BIEN VENV. GREAT BRITAIN'S WELCOME TO HER GREAT FRIENDS, AND DEAR BRETHREN THE DANES.  
When Love is well express in word, and Deed,  
betwixt Friends, it shows they are right well agreed.  
Imprinted at London for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop near Saint Austin's gate, 1606.   

To the right noble Lord, Philip Herbert Earl of Mountgomerie, Baron of Shurland: and the right worshipful Sir james Haies Knight.  
TO you, Fair Hands, (Hands of my dreadest Lord,  
Wherewith He feeds himself with sweet delight)  
To You my Rhymes run of their own accord,  
Sith in your Hands remains some hidden might,  
That Like the Load-stoane draws (as with a Cord)  
Mine Iron Numbers to your Lily White:  
They, to the North-point, point: O then afford  
To take them to It; for, aye me, my sight  
Cannot behold Light, lovingly abhorred:  
Sith for mine Eyes such Sunbeams are too bright:  
Yet, lest at my presumption Scorn should board,  
Detain them (if you please) to do me right:  
But, if, when you have weighed them, weight they be,  
Or give, or take them, all is one to me.  
The ever honourer of your most honourable virtues, JOHN DAVIES of Hereford.   

BIEN VENV. Great Britain's welcome to her great friends, and dear Brethren, the Danes.  

YE Angels which (in Soul enchanting Quires)  
Do celebrate your Sovereign's holy praise,  
Who ever burn in loves refining fires,  
& Concord's Tones to highest Thrones do raise,  
Descend (by Swarms, on wings of loves desires)  
Discords to drown with loves harmonious Lays:  
And open heavens Casements wherethrough fly ye do,  
Right o'er the place where one King lives in two.   

And, were ye ignorant where that should be,  
But open those wind-dores and ye soon should know:  
For, to the Heavens the fame thereof doth flee,  
From now great Britain (highest Heaven below)  
There shall ye find two great Kings so agree,  
As if the one, the others Heart did owe:  
Sith Loves great Lord, and yours, doth joy in this,  
His joy to you (his Guard) is highest bliss.   

Then, come (Celestial Soldiers) make a Ring,  
About the Kings, wherein your King doth joy:  
A twofold Guard make for this twofold King,  
Of Men, and Angels, from what would annoy:  
Let Envy in your Targets leave her Sting,  
That she may not annoy, much less destroy:  
And whatsoe'er impugns their peaceful plight,  
On your resistance let their rancour light.   

Britain, thou once didst stretch thy conquering Arms  
Where ere the four Seas with thy wings do war:  
And though, through hurts, received in hot Alarms,  
(As maimed) thou couldst not reach scarce half so far;  
Yet now thou hast recovered thy harms,  
Thine Arms those Seas embrace, but cannot bar:  
For, hadst thou will, as thou hast power obtained,  
By Sea, nor Land thine Arms could be contained.   

The rather, sith a King so gracefully great,  
(Graced by Greatness as he It doth grace)  
Is one with ours, to make ours more complete,  
As ours with Him makes Him in better case:  
What foreign Power to shun their Angers heat,  
Will not speak coldly, with a fawning face:  
Whose Arms, together joined, can compass all  
That stands between the great Turk and his fall.   

Denmark exult, sith what thou hadst, thou hast:  
Thou didst of yore (thou wotst) command this Land:  
That now again is present, which is past:  
In Love, thou mayst the Land (inlargd) command:  
For, it to thee is So united fast,  
That one to other cannot choose but stand:  
Withstand you whoso will, you both, as one,  
Must stand or fall, by force of Union▪   

O UNION! that enclaspest in thine arms,  
All that in Heaven and Earth is great, or good,  
(Thou Heavenly Harbour from all earthly harms)  
Thou Dam, that stayest the Streams of human blood)  
What human Heart but (maugre Hatreds Charms)  
Will not desire thee, as the angels food?  
Sith through thy power thou mak'st man's power so strong  
As not to offer, much less suffer wrong,   

Thou Isle (which Thetis in her lap doth lull,  
And with Indulgence makes thee wantonize)  
Now mayst thou feathers from thy Peacocks pull,  
To set thee out, in eie-attracting wise:  
Triumph with joy: for, now if thou be dull  
The world, as base, will justly thee despise:  
Sith near thy Forehead stand two Kings of power,  
To smooth it, maugre all that makes it lower.   

