Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MR. STANLEY, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM FRANCE, by JOHN HALL (1627-1656)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MR. STANLEY, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM FRANCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Bewitched senses, do you lie
Last Line: No private, but a public debt.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hall Of Durham, John
Subject(s): Stanley, Thomas (1625-1678)


BEWITCHED senses, do you lie,
And cast some shadow o'er mine eye;
Or do I noble Stanley see?
What! may I trust you? Is it he?
Confess, and yet be gradual,
Lest sudden joy so heavy fall
Upon my soul, and sink unto
A deeper agony of woe:
'Tis he! 'tis he! we are no more
A barb'rous nation: he brought o'er
As much humanity as may
Well civilize America;
More learning than might Athens raise
To glory in her proudest days.
With reason might the boiling main
Be calm, and hoary Neptune chain
Those winds that might disturbers be,
Whilst our Apollo was at sea;
And made her for all knowledge stand
In competition with the land:
Had but the courteous dolphins heard
One note of his, they would have dar'd
To quit the waters to enjoy
In banishment such melody;
And had the mimic Proteus known,
He'd left his ugly herd, and grown
A curious Syren, to betray
This young Ulysses to some stay;
But juster fates denied, nor would
Another land that genius hold,
As could, beyond all wonder hurl'd,
Fathom the intellectual world.
But whither run I? I intend
To welcome only, not commend;
But that thy virtues render it
No private, but a public debt.





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