ENGLAND'S brave genius, raise thy head, and see, We have a Muse in this mortality Of virtue yet survives; all met not death, When we entomb'd our dear Elizabeth. Immortal Sidney, honour'd Colin Clout, Presaging what we feel, went timely out. Then why lives Drayton, when the times refuse Both means to live, and matter for a Muse? Only without excuse to leave us quite, And tell us, Durst we act, he durst to write. Now, as the people of a famish'd town, Receiving no supply, seek up and down For mouldy corn, and bones long cast aside, Wherewith their hunger may be satisfied: (Small store now left) we are enforc'd to pry And search the dark leaves of antiquity For some good name, to raise our Muse again, In this her crisis, whose harmonious strain Was of such compass, that no other nation Durst ever venture on a sole translation; Whilst our full language, musical and high, Speaks as themselves their best of poesy. Drayton, amongst the worthiest of all those The glorious laurel, or the Cyprian rose Have ever crown'd, doth claim in every line An equal honour from the sacred Nine: For if old Time could, like the restless main, Roll himself back into his spring again, And on his wings bear this admired Muse For Ovid, Virgil, Homer, to peruse, They would confess, that never happier pen Sung of his loves, his country, and the men. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE NETHERLANDS by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE WAR IS KIND: 23 by STEPHEN CRANE FULFILLMENT by ROBERT MALISE BOWYER NICHOLS THE HEART KNOWETH ITS OWN BITTERNESS' (2) by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI BARCLAY OF URY by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |