one rebellious fire.
But he supprest his wrath, and by and by
For feathered darts he winged words let flie.

Vain man! said he, and would thou wer’st not vain,
That hid’st thyself in solitary shade,
And spil’st thy precious youth in sad disdain,
Hating this life’s delights. Hath God thee made
Part of this world, and wilt not thou partake
Of this world’s pleasure for its maker’s sake?

Unthankfull wretch! God’s gifts thus to reject,
And maken nought of nature’s goodly dower,
That milders still away through thy neglect,
And dying fades like unregarded flower.
This life is good, what’s good thou must improve,
The highest improvement of this life is love.

Had I, (but O that envious destanie,
Or Stygian vow, or thrice accursed charm,
Should in this place free passage thus denie
Unto my shafts as messengers of harm!)
Had I but once transfixt thy forward breast,
How wouldst thou then—I staid not for the rest;

But thus half angry to the boy replide;
How would’st thou then my soul of sense bereave!
I blinded, thee more blind should choose my guide!
How would’st thou then my muddied mind deceive,
With fading shows, that in my error vile
Base lust, I love should tearm; vice, virtue stile.

How should my wicked rhymes then idolize
Thy wretched power, and with impious wit
Impute thy base-born passions to the skies,
my soul’s sickness count an heavenly fit, And
My weaknesse strength, my wisdom to be caught,
My bane my blisse, mine ease to be o’re wraught.

How often through my fondly feigning mind
And frantick phansie, in my mistris’ eye,
Should I a thousand fluttering cupids find,
Bathing their busy wings? How oft espie
Under the shadow of her eyebrows fair,
Ten thousand graces sit all naked bare.

Thus haunted should I be with such fell fiends,
A pretty madnesse were my portion due;
Foolish myself, I would not hear my friends,
Should deem the true for false, the false for true;
My way all dark, more slippery than ice;
My attendants, anger, pride, and jealousies.

Unthankfull then to God, I should neglect
All the whole world for one poor sorry wight,
Whose pestilent eye into my heart project,
Would burn like poysonous comet in my spight.
Aye me! how dismall then would prove that day
Whose only light sprang from so fatall ray.

Who seeks for pleasure in this mortall life
By diving deep into the body base,
Shall loose true pleasure; but who gainly strive
Their sinking soul above this bulk to place,
Enlarged delight they certainly shall find,
Unbounded joyes to fill their boundlesse mind.

When I myself from mine own self do quit,
And each thing else, then an all-spreden love
To the vast universe my soul doth fit,
Makes me half equall to all-seeing Jove;
My mightie wings, high stretch’d then clapping light,
I brush the starres and make them shine more bright.

Then all the works of God with close embrace
I dearly hug in my enlarged arms,
All the hid paths of heavenly love I trace,
And boldly listen to his secret charms.
Then clearly view I where true light doth rise,
And where eternall Night low pressed lies.

Thus lose I not by leaving small delight,
But gain more joy, while I myself suspend
From this and that; for then with all unite
I all enjoy, and love that love commends,
That all is more then loves the partiall soul
Whose petty love th’ impartiall fates controll.

Ah, son! said he, (and laughed very loud,)
That trickst thy tongue with uncouth, strange disguise,
Extolling highly that with speeches proud
To mortall men that humane state denies,
And rashly blaming what thou never knew;
Let men experienced speak, if they’ll speak true.

Had I once lanced thy froward, flinty heart,
And cruddled bloud had thawn with living fire,
And prickt thy drowsie sprite with gentle smart,
How would’st thou wake to kindle sweet desire!
Thy soul fill’d up with overflowing pleasures
Would dew thy lips with honey’d, topping measures.

Then would thou caroll loud and sweetly sing
In honour of my sacred Deity,
That all the woods and hollow hills would ring
Reechoing thy heavenly harmony;
And eke the tardy rocks with full rebounds
Would faithfully return thy silver sounds.

Next unto me would be thy mistresse fair,
Whom thou might setten out with goodly skill
Her peerlesse beauty and her virtues rare,
That all would wonder at thy graceful quill,
And lastly in us both thyself should’st raise
And crown thy temples with immortal bayes.

