Song 16

245

The sixteenth Song.

✼ THE ARGUMENT.

Olde Ver, neere to Saint Albans, brings
Watling to talk of auncient things;
What Verlam was before she fell,
And many more sad ruines tell.
Of the foure old Emperiall Waies,
The course they held, and too what Seas;
Of those seaven Saxon Kingdomes here,
Their sites, and how they bounded were.
Then Pure-vale vants her rich estate:
And Lea bewraies her wretched Fate.
The Muse, led on with much delight,
Delivers Londons happy site;
Showes this loose Ages leud abuse:
And for this time there staies the Muse.

he Brydall of our Tame and Princely Isis past:
And Tamesis their sonne, begot, and wexing fast,
Inviteth Crystill * Colne his wealth on him to lay,
Whose beauties had intic’t his Soveraine Tames to stay, The river run-
ning by
Uxbridge and Col-
brooke.
5Had he not been inforc’t, by his unruly traine.
For Brent, a pretty Brook, allures him on againe,
Great London to salute, whose hie-rear’d Turrets throng
To gaze upon the Flood, as he doth passe along.
Now, as the Tames is great, so most transparent Colne
10Feeles, with excessive joy, her amorous bosome swolne,
That Ver of long esteem’d, a famous auncient Flood
(Upon whose aged Bank olde Verlamchester stood,
Before the Roman rule) here glorify’d of yore,
Unto her cleerer banks contributed his store;
15Enlarging both her streame, and strengthening his renowne,
Where the delicious Meads her through her course doe crown.
This * Ver (as I have said) Colnes tributary brook,
On Verlams ruin’d walles as sadly he doth look,
Neere Holy Albans Towne, where his rich shrine was set,
20Old Watling in his way the Flood doth over-get.
The little cleer river by
Saint Albans.