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English Minstrelsy.

VOL. I.

A

ENGLISH MINSTRELSY.

ON MODERN POETRY.

I.

-PHINEAS FLETCHER

TELL

ELL me, ye muses, what our father-ages

Have left succeeding times to play upon : What now remains unthought on by those sages, Where a new muse may try her pinion?

What lightning heroes, like great Peleus' heir, (Darting his beams through our hard frozen air,) May stir up gentle heat, and virtue's wane repair?

Who knows not Jason? or bold Tiphys' hand,
That durst unite what nature's self would part?

He makes isles continent, and all one land;

O'er seas, as earth, he march'd with dangerous art:

10

He rides the white-mouth'd waves, and scorneth all

Those thousand deaths wide gaping for his fall: He death defies, fenced with a thin, low, wooden wall.

Who has not often read Troy's twice sung fires,
And at the second time twice better sung?

Who has not heard th' Arcadian shepherd's quires,
Which now have gladly changed their native tongue;
And sitting by slow Mincius, sport their fill,

With sweeter voice and never equal❜d skill, Chanting their amorous lays unto a Roman quill?

And thou, choice wit, love's scholar, and love's master,
Art known to all, where love himself is known:
Whether thou bid'st Ulysses hie him faster,
Or dost thy fault and distant exile moan;
Who has not seen upon the mourning stage,
Dire Atreus' feast, and wrong'd Medea's rage,
Marching in tragic state, and buskin'd equipage?

And now of late th' Italian fisher swain

Sits on the shore to watch his trembling line,
Line 18th, Th' Italian fisher—Saunazar.

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