Arches triumphal to the Heavens erect,  
Whereunder threefold-Maiestie may pass,  
Whose beams on It, true Eyes may so reflect,  
As do the Suns from clearest crystal glass:  
Let all thy streets with Objects dear be decked,  
To show thy State is more than ere it was:  
For, in no modern memory hath been,  
Two such great Kings in thee together seen.   

O could Canutus (that victorious Dane,  
That whilom did thy great State Signiorize,  
Whose sword, through men, to thy Crown made a lane)  
Now see his Offspring, in thy Paradise,  
Adored of all thine, holy, or profane,  
He would be ready to forsake the skies,  
And come, with heavenly glory, to augment,  
Great Britain's glory, world's great wonderment!   

Ye noble Bloods to Honour's Task assigned,  
Let now your mounting Spirits make you mount,  
Such Pegasses as may outfly the wind,  
And shiver staves, at Tilt (beyond your wont)  
That Times to come in Poets staves, may find,  
Ye did great Arthur's Minions far surmount:  
Proclaim a Challenge through the world to make,  
Your valours known, for Kingly honours sake.   

Ye read of many Challenges proclaimed,  
By Keysors past, that present Time admires;  
And how the Victors have their Daughters claimed,  
As the proposed Prizes by their Sires:  
Outrun those Runners, sith their fame is maimed  
That run but through effeminate desires:  
Run ye for glory, and your Sovereign's grace,  
So shall your fames run far beyond your Race.   

If Pomp to Prowess ere were kindly knit,  
Now to your Prowess add ye pomp, sans pride:  
And to your pomp the richest show of wit,  
For, oft such shows, do shows more simple hide,  
And to the Showers glory gain by it,  
That else perhaps (in gold) might not be eyed:  
As Heaven hath Stars her face to beautify,  
So be you Stars, to make Earth's Heavenly.   

And like the Stars opposed, and disposed,  
Produce ye wonders, mankind to amaze:  
Let Denmark see great Britain, with her closed,  
Makes the World stand in wonderment at gaze;  
Sith of their Mould it sees halfgods composed,  
That do the memory of others raze:  
The manner of your motions fetch from thence,  
From whence the Stars derive their influence.   

So shall they be all glorious, like the Sun,  
That runs oblikelie to the heavens Race:  
So, though your deeds for Pomp, and praise be done,  
It is dispensed with, by the Heavenly grace:  
Sith Princes they allow a Race to run,  
As may, with pomp, divide them from the Base:  
" The Time, and Place, and Persons may be such,  
" That Pomp may show her All, yet not too much.   

For, Charge is measured by ability,  
Not by the Cost, what ere the Charges are;  
Shows most majestic, fit most Majesty;  
Which is in Earth, where Kings as one appear:  
Uniting so their Rays of Royalty,  
Which needs must make it great, as it is rare:  
Then spare no Cost, sith Gold for gloris made,  
And glory now is got, which cannot fade.   

For, honours Challenge now is on her wings,  
Flying (from Hence) through all the Continent;  
Lighting no where but in the Courts of Kings:  
Inciting all (in earnest merriment)  
To prove their force, by Arms, which glory brings  
Against the bravest British hardiment:  
Is therefore now ye shrink (sith gold is dear)  
Y'are far from Glory, sith ye are so near.   

If many Worlds ye seek, or Ages live,  
Perhaps ye should not find occasion such,  
As now rich Opportunity doth give  
To make you Fame-full though it empt your Pouche:  
Two Kings thus met▪ make Kingdoms richly thrive,  
Though it unlines their Purse with wearing much:  
Then, sith but seld, or ne'er Kings consort thus,  
Be glorious now, or still inglorious.   

