The Description of Cooke-ham Literary Elements

The first-person speaker, though unnamed in the text, is the poet Aemilia Lanyer herself, who resided at the Cooke-ham estate with Margaret and Anne Clifford sometime in the early 1600s. Lanyer writes about her stay at Cooke-ham from a retrospective perspective. Line 95 (“To honorable Dorset now espoused”) indicates that the narration takes place after Anne Clifford’s marriage in 1609.

Iambic pentameter, heroic couplets

Metaphors:
– "dim shadows of celestial pleasures” (Line 15): Sentiments that are secondary to, yet in close affinity with, celestial (lofty) pleasures are compared to shadows.
– “And walks put on their summer liveries” (Line 21): The colorful vegetation surrounding the walks is compared to liveries (clothes worn by servants).
– “crystal streams” (Line 27), “crystal springs” (Line 71): Clear water is compared to crystal, a mineral that is transparent and/or translucent.
– “When such a phoenix once they had espied” (Line 44): Margaret Clifford is compared to a phoenix, a mythical fire bird capable of infinite rebirth, seen by the banks (Line 43) which bring forth plenty of fish for her to eat.
– “Of noble Bedford’s blood, fair stem of grace” (Line 94): The main line of the Clifford family tree is compared to a stem.
– “Drowned in deep sleep” (Line 190): Sleep is compared to a body of water in which the nightingale (referred to as “Philomela” in Line 189) drowns.
– “Tying my life to her by those rich chains” (Line 210): The speaker expresses her desire to maintain a close relationship with Margaret Clifford, comparing the countess’s rich virtues to chains that enable the speaker’s attachment to her.

Similes:
– "Their frozen tops, like age’s hoary hairs” (Line 142): The sight of Cooke-ham’s trees, leafless and withering in the cold, is compared to that of an aging person and their graying hairs. This simile is also part of a larger sequence of personifications that compare the trees to grieving, dying people.

Alliteration/Consonance:
– “princely palace” (Line 5)
– “sacred story of the soul’s delight” (Line 6)
– “pleasures past/passed” (Lines 13, 118, 163)
– “streams with silver spangles graced” (Line 27)
– “receive so rich a prize” (Line 38)
– “uttered pleasing sound, / That pleasure in that place might more abound” (Lines 41–42)
– “fly away for fear they should offend thee” (Line 48)
– “With Moses did you mount his holy hill / To know his pleasure, and perform his will” (Lines 85–86)
– “His holy hymns to heaven’s eternal King” (Line 88)
– “Of noble Bedford’s blood” (Line 94)
– “pure parts” (Line 98)
– “despising death” (Line 114)
– “forsook both flowers and fruit” (Line 134)
– “hoary hairs” (Line 142)
– “swarthy riveled rind all over spread” (Line 145)
– “to turn and take your leave” (Line 151)
– “Scorning a senseless creature should possess” (Line 167)
– “free from Fortune’s scorn” (Line 176)
– “Crept in the ground, the grass did weep for woe / The winds and waters” (Lines 180–181)
– “on some bare spray / Warble forth sorrow” (Lines 187–188)
– “procure no pity” (Line 190)
– “turning green tresses into frosty gray” (Line 193)
– “Each brier, each bramble, when you went away / Caught fast your clothes” (Lines 197–198)
– “rich chains” (Line 210)

Assonance:
– “birds in chirping notes did sing” (Line 29)
– “in sad murmur uttered” (Line 41)
– “seeming joyful in receiving thee” (Line 60)
– “true virtue” (Line 96)
– “reverend love presented” (122)
– “deep sleep” (Line 190)
– “each seat, each stately tree” (Line 191)

Irony is involved in Lanyer’s use of pathetic fallacy, a particular subcategory of personification in which human feelings are attributed to a nonhuman entity. All of Cooke-ham appears to mirror the emotions experienced by the speaker: trees, for instance, “seem[] to be glad” (Line 24) when the countess arrives, and wither “in cold grief” (Line 194) when she leaves. Yet pathetic fallacy, as its name suggests, involves the understanding that this seeming empathy is a fallacy. Lanyer, stating that the trees in Cooke-ham rejoice and grieve with her (while aware that it is she who projects these emotions upon them) is engaging in verbal irony.

Country-house poem, pastoral ode

Cooke-ham, a country estate in Berkshire, England that was the temporary residence of Aemilia Lanyer, her patron (Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland), and her patron’s daughter (Lady Anne Clifford)

Nostalgic, affectionate, laudatory, grieving

The speaker (who wishes to remain in Cooke-ham in the loving company of Margaret and Anne Clifford) vs. Fortune (personified; causes the women’s departure from the estate)

The poem follows the psychological conflict between the speaker’s desire to stay with the Cliffords in Cooke-ham and the various external forces (e.g., “Fortune” and “Fate,” Lines 103–107; familial circumstances such as marriages and death) which force the three women to leave their idyllic community.

In Lines 159–168, the poem highlights Margaret Clifford’s final gesture of farewell to the Cooke-ham estate: she kisses the stately oak tree she was especially fond of, thus inciting both the speaker’s nostalgia (“Where many a learned book was read and scanned,” Line 161) and her jealousy (“Scorning a senseless creature should possess / So rare a favor,” Lines 167–168). This scene and the subsequent descriptions of Cooke-ham upon Clifford’s departure (e.g., “the grass did weep for woe,” Line 180) are perhaps the most intense moments of grief in the poem.

