A History of English Literature

LYRIC POETRY. Apart from the drama and the King James Bible, the most
enduring literary achievement of the period was in poetry.
Milton--distinctly, after Shakspere, the greatest writer of the
century--must receive separate consideration; the more purely lyric poets
may be grouped together.
The absence of any sharp line of separation between the literature of the
reign of Elizabeth and of those of James I and Charles I is no less marked
in the case of the lyric poetry than of the drama. Some of the poets whom
we have already discussed in Chapter V continued writing until the second
decade of the seventeenth century, or later, and some of those whom we
shall here name had commenced their career well before 1600. Just as in the
drama, therefore, something of the Elizabethan spirit remains in the lyric
poetry; yet here also before many years there is a perceptible change; the
Elizabethan spontaneous joyousness largely vanishes and is replaced by more
self-conscious artistry or thought.
The Elizabethan note is perhaps most unmodified in certain anonymous songs
and other poems of the early years of James I, such as the exquisite 'Weep
you no more, sad fountains.' It is clear also in the charming songs of
Thomas Campion, a physician who composed both words and music for several
song-books, and in Michael Drayton, a voluminous poet and dramatist who is
known to most readers only for his finely rugged patriotic ballad on the
battle of Agincourt. Sir Henry Wotton, [Footnote: The first _o_ is
pronounced as in _note_.] statesman and Provost (head) of Eton School,
displays the Elizabethan idealism in 'The Character of a Happy Life' and in
his stanzas in praise of Elizabeth, daughter of King James, wife of the
ill-starred Elector-Palatine and King of Bohemia, and ancestress of the
present English royal family. The Elizabethan spirit is present but mingled
with seventeenth century melancholy in the sonnets and other poems of the
Scotch gentleman William Drummond of Hawthornden (the name of his estate
near Edinburgh), who in quiet life-long retirement lamented the untimely
death of the lady to whom he had been betrothed or meditated on heavenly
things.
In Drummond appears the influence of Spenser, which was strong on many
poets of the period, especially on some, like William Browne, who continued
the pastoral form. Another of the main forces, in lyric poetry as in the
drama, was the beginning of the revival of the classical spirit, and in
lyric poetry also this was largely due to Ben Jonson. As we have already
said, the greater part of Jonson's non-dramatic poetry, like his dramas,
expresses chiefly the downright strength of his mind and character. It is
terse and unadorned, dealing often with commonplace things in the manner of
the Epistles and Satires of Horace, and it generally has more of the
quality of intellectual prose than of real emotional poetry. A very
favorable representative of it is the admirable, eulogy on Shakspere
included in the first folio edition of Shakspere's works. In a few
instances, however, Jonson strikes the true lyric note delightfully. Every
one knows and sings his two stanzas 'To Celia'--'Drink to me only with
thine eyes,' which would still be famous without the exquisitely
appropriate music that has come down to us from Jonson's own time, and
which are no less beautiful because they consist largely of ideas culled
from the Greek philosopher Theophrastus. In all his poems, however, Jonson
aims consistently at the classical virtues of clearness, brevity,
proportion, finish, and elimination of all excess.
These latter qualities appear also in the lyrics which abound in the plays
of John Fletcher, and yet it cannot be said that Fletcher's sweet melody is
more classical than Elizabethan. His other distinctive quality is the tone