Of fitting objects be not so inflamed.
How much, then, were this kingdom's main soul maimed To want this great inflamer of all powers
That move in human souls! All realms but yours
Are honored with them, and hold blest that State
That have his works to read and contemplate,
In which humanity to her height is raised;
Which all the world, yet none enough hath praised.
Seas, earth, and heaven, he did in verse comprise,
Outsung the Muses, and did equalize
Their King Apollo; being so far from cause
Of princes' light thoughts, that their gravest laws
May find stuff to be fashioned by his lines.
Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines,
And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie
Your lutes and viols, and more loftily
Make the heroics of your Homer sung;
To drums and trumpets set his angel
And, with the princely sport of hawks you use,
Behold the kingly flight of his high
And see how, like the Phoenix, she
Her age and starry feathers in your
Thousands of years attending; every
Blowing the holy fire, throwing in Their seasons, kingdoms, nations, that have been
Subverted in them; laws, religions, all
Offered to change, and greedy funeral.
Yet still your Homer lasting, living, reigning,
And proves how firm Truth builds in poets feigning.
GEORGE CHAPMAN.
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace; And the blackest discontents Be her fairest ornaments. In my former days of bliss, Her divine skill taught me this, That, from every thing I saw, I could some invention draw; And raise pleasure to her height, Through the meanest object's sight. By the murmur of a spring, Or the least bough's rustling, By a daisy, whose leaves spread, Shut, when Titan goes to bed, Or a shady bush, or tree, She could more infuse in me, Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man. By her help, I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten glad-
Poesy, thou sweet'st content, That e'er Heaven to mortals lent, Though they as a trifle leave thee, Whose dull thoughts cannot con- ceive thee,
Though thou be to them a scorn Who to nought but earth are born; Let my life no longer be
Than I am in love with thee. GEORGE WITHER.
AND also, beau sire, of other things, That is, thou hasté no tidings Of Love's folk, if they be glade, Ne of nothing else that God made, And not only fro far countree, That no tidings come to thee, Not of thy very neighbors, That dwellen almost at thy dores, Thou hearest neither that ne this, For when thy labor all done is, And hast made all thy reckonings Instead of rest and of new things, Thou goest home to thine house anone,
And also dumbé as a stone, Thou sittest at another booke, Till fully dazèd is thy looke, And livest thus as an hermite.
GOD of science and of light, Apollo through thy greate might, This littell last booke now thou gie,* Now that I will for maistrie, Here art potenciall be shewdé, But for the rime is light and lewde, Yet make it somewhat agreeable, Though some verse fayle in a sillable, And that I do no diligence, To shewe craft, but sentence, And if divine vertue thou Wilt helpe me to shewe now, That in my heed ymarked is, Lo, that is for to meanen this, The House of Fame for to discrive, — Thou shalt see me go as blive † Unto the next laurel I see And kisse it, for it is thy tree, Now enter in my brest auon.
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