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 |  |
Dedicated To the Sensible, Reasonable, Affable, Amiable, Acceptable, minded, Honourable, in VVit, Iudgement, and Vnderstanding Able, Robert Rugge Gentleman, Reare Adelantado of the Holy Iland, the Fairne, and the Staples, on the Coast of Northumbria.
No hanging Tap'strie, Quilt, or Couerlet,This dedication of my wit could get:
No Mattresse, Blanket, Sheet, or Featherbed,
Could haue these labours of my working head:
My inclination still hath lou'd a Rugge:
Which makes my thankefull Muse thus bold to be,
To consecrate this worthlesse worth to thee:
Thou that within those happy Iles doest bide,
Which Neptunes waues doe from our Land diuide,
Where in the Holy Iland stands a Fort
That can defend, and iniuries retort:
That doth command a goodly Hauen nigh,
Wherein a hundred ships may safely lye:
Thou in the Fairne and Staples bearst such sway,
That all the dwellers there doe thee obey:
Where Fowle are all thy faire inhabitants,
Where thou (Commander of the Cormorants)
Grand Gouernour of Guls, of Geese and Ganders,
O'r whom thou art none of the least Commanders:
Whereas sometimes thou canst not stirre thy legs,
But thou must tread on tributary egs:
For they like honest, true, plaine-dealing folkes,
Pay thee the custome of their whites and yolkes,
Which to thy friends oft-times transported be,
As late thou sentst a barrell-full to me:
And in requitall to so good a friend,
This Prison, and this Hanging here I send.
Because within the Fairne and Staples too,
The dwellers doe as they doe please to doe
Their pride and lust, their stealing and their treason,
Is all imputed to their want of reason:
I therefore haue made bold to send thee this,
To shew them what a Iayle and Hanging is.
Thou hast from Hermes suck'd the Quintessence
Of quicke Inuention, and of Eloquence:
And thou so well doest loue good wittie Bookes,
That makes thee like Apollo in thy lookes:
For nature hath thy visage so much grac'd,
That there's the ensigne of true friendship plac'd.
A chaulkie face, that's like a pewter spoone,
Or buttermilke, or greene cheese, or the moone,
Are either such as kill themselues with care,
Or hide-bound miserable wretches are.
Giue me the man, whose colour and prospect,
Like Titan when it doth on gold reflect;
And if his purse be equall to his will,
Hee'l then be frolicke, free, and iouiall still:
And such a one (my worthy friend) art thou,
To whom I dedicate this Pamphlet now;
And I implore the Heau'ns to proue so kinde,
To keepe thy state according to thy minde.
Reader, you must note, that this Gentleman did send me from the Fairne Iland, a barrell of Gulls and Cormorant egges, by the eating of which, I haue attained to the vnderstanding of many words which our Gulls and Cormorants doe speaks here about London.
The Fairne Iland standing 7. miles from the Holy Iland into the Sea, the Holy Iland stands seuen miles from Barwicke. In the Fairne all sorts of Sea-fowle breed in such abundance, as you cannot step but vpon Egges or Fowle: They misse not to lay on Saint Markes day, and a fortnight after Lammas there is none to be seene. The Staple Ilands belong to the Fairne, and stand two miles from it into the Sea, where the Fowle vpon the rockes (like pinacles) are so thicke both vpon the sides, and vpon the tops, and with such curiosity build their nests, as the wit of man cannot lay that egge in his place againe that is once taken vp, to abide in the same place. Vpon their flight the Sea is couered for halfe a mile, and the heauens aboue head obscured for the present.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |