Tixall Poetry/Appendix
Appendix.
Extracts from the Works of Michael Drayton.
(1.)
To my Worthy and Honoured Friend,
Maister Walter Aston.
(1598.)
Though without suspition of flatterie I might in more ample and freer tearmes, intymate my affection unto you, yet having so sensible a taste of your generous and noble disposition, which, without this habit of ceremony can estimate my love; I will rather affect brevitie, though it shoulde seeme my fault, then by my tedious complement, to trouble mine owne opinion settled in your judgment and discretion. I make you the patron of this Epistle of the Black Prince, which I pray you accept, till more easier houres may offer up from me something more worthy of your view, and my travell.
(2.)
THE BARONS WARS
In the Raigne of Edward the Second.
With England’s
Heroicall Epistles.
1603.
To the Worthy and his most Honored Friend,
Ma. Walter Aston.
I will not strive m’ invention to inforce,
With needless words your eyes to entertaine :
T’ observe the formall ordinarie course,
That every one so vulgarly doth faine.
Our interchanged and deliberate choice,
Is with more firme and true election sorted,
Than stands in eensure of the common voyce,
That with light humor fondly is transported.
Nor take I patterne of another’s praise,
But what my pen can constantly avowe ;
Nor walke more publique, nor obscurer waies,
Than vertue bids, and judgement will alow.
So shall my love, and best endeavours serve you,
And still shall studie, still so to deserve you.
(3.)
The
Ovvle,
By Michaell Drayton,
Esquire.
Noctuas Athenas.
Prudens
non
loquax.
1604.
To
The Worthy,
And my most esteemed Patron,
Sir VValter Aston,
Knight of the
Honourable Order of the Bath.[1]
For the shrill trumpet and sterne tragick sounds
Objects out-ragious and so full of feare:
Our pen late steep'd in English Barons wounds,
Sent war-like accents to your tune-full eare.
Our active Muse to gentler morals dight;
Her slight conceites in humbled tunes doth sing;
And with the bird (regardlesse of the light)
Slowely doth move her late high-mounting wing.
The wreathe is Iuye that ingirts our browes,
Where-in this night's-bird harboreth all the day;
We dare not looke at other crowning boughes,
But leave the laurell unto them that may.
Lowe as the earth, though our invention move:
High yet as heaven (to you) our spotles love.
(4.)
To the Honour of my Noble Patron,
Sir Walter Aston;
As other my poems, so I consecrate these my pastoral posies.
(5.)
Moses in a Map of His Miracles.
1604.
To My Esteemed Patron, Sir Walter Aston,
Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bathe.
Although our sundry, (yet our sacred) flames,
Worke divers and as contrarie effects,[2]
Yet than your owne, we seeke not other names,
Nor stranger arches our free muse erects.
Though limitlesse be naturally our love,
We can her powers officiously confine;
We can instruct her orderly to move,
And keepe the compassé wisely we assigne:
To take our faire leave, (till that ampler times
Some glorious object strongly may beget)
We make you tender of these hallowed rimes,
Tile vertuous payment of a worthier debt.
Till to our names that monument we reare
That steele and marble unto dust shall weare.
To this poem are prefixed some commendatory verses, according to the fashion of those times, and among them are the following:
To the Honourable Knight,
Sir Walter Aston.
From humble sheepcoates, to Love's bow and fires,
Thence to the armes of kings, and grieved peeres;[3]
Now to the great Jehovah's acts aspires,
Faire sir, your poet's pen; your noblesse cheeres
His mounting rouse; and with so worthy hand
Applaudes her flight, that nothing she will leave
Above the top, whereon she makes her stand.
So high bright honour learned spirits can heave!
Such lustre lends the poet's polisht verse
Unto nobility, that after-times
Shall thinke their patron's vertues they rehearse,
When vertuous men they caracter in rimes.
You raise his thoughts with full desire of fame;
And amongst heroes he enroles your name.
(6.)
From the Preface to Polyolbion
1612.
Whatever is herein that tastes of a free spirit, I thankfully confesse it to proceed from the continual bounty of my truly noble friend, Sir Walter Aston; which hath given me the best of those houres, whose leasure hath effected this which I now publish.
(7.)
To the Noble
Sir Walter Aston,
Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath,
Baronet,
And of His Majesties Privi Chamber.[4]
1619.
These my few poems, the workes of that maiden reigne, in the spring of our acquaintance, as it pleased you then to patronize, as I singly set them forth; so now collected into this small volume, I make the best present that my poore abilitie is able to tender you. Howsoever they may appeare to these more prodigious daies I know not; but thus much I will say to mine owne disadvantage, (should they hap to be unwelcome to these times) that they were the fruit of that muse-nursing season, before this frosty boreas, (I meane the world's coldnesse) had nipt our flowrie Tempe, that with his pestilentiall fogs is like utterly to poyson the Pierean spring, do not Apollo mightily protect it: before I say hell had sent up her blacke furies, that in every corner breathe their venome in the face of cleere poesie: and, but that, as shee is divine, her beauties bee immortal!, they had before this blasted her sweetnesse, and made her as ugly to the world, as they themselves are in the eies of true judgement and vertue. Worthy Sir, my wish is, that as long as these poems can live, they may remaine as a monument by mee raised to your honour, whose continuance I wish, with as much happinesse to your family as can be desired,
The End.
Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.
- ↑ Sir W. Aston was made a knight of the Bath, soon after his coming of age, at the coronation of King James I. in 1603; on which occasion Drayton attended him as one of his squires.
- ↑ I am quite at a lose to understand the meaning of these two lines. This dedication is not in Anderson's, or Chalmers's edition of the British Poets.
- ↑ That is, from "Pasterals" to "Heroical Epistles," and thence to the "Barons' Wan."
- ↑ This is not in Anderson's or Chalmers's edition.