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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPISTLE by SIDNEY GODOLPHIN

Poet Analysis

First Line: THAT YOU MAY SEE YOUR LETTERS, USE
Last Line: WHEN WANTON, AND MY VERSES, DIE.
THAT you may see your letters, use
Both to transfer your verse and muse,
And bring with them so fresh a heat
Able new Poems to beget;
Yet such as may no more compare
With yours, than echoing voices dare --
I from my prose and Friday time
Cannot but send thus much in rhyme.
Sir, your grave Author had no cause
To give our sense of seeing, laws,
For sure ill eyes will sooner need
Medicines to judge of greyhound's speed,
Than other rules, since who is he
So inward blind as not to see
That overtaking, going by,
Doth clearly show where odds doth lie.
Nor hath the eye an object more
Distinct than this in all its power.
All judgments else (I think) but this
A little too uncertain is,
To overrule a favouring eye
And partial minds to satisfy.
And I count nothing victory,
But when all clamour too doth die;
In all Romances, the good knight
With monsters (after men) doth fight.
Then you have fully got the field
When Philip and James white do yield,
So likewise nothing can adorn
Our triumph, but your captur'd horn.
You have no cause to fear that we
Will still appeal to Salisbury,
The Paddock Course, and dieting.
Shall we for Wanton say a thing
Which for the worst cur might be said
Which ever yet in slip was led?
No, from a straight course at the hare
Lies no appeal at any bar;
In one thing only I foresee
Wanton will still unhappy be:
Snap will live in your poetry
When Wanton, and my verses, die.



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