Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, "UPON MR RANDOLPH'S POEMS, COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH", by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

"UPON MR RANDOLPH'S POEMS, COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH", by                    
First Line: "as when a swelling cloud, melted to showers"
Last Line: The younger sister had the elder wit
Subject(s): "randolph, Thomas (1605-1634);


AS when a swelling cloud, melted to showers,
Sweetly diffuses fresh and active powers
Into the shrunk and thirsty veins of earth,
Blessing her barren womb with a new birth
Of grain and fruit, and so redeems a land
Of desperate people from the destroying hand
Of merciless plague, famine, or death, and then
Collects its streams unto the ocean;
So thy diffusive soul and fluent parts
(Great miracle of natural wit and arts),
Rapt up some regions 'bove our sphere, did flow
And show'r their blessings down on us below,
Whilst we, dull earth, in ecstasies did sit,
Almost o'erwhelmed with thy floods of wit.
What blood of verse is pump'd from our dry brains,
Sprung like a rushing torrent from thy veins.
When a long drought presag'd some fatal dearth,
Thy unexhausted founts gave us new birth
Of wit and verse; when Cham or Isis fell,
Thy open'd floodgates made their riv'lets swell
'Bove their proud banks, where (planted by thy hand)
Th' Hesperian orchards, Paphian myrtles stand,
And those sweet shades where lovers tell their blisses
To th' whisp'ring leaves, and sum 'em up in kisses.
There in full choir the Muses us'd to sing
Melodious odes, bathing in Cham their spring:
And all the Graces, Tom, dwelt with thee too,
Crowning thy front for old Citheron's brow.
Nor were we rich alone: climes far from hence
Acknowledge yet thy sovereign influence,
Sicilians owe to thee their fruitful Vale,
And Cotswold Hill thy dews-created Dale.
All lands and soils from hence were fruitful grown,
And multipli'd the measures thou hast sown.
Greensward untilled milkmaids wish no blisses
Beyond a stammel petticoat and kisses,
And thy sweet Dowry. This alone, they cry,
Will make our beasts and milk to multiply.
And the dull, fallow clowns, who never thought
Of God or heaven but in a flood or drought,
Do gape and pray for crops of wit, and vow
To make their lads and wenches poets now,
For they can make their fields to laugh and sing
To the Muses' pipe, and winter rhyme to spring.
They pray for the first curse: like scholars now
To earn their livings by their sweaty brow.
Then the fine gardens of the court are set
With flowers sprung from thy muse's coronet.
Those pretty imps in plush, that on trust go
For their fine clothes, and their fine judgments too,
The frontispiece or title-page of plays,
Whose whole discourse is, As the poet says,
That taverns drain (for ivy is the sign
Of all such sack-shop wits, as well as wine),
And make their verses dance on either hand
With numerous feet, whilst they want feet to stand.
That score up jests for every glass or cup,
And th' total sum behind the door cast up.
These had been all dri'd up, and many more,
That quaff up Helicon upon thy score.
The sneaking tribe, that drink and write by fits,
As they can steal or borrow coin or wits.
That panders fee for plots, and then belie
The paper with An excellent Comedy,
Acted (more was the pity) by th' Red Bull
With great applause of some vain city gull;
That damn philosophy, and prove the curse
Of emptiness, both in the brain and purse;
These that scrape legs and trenchers to my lord,
Had starv'd but for some scraps pick'd from thy board
They had tried the balladier's or fiddler's trade,
Or a new comedy at Tyburn made.
Thus, Tom, thy pregnant fancy crown'd us all
With wealthy showers or mines poetical;
Nor did thy dews distil in a cold rain,
But with a flash of lightning op'd thy brain,
Which thaw'd our stupid spirits with lively heat,
And from our frosts forc'd a poetic sweat.
And now wit's commonwealth by thee repriev'd
(For its consumption shows it not long-liv'd)
Thy far-dispersed streams divert their course
(Though some are damm'd up) to th' Muses source
This ocean: he that will fathom it
By's lines shall sound an ocean of wit;
Not shallow, low, and troubled, but profound
And vast, though in these narrow limits bound.
The tribute of our eyes or pens (all we can pay),
Are some poor drops to thy Pactolus sea,
And first stolen thence, though now so muddy grown
With our foul channels, they scarce seem thy own.
Thus have I seen a piece of coin, which bore
The image of my king or prince before,
New-cast into some peasant, lose its grace;
Yet's the same body with a fouler face.
If our own store must pay, that gold which was
Lent us in sterling, we must turn in brass.
Hadst thou writ less or worse, then we might lay
Something upon thy urn thou didst not say:
But thou hadst fancy's vast monopoly,
Our flock will scarce amount t' an elegy.
Yet all the legacies that fatal day
Bequeath'd thy sad executor will pay.
To late divines (by will and testament)
A paraphrase on each commandment,
In moral precepts, with a disputation
Ending the quarrels 'bout predestination.
To those that study how to spend the day,
And yet grow wise -- the ethics in a play.
To poets 'cause there is no greater curse,
Thou bequeath'dst nothing -- in thy empty purse.
To City madams, that bespeak new faces
For every play or feast -- thy looking-glasses.
And to the chambermaids, who only can
Adorn their ladies' head, and dream of man,
Th' hast left a dowry; they, till now, by stealth
Writ only members of the Commonwealth.
To heaven thy ravish'd soul (though who shall look
Will say it lives in each line of thy book);
Thy death, unnatural reliques that could die --
To earth; thy fame unto eternity;
A husband to thy widowed poetry,
Not from the Court but University;
To thy sad aunt, and now despairing mother,
Thy little orphans, and thy younger brother;
From all of which this free confession's fit:
The younger sister had the elder wit.





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