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IL INSONIO INSONNADADO, by                    
First Line: When (in the silent age of sable night)
Last Line: I'll write, in my next slumbers, the decree.


WHEN (in the silent age of sable night)
The silver way with Phoebe's glimm'ring light
And her attendants was adorned, and when
Fast slumbers scaled the eyes of drowsy men,
I ent'red Morpheus' Court, that iv'ry port
Whereat benighted fancies pass that sort
With real good, Sleep was the janitor
Who let me in, without one crumb of ore,
Into the spacious hall, whose darksome floor
With downy beds and quilts was paved o'er,
Instead of marble stones. Here nuzzled both
The hated spawn of idleness and sloth,
Icilone and Phantaso, the one
Wrapt in a mantle, set with stars and stones,
Chequered with flow'rs, and trimmed with antic shapes,
Playing with children, feathers, flies, and apes,
Blowing up spittle bladders, and the other
Stretched on the bosom of his quiet mother,
Folded in furs and feathers, would not stir
To earn a penny, or to 'please you, sir,'
With cap and curtsey. Wond'ring much, to me
The winged post came with an embassy.
I, frighted with his strange apparel, shrunk
Away, and closely into feathers sunk.
He, smiling, said, 'Let not my strange arraying,
Kind youth, beget amazement or dismaying.
I'll show thee where in marshalled order stray
Whole troops of laureates ensphered with bay';
Then spread his winged sails, and caught my hair,
Without a sense of motion through the air
Conducting me, through where the salamander
(If faith b' historical) does breath and wander.
Then through those glorious orbs, enriched with gems,
The palaces of seven diadems.
Then through the firmament where glitt'ring spangs
Like blazing topazes in crystal hangs.
Three storeys higher was the Galupin
Where Jove was frolic with his goddy kin;
Hither was I uplifted, then mine eye
Besprinkled was by nimble Mercury
With liquor which with strength did me endue
T' abide the presence of th' immortal crew.
The whisp'ring vaults I opened of my brain,
The counsels of the gods to entertain,
And, fearing memory, with short-lived chalk
(Wanting the tongue of paper) writ their talk.
The patron of Parnassus and the Nine,
To Jove presented and the rest divine
Their suits, with comely grace and majesty.
But Phoebus was the orator: 'Lo! I
Thy daughters undertook to patronize,
Great Emperor of the crystal-spangled skies!
And shield their measures from the sullen rage
Of envious ignorance, this critic age.
(For none inveigh against poetic measures
But those that never had Pandora's treasures)
Yet such a shoal of ignorants I find,
'Tis thought the greater part o' th' world is blind;
That, maugre all my scourges, in the dark
Against the Muses they will snarl and bark.
Let winged-sandalled Hermes post to call
And summon them unto thy judgement hall,
That you may know their rage is want of brains.'
Hermes took post, and brought the silly trains.
Jove waved his sceptre and commanded hush.
Then calls a gaudy piece of empty plush,
And asked what he could say 'gainst Poetry:
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, and fleered with blinking eye,
'I have a mistress' (then begins a tale
Which made Jove call for some nectarean ale
To arm his ears 'gainst nonsense, and his side
'Gainst laughter's fury) 'has too much of pride.
She's fair as is a wall new-parged with lime,
She's wise enough; for age, she's in her prime.
I vow her service, but she slights me, why?
Marry, I have no vein in Poesy,
But what I take on trust o' th' second hand.
She jeers and says, "This cannot well be scanned;
This has a foot too little, that too much;
This is a borrowed line" -- she knows't by th' touch;
Tells me the double Indies shall not gain
Her love without the smirk poetic vein.
Despairing, I against the Muses rail,
And wished my hands had crusted been with flail.
Then should not I have needed proxy-verse,
T' have won a milkmaid, neither coy nor terse.
"Tush," say I, "Madam, this same ragged crew
Of rhyming dizzards are not worthy you.
Plato exiled them from his commonweal.
Their tongues will flatter, and their fingers steal.
Mere sycophants that, for a trencher-bit,
Will swear y' have beauty mixed with purest wit.
