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The Lady-Errant

A Tragi-Comedy
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Upon the setting forth M. Will: Cartwrights Poems.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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Upon the setting forth M. Will: Cartwrights Poems.

Poets let fall your Pens, or write with Feare,
You're bound t' expect the censure of each Eare;
All modern Wits must blush away a Praise,
And silent rather hid, than crown'd with Bayes,
As naked Adam did with Fig-leaves doe:
So Poets must have Lawrell aprons too
To cover, not adorn, so that that Tree
Must now their Shaddow, not their Glory be:
For Cartwright is reviv'd, whose Verse alone
Shewes others guilty of Presumption;
'Twas sin to write, for yet there was a Fall
Of Wit, which most Works to the Fire did call,
But Cartwright has redeem'd; whose Book thus writ,
Declares the Resurrection of Wit.
And as Seth's Pillars in the Deluge stood,
Which told there was a World before the Flood,
And prov'd th' effect of Mankinds liqu'rish Crime,
Declaring too th' Antiquity of Time:
So by thy Works Posterity shall know
The merits of thy Age, before the Flow
And Deluges of Blood, which Wars did bring
T' orecome the World, and drown the Muses Spring.
Reare we thy Book Wits Statue then, to keep
Thy Memory, as Soul from cloudy sleep;
That as by 'n Obelisk rich and lasting, we
May know thy Glory and Æternitie.
Rich: Iles.