But now thy riddles all men do neglect,
Thy rugged lines of all do ly forlorn;
Unwelcome rhymes that rudely do detect
The reader’s ignorance. Men holden scorn
To be so often non-plus’d, or to spell,
And on one stanza a whole age to dwell.

Besides this harsh and hard obscurity,
Of the hid sense, thy words are barbarous,
And strangely new, and yet too frequently,
Return, as usuall, plain and obvious,
So that the snow of the new thick-set patch
Marres all the old with which it ill doth match.

But if thy haughty mind, forsooth would deign
To stoop so low, as t’ hearken to my lore,
Then wouldst thou with trim lovers not disdeign
To adorn th’ outside, set the best before;
Nor rub nor wrinkle would thy verses spoil;
Thy rhymes should run as glib and smooth as oyl.

If that be all, said I, thy reasons slight
Can never move my well established mind;
Full well I note always the present sprite,
Or life that doth possesse the soul, doth blind,
Shutting the windows ‘gainst broad open day,
Lest fairer sights its uglinesse bewray.

The soul then loves that disposition best
Because no better comes into her view;
The drunkard drunkennesse, the sluggard rest,
Th’ ambitious honour and obeysance due;
So all the rest do love their vices base,
Cause virtue’s beauty comes not into place.

And looser love ‘gainst chastity divine,
Would shut the door, that he might sit alone;
Then wholly should my mind to him incline,
And woxen strait, (since larger love was gone,)
That paltry spirit of low contracting lust
Would fit my soul as if ‘t were made for ‘t just.

Then should I with my fellow bird or brute,
So strangely metamorphosed, either ney,
Or bellow loud; or if ‘t may better sute,
Chirp out my joy pearch’d upon higher spray,
My passions fond with impudence rehearse,
Immortalize my madnesse in a verse.

This is the summe of thy deceiving boast,
That I vain rudenesse highly should admire,
When I the sense of better things have lost,
And changed my heavenly heat for hellish fire;
Passion is blind; but virtue’s piercing eye,
Approaching danger can from farre espie.

And what thou dost pedantickly object,
Concerning my rude, rugged, uncouth style,
As childish toy I manfully neglect,
And at thy hidden snares do inly smile;
How ill alas! with wisdome it accords
To sell my living sense for livelesse words.

My thoughts the fittest measure of my tongue,
Wherefore I’ll use what’s most significant,
And rather than my inward meaning wrong,
Or my full-shining notion trimly skant,
I’ll conjure up old urns out of their grave,
Or call fresh forrein force in if need I crave.

And these attending to my moving mind
Shall only usher in the fitting sense.
As oft as meet occasion I find,
Unusuall words oft used give lesse offence;
Nor will the old contexture dim or marre,
For often used they’re next to old thred-bare.

And if the old seem in too rusty hew,
Then frequent rubbing makes them shine like gold,
And glister all with colour gayly new;
Wherefore to use them both we will be bold,
Thus lists me fondly with fond folk to toy,
And answer fools with equal foolery.

The meaner mind works with more nicetie
As spiders wont to weave their idle web,
But braver spirits do all things gallantly,
Of lesser failings nought at all affred.
So Nature’s careless pencill dipt in light
With sprinkled starres hath spattered the night.

And if my notions clear though rudely thrown,
And loosely scattered in my poesie,
May lend new light till the dead night be gone,
And morning fresh with roses strew the sky;
It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame,
Nor by nice needle-work to seek a name.

Vain man! that seekest name ‘mongst earthly men,
Devoid of God and all good virtuous lore,
Who groping in the dark do nothing ken,
But mad with griping care their souls so tore,
Or burst with hatred, or with envie pine,
Or burn with rage, or melt out at their eyne.

Thrice happy he whose name is writ above,
And doeth good though gaining infamy;
Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,
And recks not what befalls him outwardly;
Whose worth is in himself, and onely blisse
In his pure conscience that doth nought amisse.

Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul,
And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem;
Who can his passions master and controll,
And that true lordly manlinesse doth deem,
Who from this world himself hath clearly quit,
Counts nought his own but what lives in his spright.

