Classic Poem

Eöus and his fellows in the team,
(Who, since their wat'ring in the Western stream,
Had run a furious journey to appease
The night-sick eyes of our Antipodes,)
Now sweating were in our horizon seen
To drink the cold dew from each flow'ry green:
When Triton's trumpet with a shrill command
Told silver-footed Thetis was at hand.
As I have seen when on the breast of Thames
A heavenly bevy of sweet English dames,
In some calm ev'ning of delightful May,
With music give a farewell to the day,
Or as they would, with an admired tone,
Greet Night's ascension to her eben throne,
Rapt with their melody a thousand more
Run to be wafted from the bounding shore:
So ran the shepherds, and with hasty feet
Strove which should first increase that happy fleet.
The true presagers of a coming storm,
Teaching their fins to steer them to the form
Of Thetis' will, like boats at anchor stood,
As ready to convey the Muses' brood
Into the brackish lake that seem'd to swell
As proud so rich a burden on it fell.
Ere their arriyal Astrophel had done
His shepherd's lay, yet equaliz'd of none.
Th' admired mirror, glory of our Isle,
Thou far-far-more than mortal man, whose style
Struck more men dumb to hearken to thy song,
Than Orpheus' harp or Tully's golden tongue.
To him (as right) for wit's deep quintessence.
For honour, valour, virtue, excellence,
Be all the garlands, crown his tomb with bay,
Who spake as much as e'er our tongue can say.
Happy Arcadia! while such lovely strains
Sung of thy valleys, rivers, hills and plains;
Yet most unhappy other joys among,
That never heard'st his music nor his song.
Deaf men are happy so, whose virtues' praise
(Unheard of them) are sung in tuneful lays,
And pardon me, ye sisters of the mountain,
Who wail his loss from the Pegasian fountain,
If, like a man for portraiture unable,
I set my pencil to Apelles' table;
Or dare to draw his curtain, with a will
To show his true worth, when the artist's skill
Within that curtain fully doth express
His own art's-mast'ry, my unableness.
He sweetly touched what I harshly hit,
Yet thus I glory in what I have writ;
Sidney began (and if a wit so mean
May taste with him the dews of Hippocrene)
I sung the Past'ral next; his Muse, my mover:
And on the plains full many a pensive lover
Shall sing us to their loves, and praising be
My humble lines the more for praising thee.
Thus we shall live with them by rocks, by springs,
As well as Homer by the death of kings.
Then in a strain beyond an oaten quill
The learned shepherd of fair Hitchin hill
Sung the heroic deeds of Greece and Troy,
In lines so worthy life, that I employ
My reed in vain to overtake his fame.
All praiseful tongues do wait upon that name.
Our second Ovid, the most pleasing Muse
That Heav'n did e'er in mortal's brain infuse,
All-loved Drayton, in soul-raping strains,
A genuine note of all the nymphish trains
Began to tune; on it all ears were hung
As sometime Dido's on Æneas' tongue.
Jonson, whose full of merit to rehearse
Too copious is to be confin'd in verse;
Yet therein only fittest to be known,
Could any write a line which he might own.
One so judicious, so well knowing, and
A man whose least worth is to understand;
One so exact in all he doth prefer
To able censure; for the theatre
Not Seneca transcends his worth of praise;
Who writes him well shall well deserve the bays.
Well-languag'd Daniel: Brooke, whose polish'd lines
Are fittest to accomplish high designs,
Whose pen (it seems) still young Apollo guides;
Worthy the forked hill, for ever glides
Streams from thy brain, so fair, that time shall see
Thee honour'd by thy verse, and it by thee.
And when thy temple's well-deserving bays
Might imp a pride in thee to reach thy praise,
As in a crystal glass, fill'd to the ring
With the clear water of as clear a spring,
A steady hand may very safely drop
Some quantity of gold, yet o'er the top
Not force the liquor run, although before
The glass (of water) could contain no more:
Yet so, all-worthy Brooke, though all men sound
With plummets of just praise thy skill profound,
Thou in thy verse those attributes canst take,
And not apparent ostentation make,
That any second can thy virtues raise,
Striving as much to hide as merit praise.