University of Virginia Library

To his respected friend. W. B.

Poet nor art thou without due desert, stil'd by that name:
Though folly smile, and enuy frowne, to heare the same.
Yet those who read thy worke with due respect,
Will place thee with the worthiest of that sect.
Then let not ignorance, nor enuie mooue thee
Thou hast done well, they do not that reproue thee:
Yet some (true worth nere wants an opposite) will Carpers be:
Grieue not at this, not vertues selfe can scape their obloquie;
But giue the raynes vnto these baser spirits,
Whose Iudgements cannot paralell thy merrits,
Such fooles (to seeme iudicious) take in hand,
To censure what they doe not vnderstand.
Yet cannot they detract, or wrong thy worth, maugre their spight:
For thou doost chaunt incestuous Myrrha forth, with such delight,
And with such gouldē phrase gild'store her crime
That what's moste diabolicall, seemes deuine.
and who so but begins the same to reade
Each powerfull line, attracts him to proceede.
Then since he best deserues the Palme to weare, Who wins the same:
Doe thou alone inioy those sweets, which beare thy Mirrhas name.
And euer weare in memorie of her,
an anademe of odoriferous Mirrhe,
and let Apollo, thinke it no dispraise,
To weare thy Mirrhe, & ioyne it with his bayes