Classic Poem

The Preface of L. Blundeston.

The senses dull of my appalled muse,
Forwearied with the travail of my brain
In scanning of the argued books diffuse,
And dark for me the glimmering sight to gain,
Debated long what exercise to use,
To file the edgeless parts of wit again,
To cleanse the head from sleepy humours' slime,
To rouse the heart from drowsy dreams in time.

The mind desires to break from thoughtful den
And time requires the painted fields to view.
The eye procures to please the fancy then
With fieldish sights of divers colours new.
The smelling likes the savour sweet of them;
The ear agrees the pleasant lay anew
Of birds to hear. Thus these do all contrive
With this disport the spirits to revive.

But Fancy then, by search of self-device,
Renouncing thus to spend the pleasant May
So vainly out with sport of fruitless price,
Found out at length this practice for my play,
To pen in verse the toys of her device
To pass this time of Pentecost away;
Whose idle days she willed me thus to spend
And publish forth her doings in the end.

Quod Reason, " No," and brake, her tale begun,
" Wilt thou presume, like Bayard blind, to press
" Into the throng of all the lookers-on,
" Whose viewing eyes will weigh thy wisdom less
" To see the thread of all thy works ill-spun
" Drawn out at length unto the common guess,
" Than if thou shouldst keep to thyself thy clew
" Where none thy works besides thyself may view."

With this rose up from out her seat behind
Dame Memory, and Reason thus besought:
" Since, Lady, chief of us thou art assigned
" To rule and temper all my secret thought
" And to restrain affections' fancy blind,
" Let me entreat, if I may pierce thee ought,
" For to present a solace very fit
" Our senses dull with changed muse to whet.

" Lo here the eye a paper bunch doth see
" Of filed work of Googe's flowing head,
" Left here behind, when hence he passed from me,
" In all the storms that winter blasts bespread,
" Through swelling seas and lofty mountains high
" Of Pyrenei the paths unknown to tread.
" Whose great good will I keep, and in his place
" His verses crave to represent his face.

" Unfold the truss therefore, and if the Muse
" Be sotted so with this grave study past
" In so short space, or if we seek to choose
" To print our acts in safety at the last.
" Cease of a while this labour and peruse
" These papers left of such delighting taste,
" And put in print these works of worthy skill.
" So shall we show the fruits of our good will."

This Fancy liked, imagining aright
Of her own joy in hearing of his verse
And pleasant style most pithily indite,
Whose fame forth blown, his deeds could well rehearse.
But for to paint my name in open sight
With others' stuff, this would she fain reverse,
And thinks I should in others' plumes so show
Myself, to be a second Aesop's crow.

But after, when the eye had viewed each line
That Googe had penned and left behind with me,
When Memory could all the effect resign
To Reason's skill to weigh them as they lie
With long rehearse of tried faith by time,
Then Fancy soon her pride began to ply,
And all received much pleasure to the mind,
More profit far than Fancy had assigned.

And Fancy thus herself with blushing face,
Condemned by Dame Reason's doom divine
To see th'alluring style, the comely grace,
The sappy sense of this his passing rhyme,
So far surmounting her invention base,
And hearing of his friendliness in fine,
Which Memory her storehouse held full fast,
Allowed well their judgements at the last.

Since every sense did wonted strength renew, —
The blood congealed, recoursed to his place;
The wits benumbed brought to their proper cue;
The heart oppressed with old delighting grace
Unburdened now and puffed with pleasure new
By taking of this book the viewing gaze, —
They all at once Goodwill now called upon
To wrest herself to quite these works anon.

Thus pushed I forth straight to the printer's hand
These Eclogues, Sonnets, Epitaphs of men,
Unto the reader's eyes for to be scanned,
With praises such as is due unto them;
Who absent now their Master may commend
And feed his fame whatsoever faileth him.
Give Googe therefore his own deserved fame;
Give Blundeston leave to wish well to his name.