So when his spright from this vain world shall flit,
It bears all with it whatsoever was dear
Unto itself, passing in easy fit,
As kindly ripen’d corn comes out of th’ ear,
Thus mindlesse of what idle men will say
He takes his own and stilly goes his way.

But the retinue of proud Lucifer,
Those blustering poets that fly after fame,
And deck themselves like the bright morning starre,
Alas! it is but all a crackling flame,
For death will strip them of that glorious plume,
That airie blisse will vanish into fume.

For can their carefull ghosts from Limbo Lake
Return, or listen from the bowed skie,
To heare how well their learned lines do take?
Or if they could, is Heaven’s felicitie
So small, as by man’s praise to be encreased,
Hell’s pain no greater than hence to be eas’d?

Therefore once dead in vain shall I transmit
My shadow to gazing posterity,
Cast far behind me I shall never see ‘t,
On heaven’s fair sunne having fast fixt mine eye,
Nor while I live, heed I what man doth praise
Or underprise mine unaffected layes.

What moves thee then, said he, to take the pains
And spenden time if thou contemn’st the fruit?
Sweet fruit of fame, that fills the poet’s brains
With high conceit and feeds his fainting wit;
How pleasant ‘t is in honours here to live,
And dead, thy name forever to survive!

Or is thy abject mind so basely bent,
As of the muse to maken merchandise?
(And well I note this is no strange intent)
The hopeful glimpse of gold from chattering pies,
From daws and crows and parrots, oft hath wrong
An unexpected Pegaseian song.

Foul shame on him, quoth I, that shameful thought
Doth entertain within his dunghill breast,
Both God and nature hath my spirits wrought
To better temper, and of old hath blest
My loftie soul with more divine aspires,
Than to be touched with such vile, low desires.

I hate and highly scorn that cestrell kind
Of bastard scholars that subordinate
The precious, choice induements of the mind
To wealth and worldly good. Adulterate
And cursed brood! Your wit and wile are born
Of the earth and circling thither do return.

Profit and honour be those measures scant
Of your slight studies and endeavours vain,
And when you once have got what you did want
You leave your learning to enjoy your gain;
Your brains grow low, your bellies swell up high,
Foul sluggish fat ditts up your dulled eye.

Thus, what the earth did breed to th’ earth is gone,
Like fading hearb or feeble drooping flower,
By feet of men and beast quite trodden down,
The mucksprung learning cannot long endure,
Back she returns lost in her filthy source,
Drown’d, choked, or slocken by her cruel nurse.

True virtue to herself ‘s the best reward,
Rich with her own and full of lively spirit,
Nothing cast down for want of due regard,
Or cause rude men acknowledge not her merit;
She knows her worth, and stock from where she sprung
Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung,

Dewed with the drops of heaven shall flourish long;
As long as day and night do share the skie,
And though that day and night should fail, yet strong
And steddie, fixed on eternitie,
Shall bloom forever. So the soul shall speed,
That loveth virtue for no worldly meed.

Though sooth to say, the worldly meed is due
To her more than to all the world beside;
Men ought do homage with affections true,
And offer gifts, for God doth there reside;
The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat,
To such what’s given God himself doth get.

But worldly minds, whose sight seal’d up with mud,
Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity,
Ne do acknowledge any other good
Than what their mole-warp hands can feel and trie,
By groping touch; (thus worth of them unseen,)
Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween.

Wherefore the prudent lawgivers of old,
Even in all nations, with right sage foresight,
Discovering from farre how clums and cold
The vulgar wight would be to yield what’s right
To virtuous learning, did the law designe
Great wealth and honor to that worth divine.

But nought’s by law to poesy due, said he,
Ne doth the solemn statesman’s head take care
Of those that such impertinent pieces be
Of commonweals. Thou’d better then to spare
Thy useless vein. Or tell else, what may move
Thy busie muse such fruitlesse pains to prove.

No pains but pleasure to do th’ dictates dear
Of inward living nature. What doth move
The nightingale to sing so sweet and clear,
The thrush or lark, that mounting high above
Chants her shrill notes to heedlesse ears of corn
Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.

When life can speak, it cannot well withhold
T’expresse its own impressions and hid life,
Or joy or grief that smothered lie untold
Do vex the heart and wring with restless strife,
Then are my labors no true pains but ease,
My soul’s unrest they gently do appease.

