s see what lines _Virginia_ will produce;
Goe on with OVID, as you haue begunne,
With the first fiue Bookes; let your numbers run 40
Glib as the former, so shall it liue long,
And doe much honour to the _English_ tongue:
Intice the Muses thither to repaire,
Intreat them gently, trayne them to that ayre,
For they from hence may thither hap to fly,
T'wards the sad time which but to fast doth hie,
For Poesie is follow'd with such spight,
By groueling drones that neuer raught her height,
That she must hence, she may no longer staye:
The driery fates prefixed haue the day, 50
Of her departure, which is now come on,
And they command her straight wayes to be gon;
That bestiall heard so hotly her pursue,
And to her succour, there be very few,
Nay none at all, her wrongs that will redresse,
But she must wander in the wildernesse,
Like to the woman, which that holy IOHN
Beheld in _Pathmos_ in his vision.
As th' _English_ now, so did the stiff-neckt _Iewes_,
Their noble Prophets vtterly refuse, 60
And of these men such poore opinions had;
They counted _Esay_ and _Ezechiel_ mad;
When _Ieremy_ his Lamentations writ,
They thought the Wizard quite out of his wit,
Such sots they were, as worthily to ly,
Lock't in the chaines of their captiuity,
Knowledge hath still her Eddy in her Flow,
So it hath beene, and it will still be so.
That famous _Greece_ where learning flourisht most,
Hath of her muses long since left to boast, 70
Th' vnlettered _Turke_, and rude _Barbarian_ trades,
Where HOMER sang his lofty _Iliads_;
And this vaste volume of the world hath taught,
Much may to passe in little time be brought.
As if to _Symptoms_ we may credit giue,
This very time, wherein we two now liue,
Shall in the compasse, wound the Muses more,
Then all the old _English_ ignorance before;
Base Balatry is so belou'd and sought,
And those braue numbers are put by for naught, 80
Which rarely read, were able to awake,
Bodyes from graues, and to the ground to shake
The wandring clouds, and to our men at armes,
'Gainst pikes and muskets were most powerfull charmes.
That, but I know, insuing ages shall,
Raise her againe, who now is in her fal