,
amid fireworks of conceit, he calls his mistress dead and protests
that his hatred has grown cold at last.
amid fireworks of conceit, he calls his mistress dead and protests
that his hatred has grown cold at last.
John Donne
Those addressed to Mrs.
Herbert, notably the letter
Mad paper stay,
and the beautiful _Elegie_
No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnall face,
are less transcendental in tone but bespeak an even warmer admiration.
Indeed it is clear to any careful reader that in the poems addressed
to both these ladies there is blended with the respectful flattery of
the dependant not a little of the tone of warmer feeling permitted to
the 'servant' by Troubadour convention. And I suspect that some poems,
the tone of which is still more frankly and ardently lover-like, were
addressed to Lady Bedford and Mrs. Herbert, though they have come to
us without positive indication.
The title of the subtle, passionate, sonorous lyric _Twicknam Garden_,
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares,
points to the person addressed, for Twickenham Park was the residence
of Lady Bedford from 1607 to 1618, and Donne's intimacy with her seems
to have begun in or about 1608. There can, I think, be little doubt
that it is to her, and neither to his wife nor the mistresses of his
earlier, wandering fancy, that these lines, conventional in theme
but given an amazing _timbre_ by the impulse of Donne's subtle and
passionate mind, were addressed. But if _Twicknam Garden_ was written
to Lady Bedford, so also, one is tempted to think, must have been _A
Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day_, for Lucy was the Countess's name,
and the thought, feeling, and rhythm of the two poems are strikingly
similar.
But the _Nocturnall_ is a sincerer and profounder poem than _Twicknam
Garden_, and it is more difficult to imagine it the expression of a
conventional sentiment. Mr. Gosse, and there is no higher authority
when it comes to the interpretation of Donne's character and mind,
rightly, I think, suggests that the death of the lady addressed is
assumed, not actual, but he connects the poem with Donne's earlier and
troubled loves. 'So also in a most curious ode, the _Nocturnal_ . . .
,
amid fireworks of conceit, he calls his mistress dead and protests
that his hatred has grown cold at last. ' But I can find no note of
bitterness, active or spent, in the song. It _might_ have been written
to Ann More. It is a highly metaphysical yet sombre and sincere
description of the emptiness of life without love. The critics have,
I think, failed somewhat to reckon with this stratum in Donne's songs,
of poems Petrarchian in convention but with a Petrarchianism coloured
by Donne's realistic temper and impatient wit. Any interpretation of
so enigmatical a poem must be conjectural, but before one denied too
positively that its subject was Lady Bedford--perhaps her illness
in 1612--one would need to answer two questions, how far could a
conventional passion inspire a strain so sincere, and what was Donne's
feeling for Lady Bedford and hers for him?
Poetry is the language of passion, but the passion which moves the
poet most constantly is the delight of making poetry, and very little
is sufficient to quicken the imagination to its congenial task.
Our soberer minds are apt to think that there must be an actual,
particular experience behind every sincere poem. But history refutes
the idea of such a simple relation between experience and art. No
poet will sing of love convincingly who has never loved, but that
experience will suffice him for many and diverse webs of song and
drama. Without pursuing the theme, it is sufficient for the moment to
recall that in the fashion of the day Spenser's sonnets were addressed
to Lady Carey, not to his wife; that it was to Idea or to Anne Goodere
that Drayton wrote so passionate a poem as
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part;
and that we know very little of what really lies behind Shakespeare's
profound and plangent sonnets, weave what web of fancy we will.
Of Lady Bedford's feeling for Donne we know only what his letters
reveal, and that is no more than that she was his warm friend
and generous patroness. It is clear, however, from their enduring
friendship and from the tone of that correspondence that she found in
him a friend of a rarer and finer calibre than in the other poets whom
she patronized in turn, Daniel and Drayton and Jonson--some one whose
sensitive, complex, fascinating personality could hardly fail to touch
a woman's imagination and heart. Friendship between man and woman is
love in some degree. There is no need to exaggerate the situation, or
to reflect on either her loyalty or his to other claims, to recognize
that their mutual feeling was of the kind for which the Petrarchian
convention afforded a ready and recognized vehicle of expression.
