 | The Works of Michael Drayton |  |
238
TO MASTER WILLIAM JEFFREYS,
Chaplaine to the Lord Ambassadour in Spaine.
My noble friend, you challenge me to write
To you in verse, and often you recite,
My promise to you, and to send you newes;
As 'tis a thing I very seldome use,
And I must write of State, if to Madrid,
A thing our Proclamations here forbid,
And that word State such Latitude doth beare,
As it may make me very well to feare
To write, nay speake at all, these let you know
Your power on me, yet not that I will showe
The love I beare you, in that lofty height,
So cleere expression, or such words of weight,
As into Spanish if they were translated,
Might make the Poets of that Realme amated;
Yet these my least were, but that you extort
These numbers from me, when I should report
In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words
The newes our wofull England us affords.
To you in verse, and often you recite,
My promise to you, and to send you newes;
As 'tis a thing I very seldome use,
And I must write of State, if to Madrid,
A thing our Proclamations here forbid,
And that word State such Latitude doth beare,
As it may make me very well to feare
To write, nay speake at all, these let you know
Your power on me, yet not that I will showe
The love I beare you, in that lofty height,
So cleere expression, or such words of weight,
As into Spanish if they were translated,
Might make the Poets of that Realme amated;
Yet these my least were, but that you extort
These numbers from me, when I should report
In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words
The newes our wofull England us affords.
The Muses here sit sad, and mute the while
A sort of swine unseasonably defile
Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill
Dropt their pure Nectar into every quill;
In this with State, I hope I doe not deale,
This onely tends the Muses common-weale.
A sort of swine unseasonably defile
Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill
Dropt their pure Nectar into every quill;
In this with State, I hope I doe not deale,
This onely tends the Muses common-weale.
What canst thou hope, or looke for from his pen,
Who lives with beasts, though in the shapes of men,
And what a poore few are we honest still,
And dare to be so, when all the world is ill.
Who lives with beasts, though in the shapes of men,
And what a poore few are we honest still,
And dare to be so, when all the world is ill.
I finde this age of ours markt with this fate,
That honest men are still precipitate
Under base villaines, which till th'earth can vent
This her last brood, and wholly hath them spent,
Shall be so, then in revolution shall,
Vertue againe arise by vices fall;
But that shall I not see, neither will I
Maintaine this, as one doth a Prophesie,
That our King James to Rome shall surely goe,
And from his chaire the Pope shall overthrow.
But ô this world is so given up to hell,
That as the old Giants, which did once rebell,
Against the Gods, so this now-living race
Dare sin, yet stand, and Jeere heaven in the face.
That honest men are still precipitate
Under base villaines, which till th'earth can vent
This her last brood, and wholly hath them spent,
239
Vertue againe arise by vices fall;
But that shall I not see, neither will I
Maintaine this, as one doth a Prophesie,
That our King James to Rome shall surely goe,
And from his chaire the Pope shall overthrow.
But ô this world is so given up to hell,
That as the old Giants, which did once rebell,
Against the Gods, so this now-living race
Dare sin, yet stand, and Jeere heaven in the face.
But soft my Muse, and make a little stay,
Surely thou art not rightly in thy way,
To my good Jeffrayes was not I about
To write, and see, I suddainely am out,
This is pure Satire, that thou speak'st, and I
Was first in hand to write an Elegie.
To tell my countreys shame I not delight,
But doe bemoane't I am no Democrite:
O God, though Vertue mightily doe grieve
For all this world, yet will I not beleeve
But that shees faire and lovely, and that she
So to the period of the world shall be;
Else had she beene forsaken (sure) of all,
For that so many sundry mischiefes fall
Upon her dayly, and so many take
Armes up against her, as it well might make
Her to forsake her nature, and behind,
To leave no step for future time to find,
As she had never beene, for he that now
Can doe her most disgrace, him they alow
The times chiefe Champion, and he is the man,
The prize, and Palme that absolutely wanne,
For where Kings Clossets her free seat hath bin
She neere the Lodge, not suffered is to Inne,
For ignorance against her stands in state,
Like some great porter at a Pallace gate;
So dull and barbarous lately are we growne,
And there are some this slavery that have sowne,
That for mans knowledge it enough doth make,
If he can learne, to read an Almanacke;
By whom that trash of Amadis de Gaule,
Is held an author most authenticall,
And things we have, like Noblemen that be
In little time, which I have hope to see
Upon their foot-clothes, as the streets they ride
To have their hornebookes at their girdles ti'd,
But all their superfluity of spight
On vertues handmaid Poesy doth light,
And to extirpe her all their plots they lay,
But to her ruine they shall misse the way,
For tis alone the Monuments of wit,
Above the rage of Tyrants that doe sit,
And from their strength, not one himselfe can save,
But they shall tryumph o'r his hated grave.
