Note 18 — POEMS

Following the Elegies in 1633 come a group of letters, epicedes, and religious poems, just as in H49, Lec (D re-groups them)—The Storme, The Calme, To Sir Henry Wotton, ('Sir, more than kisses'), The Crosse, Elegie on the Lady Marckham, Elegie on Mris Boulstred ('Death I recant'), To Sr Henry Goodyere, To Mr. Rowland Woodward, To Sr Henry Wootton ('Here's no more newes'), To the Countesse of Bedford ('Reason is our Soules left hand'), To the Countesse of Bedford ('Madam, you have refin'd'), To Sr Edward Herbert, at Julyers. Here 1633 diverges. Having got into letters to noble and other people the editor was anxious to continue them, and accordingly from another source (which I shall discuss later) he prints a long series of letters to the Countess of Bedford, the Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. T. W., and other more intimate friends (they are 'thou', the Countesses 'you'), and Mrs. Herbert. He perhaps returns to D, H49, Lec in those to The Lady Carey and Mrs. Essex Riche, from Amyens, and To the Countesse of Salisbury; and, as in that manuscript, the Palatine and Essex epithalamia (to which, however, 1633 adds that written at Lincoln's Inn) are followed immediately by the long Obsequies to Lord Harrington. Three odd Elegies follow, two of which (The Autumnall and The Picture, 'Image of her') occur in D, H49, Lec in the same detached fashion. Other manuscripts include them among the numbered Elegies. The Elegie on Prince Henry, Psalme 137 (probably not by Donne), Resurrection, imperfect, An hymne to the Saints, and to Marquesse Hamilton, An Epitaph upon Shakespeare (certainly not by Donne), Sapho to Philaenis, follow in 1633—a queerly consorted lot. The Elegie on Prince Henry is taken from the Lachrymae Lachrymarum of Joshua Sylvester (1612); the rest were possibly taken from some small commonplace-book. This would account for the doubtful poems, the only doubtful poems in 1633. These past, the close connexion with our manuscript is resumed. The Annuntiation is followed, as in H49, Lec, by The Litanie. Thereafter the lyrical pieces begin, as in these manuscripts, with the song, 'Send home my long strayd eyes to me.' This is followed by two pieces which are not in D, H49, Lec,—the impressive, difficult, and in manuscripts comparatively rare Nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, and the much commoner Witchcraft by a picture. Thereafter the poems follow piece by piece the order in D, H49, Lec18 until The Curse is reached.19 Then, in what seems to have been the editor's or printer's regular method of proceeding in this edition, he laid aside the manuscript from which he was printing the Songs and Sonets to take up another piece of work that had come to hand, viz. An Anatomie of the World with A Funerall Elegie and Of the Progresse of the Soule, which he prints from the edition of 1625. Without apparent rhyme or reason these long poems are packed in between The Curse and The Extasie. With the latter poem 1633 resumes the songs and (with the exception of The Undertaking) follows the order in Lec to The Dampe, with which the series in the manuscripts closes. It has been noted that in Lec, The Prohibition (which in D, H49 follows Breake of day and precedes The Anniversarie) is omitted. This must have been the case in the manuscript used for 1633, for it is omitted at this place and though printed later was probably not derived from this source.