Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

‘Looke Downe to Heaven’ 221
the idealised world. They do not describe themselves in the romantic, mystic, or exuberant
manner which the poet has been using. No, the tears point to the ground.
We goe not too seeke
The darlings of Aurora’s bed,
The Roses modest cheeke
Nor the Violets humble head.
No such thing; we goe to meet
A worthier object, Our Lords feet. (133-8)
Here, the tears reject the rest of the poem. They reject night and an idealised world. They
reject the idea of being too good for ‘dust’ and the ‘sluttish Earth’. These images from the
rest of the poem, while beautiful, and at times reminiscent of Herrick’s beloved flower
poems, are a false conceit. Critics are right to find these images to be absurd, because the
tears also see them as such. The point of the poem is not in the preceding lines of the
poem; it is in the last two lines, ‘No such thing; we goe to meet | A worthier object, Our
Lords feet’. And it must be pointed out that this refutation is given greater weight in the
version of ‘The Weeper’ found in Carmen Deo Nostro. In the Carmen version of the
poem, the final lines found in Steps expands from one stanza to two.
We goe not to seek,
The darlings of Auroras bed,
The rose’s modest Cheek
Nor the violet’s humble head.
Though the Feild’s eyes too WEEPERS be