Poem of the Day: ‘Out Upon It’

Sir John Suckling (1609–1641) was a dilettante, back when the word truly meant something. An inveterate cardplayer, he invented the game of cribbage—while sending marked decks of beautiful playing cards as gifts to the aristocratic houses of England he might visit (and winning £20,000 as a result). A sportsman, as well, he was an regular cricket player, said to be the best bowler in England. He was even a political player, albeit on the losing side of the Royalists. And along the way, he wrote poetry. It’s hard to decide his rank among the Cavalier Poets who, loosely speaking, descended in the line of Ben Jonson, rejecting the metaphysical poetry that descended from John Donne. If Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Thomas Carew produced what’s often considered the greatest of Cavalier work, then Suckling probably comes next: at the bottom of the upper tier. With such poems as “Ballade upon a Wedding” and “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?” he remains spritely, clever, fun, and, as always, the talented dilettante. Here, in “Out Upon It,” he writes ballad-meter quatrains praising himself for being constant in love.Out Upon Itby John SucklingOut upon it, I have loved Three whole days together;And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather.Time shall moult away his wings, Ere he shall discoverIn the whole wide world again Such a constant Lover.But the spite on’t is, no praise Is due at all to me:Love with me had made no stays, Had it any been but she.Had it any been but she, And that very face,There had been at least ere this A dozen dozen in her place.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Out Upon It’

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