Wit in a Wildernesse of Promiscuous Poesie :: :: University of Virginia Library

He is a man from Prophanation free,
Unreverend railings, or obscœnity;
His Muse commits no treason against trust,
Doth not invite to vengeance, pride or lust;
He is Truth's Favourite, and nere exalts
His Mean Degree, by guilding great mens faults;

Who sitting in his own sublimed height,
Survays, and weighs the billow-beaten fate
Of towring Statists, who do vainly raise,
Their Arms on bladders blown with vulgar praise
Popular throats, who in one hour, will cry
Both Halelujah, and Crucifie:
Whose lungs (like Whirlwinds in tempestuous weathers)
Do bear down Churches, whilst they blow up Feathers.
This, and much more then this, we safely see
Through the clear Opticks of pure Poetry:
There we see one, whose head within few years
Did bear a Mytre, now wears Band ô Liers:
Would it not move a Poets spleen with jest,
To see a Crosier made a Musket Rest?
Yonders another (by swift alteration)
Struck dumb, that was the Tongue of a whole Nation:
The Scene is chang'd, and He whose high command
Held up his head, must now hold up his hand;
He that in Law did hold such learned strife,
Must shew by what tenure he holds his Life;
What Act so firm that strength cannot devoure?
For Laws are but the Favorites of Power:
What's he that will submit, his Sword and Tent
To the tame vigor of an Argument?
Or will resign his ravish'd power upon
The flegmatick results of Pro and Con?
These are the vile vicisitudes which we
Are not obnoxious to in Poetry:
Such storms fly over us, when have ye known
Pernassus under Sequestration?

Or Pegasus his winged shoulders stoop
To the Conductor of a County Troop?
What Sequestrator yet could ever call
The Muses unto Haberdashers Hall?
Go search the books where Prize accompts are writ,
You'l scarce find Item took ten tun of wit,
For what they have, so tenderly they handle,
It may be vented by one inch of candle:
A Poets poverty is a defence
'Gainst the most honorable insolence:
We have no Ships at Sea, doubt no distress
Our hopes are little, and our fears are less:
Whilst the poor Merchant (rob'd by Dutch or French)
Sinks in th' Exchange, to rise in the Kings Bench:
Shew me that Age a Poet can produce,
Who ever lost a thousand pound at Use?
Or who can say a Poet hath undone
An hundred families to raise one Son?
Whilst the grave Mizer, and his powder'd Sir
Study to be damn'd in Diameter:
Pray tell me (you that lye upon the lurch)
What brack in State, or Schism in the Church
Hath Poetry begot? what Kingdom lies
Drown'd in its tears for Poets villanies?
Wealth and ambition tempt not us, we pity
The careful Country, and the subtil City;
Where one mans bounds a hundred fields imbrace
To pick out three yards for his burying place:
Whilst we under the shadow of one tree
Extract more absolute content then he

Finds in the firtil substance; vve have more
Wealth at command, then rolls along the shore
Of golden Ganges; He is onely poore
That hath too much, if he do vvish for more:
And he is truly rich that in his dish,
And on his back hath all that he can vvish:
Somtimes vvee'r wounded vvith Loves dart, but then
Our Contemplation licks us vvhole agen:
Content is our Elixar, vvhat a stir
The Patient Reason-rackt Philosopher
Keeps for the Stone, attending all events
That fall from fast, and loose Experiments:
He sayes he vvill make Gold of Lead and Brass:
But (in the end) turns his ovvn Gold to Glass:
His Furnace then as bad as hell doth grovv;
And he (poore man) is damn'd in Balneo,
Whil'st he that sits upon the Muses hill,
Crovvn'd vvith content, turns all to vvhat he vvill;
Paine into pleasure, Misery to Myrth,
By sacred skill extracts Heaven out of earth,
All out of nothing, and (at length) can dye
With a difiance to all Tyranny:
Like Lucan in his Bathing Tub, that stood
Speaking of verses, vvhi'lst his eyes ran blood:
Nor are they Poets that can onely chyme
In numbers, and put gingles into Rhyme:
But he vvhose Catholique Conceptions can
Demonstrate to the Intellect of man
By active Metaphor and Alegory,
Remote designe, Antique and modern story,

Descriptions of Battalia's, Sea-fights,
The Characters of sorrows and delights;
Annual seasons, rivers, weeping fountains,
The firtil Valleys, and the mineral Mountains:
All forreign Countries, Cities, and Kings Courts,
Their trade, war, Law, Religion, food and sports;
All contrarieties, and what doth border
Upon the Banks of Beauty and disorder;
All passions and affections that do lye
Reveal'd, or hid in mans capacity:
Great Kings you are our Subjects, though more true
You are to us, then yours have been to you:
We can imbalm your Vertues with pure Spices,
And make a Pickle shall preserve State-vices
Five hundred years, the rage a Poet vents,
Can rase a thousand Marble Monuments:
The Factious people do but vainly strive
To kill that Fame vvhich we will keep alive.
What are the deeds of the most valiant men,
If Poets do not write them o're agen?
'Twas not Achilles Lance, nor Hectors Shield,
But Homers Poetry that won the Field;
Cæsar and Pompey, Worthies more then men,
Were made, not by their Acts, but Lucan's pen;
What are your best Orations, if they be
Not guilded by the Beams of Poetry?
It is a sweet Compendium of all Arts,
Divide the Bible in four equal parts,
And (by your disquisition) 'twill be known
(Without offence) that Poetry is one;

(Though not the first in order) th' other three
Treat of Law, History, and Prophecy:
Then blush for shame you that do bid defiance
To the bright Beams of so serene a Science;
For he that dares give it an ill report,
His understanding is a foot too short.