Thomas Flatman (1637-1688). A Wish. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1910. The Book of Restoration Verse

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

A Wish

By Thomas Flatman (1637–1688)


NOT to the hills where cedars move
Their cloudy heads; not to the grove
Of myrtles in th’ Elysian shade,
Nor Tempe which the poets made,
Not on the spicy mountains play,	5
Or travel to Arabia,
I aim not at the careful throne
Which Fortune’s darlings sit upon:
No, no, the best this fickle world can give
Has but a little, little time to live.	10

But let me soar, O let me fly
Beyond poor earth’s benighted eye,
Beyond the pitch swift eagles tower,
Beyond the reach of human power,
Above the clouds, above the way	15
Whence the sun darts his piercing ray,
O let me tread those courts that are
So bright, so pure, so blest, so fair,
As neither thou nor I must ever know
On earth: ’tis thither, thither would I go.	20