Certaine Serious Thoughts which at severall times & upon sundry Occasions have stollen themselves into Verse and now into the Publike View from the Author: Together w[i]th a Chronologicall table denoeting the names of such Princes as ruled the neighbor States and were con-temporary to our English Kings, observeing throughout ye number of yeares w[hi]ch every one of them reigned [by Christopher Wyvill] |
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To Master Wroth
School-Master at Epping in ESSEX.
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 | Certaine Serious Thoughts |  |
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To Master Wroth School-Master at Epping in ESSEX.
Those recollective Thoughts to me,
Most welcome, SIR, must ever be;
Which to my memory represent,
The time, under your roofe I spent;
Though spent improvidently, there
Large fields of corne for reaping were:
Yet I but glean'd, which make's my starved Muse
Such leane, ill-thriven verses now produce.
I might have learn't how to Decline
All Vices; and Forme by Divine
Sweet Conjugations, my Sence
To due and fitting Mode and Tence:
You th'Pronouns, mine and thine did teach
To be no more but Parts of Speech;
From you a Generall rule I might have got
To use the world, as though I us'd it not.
Most welcome, SIR, must ever be;
Which to my memory represent,
The time, under your roofe I spent;
Though spent improvidently, there
Large fields of corne for reaping were:
Yet I but glean'd, which make's my starved Muse
Such leane, ill-thriven verses now produce.
I might have learn't how to Decline
All Vices; and Forme by Divine
Sweet Conjugations, my Sence
To due and fitting Mode and Tence:
You th'Pronouns, mine and thine did teach
To be no more but Parts of Speech;
From you a Generall rule I might have got
To use the world, as though I us'd it not.
But Oh, how Zions plants would thrive and like,
If it were fenced round with such a Dike
As he, whose pithy Sermons double were
In number, to the Sabbaths in the yeare;
Who, summon'd up to heaven, back hath sent
His Posthume book t'attend the Sacrament.
Nor is it from Ingratitude, that in
The middle of my non-age I begin:
Vnto his Care my childish yeares were given,
Whose Cure now poynt's us out the way Heaven.
If it were fenced round with such a Dike
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In number, to the Sabbaths in the yeare;
Who, summon'd up to heaven, back hath sent
His Posthume book t'attend the Sacrament.
Nor is it from Ingratitude, that in
The middle of my non-age I begin:
Vnto his Care my childish yeares were given,
Whose Cure now poynt's us out the way Heaven.
Too few such men are found in any age
As was the Guardian of my pupill-age;
He scorn'd the common roade, did not discharg
By some raw scarce-made Bachilor his charge.
As was the Guardian of my pupill-age;
He scorn'd the common roade, did not discharg
By some raw scarce-made Bachilor his charge.
Lord I admire thy providence, and see
How vast a summe I am in debt to thee,
But nothing have to pay: if thou do'st call
For an account, behold, forgive me all
Is all I can produce; O cross the score,
And make my love proportionably more.
How vast a summe I am in debt to thee,
But nothing have to pay: if thou do'st call
For an account, behold, forgive me all
Is all I can produce; O cross the score,
And make my love proportionably more.
| Certaine Serious Thoughts | |