And if you anger them, will in a rage
Unsay't and rail 'gainst you, your sex, and age."
Hundred invectives more I often use
Against the Poet and his strumpet muse.
But I protest 'tis to dissuade my lady:
For had I wit, Phoebus should be my daddy.
Then, sacred sisters! I implore your bays
Make me a bard, and I'll descant your praise.'
'No,' quoth the Muses, 'Helicon ne'er brooks
T' have servants which do wear such simple looks.'
So sent him packing with a flea in 's ear.
Apollo called another to appear,
A feeble brain, that at a gen'ral dye
Had got the sable hue of infamy.
He buzzles like a bustard in a wind,
And with his aio's strikes the vulgar blind,
In whom, if we believe Pythagoras,
I think the soul of Battus housed was.
He is demanded why he thus does bawl
'Gainst soaring wits, not worms that earthly crawl?
Clothing his face with impudence, his looks
With pride, and with high self-conceit (his books,
So are his words, he speaks in print) 'Why? why?
Have I not cause t' exclaim on Poesy?
I'm a divine, not a fond prattling poet.
I am a preacher, I would have you know it.'
'Peace! arrogant,' says Hermes, 'else I'll drive
Thee quick into the black infernal hive.
There was a time when thou admir'dst with praise
Each sprig of laurel, slip of youthful bays.
But Envy's master now: or th' cause of it
Is, thou ne'er hop'st t' attain that height of wit.
But say the truth (yet truth will scarce abide thee)
Are there not some that jeer and do deride thee
In lofty measures, and thou wanting skill
To vindicate thy credit by thy quill?
Dost scold?' Quoth he, 'I do acknowledge it.
I blamed the Muses, 'cause I wanted wit;
And darted scandals at Apollo's lyre.
Yet pardon, mighty AEsculapius' sire,
And ye blest goddesses, my grand offence,
And on your altars I'll burn frankincense,
Nay, build rich trophies unto Poetry.'
''Tis good to see a convert mind: stand by.'
Apollo said. Says Vulcan, 'By the mass,
I have espied a plump-cheek'd bonny lass.
She is a wrig, I warrant. Where's my wife?
Oh! 'tis a hell to live a coupled life.'
Thus did the Blacksmith mutter, till Apollo
Cited the damsel with a gentle holloa.
Up comes the Marget with a mincing pace,
A city-stride, court-garb, and smirking face,
So curtsied to the gods, yet 'twas but short.
Then says Apollo (meaning to make sport)
'What occupation use you, art, or trade?
Are you a virgin?' 'Yes, a chambermaid
Forsooth I am, I have my virgin seal.
To honest Vulcan I dare make m' appeal:
He'll pawn his head, had I kept Venus' room,
Mars had not dubbed him with Actaeon's doom.'
'A merry wench, in faith!' says Jove, 'yet stay.
To serious parle let's fall from wanton play.
You are accused as one that does condemn
And boldly scoff the laurel diadem.'
'I once,' quoth she, 'admired them all, until
I found my praise returned but traffic ill.
For when I praised, they praised me again:
So I had only praises for my pain.
Then wittily I oftentimes would flout,
And say, the poets' was a needy rout;
Of all professions sure it was the worst,
Just like the cockatrice i' th' shell accurst,
With many more; yet though our tongues did jar,
Our quarrel ended in a lippy war.
We kissed to friendship, like the nurse and child,'
And there she stopped, whereat the heavens smiled.
Then came a servingman, a blunt old knave,
That dared Parnassus with a saucy brave.
'In youth,' says he, 'I rhymed and framed notes
To Pan's choice music and the shepherds' throats:
And many a lusty bowl of cream have got
For Kate's three brace of rhymes, which was, God wot,
But once removed from prose, and, for a song,
The iron-hoofed Hobs 'bout me did throng.
But now old age my wit and fancy nips,
I gall the Muses with satyric quips;
Yet might I with the eagle cast my bill,
And gain my youth, I would regain my skill.'
This done, the pursuivant Apollo posts
T' Elysium, to call the poets' ghosts,
That paid th'infernal ferryman his fee.
