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As it malign'd the Rule which mighty Neptune bare,
Whose Fells to that grim god, most sterne and
dreadfull are,
With Hills whose hanging browes, with Rockes about are
bound,
Whose weighty feet stand fixt in that black beachy
ground,
Whereas those scattered trees, which naturally partake,
The fatnesse of the soyle (in many a slimy Lake,
Their roots so deeply sok'd) send from their stocky
bough,
A soft and sappy Gum, from which those Tree-geese
grow,
Call'd Barnacles by us, which like a Jelly first
To the beholder seeme, then by the fluxture nurst,
Still great and greater thrive, untill you well may see
Them turn'd to perfect Fowles, when dropping from the
tree
Into the Meery Pond, which under them doth lye,
Waxe ripe, and taking wing, away in flocks doe flye;
Which well our Ancients did among our Wonders place:
Besides by her strong Scite, she doth receave this grace,
Before her neighbouring Tracts, (which Fournesse well
may vaunt)
That when the Saxons here their forces first did
plant,
And from the Inner-land the ancient Britains
drave,
To their distrest estate it no lesse succour gave,
Then the trans-Severn'd Hills, which their old stocke yet
stores,
Which now we call the Welsh, or the Cornubian
Shores,
What Countrey lets ye see those soyles within her Seat,
But shee in little hath, what it can shew in great.
As first without her selfe at Sea to make her strong,
(Yet how soe'r expos'd, doth still to her belong)
And fence her furthest poynt, from that rough
Neptunes rage,
The Isle of Walney lyes, whose longitude doth
swage
His fury when his waves, on Furnesse seeme to
warre,
Whose crooked back is arm'd with many a rugged [star]
scarre
Against his boystrous shocks, which this defensive Isle
Of Walney still assayle, that shee doth scorne the
while,
Which to assist her hath the Pyle of Fouldra set,
And Fulney at her backe, a pretty Insuley,
Which all their forces bend, their Furnesse safe to
keep:
But to his inner earth, divert we from the deepe,
Where those two mightie Meres, out-stretcht in length do
wander,
The lesser Thurstan nam'd, the famouser
Wynander,
So bounded with her Rocks, as Nature would descry,
By her how those great Seas Mediterranean lye.
To Sea-ward then she hath her sundry Sands agen,
As that of Dudden first, then Levin, lastly
Ken,
Of three bright Naiades nam'd, as Dudden on
the West,
That Cumberland cuts off from this Shire, doth
invest
Those Sands with her proud Style, when Levin from the
Fells,
Besides her naturall source, with the abundance swells,
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