The Penguin Book of English Verse Read online

  THE PENGUIN BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE

  ‘Wonderful… perhaps the last great one-volume work of its kind’ Stephen Knight, The Times Literary Supplement

  ‘A wonderfully intelligent, adventurous, rich anthology, essential for confirmed and potential poetry addicts alike’ Hermione Lee, Guardian, Books of the Year

  ‘A treasure chest of the English poetic tradition’ Muriel Spark, The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

  ‘Seems like the most interesting anthology of verse there has ever been. The principles of organization and selection make so many poems, and their provenance, newly startling. The book includes the reader in such a way that one doesn’t have to bother about what has been left out’ Adam Phillips, Irish Times, Books of the Year

  ‘An extraordinarily fresh take on the whole sequence of English poetry… a very well-chosen and generous anthology’ David Sexton, Evening Standard, Books of the Year

  ‘Compendious, judicious and eclectic, this collection will galvanize your appreciation of the canon again. Indeed, its choices are so compellingly well made – that is, all the poems chosen are good – that it almost creates a new canon by itself’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian, Books of the Year

  ‘Keegan gives the twentieth century more space than any other, and his post-war selection – crammed with Celts – is eye-opening and bold… He is exceptionally good at hearing the voices of women down the centuries’ Jim McCue, Evening Standard

  ‘Serious, wide-ranging, and sometimes surprising… it’s a book you should buy’ Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘The generosity of its inclusions dilates the canon. Discarding conventions, he serves the poetic tradition. It is as though accreted varnish has been carefully removed and the picture has regained a compelling luminosity… an editor who is also a scholar with genuine literary tact’ Michael Schmidt, Independent

  ‘He has a quantity of poems by Irish authors born after as well as before 1922… and includes a good selection of poems in Scots, with a glossary… Included for the first time in this anthology, and very properly included, is the category of poems translated into English… Keegan has an excellent eye and ear. He includes poems that have to be there, adds some good new ones, and has produced a genuinely new book. That is quite an achievement’ Michael Alexander, Catholic Herald

  ‘The decision to print poems chronologically was an inspired one, heightening a sense of progression through time. This is a present to give any aspiring young person, opening their eyes to a whole world with something to suit every taste’ Sir Roy Strong, Daily Mail, Books of the Year

  ‘Radical and entertaining… moving through the familiar territory of ancients, Anons, ballads, the famous dead and dead famous in a way that will take the most jaded curriculum-follower into unexpected corners and connections’ The Times Educational Supplement

  ‘Seven hundred years of language, distilled into its sharpest and brightest forms, are here to be discovered… Again and again, the reader comes across thoughtful, and thought-provoking juxtapositions of poems… The New Penguin Book of English Verse demonstrates that we have the good fortune to live in the English language, perhaps the richest, most supple, promising, sharp-tongued and rule-breaking playground for poetry’ Helen Dunmore, Observer

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  Paul Keegan was formerly editor of the Penguin Classics and is now Poetry Editor at Faber & Faber. He has edited the Collected Poems of Ted Hughes (2003).

  The Penguin Book of

  ENGLISH VERSE

  Edited by Paul Keegan

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

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  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Allen Lane 2000

  Published as The New Penguin Book of English Verse by Penguin Books 2001

  Published under the current title in Penguin Classics 2004

  7

  Collection and Preface xxxix copyright © Paul Keegan, 2000

  The acknowledgements on pp. 1104–8 constitute an extension of this copyright page

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the editor has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 9781101490648

  Contents

  Preface

  [Rawlinson Lyrics] 1300–1350

  ANONYMOUS ‘Ich am of Irlande’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Maiden in the morë lay’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Al night by the rosë, rosë’

  [Harley Lyrics]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Bitwenë March and Avëril’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Erthë tok of erthe’

  [Grimestone Lyrics] 1350–1400

  ANONYMOUS ‘Gold and al this worldës wyn’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Gloria mundi est’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Love me broughte’

  ANONYMOUS [The Dragon Speaks]

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Parliament of Fowls

  [Catalogue of the Birds]

  [Roundel]

