Dedication
TO
G. THORN DRURY
Epigraph
Some vanity, I know, is in this strain,
But men may be with reason sometimes vain:
Shall he alone who does a worthy deed
Not pay himself, if so he will, that meed
Of self-applause from which all virtues spring,—
Without it who would do a noble thing?
So let the world arraign me as it will,
It cannot now my satisfaction chill,
Since you, dear friend! and all whose praise I prize,
Look on my labours with approving eyes.
This book to you ’tis fit I dedicate
Since you, my friend, so well appreciate—
Nay, rather love, our poets of old time,
Responding ever to their notes sublime:
Who, though you treasure most those sons of light,
Whose radiance glitters on the brow of night,
Do not despise the faintest twinkling star
That shines where Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton are:
Who can, like Lamb, a brilliant flower descry
Where all seems sterile to the common eye,
Who, like Lamb, too, to no strait bounds confined,
Have room for all fair fancies in your mind,
And, with a taste that never errs, discover
Faults like a censor, beauties like a lover.
Here is another offering for your store,
Though not arrayed in that brown garb of yore
Which, with quaint type and paper stained with age,
Were for the Spirit of our Poet-Sage
A fitter dwelling, more becoming page.
I could not give him these, and so have sought
To match his noble and exalted thought
With the best raiment that our time affords
Of comely type, fine paper, seemly boards,
Which, centuries hence, to our children’s children’s eyes
May have an antique look which they shall prize,
When Traherne’s name, familiar to their ears,
Shall hold assured a place among his peers.