Get Phaenix-feathers to adorn your Crests,  
Wherein imparadise the Soul of Wit  
With such device as only Wit digests;  
Yet fills him headful with receiving it:  
Your lances tip with Diamonds; your Rests  
Of Rubies make, this precious time to fit:  
Arm ye in gold, that golden worlds may view,  
Great Britain's metamorphosed to Peru.   

Let not the Saws of each near niggard friend,  
Regarded be, that ever speaks to spare;  
Sith there are times to spare, and times to spend:  
According as our times, and fortunes are:  
No Charge so great as highness back can bend,  
When it's upheld by Props, as rich, as rare;  
Though Money be the sinews of the wars,  
It must be spent too, to prevent those jars.   

Great Britain's Denmark, Denmark's Britain is,  
By transmigration one int'other gone;  
Which doth increase their beauty, strength, & bliss,  
And firmes their form by transformation:  
Then shall we not (as glad) triumph in this,  
Sith their two heads are now (or never) one:  
Like horses, we our own strength do not know,  
If when our strengths increase, no icy we show.   

Look on the faces of these Danes, our kin,  
How like they are to us; as if we were  
Borne of each other, as we erst have been;  
If likeness than begets affection dear,  
We may exceed in showing (without sin)  
Our Loves to them, as theirs to us appear:  
We have a Pledge of theirs, their dearest blood,  
Our dearest Queen, whence our dear Prince's bud.   

Then welfare ye, by whom so well we fare:  
And welcome ye, through whom we well are come  
Unto that greatness, that we are as square  
As any Potentate of Christendom:  
All yours and ours conjoined as they are  
'Gainst other force invincible become:  
Then are ye welcome for these dear respects,  
To us, who you embrace with dearest affects.   

Though 
* Comines  one hath writ that well Historifies,  
Much hurt ensues the interview of Kings,  
Because their Trains each other oft despise▪  
For, men in strife for Pomp, are devilish Things:  
Yet where great Pomp is shown, in loving wise,  
To show great welcome, no hurt from it springs:  
Then what our pomp persuades, or we perform,  
Is yours, and ours, sith love doth us conform.   

Conformed by love, informed by wit, and grace  
(As Nations civil, each allied to each)  
We, as your Hosts, will give your (Guests) the place,  
Whiles our Provisions do your welcome preach;  
And you accept it with a joyful face;  
So, in our Unity shall be no breach:  
The Master of a feast the more he spends,  
The more it seems, he loves th'invited friends.   

You do us honour by this visitation,  
And make our State more stately by the same:  
we'll honour you again in self-same fashion,  
So to corroborate your force, and fame;  
And envy grieve with our congratulation,  
Or make her groan within our Angers flame:  
Be we still envied, never pitied be,  
One comes of might, the other misery,  
And envied be we shall, while we agree.   

Thou Royal Seat of far renowned Kings,  
(Britain's great monarchs, Kings of great Britain,  
Whose name from LORD, thy much-inlarger Springs)  
Be brave, thy best friends now to entertain:  
Make all thy Swans on thy fair Thames to sing,  
No dying Songs, but songs that life sustain:  
And in thy bright Streets be such song, or sed,  
That make the dead, alive: the living, dead.   

Thine outside hang with costly cloth of State,  
And let thine insides be as fair, as fine:  
Thy sacred Head, which no head ere can rate,  
In an Imperial Crown (past price) confine:  
With all thine All, thine All Condecorate,  
That all may be in love with thee, and thine:  
For, where Magnificence consorteth Love,  
It Hatred makes loves hottest passions prove.   

