PRO VERE, AUTUMNI LACHRYMAE. INSCRIBED TO THE IMMORTAL Memory of the most Pious and Incomparable Soldier, Sir HORATIO VERE, Knight: Besieged, and distressed in MAINHEM. Pers: Sat: IU. 
— da verba & decipe neruos  By GEO: CHAPMAN.  
LONDON, Printed by B. Alsop for Th. Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop at the Sign of the Eagle and Child in Britain's Burse. 1622.   

TO THE MOST WORTHILY HONOURED and judicially-noble Lover and Fautor of all Goodness and Virtue, ROBERT, Earl of SOMERSET, etc.  
ALL lest Good; That but only aims at Great,  
I know (best Earl) may boldly make retreat  
To your Retreat, from this World's open Ill  
Of Goodness therefore, The Prime part (the Will)  
Inflamed my Powers, to celebrate as far  
As their force reached, This Thunderbolt of War.  
His wished Good, and the true Note of his Worth,  
(Yet never, to his full Desert, set forth)  
Being Root, and Top, to this his Plant of Fame.  
Which cannot furnish with an Anagram  
Of just Offence, any Desire to wrest  
All the free Letters here; by such a Test  
To any Blame: for equal Heaven avert,  
It should return Reproach, to praise Desert;  
How hapless, and perverse, soever be  
The Envy's, and Infortune's following Me:  
Whose true, and simple-onely-ayme at Merit,  
Makes your acceptive, and still-bettering Spirit  
My Wane view, as at Full still; and sustain  
A Life, that other subtler Lords disdain:  
Being Sutler's more, to Braggart-written Men,  
(Though still deceived) then any truest Pen.  
Yet he's as wise, that to Impostors gives,  
As Children, that hang Counters on their sleeves:  
Or (to pair all his Wisdom to the Quick)  
That, for th' Elixir, hugs the Dust of Brick.  
Go then your own Way still; and God with you  
Will go, till his state all your steps avow.  
The World still in such impious Error strays,  
That all ways fearful are, but Pious ways.  
Your best Lordships ever most worthily bounden, GEO: CHAPMAN.   

PRO VERE, AUTUMNI LACHRYMAE.  
ALL my years comforts, fall in Showers of Tears,  
That this full Spring of Man, This VERE of VERES,  
Famine should bar my Fruits, whose Bounty breeds them,  
The faithless World love to devour who feeds them.  
Now can th'Exempt I'll from the World, no more  
(With all her armed Fires) such a Spring restore.  
The dull Earth thinks not This; Though should I sum  
The Master-Martiall Spirits of Christendom,  
In his few Nerves; My Sum (t'a thought) were true.  
But who lives now, that gives true Worth his due?  
'Tis so divine a Spark, and loves to live  
So close in Men; that hardly it will give  
The Owner notice of his Power or Being.  
Nought glories to be seen, that's worth the seeing.  
God, and all good Spirits, shun all Earthy sight,  
And all true Worth, abhors the guilty Light,  
Infus'de to few, to make it choice and dear,  
And yet how cheap the Chief of all is VERE?  
As if his want, we could with Ease supply.  
When should from Heaven fall His Illustrious Eye,  
We might a Bonfire think would fill his Sphere,  
As well as any other, make up VERE.  
Too much this: why? All know, that some one Hour  
Hath sent a Soul down, with richer Dowry.  
Then many Ages after, had the Graces,  
To Equal in the Reach of all their Races.  
As when the Sun in his Aequator shines,  
Creating Gold, and precious Mineral Mines  
In some one Soil of Earth, and chosen Vein;  
When, not 'twixt Gades and Ganges▪ He again  
Will deign t'enrich so, any other Mould.  
Nor did great Heavens free Finger, (That extolled  
The Race of bright ELIZA'S blessed Reign,  
Past all fore-Races, for all sorts of Men,  
Scholars, and Soldiers, Courtiers, Counsellors)  
Of all Those, choose but Three (as Successors)  
Either to other, in the Rule of War;  
Whose Each, was All, his three-Forckt-Fire and Star:  
Their last, This VERE; being no less Circular  
In guard of our engaged Isle (were he here)  
Than Neptune's Marble Rampire: But (being There  
Circled with Danger (Danger to us All;  
As Round, as Wrackful, and Reciprocal.  
Must all our Hopes in War then▪ Safeties All;  
In Thee (O VERE) confound their Spring and Fall?  
And thy Spirit (Fetched off, Not to be confined  
In less Bounds, than the broad wings of the Wind)  
In a Dutch Citadel, die pinned, and pined?  
O England, Let not thy old constant Tie  
To Virtue, and thy English Valour lie  
Balanced (like Fortunes faithless Levity)  
'twixt two light wings: Nor leave Eternal VERE  
In this undue plight. But much rather bear  
Arms in his Rescue, And resemble her,  
Whom long time thou hast served (The PAPHIAN Queen)  
When (all ashamed of her still-giglet Spleen)  
She cast away her Glasses, and her Fans,  
And Habits of th'Effeminate Persians,  
Her Ceston, and her paintings▪ and in grace  
Of great LYCURGUS, took to her Embrace,  
Cask, Lance, and Shield, and swum the Spartan Flood  
(EUROTAS) to his aid, to save the blood  
Of so much justice, as in him had fear  
To wrack his Kingdom. Be (I say) like her,  
In what is chaste, and virtuous, as well  
As what is loose, and wanton; and repel  
This Plague of Famine, from thy fullest Man:  
For, to thy Fame, 'twill be a blasting Ban,  
To let him perish. Battles have been laid  
In Balance oft, with Kingdoms; and he weighed,  
With Victory, in Battles. Muster then  
(Only for him up) all thy Armed Men,  
And in thy well-rigged Nymphs Maritimal,  
Ship them, and plough up all the Seas of Gall,  
Of all thy Enemies, in their Armed Press;  
And (past Remission) fly to his Release.  
'Tis done, as sure as counselled: For who can  
Resist God, in the Right of such a Man?  
And, with such Men, to be his Instruments,  
As he hath made to live in Forts and Tents,  
And not in soft SARDANAPALIAN Sties  
Of Swinish Ease, and Goatish Veneries.  
And know (Great Queen of Isles) That Men that are  
In Heaven's Endowments, so Divinely rare,  
No Earthy Powre should too securely dare  
To hazard with Neglect, since as much 'tis,  
As if the World's begetting Faculties  
Should suffer ruin; with whose loss would lie  
The World itself, and all Posterity.  
For worthy men the breeders are of Worth,  
And Heaven's brood in them (cast as Offal forth)  
Will quite discourage Heaven to yield us more:  
Worths only want, makes all Earth's plenty, poor.  
But thou hast now a kind and Pious King,  
That will not suffer his immortal Spring  
To die untimely; if in him it lie,  
To lend him Rescue: Nor will therefore I  
Let one Tear fall more from my Muse's Eye,  
That else has vowed to pine with him, and dye.  
But never was (in best Times most Abuses)  
A Peace so wretched, as to starve the Muses.  
FINIS.