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Boke of Troilus

  [Envoi]

  ANONYMOUS ‘When Adam dalf and Eve span’

  WILLIAM LANGLAND from The Vision of Piers Plowman

  [Prologue]

  [Gluttony in the Ale-house]

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Canterbury Tales

  from The General Prologue ‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote’

  from The General Prologue [The Prioress]

  from The Knight’s Tale [The Temple of Mars]

  from The Knight’s Tale [Saturn]

  from The Milleres Tale [Alysoun]

  from The Wife of Bath’s Prologue ‘My fourthe housbonde was a revelour’

  from The Pardoner’s Tale ‘Thise riotoures thre of whiche I telle’

  ANONYMOUS from Patience

  [Jonah and the Whale]

  ANONYMOUS from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

  [Gawain Journeys North]

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER Envoy to Scogan

  JOHN GOWER from Confessio Amantis

  [Pygmaleon]

  [The Rape of Lucrece]

  1430 THOMAS HOCCLEVE from The Complaint of Hoccleve ‘Aftir that hervest inned had hise sheves’

  1440 CHARLES OF ORLEANS [Ballade] (‘In the forest of Noyous Hevynes’)

  CHARLES OF ORLEANS [Roundel] (‘Take, take this cosse, atonys, atonys, my hert!’)

  CHARLES OF ORLEANS [Roundel] (‘Go forth myn hert wyth my lady’)

  1450 [Sloane Lyrics]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Adam lay y-bownden’

  ANONYMOUS ‘I syng of a mayden’

  ANONYMOUS ‘The merthe of alle this londe’

  ANONYMOUS [Christ Triumphant]

&nb
sp; ANONYMOUS [Holly against Ivy]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Ther is no rose of swych vertu’

  1500 JOHN SKELTON from Phyllyp Sparowe ‘Whan I remembre agayn’

  ROBERT HENRYSON from The Testament of Cresseid ‘O ladyis fair of Troy and Grece, attend’

  WILLIAM DUNBAR Lament, When He Wes Seik

  1510 WILLIAM DUNBAR ‘Done is a battell on the dragon blak’

  WILLIAM DUNBAR ‘In to thir dirk and drublie dayis’

  1515 GAVIN DOUGLAS / VIRGIL from The Aeneid

  from Book I [Aeolus Looses the Winds]

  from The Proloug of the Sevynt Buik of Eneados

  ANONYMOUS [The Corpus Christi Carol]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Farewell, this world! I take my leve for evere’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Draw me nere, draw me nere’

  1520 ANONYMOUS ‘Westron wynde when wyll thow blow’

  1523 JOHN SKELTON from A Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell

  [The Garden of the Muses: Iopas’ Song]

  To Maystres Isabell Pennell

  JOHN SKELTON from Speke Parott

  [Parrot’s Complaint]

  1530 WILLIAM CORNISH ‘Pleasure it is’

  1535 MYLES COVERDALE from The Bible

  Psalm 137: Super flumina

  SIR THOMAS WYATT / PETRARCH ‘The longe love that in my 1540 thought doeth harbar’

  SIR THOMAS WYATT / PETRARCH ‘Who so list to hount I knowe where is an hynde’

  SIR THOMAS WYATT ‘They fle from me that sometyme did me seke’

  SIR THOMAS WYATT ‘My lute awake! Perfourme the last’

  SIR THOMAS WYATT ‘Forget not yet the tryde entent’

  SIR THOMAS WYATT / ALAMANNI ‘Myne owne John Poyntz, sins ye delight to know’

  HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY An Excellent Epitaffe of Syr 1542 Thomas Wyat

  ANNE ASKEW The Balade whych Anne Askewe made and sange 1547 whan she was in Newgate

  from Tottel’s Songes and Sonettes 1557

  SIR THOMAS WYATT / SENECA [Chorus from Thyestes] (‘Stond who so list upon the Slipper toppe’)

  HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY ‘O happy dames, that may embrace’

  HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY ‘Alas, so all thinges nowe doe holde their peace’

  HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY / VIRGIL from Certayn bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis

