Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THOMAS STANLEY (1), by WILLIAM HAMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THOMAS STANLEY (1), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Let me not live if I not wonder why
Last Line: Of settled knowledge on thy steady hand.
Subject(s): Stanley, Thomas (1625-1678)


LET me not live if I not wonder why
In night of rural contemplation, I
So long have dreamt, when from thy lips I might
As instantly gain intellectual light,
As by this amphitheatre of air
The sudden beams of Sol imbibed are;
Why then by reflex letters like the moon
Shine I, when thou invit'st me to thy noon?
Why do I vainly sweat here to control
Th' assertors of the perishable soul,
Where all the reason I encounter can
Scarce win belief a rustic is a man?
To reconcile the contradiction
Of Freedom with Predestination;
To be resolv'd the Earth doth rest upon
Her axis as a spit against the Sun;
Or what bold Argive fleet durst to translate,
Of those beasts that first stray'd from Ararat,
Only the noxious to America,
And how these puny pilots found the way,
Or whether from the habitable Moon,
Like Saturn, they, and Vulcan, tumbled down;
Whether abroad Imaginations work,
Whether in numbers potency doth lurk,
Whether all Earth intended was for gold,
And thousands more we doubtfully do hold?
Thus we poor sceptics in the region
Of Fancy float, foes to assertion;
But I will perch on thee, and make my stand
Of settled knowledge on thy steady hand.





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