Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN EPISTLE, by JOHN SUCKLING



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN EPISTLE, by                     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.





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