University of Virginia Library

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65

The Authour in prayse of his precedent Poem.

Now Rufus, by old Glebrons fearefull mace
Hath not my Muse deseru'd a worthy place?
Come come Luxurio, crowne my head with Bayes,
Which like a Paphian, wantonly displayes
The Salaminian titillations,
Which tickle vp our leud Priapians.
Is not my pen compleate? are not my lines
Right in the swaggering humor of these times?
O sing Peana to my learned Muse.
Io bis dicite. Wilt thou refuse?
Doe not I put my Mistres in before?
And pitiously her gracious ayde implore?
Doe not I flatter, call her wondrous faire?
Vertuous, diuine most debonaire?
Hath not my Goddesse in the vaunt-gard place,
The leading of my lines theyr plumes to grace?
And then ensues my stanzaes, like odd bands
Of voluntaries, and mercenarians:
Which like Soldados of our warlike age,
March rich bedight in warlike equipage:
Glittering in dawbed lac'd accoustrements,
And pleasing sutes of loues habiliments.
Yet puffie as Dutch hose they are within,
Faint, and white liuer'd, as our gallants bin;
Patch'd like a beggars cloake, and run as sweet
As doth a tumbrell in the paued street.
And in the end, (the end of loue I wot)
Pigmalion hath a iolly boy begot.
So Labeo did complaine his loue was stone,
Obdurate, flinty, so relentlesse none:

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66

Yet Lynceus knowes, that in the end of this,
He wrought as strange a metamorphosis.
Ends not my Poem then surpassing ill?
Come, come, Augustus, crowne my laureat quill.