Surely thou art not rightly in thy way,
To my good Jeffrayes was not I about
To write, and see, I suddainely am out,
This is pure Satire, that thou speak'st, and I
Was first in hand to write an Elegie.
To tell my countreys shame I not delight,
But doe bemoane't I am no Democrite:
O God, though Vertue mightily doe grieve
For all this world, yet will I not beleeve
But that shees faire and lovely, and that she
So to the period of the world shall be;
Else had she beene forsaken (sure) of all,
For that so many sundry mischiefes fall
Upon her dayly, and so many take
Armes up against her, as it well might make
Her to forsake her nature, and behind,
To leave no step for future time to find,
As she had never beene, for he that now
Can doe her most disgrace, him they alow
The times chiefe Champion, and he is the man,
The prize, and Palme that absolutely wanne,
For where Kings Clossets her free seat hath bin
She neere the Lodge, not suffered is to Inne,
For ignorance against her stands in state,
Like some great porter at a Pallace gate;
So dull and barbarous lately are we growne,
And there are some this slavery that have sowne,
240
If he can learne, to read an Almanacke;
By whom that trash of Amadis de Gaule,
Is held an author most authenticall,
And things we have, like Noblemen that be
In little time, which I have hope to see
Upon their foot-clothes, as the streets they ride
To have their hornebookes at their girdles ti'd,
But all their superfluity of spight
On vertues handmaid Poesy doth light,
And to extirpe her all their plots they lay,
But to her ruine they shall misse the way,
For tis alone the Monuments of wit,
Above the rage of Tyrants that doe sit,
And from their strength, not one himselfe can save,
But they shall tryumph o'r his hated grave.
In my conceipt, friend, thou didst never see
A righter Madman then thou hast of me,
For now as Elegiack I bewaile
These poore base times; then suddainely I raile
And am Satirick, not that I inforce
My selfe to be so, but even as remorse,
Or hate, in the proud fulnesse of their hight
Master my fancy, just so doe I write.
A righter Madman then thou hast of me,
For now as Elegiack I bewaile
These poore base times; then suddainely I raile
And am Satirick, not that I inforce
My selfe to be so, but even as remorse,
Or hate, in the proud fulnesse of their hight
Master my fancy, just so doe I write.
But gentle friend as soone shall I behold
That stone of which so many have us tould,
(Yet never any to this day could make)
The great Elixar, or to undertake
The Rose-crosse knowledge, which is much like that
A Tarrying-iron for fooles to labour at,
As ever after I may hope to see,
(A plague upon this beastly world for me,)
Wit so respected as it was of yore,
And if hereafter any it restore,
It must be those that yet for many a yeare,
Shall be unborne that must inhabit here,
And such in vertue as shall be asham'd
Almost to heare their ignorant Grandsires nam'd,
With whom so many noble spirits then liv'd,
That were by them of all reward depriv'd.
That stone of which so many have us tould,
(Yet never any to this day could make)
The great Elixar, or to undertake
The Rose-crosse knowledge, which is much like that
A Tarrying-iron for fooles to labour at,
As ever after I may hope to see,
(A plague upon this beastly world for me,)
Wit so respected as it was of yore,
And if hereafter any it restore,
It must be those that yet for many a yeare,
Shall be unborne that must inhabit here,
And such in vertue as shall be asham'd
Almost to heare their ignorant Grandsires nam'd,
241
That were by them of all reward depriv'd.
My noble friend, I would I might have quit
This age of these, and that I might have writ,
Before all other, how much the brave pen,
Had here bin honoured of the English men;
Goodnesse and knowledge, held by them in prise,
How hatefull to them Ignorance and vice,
But it falls out the contrary is true,
And so my Jeffreyes for this time adue.
This age of these, and that I might have writ,
Before all other, how much the brave pen,
Had here bin honoured of the English men;
Goodnesse and knowledge, held by them in prise,
How hatefull to them Ignorance and vice,
But it falls out the contrary is true,
And so my Jeffreyes for this time adue.
| The Works of Michael Drayton | |