Poetry of Denham
Sir John Denham
born 1615, died 1668
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On Mr. Abraham Cowley
His Death and Burial Amongst the Ancient Poets
Old Chaucer, like the morning star,
To us discovers day from far.
His light those mists and clouds dissolv'd
Which our dark nation long involv'd;
But he, descending to the shades,
Darkness again the age invades;
Next (like Aurora) Spenser rose,
Whose purple blush the day foreshows;
The other three with his own fires
Phoebus, the poet's god, inspires:
By Shakspear's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage'S lustre Rome's outshines.
These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.
They lived to see so many days,
Till time has blasted all their bays;
But cursed be the fatal hour
That pluck'd the fairest sweetest flower
That in the Muses' graden grew,
And amongst wither's laurels threw.
Time, which made them their fame outlive,
To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.
Old mother wit and nature gave
Shakspear and Fletcher all they have:
In Spenser and in Jonson, art
Of slower nature got the start;
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happiest share;
To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own;
He melted not the ancient gold,
Nor with Ben Jonson did make bold
To plunder all the Roman stores
Of poets and of orators:
Horace his wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal, but emulate;
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear:
He not from Rome alone, but Greece,
Like Jason brought the golden fleece;
To him that language (though to none
Of th'others) as his own was known.
On a stiff gale, as Flaccus sings,
The Theban swan exteds his wings,
When through th'ethernal clouds he flies
To the same pitch our swan doth rise.
Old Pindar's heights by him are reach'd,
When on that gale his wings are stretch'd;
His fancy and his judgment such,
Each to th'other seem'd too much;
He severe judgmentgiving law,
His modest fancy kept in awe.
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