No sooner taught to dade, but from their mother trip, And in their speedy course strive others to outstrip. The Yalm, the Awn, the Aum, by spacious Dertmoor fed, And in the southern sea b’ing likewise brought to bed; That these were not of power to publish her desert, Much griev’d the ancient Moor; which understood by Dert (From all the other floods that only takes her name, And as her eld’st, in right the heir of all her fame) To shew her nobler spirit it greatly doth behove. ‘Dear mother, from your breast this fear (quoth she) remove; ‘Defy their utmost force; there’s not the proudest flood, ‘That falls betwixt the Mount and Exmore, shall make good ‘Her royalty with mine, with me nor can compare: ‘I challenge any one to answer me that dare; ‘That was, before them all, predestinate to meet ‘My Britain-founding Brute, when with his puissant fleet ‘At Totness first he touch’d; which shall renown my stream, ‘(Which now the envious world doth slander for a dream:) ‘Whose fatal flight from Greece, his fortunate arrive ‘In happy Albion here whilst strongly I revive, ‘Dear Harburn, at thy hands this credit let me win, ‘Quoth she, that as thou hast my faithful handmaid been, ‘So now, my only brook, assist me with thy spring, ‘Whilst of the godlike Brute the story thus I sing. ‘When long-renowned Troy lay spent in hostile fire, ‘And aged Priam’s pomp did with her flames expire, ‘Æneas (taking thence Ascanius, his young son, ‘And his most rev’rend sire, the grave Anchises, won ‘From shoals of slaughtering Greeks) set out from Simois’ shores, ‘And through the Tyrrhene sea, by strength of toiling oars, ‘Raught Italy at last; where King Latinus lent ‘Safe harbour for his ships, with wrackful tempests rent: ‘When in the Latin court, Lavinia young and fair, ‘Her father’s only child, and kingdom’s only heir, ‘Upon the Trojan Lord her liking strongly plac’d, ‘And languish’d in the fires that her fair breast embrac’d: ‘But Turnus (at that time) the proud Rutulian King, ‘A suitor to the maid, Æneas malicing, ‘By force of arms attempts his rival to extrude: ‘But by the Teucrian power courageously subdu’d, ‘Bright Cytheræa’s son the Latin crown obtain’d; ‘And dying, in his stead his son Ascanius reign’d. ‘Next Sylvius him succeeds, begetting Brute again: ‘Who in his mother’s womb whilst yet he did remain, ‘The oracles gave out, that next-born Brute should be ‘His parents’ only death: which soon they liv’d to see. ‘For, in his painful birth his mother did depart; ‘And ere his fifteenth year, in hunting of a hart, ‘He with a luckless shaft his hapless father slew: ‘For which, out of his throne their King the Latines threw. ‘Who wand’ring in the world, to Greece at last doth get, ‘Where whilst he liv’d unknown, and oft with want beset, ‘He of the race of Troy a remnant hapt to find, ‘There by the Grecians held; which (having still in mind