Herrick's Fairy Poems And The Description Of The King And Queene Of Fayries Published 1635. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B B CCDDBBEEFFBBBBBBBBGH H IIJJKKLLBBKKIIHHHHBB HHBBBBMNDDKGOOPPQRSS TTBB B B HHBBOOFFHHUUBBHHVWXX HHHHYYZZHHBB A2| The publisher's freak by which Herrick's three chief Fairy poems The Fairy Temple or Oberon's Chapel Oberon's Feast and Oberon's Palace are separated from each other is greatly to be regretted The last two both dedicated to Shapcott are distinctly connected by their opening lines and Oberon's Chapel dedicated to Mr John Merrifield Herrick's other fairy loving lawyer of course belongs to the same group All three were probably first written in and cannot be dissociated from Drayton's Nymphidia published in and Sir Simeon Steward's A Description of the King of Fayries clothes brought to him on New yeares day in the morning O S by his Queenes Chambermaids In there was published a little book of a dozen leaves most kindly transcribed for this edition by Mr E Gordon Duff from the unique copy at the Bodleian Library It is entitled | A |
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| A Description of the King and Queene of Fayries their habit fare their abode pompe and state Beeing very delightfull to the sense and full of mirth Wood cut London Printed for Richard Harper and are to be sold at his shop at the Hospitall gate | B |
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| Fol is blank fol occupied by the title page ff verso blank by a letter To the Reader signed Yours hereafter If now approved on R S beginning Courteous Reader I present thee here with the Description of the King of the Fayries of his Attendants Apparel Gesture and Victuals which though comprehended in the brevity of so short a volume yet as the Proverbe truely averres it hath as mellifluous and pleasing discourse as that whose amplitude contains the fulnesse of a bigger composition on fol verso blank occurs the following poem spelling here modernised | B |
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| Deep skilled Geographers whose art and skill | C |
| Do traverse all the world and with their quill | C |
| Declare the strangeness of each several clime | D |
| The nature situation and the time | D |
| Of being inhabited yet all their art | B |
| And deep inform d skill could not impart | B |
| In what set climate of this Orb or Isle | E |
| The King of Fairies kept whose honoured style | E |
| Is here inclosed with the sincere description | F |
| Of his abode his nature and the region | F |
| In which he rules read and thou shalt find | B |
| Delightful mirth fit to content thy mind | B |
| May the contents thereof thy palate suit | B |
| With its mellifluous and pleasing fruit | B |
| For nought can more be sweetened to my mind | B |
| Than that this Pamphlet thy contentment find | B |
| Which if it shall my labour is sufficed | B |
| In being by your liking highly prized | B |
| Yours to his power | G |
| R S | H |
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| This is followed pp by A Description of the Kings sic of Fayries Clothes brought to him on New Yeares day in the morning by his Queenes Chambermaids | H |
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| First a cobweb shirt more thin | I |
| Than ever spider since could spin | I |
| Changed to the whiteness of the snow | J |
| By the stormy winds that blow | J |
| In the vast and frozen air | K |
| No shirt half so fine so fair | K |
| A rich waistcoat they did bring | L |
| Made of the Trout fly's gilded wing | L |
| At which his Elveship 'gan to fret | B |
| The wearing it would make him sweat | B |
| Even with its weight he needs would wear | K |
| A waistcoat made of downy hair | K |
| New shaven off an Eunuch's chin | I |
| That pleased him well 'twas wondrous thin | I |
| The outside of his doublet was | H |
| Made of the four leaved true loved grass | H |
| Changed into so fine a gloss | H |
| With the oil of crispy moss | H |
| It made a rainbow in the night | B |
| Which gave a lustre passing light | B |
| On every seam there was a lace | H |
| Drawn by the unctuous snail's slow pace | H |
| To which the finest purest silver thread | B |
| Compared did look like dull pale lead | B |
| His breeches of the Fleece was wrought | B |
| Which from Colchos Jason brought | B |
| Spun into so fine a yarn | M |
| No mortal wight might it discern | N |
| Weaved by Arachne on her loom | D |
| Just before she had her doom | D |
| A rich Mantle he did wear | K |
| Made of tinsel gossamer | G |
| Beflowered over with a few | O |
| Diamond stars of morning dew | O |
| Dyed crimson in a maiden's blush | P |
| Lined with humble bees' lost plush | P |
| His cap was all of ladies' love | Q |
| So wondrous light that it did move | R |
| If any humming gnat or fly | S |
| Buzzed the air in passing by | S |
| About his neck a wreath of pearl | T |
| Dropped from the eyes of some poor girl | T |
| Pinched because she had forgot | B |
| To leave clean water in the pot | B |
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| The next page is occupied by a woodcut and then pp misnumbered and comes the variation on Herrick's Oberon's Feast | B |
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| A DESCRIPTION OF HIS DIET | B |
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| Now they the Elves within a trice | H |
| Prepared a feast less great than nice | H |
| Where you may imagine first | B |
| The Elves prepare to quench his thirst | B |
| In pure seed pearl of infant dew | O |
| Brought and sweetened with a blue | O |
| And pregnant violet which done | F |
| His killing eyes begin to run | F |
| Quite o'er the table where he spies | H |
| The horns of watered butterflies | H |
| Of which he eats but with a little | U |
| Neat cool allay of cuckoo's spittle | U |
| Next this the red cap worm that's shut | B |
| Within the concave of a nut | B |
| Moles' eyes he tastes then adders' ears | H |
| To these for sauce the slain stags' tears | H |
| A bloated earwig and the pith | V |
| Of sugared rush he glads him with | W |
| Then he takes a little moth | X |
| Late fatted in a scarlet cloth | X |
| A spinner's ham the beards of mice | H |
| Nits carbonadoed a device | H |
| Before unknown the blood of fleas | H |
| Which gave his Elveship's stomach ease | H |
| The unctuous dew laps of a snail | Y |
| The broke heart of a nightingale | Y |
| O'ercome in music with the sag | Z |
| And well bestrutted bee's sweet bag | Z |
| Conserves of atoms and the mites | H |
| The silk worm's sperm and the delights | H |
| Of all that ever yet hath blest | B |
| Fairy land so ends his feast | B |
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| On the next page is printed Orpheus Thrice excelling for the finishment of this Feast thou must music it so that the Deities may descend to grace it This is succeeded by a page bearing a woodcut then we have The Fairies Fegaries a poem occupying three more pages followed by another woodcut and then The Melancholly Lover's Song and a third woodcut The occurrence of the Melancholy Lover's Song the well known lines beginning Hence all you vain delights in print in is interesting as I believe that The Nice Valour the play in which they occur was not printed till and Milton's Il Penseroso which they suggested appeared in But the verses are rather out of place in the little Fairy Book | A2 |
Robert Herrick
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