Lucasta Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c. To which is added Aramantha, A Pastorall. By Richard Lovelace |
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To his much honoured Friend Mr. Richard Lovelace, on his Poems.
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 | Lucasta |  |
To his much honoured Friend Mr. Richard Lovelace, on his Poems.
He that doth paint the beauties of your verseMust use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of Art is love,
If he no equall Master to you prove;
Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat,
I reade you like my Mistresse, and discry
In every line the quicknesse of her eye,
Her smoothnesse in each syllable, her grace
To marshall ev'ry word in the right place:
It is the excellence, and soule of wit
When ev'ry thing is free, as well as fit,
For Metaphors packt up and crowded close,
Swath ye minds sweetnes, & display the throws,
And like those chickens hatcht in furnaces
Produce or one limbe more, or one limbe lesse
Then nature bids: survey such when they write
No clause but's justl'd with an Epithite;
So powerfully you draw when you perswade,
Passions in you, in us are Vertues made;
Such is the Magick of that lawfull shell
That where it doth but talke, it doth compell:
For no Apelles 'till this Time e're drew
A Venus to the waste so well as you.
W. RUDYERD.
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