Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/186

 THE

��[3]

��PROLOGUE.

��I.

'' j ^O ling of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings,

"*- Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, For my mean pen are too fuperiour things: Or how they all, or each their dates have run Let Poets and Hifhorians fet thefe forth, My obfcure Lines-^ fhall not fo dim their worth.

2.

But when my wondring eyes and envious heart Great Bartas fugar'd lines, do but read o're Fool I do grudg the Mufes did not part 'Twixt him and me that overfluent flore; A Bartas can, do what a Bartas will But fniiple I according to my Ikill.

��From fchool-boyes tongue no rhetVick we expe6l Nor yet a fweet Confort from broken firings, Nor perfect beauty, where's a main defeft: My foolifli, broken, blemifli'd Mufe fo fings

/ Verfe.

�� �