The Penguin Book of English Song Read online

  Th’impatient Temple rent her Vaile in two,

  To teach our hearts what our sad hearts should do:

  Shall senselesse things doe this, and shall not I

  Melt one poore drop to see my Saviour dye?

  Drill forth my Teares, and trickle one by one,

  Till you have peirc’d this heart of mine, this Stone.

  BENJAMIN BRITTEN: Canticle I: My beloved is mine, Op. 40 (1947/1950)1

  Quarles’ Emblemes, Book the Fifth, No. III

  CANTICLES 2. 16.

  My beloved is mine, and I am his; He feedeth among the lillies.

  I

  Ev’n like two little bank-dividing brooks,

  That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,

  And having rang’d and search’d a thousand nooks,

  Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,

  Where in a greater current they conjoin:

  So I my best beloved’s am; so he is mine.

  II

  Ev’n so we met; and after long pursuit,

  Ev’n so we joyn’d; we both became entire;

  No need for either to renew a suit,

  For I was flax and he was flames of fire:

  Our firm-united souls did more then twine;

  So I my best beloved’s am; so he is mine.

  III

  If all those glitt’ring Monarchs that command

  The servile quarters of this earthly ball

  Should tender, in exchange, their shares of land,

  I would not change my fortunes for them all:

  Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:

  The world’s but theirs; but my beloved’s mine.

  IV

  [Nay more; If the fair Thespian Ladies all

  Should heap together their diviner treasure:

  That treasure should be deem’d a price too small

  To buy a minute’s lease of half my pleasure.

  ’Tis not the sacred wealth of all the nine

  Can buy my heart from him, or his, from being mine.]

  V

  Nor Time, nor Place, nor Chance, nor Death can bow

  My least desires unto the least remove;

  He’s firmly mine by oath; I his by vow;

  He’s mine by faith, and I am his by love;

  He’s mine by water, I am his by wine;

  Thus I my best beloved’s am; thus he is mine.

  VI

  He is my Altar; I, his Holy Place;

  I am his guest, and he my living food;

  I’m his by penitence; he mine by grace;

  I’m his by purchase; he is mine, by bloud!

  He’s my supporting elm; and I his vine:

  Thus I my best beloved’s am; thus he is mine.

  VII

  He gives me wealth, I give him all my vows:

  I give him songs, he gives me length of dayes;

  With wreaths of grace he crowns my conqu’ring brows:

  And I his Temples with a crown of Praise,

  Which he accepts as an ev’rlasting signe

  That I my best beloved’s am; that he is mine.

  GEORGE HERBERT

  (1593–1633)

  His chiefest recreation was Musick, in which heavenly Art he was a most excellent Master, and did himself compose many divine Hymns and Anthems, which he set and sung to his Lute or Viol; and though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to Musick was such, that he went usually twice every week on certain appointed days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, That his time spent in Prayer, and Cathedral Musick, elevated his Soul, and was his Heaven upon Earth: But before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and play his part, at an appointed private Musick-meeting; and, to justifie this practice, he would often say, Religion does not banish Mirth, but only moderates, and sets rules to it.

  IZAAK WALTON: The Life of Mr George Herbert (1670)

  Herbert’s mother, Lady Magdalen, a friend and patron of John Donne, influenced her son in his decision to distance himself from court life and embrace the Church. If Donne gave her some of his manuscript poems – which is not unlikely – Herbert would almost certainly have read them. He had many influential friends at court, including Francis Bacon, and in 1614, aged twenty-two, he was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Although in 1624 and 1625 he represented Montgomery, the town of his birth, in Parliament, he abandoned his worldly ambitions, was ordained deacon, and in 1526 was installed as a canon in Lincoln Cathedral. On the death of his mother in 1627, he poured out his heart in a set of Latin poems to her memory: Memoriae Matris Sacrum. In 1629 he married Jane Danvers, and a year later became rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury. Known to his contemporaries as ‘holy George Herbert’, he rejoiced in his work: ‘The Countrey Parson preacheth constantly, the Pulpit is his joy and his throne.’ His piety is reflected in his decision to take two recently orphaned nieces into his family. Like John Donne, he consciously prepared himself for death: Izaak Walton tells us that he sang on his death-bed ‘such Hymns and Anthems, as the Angels and he now […] sing in Heaven’. As he lay dying of consumption just short of his fortieth birthday, he sent a manuscript of his English poems to Edmond Duncon, writing:

  Sir, I pray deliver this little Book to my dear brother Farrer, and tell him, he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual Conflicts that have past betwixt God and my Soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master; in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it: and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor Soul, let it be made publick: if not, let him burn it: for I and it, are less than the least of God’s mercies.

