Let not the world report then, that the Peake,
Is but a rude place only vast and bleake;
And nothing hath to boast of but her Lead,
When she can say that happily she bred
Thee, and when she shall of her wonders tell
Wherein she doth all other Tracts excell, 70
Let her account thee greatst, and still to time
Of all the rest, accord thee for the prime.
To Master WILLIAM IEFFREYS, Chaplaine to the Lord Ambassa_dour
in Spaine_
My noble friend, you challenge me to write
To you in verse, and often you recite,
My promise to you, and to send you newes;
As 'tis a thing I very seldome vse,
And I must write of State, if to _Madrid_,
A thing our Proclamations here forbid,
And that word State such Latitude doth beare,
As it may make me very well to feare
To write, nay speake at all, these let you know
Your power on me, yet not that I will showe 10
The loue I beare you, in that lofty height,
So cleere expression, or such words of weight,
As into _Spanish_ if they were translated,
Might make the Poets of that Realme amated;
Yet these my least were, but that you extort
These numbers from me, when I should report
In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words
The newes our wofull _England_ vs affords.
The Muses here sit sad, and mute the while
A sort of swine vnseasonably defile 20
Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill
Dropt their pure _Nectar_ into euery quill;
In this with State, I hope I doe not deale,
This onely tends the Muses common-weale.
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