Metaphysical Poetry

- a movement born in the 17th century.

- witty, ingenious, and highly philosophical.

- Topics included love, life and existence.

Aspects:
1. Use of conceits
2. Far-fetched imagery
3. Concise and dense language
4. Witty, employing paradoxes and puns

- “wit”—that is, by the sometimes violent yoking together of apparently unconnected ideas
and things so that the reader is startled out of his complacency and forced to think through the
argument of the poem. Metaphysical poetry is less concerned with expressing feeling than
with analyzing it, with the poet exploring the recesses of his consciousness.

5. Refusal to use the traditional forms, preference for freer use

6. Carpe-diem, but a dark sense of imminent death underneath that cheer
7. Use of intelect and reading in writing poetry rather than a flow of emotions

The most important metaphysical poets are :

John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Traherne, Abraham Cowley, Richard
Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. - We will also consider Robert Herrick as one, for his poems
included here, though he is generally grouped with Cavalier Poets.

John Donne
- born in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents, when practicing that religion was illegal in
England, died in 1631.
- Had a good education went to Cambridge but did not finish it because he refused to take
the oath of supremacy.
- Spent much of his time and inheritance on women, travel and having fun.
- Joined wars against the Spanish
- Married a woman secretly and was put to prison, released, had twelve children in 16
years. His wife died when giving birth.
- Questioned Catholicism when his brother, a catholic too, died in prison from plague.
Converted to Anglican church
- Became a priest in Church of England, then a dean, and the rector of many parishes
- -died in poverty and with the support of his friends as he spent all his money on pleasure
seeking, though a churchman.
- Early works were erotic later after his illness and loss of friends his poems became
somber, wrote about death as a passing to heaven, illness as sent by God etc.
- Used mixed measures and casual speech in his poetry
- His works differ from the 16th century traditions of Sidney or Spencer

-His poems contain few descriptive passages

- replaced the sweet voice of predecessors with one that shows the intensity of feeling in a
dramatic confrontation. This leads to a directness of language. For Godsake hold your
tongue, and let me love,”
-he drew his imagery from such diverse fields as alchemy, astronomy, medicine, politics,
global exploration, and philosophical disputation.
-The presence of a listener is another of Donne’s modifications of the Renaissance love lyric,
in which the lovers lament, hope, and dissect their feelings without facing their ladies.
Donne, by contrast, speaks directly to the lady or some other listener.
-the syntax and rhythms of living speech to his poetry,
-His male personas change from men so much satisfied with love and women they deny both
now, to Platonic lovers. When mutual, lovers enjoy being together as if it is a holy meeting.
-Devotional sonnets seek God sometimes in sexual terms, express his doubts, fears and
feeling of worthlessness. Never at ease.
-Donne incorporates the Renaissance notion of the human body as a microcosm into his love
poetry. During the Renaissance, many people believed that the microcosmic human body
mirrored the macrocosmic physical world. According to this belief, the intellect governs the
body, much like a king or queen governs the land. Many of Donne’s poems—most notably
“The Sun Rising” (1633), “The Good-Morrow” (1633), and “A Valediction: Of Weeping”
(1633)—envision a lover or pair of lovers as being entire worlds unto themselves.
-Plato’s ladder of love, so he believes his physical love is a step to loving the ultimate
abstract concept of beauty, it surpasses ordinary physical love, It is in this sense neoplatonic
-Donne imagines religious enlightenment as a form of sexual ecstasy. Asks God to rape him
so that he can become chaste. Compares entering into a church to entering a woman’s body.
-Uses “spheres” to liken the beloved’s face because it is faultless and smooth shape without
any corners.
-Love making is like a geographical discovery “ you are my newfound land”
-His reflection in his lover’s eyes means being contained by her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-kn3fvJu0
 The Flea
BY JOHN DONNE
Mark but this flea, and mark in this, a
How little that which thou deniest me is; a
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, b
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; b
Thou know’st that this cannot be said c
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, c
Yet this enjoys before it woo, d
And pampered swells with one blood made of two, d
And this, alas, is more than we would do. d

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILpUp-JE8h0

The Sun Rising

BY JOHN DONNE
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
 The Canonization
BY JOHN DONNE
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honor, or his grace,
Or the king's real, or his stampèd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?

