Selected Poems of Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn, Malcolm Hicks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000143645
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book presents a collection of the poetry of the 17th-century writer Aphra Behn. It examines the relationships between the sexes, seen from the woman's point of view. The book also includes some of Behn's translations, occasional pieces, satires, and songs.

The Golden Age A Paraphrase on a Translation out of French

I

Blest Age! when ev'ry purling stream
Ran undisturbed and clear,
When no scorned shepherds on your banks were seen,
Tortured by love, by jealousy, or fear;
When an eternal Spring dressed ev'ry bough,
And blossoms fell, by new ones dispossessed;
These their kind shade affording all below,
And those a bed where all below might rest.
The groves appeared all dressed with wreaths of flowers,
And from their leaves dropped aromatic showers, 10
Whose fragrant heads in mystic twines above,
Exchanged their sweets, and mixed with thousand kisses,
As if the willing branches strove
To beautify and shade the grove
Where the young wanton gods of love
Offer their noblest sacrifice of blisses.

II

Calm was the air, no winds blew fierce and loud,
The sky was darkened with no sullen cloud;
But all the heav'ns laughed with continued light,
And scattered round their rays serenely bright. 20
No other murmurs filled the ear
But what the streams and rivers purled,
When silver waves o'er shining pebbles curled;
Or when young zephyrs fanned the gentle breeze,
Gath'ring fresh sweets from balmy flowers and trees,
Then bore 'em on their wings to perfume all the air:
While to their soft and tender play,
The gray-plumed natives of the shades
Unwearied sing till love invades, [30
Then bill, then sing again while love and music makes the day.

III

The stubborn plough had then,
Made no rude rapes upon the virgin Earth;
Who yielded of her own accord her plentious birth,
Without the aids of men;
As if within her teeming womb,
All nature, and all sexes lay,
Whence new creations every day
Into the happy world did come:
The roses filled with morning Dew,
Bent down their loaded heads, 40
T'adorn the careless shepherds grassy beds
While still young opening buds each moment grew
And as those withered, dressed his shaded couch anew;
Beneath whose boughs the snakes securely dwelt,
Not doing harm, nor harm from others felt;
With whom the nymphs did innocently play,
No spightful venom in the wantons lay;
But to the touch were soft, and to the sight were gay.

IV

Then no rough sounds of wars alarms,
Had taught the world the needless use of arms: 50
Monarchs were uncreated then,
Those arbitrary rulers over men:
Kings that made laws, first broke 'em, and the gods
By teaching us religion first, first set the world at odds:
Till then ambition was not known,
That poison to content, bane to repose;
Each swain was lord o'er his own will alone,
His innocence religion was, and laws.
Nor needed any troublesome defence
Against his neighbours insolence. 60
Flocks, herds, and every necessary good
Which bounteous nature had designed for food,
Whose kind increase o'er-spread the meads and plains,
Was then a common sacrifice to all th'agreeing swains.

V

Right and property were words since made,
When power taught mankind to invade:
When pride and avarice became a trade;
Carried on by discord, noise and wars,
For which they bartered wounds and scars;
And to enhance the merchandise, miscalled it, Fame, 70
And rapes, invasions, tyrannies,
Was gaining of a glorious name:
Stiling their savage slaughters, victories;
Honour, the error and the cheat
Of the ill-natured busy great,
Nonsense, invented by the proud,
Fond idol of the slavish crowd,
Thou wert not known in those blest days
Thy poison was not mixed with our unbounded joys;
Then it was glory to pursue delight, 80
And that was lawful all, that pleasure did invite,
Then 'twas the amorous world enjoyed its reign;
And tyrant Honour strove t' usurp in vain.

VI

The flowry Meads, the rivers and the groves,
Were filled with little gay-winged loves:
That ever smiled and danced and played,
And now the woods, and now the streams invade,
And where they came all things were gay and glad:
When in the myrtle groves the lovers sat
Oppressed with a too fervent heat; 90
A thousand cupids fanned their wings aloft,
And through the boughs the yielded air would waft:
Whose parting leaves discovered all below,
And every god his own soft power admired,
And smiled and fanned and sometimes bent his bow;
Where e'er he saw a shepherd uninspired.
The nymphs were free, no nice, no coy disdain;
Denied their joys, or gave the lover pain;

The yielding maid but kind resistance makes;
Trembling and blushing are not marks of shame, 100
But the effect of kindling flame:
Which from the sighing burning swain she takes,
While she with tears all soft, and down-cast-eyes,
Permits the charming conqueror to win the prize.

