Some, when in ryme they of their Loues doe tell, With flames and lightning their exordiums paynt: Some inuocate the Gods, some spirits of Hell, And heauen, and earth doe with their woes acquaint. _Elizia_ is too hie a seate for mee: I wyll not come in _Stixe_ or _Phlegiton_; The Muses nice, the Furies cruell be, I lyke not _Limbo_, nor blacke _Acheron_, Spightful _Erinnis_ frights mee with her lookes, My manhood dares not with foule _Ate_ mell: I quake to looke on _Hecats_ charming bookes, I styll feare bugbeares in _Apollos_ cell. I passe not for _Minerua_ nor _Astræa_. But euer call vpon diuine _Idea_.
If those ten Regions, registred by Fame, By theyr ten Sibils haue the world controld, Who prophecied of Christ or ere he came, And of his blessed birth before fore-told; That man-god now, of whom they did diuine, This earth of those sweet Prophets hath bereft, And since the world to iudgement doth declyne, Instead of ten, one Sibil to vs left. Thys pure _Idea_, vertues right Idea, Shee of whom _Merlin_ long tyme did fore-tell, Excelling her of _Delphos_ or _Cumæa_, Whose lyfe doth saue a thousand soules from hell: That life (I meane) which doth Religion teach, And by example true repentance preach.
Reading sometyme, my sorrowes to beguile, I find old Poets hylls and floods admire: One, he doth wonder monster-breeding _Nyle_, Another meruailes Sulphure _Aetnas_ fire. Now broad-brymd _Indus_, then of _Pindus_ height, _Pelion_ and _Ossa_, frosty _Caucase_ old, The Delian _Cynthus_, then _Olympus_ weight, Slow _Arrer_, franticke _Gallus_, _Cydnus_ cold. Some _Ganges_, _Ister_, and of _Tagus_ tell, Some whir-poole _Po_, and slyding _Hypasis_; Some old _Pernassus_ where the Muses dwell, Some _Helycon_, and some faire _Simois_: A, fooles! thinke I, had you _Idea_ seene, Poore Brookes and Banks had no such wonders beene.
Letters and lynes, we see, are soone defaced, Mettles doe waste and fret with cankers rust; The Diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colours with foule staines disgraced. Paper and yncke can paynt but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight, And if with teares, I find them all too light; And sighes and signes a silly hope affoords. O, sweetest shadow! how thou seru'st my turne, Which still shalt be as long as there is Sunne, Nor whilst the world is neuer shall be done, Whilst Moone shall shyne by night, or any fire shall burne: That euery thing whence shadow doth proceede, May in his shadow my Loues story reade.