University of Virginia Library

To his Friend the Author, Master Thomas Beedom before his death, on these his Poems.

This is the riming Age, no wonder now
To heare Thalia whisling at the plow.
All trafficke with the Muses, tis well knowne
The Scullers boat can touch at Helicon.
Who quaffs not there? doe we not daily see,
Each garded foot-boy belch out Poetrie?
Who so illiterate now, that will refuse,
For some slight Minion to invoke a muse?
Yet honoured friend doe not imagin I,
In the lest tax by great ability.
I know thee worthy of a better fame,
Then my best study can afford thy name,
I onely would thy reader this informe,
Such empty nothings are thy muses scorne.
Nor doe I wish him slightly to o'relooke,
The highborne fancy, of thy labour'd Booke;
For he that scans the Poems that are thine,
Must call them raptures, sacred, and divine.
Thou darling of the muses, in whose quire,
Thou sha't sing Peans, to Apollo's lyre,
And with his best lov'd Priests in equall state,
Sit justly crown'd, a Poet Laureate.