Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HONOUR OF THE GARTER: PROLOGUE, by GEORGE PEELE


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THE HONOUR OF THE GARTER: PROLOGUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Plain is my coat, and humble is my gait
Last Line: Nor herbs nor time such remedy affords.
Subject(s): Daniel, Samuel (1562-1619); Harington, Sir John (1561-1612); Harvey, Gabriel (1545-1630); Poetry & Poets; Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)


PLAIN is my coat, and humble is my gait:
Thrice-noble earl, behold with gentle eyes
My wit's poor worth, even for your nobléss,
Renownèd lord, Northumberland's fair flower,
The Muses' love, patron, and favourite,
That artisans and scholars dost embrace,
And clothest Mathesis in rich ornaments;
That admirable mathematic skill,
Familiar with the stars and zodiac,
To whom the heaven lies open as her book;
By whose directions undeceivable,
Leaving our schoolmen's vulgar trodden paths,
And following the ancient reverend steps
Of Trismegistus and Pythagoras,
Through uncouth ways and unaccessible,
Dost pass into the spacious pleasant fields
Of divine science and philosophy;
From whence beholding the deformities
Of common errors, and world's vanity,
Dost here enjoy that sacred sweet content
That baser souls, not knowing, not affect:
And so by Fate's and Fortune's good aspéct
Rais'd, in thy height, and these unhappy times,
Disfurnish'd wholly of heroical spirits
That learning should with glorious hands uphold,
(For who should learning underbear but he
That knows thereof the precious worthiness,
And sees true science from base vanity?)
Hast in regard the true philosophy
That in pure wisdom seats her happiness.
And you the Muses, and the Graces three,
You I invoke from heaven and Helicon,
For other patrons have poor poets none,
But Muses and the Graces, to implore.
Augustus long ago hath left the world,
And liberal Sidney, famous for the love
He bare to learning and to chivalry,
And virtuous Walsingham are fled to heaven.
Why thither speed not Hobbin and his feres,
Great Hobbinol, on whom our shepherds gaze,
And Harington, well-letter'd and discreet,
That hath so purely naturélizèd
Strange words, and made them all free denizens?
Why thither speeds not Rosamond's trumpeter,
Sweet as the nightingale? Why go'st not thou,
That richly cloth'st conceit with well-made words,
Campion, accompanied with our English Fraunce,
A peerless sweet translator of our time?
Why follow not a thousand that I know,
Fellows to these, Apollo's favourites,
And leave behind our ordinary grooms,
With trivial humours to pastíme the world,
That favours Pan and Phœbus both alike?
Why thither post not all good wits from hence,
To Chaucer, Gower, and to the fairest Phaer
That ever ventur'd on great Virgil's works?
To Watson, worthy many epitaphs
For his sweet poesy, for Amyntas' tears
And joys so well set down? And after thee
Why hie they not, unhappy in thine end,
Marley, the Muses' darling for thy verse,
Fit to write passions for the souls below,
If any wretched souls in passion speak?
Why go not all into th' Elysian fields,
And leave this centre barren of repast,
Unless in hope Augusta will restore
The wrongs that learning bears of covetousness,
And court's disdain, the enemy to art?
Leave, foolish lad, it mendeth not with words;
Nor herbs nor time such remedy affords.





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