On the Honoured Poems of his Honoured Friend, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet

This book will live; it hath a Genius; this
Above his reader, or his praiser, is.
Hence, then, profane! here needs no words expense
In bulwarks, rav'lins, ramparts for defence:
Such as the creeping common pioners use,
When they do sweat to fortify a Muse.
Though I confess it Beaumont's book to be
The bound, and frontier of our poetry;
And doth deserve all muniments of praise,
That art, or ingine, on the strength can raise;
Yet, who dares offer a redoubt to rear,
To cut a dike, or stick a stake up, here,
Before this work? where envy hath not cast
A trench against it, nor a batt'ry plac't?
Stay till she make her vain approaches; then,
If maimed she come off, 'tis not of men,
This fort of so impregnable access;
But higher power, as spight could not make less,
Nor flattery; but, secur'd by the author's name,
Defies what's cross to piety, or good fame:
And like a hallowed temple, free from taint
Of ethnicisme, makes his Muse a saint.