Ring Bells, sound Trumpets, sweet Bonfires make to burn  
With all that may delight, or Sight, or Sent:  
Raise shouts for joy, while Spite thereat doth mourn:  
And bend, with loves good cheer, the backward bend:  
Let all from highest to lowest, in their turn,  
Show some true token of a kind intent:  
Love can do all things: then, when all our loves  
Are joined in one, both Heaven, & Earth it moves.   

Top thy Church Battlements with Streamers white,  
To show thou peace enioy'st, and offerest peace  
To all that do in civil strife delight,  
If from Contention, they would so surcease▪  
" Sweet Love to love allures the bitterest Spite:  
" And in the life of Union, Odds decease:  
O let no Dane have cause to say, or think,  
We, at our odds, made their loves eyes to wink.   

Invest thy Churchmen in the Costliest Copes,  
Though bitter Zeal it styles, Spots of the Beast:  
And in Procession let them go by troops,  
To sanctify the ground by Heaven blest,  
(Sith with our loves it doth increase our hopes)  
That bears the Body of our Kingly Guest:  
And if blind Zeal do call it Papistry,  
Say (though it stab) it tells an holy lie.   

O ZEAL, dear Virtue! (that deuour'st the Souls  
(Yea Souls, and Bodies of true holy Ones)  
How art thou now abused by busy fools  
Using thy name to pull Kings from their Thrones,  
And in erecting of Schismatic Schools,  
Whiles Charity, to see thy damage, groans?  
No erring Church misleads her Commonweal:  
But still it undergoes the name of zeal.   

Throw from thy face the Mask, which Fraud puts on;  
They keep not, but distain thy beauty bright:  
For, on it only shines God's glorious Son,  
That makes the wrongest beauty, rightest right:  
Then, Masks do mar the sweet Complexion,  
That's made by justice Sons adorning light:  
Be thou thyself then, and thou so wilt shine,  
That all the world, in love, will strait be thine.   

Trans-Alpine Faith (that Works dost much embrace,)  
Work while thou wilt, so thy Works show that Creed  
That sets forth Faith: for Faith, too bare, is base:  
Yet, let no fair Work prove so fowl a Deed  
(To blot thy Brow with such, too black, disgrace)  
As, for thy health, to make the SACRED bleed:  
Win (if thou canst) by seasoning Plaints, and Tears,  
Not lose (alas) by powdering Prince, and Peers.   

" Look what thou wouldst be done unto, so do,  
" Is true loves Law, which we are tied unto.   

Lo, by the way (provoked by thy wrong)  
From mine intention have I thus digressed:  
And sharply warbled on it in my song,  
But yet (I hope) the relish likes the best:  
Now to thee LONDON, and thy lovely Throng  
Will I return: for in thee is my rest:  
Yet rest I in thee, restless, Idly too,  
Which being cross, cross Fortune makes me do.   

Bring out thy Tables to thy open Streets:  
Be open handed, as thouart hearted now:  
In private eat no more thy dainty meats,  
But, with thy Company, thy Cates allow  
In Common, to the Danes, with kind entreats,  
To make their hearts in kindness overflow:  
That by that inundation both may be,  
Floated to Heavens of earth's felicity.   

Bounty brings Honour, Honour bliss doth bring  
To those whom Honours holy hand doth bless:  
Then, as thou wouldst have bliss, let every thing  
Thou dost, of Bounty taste: yea, touch Excess:  
There, hold thy hand, sith more grieves God and King,  
Who Bounty loves, yet hateth Riotousness:  
But yet when bounty's great by great goodwill,  
She is delivered of Abundance still.   

Then let thy Conduits run with rarest wines,  
That all may freely drink all health to thee:  
And to those Kings, their Heirs, and their Assigns,  
By whom thou art, or mayst the better be:  
Yet, O beware of Drunkards fowl designs,  
Take healths, while thou from surfeit mayst be free:  
" For 'tis no glory, but a foul reproach,  
" To take (like Tuns) the wine that Shame doth broach:   

And, let thy Muses so in Pageants speak,  
That they may make the clamorous Crowd attend:  
Although their voice, through wants become so weak,  
That they may seem to speak to little end:  
Sith the rude Multitude will silence break,  
Though speak there may an Angel, or a Fiend:  
Yet what they speak, in Print, in Print may be  
Conveyed aloft, down to Posterity.   