There saw I Homer, but he saw not me;
Lascivious Ovid, and Virgilius grave,
Satyric Juvenal, and Martial brave,
Splay-footed Plautus, limping Ennius,
Propertius, Horace, and Boethius.
Amongst the moderns came the Fairy Queen,
Old Geoffrey, Sidney, Drayton, Randolph, Greene,
The double Beaumont, [ ] Drummond, Browne --
Each had his chaplet, and his ivy crown.
'How rested ye amidst those gloomy shades?'
Says Jupiter, 'See ye not other trades,
Learnings, and sciences, have constant springs,
Summers and autumns without winterings?
They'll have no hailstorms, fleezy rain, nor frost,
A pregnant-witted bard did silence break.
Homer 'twas not, he could not see to speak.
Virgil it was not, he had got a wrench:
Nor B. nor M., for they had got a wench.
Ennius was lame, and much did fear his shins;
Horace was busy with the kilderkins,
Ovid employed with his beloved flea,
Old Geoffrey's language was not fit for plea.
Drayton on's brains a new Moon-calf was getting,
And testy Drummond could not speak for fretting.
I knew the Roscian's feature, not his name;
Yet 'tis engraven on the shawm of Fame.
With settled grace he boldly did advance:
'Father of gods! King of the large expanse!
We oft have heard proud Envy belching forth
Fogs, mists, and fumes, t' eclipse the metric worth,
And know the teeming world did never nurse
So great a mischief as the critic curse.
Our souls one minute have not rested quiet
Since carps, we know, was Ignoramus' diet.
If Wisdom's fetial call to the sand
We have revenge; our standish is at hand,
That rights our wrongs: but 'gainst Don Silly's rails
The fist is heaved, for paper naught avails.
We sate in counsel, did intend to sue
With a petition to this noble crew;
The substance this, that ye would either give
Wit and discretion unto all that live,
Or make them idiots, deprived of reason.
Else, but to speak, let it be counted treason.
But we appeal, great gods, 'tis now my theme --
To clear from mud pure Aganippa's stream,
Assist, Pierides, maintain your fires
With greater care than can the Vestals theirs;
'Tis merely loss of time, and paper both
By refutation to chastise their sloth.
Then I the juice of Helicon will sup
Not in nutshell, but Colocassian cup,
Shall make my fancy catch at naught but gems,
And wreathe the Muses' brows with diadems.
Methinks this draught such virtue does infuse
As if in every sense there dwelt a muse,
A spirit of valour to ungod great war,
Should he but send a ram, but to the bar;
Who knows not Vaticinium does imply
In equal measures verse and prophecy,
An inspiration, a celestial touch?
Such is the poet's raptures, prophet's such.
Vates, a bard, and him that does presage;
Vaticinor, possessed with either rage.
Poema is a book, in numbers framed,
Fast cemented with sense, by working named,
To which the choicest orator stands bare.
Poesis does, in a sublimer air,
Things human and divine expose to view.
The first philosophy that Fame e'er knew
Was honoured with the name of Poetry,
Enriched with rules of pure morality,
Reading instructions unto heathen men,
With more contentment than the Stoic's pen.
The ancients unto poets only gave
The epithets of wise, divine, and grave;
Because their metres taught the world to know
To whom they did their holy worship owe.
The Greek is free, and kinder in her praise
Which she bestows upon poetic lays.
She calls all that which takes not essence by
A matter pre-existent, poesy.
So makes the world a poem: and by this
The great creator a great poet is.
Nay more, that language on the Nine bestows
(As ev'ry callent of that idiom knows)
In her etymologues, an higher grace,
Calls them paideuas, and whose measures trace
The steps of Nature, human and divine,
The abstruse mysteries of both untwine,
Unlock the exta of each science, art,
By cunning search; again, not as a part,
Nor a grand column only, but entreasures
The soul of learning in the poet's measures.
All other arts (which use and learning gave)
Precepts and rules as sure foundations have,
Whenas the poet's pen alone's inspired,
With high enthusiasms by heaven fired,
Ennius them holy calls; and Plato says
Furies divine are in the poet's lays.
