Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THOSE WORTHY HEROES OF OUR AGE, by NATHANIEL WHITING First Line: You noble laureates, whose able quills Last Line: These lines and letters to the ken of prose. Subject(s): Poetry & Poets | ||||||||
YOU noble laureates, whose able quills In framing odes, do drean the sacred rills Of Aganippe dry, within whose breasts The sire of AEsculapius safely rests; And all the Muses' temple, deign your rays To cheer the measures of an infant bayes, Spread forth the banners of your worths to shield His younger Muse, unable yet to wield Arms 'gainst the monsters of this critic age, Envy, detraction, and Saturnine rage. I to myself assume not double worth, Or that my teeming fancy can bring forth Words to make wonder stand amazed, do try To vindicate the breath of poesy. In such a thought I'm silent, but because I've heard invectives belched from the jaws Of nil-scientes, whose audacious brags Have raised a thunder like a shoal of dags T' affright endeavours. In writing, which if my weak studies hit Of any fancy speaking worth or wit, If I have snatched any fainting Muse From the black jaws of envy and abuse, Shooting a soul into her, and new breath, Maugre those tongues that doomed her to death -- Echo forth thanks unto coy Daphne's lover (About whose fane the sacred Nine do hover) Whose kindness smiled on my uncrushed designs; And locked a muse in my unworthy lines, Able to blunt the darts of envy, pare The sharpest-hoofed satyr, and with air Shrill as the voice of thunder, chide those galls That belch forth scandals and invective bawls. Nay, he, befriending me above my merit, Unseen of any heaved my winged spirit T' a higher court than the Star chamber is, Where souls may surfeit with immortal bliss; And taught my fancy, in those quiet slumbers, What, waking, I have folded up in numbers; To tell the brood of critics that there are Some few, or if not some, yet one, that dare (Backed by your thrice-sacred worths) expose These lines and letters to the ken of prose. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ENVY OF OTHER PEOPLE'S POEMS by ROBERT HASS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AS A SONG by ROBERT HASS THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN OXOTA: A SHORT RUSSIAN NOVEL: CHAPTER 192 by LYN HEJINIAN LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA JUNE JOURNALS 6/25/88 by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA FOLLOW ROZEWICZ by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA HAVING INTENDED TO MERELY PICK ON AN OIL COMPANY, THE POEM GOES AWRY by HICOK. BOB IL INSONIO INSONNADADO by NATHANIEL WHITING |
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