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THE PASTIME OF PLEASURE: DEDICATION TO HENRY VII, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Right mighty prince and redoubted sov'rayne
Last Line: That I do offend for lack of science.


Right mighty Prince and redoubted sov'rayne,
Sailinge forth well in the ship of grace,
Over the waves of this life uncertayne
Right towards heaven to have dwelling place,
Grace doth you guide in every doubtful case;
Your governance doth evermore eschew
The sin of sloth, enemy to virtue.

Grace steereth well, the grace of God is grete
Which you hath broughte to your royal see,
And in your right it hath you surely sette
Above us all to have the sov'rayntie;
Whose worthy power and regal dignitie
All our rancour and our debate gan cease,
Hath to us brought both wealthe reste and peace.

From whom descendeth by the rightful line
Noble Prince Henry to succeed the crown;
That in his youthe doth so clerely shine,
In every virtue casting the vice adown.
He shall of fame attain the high renown;
No doubt but grace shall him well enclose,
Which by true right sprang of the red rose.

Your noble grace and excellent highness
For to accept I beseech right humbly
This little book, opprest with rudeness
Without rhetoric or colour crafty;
Nothing I am expert in poetry,
As th' Monk of Bury, flower of eloquence,
Which was in the time of great excellence

Of your predecessor the fifth King Henry
Unto whose [sovereign] grace he did present
Right famous books of perfect memory,
Of his high feigning with terms eloquent,
Whose fatal fictions are yet permanent;
Grounded on reason with cloudy figures
He cloked the truth of all his [wise] scriptures.

The Light of Truth I lack cunning to cloke,
To draw a curtain I dare not presume,
Nor hide my matter with a misty smoke,
My rudeness cunning doth so sore consume;
Yet as I may I shall blow out a fume
To hide my mind underneath a fable,
By coverit colour well and probable.

Beseeching your grace to pardon mine ign'rance
Which this feigned fable t' eschew idleness
Have so compiled now without doubtance
For to present to your high worthiness:
To follow the trace and all the perfectness
Of my master Lydgate with due exercise,
Such feigned tales I do find and devise.

For under a colour a truth may rise,
As was the guise in old antiquitie
Of the poetes old a tale to surmise
To cloke the truth of their infirmitie
Or yet on joy to have mortalitie.
I me excuse if by negligence
That I do offend for lack of science.





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