Thy Senators (in wel-beseene array,  
With all the pomp that power may well effect)  
Make them, for these great monarchs, to make way  
Through thy choice Streets (with gaudy glory decked)  
And let thy Denizens their parts so play,  
That foreign lookers on may it affect:  
In Sum, let some, and all of thee, and them,  
Resemble all in new jerusalem.   

O! that my Muse were winged with Angels Plumes,  
That she might mount above the Roof of Heaven,  
To view that glory which no time consumes,  
It to relate, in sacred numbers even,  
For thine example: that, as now, assumes  
But glories shape, by Art, and Nature given,  
I blessed were, and thou wert blest in me,  
By whom thou shouldst beheaven all that see.   

But ah (alas) my short-winged Muse doth haunt  
None but the obscure corners of the Earth,  
Where she with nought, but care, is conversant:  
Which makes her curse her case, and ban her birth:  
Where she (except she would turn ignorant)  
Must live, till die she must, in mournfull-mirth;  
Which is the cherishing the World doth give  
To those that muse to die, not muse to live.   

Our Brains, wherein our Souls do exercise  
Their chiefest Functions, wonders to effect,  
If, while they work, the thoughts of wants arise,  
The work stands still: sith our Souls more respect  
The Body's wants, still crying for Supplies,  
Then they do Wits superfluous pomp affect;  
Or, if they work, and those wants cry out still,  
The work is wondrous, but, it's wondrous ill.   

For, when the Brains with crosse-Cares are distracted,  
(They being the Instruments, Wit works withal)  
What Thoughts, by them, can possibly be acted  
But such as (in Commotion) rise, to fall?  
For, then the thoughts are so, in Sides, compacted,  
That they do run aside in general:  
Then, cross World wonder not though Wit, in want,  
Be, in his largeness (like thy Largesse) scant.   

This double-deskant single skill bewrays;  
It's harsh, and most discordant to the Ground:  
And Poesy, on this Point, too often plays,  
Aswell in This, as other Worlds around:  
For, Poets of all Times their Time's dispraise;  
But through the Time's Sides, so, themselves they wound:  
And wounded so, (sith so the Times they harm)  
The Times forsake them, or them quite disarm.   

Well, be it so, (though Well it cannot be  
That is so ill with those that mean but well)  
A weak Pen holds the heaviest part of me  
(Which is my heart) from death; and doth expel  
The cares that kill it, by sweet Poesy,  
Whereby, in grief, it seems in heaven to dwell:  
Then, though it be a Portion for the poor:  
Let me be rich in that, I seek no more.   

And all my store (though rich beyond compare)  
I would power out, to bid you BIENVENV,  
Most welcome Danes: nay, I would nothing spare  
To entertain myself; but all for you  
Should out, as one that had no other care,  
But with full measure, to give you your due:  
And if I did Hyperboles affect  
Art should discharge their MUCH on loves effect.   

Sith many welcomes may Suspect incur,  
(" For, fewest words the faithfullest friends do use)  
On welcomes Declaration to demur  
More than I have, I might my Wit abuse:  
Which held it meet my lines should reach thus far,  
To raise the Spirits of some more happy Muse:  
That may (as Mistress of loves Compliments)  
Give you your welcome to your hearts contents.   

Burnt Child doth fear aswell the Sparks, as Flame:  
Your welcomes to our Wassels, and our Boards  
Were heretofore (as knows the world) to blame:  
But then (perhaps) ye were our heavy Lords;  
And we no Scruple made of our defame,  
To ease ourselves, by double Deeds, and Words:  
But, now ye come, our Hearts to yours to bind,  
Your welcomes are as true, as you are kind.   

