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 |  |
Prologue to the Reader.
Good gentle Reader, if I doe transgresse,I know you know, that I did ne're professe,
Vntill this time in Print to be a Poet:
And now to exercise my wits I show it.
View but the intrals of this little booke,
And thou wilt say that I some paines haue tooke:
Paines mixt with pleasure, pleasure ioyn'd with pain
Produc'd this issue of my laboring braine.
But now me thinkes I heare some enuious throat,
Say I should deale no further then my Boat:
And ply my Fare, and leaue my Epigram,
Minding, ne Sutor vltra crepidam.
To such I answere, Fortune giue her guifts.
Some downe she throwes, and some to honour lifts:
'Mongst whom from me she hath with-held her store
And giues me leaue to sweat it at my Oare.
And though with labour I my liuing purse,
Yet doe I thinke my lines no iot the worse,
For Gold is gold though buried vnder mosse,
And drosse in golden vessels is but drosse.
Iohn Taylor.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |