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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SAINT PATRICK by EDWIN MARKHAM A LITTLE CHRISTMAS BASKET by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE SHADED WATER by WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS AMORETTI: 19 by EDMUND SPENSER THE THREE TROOPERS DURING THE PROTECTORATE by GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY EPISTLES ON THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN: 1 by LUCY AIKEN |