To A Lady That Desired Me I Would Bear My Part With Her In A Song

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Title:     To A Lady That Desired Me I Would Bear My Part With Her In A Song
Author: Richard Lovelace [More Titles by Lovelace]

MADAM A. L.<1>

This is the prittiest motion:
Madam, th' alarums of a drumme
That cals your lord, set to your cries,
To mine are sacred symphonies.

What, though 'tis said I have a voice;
I know 'tis but that hollow noise
Which (as it through my pipe doth speed)
Bitterns do carol through a reed;
In the same key with monkeys jiggs,
Or dirges of proscribed piggs,
Or the soft Serenades above
In calme of night,<2> when<3> cats make<4> love.

Was ever such a consort seen!
Fourscore and fourteen with forteen?
Yet<5> sooner they'l agree, one paire,
Then we in our spring-winter aire;
They may imbrace, sigh, kiss, the rest:
Our breath knows nought but east and west.
Thus have I heard to childrens cries
The faire nurse still such lullabies,
That, well all sayd (for what there lay),
The pleasure did the sorrow pay.

Sure ther's another way to save
Your phansie,<6> madam; that's to have
('Tis but a petitioning kinde fate)
The organs sent to Bilingsgate,
Where they to that soft murm'ring quire
Shall teach<7> you all you can admire!
Or do but heare, how love-bang Kate
In pantry darke for freage of mate,
With edge of steele the square wood shapes,
And DIDO<8> to it chaunts or scrapes.
The merry Phaeton oth' carre
You'l vow makes a melodious jarre;
Sweeter and sweeter whisleth He
To un-anointed<9> axel-tree;
Such swift notes he and 's wheels do run;
For me, I yeeld him Phaebus son.
Say, faire Comandres, can it be
You should ordaine a mutinie?
For where I howle, all accents fall,
As kings harangues, to one and all.<10>

Ulisses art is now withstood:<11>
You ravish both with sweet and good;
Saint Syren, sing, for I dare heare,
But when I ope', oh, stop your eare.

Far lesse be't aemulation
To passe me, or in trill or<12> tone,
Like the thin throat of Philomel,
And the<13> smart lute who should excell,
As if her soft cords should begin,
And strive for sweetnes with the pin.<14>

Yet can I musick too; but such
As is beyond all voice or<15> touch;
My minde can in faire order chime,
Whilst my true heart still beats the time;
My soule['s] so full of harmonie,
That it with all parts can agree;
If you winde up to the highest fret,<16>
It shall descend an eight from it,
And when you shall vouchsafe to fall,
Sixteene above you it shall call,
And yet, so dis-assenting one,
They both shall meet in<17> unison.

Come then, bright cherubin, begin!
My loudest musick is within.
Take all notes with your skillfull eyes;
Hearke, if mine do not sympathise!
Sound all my thoughts, and see exprest
The tablature<18> of my large brest;
Then you'l admit, that I too can
Musick above dead sounds of man;
Such as alone doth blesse the spheres,
Not to be reacht with humane eares.

Notes:

<1> "Madam A. L." is not in MS. copy. "The Lady A. L." and "Madam A. L." may very probably be two different persons: for Carew in his Poems (edit. 1651, 8vo. p. 2) has a piece "To A. L.; Persuasions to Love," and it is possible that the A. L. of Carew, and the A. L. mentioned above, are identical. The following poem is printed in Durfey's PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY, v. 120, but whether it was written by Lovelace, and addressed to the same lady, whom he represents above as requesting him to join her in a song, or whether it was the production of another pen, I cannot at all decide. It is not particularly unlike the style of the author of LUCASTA. At all events, I am not aware that it has been appropriated by anybody else, and as I am reluctant to omit any piece which Lovelace is at all likely to have composed, I give these lines just as I find them in Durfey, where they are set to music:--

"TO HIS FAIREST VALENTINE MRS. A. L.

"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
And warble forth, ye virgins nine,
Some music to my Valentine.

"Her bosom is love's paradise,
There is no heav'n but in her eyes;
She's chaster than the turtle-dove,
And fairer than the queen of love:
Yet all perfections do combine
To beautifie my Valentine.

"She's Nature's choicest cabinet,
Where honour, beauty, worth and wit
Are all united in her breast.
The graces claim an interest:
All virtues that are most divine
Shine clearest in my Valentine."

<2> Nights--Editor's MS.

<3> Where--Ibid.

<4> Do--Ibid.

<5> There is here either an interpolation in the printed copy, or an HIATUS in the MS. The latter reads:--

"Yet may I 'mbrace, sigh, kisse, the rest," &c.,

thus leaving out a line and a half or upward of the poem, as it is printed in LUCASTA.

<6> MS. reads:--"Youre phansie, madam," omitting "that's to have."

<7> Original and MS. have REACH.

<8> This must refer, I suppose, to the ballad of Queen Dido, which the woman sings as she works. The signification of LOVE-BANG is not easily determined. BANG, in Suffolk, is a term applied to a particular kind of cheese; but I suspect that "love-bang Kate" merely signifies "noisy Kate" here. As to the old ballad of Dido, see Stafford Smith's MUSICA ANTIQUA, i. 10, ii. 158; and Collier's EXTRACTS FROM THE REGISTERS OF THE STATIONERS' COMPANY, i. 98. I subjoin the first stanza of "Dido" as printed in the MUSICA ANTIQUA:--

"Dido was the Carthage Queene,
And lov'd the Troian knight,
That wandring many coasts had seene,
And many a dreadfull fight.
As they a-hunting road, a show'r
Drove them in a loving bower,
Down to a darksome cave:
Where Aenaeas with his charmes
Lock't Queene Dido in his armes
And had what he would have."

A somewhat different version is given in Durfey's PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY, vi. 192-3.

<9> AN UNANOYNTED--MS.

<10> This and the three preceding lines are not in MS.

<11> Alluding of course to the very familiar legend of Ulysses and the Syrens.

<12> A quaver (a well-known musical expression).

<13> A--MS.

<14> A musical peg.

<15> AND--MS.

<16> A piece of wire attached to the finger-board of a guitar.

<17> Original and MS. read AN.

<18> The tablature of Lovelace's time was the application of letters, of the alphabet or otherwise, to the purpose of expressing the sounds or notes of a composition.

[The end]
Richard Lovelace's poem: To A Lady That Desired Me I Would Bear My Part With Her In A Song

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