Saturday Rave: Song to Amarantha, that she would dishevel her hair by Richard Lovelace.

Richard Lovelace (you say it loveless) was born exactly four hundred years ago today.

He had the misfortune to live in interesting times, and the further misfortune to be an interesting person - young, handsome, wealthy, and well-born - which of course made it worse. He survived the English Civil War partly because he was in prison at a couple of the most critical periods of the conflict, and it was there that he wrote probably his most famous poem To Althea, From Prison, which is the one that includes the lines Stone walls do not a prison make/Nor iron bars a cage.

It was impossible for someone living at that time not to be political, but he wrote many poems of friendship, and love, and a series about small creatures including The Snayl and The Grasshopper.

Song to Amarantha, that she would dishevel her hair is about a beautiful and desirable lady - but if it's a love poem then there's a nasty little sting in the tail.

Here's the beginning:

Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee let it fly.

Let it fly as unconfin'd
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
Who hath left his darling th'East,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.

*******

The whole not-very-long poem - and that stinging tail - can be found HERE.

Word To Use Today: nest. This word has stayed the same since before the Normans came. Rather sweetly, it's related to the word beneath.