 | The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet |  |
100
[13] To Sir JOHN HENNINGHAM.
To praise your lon[g]liv'd, or long honord name,A wrong were to your vertues (Henningham)
Let those which can affoord nought else that's good,
Extoll the borrow'd honors of their blood.
Your Gentrie you may justly call your owne,
Although you bought it not, nor from furd-gowne,
It tooke; nor in Tobacco papers wrapt;
It brought from Spaine; nor with a white Coyfe capt
It chatting found in that great guiltie hall,
Where Cerberus for Golden soppes doth baule.
But from your honord vertues the same flowes,
And this true Gentrie is: the rest are showes.
| The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet | |