Classic Poem

If many yeeres in honours service spent;
If vertues suting with a brave descent,
Can give true lustre to a Name; then thine
May seeme least to require a Verse of mine
To give thy worth just height: yet Time displayes
Many fine heads, that oft have earned the bayes
In these and meaner taskes: for fame must know
She cannot pay those glories, shee doth owe
To great and good deserts, except some aides
Be sent her from the nine Castalian maides
Had Homer (whom seven Cities strove to owne)
Not beene; then who had great Achilles knowne,
Or Hector in these times. Then let none blame
My Muse, although shee beares a part with fame
In thy due prayse; whether shee doth commend
Thy truest valour, that did alway tend
To noblest ends, or praise those honest Arts
With which thou didst attract the Souldiers Darts.
Nor art thou lesse expert to live belov'd
In Peace, then Warre: to love thee all are mov'd
By thy humanitie, and pietie.
Then let detraction foule and calumnie
Be alway Dumbe: and let the World know ever,
Thou maist be envy'd much, but flattered never.