  There is a stained-glass window in Bemerton church showing Nicholas Ferrar holding the manuscript of The Temple, which had been entrusted to him for publication. The poems were published as The Temple in 1633, and have been admired ever since for the directness of their religious fervour, their rhythmic subtleties and the power and complexity of their imagery. Of the 169 poems in The Temple, no fewer than 100 have their own individual stanza form. There were thirteen editions of The Temple between 1633 and 1679, after which Herbert’s popularity began to wane. A new edition appeared in 1799, but it was Coleridge’s article on Herbert in Biographia Literaria (1817) that encouraged a revival of interest in his poetry.

  CHARLES COLLIGNON

  The 23d Psalme1

  The God of love my shepherd is,

  And he that doth me feed:

  While he is mine, and I am his,

  What can I want or need?

  He leads me to the tender grasse,

  Where I both feed and rest;

  Then to the streams that gently passe:

  In both I have the best.

  Or if I stray, he doth convert

  And bring my minde in frame2:

  And all this not for my desert,

  But for his holy name.

  Yea, in deaths shadie black abode

  Well may I walk, not fear:

  For thou art with me; and thy rod

  To guide, thy staffe to bear.

  Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,

  Ev’n in my enemies sight:

  My head with oyl, my cup with wine

  Runnes over day and night.

  Surely thy sweet and wondrous love

  Shall measure all my dayes;

  And as it never shall remove,

  So neither shall my praise.

  J. D. JONES

  Praise (II)1

  [King of Glory, King of Peace]

  King of Glorie, King of Peace,

  I will love thee:

  And that love may never cease,

  I will move thee.

  Thou hast granted my request,

  Thou hast heard me:

  Thou didst note my working breast,

  Thou hast spar’d me.

  Wherefore with my utmost art

  I will sing thee,

  And
the cream of all my heart

  I will bring thee.

  Though my sinnes against me cried,

  Thou didst cleare me;

  And alone, when they replied,

  Thou didst heare me.

  Sev’n whole dayes, not one in seven,

  I will praise thee.

  In my heart, though not in heaven,

  I can raise thee.

  Thou grew’st soft and moist with tears,

  Thou relentedst:

  And when Justice call’d for fears

  Thou dissentedst.

  Small it is, in this poore sort

  To enroll2 thee:

  Ev’n eternitie is too short

  To extoll thee.

  from William Sandys’ Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (1833)

  The Elixir

  [Hymn 337]

  Teach me, my God and King,

  In all things thee to see,

  And what I do in any thing,

  To do it as for thee:

  Not rudely1, as a beast,

  To runne into an action

  But still to make thee prepossest2,

  And give it his perfection.

  A man that looks on glasse

  On it may stay his eye;

  Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,

  And then the heav’n espie.

  All may of thee partake:

  Nothing can be so mean,

  Which with his tincture3 (for thy sake)

  Will not grow bright and clean.

  A servant with this clause4

  Makes drudgerie divine:

  Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

  Makes that and th’action fine.

  This is the famous stone

  That turneth all to gold:

  For that which God doth touch5 and own

  Cannot for lesse be told.

  RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Five Mystical Songs, for baritone, SATB, orchestra (1905–11/1911)

  Easter

  Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise

  Without delayes,

  Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

  With him mayst rise:

  That, as his death calcinèd1 thee to dust,

  His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

  Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part

  With all thy art.

  The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,

  Who bore the same.

  His streched sinews taught all strings, what key

  Is best to celebrate this most high day.

  Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song

  Pleasant and long;

  Or since all musick is but three parts vied2,

  And multiplied,

  O let Thy blessed spirit bear a part,

  And make up our defects with his sweet art.

  (Rubbra)

  I got me flowers to straw Thy way;3

  I got me boughs off many a tree:

  But thou wast up by break of day,

  And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

  The Sunne arising in the East,

  Though he give light, th’ East perfume;

  If they should offer to contest

  With thy arising, they presume.

  Can there be any day but this,

  Though many Sunnes to shine endeavour?

  We count three hundred, but we misse:

  There is but one, and that one ever.

