Richard Lovelace, poet of infidelity?

Richard Lovelace was an English poet of the seventeenth century. He fought in the English Civil War on the side of the King, against Parliament. And he is known today almost entirely for two poems out of that time, "To Althea, From Prison," and "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars." You likely ran across one of these in English class somewhere along the way.

But who ever reads any of his other stuff? A while ago I found a website collecting his works, and realized that far from being remembered as a Cavalier fighting for the King, he should be remembered as the Poet Laureate of Infidelity. Here are some samples:

Depose your finger of that ring


Depose your finger of that ring,
And crown mine with't awhile
Now I restore't.—Pray, does it bring
Back with it more of soil?
Or shines it not as innocent,
As honest, as before 'twas lent?

So then enrich me with that treasure,
Will but increase your store,
And please me (fair one) with that pleasure
Must please you still the more:
Not to save others is a curse
The blackest, when y'are ne'er the worse.
__________

The Scrutiny

Why should you swear I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be?
Lady it is already morn,
And 'twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.

Have I not lov'd thee much and long,
A tedious twelve hours space ?
I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace;
Could I still dote upon thy face.

Not, but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;
But I must search the black and fair
Like skilfull mineralists that sound
For treasure in un-plow'd-up ground.

Then, if when I have lov'd my round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crown'd,
I laden will return to thee,
Ev'n sated with variety.
__________

This last one isn't so much about infidelity ... so far as I can tell ... but the brazenness of the invitation is breath-taking. (Wait for the ending; he takes a few stanzas to get there.)

To Amarantha, that she would dishevel her hair

Amarantha sweet and fair,
Ah braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee let it fly.

Let it fly as unconfin'd
As its calm ravisher, the wind;
Who hath left his darling th' East,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.

Ev'ry Tress must be confessed;
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravellèd.

Do not then wind up that light
In ribbons, and o'er-cloud in night;
Like the sun in's early ray,
But shake your head and scatter day.

See 'tis broke! Within this Grove
The Bower, and the walks of Love,
Weary lie we down and rest,
And fan each other's panting breast.

Here we'll strip and cool our fire
In cream below, in milk-baths higher:
And when all Wells are drawn dry,
I'll drink a tear out of thine eye.

Which our very Joys shall leave
That sorrows thus we can deceive;
Or our very sorrows weep,
That joys so ripe, so little keep.
__________

Happy reading ....

Judy Blue-Eyes

I originally wrote what follows as an e-mail to D back in 2011.  (I am writing this in late August of 2014.)  Why didn't I post it here too?  I have no idea.  I should have.  Anyway, I'm rectifying the omission now.  I have back-dated this post to the day it was written, but I will put a link in for the day I'm actually posting it as well.

It's after 10:30 at night, and I just got back from a concert downtown.  Judy Collins was in town for the night. 

What do I say?  Her voice is no longer the voice of a young woman (she is now 71) ... but it is sure and clear and she still has perfect control over it.  There were little glitches here and there: the microphones didn't stay where they were put, and at one point (in the middle of her second song) she completely lost her way and had to ask her pianist for the next line.  Her warm-up act didn't arrive, so she agreed to do two sets herself (although the second one seemed shorter than the first).  

But she owned the theater, and all of us.  Her talk between songs was probably a routine for her, but it came across as disarmingly fresh reminiscences, with mild humor at her own expense.  At one point she said that she is working on a memoir, but that she and the publisher keep disagreeing over the title.  He wants her to call it My Life and Music.  She wants to call it Judy Blue Eyes: Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the Music That Changed a Generation.  She turned to the audience and asked, "Which title do you think would sell more copies?"  [We all laughed.]   

Sometimes her reminiscences (e.g., of growing up listening to her father rehearse songs for his radio show) would walk into Rodgers & Hammerstein songs that she would sing a capella for a stanza or two and then drop in the middle to go back to her story.  There were songs from her most recent album, that probably nobody there had heard before.  Certainly I hadn't.  (Her first encore was one of these, a song about Paul Gaugin.)  And there were pieces everybody knew: some to guitar, some to piano ... some, again, a capella.  Sometimes these were done in a classic way that was instantly recognizable -- for example, "Send in the Clowns."  But then her very last encore started with a tune I had never heard and lyrics I had never heard, something about birds fluttering past windowpanes and around houses, and about the time I was wondering where this was going she dropped an octave without warning and launched into "Somewhere ... over the rainbow ...."

I do admit that for the first two or three songs, right at the beginning of the first set, I was thinking "This is really cool, that I am here in person listening to a legend" ... but the music didn't feel particularly legendary.  She was just a singer with a really good voice.  But the cumulative effect grows on you.  I kept wishing D had the seat next to mine, so that the romantic mood wouldn't have to go to waste ....

Looking ahead to the days after the concert ... I wrote all this to D and then asked her if she even liked Judy Collins.  She replied that oh yes, of course she remembered Judy Collins ... she was the nice safe folk singer for people who weren't political enough to deal with Joan Baez.  I let it go at the time, but it was the kind of gentle put-down that she was shockingly good at.  And in the end, it was part of what contributed to my deciding I'd be better off without her.  But this night I was dancing on air, intoxicated with music and love ....

Semen is an antidepressant

Hey, I don't make this stuff up. I just report it. This one is from Psychology Today's website.

So that must mean it is science, right? Besides, they couldn't print it if it weren't true ....

Enjoy it, and let me know what you think. Here's the article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant