To Detraction by Thomas Andrewe

Ill tongu’d Detraction, that upon my Booke
Doest cast a hatefull vituperious looke,
Read and deride, deprave and carpe thy fill,
Say that my Verse is harsh, my lynes are ill:
I passe not for thy censure, better men
Shall judge the worth of our industrious pen.
In spight of thee, and all that thou canst say,
My lynes shall live, when steele shall weare away:
And when that thou rak’t vp in dust shalt lye,
Then through the spacious Orbe our Muse shall flye:
Although that yet she hath with motion slowe,
Taught her hiewing to keepe a course but lowe.
I must acknowledge, these unpolisht rimes
Sute not the nature of our curious times,
When each sharpe-sighted Critick doth disdaine,
What is not bred in his fantasticke brayne:
Yet will I not with supple fawning words,
Seeke for more praise then merit just affords.
My pen is free, and whatso’ere I write,
Proceeds essentially from my delight:
Then let whose will, or praise, or discommend me.
Neyther can make me proud, nor yet offend me.

From: Andrewe, Thomas, The Unmasking of a Feminine Machiavell, 2006, Text Creation Partnership: Ann Arbor, Michigan and Oxford, p. [unnumbered].
(http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A19410.0001.001)

Date: 1604

By: Thomas Andrewe (fl. 1604)