Nor wanted he himself the poet's wit;
He Dithyrambos and love passions writ.
The Regal Prophet was a true-born poet,
As to the life his well-tuned metres show it;
Composed to music by that holy man,
Ere Hopkins and Sternhold knew how to scan.
Hence, chicken-augurs, with your crooked staves,
Whose rash conjectures crown and dig us graves.
A lofty fancy, steeped in the fount
Of Pegasus, an higher pitch can mount.
Sibylline oracles did speak in verse;
Their scattered leaves in measures did rehearse
The mysteries of man's redemption by
The incarnation of a deity.
Grave Maro, I remember, in an ode
(An eclogue) treads the same prophetic road.
Those famous Druides, renowned of late,
Treated at large o' th' soul's immortal state.
Man's spirit does not to the gloomy shade
Of Erebus, o'er black Cocytus, wade.
Death sets no period, is the lesser part
Of human life; for the same breath does dart
Vigour to every sinew in the bulk.
Man lives as freely in another hulk.
Who readeth Ovid's Metamorphosin,
And thinks not Moses' soul was sheathed in
His body by a transmigration?
He from the chaos tells the world's plantation.
Maro accords, and gives the world a soul
Which does this well-compacted lump control;
And by illumination he discovered
How then the spirit o'er the water hovered.
Th' inspired pen of old Pythagoras
By naso's guide relates how in this mass
All things do alter shape, yet soon Dame Nature
Of one form lost informs another feature.
No substance's nothinged in this large globe,
But 'gainst some feast puts on a newer robe.
The earth, resolved to water, rarefies
Into pure air; the thinner water flies;
The purer air assumes a scorching heat.
They, back returning, orderly retreat:
Those subtle sparks converted are to breath,
The spissy air, being doomed unto death,
Turns into sea, earth's made a thick'ned water.
Thus wily Nature is a strange translator.
(My lady readers I refer to Sandys,
But the grave learned unto Ovid's hands.)
Nor Seneca divine wants prophesies.
Near to the death of time, an age shall rise
In which says he, the ocean shall untie
The wat'ry bands of things and to the eye
Of Tiphys, a new world appear
Unheard before by the most itching ear,
In glory matching this. Then Thule no more
Shall be th' earth's ne plus ultra bound or door,
Our eights i' th' hundred would large heaps of treasures
Set in their wills to buy Zorastus' measures.
Mass-priests for dirges then would lose their fee;
These would the surest de profundis be.
Shopsters and gallants to his house would hop
More than t' exchanges or canary-shop.
And poets brisk would have a larger dealth,
Than holy confessors of dead men's wealth.
I might be infinite, should I but show
For what grave arts the world to poets owe.
Apelles had not been without Parnasse,
The pencil's worth had only dwelt on glass,
Or dusty tablets, guided by those apes,
In imitation of some antic shapes.
Venus a portrait had, Pygmalion missed
That speechless female which he hugged and kissed,
Had not th' enlivening breath of poetry
T' a higher pitch reared up dull fantasy.
How quickly worthy acts of famous men
Died in the wane of our poetic pen!
How rudely by the monks (which only had
The key of learning) were their actions clad!
King Ethelbert's closed in his Polyander,
To Christ for church buildings he's gone without meander.
Such stuff the tombs of Bede and Petrarch have,
The razor from all monky pates did shave
Wit with their hair, except in Mantuan.
Re-teined by Vida and Politian,
And many others was this glorious sun,
Which glitter shall till earth's last thread be spun.
We raise shall obelisks by Apollo's breath,
Which owe no homage to the rage of death.
By pen Honterus creatures limned to life,
Better than could the cynic with his knife.
Pliny compared unto him did err;
He was a chemic and cosmographer.
How bravely does the Scottish bard depinge
The planet's order and the spheric hinge!
Brave Petrarch, latined by our learned clerk,
Lights us a lamp to guide us in this dark.
