Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON HIS BELOVED FRIEND THE AUTHOR, AND HIS INGENIOUS POEMS, by OWEN FELLTHAM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON HIS BELOVED FRIEND THE AUTHOR, AND HIS INGENIOUS POEMS, by                    
First Line: What need these busy wits? Who hath a mine
Last Line: That could so quickly do so much so well.
Alternate Author Name(s): Feltham, Owen
Subject(s): Randolph, Thomas (1605-1634)


WHAT need these busy wits? who hath a mine
His own thus rich, needs not the scatter'd shine,
Of lesser heaps. Day dims a taper's light,
And lamps are useless where there is no night.
Why this train of writers? [a] foreign verse
Can add no honour to a poet's hearse,
Whose every line which he to paper lent
Builds for himself a lasting monument.
Brave verse this privilege hath; though all be dumb,
That is the author's epitaph and tomb.
Which when ambitious piles, th' ostents of pride,
To dust shall fall, and in their ruins hide
Their then no more remembered founder's name:
These (like Apollo) ever young shall fame
The first composer; whose weigh'd works shall tell
What noble thoughts did in his bosom dwell.
But now I find the cause. They that do praise
Desert in others, for themselves plant bays:
For he that praises merit, loves it: thus
He's good, for goodness that's solicitous.
Else, though he diamonds keenly pointed write,
They but proclaim a quainter hypocrite:
Thus in the future it shall honour be,
That men shall read their names bound up with thee.
So country moles, that would at court appear,
Intrude some camel's train that does live there.
So creatures, that had drown'd else, did embark
With Noah, and liv'd by being in his ark.
Or (if not thus) as when in royal state
Nobles attend kings to inaugurate:
Or as last year, when you both courts did see
Beget joy's noon i' th' University.
All the learn'd tribe in reverend habits meet,
As if the schools were turn'd into the street;
Where each one strove such duty to put on,
As might give honour to their own sun's sun.
Such honour here our dimmer pens would have,
In pomp to wait him to his solemn grave
Since what he was, his own fruits better show,
Than those which (planted here by others) grow.
Rich jewels in themselves such lustre cast,
As gold about them is no grace but waste.
Such was his genius: like the quick eyes wink,
He could write sooner than another think,
His play was fancy's flame, a lightning wit:
So short, that it could sooner pierce than hit.
Whate'er he pleas'd, though but in sport to prove,
Appear'd as true as pity dwells with love.
Had he said thus -- That discreet zeal might stand
Both with the Jesuit and the Puritan,
'T had been believ'd: That frost from heat proceeds:
That chastity from ease and fulness breeds:
That women ought to woo, as Eve at first
Woo'd man, to make the world and man accurs'd;
All would be taken up for truth: and sense,
Which knew truth coming, would not going hence.
Had he maintain'd rich Lucan's work had been
Mere history, there would no pen be seen
To call it poem: if for Caesar stood,
Great Pompey should be neither weak nor good,
O, had he liv'd to plead the craggy law,
Which (now unsettled) holds the world in awe,
He would have met some ostracism (I fear)
Lest he had charm'd the purple judge to err.
Nor could he only in his native speech
Robe his ripe thoughts; but even the copious, rich,
And lofty Greek with Latin did appear
In him as Orient in their proper sphere:
That when in them himself he pleas'd t' express,
The ravish'd hearer could not but confess
He might as well old Rome or Athens claim
For birth, as Britain circled with the main.
'Tis true, we have these languages still left,
But spoken as apparel got by theft
Is worn -- disguis'd and shadowed. Had he
Liv'd but with us till grave maturity;
Though we should ever in his change have lost,
We might have gain'd enough whereof to boast
Our nation's better genius. But now
Our hopes are nipp'd ere they began to blow.
And sure I am, his loss must needs strike deep,
For whom in verse thus England's eye doth weep;
Whose tears thus dew'd upon his mournful dust
I will not longer trouble. They that must
Carp, though at best things, let them only read:
These poems here will strike that humour dead.
Which I should praise too; but in them I see
There is one blemish, for he hath nam'd me;
Else, I'll not think the reader so distrest
In wit, but that he will admire the rest.
Concluding thence, though in his forenoon-youth
(And what I now shall write is modest truth),
He knows not him, who doth so much excel,
That could so quickly do so much so well.





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