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  #1  
Unread 11-13-2001, 06:30 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
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I've been poking around lately in a paperback (Oxford Poetry Library) of Henry Vaughan's work--partly out of my slant rime interest (slant rimes seem to appear in his work passim... though of course one can never be sure about vowel pronounciation, particularly in the case of a Welshman from the 1600s.)

Anyway, this poem particularly charmed me--I like the mix of abstract and concrete, and I love the penultimate and ultimate stanzas.

Notes: "On the score" apparently means in debt. "Fits" is apparently a pun--both the sense we know, and "fits" as in cantos of a poem (remember "The Hunting of the Snark"--"an agony in eight fits"?). "Purls" is also a pun--whirling water, decorative edging for clothes, and possibly a kind of liquor brewed with bitter herbs and beer (!)...

(short lines should be indented...)


Idle Verse

Go, go, quaint follies, sugared sin,
Shadow no more my door;
I will no longer cobwebs spin,
I'm too much on the score.

For since amidst my youth and night,
My great preserver smiles,
We'll make a match, my only light,
And join against their wiles.

Blind, desp'rate fits, that study how
To dress and trim our shame,
That gild rank poison, and allow
Vice in a fairer name;

The purls of youthful blood and bowls,
LUst in the robes of love,
The idle talk of fev'rish souls,
Sick with a scarf, or glove.

Let it suffice my warmer days
Simpered and shined on you,
'Twist not my cypress with your bays,
Or roses with my yew;

Go, go, seek out some greener thing,
It snows, and freezeth here;
Let nightingales attend the spring,
Winter is all my year.


I confess am a bit unclear whether the sugared sins & quaint follies apostrophed are meant to be identified with the "Idle Verse" of the title (though that is how I take it, in view of the last two stanzas). Or what the antecedent of "their" is in stanza two (youth and night perhaps?--or does it look forward to "fits" and "purls"?). Actually, would love to hear some exegisis of this poem from some of our more learned folk. I should also mention Vaughan is heavily influenced by George Herbert...
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  #2  
Unread 11-13-2001, 05:30 PM
Alder Ellis Alder Ellis is offline
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I think you're right about all your interpretations. I believe this is a fairly conventional renunciation of erotic poetry in favor of contemplative verse; so, yes, the "quaint follies" are definitely in reference to the "idle verse" of the title. ("quaint" is probably a bawdy pun.)

An interesting thing about the poem is that it corresponds to the convention of maturity renouncing youthful follies, but the poet was evidently still young when he wrote it (the "my youth" of line 5 is evidently in the present).

An awkwardness in the poem is that the second stanza breaks the continuity of address -- i.e., the poet seems to be addressing his "preserver" (Christ?) in "We'll make a match, my only light,/And join against their wiles" but in all the other stanzas he is clearly addressing the "follies" addressed at the outset. (The best antecedent of "their" is probably "follies.")

The title is knowingly ambiguous in that, while identifying the subject matter, it also leaves itself open to ironic interpretation as labelling the poem.
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  #3  
Unread 11-14-2001, 03:08 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
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From one AE to another--

Thanks much! Am glad was not totally off track. And indeed it seems he did write secular poetry before turning to religious verse--so the renunciation makes perfect sense.

I'm not sure that the poet considers himself still young, though. He says the preserver smiles amidst his "youth and night". Perhaps this means that his preserver smiles admidst his youth and his age (night)? On the other hand, it looks like he was only 29 or so when he wrote this...

The pronouns are confusing here, I agree. Though of course one can use "we" even if "we" doesn't include the "you" of the apostrophe. Still, problematic!

It occurs to me that "match" is also a pun here (We'll make a match, my only light). Of course, there weren't matches in our sense then, but a match could refer to the wick of a lamp. Wonderfully dense stuff.

Thanks very much for your thoughts!

Alicia

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  #4  
Unread 11-14-2001, 03:34 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
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I thought I'd post another while I'm at it... This one also delights me with its imagery and tangible liveliness in the pursuit of an abstract argument (those wonderful qualities of the Metaphysical poets). Please pardon my inability to format the proper indentations...

The Proffer

Be still black parasites,
Flutter no more;
Were it still winter, as it was before,
You'd make no flights;
But now the dew and Sun have warmed my bowers,
You fly and flock to suck the flowers.

But you would honey make:
These buds will wither,
And what you now extract, in harder weather
Will serve to take;
Wise husband will (you say) there wants prevent,
Who do not so, too late repent.

O pois'nous, subtle fowls!
The flies of hell
That buzz in every ear, and blow on souls
Until they smell
And rot, descend not here, nor think to stay,
I've read, who 'twas, drove you away.

Think you these longing eyes,
Though sick and spent,
And almost famished, ever will consent
To leave those skies,
That glass of souls and spirits, where well dressed
They shine in white (like stars) and rest.

Shall my short hour, my inch,
My one poor sand,
And crumb of life, now ready to disband,
Revolt and flinch,
And having borne the burthen all the day,
Now cast at night my crown away?

No, No; I am not he,
Go seek elsewhere.
I skill not your fine tinsel and false hair,
Your sorcery
And smooth seducements: I'll not stuff my story
With your Commonwelath and glory.

There are, that will sow tares
And scatter death
Amongst the quick, selling their souls and breath
For any wares;
But when thy Master comes, they'll find and see
There's a reward for them and thee.

