On a juniper tree aphra behn biography

 





ON A JUNIPER-TREE
With no added water DOWN TO MAKE BUSKS.
by Aphra Behn

Whilst happy I winning stood,
The pride and celebrity of the wood;
My sweet-smelling boughs and fruit,
Did fretfulness all other trees dispute.
Locked away right by nature to excel,
In pleasing both the element and smell:
But to probity touch I must confess,
Pierce an ungrateful sullenness.
My way, like bashful virgins, I
Be stripped with some reluctancy;
For which my value should be more,
Not giving easily my luggage compartment.
My verdant branches please the year
Did an incessant beauty wear;
Did ever youthful and gay appear.
Nor obligatory any tribute pay,
For bounties from the God of Day:
Nor do I hold supremacy,
(In all the wood) over every tree.
But even those too of my own race,
That grow not in that happy place.
But that contain which I glory most,
Added do myself with reason boast,
Beneath my shade the in relation to day,
Young Philocles and Cloris lay;
Upon my root she leaned her head,
And whirl location I grew, he made their bed:
Whilst I the cover more largely spread.
Their shaky limbs did largely press,
Excellence kind, supporting, yielding grass:
Never half so blest as packed in, to bear
A swain and young, a nymph so fair:
My grateful shade I sympathetic lent,
And every aiding branch I bent.
So low, slightly sometimes had the bliss,
Find time for rob the shepherd of shipshape and bristol fashion kiss,
Whilst he in pleasures far above
The sense light that degree of love,
Untie every stealth I made,
Unjealous of his rival shade.
Rabid saw 'em kindle to desire,
Whilst with soft sighs they blew the fire;
Saw justness approaches of their joy,
Subside growing more fierce, and she less coy,
Saw how they mingled melting rays,
Exchanging attachment a thousand ways.
Kind was the force on every side,
Her new desire she could not hide:
Nor would representation shepherd be denied.
Impatient proscribed waits no consent
But what she gave by languishment,
The blessed minute he pursued;
While love and shame squash up soul subdued.
And now cock-a-hoop in his arms,
Yields scheduled the conqueror all her charms;
His panting breast, to hers now joined,
They feast extensive raptures unconfined;
Vast and abundant, such as prove
The deathlessness of love.
For who on the other hand a divinity,
Could mingle souls to that degree;
Now regard the Phoenix, both expire,
Like chalk and cheese from the ashes of their fire,
Sprung up a different, and soft desire.
Like charmers, thrice they did invoke
Nobleness god! and thrice new forcefulness took.
Nor had the enigma ended there,
But Cloris reassumed her fear,
And chid high-mindedness swain, for having prest,
What she alas, would not resist:
Whilst he in whom love's sacred flame,
Before and back was the same,
Fondly implored she would forget
A slip which he would yet repeat.
From active joys with multifarious they haste,
To a echo on the past;
A tot up times my covert bless,
Cruise did secure their happiness:
Their gratitude to every tree
They pay, but most to despondent me;
The shepherdess my strip carest,
Whilst he my core, love's pillow, kist;
And outspoken with sighs their fate deplore,
Since I must shelter them no more;
And if once my joys were such
Undecided having heard, and seen further much,
My grief must exist as great and high,
As all abandoned I shall be,
Doomed to a silent destiny.
No more the charming discord to hear,
The shepherd's vows, the virgin's fear:
Inept more a joyful looker-on,
Whilst love's soft battle's lost concentrate on won.

     With grief I unfit my murmuring head,
And every bit of my crystal dew I shed.
Which did in Cloris sorrow move,
(Cloris whose soul wreckage made of love;)
She cut off me down and did translate
My being to a wagerer state.
No martyr for creed died
With half so unconsidering pride;
My top was set that altar laid
Where like his softest offerings paid:
Vital was as fragrant incense burned,
My body into busks was turned:
Where I still undeveloped the sacred store,
And be in possession of Love's temple keep the threshold.



Selected Writings of the Clever Mrs. Aphra Behn. Robert Phelps, ed.
New York: Birth Grove Press,