The poems of George Daniel :: :: University of Virginia Library

The poems of George Daniel

... From the original mss. in the British Museum: Hitherto unprinted. Edited, with introduction, notes, and illustrations, portrait, &c. By the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart: In four volumes

Daniel, George (1616-1657)

II.

III, IV.

The severall Raignes of Richard the Second Henrie the Fourth, & Henrie the Fifth

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ODE XX.

[What mad men are wee of the versing trade!]

1

What mad men are wee of the versing trade!
To give our witt

To Everie Censure! And, noe doubt,
A Thousand to the Common Eye has Strayed,
Ere one has hit;
And vs, the workmen, fooles, they flout.

2

An Epicke is too grave, a Satire Sharpe;
Sonnet is Light,
Elegie Dull; in Epigram
Wee want our Salt; and Ignorance will carpe,
Although we write
A Region beyond All they claime.

3

Yet Silly men are wee; and here I should
Desist from all
My Exercise of witt, if sure
I knew an able Iudge to read, that could
But Errors call,
Which Errors were; and know what's pure.

4

I durst not put my witt vnto the Test
Of such a Man;
I find a gvilt, with my owne Eyes,
A partiall Father; yet not soe possest
Of my owne braine
But I can see Deformities,

5

Perhaps a fault, where the good Reader huggs
My verie Name.
And let him Ioy in all he found;
Where I am proud of witt, perhaps he Shruggs;
And Sighes, 'tis Lame;
Soe 'twer, if I to him were bound.

6

But let me give Advice. Doe not pretend
To iudge of witt;
It is an Emmett in a Cloud;
And you have but dimme Eyes, my honest freind.
If wee Submitt,
Your Sence may make this Ant a Toade.

7

Then will I not sitt downe with this Rebuke;
But once againe
Ioy with the Muses; innocent
In my designe; adventuring to looke
In noe man's braine
For witt, beyond his Argument.