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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 | All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet |  |
Thus Monsieur Coriat, at your kind request,
My recantation here I haue exprest,
And in my Commentaries haue bin bold
To write of all that haue your fame inrol'd,
I meane of such, my wit can vnderstand,
That speake the language of the Britaine land.
But for the Latine, French, the Greeke, or Spanish,
Italian, or the Welsh, from them I vanish.
I on these tongues by no meanes can comment,
For they are out of my dull Element.
Consider with your selfe, good Sir, I pray,
Who hath bin bolder with you, I, or they?
If I, I vow to make you satisfaction,
Either in words, or pen, or manly action:
I haue bin bold to descant on each iest,
Yet from the Text I nothing wrong did wrest:
My lines may be compared to the Thames,
Whose gliding current, and whose glassie streames,
On which if men doe looke, as in a glasse,
They may perceiue an asse to be an asse,
An owle an owle, a man to be a man:
And thou, thou famous great Odcombian,
Shalt see thy selfe descypherd out so plaine,
Thou shalt haue cause to thanke me for my paine.
But holla, holla, whither runnes my pen?
I yet haue descanted what other men
Haue wrote before: but now I thinke it fit
To adde additions of mine owne to it.
I yet haue champ'd what better writers chaw'd,
And now my Muse incites me to applaud
Thy worth, thy fortune, and thy high desart,
That all the world may take thee Asse thou art.
And now to sing thy glory I begin,
Thy worthy welcome vnto Bossoms Inne.
My recantation here I haue exprest,
And in my Commentaries haue bin bold
To write of all that haue your fame inrol'd,
78
That speake the language of the Britaine land.
But for the Latine, French, the Greeke, or Spanish,
Italian, or the Welsh, from them I vanish.
I on these tongues by no meanes can comment,
For they are out of my dull Element.
Consider with your selfe, good Sir, I pray,
Who hath bin bolder with you, I, or they?
If I, I vow to make you satisfaction,
Either in words, or pen, or manly action:
I haue bin bold to descant on each iest,
Yet from the Text I nothing wrong did wrest:
My lines may be compared to the Thames,
Whose gliding current, and whose glassie streames,
On which if men doe looke, as in a glasse,
They may perceiue an asse to be an asse,
An owle an owle, a man to be a man:
And thou, thou famous great Odcombian,
Shalt see thy selfe descypherd out so plaine,
Thou shalt haue cause to thanke me for my paine.
But holla, holla, whither runnes my pen?
I yet haue descanted what other men
Haue wrote before: but now I thinke it fit
To adde additions of mine owne to it.
I yet haue champ'd what better writers chaw'd,
And now my Muse incites me to applaud
Thy worth, thy fortune, and thy high desart,
That all the world may take thee Asse thou art.
And now to sing thy glory I begin,
Thy worthy welcome vnto Bossoms Inne.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |