Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A JOURNEY INTO THE PARK; TO SIR ASTON COCKAIN, by CHARLES COTTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A JOURNEY INTO THE PARK; TO SIR ASTON COCKAIN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sir, coming home into this frozen clime
Last Line: And thankful be, as well as troublesome.
Subject(s): Homecoming


SIR, coming home into this frozen clime,
Grown cold, and almost senseless, as my Rhyme,
I found that Winter's bold impetuous rage
Prevented Time, and antedated Age,
For in my veins, did nought but crystal dwell,
Each hair was frozen to an icicle.
My flesh was marble, so, that as I went,
I did appear a walking Monument:
'T might have been judg'd, rather than marble, flint,
Had there been any spark of fire in 't.
My mistress looking back, to bid good night,
Was metamorphos'd like the Sodomite.
Like Sinon's horse, our horses were become,
And since they could not go, they slided home;
The hills were hard, to such a quality,
So beyond reason in philosophy,
If Pegasus had kick'd at one of those,
Homer's Odysseus had been writ in prose.

These are strange stories, Sir, to you, who sweat
Under the warm sun's comfortable heat;
Whose happy seat of Pooley far outvies
The fabled pleasures of blest Paradise:
Whose Canaan fills your house with wine and oil,
Till 't crack with burdens of a fruitful soil:
Which house, if it were plac'd above the sphere,
Would be a palace fit for Jupiter.

The humble Chapel, for religious rites,
The inner rooms, for honest, free delights;
And Providence, that these miscarry loth,
Has placed the tower a sentinel to both:
So that there's nothing wanting to improve
Either your piety, or peace, or love.

Without, you have the pleasure of the woods,
Fair plains, rich meadows, and transparent floods;
With all that's good and excellent, beside
The tempting apples by Euphrates side;
But that which does above all these aspire,
Is Delphos brought from Greece to Warwickshire.

But oh, ungodly Hodge! that valued not
That saving juice o' th' enigmatic pot,
Whose charming virtue made me to forget
T' inquire of Fate; else I had staid there yet,
Nor had I then once dar'd to venture on
The cutting air of this our frozen zone.

But once again, dear Sir, I mean to come,
And thankful be, as well as troublesome.





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