You mourning muses al, where euer you remayne, Assist my sobbing soule this drierye tale to tell: You furious furies fearce of lymbo lake belowe, Helpe to vnlade my brest of al the bale it beares: And you who felte the falle from honor’s high renowne: From graues you grizie[1209] ghosts send forth, to helpe me mourn. O _Pallas_, geue thou place, that mourning _Clio_ may, On lute lamenting, sound and sing my doleful dumpes: Let riming metered lines and pleasant musike cease: Let satyres solome sound sende forth the fall I felt: And when the truth of al my tragedie is knowne, Let them that liue then learne, al things must haue an end, The _Persian_ monarch and _Medes_[1210] it downe did fal, That of _Assiria_, in tracte of time did end: Yea _Alexander’s_ force in fight subdude them both, And brought the worlde so wide into one monarchie: What though the fretting force of fate did him dismay? He felt at laste the foyle, his vaunting was in vayne, He dead, the worlde it was deuided as before: The _Roman_ emperie came tumbling downe at last: And where is _Troy_, and _Greece_, and mightie _Macedon_? They flourishte for a tyme like this my little ile: The _Soldion_ brought them downe, and did theyr states destroy: Euen so the _Saxons_ brought the _Britayns_ to the bay, Euen these mine eyes did see, that hateful hidious sight, These feeble handes, when long they labourde had in vaine, Dyd yeeld their interest: then thus I did complayne: Who can refrayne the force of mightye mounting seas? When bellowes make a breache and beate the banckes adown, Doth not the saltish surge then beate the bankes adown? Then man may not withstand the rigor of their rage: But wisedome would haue kept the waues within their boundes: Counsayle doth come to late, when hope of helpe is past: Such was my filthye fate, my lewde and lothsome lucke, I sought a salue to cure and helpe the helpelesse wound: For long before my tyme, seuen kings were setled here. The _Saxons_ such as dwelt by east, _Sibertus_ rulde, The _Angles_ in the east, _Redwallus_ rulde as king, Then _Ethelbert_ was king of all the coast of _Kent_, In _Southsex Ethelwolfus_ wore the regall crowne: Then _Quincillinus_ was a _Saxon_ king by west, Of _Martia_ in the midst king _Penda_ was the prince, And _Edwin_ in _Northumberland_ did rule and raygne, How dyd my grandsire, grand renowmed _Arthur_, he These seuen destroye, with deadly field of wrackfull warre? But _Mordred_ made the meane, that brought them in agayne: _Vortiporus_ wyth warre almost consumde them all: Then _Malgo_ he with peace restorde agayne their state, _Cariticus_ the synne of ciuil stryfe did loue, For which _Gurmundus_ did the _Britaynes_ much annoy: Then _Cadwin_ out of _Wales_ kyng _Etheldred_ did spoyle,