To Mr. Thomas Woodward: all Hail, Sweet Poet, more Full of more Strong Fire by John Donne

All hail, sweet poet, more full of more strong fire, / Than hath or shall enkindle my dull spirit; / I loved what nature gave thee, but thy merit / Of wit and art I love not, but admire. / Who have before or shall write after thee, / Their works, though toughly laboured, will be / Like infancy or age to man's firm stay, / Or early and late twilights to midday.

Men say, and truly, that they better be / Which be envied than pitied; therefore I, / Because I wish thee best, do thee envy; / O, wouldst thou, by like reason, pity me. / But care not for me; I, that ever was / In nature's, and in fortune's gifts, alas / -But for thy grace, got in the Muses' school- / A monster and a beggar, am a fool.

Oh, how I grieve that late-born modesty / Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts, / That men may not themselves their own good parts / Extol, without suspect of surquedry. / For, but thyself, no subject can be found / Worthy thy quill, nor any quill resound / Thy worth but thine; how good it were to see / A poem in thy praise, and writ by thee.

Now if this song be too harsh for rhyme, yet, as / The painters' bad god made a good devil, / 'Twill be good prose, although the verse be evil. / If thou forget the rhyme as thou dost pass, / Then write; then I may follow, and so be / Thy debtor, thy echo, thy foil, thy zany; / I shall be thought-if mine like thine I shape- / All the world's lion, though I be thy ape.