Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN EPISTLE, by JOHN SUCKLING Poet's Biography First Line: Whether these lines do find you out Last Line: A synod might as eas'ly err. | ||||||||
SIR, Whether these lines do find you out, Putting or clearing of a doubt; Whether predestination, Or reconciling three in one, Or the unriddling how men die, And live at once eternally, Now take you up, know 'tis decreed You straight bestride the college steed, Leave Socinus and the schoolmen (Which Jack Bond swears do but fool men), And come to town: 'tis fit you show Yourself abroad, that men may know (Whate'er some learned men have guess'd) That oracles are not yet ceas'd. There you shall find the wit and wine Flowing alike, and both divine; Dishes, with names not known in books, And less amongst the college-cooks, With sauce so pregnant that you need Not stay till hunger bids you feed. The sweat of learned Jonson's brain, And gentle Shakespeare's eas'er strain, A hackney-coach conveys you to, In spite of all that rain can do; And for your eighteenpence you sit The lord and judge of all fresh wit. News in one day as much w' have here, As serves all Windsor for a year, And which the carrier brings to you, After 't has here been found not true. Then think what company 's design'd To meet you here, men so refin'd, Their very common talk at board Makes wise or mad a young court-lord, And makes him capable to be Umpire in 's father's company: Where no disputes, nor forc'd defence Of a man's person for his sense Take up the time: all strive to be Masters of truth, as victory; And where you come, I'd boldly swear A synod might as eas'ly err. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SUPPLEMENT OF AN IMPERFECT COPY OF VERSES OF MR. WILL. SHAKESPEARE'S by JOHN SUCKLING UPON MY LADY CARLISLE'S WALKING IN HAMPTON COURT GARDEN by JOHN SUCKLING A PEDLAR OF SMALL-WARES by JOHN SUCKLING A PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR'S TO A MASQUE AT WHITTON by JOHN SUCKLING |
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