Look, Delia, How We 'Steem the Half-blown Rose (Delia XXXIX)
Look, Delia, how we 'steem the half-blown Rose,
The image of thy blush and Summer's honor,
Whilst in her tender green she doth enclose
That pure sweet Beauty Time bestows upon her.
No sooner spreads her glory in the air,
But straight her full-blown pride is in declining;
She then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the Fair;
So clouds thy beauty after fairest shining.
No April can revive thy wither'd flowers,
Whose blooming grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift speedy Time, feather'd with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
O let not then such riches waste in vain,
But love whilst that thou mayst be lov'd again.
Commentary
As far as I know, we have not had any of the celebrated
“Delia” sonnets on Minstrels. I hope this - probably the most famous, Sonnet 39 - will correct the omission. That apart, this is probably the best carpe diem poem ever - it balances didactic philosophy and poetic delicacy wonderfully well. The main argument is presented as logically and cogently as to rival any of the great metaphysical poets - Donne at his best would not have been ashamed to be credited for this.
— Anustup
Biography
b. 1562?, Taunton, Somerset, Eng.
d. 1619
English contemplative poet, marked in both verse and prose by his philosophic sense of history.
Daniel entered Oxford in 1581. After publishing a translation in 1585 for his first patron, Sir Edward Dymoke, he secured a post with the English ambassador at Paris; later he travelled in Italy, visiting the poet Battista Guarini in Padua. After 1592 he lived at Lincoln in the service of Sir Edward Dymoke, at Wilton as tutor to William Herbert, later earl of Pembroke, and at Skipton Castle, Yorkshire, as tutor to Lady Anne Clifford. In 1604 Queen Anne chose him to write a masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, in which she danced. She awarded him the right to license plays for the boy actors at the Blackfriars Theatre and a position as a groom, and later gentleman, of her privy chamber.
Edmund Spenser praised Daniel for his first book of poems, ‘Delia, with The Complaint of Rosamond’ (1592). Daniel published 50 sonnets in this book, and more were added in later editions. The passing of youth and beauty is the theme of the Complaint, a tragic monologue. In ‘The Tragedie of Cleopatra’ (1594) Daniel wrote a Senecan drama. ‘The Civile Warres’ (1595-1609), a verse history of the Wars of the Roses, had some influence on Shakespeare in Richard II and Henry IV.
Daniel’s finest poem is probably ‘Musophilus: Containing a Generall Defence of Learning’, dedicated to Fulke Greville. His Poeticall Essayes (1599) also include ‘A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius’. His ‘Defence of Ryme’, answering Thomas Campion’s ‘Observations in the Art of English Poesie’, a critical essay, was published in 1603. Fame and honour are the subjects of ‘Ulisses and the Syren’ (1605) and of ‘A Funerall Poeme uppon the Earle of Devonshire’ (1606). He had to defend himself against a charge of sympathizing with the Earl of Essex in ‘The Tragedie of Philotas’, acted in 1604 (published 1605). His other masques include ‘Tethys’ Festival’ (1610), staged with scenery by Inigo Jones, and ‘The Queene’s Arcadia’ (published 1606), a pastoral tragicomedy in the Italian fashion. Daniel’s last pastoral was ‘Hymen’s Triumph’ (1615). He also wrote ‘The Collection of the Historie of England’ (1612-18) as far as the reign of Edward III.
– EB