And so it was, one fancies, with Mrs.
Herbert, notably the letter
Mad paper stay,
and the beautiful _Elegie_
No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnall face,
are less transcendental in tone but bespeak an even warmer admiration.
Indeed it is clear to any careful reader that in the poems addressed
to both these ladies there is blended with the respectful flattery of
the dependant not a little of the tone of warmer feeling permitted to
the 'servant' by Troubadour convention. And I suspect that some poems,
the tone of which is still more frankly and ardently lover-like, were
addressed to Lady Bedford and Mrs. Herbert, though they have come to
us without positive indication.
The title of the subtle, passionate, sonorous lyric _Twicknam Garden_,
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares,
points to the person addressed, for Twickenham Park was the residence
of Lady Bedford from 1607 to 1618, and Donne's intimacy with her seems
to have begun in or about 1608. There can, I think, be little doubt
that it is to her, and neither to his wife nor the mistresses of his
earlier, wandering fancy, that these lines, conventional in theme
but given an amazing _timbre_ by the impulse of Donne's subtle and
passionate mind, were addressed. But if _Twicknam Garden_ was written
to Lady Bedford, so also, one is tempted to think, must have been _A
Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day_, for Lucy was the Countess's name,
and the thought, feeling, and rhythm of the two poems are strikingly
similar.
But the _Nocturnall_ is a sincerer and profounder poem than _Twicknam
Garden_, and it is more difficult to imagine it the expression of a
conventional sentiment. Mr. Gosse, and there is no higher authority
when it comes to the interpretation of Donne's character and mind,
rightly, I think, suggests that the death of the lady addressed is
assumed, not actual, but he connects the poem with Donne's earlier and
troubled loves. 'So also in a most curious ode, the _Nocturnal_ . . .
,
amid fireworks of conceit, he calls his mistress dead and protests
that his hatred has grown cold at last. ' But I can find no note of
bitterness, active or spent, in the song. It _might_ have been written
to Ann More. It is a highly metaphysical yet sombre and sincere
description of the emptiness of life without love. The critics have,
I think, failed somewhat to reckon with this stratum in Donne's songs,
of poems Petrarchian in convention but with a Petrarchianism coloured
by Donne's realistic temper and impatient wit. Any interpretation of
so enigmatical a poem must be conjectural, but before one denied too
positively that its subject was Lady Bedford--perhaps her illness
in 1612--one would need to answer two questions, how far could a
conventional passion inspire a strain so sincere, and what was Donne's
feeling for Lady Bedford and hers for him?
Poetry is the language of passion, but the passion which moves the
poet most constantly is the delight of making poetry, and very little
is sufficient to quicken the imagination to its congenial task.
Our soberer minds are apt to think that there must be an actual,
particular experience behind every sincere poem. But history refutes
the idea of such a simple relation between experience and art. No
poet will sing of love convincingly who has never loved, but that
experience will suffice him for many and diverse webs of song and
drama. Without pursuing the theme, it is sufficient for the moment to
recall that in the fashion of the day Spenser's sonnets were addressed
to Lady Carey, not to his wife; that it was to Idea or to Anne Goodere
that Drayton wrote so passionate a poem as
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part;
and that we know very little of what really lies behind Shakespeare's
profound and plangent sonnets, weave what web of fancy we will.
Of Lady Bedford's feeling for Donne we know only what his letters
reveal, and that is no more than that she was his warm friend
and generous patroness. It is clear, however, from their enduring
friendship and from the tone of that correspondence that she found in
him a friend of a rarer and finer calibre than in the other poets whom
she patronized in turn, Daniel and Drayton and Jonson--some one whose
sensitive, complex, fascinating personality could hardly fail to touch
a woman's imagination and heart. Friendship between man and woman is
love in some degree. There is no need to exaggerate the situation, or
to reflect on either her loyalty or his to other claims, to recognize
that their mutual feeling was of the kind for which the Petrarchian
convention afforded a ready and recognized vehicle of expression.
And so it was, one fancies, with Mrs.