VII

The lovers thus, thus uncontrolled did meet,
Thus all their joys and vows of love repeat:
Joys which were everlasting, ever new
And every vow inviolably true:
Not kept in fear of gods, no fond religious cause,
Nor in obedience to the duller laws. 110
Those fopperies of the gown were then not known,
Those vain, those politic curbs to keep man in,
Who by a fond mistake created that a sin;
Which freeborn we, by right of nature claim our own.
Who but the learned and dull moral fool
Could gravely have forseen, man ought to live by rule?

VIII

Oh cursed Honour! thou who first didst damn,
A woman to the sin of shame;
Honour! that robb'st us of our gust,
Honour! that hindered mankind first, 120
At loves eternal spring to quench his amorous thirst.
Honour! who first taught lovely eyes the art,
To wound, and not to cure the heart:
With love to invite, but to forbid with awe,
And to themselves prescribe a cruel law;
To veil 'em from the lookers on,
When they are sure the slave's undone,
And all the charming'st part of beauty hid;
Soft looks, consenting wishes, all denied.
It gathers up the flowing hair, 130

That loosely played with wanton air.
The envious net, and stinted order hold,
The lovely curls of jet and shining gold;
No more neglected on the shoulders hurled:
Now dressed to tempt, not gratify the world:
Thou, miser Honour, hord'st the sacred store,
And starv'st thy self to keep thy votaries poor.

IX

Honour! that putt'st our words that should be free
Into a set formality.
Thou base debaucher of the generous heart, 140
That teachest all our looks and actions art;
What love designed a sacred gift,
What nature made to be possessed;
Mistaken Honour, made a theft,
For glorious love should be confessed:
For when confined, all the poor lover gains,
Is broken sighs, pale looks, complaints and pains.
Thou foe to pleasure, nature's worst disease,
Thou tyrant over mighty kings,
What mak'st thou here in shepherds cottages; 150
Why troublest thou the quiet shades and springs?
Be gone, and make thy famed resort
To princes palaces;
Go deal and chaffer in the trading court,
That busy market for fantastic things;
Be gone and interrupt the short retreat,
Of the illustrious and the great;
Go break the politicians sleep,
Disturb the gay ambitious fool,
That longs for sceptres, crowns, and rule, 160
Which not his title, nor his wit can keep;
But let the humble honest swain go on,
In the blest paths of the first rate of man;
That nearest were to gods allied,
And formed for love alone, disdained all other pride.

X

Be gone! and let the golden age again,
Assume its glorious reign;
Let the young wishing maid confess,
What all your arts would keep concealed:
The mystery will be revealed, 170
And she in vain denies, whilst we can guess,
She only shows the jilt to teach man how,
To turn the false artillery on the cunning foe.
Thou empty vision hence, be gone,
And let the peaceful swain love on;
The swift paced hours of life soon steal away:
Stint not, ye gods, his short lived joy.
The Spring decays, but when the Winter's gone,
The trees and flowers anew comes on;
The Sun may set, but when the night is fled, 180
And gloomy darkness does retire,
He rises from his watry bed:
All glorious, gay, all dressed in amorous fire.
But Sylvia when your beauties fade,
When the fresh roses on your cheeks shall die,
Like flowers that wither in the shade,

And your fair eyes no more shall give us pain, 190
But shoot their pointless darts in vain.
What will your duller honour signify?
Go boast it then! and see what numerous store
Of lovers will your ruined shrine adore.
Then let us, Sylvia, yet be wise,
And the gay hasty minutes prize:
The Sun and Spring receive but our short light,
Once set, a sleep brings an eternal night.

On a Juniper Tree, cut down to make Busks

Whilst happy I triumphant stood,
The pride and glory of the wood;
My aromatic boughs and fruit,
Did with all other trees dispute.
Had right by nature to excel,
In pleasing both the taste and smell:
But to the touch I must confess,
Bore an ungrateful sullenness.
My wealth, like bashful virgins, I
Yielded with some reluctancy; 10
For which my value should be more,
Not giving easily my store.

Nor needed any tribute pay,
For bounties from the God of day:
Nor do I hold supremacy,
(In all the wood) o'er every tree.
But even those too of my own race, 20
That grow not in this happy place.
But that in which I glory most,
And do myself with reason boast,
Beneath my shade the other day,
Young Philocles and Cloris lav,

Their trembling limbs did gently press,
The kind supporting yielding grass...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Editions of Behn's Poetry
• POEMS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS (1684):
• MISCELLANY (1685)
• A MISCELLANY OF POEMS APPENDED TO LYCIDUS (1688):
• GILDON'S MISCELLANY (1692):
• MUSES MERCURY(1707):
• FAMILIAR LETTERS (1718):
• Notes