All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author [i.e. John Taylor]: With sundry new Additions, corrected, reuised, and newly Imprinted |
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To the Reader.
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 | All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet |  |
35
To the Reader.
My hearty condemnations I send forthVnto a crue of Rascals nothing worth,
(Yet in some sort I wrong their high reputes:
Some of them are worth hanging for their sutes)
Such as (to pay debts) haue the meanes, not mindes,
Whose words, and bonds, are constant as the winds,
Such as thinke satisfaction is a sinne,
And he most vertuous that's in debt most in,
Such, for whose sakes, (to my apparent losse)
To Germany, I twice the Seas did crosse,
To Scotland all on foot, and backe from thence,
Not any Coyne about me for expence,
And with a Rotten weake Browne paper Boate,
To Quinborough, from London I did floate:
Next to Bohemia, o'r the raging Maine,
And troublous lands, I went and came againe.
Next, with a Wherry, I to Yorke did Ferry,
Which I did finde a voyage very merry.
And lastly, late I made a desperate Iaunt,
From Famous London, (somtimes Troynouant)
To Salisbury, through many a bitter blast,
I, Rockes, and Sands, and foaming Billowes past,
That in ten thousand mouthes, the City round,
The lying, flying newes was, I was drown'd
But I may see them hang'd before that day,
Who are my Debtors, can, and will not pay:
These toylesome passages I vndertooke,
And gaue out Coyne, and many a hundred Booke,
Which these base Mungrels tooke, and promist me
To giue me fiue for one, some foure, some three:
But now these Hounds, no other pay affords,
Then shifting, scornefull lookes, and scuruy words;
And sure I thinke, if I should harrow Hell,
VVhere Diuels, and cursed Reprobates do dwell,
I might finde many there, that are their betters,
And haue more conscience, then my wicked debters.
Thus to my seuen-fold troope of friends and foes,
My thankes, and angry Muse, thus onward goes.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |