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Title: The Grasshopper To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton
Author: Richard Lovelace [
More Titles by Lovelace]
<1>
ODE.
I.
Oh thou, that swing'st upon the waving eare<2>
Of some well-filled oaten beard,<3>
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious teare<4>
Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art reard.
II.
The joyes of earth and ayre are thine intire,
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;
And when thy poppy workes, thou dost retire
To thy carv'd acorn-bed to lye.
III.
Up with the day, the Sun thou welcomst then,
Sportst in the guilt plats<5> of his beames,
And all these merry dayes mak'st merry men,<6>
Thy selfe, and melancholy streames.
IV.
But ah, the sickle! golden eares are cropt;
CERES and BACCHUS bid good-night;
Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowrs have topt,
And what sithes spar'd, winds shave off quite.
V.
Poore verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joys
Large and as lasting as thy peirch<7> of grasse,
Bid us lay in 'gainst winter raine, and poize
Their flouds with an o'erflowing glasse.
VI.
Thou best of men and friends? we will create
A genuine summer in each others breast;
And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate,
Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.
VII.
Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally
As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretch'd winges, dissolve and flye
This Aetna in epitome.
VIII.
Dropping December shall come weeping in,
Bewayle th' usurping of his raigne;
But when in show'rs of old Greeke<8> we beginne,
Shall crie, he hath his crowne againe!
IX.
Night as cleare Hesper shall our tapers whip
From the light casements, where we play,
And the darke hagge from her black mantle strip,
And sticke there everlasting day.
X.
Thus richer then untempted kings are we,
That asking nothing, nothing need:
Though lord of all what seas imbrace, yet he
That wants himselfe, is poore indeed.
Note:
<1> Charles Cotton the elder, father of the poet. He died in 1658. This poem is extracted in CENSURA LITERARIA, ix. 352, as a favourable specimen of Lovelace's poetical genius. The text is manifestly corrupt, but I have endeavoured to amend it. In Elton's SPECIMENS OF CLASSIC POETS, 1814, i. 148, is a translation of Anacreon's Address to the Cicada, or Tree-Locust (Lovelace's grasshopper?), which is superior to the modern poem, being less prolix, and more natural in its manner. In all Lovelace's longer pieces there are too many obscure and feeble conceits, and too many evidences of a leaning to the metaphysical and antithetical school of poetry.
<2> Original has HAIRE.
<3> i.e. a beard of oats.
<41.4> Meleager's invocation to the tree-locust commences thus
in Elton's translation:--
"Oh shrill-voiced insect! that with dew-drops sweet
Inebriate----"
See also Cowley's ANACREONTIQUES, No. X. THE GRASSHOPPER.
<5> i.e. horizontal lines tinged with gold. See Halliwell's GLOSSARY OF ARCHAIC WORDS, 1860, art. PLAT (seventh and eighth meaning). The late editors of Nares cite this passage from LUCASTA as an illustration of GUILT-PLATS, which they define to be "plots of gold." This definition, unsupported by any other evidence, is not very satisfactory, and certainly it has no obvious application here.
<6> Randolph says:--
"----toiling ants perchance delight to hear
The summer musique of the gras-hopper."
POEMS, 1640, p. 90.
It is it question, perhaps, whether Lovelace intended by the GRASSHOPPER the CICADA or the LOCUSTA. See Sir Thomas Browne's INQUIRIES INTO VULGAR ERRORS (Works, by Wilkins, 1836, iii. 93).
<7> Perch.
<8> i.e. old Greek wine.
[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: Grassehopper To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton
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