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And not write SATYRS: Or else, so to write
That scape thou mayst, the clutches of Despight.
For, through such Woods, and Rivers, trips
thy MUSE,
As, will or loose, or drowne him, that pursues.
Had my Invention (which I know too weake)
Enabled been, so brave a Flight to make;
(Should my unlucky Penn have overgone
So many a Province, and so many a Towne)
Though I to no mans wrong had gone astray,
I had been pounded on the Kings hye way.
But thou hast better Fortune, and hast chose
So brave a PATRON, that thou canst not lose
By this Adventure. For, in Him, survives
His Brother HENRIE'S Virtues: and hee lives
To be that Comfort to thy MUSE, which Hee
Had nobly (e're his death) begun to be.
Yet, overmuch presume not, that these Times,
Will therfore value thy Heroic Rymes,
According to their Merit. For, although,
Hee, and some fewe, the worth of them shall know:
This is their FATE. (And some unborne, will
say,
I spake the Truth; what e're men thinke to Day)
As we our deare Friends Pictures, when they dye.
Those that succeed us, DRAYTONS Name shall
love,
And, so much to this laborious PEECE
approove;
That such as write heerafter, shall to trim
Their new Inverntions, pluck it limbe from
limbe.
And our Great-Grandsonnes childrens-children may,
(Yea shall) as in a Glasse, this ISLE
survay,
As we now see it: And as those did to,
Who lived many hundred yeares agoe.
For, when the Seas shall eat away the Shore,
Great Woods spring up, where Planies were
heretofore;
High Mountaines leveld with low Vallyes
lye;
And Rivers runne where now the ground is
drie:
This POEME shall grow famous, And declare
What old-Things stood, where new- Things
shall appeare.
And hereunto his NAME subscribeth He,
Who shall by this PRAEDICTION, live with Thee.
George Wither.
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An Acrosticke Sonnet upon his Name.
M Ust Albion thus be Stellified by thee,
I n her full pompe, that her the world may praise,
C heerefull, Brave Isle, ye shall live to see
H im thus to descke, and crowne thy Front with
Bayes,
A nd shall not I in Zeale, and Merit
too
E xpresse to thee my Joy, my Thankes to
him;
L esse (sure) then this I amy not, will not doe.
D rayton, sith still Parnassus thou doest
clime,
R ight like thy selfe, whose Heaven-inspired Muse,
A s doth the Phenix still her selfe
renewing,
Y ee into other the like life infuse;
T hou his rich Subject, he thy Fame
pursuing.
O hadtst thou lov'd him, as hee thee hath done,
N o Land such Honor, (to all times) had wonne.
JOHN REYNOLDS.
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