Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden
Thomas Randolph (16051635)To Ben Jonson
I
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.