Classic Poem

Sir, I have read your Grammar, and do see
Your learning now hath kiss'd your Poesy.
I find a double charm in Syntax, when
You do by this teach youth, by t'other, men.
Not that I slight grave Lilly's liturgy,
Nor love your work, for change or novelty,
But for the worth I see in't: 'tis your glory,
That now the Schools have found a Directory.
But this will spoil our Hebrew Lectures quite
Of rigid masters, which still backward write;
When tears and blood come forth to let in names,
As if the Grammar were all anagrams;
While the vimineous Bajazets stand by,
Teaching harsh Latin by phlebotomy.
But you have plan'd the way, and strew'd it so,
Children may run in this, as soon as go:
We shall have swaddling scholars; infants may
Now shake their Grammar with their coats away.
Go on, brave Petrarch, thy sweet rules advance,
Leave the world no excuse for ignorance.
What elder days to Lilly render'd, we
And future times shall attribute to thee;
And to thy memory fame shall this enroll,
Whoe'er the Church, thou dost reform the School.