Tixall Poetry/Letters to Mr Normington
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Letters to Mr Normington.
I.
As fast as pen can fly, or inke can flowe,
No matter verse or prose, in sence or no,
To you thees broken feet are set to goe:
For though I've but a moment more to sit,
And extemporeall thoughts would aske a witt,
Yet I can write without, in spite of it.
My genious in verse of owld you know,—
A spiders weft, though small, yet lesse in show,
Who weake, would rather creepe, then fly too low.
Hence hate I so thos chymik poets' witts,
That forge a goolden verse of copper bitts,
Because tis gilt with shining epithets.
So silly glow-worms in the dark may play,
And glory in ther owne compendious day,
Til thay, with ther owne light, themselves betray.
T' invite, I grant it is enough to shew,
But such dull things as I, before we goe,
Must have our tickling on, and spurring too.
Then since bare representing is not all
To make a poeme what we perfect call,
We must be sharp too, and patheticall.
Now, since I cannot reach the latter two,
And scorne to seeke the first as much as you,
You see me write thus carelesse as I doe.
Where it a line, or half a line you see
Worth looking o're without impatiency,
Pray send it, or a coppy, back to me.
As fast as pen can fly, or inke can flowe,
No matter verse or prose, in sence or no,
To you thees broken feet are set to goe:
For though I've but a moment more to sit,
And extemporeall thoughts would aske a witt,
Yet I can write without, in spite of it.
My genious in verse of owld you know,—
A spiders weft, though small, yet lesse in show,
Who weake, would rather creepe, then fly too low.
Hence hate I so thos chymik poets' witts,
That forge a goolden verse of copper bitts,
Because tis gilt with shining epithets.
So silly glow-worms in the dark may play,
And glory in ther owne compendious day,
Til thay, with ther owne light, themselves betray.
T' invite, I grant it is enough to shew,
But such dull things as I, before we goe,
Must have our tickling on, and spurring too.
Then since bare representing is not all
To make a poeme what we perfect call,
We must be sharp too, and patheticall.
Now, since I cannot reach the latter two,
And scorne to seeke the first as much as you,
You see me write thus carelesse as I doe.
Where it a line, or half a line you see
Worth looking o're without impatiency,
Pray send it, or a coppy, back to me.
II.
I'm mightily now taken with this way,
To save art, labor, and let nature play,
And write before I have a word to say:
Whither't be propper lazynesse in fine,
Or else despare to pitch a lute lyke thyne,
Makes me scrape boldly this gittar of myne.
Had I, lyke Doctor Gibbs, some serious trade,
It weire excuse sufficient to perswade
That rime was all the play and sport I had.
Yet made I but of verse each day a score
Lyke his, I'd sweare he playd as much, and more,
That sweats to hold a plow, or tugge an oare.
Indeed, I ever scorn'd laborious toy es,
Lyke songs here stray n'd out of our squealing boy es,
While spheires and angells sing and make no noyse.
So leaden-fingerd organists doe tire
Ther joints, to make the clattering kayes sownd higher
In verginalls, an octave then the wyre.
While Young's, or Butler's hands, one dancing went,
Lyke graces, ore the fretts, one shooting sent
A sound abstracted from all instrument;
Methought they play'd upon my hartstrings too,
And shot lyke Cupids in Apollos bow,
Such learned sweets through every veine did flow.
Such heaven-lyke musique tempers noblest rime,
To moove still smoothly round, and never clime,
Not barely keeping, but creating tyme.
And thus our soft-pend Crashaw writes, above
Thees toyling witts as much, in what should moove,
As in the choice, and obiect of his love.
And heare you see, sir, in a carelesse looke,
I know a season'd verse, but would be tooke
More for a skilfull carver then a cooke.
Hence have I chose this scribbling liberty,
Where every line's a verse, in spight of me,
Your humble servant, Edward Thimelby.
To save art, labor, and let nature play,
And write before I have a word to say:
Whither't be propper lazynesse in fine,
Or else despare to pitch a lute lyke thyne,
Makes me scrape boldly this gittar of myne.
Had I, lyke Doctor Gibbs, some serious trade,
It weire excuse sufficient to perswade
That rime was all the play and sport I had.
Yet made I but of verse each day a score
Lyke his, I'd sweare he playd as much, and more,
That sweats to hold a plow, or tugge an oare.
Indeed, I ever scorn'd laborious toy es,
Lyke songs here stray n'd out of our squealing boy es,
While spheires and angells sing and make no noyse.
