Underwoods: CONSISTING OF DIVERS POEMS. Cineri, gloria sera venit.-MART. UNDERWOODS.] From the second folio, 1641. The poems collected under this head (with the exception of a small number taken from published volumes) were found amongst Jonson's papers. Whether he designed them all for the press cannot now be known it is reasonable to suppose, from the imperfect state in which many of them appear, that he did not. No selection, however, was made, though there appears some rude attempt to arrange them with a reference to dates; but the disposition of them, in general, is very incomplete, and marks of carelessness and ignorance are visible in every page. Much is misplaced or mutilated, and more, perhaps, lost. It is singular that no notice or memorandum of any kind should hand down to us the name or condition of the editor or printer of this unfortunate volume, unless, as there is some reason to suspect, the whole was put to the press surreptitiously. TO THE READER. With the same leave the ancients called that kind of body Sylva, or "YAŋ, in which there were works of divers nature and matter congested; as the multitude call timber-trees promiscuously growing, a Wood or Forest; so am I bold to entitle these lesser poems of later growth, by this of UNDERWOOD, out of the analogy they hold to the Forest in my former book, and no otherwise. BEN JONSON. For, sin's so sweet, First made of nought; And slight the same. But, I'll come in, Under His cross. III. A HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR. I sing the birth was born to-night, The angels so did sound it. And like the ravished shepherds said, Who saw the light, and were afraid, Yet searched, and true they found it. The Son of God, the Eternal King, And freed the soul from danger; Was now laid in a manger. The Father's wisdom willed it so, What comfort by Him do we win, 1 He whom the whole world could not take.] i.e., contain, a Latinism, Quem non capit. * A Celebration of Charis: IN TEN LYRIC PIECES. HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING. Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years,1 I have had, and have my peers; Poets, though divine, are men : Some have loved as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth: But the language, and the truth, With the ardour and the passion, Gives the lover weight and fashion. If you then will read the story, First prepare you to be sorry, That you never knew till now, Either whom to love, or how: But be glad as soon with me, When you know that this is she, Of whose beauty it was sung, She shall make the old man young, Keep the middle age at stay, And let nothing high decay; Till she be the reason why, All the world for love may die. II. HOW HE SAW HER. I beheld her on a day, When her look outflourished May: And her dressing did outbrave All the pride the fields then have: Far I was from being stupid, For I ran and called on Cupid ; Though I now write fifty years.] This fixes the date of this little collection to 1624, the last year of health, perhaps, which the poet ever enjoyed. There is a considerable degree of ease and elegance in these effusions; and indeed it may be observed in general of our poet's lyrics, that a vein of sprightliness and fancy runs through them which a reader of his epistles, &c., is scarcely prepared to expect. In the latter, LOVE, if thou wilt ever see Could be brought once back to look. Both the arrow he had quit, III. WHAT HE SUFFERED. After many scorns like these, Which the prouder beauties please; She content was to restore Eyes and limbs, to hurt me more, And would, on conditions, be Reconciled to Love and me. First, that I must kneeling yield Both the bow and shaft I held Jonson, like several other poets of his age, or rather of his school, who also succeeded in lyrics, sedulously reins in the imagination, and contents himself with strength of sentiment and thought, in simple but vigorous language and unambitious rhyme. His CHARIS has all the vivid colouring of the best ages of antiquity; and it is truly delightful to mark the grace and ease with which this great poet plays with the boundless mass of his literary acquisitions. Unto her; which Love might take And would fain have changed the fate, IV. HER TRIUMPH. See the chariot at hand here of Love, Unto her beauty; And enamoured do wish, so they might Do but look on her eyes, they do light Than words that soothe her: Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall o' the snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of bever? Or swan's down ever? Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? 1 The two last stanzas of the "Triumph" are given in The Devil's an Ass, so that the opening one alone can bear the stamp of "fifty years." V. HIS DISCOURSE WITH CUPID. Noblest CHARIS, you that are Both my fortune and my star, And do govern more my blood, Than the various Moon the flood, Hear, what late discourse of you, LOVE and I have had; and true. 'Mongst my Muses finding me, Where he chanced your name to see Set, and to this softer strain; Sure, said he, if I have brain, This, here sung, can be no other, By description, but my Mother! So hath Homer praised her hair; So Anacreon drawn the air Of her face, and made to rise Just about her sparkling eyes, Both her brows bent like my bow. By her looks I do her know, Which you call my shafts. And see! Such my Mother's blushes be, As the bath your verse discloses In her cheeks, of milk and roses; Such as oft I wanton in : And, above her even chin, Have you placed the bank of kisses, Where, you say, men gather blisses, Ripened with a breath more sweet, Than when flowers and west winds meet. Nay, her white and polished neck, With the lace that doth it deck, Is my Mother's: hearts of slain Lovers, made into a chain ! And between each rising breast, Lies the valley called my nest, Where I sit and proyne my wings After flight; and put new stings To my shafts: her very name With my Mother's is the same. I confess all, I replied, And the glass hangs by her side, And the girdle 'bout her waist, All is Venus, save unchaste. But alas, thou seest the least Of her good, who is the best Of her sex but couldst thou, Love, Call to mind the forms that strove For the apple, and those three Make in one, the same were she. For this beauty yet doth hide Something more than thou hast spied. Outward grace weak love beguiles : She is Venus when she smiles;2 2 She is Venus when she smiles, &c.] From Angerianus: Tres quondam nudas vidit Priameius hero |