True: for, your kindness now doth grace us much:  
True: for, we Brethren are by our Queen Mother:  
True: sith in Love and likeness we are such,  
True: for, the ones case now becomes the other:  
True: for, you make our hollow friends to grudge:  
Though they (dissemblingly) the same do smother:  
And, in a word, true, for you grand our bliss:  
Then think your welcome kind, as sure it is.   

While Seas, on either side, this Land shall bond  
Your coming thus, and welcome shall appear:  
In fair eternal Lines which shall be found  
In our best Histories, and Poems clear,  
The fame whereof through all worlds so shall sound,  
That it shall ring in Times eternal ear:  
Dido's dear welcomes to the Trojan Knight,  
Shall, through this welcomes lustre, lose their light   

For, what made that in glory shine so long,  
But Poet's Pens, plucked from Archangels wings:  
And some we have can sing as sweet a Song  
As any Tuskane, though with him he brings  
The Queen of Art, to right him, being wrong;  
For, some can say their Muse was made for Kings:  
But, be it made for Kings, or Gods, or men,  
Soule-pleasing Helicon flows from their Pen.   

And let none Tax them for this self conceit,  
Sith such conceit to every Maker is  
Their Shade, which on their Substance still doth wait:  
Most Makers mar, yet make they none amiss:  
Because their words have measure (though not weight)  
Which makes them meet, how ever mean, by this:  
Though some will say, there's more hope of a fool,  
Then of the self-conceited in each School.   

But what is this to that we have in hand?  
How do these Strains concern our welcome Guests?  
No whit; but, hereby they may understand  
That we have Reeds, and Pipes, and haps, and Wrists  
To make them merry, and their Ears command:  
As well as those, to whose Notes listen beasts:  
By which we can so note their being here,  
That in Fame's Book it ever shall appear.   

In golden Capitals all Times shall spell  
(As they pass by (in thought out-flying) flight)  
How we desire those swift winged Times to tell  
The Danes, and ours made one united Might;  
United by a Match that made us dwell  
In safety, from the rage of world's despite;  
And how they came to us, the same to show,  
That all the world might know it to be so.   

Then drop down clear gold from your Pens apace  
Ye braine-bred Goddesses most sacred Scribes;  
I often ye invoke to show your grace  
To glorify our Sovereigns, and their Tribes:  
That now so heavenly make our earthly case,  
As scarce the perfectest Pen aright describes:  
No modern Muse had ere such cause to mount,  
Or line her head at aganippa's Fount.   

On what poor Grounds did richest wits of yore  
Bestow such descant as men yet admire?  
Naso, loved Nuts, and praised them therefore  
With Lines, wherein they burn in quenchless fire:  
Virgil's proud Numbers did a Gnat adore:  
Homer's, the fight of Frogs made to aspire:  
These were the Gods of Poesy, and yet  
They on these Plainesongs did rich descant set.   

Then, how may modern Homers, and the rest,  
Upon this Ground (that of itself doth rise  
To royal meetings of Kings highly blest)  
Make all their Strains rebound against the skies,  
Sending their Echoes so, from East to West  
With such an Accent shrill, as never dies:  
The skil's but base to Cynthia to aspire  
If he that mounts, be in the Sphere of fire.   

Then, o how my dull Muse doth (like a Swan  
Which blushes at her feet, though white she be)  
Blush, sith her feet are Ethiopian  
Fowl, in the eyes of twice fair Majesty:  
For whose sake I this Balladrie began,  
Provoked by joy to see what now I see.  
But each Epistle in each Pamphlets front,  
Can tell that Kings t'accept mean Gifts were wont.   

Yet lest I should offend (as well I may)  
I write the less, the less so to offend:  
For, Brevity doth judgement oft betray:  
That weens that well done ', roundly brought to end:  
Then, here my creeking Pen I'll force to stay,  
(Though near so forward) till the same I mend:  
Which when I do, perhaps hereon I'll write,  
That saddest Kings shall read it with delight,   
FINIS.