An Answer To A Copy Of Verses Sent Me To Jersey

As to a northern people (whom the sun

Uses just as the Romish church has done

Her prophane laity, and does assign

Bread only both to serve for bread and wine)

A rich Canary fleet welcome arrives;

Such comfort to us here your letter gives,

Fraught with brisk racy verses; in which we

The soil from whence they came, taste, smell, and see:

Such is your present to us; for you must know,

Sir, that verse does not in this island grow,

No more than sack; one lately did not fear

(Without the Muses’ leave) to plant it here;

But it produc’d such base, rough, crabbed, hedge-

Rhymes, as ev’n set the hearers’ ears on edge:

Written by – – Esquire, the

Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three.

Brave Jersey Muse! and he’s for this high style

Call’d to this day the Homer of the Isle.

Alas! to men here no words less hard be

To rhyme with, than * Mount Orgueil is to me;

Mount Orgueil! which, in scorn o’ th’ Muses’ law,

With no yoke-fellow word will deign to draw.

Stubborn Mount Orgueil! ‘t is a work to make it

Come into rhyme, more hard than ‘t were to take it.

Alas! to bring your tropes and figures here,

Strange as to bring camels and elephants were;

And metaphor is so unknown a thing,

‘T would need the preface of “God save the King.”

Yet this I’ll say, for th’ honour of the place,

That, by God’s extraordinary grace

(Which shows the people have judgment, if not wit)

The land is undefil’d with Clinches yet;

Which, in my poor opinion, I confess,

Is a most singular blessing, and no less

Than Ireland’s wanting spiders. And, so far

From th’ actual sin of bombast too they are,

(That other crying sin o’ th’ English Muse)

That even Satan himself can accuse

None here (no not so much as the divines)

For th’ motus primò primi to strong lines.

Well, since the soil then does not naturally bear

Verse, who (a devil) should import it here?

For that to me would seem as strange a thing

As who did first wild beasts into islands bring;

Unless you think that it might taken be

As Green did Gondibert, in a prize at sea:

But that’s a fortune falls not every day;

‘Tis true Green was made by it; for they say

The parliament did a noble bounty do,

And gave him the whole prize, their tenths and fifteens too.

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• In Commendation Of Musick by William Strode by William Strode
• Her Epitaph by William Strode by William Strode
• For A Gentleman, Who, Kissinge His Friend At His Departure Left A Signe Of Blood On Her by William Strode by William Strode
• Epitaph On Mr. Bridgeman by William Strode by William Strode
• Consolatorium, Ad Parentes by William Strode by William Strode
• Chloris in the Snow by William Strode by William Strode
• Anthem For Good Fryday by William Strode by William Strode
• An Epitaph On Sr John Walter, Lord Cheife Baron by William Strode by William Strode
• An Epitaph On Mr. Fishborne The Great London Benefactor, And His Executor by William Strode by William Strode
• An Eare-Stringe by William Strode by William Strode
• An Antheme by William Strode by William Strode
• A Watch-String by William Strode by William Strode
• A Watch Sent Home To Mrs. Eliz: King, Wrapt In Theis Verses by William Strode by William Strode
• A Translation Of The Nightingale Out Of Strada by William Strode by William Strode
• A Superscription On Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, Sent For A Token by William Strode by William Strode
• A Strange Gentlewoman Passing By His Window by William Strode by William Strode
• A Song On The Baths by William Strode by William Strode
• A Song On A Sigh by William Strode by William Strode
• A Riddle: On A Kiss by William Strode by William Strode
• A Purse-String by William Strode by William Strode

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