Helwan University Year: 2023-2024

Faculty of Education Dr Nadia Riad

General English Department

Poetry (16th & 17th Centuries)

Second Year
Second Term

Course Contents:
I. Poetic Terms

II. Poetic Genres

III. A Selection of Poems

Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”

Shakespeare, Sonnet 12
Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella
Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
Donne, “The Bait”
Jonson, “On My First Son”
Herrick, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
Herbert, “Easter Wings”
Milton, “How Soon Hath Time”
From Paradise Lost
Dryden, “To the Memory of Mr. Oldham”
Pope, From Essay on Man
 Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me alas, I may no more—
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written her fair neck round about:
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”

From Petrarch (Rime, Sonnet cxc)

list: wishes
“Noli me tangere” : “Don’t touch me.” Presumably the situation of Anne Boleyn, admired
by Wyarr but already marked for Henry VIII’s interest.
 William Shakespeare
Sonnet 12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Glossary of Difficult Vocabulary:

brave: beautiful
sable: black
o’er-silvered: covered all in silver
lofty: great and tall and full
barren: bare, empty, lost their leaves
erst: before now
canopy: here a verb: sheltered, shaded from the heat
herd: of sheep or cattle
girded up: collected and bound together
sheaves: bundles, bunches, stacks
Borne: carried
bier: stand, platform, (on which a coffin is placed)
bristly: coarse, spiky, rough like bristles of a rough beard
wastes of time: changes of the passage of time, inevitable deterioration, decay
forsake: leave, abandon, cast off
scythe: curved-blade cutter with which farmers reap the crops
save: except
breed: have children
brave: defy, challenge
hence: from here (i.e. from life)
Note the older use of the singular 2nd person pronoun (compare it to “I”):
Subject Object Possessive adj. Possessive pronoun
I me my mine
Thou (you) thee (you) thy (your) thine (yours)
 Sir Philip Sidney
From Astrophel and Stella

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe:
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows;
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with-child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write!"

This opening sonnet of the Sequence is an original text about the notion of originality in English
poetry. It is one of six sonnets in alexandrines, twelve-syllabled lines adapted from the standard
French meter, in the collection.

inventions fine: Inventio is the first of the three phases of composition—with dispositio, or structure,
and elocutio, or style—recognized In the Renaissance. These “fine” inventions, obviously, will
not do for Stella’s poet.
sunburned brain: an accepted Elizabethan figure for poetic imitation: the parched man who has
walked too long in the sun of the ancients. Astrophel’s study of courtly verse accounts for his
“sunburned brain.”
feet: metrical feet as well
“Fool . . . write”: that is, look in your heart and find Stella’s image there and write from that image,
that source and origin of true poetry.
 “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
Christopher Marlowe
(1599-1600)

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

This song is an invitation to the pastoral realm where nature outdoes art; see Ralegh’s answer to
it, and Donne’s “The bait”
 John Donne
“The Bait”
(1633)

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run

Warmed by thy eyes, more than the sun.
And there th' enamoured fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,

By sun, or moon, thou darkenest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs, with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleavesilk flies
Bewitch poor fishes' wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait,
That fish, that is not catched thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
 Ben Jonson
“On My First Son”
(1616)

Farewell, thou child of my right hand and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and asked, say here doth lie
Ben. Jonson, his best piece of poetry:
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

right hand: Jonson’s boy, who died of the plague in 1603 at the age of seven, was likewise,
Benjamin (in Hebrew, “son of my right hand”)
just day: Day of Judgment
Rest . . . peace: the “requiescat in pace”
poetry: Jonson has in mind the Greek etymology of poesis, “making” or “creation”
 Robert Herrick,
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
(1648)

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Gather: go collect
ye: you
tarry: wait, delay, linger
 George Hebert
“Easter Wings”
(1633)

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did begin:

And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sin,
That I became
Most thin
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day thy victory;
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
 John Milton
“How Soon Has Time”
(1645)

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stoln on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.
 John Milton
From Paradise Lost

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Past by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th'upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dovelike sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Say first (for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell), say first what cause
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the worlds besides?
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
 John Dryden
“To the Memory of Mr. Oldham”
(1684)

Farewell, too little, and too lately known,

Whom I began to think and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mold with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive;
The last set out the soonest did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
While his young friend performed and won the race.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line:
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,
Still showed a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail and farewell; farewell, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue;
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.
 Alexander Pope
From Essay on Man

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!