Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DR. LANCELOT JOSEPH DE MANIBAN, SEER, by ANDREW MARVELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DR. LANCELOT JOSEPH DE MANIBAN, SEER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who now to paper would his thoughts commit
Last Line: Both bird and letter give their augury.


Who now to paper would his thoughts commit,
Knowing his very fate depends on it,
And that the writing blabs the writer's lot,
And whatso'er in life he'd wish forgot?
In the pen's curves all things at once are read,
The writing's form shows what the words ne'er said.
Each bears, like Glaucus' son, his fatal letter,
And the mind drives the hand that knows no better.
My letter smack'd of naught obscure that day,
It was but written in my simple way;
A gossip, such as friends jocose would choose,
"Doing" the town, amusement, music, news.
Yet, lo! th' Interpreter, impartial wight,
Who knows me not, nor in what vein I write,
Observes my writing as a soothsayer wise,
And like a victim's entrails closely spies.
He shows my way of life, my mental store --
My guardian-angel scarce could tell you more;
Designs the map of all my devious mood,
And gives my latitude and longitude.
Shows what Mars adverse, what the sun portends,
How Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, befriends.
How Dragon's-tail bespeaks me many a wound,
And snake-like lifts his bruis'd head from the ground.
He reads the Past, foretells the Future's hopes,
And beats astrologers at horoscopes.
Guesses from truth, lest I perchance discern
From page more true than history I shall learn --
From heaven's own page, accordant with my own,
My written syllables by star-plot known.
An oracle the whole world underlies --
Give but a Sibyl fit for such emprise.
A speedy birth, Luck's mother, Nature, bodes,
Foretells by thousand hints, in thousand modes,
How grandly she will ease her mighty womb:
Yet men still live for this side o' the tomb.
But thou, great Seer, be happy in thy lot,
Write, though none other glean thy story's plot.
Yet, might I dare my prescient soul to trust,
The more thou readst the stars thou spurn'st the dust.
And if thou be not of the stars divine,
I hold thee sprung of Nauplius's line,
Who sent his letters by the feather'd post,
And won his laurels from the starry host.
From him each science grew, reveal'd by thee;
Both bird and letter give their augury.




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