Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Thomas Randolph (1605–1635)

To Ben Jonson

I WAS not born to Helicon, nor dare

Presume to think myself a Muse’s heir.

I have no title to Parnassus Hill

Nor any acre of it by the will

Of a dead ancestor, nor could I be

Ought but a tenant unto poetry.

But thy adoption quits me of all fear,

And makes me challenge a child’s portion there.

I am akin to heroes, being thine,

And part of my alliance is divine,

Orpheus, Musæus, Homer too, beside

Thy brothers by the Roman mother’s side;

As Ovid, Virgil, and the Latin lyre

That is so like thee, Horace; the whole quire

Of poets are, by thy adoption, all

My uncles; thou hast given me power to call

Phœbus himself my grandsire; by this grant

Each sister of the Nine is made my aunt.

Go, you that reckon from a large descent

Your lineal honours, and are well content

To glory in the age of your great name,

Though on a herald’s faith you build the same:

I do not envy you, nor think you blest

Though you may bear a Gorgon on your crest

By direct line from Perseus; I will boast

No further than my father; that ’s the most

I can, or should be proud of; and I were

Unworthy his adoption, if that here

I should be dully modest.