Now doth Rhamnusia Adrastian, Daughter of Night, and of the Ocean, Provoke my pen. What cold Saturnian Can hold, and hear such vile detraction? Ye pines of Ida, shake your fair-grown height, For Jove at first dash will with thunder fight; Ye cedars, bend, 'fore lightning you dismay; Ye lions tremble, for an ass doth bray. Who cannot rail?--what dog but dare to bark 'Gainst Phoebe's brightness in the silent dark? 10 What stinking scavenger (if so he will, Though streets be fair) but may right easily fill His dungy tumbrel? Sweep, pare, wash, make clean, Yet from your fairness he some dirt can glean. The windy-colic striv'd to have some vent, And now 'tis flown, and now his rage is spent. So have I seen the fuming waves to fret, And in the end naught but white foam beget; So have I seen the sullen clouds to cry, And weep for anger that the earth was dry, 20 After their spite that all the hail-shot drops Could never pierce the crystal water tops, And never yet could work her more disgrace But only bubble quiet Thetis' face Vain envious detractor from the good, What cynic spirit rageth in thy blood? Cannot a poor mistaken title 'scape, But thou must that into thy tumbrel scrape? Cannot some lewd immodest beastliness Lurk and lie hid in just forgetfulness, 30 But Grillus'[388] subtile-smelling swinish snout Must scent and grunt, and needs will find it out? Come, dance, ye stumbling satyrs by his side, If he list once the Sion Muse deride; Ye Granta's white nymphs, come, and with you bring Some sillabub, whilst he doth sweetly sing 'Gainst Peter's tears[389] and Mary's moving moan, And like a fierce enragèd boar doth foam At sacred sonnets. O daring hardiment! At Bartas' sweet _Semains_[390] rail impudent; 40 At Hopkins, Sternhold, and the Scottish King,[391] At all translators that do strive to bring That stranger language to our vulgar tongue, Spit in thy poison their fair acts among; Ding[392] them all down from fair Jerusalem, And mew them up in thy deserved Bedlam. Shall Paynims honour their vile falsèd gods With sprightly wits, and shall not we by odds Far, far more strive with wit's best quintessence To adore the sacred ever-living essence? 50 Hath not strong reason moved the legists' mind, To say the fairest of all nature's kind The prince by his prerogative may claim? Why may not then our souls, without thy blame (Which is the best thing that our God did frame), Devote the best part to his sacred name, And with due reverence and devotion, Honour his name with our invention? No, poesy not fit for such an action, It is defiled with superstition: 60 It honoured Baal, therefore pollute, pollute-- Unfit for such a sacred institute. So have I heard a heretic maintain