A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Mi4 Fly not Momperson sins thear is no inn
Notes. In the only known source, this poem on Sir Giles Mompesson is ascribed to Sir Robert Cotton; however, there is no evidence to support this attribution.
“Uppon Momperson orerunning the parlament”
Fly not Momperson sins thear is no inn
By thy foul rapin robd will hide thy head,1
No spittell2 will conceale thy impious sine,
That left in them for piety noe bed
The royall woods, the standards of ould age,
5By thee dispoild,3 yeelde thee noe shady tree
In vaine thou fliest of thine own guilt the rage
For more thow fliest, the more it follows thee
Turne than again, and thy bad corses alter
Or chaing thy threds of gould4 into a halter.
10Source. BL MS Harley 3910, fol. 60r
Mi4
1 sins thear is...head: allusion to Mompesson’s patent for licensing inns. <back>
2 spittell: hospital; house for the indigent and diseased, especially those of low social status. <back>
3 The royall woods...dispoild: Mompesson held a grant which authorized him to sell decayed woods in royal forests. <back>
4 thy threds of gould: allusion to Mompesson’s notorious patent for gold thread. <back>
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