#204 Sweet Content - Thomas Dekker

And so the first number is drawn from the tombola and the task begins. Turning to #204, we find Thomas Dekker's 'Sweet Content'. This is the only Dekker poem included by Q, and at first glance, I wonder whether even so meagre a selection might not have been overgenerous.

Sweet Content

ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
            O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
            O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
    O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny—hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
            O sweet content!
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
            O punishment!

Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
    O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny—hey nonny nonny!

Well maybe we have to cut Dekker (c.1572 – 1632) a little slack. He was, after all, a dramatist and pamphleteer, rather than a poet, and this song is drawn from his 1603 play Patient Grissel, written in collaboration with Henry Chettle and William Haughton. It is identified as a song in the text, by the way, and perhaps the fact that it is intended for a musical setting goes some way toward excusing its imperfections. Perhaps.

Certainly the imperfections, taking this as poetry for the page, are apparent. The amount of fruitless repetition starts to grate on me long before I get to the end. I make it eight "nonnies" in total and the same of "apaces". Not to mention a round half-dozen "contents" and sundry "sweets". It rather reminds me of that writer on Lord Gnome's distinguished organ, Mr Phil Space. In the context of melody perhaps this would be acceptable, but it seems very unlikely that it will actually be good. One reason I say this is that Dekker seems to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of a refrain. Instead of summarising the disparate elements of the song with strong repetition, the scattered refrains merely further split an already confusing whole.

The other reason for doubting whether melody can work much magic here is that it has been tried, relatively recently, with distinctly lacklustre effect. Here's the Spotify link: Ruth Golden – Sweet Content. This is a performance of Peter Warlock's 1919 musical setting of the lyric. As you can hear, it's pretty terrible. I know nothing about Warlock, apart from the fact that he possessed an idiotically snazzy beard, but he seems to have been reasonably well-respected by his contemporaries, and I've no particular reason to doubt their estimation. Simply listening to the piece, I can hear the lack of coherence in the lyric infecting the music. We're not going anywhere apart from stir-crazy with this one.

What really puzzles and disappoints me about this piece is the incomprehensible rhyme scheme, although the term 'scheme' dignifies that which does not deserve the honour. The first chunk is actually a relatively interesting and pleasing ABCBCAB. The repeated "golden numbers" in line 6 reinforces the rhyme with line 1 really quite sweetly. After that, though, we're off to the races, and losing badly. The second and third stanzas seem to have no interest whatever in employing rhyme to any purpose, and those rhymes there are seem shoved in pretty much at random.

So no, I don't like it, and I'm not really sure how anyone could. However, the words "golden slumbers" should provide a clue to the fact that Dekker was capable of producing a pretty lyric on occasion, and even that he did so in the piece 'Sweet Content' is drawn from. The more familiar lines, found later in Patient Grissel, are these:

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby…

A lyric familiar to millions as adapted by Paul McCartney for the Abbey Road medley. Now one might argue that, in 1969, McCartney could've adapted anything and made it sweet. All I have to say to that is that I'd like to have seen him try with this piece of dreck.

A poor start Q, a poor start indeed. But I trust you to lead me on to much better things, old friend.