I was not borne to Helicon, nor dare

Presume to thinke my selfe a Muses heire.

I have no title to Parnassus hill,

Nor any acre of it by the will

Of a dead Ancestour, nor could I bee

Ought but a tenant unto Poetrie.

But thy Adoption quits me of all feare,

And makes me challenge a childs portion there.

I am a kinne to Hero’s being thine,

And part of my alliance is divine.

Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer too; beside

Thy Brothers by the Roman Mothers side;

As Ovid, Virgil, and the Latine Lyre,

That is so like thy Horace; the whole quire

Of Poets are by thy Adoption, all

My uncles; thou hast given me pow’r to call

Phoebus himselfe my grandsire; by this graunt

Each Sister of the nine is made my Aunt.

Go you that reckon from a large descent

Your lineall Honours, and are well content

To glory in the age of your great name,

Though on a Herralds faith you build the same:

I do not envy you, nor thinke you blest

Though you may beare a Gorgon on your Crest

By direct line from Perseus; I will boast

No farther then my Father; that’s the most

I can, or should be proud of; and I were

Unworthy his adoption, if that here

I should be dully modest; boast I must

Being sonne of his Adoption, not his lust.

And to say truth, that which is best in mee

May call you father, ’twas begot by thee.

Have I a sparke of that coelestiall flame

Within me, I confesse I stole the same

Prometheus like, from thee; and may I feed

His vulture, when I dare deny the deed.

Many more moones thou hast, that shine by night,

All Bankrups, wer’t not for a borrow’d light;

Yet can forsweare it; I the debt confesse,

And thinke my reputation ne’re the lesse.

For Father let me be resolv’d by you;

Is’t a disparagement from rich Peru

To ravish gold; or theft, for wealthy Ore

To ransack Tagus, or Pactolus shore?

Or does he wrong Alcinous, that for want

Doth take from him a sprig or two, to plant

A lesser Orchard? sure it cannot bee:

Nor is it theft to steale some flames from thee,

Grant this, and I’le cry guilty, as I am,

And pay a filiall reverence to thy name.

For when my Muse upon obedient knees,

Askes not a Fathers blessing, let her leese

The fame of this Adoption; ’tis a curse

I wish her ’cause I cannot thinke a worse.

And here, as Piety bids me, I intreat

Phoebus to lend thee some of his own heat,

To cure thy Palsie; else I will complaine

He has no skill in hearbs; Poets in vaine

Make him the God of Physicke; ’twere his praise

To make thee as immortall as thy Baies;

As his owne Daphne; ’twere a shame to see

The God, not love his Preist, more then his Tree.

But if heaven take thee, envying us thy Lyre,

’Tis to pen Anthems for an Angels quire.