Classic Poem

LORD Z OUCH , S T. M AUR and C ANTELUPE ,

and one of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.

H ONOUR'S bright ray,
More highly crown'd with virtue than with years,
Pardon a rustic Muse that thus appears
In shepherd's grey,
Entreating your attention to a lay
Fitting a sylvan bower, not courtly trains;
Such choicer ears,
Should have Apollo's priests, not Pan's rude swains.
But if the music of contented plains
A thought uprears
For your approvement of that part she bears,
When time (that embryons to perfection brings)
Hath taught her strains
May better boast their being from the spring
Where brave herois' worths the Sisters sing
(In lines whose reigns
In spite of Envy and her restless pains
Be unconfin'd as blest eternity:)
The vates shall ring
Thy honour'd name, and every song shall be
A pyramis built to thy memory.
Your Honour's
W. B ROWNE .