Classic Poem

What's here? another Library of prayse,
Met in a Troupe t'advance contemned Playes,
And bring exploded Witt againe in fashion?
I can't but wonder at this Reformation
My skipping soule surfets with so much good,
To see my hopes into fruition budd
A happy Chimistry! blest viper, joy!
That through thy mothers bowels gnawst thy way!
Witts flock in sholes, and clubb to re-erect
In spight of Ignorance the Architect
Of Occidentall Poesye; and turne
Godds, to recall witts ashes from their urne.
Like huge Collosses they've together mett
Their shoulders, to support a world of Witt.
The tale of Atlas (though of truth it misse)
We plainely read Mythologiz'd in this;
Orpheus and Amphion whose undying stories
Made Athens famous, are but Allegories.
'Tis Poetry has pow'r to civilize
Men, worse then stones, more blockish then the Trees.
I cannot chuse but thinke (now things so fall)
That witt is past its Climactericall;
And though the Muses have beene dead and gone
I know they'll finde a Resurrection.
'Tis vaine to prayse; they're to themselves a glory,
And silence is our sweetest Oratory.
For he that names but FLEICHER must needs be
Found guilty of a loud hyperbole
His fancy so transcendently aspires,
He showes himselfe a witt, who but admires.
Here are no volumes stuft with cheverele sence,
The very Anagrams of Eloquence,
Nor long-long-winded sentences that be,
Being rightly spelld, but Witts Stenographie
Nor words, as voyd of Reason, as of Rithme,
Only caesura'd to spin out the time
But heer's a Magazine of purest sence
Cloath'd in the newest Garbe of Eloquence.
Scaenes that are quick and sprightly, in whose veines
Bubbles the quintessence of sweet-high straines
Lines like their Authours, and each word of it
Does say 'twas writ b'a Gemini of Witt
How happie is our age! how blest our men!
When such rare soules live themselves o're agen.
We erre, that thinke a Poet dyes; for this
Shewes that 'tis but a Metempsychosis.
BEAUMONT and FLEICHER here at last we see
Above the reach of dull mortalitie,
Or pow'r of fate: and thus the proverbe hitts
(That's so much crost) These men live by their witts.