Poem by Matthew Prior: A Better Answer

Matthew Prior, a lesser known Queen Anne wit, friend of Pope and Swift, a poet and as nearly all poets of the age were, a public man of affairs.

I am reading excerpts from the Augustan age. I like the credentials they sought to judge art by: good sense, classicism, criticism, a delicacy of wit, and their perennial occupation with Nature; human nature, which studied with care in one, could reveal truths about all.

And although I meant to write here about John Dryden, I felt that in my current state of mind (where Messrs. Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston are jostling with each other for space) Dryden would not get his due. And while mulling over whether he ever would on this blogspace, I stumbled onto this poem by Prior:

A Better Answer

Dear Cloe, how blubber'd is that pretty Face?
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd:
Pr'ythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaf says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.

How can'st thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were design'd to inspire love and joy:
More ord'nary eyes may serve people for weeping.

To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ,
Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong:
You take that for fact, which will scarce be found Wit:
Od's Life! must one swear to the truth of a song?

What I speak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, shews
The diff'rence there is betwixt Nature and Art:
I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.

The god of us verse-men (you know child) the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
At night he reclines on his Thetis's breast.

So when I am weary'd with wand'ring all day,
To thee my delight in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way:
They were but my visits; but thou art my home.

Then finish, dear Cloe, this pastoral war;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me.

***

Beautifully playful isn't it? Cowper said of Prior that he could 'make verse speak the language of prose without being prosaic.' (NAEL, 8th Ed.) And the Augustan age was an age of the cities, where consummate ease was the hallmark of art and conversation. I think those who say they don't like poetry because they don't get it will especially love this poem. It's just like an easy conversation!

Some times, after people read poems by Donne or Marvel or Herrick, they seem to state by way of criticism that , "He is just asking her to climb in to bed with him." Well, alright, that is true. . . just as it is true that a mango's juice is essentially carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms in a certain ratio. And yet is not the fruit so much more than that?

So here the Gentleman (let us not call him Prior, please no) is just making an excuse for having flirted and philandered all day. But he knows just how to! So pleasing! 
I like it for other reasons: in a poem itself, the speaker asks, 
"Od's Life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
This one line walks in wearing layers and layers of meaning, and we must cajole it with our attention to give them up. I love that sort of play!

And another really beautiful element of this poem, for me, is the reference to Horace and Lydia. Horace, in one of his poems has a dalliance with a girl named Chloe, before returning to Lydia.

(I haven't read Horace yet, gleaned this from the footnotes, which are a treasure trove). 
Prior rescues Chloe in this poem by giving her his Speaker. A philandering but charming speaker.

Just, lovely.