The Flora and The Fauna
of Classic English Poetry
If
someone paints a picture of forests, streams, and mountains,
everyone instinctively knows what to do: you put it up on
the wall where it can enrich the space we live in. Poetry
is no different; it is no more arcane or intimidating than
a beautiful painting. In the excerpts collected in this
web project, English poets over the ages give you many beautiful
paintings. I ask you to view them in the simple spirit of
art: expressive works that enrich our daily life, and
create a culture, not just a day-to-day world, for us to live
in.
Classic
poetry often features a device known as a botanical catalogue,
or in simple terms, a flower list. It is the verbal equivalent
of a bouquet. This passage asks the Vales (i.e. the vallies)
to bring their "quaint enammelled eyes" (i.e. their
flowers), "that on the green turf suck the honied showers"
(i.e. that drink the nourishing rain that falls on the grass).
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Click
on the green, highlighted
words to view an image of that item.
Click on each image to view source.
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from "Lycidas"
(a funeral elegy)
Return Alpheus,
the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; Return Sicilian Muse,
And call the Vales, and bid them hither cast
Their Bells and Flowrets of a thousand hues
Ye valleys low where the mild whispers use
Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart Star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rath Primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Jessamine,
The white Pink, and the Pansy
streakt with jet,
The glowing Violet,
The Musk-rose,
and the well-attired Woodbine,
With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the Laureate Hearse where Lycid lies.
- John Milton
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