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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• A Zong Of Harvest Hwome by William Barnes by William Barnes
• A Wife A-Praïs’d by William Barnes by William Barnes
• A-Haulen O’ The Corn by William Barnes by William Barnes
• A Good Father by William Barnes by William Barnes
• A Bit O’ Fun by William Barnes by William Barnes
• Invictus by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Barmaid by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Ballade of Dead Actors by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Youth And Beauty by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Heel & Toe To The End by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• from Book I, Paterson by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Flowers By The Sea by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Dedication For A Plot Of Ground by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Complete Destruction by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Complaint by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Children’s Games by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Blizzard by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Berket And The Stars by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams
• Aux Imagistes by William Carlos Williams by William Carlos Williams

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