Conclusion of “Love’s Martyr” by Robert Chester

Gentle conceivers of true meaning Wit,
Let good Experience judge what I have writ,
For the Satyricall fond applauded vaines,
Whose bitter worme-wood spirite in some straines,
Bite like the Curres of Ægypt those that love them,
Let me alone, I will be loth to move them,
For why, when mightie men their wit do prove,
How shall I least of all expect their love?
Yet to those men I gratulate some paine,
Because they touch those that in art do saine.
But those that have the spirit to do good,
Their whips will will never draw one drop of bloud:
To all and all in all that view my labour,
Of every judging sight I crave some favour
At least to reade, and if you reading find,
A lame leg’d staffe, tis lamenesse of the mind
That had no better skill: yet let it passe,
For burdnous lodes are set upon an Asse.
From the sweet fire of perfumed wood,
Another princely Phœnix upright stood:
Whose feathers purified did yeeld more light,
Then her late burned mother out of sight,
And in her heart restes a perpetuall love,
Sprong from the bosome of the Turtle-Dove.
Long may the new uprising bird increase,
Some humors and some motions to release,
And thus to all I offer my devotion,
Hoping that gentle minds accept my motion.

From: Grosart, Alexander B. (ed.), The Poems of Robert Chester (1601-1611) with Verse-Contributions by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, John Marston, etc., 1878, Shakespeare Society: Blackburn, Lancashire, pp. 141-142.
(https://archive.org/stream/poemsrobertches00chesgoog#page/n235/mode/2up)

Date: 1601

By: Robert Chester (fl. 1601)