[print edition page number: 111]

Margaret Cavendish

Poets Have Most Pleasure in this Life

From Poems and Fancies (1653)

Nature most pleasure doth to poets give,
If pleasures in variety do live.
There every sense by fancy^[1] new is fed,
Which fancy in a torrent brain is bred,
Contrary is to all that’s born on Earth,                                    5
For fancy is delighted most at’s^[2] birth.
Whatever else is born, with pain comes forth,
But fancy needs not time to make it grow,
Hath neither beauty, strength, nor perfect growth,
Those brain-like gods, from whence all things do flow.      10

Where gardens are, them paradise we call.^[3]
Forbidden fruits, which tempt young lovers all,
Grow on the trees, which in the midst is plac’d
Beauty, on the other desire vast.
The devil self-conceit full craftily                                             15
Did take the serpent’s shape of flattery,
For to deceive the female sex thereby,
Which made was only of inconstancy.
The male high credence,^[4] which doth relax
To any thing the female sex will ask.                                      20
Two rivers round this garden run about,
The one is confidence, the other doubt.
Every bank is set with fancy’s flowers,
Wit rains upon them fine refreshing showers. [112]
Truth was the owner of this place,                                          25
But ignorance this garden out did raze.

Then from this garden, to a forest goes,
Where many cedars of high knowledge grows.
Oaks of strong judgment, hazel wits, which tree
Bears nuts full of conceits,^[5] when cracked they be,           30
And smooth-tongu’d beech, kind-hearted willow bows,
And yields to all that honesty allows.
Here birds of eloquence do sit and sing,
Build nests, logic to lay reasons in.
Some birds of sophistry^[6] till hatch’d there lie,                    35
Wing’d with false principles away they fly.
Here doth the poet hawk, hunt, run a race,
Until he weary grows, then leaves this place.

Then goes a fishing to a river’s side,
Whose water’s clear, where fancy flows high tide.             40
Angles with wit to catch the fish of fame,
To feed his memory and preserve his name.
And of ambition builds ships swift and strong,
Sails of imaginations drive her on.
With winds of several praises fills them full,                        45
Swims on the salt sea brain, round the world’s scull.^[7]
Mariners’ thoughts labor both day and night,
For to avoid a ship-wrack of dislike.
These ships are often cast upon the sands of spite,
And rocks of malice sometimes split them quite.               50
But merchant poets and shipmaster mind
Do compass take some unknown land to find.