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TO MASTER JAMES SHIRLEY ON HIS GRATEFUL SERVANT, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I cannot fulminate or tonitruate words
Last Line: A friend as grateful as his servant was.
Subject(s): Shirley, James (1596-1666)


I CANNOT fulminate or tonitruate words
To puzzle intellects; my ninth lass affords
No Lycophronian buskins, nor can strain
Garagantuan lines to gigantise thy vein,
Nor make a jusjurand, that thy great plays
Are terra-del-fuegos or incognitas,
Thy Pegasus, in his admir'd career,
Curvets no capreoles of nonsense here.

Wonder not, friend, that I do entertain
Such language, that both think and speak so plain.
Know, I applaud thy smooth and even strains,
That will inform, and not confound, our brains.
Thy Helicon like a smooth stream doth flow,
While others with disturbed channels go,
And headlong, like Nile's cataracts, do fall
With a huge noise, and yet not heard at all.
When thy intelligence on the Cockpit stage
Gives it a soul from her immortal rage,
I hear the Muses' birds with full delight
Sing where the birds of Mars were wont to fight:
Nor flatter I (thou knowest I do abhor it);
Let others praise thy play, I'll do love thee for it;
That he that knows my friend shall say, he has
A friend as grateful as his servant was.





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