Bosworth-field With a Taste of the Variety of Other Poems, Left by Sir John Beaumont ... Set Forth by his Sonne, Sir Iohn Beaumont |
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To his late Maiesty, concerning the true forme of English Poetry.
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To his late Maiesty, concerning the true forme of English Poetry.
Great King, the Sou'raigne Ruler of this Land,
By whose graue care, our hopes securely stand:
Since you descending from that spacious reach,
Vouchsafe to be our Master, and to teach
Your English Poets to direct their lines,
To mixe their colours, and expresse their signes.
Forgiue my boldnesse, that I here present
The life of Muses yeelding true content
In ponder'd numbers, which with ease I try'd,
When your indicious rules haue been my guide.
By whose graue care, our hopes securely stand:
Since you descending from that spacious reach,
Vouchsafe to be our Master, and to teach
Your English Poets to direct their lines,
To mixe their colours, and expresse their signes.
Forgiue my boldnesse, that I here present
The life of Muses yeelding true content
In ponder'd numbers, which with ease I try'd,
When your indicious rules haue been my guide.
He makes sweet Musick, who in serious lines,
Light dancing tunes, and heauy prose declines:
When verses like a milky torrent flow,
They equall temper in the Poet show.
He paints true formes, who with a modest heart,
Giues lustre to his worke, yet couers Art.
Vneuen swelling is no way to fame,
But solid ioyning of the perfect frame:
So that no curious finger there can find
The former chinkes, or nailes that fastly bind.
Yet most would haue the knots of stitches seene,
And holes where men may thrust their hands between.
On halting feet the ragged Poem goes
With Accents, neither fitting Verse nor Prose:
The stile mine eare with more contentment fills
In Lawyers pleadings, or Phisicians bills.
For though in termes of Art their skill they close,
And ioy in darksome words as well as those:
They yet haue perfect sense more pure and cleare
Then enuious Muses, which sad Garlands weare
Of dusky clouds, their strange conceits to hide
From humane eyes: and (lest they should be spi'd
By some sharpe Oedipus) the English Tongue
For this their poore ambition suffers wrong.
In eu'ry Language now in Europe spoke
By Nations which the Roman Empire broke,
The rellish of the Muse consists in rime,
One verse must meete another like a chime.
Our Saxon shortnesse hath peculiar grace
In choise of words, fit for the ending place,
Which leaue impression in the mind as well
As closing sounds, of some delightfull bell:
These must not be with disproportion lame,
Nor should an Eccho still repeate the same.
In many changes these may be exprest:
But those that ioyne most simply, run the best:
Their forme surpassing farre the fetter'd staues,
Vaine care, and needlesse repetition saues.
These outward ashes keepe those inward fires,
Whose heate the Greeke and Roman works inspires:
Pure phrase, sit Epithets, a sober care
Of Metaphors, descriptions cleare, yet rare,
Similitudes contracted smooth and round,
Not vext by learning, but with Nature crown'd.
Strong figures drawne from deepe inuentions springs,
Consisting lesse in words, and more in things:
A language not affecting ancient times,
Nor Latine shreds, by which the Pedant climes:
A noble subiect which the mind may lift
To easie vse of that peculiar gift,
Which Poets in their raptures hold most deare,
VVhen actions by the liuely sound appeare.
Giue me such helpes, I neuer will despaire,
But that our heads which sucke the freezing aire,
As well as hotter braines, may verse adorne,
And be their wonder, as we were their scorne.
Light dancing tunes, and heauy prose declines:
When verses like a milky torrent flow,
They equall temper in the Poet show.
He paints true formes, who with a modest heart,
Giues lustre to his worke, yet couers Art.
Vneuen swelling is no way to fame,
But solid ioyning of the perfect frame:
So that no curious finger there can find
The former chinkes, or nailes that fastly bind.
109
And holes where men may thrust their hands between.
On halting feet the ragged Poem goes
With Accents, neither fitting Verse nor Prose:
The stile mine eare with more contentment fills
In Lawyers pleadings, or Phisicians bills.
For though in termes of Art their skill they close,
And ioy in darksome words as well as those:
They yet haue perfect sense more pure and cleare
Then enuious Muses, which sad Garlands weare
Of dusky clouds, their strange conceits to hide
From humane eyes: and (lest they should be spi'd
By some sharpe Oedipus) the English Tongue
For this their poore ambition suffers wrong.
In eu'ry Language now in Europe spoke
By Nations which the Roman Empire broke,
The rellish of the Muse consists in rime,
One verse must meete another like a chime.
Our Saxon shortnesse hath peculiar grace
In choise of words, fit for the ending place,
Which leaue impression in the mind as well
As closing sounds, of some delightfull bell:
These must not be with disproportion lame,
Nor should an Eccho still repeate the same.
In many changes these may be exprest:
But those that ioyne most simply, run the best:
Their forme surpassing farre the fetter'd staues,
Vaine care, and needlesse repetition saues.
110
Whose heate the Greeke and Roman works inspires:
Pure phrase, sit Epithets, a sober care
Of Metaphors, descriptions cleare, yet rare,
Similitudes contracted smooth and round,
Not vext by learning, but with Nature crown'd.
Strong figures drawne from deepe inuentions springs,
Consisting lesse in words, and more in things:
A language not affecting ancient times,
Nor Latine shreds, by which the Pedant climes:
A noble subiect which the mind may lift
To easie vse of that peculiar gift,
Which Poets in their raptures hold most deare,
VVhen actions by the liuely sound appeare.
Giue me such helpes, I neuer will despaire,
But that our heads which sucke the freezing aire,
As well as hotter braines, may verse adorne,
And be their wonder, as we were their scorne.
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