  Love (III)

  [Love bade me welcome]

  Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

  Guiltie of dust and sinne.

  But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack

  From my first entrance in,

  Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

  If I lack’d any thing.

  A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:

  Love said, you shall be he.

  I the unkinde,1 ungratefull? Ah my deare,

  I cannot look on thee.

  Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

  Who made the eyes but I?

  Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame

  Go where it doth deserve.

  And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?

  My deare, then I will serve.

  You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:2

  So I did sit and eat.

  The call

  Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

  Such a Way, as gives us breath:

  Such a Truth, as ends all strife:

  Such a Life, as killeth death.

  Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:

  Such a Light, as shows a feast:

  Such a Feast, as mends in length:

  Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

  Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:

  Such a Joy, as none can move:

  Such a Love, as none can part:

  Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

  Antiphon1 (I)

  [Let all the world in every corner sing]

  Cho.

  Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,

  My God and King.

  Vers.

  The heavn’s are not too high,

  His praise may thither flie:

  The earth is not too low,

  His praises there may grow.

  Cho.

  Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,

  My God and King.

  Vers.

  The church with psalms must shout,

  No doore can keep them out:

  But above all, the heart

  Must bear the longest part.2

  Cho.

  Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,

  My God and King.

  (Harwood)

  EDMUND WALLER

  (1606–87)

  The reader needs to be told no more in commendation of these Poems, than that they are Mr. Waller’s; a name that carries everything in it either great or graceful in poetry. He was, indeed, the parent of English verse, and the first that showed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it.

  FRANCIS ATTERBURY: ‘Preface to the Second Part of Mr. Waller’s Poems, Printed in the Year 1690’

  Educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, Waller entered Parliament as a member of the opposition. Having married a rich heiress, who died in 1634, he became a Royalist and was heavily involved in the plot to seize London for Charles I: he was captured, imprisoned, fined and eventually banished. After making his peace with Cromwell, he was once more restored to favour. Though Waller is rather unfairly remembered for a single lyric (‘Go lovely Rose’), he was a poet much admired by many of his contemporaries, including Dryden, who writes in the Preface to The Rival Ladies (1664) that the ‘excellence and dignity’ of rhyme were ‘never fully known till Mr. Waller; he first made writing easily an art […]’. That is partly the problem: the facility with which he wrote verse eventually tells against him, although there are images of arresting originality, such as these wonderful lines from ‘Of the Last Verses in the Book’: ‘The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,/Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.’ Too much of Waller’s output is made up of occasional poems in the sycophantic manner of many a Poet Laureate, mirrored in such unwieldy titles as ‘Of the danger His Majesty (being Prince) escaped on the road at Santander’, ‘Of tea, commended by Her Majesty’, ‘A panegyric to my Lord Protector’ and so on. But there are many gems among his love poetry addressed to Sacharissa – the Lady Dorothy Sidney, whom he courted unsuccessfully after the death of his first wife. His appreciation of the art of song is shown in one of his Commendatory Poems: ‘To Mr Henry Lawes, who had then newly set a Song of mine in the Year 1635’, which ends:

  But you alone may truly boast

  That not a Syllable is lost;

  The Writer’s and the Setter’s, Skill

  At once the Ravished Ears do fill.

  Let
those which only warble long,

  And gargle in their Throats a Song,

  Content themselves with UT, RE, MI:

  Let Words and Sense be set by thee.

  JOHN BLOW: from Amphion Anglicus (1700)

  The self-banish’d

  [It is not that I love you less]

  It is not that I love you less,

  Than when before your Feet I lay:

  But to prevent the sad encrease

  Of hopeless Love, I keep away.

  In vain (alas!), for every thing

  Which I have known belong to you,

  Your Form does to my Fancy bring,

  And make my old Wounds bleed anew.

  Whom the Spring from the New Sun,

  Already has a Fever got,

  Too late begins those Shafts to shun,

  Which Phoebus thro’ his Veins has Shot;

  Too late he wou’d the Pain assuage,

  And to thick Shadows does retire;

  About with him he bears the Rage,

  And in his tainted Blood the Fire.

  But vow’d I have, and never must

  Your banish’d Servant trouble you:

  For if I break, you may mistrust

  The Vow I made to Love you too.

  ROGER QUILTER: from Five English Love Lyrics, Op. 24

  Go lovely Rose

  [Go, lovely Rose] (1922/1923)

  Go lovely Rose,

  Tell her that wastes her time and me,