What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phœnix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,

And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for Love.

And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love

Made one another's hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!"
The Bait
BY JOHN DONNE
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run

Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,

By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud
BY JOHN DONNE
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
 A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

BY JOHN DONNE
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by
John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Andrew Marvell

The Mower against Gardens

Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,

Did after him the world seduce,
And from the fields the flowers and plants allure,
Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclosed within the gardens square
A dead and standing pool of air,
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stupified them while it fed.
The pink grew then as double as his mind;
The nutriment did change the kind.
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint,
And flowers themselves were taught to paint.
The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
And learned to interline its cheek:
Its onion root they then so high did hold,
That one was for a meadow sold.
Another world was searched, through oceans new,
To find the Marvel of Peru.
And yet these rarities might be allowed
To man, that sovereign thing and proud,
Had he not dealt between the bark and tree,
Forbidden mixtures there to see.
No plant now knew the stock from which it came;
He grafts upon the wild the tame:
That th’ uncertain and adulterate fruit
Might put the palate in dispute.
His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
Lest any tyrant him outdo.
And in the cherry he does nature vex,
To procreate without a sex.
’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot,
While the sweet fields do lie forgot:
Where willing nature does to all dispense
A wild and fragrant innocence:
And fauns and fairies do the meadows till,
More by their presence than their skill.
Their statues, polished by some ancient hand,
May to adorn the gardens stand:
But howsoe’er the figures do excel,
The gods themselves with us do dwell.
*

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
 Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

-Born to an aristocratic family. Firmly attached to her mother.

-Studied at Cambridge where he became a lecturer and a university orator, making formal
speeches etc.
-Wrote in his poems that he wants to burn withn love of God not women. He was not alone in
this as Sidney, Donne and even King James I wrote similar poems.
-He served in the parliament hoping to blend the secular and religious life, but was
disappointed.
 -Married and settled in a town, as a church priest till his death at the age of 39, he was never a
healthy man.
--Herbert’s poetry, although often formally experimental, (like The Altar,[25] in which the shorter
and longer lines are arranged on the page in the shape of an altar. In the case of "Easter Wings"
(illustrated here), the words were printed sideways on two facing pages so that the lines there
suggest outspread wings.) The is always passionate, searching, and elegant and about his own
passing through life, his meditations.
-He was direct with metaphysical conceits: In The Windows, for example, he compares a
righteous preacher to glass through which God's light shines more effectively than in his
words.[
- Some of his poems are in Latin and Greek too.
- He is the best devotional lyricist of his time.
-put his poems in music too and was a good lute player.

The Collar
BY GEORGE HERBERT
I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
 I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load."
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Child!
And I replied My Lord.

Delight in Disorder

BY ROBE RT H E RRI CK
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Born in London, studied at Cambridge before he worked as an assistant to the King’s

jeweller. He had to abundon his post once and lived on the charity of friends till he gained the
royal favor again. He remained bachelor all his life and the women he names in his poetry are
fictional.

-Wrote over 2500 poems.

- refers to female body often and to love making.
- loved the richness of sensuality and the variety of life, and this is shown vividly in such poems
as Cherry-ripe, Delight in Disorder and Upon Julia's Clothes.
-message of Herrick's work is that life is short, the world is beautiful, love is splendid, and we
must use the short time we have to make the most of it.

Delight in Disorder

A sweet disorder in the dress *(rhymes not neat!)

Kindles in clothes, a wantonness
A lawn about the shoulders' thrown
Into a fine distraction
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly
A winning wave, deserving note
In the tempestuous petticoat
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility
More bewitch me than when art (but here the rhym is perfect)
Is too precise in every part

To the Virgins to Make much of Time

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,

The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,

When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;

And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry