PRO VERE, AVTVMNI LACHRYMAE. INSCRIBED TO THE IMMORTAL Memorie of the most Pious and Incomparable Souldier, Sir HORATIO VERE, Knight: Besieged, and distrest in MAINHEM.
Pers: Sat: IV.
—da verba & decipe neruos
By GEO: CHAPMAN.
LONDON, Printed by B. Alsop for Th. Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Signe of the Eagle and Child in Britaines Burse. 1622.
TO THE MOST WORTHILY HONORED and Iudicially-Noble Louer and Fautor of all Goodnesse and Vertue, ROBERT, Earle of SOMERSET, &c.
ALL lest
Good; That but onely aymes at
Great,
I know (best
Earle) may boldly make retreat
To your
Retreat, from this Worlds open
Ill.
Of
Goodnesse therefore, The
Prime part (the
Will)
[Page]Enflam'd my
Pow'rs, to celebrate as farre
As their force reacht, This
Thunderbolt of Warre.
His wisht
Good, and the true Note of his
Worth,
(Yet neuer, to his full
Desert, set forth)
Being
Root, and
Top, to this his
Plant of
Fame.
Which cannot furnish with an
Anagram
Of iust
Offence, any Desire to wrest
All the
free Letters here; by such a
Test
To any
Blame: for equall
Heauen auert,
It should returne
Reproach, to prayse
Desert;
[Page]How haplesse, and peruerse, soeuer bee
The
Enuies, and
Infortunes following Mee:
Whose true, and simple-onely-ayme at
Merit,
Makes your acceptiue, and still-bettering
Spirit
My
Wane view, as at
Full still; and sustaine
A
Life, that other subtler
Lords disdaine:
Being
Suttlers more, to
Braggart-written Men,
(Though still deceiu'd) then any truest
Pen.
Yet Hee's as wise, that to
Impostors giues,
As
Children, that hang
Counters on their sleeues:
That, for th'
Elixar, hugges the Dust of
Brick.
Goe then your owne
Way still; and
God with you
Will goe, till his state all your steppes auow.
The
World still in such impious
Error strayes,
That all wayes fearefull are, but
Pious wayes.
Your best Lordships euer most worthily bounden, GEO: CHAPMAN.
ALL my yeeres comforts, fall in Showres of Teares,
That this full Spring of Man, This VERE of VERES,
Famine should barre my Fruites, whose Bountie breedes them,
The faithlesse World loue to deuoure who feedes them.
[Page]Now can th'Exempt Ile from the World, no more
(With all her arm'd Fires) such a Spring restore.
The dull Earth thinkes not This; Though should I summe
The Master-Martiall Spirits of Christendome,
In his few Nerues; My Summe (t'a thought) were true.
But who liues now, that giues true Worth his due?
'Tis so diuine a Sparke, and loues to liue
So close in Men; that hardly it will giue
The Owner notice of his Pow'r or Being.
Nought glories to be seene, that's worth the seeing.
[Page]God, and all good Spirits, shunne all Earthy sight,
And all true Worth, abhorres the guilty Light,
Infus'de to few, to make it choice and deare,
And yet how cheape the Chiefe of all is VERE?
As if his want, wee could with Ease supply.
When should from Heauen fall His Illustrious Eye,
We might a Bon-Fire thinke would fill his Sphere,
As well as any other, make vp VERE.
Too much this: why? All know, that some one Houre
Hath sent a Soule downe, with richer Dowre.
[Page]Then many Ages after, had the Graces,
To Equall in the Reach of all their Races.
As when the Sunne in his
Aequator shines,
Creating Gold, and precious Minerall Mines
In some one Soyle of Earth, and chosen Veine;
When, not 'twixt
Gades and
Ganges ▪ Hee againe
Will daine t'enrich so, any other Mould.
Nor did great Heauens free Finger, (That extold
The Race of bright ELIZA'S blessed Raigne,
Past all fore-Races, for all sorts of Men,
[Page]Schollers, and Souldiers, Courtiers, Counsellors)
Of all Those, chuse but Three (as Successors)
Eyther to other, in the Rule of Warre;
Whose Each, was All, his three-Forckt-Fire and Starre:
Their last, This VERE; being no lesse Circular
In guard of our engag'd Ile (were he here)
Then
Neptunes Marble Rampier: But (being There
Circled with Danger (Danger to vs All;
As Round, as Wrackfull, and Reciprocall.
Must all our Hopes in Warre then▪ Safeties All;
[Page]In Thee (O VERE) confound their Spring and Fall?
And thy Spirit (Fetcht off, Not to be confinde
In lesse Bounds, then the broad wings of the Winde)
In a Dutch Cytadell, dye pinn'd, and pin'de?
O England, Let not thy old constant Tye
To Vertue, and thy English Valour lye
Ballanc't (like Fortunes faithlesse Leuitie)
Twixt two light wings: Nor leaue Eternall VERE
In this vndue plight. But much rather beare
Armes in his Rescue, And resemble her,
[Page]Whom long time thou hast seru'd (The PAPHIAN Queene)
When (all asham'd of her still-giglet Spleene)
She cast away her Glasses, and her Fannes,
And Habites of th'Effeminate
Persians,
Her
Ceston, and her paintings▪ and in grace
Of great LYCVRGVS, tooke to her Embrace,
Cask, Launce, and Shield, and swum the
Spartan Flood
(EVROTAS) to his ayde, to saue the blood
Of so much Iustice, as in him had feare
To wracke his Kingdome. Be (I say) like her,
[Page]In what is chaste, and vertuous, as well
As what is loose, and wanton; and repell
This Plague of Famine, from thy fullest Man:
For, to thy Fame, 'twill be a blasting Ban,
To let him perish. Battailes haue beene lay'd
In Ballance oft, with Kingdomes; and hee weigh'd,
With Victorie, in Battailes. Muster then
(Onely for him vp) all thy Armed Men,
And in thy well-rigg'd Nymphs Maritimall,
Ship them, and plough vp all the Seas of
Gall,
[Page]Of all thy Enemies, in their Armed Prease;
And (past Remission) flye to his Release.
'Tis done, as sure as counsail'd: For who can
Resist God, in the Right of such a Man?
And, with such Men, to be his Instruments,
As hee hath made to liue in Forts and Tents,
And not in soft SARDANAPALIAN Sties
Of Swinish Ease, and Goatish Veneries.
And know (Great Queene of Iles) That Men that are
In Heauens Endowments, so Diuinely rare,
[Page]No Earthy Powre should too securely dare
To hazard with Neglect, since as much 'tis,
As if the Worlds begetting Faculties
Should suffer ruine; with whose losse would lye
The World it selfe, and all Posteritie.
For worthy men the breeders are of Worth,
And Heauens broode in them (cast as Offall forth)
Will quite discourage Heauen to yeeld vs more:
Worths onely want, makes all Earths plenty, poore.
But thou hast now a kind and Pious King,
[Page]That will not suffer his immortall Spring
To die vntimely; if in him it lye,
To lend him Rescue: Nor will therefore I
Let one Teare fall more from my Muses Eye,
That else ha's vow'd to pine with him, and dye.
But neuer was (in best Times most Abuses)
A Peace so wretched, as to sterue the Muses.
FINIS.