THE GOLDEN AGE
by: Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
- LEST age! when ev'ry purling stream
- Ran undistrubed 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,
- Whose fragrant heads in mystic twines above,
- Exchanged their sweets, and mixed with thousand kisses,
- As if the willing brances 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.
- 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 flow'rs 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,
- 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 plenteous birth,
- Without the aids of men;
- As if within her teeming womb
- All Nature, and all sexes lay,
- Whence new creations ev'ry day
- Into the happy world did come;
- The roses filled with morning dew,
- Bent down their loaded heads,
- 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 spiteful venom in the wantons lay;
- But to the touch were soft, and to the sight were gay.
- IV
- Then no rough sound of war's alarms
- Had taught the world the needless use of arms:
- 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 teh world at odds:
- 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 defense
- Against his neighbor's insolence.
- Flocks, herds, and ev'ry necessary good
- Which bounteous Nature had designed for food,
- Whose kind increase o'erspread the meads and plains,
- Was then a common sacrifice to all th'agreeing swains.
- V
- Right and property were words since made,
- When Pow'r 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,
- And rapes, invasions, tyrannies
- Was gaining of a glorious name:
- Styling their savage slaughters, Victories;
- Honor, 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,
- And that was lawful all, that Pleasure did invite,
- Then 'twas the amorous world enjoyed its reign;
- And tyrant Honor strove t'usurp in vain.
- VI
- The flow'ry 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;
- A thousand Cupids fanned their wings aloft,
- And through the boughs the yielded air would waft:
- Whose parting leaves disvoered all below,
- And every god his own soft power admired,
- And smiled and fanned, and sometimes bent his bow;
- Where'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,
- But the effect of kindling flame:
- Where from the sighing burning swain she takes,
- While she with tears all soft, and downcast 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.
- 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 foreseen, man ought to live by rule?
- VIII
- Oh cursed Honor! thou who first didst damn
- A woman to the sin of shame;
- Honor! that robb'st us of our gust,
- Honor! that hindered mankind first,
- At Love's eternal spring to squench his amorous thirst.
- Honor! 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,
- That loosely played with wanton air.
- The envious net, and stinted order hold
- The lovely curles of jet and shining gold;
- No more neglected on the shoulders hurled:
- Now dressed to tempt, not gratify the world:
- Thou, miser Honor, hoard'st the sacred store,
- And starv'st thyself to keep thy votaries poor.
- IX
- Honor! that put'st our words that should be free
- Into a set formality.
- Thou base debaucher of the generous heart,
- That teachest all our looks and actions art;
- What love designed a sacred gift,
- What Nature made to be possessed;
- Mistaken Honor 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;
- 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 politician's sleep,
- Disturb the gay ambitious fool,
- That longs for scepters, crowns, and rule,
- Which not his title, nor his wit can keep;
- But let the humble honest swain go on
- In the blessed 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,
- 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 flow'rs anew come on;
- The sun may set, but when the night is fled,
- And gloomy darkness does retire,
- He rises from his wat'ry 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 flow'rs that wither in the shade,
- Eternally they will forgotten lie,
- And no kind Spring their sweetness will supply.
- When snow shall on those lovely tresses lie,
- And your fair eyes no more shall give us pain,
- But shoot their pointless darts in vain,
- What will your duller honor 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.
MORE
POEMS BY APHRA BEHN |
|
|
|
|