TO HIMSELFE, AND THE HARPE.
And why not I, as hee
That's greatest, if as free,
(In sundry strains that strive,
Since there so many be)
Th'old Lyrick kind revive?
I will, yea, and I may;
Who shall oppose my way?
For what is he alone,
That of himselfe can say,
Hee's Heire of Helicon?
Apollo, and the Nine,
Forbid no Man their Shrine,
That commeth with hands pure;
Else they be so divine,
They will him not indure.
For they be such coy Things,
That they care not for Kings,
And dare let them know it;
Nor may he touch their Springs,
That is not borne a Poet.
The Phocean it did prove,
Pyreneus, King of
Phocis, attempting to ravish the Muses.
Whom when foule Lust did move,
Those Mayds unchaste to make,
Fell, as with them he strove,
His Neck and justly brake.
That instrument ne'r heard,
Strooke by the skilfull Bard,
It strongly to awake;
But it th'infernalls skard,
And made Olympus quake.
As those Prophetike strings
Whose sounds with fiery Wings,
Drave Fiends from their abode,
Touch'd by the best of Kings,
That sang the holy Ode.
Orpheus the
Thracian Poet. Caput Hebre lyramque Exip.
&c. Ovid. lib. 11. Metam.
So his, which Women slue,
And it int' Hebrus threw,
Such sounds yet forth it sent,
The Bankes to weepe that drue,
As downe the Streame it went.
Mercury inventor
of the Harpe, as Horace Ode 10. lib. 7. curvæque
lyræ parentem.
That by the Tortoyse shell,
To Mayas Sonne it fell,
The most thereof not doubt
But sure some Power did dwell,
In Him who found it out.
The Wildest of the field,
And Ayre, with Rivers t'yeeld,
Thebes fayned to
have beene raysed by Musicke.
Which mov'd; that sturdy Glebes,
And massie Oakes could weeld,
To rayse the pyles of Thebes.
And diversly though Strung,
So anciently We sung
To it, that Now scarce knowne,
If first it did belong
To Greece, or if our Owne.
The Druydes imbrew'd,
The ancient British
Priests, so called of their abode in woods. Pindar Prince of the
Greeke lyricks, of whom Horace: Pindarum quisquis
studet, &c. Ode 2. lib. 4.
With Gore, on Altars rude
With Sacrifices crown'd,
In hollow Woods bedew'd,
Ador'd the Trembling sound.
Though wee be All to seeke,
Of Pindar that Great Greeke,
To Finger it aright,
The Soule with power to strike,
His hand retayn'd such Might.
Or him that Rome did grace,
Horace first of the Romans in that kind.
Whose Ayres we all imbrace,
That scarcely found his Peere,
Nor giveth Phœbus place,
For Strokes divinely cleere.
The Irish I admire,
And still cleave to that Lyre,
As our Musike's Mother,
And thinke, till I expire,
Apollo's such another.
As Britons, that so long
Have held this Antike Song,
And let all our Carpers
Forbeare their fame to wrong,
Th'are right skilfull Harpers.
Southerne, I long thee spare,
Southerne, an English Lyrick.
Yet wish thee well to fare,
Who me pleased'st greatly,
As first, therefore more rare,
Handling thy Harpe neatly.
To those that with despight
Shall terme these Numbers slight,
Tell them their Judgement's blind,
Much erring from the right,
It is a Noble kind.
Nor is't the Verse doth make,
That giveth, or doth take,
'Tis possible to clyme,
To kindle, or to slake,
Although in Skelton's Ryme.
