ENG LYRIC POETRY.pdf - STIBA Malang

PATRIOTIC AND POPULAR POETS
Yea, those poor aged folkes that make a show
Of greatest need, did boldly come and goe,
To aske mens Almes; or what their Parish granted;
And nothing at this time those people wanted,
But thankfulnesse, lesse malice to each other;
And grace to live more quietly together.
Their bodies, dry’d with age, were seldome struck
By this Disease. Their neighbors notice took
Of all their wants. Among them, were not many
That had full families. Or if that any
Of these had children sick; some good supplies
Were sent them from the generall Charities. 36
Wither’s later poetry is dauntingly topical and repetitious, and a fully
satisfactory assessment of his “musings,” as he often called them, is only
beginning to emerge. 37 The very “openness” of his verse (his continually
evolving perspective on contemporary events and frequent maneuvers in the
face of criticism), in conjunction with the seismic shifts in the political
landscape in the 1640s and 1650s, makes an overview difficult to hold in
focus. In the words of his most resourceful critic, “Wither would keep edging
toward a radical position and then withdrawing, and yet radical elements were
never quite erased.” 38 The Wither, for instance, who defended his decision to
side with Parliament in Campo-Musae (1643), the first of several lengthy
prophetic poems written during the war, assumed the posture of a moderate in
Vox Pacifica (1645) but also questioned the sacrosanct authority of kingship
and admitted a rhetoric of democratic inclusiveness into his vision of the
state. The Wither who pleaded for unity and toleration could therefore be
read sympathetically by John Lilburne, the Leveller. And yet, a believer in
monarchy, Wither also resisted regicide right down to the final hour, only to
aid in the sale of the royal estate; and though he supported Cromwell, he
eventually became critical of the Protector’s imperialistic schemes, although
not because he thought conquering abroad was of itself a bad thing. The
master of “a loose poetics” slipped and slid among powerful ideas and people;
always claiming to be his own person, he spoke in a voice said to be inspired
by God.
In one sense, however, Wither’s long career forms a huge continuum. His
verse participates in the revolutionary energies of his age, even performing,
Norbrook argues, a critique of the politically conservative, closed couplets of a
John Denham or Edmund Waller. (Certainly Wither always bridled when in the
company of either man.) In a culture now openly admitting competing kinds of
allegiances and authorities, those not only identified with the political order—
king, Parliament, or the people (the last mentioned is a named body that looms
large in Wither’s later verse)—but those also associated with potentially
competing epistemologies, the moral and the scientific, 39 Wither’s poetry seems
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