So leaden-fingerd organists doe tire
Ther joints, to make the clattering kayes sownd higher
In verginalls, an octave then the wyre.
While Young's, or Butler's hands, one dancing went,
Lyke graces, ore the fretts, one shooting sent
A sound abstracted from all instrument;
Methought they play'd upon my hartstrings too,
And shot lyke Cupids in Apollos bow,
Such learned sweets through every veine did flow.
Such heaven-lyke musique tempers noblest rime,
To moove still smoothly round, and never clime,
Not barely keeping, but creating tyme.
And thus our soft-pend Crashaw writes, above
Thees toyling witts as much, in what should moove,
As in the choice, and obiect of his love.
And heare you see, sir, in a carelesse looke,
I know a season'd verse, but would be tooke
More for a skilfull carver then a cooke.
Hence have I chose this scribbling liberty,
Where every line's a verse, in spight of me,
Your humble servant, Edward Thimelby.
III.
I'm yet a libertin in verse, and write
Both what the spirit and the flesh indite,
Nor can be yet our Crashaws convertite.
Methinkes your misticall poetik straine,
Does not so sanctify a poet's veine,
As make divinity itself prophaine.
Yet still except we prophets, saints, and kings;
Who hears a heaven's voice, of heaven sings,
Nor fears he precipices that has wings.
But I should lend the sun an arrow's pace,
And borrow nature's ragges to furnish grace,
Or pick up flowers to deck an angell's face.
As the poore whining lover, thinking shame
T' invoke his Lucy by a Christian name,
Miscalles her little duck, or pretty lambe.
With words impure to prayse a dyety,
Weire but a moderne kind of blasphemy,
As ws, whos greatest sinnes in sanctity.
Thay who with pocky mouthes the saints dare woo,
Nor take ther sacred names, as others doe,
Vainely, and foolishly, but foulely too.
You know temtation once brought me too in,
To faigne a teare or two of Magdalen,
But she, a sinner once, forgave the sin.
And yet Medea lent me not a moane,
Nor Ariadne yet a single grone,
Nor Niobe a brest, or foot of stone.
A rapture, alter, sacrifice, a vowe,
A relique, extacye, words baudy now,
Our fathers could for harmeles termes alow.
But now the very spring of poesy
Is poysond quite, and who would draigne it dry,
Must be a better Hollander then I.
A better Hercules than I, alasse,
For such a lake, a better Boniface,
To scoure of such a Pantheon the brasse.
Had one no poet, but a painter bene
Of naked truth, weir't not a lesser sinne
To call it Venus, then a Catherin?
And, if to faigne be all in poetry,
For my part, I shall rather cheuse to me
Poetik sin, then faigned sanctity.
Both what the spirit and the flesh indite,
Nor can be yet our Crashaws convertite.
Methinkes your misticall poetik straine,
Does not so sanctify a poet's veine,
As make divinity itself prophaine.
Yet still except we prophets, saints, and kings;
Who hears a heaven's voice, of heaven sings,
Nor fears he precipices that has wings.
But I should lend the sun an arrow's pace,
And borrow nature's ragges to furnish grace,
Or pick up flowers to deck an angell's face.
As the poore whining lover, thinking shame
T' invoke his Lucy by a Christian name,
Miscalles her little duck, or pretty lambe.
With words impure to prayse a dyety,
Weire but a moderne kind of blasphemy,
As ws, whos greatest sinnes in sanctity.
Thay who with pocky mouthes the saints dare woo,
Nor take ther sacred names, as others doe,
Vainely, and foolishly, but foulely too.
You know temtation once brought me too in,
To faigne a teare or two of Magdalen,
But she, a sinner once, forgave the sin.
And yet Medea lent me not a moane,
Nor Ariadne yet a single grone,
Nor Niobe a brest, or foot of stone.
A rapture, alter, sacrifice, a vowe,
A relique, extacye, words baudy now,
Our fathers could for harmeles termes alow.
But now the very spring of poesy
Is poysond quite, and who would draigne it dry,
Must be a better Hollander then I.
A better Hercules than I, alasse,
For such a lake, a better Boniface,
To scoure of such a Pantheon the brasse.
Had one no poet, but a painter bene
Of naked truth, weir't not a lesser sinne
To call it Venus, then a Catherin?
And, if to faigne be all in poetry,
For my part, I shall rather cheuse to me
Poetik sin, then faigned sanctity.
8