  [Aeneas searches for his wife]

  from The Geneva Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 (‘To all things there is an 1560 appointed time’)

  ROBERT WEEVER ‘Of Youth He Singeth’

  BARNABE GOOGE Commynge Home-warde out of Spayne 1563

  BARNABE GOOGE An Epytaphe of the Death of Nicolas Grimoald

  ARTHUR GOLDING / OVID from The First Four Books of Ovid 1565

  [Proserpine and Dis]

  [Daphne and Apollo]

  ARTHUR GOLDING / OVID from The Fifteen Books of Ovid 1567

  [Medea’s Incantation]

  ALEXANDER SCOTT ‘To luve unluvit it is ane pane’ 1568

  ANONYMOUS ‘Christ was the word that spake it’

  EDMUND SPENSER from The Shepheardes Calender 1579

  [Roundelay]

  EDMUND SPENSER Iambicum Trimetrum 1580

  JASPER HEYWOOD / SENECA [Chorus from] Hercules Furens 1581

  THOMAS WATSON My Love is Past 1582

  ANONYMOUS A New Courtly Sonet, of the Lady Greensleeves 1584

  CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE ‘My prime of youth is but a froste of cares’ 1586

  1588 ANONYMOUS ‘Constant Penelope, sends to thee carelesse Ulisses’

  ANONYMOUS / THEOCRITUS from Sixe Idillia… chosen out of… Theocritus

  [Adonis]

  1589 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY ‘My true love hath my hart, and I have his’

  1590 SIR WALTER RALEGH ‘As you came from the holy land’

  MARK ALEXANDER BOYD Sonet (‘Fra banc to banc fra wod to wod I rin’)

  SIR HENRY LEE ‘His Golden lockes, Time hath to Silver turn’d’

  EDMUND SPENSER from The Faerie Queene

  from Book II, Canto XII [The Bower of Blisse Destroyed]

  from Book III, Canto VI [The Gardin of Adonis]

  from Book III, Canto XI [Britomart in the House of the Enchanter Busyrane]

  1591 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY from Astrophil and Stella

  1 ‘Loving in truth, and faine in verse my love to show’

  31 ‘With how sad steps, ô Moone, thou climb’st the skies’

  33 ‘I might, unhappie word, ô me, I might’

  THOMAS CAMPION ‘Harke, al you ladies that do sleep’

  SIR JOHN HARINGTON / ARIOSTO from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

  [Astolfo flies by Chariot to the Moon]

  1592 JOHN LYLY from Midas ‘Pan’s Syrinx was a Girle indeed’

  SAMUEL DANIEL from Delia 45 ‘Care-charmer sleepe, sonne of the Sable night’

  HENRY CONSTABLE ‘Deere to my soule, then leave me not forsaken’

  SIR WALTER RALEGH The Lie

  1593 from The Phoenix Nest

  ANONYMOUS ‘Praisd be Dianas faire and harmles light’

  THOMAS LODGE The Sheepheards Sorrow, Being Disdained in Love

  BARNABE BARNES from Parthenophil and Parthenophe [Sestina] (‘Then, first with lockes disheveled, and bare’)

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY from The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia ‘Yee Gote-heard Gods, that love the grassie mountaines’

  1594 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from Love’s Labours Lost ‘When Dasies pied, and Violets blew’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Weare I a Kinge I coude commande content’

  1595 EDMUND SPENSER from Amoretti

  Sonnet LXVII (‘Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace’)

  Sonnet LXVIII (‘Most glorious Lord of lyfe that on this day’)

  ROBERT SOUTHWELL S.J. Decease Release

  ROBERT SOUTHWELL S.J. New Heaven, New Warre

  ROBERT SOUTHWELL S.J. The Burning Babe

  GEORGE PEELE from The Old Wives Tale

  ‘When as the Rie reach to the chin’

  ‘Gently dip: but not too deepe’

  EDMUND SPENSER Prothalamion 1596

  SIR JOHN DAVIES In Cosmum

  SIR JOHN DAVIES from Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing

  [‘The speach of Love persuading men to learn Dancing’]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Since Bonny-boots was dead, that so divinely’ 1597