Besides, that is not fruitlesse that no gains
Brings to myself. I others’ profit deem
Mine own; and if at these my heavenly flames
Others receiven light right well I ween
My time’s not lost. Art thou now satisfide?
Said I; to which the scoffing boy replide;

Great hope indeed, thy rhymes should men enlight,
That be with clouds and darknesse all o’ercast,
Harsh style and harder sense void of delight
The reader’s wearied eye in vain do wast;
And when men win thy meaning with much pain,
Thy uncouth sense they coldly entertain.

For wot’st thou not that all the world is dead
Unto that genius that moves in thy vein
Of poetrie? But like by like is fed;
Sing of my trophies in triumphant strain,
Then correspondent life thy powerful verse
Shall strongly strike and with quick passions pierce.

The tender frie of lads and lasses young,
With thirstie care thee compassing about,
Thy nectar-dropping muse, thy sugar’d song
Will swallow down with eager, hearty draught,
Relishing truly what thy rhymes convey,
And highly praising thy soul-smiting lay.

The mincing maid her mind will then bewray,
Her heart-bloud flaming up into her face,
Grave matrons will wax wanton and betray
Their unresolv’dnesse in their wonted grace;
Young boys and girls would feel a forward spring,
And former youth to old thou back wouldst bring.

All sexes, ages, orders, occupations,
Would listen to thee with attentive ear,
And eas’ly moved with sweet persuasions,
Thy pipe would follow with full merry chear;
While thou thy lively voice didst loud advance
Their tickled blond for joy would inly dance.

But now, alas! poor solitarie man!
In lonesome desert thou dost wander wide,
To seek and serve thy disappearing Pan,
Whom no man living in the world hath eyde;
Sir Pan is dead, but I am still alive,
And live in men who honor to me give.

They honour also those that honour me
With sacred songs. But thou now sing’ts to trees,
To rocks, to hills, to caves, that senselesse be
And mindless quite of thy hid mysteries,
In the void air thy idle voice is spread,
Thy muse is musick to the deaf or dead.

Now out alas! and well-away,
The tale thou tellest I confess too true,
Fond man so doteth on this living clay,
His carcase dear, and doth its joys pursue,
That of his precious soul he takes no keep
Heaven’s love and reason’s light lie fast asleep.

This bodies life vain shadow of the soul
With full desire they closely do embrace,
In fleshly mud like swine they wallow and roll,
The loftiest mind is proud but of the face
Or outward person; if men but adore
That walking sepulchre, cares for no more.

This is the measure of man’s industry,
To wexen somebody and gather grace
For outward presence; though true majestie,
Crown’d with that heavenly light and lively rayes
Of holy wisdome and seraphick love
From his deformed soul he farre remove.

Slight knowledge and lesse virtue serves his turn
For this designe. If he hath trod the ring
Of pedling arts; in usuall pack-horse form
Keeping the rode; O! then ‘t’s a learned thing;
If any chanc’d to write or speak what he
Conceives not, ‘t were a foul discourtesie.

To cleanse the soul from sinne and still diffide
Whether our reason’s eye be clear enough,
To intromit true light, that fain would glide
Into purg’d hearts, this way ‘s too harsh and rough,
Therefore the clearest truths may well seem dark,
When sloathfull men have eyes so dimme and stark.

These be our times. But if my minds’ presage
Bear any moment, they can ne’re last long,
A three-branch’d flame will soon sweep clear the stage
Of this old dirty drosse and all wex young.
My words into this frozen air I throw
Will then grow vocal at that generall thraw.

Nay, now thou ‘rt perfect mad, said he, with scorn,
And full of foul derision quit the place;
The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn
Like to rent silk. But I in the mean space
Sent after him this message by the wind;
Be ‘t so I’m mad, yet sure I am thou ‘rt blind.

By this the outsretch’d shadows of the trees
Pointed me homeward, and with one consent
Foretold the daye’s descent. So straight I rise
Gathering my limbs from off the green pavement,
Behind me leaving the sloping light.

CLE. And now let’s up. Vesper brings in the night.