Then keep the ancient way!
Spit out their phlegm
And fill they breast with home; think on they dream:
A calm, bright day!
A land of flowers and spices! the word given
If these be fair, O what is Heaven


(It suddenly occurred to me while typing this out that "fowls" in stanza three is a pun on "fouls")

This poem also has some of those slant verse elements I mention. Of course, there is no way to tell if "phelgm" and "dream" were not pronounced more closely then than now. And given/Heaven is a standard pair. But "whither" and "weather" are either rime riche or a sort of slant feminine rime, as the vowels differ on the accented syllable (though perhaps this was acceptable 17th c. prosody?). In fact, the pair greatly resembles the pararimes of Wilfred Owen, another Welshman. In another poem Vaughan rimes "sickle" and "people."

a few little notes about this poem from my volume, edited by Louis Martz:

The poem appears to reject an offer of some appointment to an office in the government of the Commonwelath established by Cromwell after the execution of Charles 1.

"husband" is in the sense of managing household affairs

"skill not": do not value

The poem is closely related to Herbert's The Size

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  #5  
Unread 11-16-2001, 12:07 AM
Robert J. Clawson Robert J. Clawson is offline
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<<This poem also has some of those slant verse elements I mention. Of course, there is no way to tell if "phelgm" and "dream" were not pronounced more closely then than now.>>

I've had the same trouble with "lunger," "lougie," "looey," and "Louis."

<<In another poem Vaughan rimes "sickle" and "people.">>

Good for him. Aside from my prejudice against feminine rimes, I like these. As a precedent, we can rime people/pickle or pickle/pimple. Pimple/simple? Of course. But how about trickle/umbilical? I think I've so far failed to wholey grasp slant rime, although I depend on what I feel it is. Each time I've posted something I think is a nice, rolling slant rhyme, Carol Taylor has roasted me.

Bob

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  #6  
Unread 12-02-2001, 09:23 AM
Christopher Mulrooney Christopher Mulrooney is offline
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"Slant rimes" sounds like "yellow peril." "Idle Verse" looks like the source of Robert Bridges' "Nightingales" ("Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come"), and related to Beckett's

vive morte ma seule saison
lis blancs chrysanthèmes
nids vifs abandonnés
boue des feuilles d'avril
beaux jours gris de givre

(quick dead my sole season/white lilies chrysanthemums/nests quick abandoned/mud of April leaves/fine days rime gray)



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited December 02, 2001).]
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  #7  
Unread 12-02-2001, 01:32 PM
Len Krisak Len Krisak is offline
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Alicia,

My recent time spent with Booth's edition
of Shakespeare's sonnets inclines me to
believe "whither" and "weather" are meant
to pun-rhyme: the rhyme may or may not
be exact for the vowel sound, but an aspirated
word like "whither" shouldn't be an identity
(or rime riche) with "weather."
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  #8  
Unread 12-03-2001, 01:25 AM
Robert J. Clawson Robert J. Clawson is offline
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Len,

We have different ears. Other poets have called mine, "quirky," but I find "weather" and "whither" almost a double direct rime. Vowels get more credit than their due, as does work. I have a friend, very successful at living, who calls work "more than it's cracked up to be."

The slant rime is a thing of beauty. The direct rime's grown, mostly, worn, VERY difficult to revive without a driving, lovely, modern theme.

Bob
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  #9  
Unread 12-03-2001, 10:45 AM
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings is offline
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good point about the aspirated w, Len.
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  #10  
Unread 03-23-2012, 08:39 AM
Christopher ONeill Christopher ONeill is offline
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Speaking as someone who grew up a (long) bicycle ride from where Henry Vaughan wrote most of his poetry, can I just point out that the problem of how Vaughan pronounced his vowels is much more complicated than it at first appears.
Henry seems to have spent a significant amount of his twenties (when he wrote the naughty poems here abjured) in London. This would not have been unusual for a scion of the Welsh squirearchy in the mid seventeenth century (the Welsh did very well under the Tudors).
It is likely (though I think not proven) that Henry drifted back to Wales during the Civil War, particularly once things started to move in the direction of the Puritans. Henry's family, and probably Henry, are likely to have been broadly Royalist (most Welsh were, especially before autumn 1645), and sympathetic to the High Church.
Certainly in the early years of the Civil War Henry stopped expressing political opinions, and got very muted and ambiguous even in the religious opinions he admitted to.
He eventually ended up at the Brecon parish of Llansantffraed, where he is now buried.
But the randomiser as far as Henry's accent goes is that he always (as far as I know) signed his letters as coming from St. Brigid's Church.
'St. Brigid's Church' is a translation of Llansantffraed, but by the mid seventeenth century using a translation instead of the local placename was probably making a statement. (Not quite as extreme as a modern USian giving their address as The Meadows;- but tending that way).
Not only that, but while there is evidence that Henry Vaughan was fluent in Welsh (then the normal language for working people in the area), he rarely references the language in his poetry. (Both William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson seem to suggest they know at least some Welsh, so Welsh conferred social status a century earlier).
The body of probability seems to suggest that while Henry Vaughan was in many ways 'Welsh' when he was in England, when he was in Wales he went out of his way to be as 'English' as he could manage.
Henry Vaughan is a long term favourite of mine (his was the only English language poetry composed less than a car-ride from where I grew up), but I've always found what he doesn't say at least as interesting as what he does.
I suspect his 'native accent' would similarly have been as inauthentic as Miley Cyrus' or Kylie Minogue's.
In many ways Henry Vaughan is The Monkees of metaphysical poetry.
Once you get used to the idea, that makes him kinda interesting.
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