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To a Lady.
Madam,
Recreation for ingenious head-peeces, or, A pleasant grove for their wits to walk in of epigrams 700, epitaphs 200, fancies a number, fantasticks abundance : with their addition, multiplication, and division.
About this Item
- Title
- Recreation for ingenious head-peeces, or, A pleasant grove for their wits to walk in of epigrams 700, epitaphs 200, fancies a number, fantasticks abundance : with their addition, multiplication, and division.
- Author
- Mennes, John, Sir, 1599-1671.
- Publication
- London :: Printed by M. Simmons ...,
- 1654.
- Rights/Permissions
-
To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
- Subject terms
- English wit and humor.
- Epigrams.
- Epitaphs.
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A50616.0001.001
- Cite this Item
-
"Recreation for ingenious head-peeces, or, A pleasant grove for their wits to walk in of epigrams 700, epitaphs 200, fancies a number, fantasticks abundance : with their addition, multiplication, and division." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A50616.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 16, 2024.
Pages
Should I not smother this ambitious fire,
Which actuates my verse: it would aspire
To blear your vertues, in a glimm'ring line;
And your perfections in its measures twine.
But I have check'd my fancie Muse, nor dare••
Dull Poetry attempt to scan the spheares;
Or in a cloudy rime invaile the light,
Or court the trembling Watchmen of the night;
Some vulgar vertue, or a single blaze,
Might stand in Verse; and would endure a gaze:
But when both Art, and Nature, shall agree
To summe them all in one Epitome:
When the perfections of both sexes, are
Lock'd in one female store-house; who shall dare
In an audacious rapture, to untwine
Into loose numbers, what Heaven doth enshrine,
In one rich breast? Dazled invention say,
Canst thou embowell either India,
In one poor rime? Or can thy torch-light fire,
Shew us the Sun; or any Star that's higher?
If thou wilt needs spend thy officious flame,
Doe it in admiration: but disclaime
Thy power to praise: thy senders wishes, bear,
And be the Herauld of the new-born year:
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Wish that each rising Sun, may see her more
Happy, then when he rose the morn before;
And may, when e'r he gilds the envious West,
Leave her more blest, then when he grac'd the feast;
Wish higher yet, that her felicity
May equalize her vertues: Poetry
Thou art too low; canst thou not swell a strain
May reach my thoughts: good Madam since 'tis vain,
(And yet my verse to kisse your hand presum'd)
Let it to be your sacrifice be doom'd:
And what it wants in true Poetique fire,
Let the flame adde, till so my Muse expire.