Foreshadowing takes place in the cyclical structure of the poem: because the speaker begins with her “Farewell” (Line 1) to Cooke-ham, looks back on her early days at the estate, then circles back to the farewell, the introduction of the poem functions like a foreshadowing of its conclusion. To emphasize this element of narrative symmetry, the speaker also points out that the oak tree Margaret Clifford kisses before her departure is the “first and last [she] did vouchsafe to see” (Line 158). The phrase “pleasures past/passed” is also repeated in Lines 13 and 163, amplifying the parallel between the beginning and the end of the poem.

– The poem as a whole alludes to the Garden of Eden from the Old Testament of the Bible. Cooke-ham is portrayed as an Edenic paradise (abundant with flora and fauna, embodying Christian virtues), and the women’s departure from Cooke-ham recalls that of Adam and Eve from the Garden.
– “Philomela” (Lines 6, 189): In Greek mythology, an Athenian princess who was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, had her tongue cut out, and was turned into a nightingale. (Here, referring to the nightingale.)
– “Phoenix” (Line 44): A mythical fire bird capable of burning itself and being reborn from its own ashes. The countess is compared to a phoenix because of her excellence and exceptional beauty.
– “Phoebus” (Line 64): In Greek mythology, the sun god Phoebus. (Here, referring to the sun itself.) The oak tree at Cooke-ham has leaves that are thick enough to block the rays of the sun.
– “Christ and his apostles” (Line 82): In the New Testament, Jesus Christ and his twelve disciples. The speaker imagines the countess joining them (and other Biblical figures, listed below) in fellowship and religious worship.
– “Moses” (Line 85): In the Old Testament, a prophet who received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Like Moses, the countess obeys divine instruction.
– “David” (Line 87): In the Old Testament, a king who composed many psalms, which the countess sings as well.
– “Joseph” (Line 92): In the Old Testament, a Hebrew vizier in Egypt who fed his fellow Israelites. The countess also provides for members of her community at Cooke-ham.
– “Echo” (Line 199): In Greek mythology, a nymph who was cursed to speak only the most recent words of another person. In this poem, “die[s]” (Line 200) of sorrow as she can no longer echo the countess’s words.

Metonymy:
"in those orbs of state”: An orb (a decorative sphere surmounted by a cross) is an object related to, and representing, kingly authority and honor.

Synecdoche:
“A prospect fit to please the eyes of kings” (Line 72): The eyes of the hypothetical kings represent their sight, perception, and aesthetic preferences.

Personification:
– “Farewell, sweet place, where virtue then did rest / And all delights did harbor in her breast” (Lines 7–8): Virtue, like a human being, is capable of both resting in Cooke-ham and keeping her delights in her breast or heart.
– “And walks put on their summer liveries” (Line 21): It seems as if the walks are capable of dressing themselves in their liveries (clothes worn by servants).
– “Unconstant Fortune, thou art most to blame” (Line 103): The abstract idea of fortune is compared to a disloyal and cruel person who willfully destroys the community at Cooke-ham.
– “Hating blind Fortune” (Line 126): Fortune is personified again, and this time its blindness is used as a metaphor for its lack of discernment.

Pathetic fallacy (personification involving the attribution of human emotion):
– Lines 19–74: Cooke-ham responds to the arrival of Margaret Clifford with human joy and affection. “The house” at Cooke-ham “endure[s] no foulness” that might ruin its graceful exterior (Line 19–20). The “glad” trees—embracing one another, “[t]urning themselves to beauteous canopies” to shade the sun from the countess’s eyes—seem capable of both intent and intimacy (Lines 23–28). To welcome the countess, birds sing (Line 29), trees and flowers “set forth their beauty” (Line 34), hills “humbl[ed]” themselves (Line 35), winds “utter[] pleasing sound” (Line 41), and riverbanks “deliver[] all their pride” with their supply of fish (Line 43). One oak tree seems particularly elated by the countess’s arrival (“seeming joyful in receiving thee / Would like a palm tree spread his arms abroad / Desirous that you there should make abode,” Lines 60–62).
– Lines 133–204: Cooke-ham grieves as the countess leaves the estate. The trees “fors[ake] both flowers and fruit,” “we[ep],” and become “speechless,” “kn[owing]” of her departure (Lines 134–140). The shedding of their leaves is compared to human aging, which involves “hoary hairs” (Line 143). The brooks now seem “wrinkled” “[w]ith grief and trouble”(Line 183–184), and even the sun’s rays have “gr[own] weak” (Line 195). In sadness, the house that used to don elaborate ornaments now “cast[s] off each garment that might grace it” (Line 201).

– “To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes” (Line 26): The speaker exaggerates the brightness of Margaret Clifford’s eyes, stating they are even brighter than the sun itself.
– “Europe could not afford much more delight” (Line 74): Praising the grandeur of Cooke-ham, the speaker claims that entire continent of Europe is not rich enough to buy the pleasures of the estate.

– “birds in chirping notes did sing” (Line 29)
– “in sad murmur uttered” (Line 41)