  WILLIAM ALABASTER Of the Reed That the Jews Set in Our Saviour’s Hand

  WILLIAM ALABASTER Of His Conversion

  ROBERT SIDNEY, EARL OF LEICESTER ‘Forsaken woods, trees with sharpe storms opprest’

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY ‘When to my deadlie pleasure’ 1598

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY ‘Leave me ô Love, which reachest but to dust’

  MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE Psalm 58 (‘And call yee this to utter what is just’)

  MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE from Psalm 139 (‘Each inmost peece in me is thine’)

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE from Hero and Leander ‘His bodie was as straight as Circes wand’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Hark, all ye lovely saints above’

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE / OVID from All Ovids Elegies

  Book I, Elegia 5 (‘In summers heat and mid-time of the day’)

  Book III, Elegia 13 (‘Seeing thou art faire, I barre not thy false playing’)

  JOHN DONNE On His Mistris

  MICHAEL DRAYTON from Idea 1599 5 ‘Nothing but No and I, and I and No’

  ALEXANDER HUME from Of the Day Estivall ‘O perfite light, quhilk schaid away’

  GEORGE PEELE from David and Fair Bethsabe ‘Hot sunne, coole fire, temperd with sweet aire’

  SAMUEL DANIEL from Musophilus

  [Stonehenge]

  FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE from Caelica 1600

  Sonnet XLV (‘Absence, the noble truce’)

  Sonnet LXXXIV (‘Farewell sweet boy, complaine not of my truth’)

  Sonnet LXXXV (‘Love is the Peace, whereto all thoughts doe strive’)

  Sonnet XCIX (‘Downe in the depth of mine iniquity’)
/>   Sonnet C (‘In Night when colours all to blacke are cast’)

  from ENGLANDS HELICON

  ANONYMOUS The Sheepheeards Description of Love

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE The Passionate Sheepheard to his Love

  SIR WALTER RALEGH The Nimphs Reply to the Sheepheard

  THOMAS NASHE from Summers Last Will and Testament

  ‘Fayre Summer droops, droope men and beasts therefore’

  ‘Adieu, farewell earths blisse’

  ANONYMOUS [A Lament for Our Lady’s Shrine at Walsingham]

  ANONYMOUS ‘Fine knacks for ladies, cheape choise brave and new’

  ANONYMOUS ‘Thule, the period of cosmography’

  1601 JOHN HOLMES ‘Thus Bonny-boots the birthday celebrated’

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from Twelfth Night ‘When that I was and a little tiny boy’

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [The Phoenix and Turtle]

  THOMAS CAMPION / CATULLUS ‘My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love’

  THOMAS CAMPION ‘Followe thy faire sunne unhappy shaddowe’

  THOMAS CAMPION / PROPERTIUS ‘When thou must home to shades of under ground’

  1602 ANONYMOUS ‘The lowest trees have tops, the Ant her gall’

  THOMAS CAMPION ‘Rose-cheekt Lawra come’

  1603 ANONYMOUS ‘Weepe you no more sad fountaines’

  1604 ANONYMOUS The Passionate Mans Pilgrimage

  NICHOLAS BRETON from A Solemne Long Enduring Passion ‘Wearie thoughts doe waite upon me’

  1607 BEN JONSON / CATULLUS from Volpone ‘Come my CELIA, let us prove’

  1608 ANONYMOUS ‘Ay me, alas, heigh ho, heigh ho!’

  1609 BEN JONSON from Epicoene ‘Still to be neat, still to be dresst’

  EDMUND SPENSER from Two Cantos of Mutabilitie

  [Nature’s Reply to Mutabilitie]

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from Sonnets

  18 ‘Shall I compare thee to a Summers day?’

  55 ‘Not marble, nor the guilded monuments’

  60 ‘Like as the waves make towards the pibled shore’

  66 ‘Tyr’d with all these for restfull death I cry’

  73 ‘That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold’

  94 ‘They that have powre to hurt, and will doe none’

  107 ‘Not mine owne feares, nor the prophetick soule’