 | Ormasdes |  |
Wit
(like the World) is so decrepid grown,
It wants some Crutch, or Hint to lean upon.
Onely you work alone, it may be said,
Your Poems are created, and not made.
You frame the stuff too, we but shapes and features;
Our Poems are our Children, yours, your Creatures.
Just as Gods Poem, Earth; So vast, so fair,
Suspended in, not built upon the Ayre.
Poys'd by it's self, (like Archimede's Dove,)
Your Fancy's made t'exist, as ours to move.
We vex the Subject that we write upon,
Whil'st all you write is Emanation.
Thus you retrive Old Time; for just as then
The Golden Age, was but the Iron Men;
So to Posterity it may be told
Our Age is Iron, but our Wits are Gold.
For tell me why, the Golden Age mayn't hence
Be stil'd from Wit, as then from Innocence?
He that will chuse your Fancy, let him dread
To wish for all your Wit, without your Head.
What fan's the Ship, the Cock-boat would o're-turn,
And what in you's but bright, would else where burn.
For Marcyas to be Pan were pretty fair,
Too much for Pan t'usurp Apollo's Chair.
It wants some Crutch, or Hint to lean upon.
Onely you work alone, it may be said,
Your Poems are created, and not made.
You frame the stuff too, we but shapes and features;
Our Poems are our Children, yours, your Creatures.
Just as Gods Poem, Earth; So vast, so fair,
Suspended in, not built upon the Ayre.
Poys'd by it's self, (like Archimede's Dove,)
Your Fancy's made t'exist, as ours to move.
We vex the Subject that we write upon,
Whil'st all you write is Emanation.
Thus you retrive Old Time; for just as then
The Golden Age, was but the Iron Men;
So to Posterity it may be told
Our Age is Iron, but our Wits are Gold.
For tell me why, the Golden Age mayn't hence
Be stil'd from Wit, as then from Innocence?
He that will chuse your Fancy, let him dread
To wish for all your Wit, without your Head.
What fan's the Ship, the Cock-boat would o're-turn,
And what in you's but bright, would else where burn.
For Marcyas to be Pan were pretty fair,
Too much for Pan t'usurp Apollo's Chair.
T. P.
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