And critic age says that stout Alexander,
(Whose warlike steps o'er all this globe did wander)
Fixing on brave Pelides' tomb his eye,
Rapt with a noble envy loud did cry,
'Happy, O happy thou! whole actions still
Live, being enbreathed by the immortal quill
Of worthy Homer!' nay, when his sword had gained
Those wealthy realms o'er which Darius reigned,
He 'mongst his treasures found a casket fair,
So set with gold and gems it rayed the air,
And called in day despite of clouds or nights --
Yet the best use (as grave Patricius writes)
This cabinet could serve to, was t' entomb
Homer's choice Iliads in his glorious womb.
Of Zoarastus now some wonders hear,
And barrel his disciples in thine ear,
Whose rhymes could charm foul Cerber's bawling tongue,
And pick hell's lock with his enchanting song;
From Stygian shade conducting whom they listed,
And whom they pleased with hellish fogs bemisted.
Oh golden metres, rhymes outworthing gold,
At what high prices would they now be sold
If they were extant! friend for friend would sell
Lordships, books, banners, to redeem from hell.
How many ages has those Greeks survived
(Than all their predecessors longer lived),
Which showed their noble worths at Ilium's grave?
Yet thrice Nestorean age them Homer gave.
How bravely Lucan tells succeeding ages
The seven-hilled city's bloody rages!
Moist clouds long since have washed the purpled grass,
Yet red as ever 'tis in Lucan's glass.
To Carthage' Queen the wand'ring Trojan prince
Pretended love, but dead it is long since,
And dust are they; yet Virgil's lofty verse
Makes him speak wars, she love, from under th' hearse.
Long since did Hellespont gulp in Leander,
When he presumed on naked breast to wander.
Hero's watch-candle's out; they vanished quite.
Yet Ovid says all was but yesternight.
A great while since the cheating miller stole
The scholars' meal by a quadruple toll:
They gave him th' hornbook, taught his daughter Greek,
Yet look in Chaucer -- done the other week.
Ir'n-sinewed Talus with his steely flail
Long since i' th' right of justice did prevail
Under the sceptre of the Fairy Queen:
Yet Spenser's lofty measures makes it green.
Donne was a poet and a grave divine,
Highly esteemed for the sacred Nine
That aftertimes shall say whilst there's a sun
'This verse, this sermon, was composed by Dun'.
What by heroic acts to man accrues,
When grisly Charon for his waftage sues,
If his great grandchild, and his grandchild's son,
May not the honours, which his sword hath won,
Read, graved on paper by a poet's pen,
When marble monuments are dust, and when
Time has eat off his paint and lettered gold;
For verse alone keeps honour out o' th' mould?
The press successively gives birth to verse,
Shall steely tombs outlive the buckram hearse?
To other things the same proportion hold
Pure rhymes which lofty volumes do enfold.
Autumnal frosts would nip the double rose,
If cherish'd only by the breath of prose.
Beauty of beauty's not the smallest part
Which is bestowed by our liberal art.
Orpheus, Arion, and the scraping crew,
To wire and parched guts may bid adieu,
Or audience beg; were't not for sprightful bays,
Which to the strings composeth merry lays.
But with the Muses I'm so fall'n in love
That I forget thy presence, mighty Jove!
And through the spacious universe do walk:
But this shall set a period to my talk.'
Jove stretch'd his sceptre then, with frolic grace,
And joy triumphed on the heaven's face.
The orbs made music, and the planets danced;
The Muses' glory was by all enhanced.
Jove then intended for to ratify
Decrees in the behoof of poesy,
Giving the bards his hand to kiss; and made
Chaplets of laurel which should never fade.
But Vulcan, to Gradive placed in oppose,
Was nodding fast and bellowing through the nose.
His armed brow fell down; and lighting right
His antlers did the marching god unsight.
Mars fumed, the gods laughed out, the spheres did shake,
At which shrill noise I starting did awake,
And looking up (East having oped his doors)
Amazed I beheld a troop of scores,
And wond'ring, thought they'd been ale-debts, but found
I them had chalked in my dreaming swound.
I trow not the decree: 'twas Vulcan's fault --
Yet dreams are seldom sound, like him they halt.
Take this: and, if I can so happy be,
I'll write, in my next slumbers, the decree.




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