Impertinence, my sexes shame,
    (Which has so long my life pursued,)
You with such modesty reclaim
    As all the woman has subdued,
To so divine a power what must I owe,
That renders me so like the perfect - you?
    (from 'To Alexis, On his saying, I loved a Man that talked much')

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is best known for her novel Oroonoko. Her plays have been revived, in print and on the stage, in modern times, but much of her best work, as she herself knew, is to be found in her poetry. The versatile form and content of her translation, satires and songs, and above all her radical exploration of relationships between the sexes, set her apart from her contemporaries. Behn wittily negotiates the complexities and ironies of women's role in a society in which honour is a commodity. Candid and subtle, her poetry speaks with a distinctive, vigorous intelligence and satirical edge. This generous selection includes an introduction that sets her work in context, notes on the text and suggestions for further reading.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Suggestions for Further Reading

The Editions of Behn's Poetry



POEMS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS (1684):



The Golden Age

On a Juniper-Tree, cut down to make Busks

On the Death of Mr. Grinhil, the Famous Painter

A Ballad on Mr. J.H. to Amoret

Song. Love Armed

To Mr. Creech on his Excellent Translation of Lucretius

To Mrs. W. On her Excellent Verses

The Return

On a Copy of Verses made in a Dream

To my Lady Morland at Tunbridge

The Disappointment

On a Locket of Hair Wove in a True-Loves Knot

A letter to a Brother of the Pen in Tribulation

The Reflection: A Song

Song (Ah! What can mean that eager joy)

To Lysander, who make some Verses on a Discourse of Loves Fire

A Dialogue for an Entertainment at Court

To Lysander, on some Verses he writ

To the Honourable Edward Howard

To Lysander at the Music-Meeting

An Ode to Love

A Paraphrase on Ovid's Epistle of Oenone to Paris



MISCELLANY (1685)

Song (Cease, cease, Aminta, to complain)

A Song (While, Iris, I at distance gaze)

Selinda and Cloris

A Pindaric to Mr. P.

A Pastoral to Mr. Stafford

Ovid to Julia. A Letter



A MISCELLANY OF POEMS APPENDED TO LYCIDUS (1688)

To Damon

To Alexis in Answer to his Poem against Fruition

To Alexis, on his saying, I loved a Man that talked much

On Desire. A Pindaric

On the first discovery of falseness in Amintas

To the fair Clarinda, who made Love to me



GILDON'S MISCELLANY (1692)

Verses designed by Mrs. A. Behn to be sent to a fair lady



MUSES MERCURY (1707)

On a Pin that hurt Amintas' Eye

For Damon, being asked a Reason for his Love



FAMILIAR LETTERS (1718)

A Letter to the Earl of Kildare

To Mrs. Price....

A Poem Humbly Dedicated to the Great Pattern of Piety and Virtue Catherine Queen Dowager (1685)

To Henry Higden, Esq., on his Translations of the Tenth Satire

On Juvenal (1687)

On the Death of E. Waller, Esq. (1688)

A Congratulatory Poem to her Sacred Majesty Queen Mary, upon

Her Arrival in England (1689)

A Pindaric Poem to the Reverend Doctor Burnet (1689)



Notes