Land of my Mother

[steepholm]

Those poor and scatt'red few of Brute's high linage left,
For succour hither came; where that unmixéd race
Remains unto this day, yet owners of this place:
Of whom no Flood nor Hill peculiarly hath song.
These, then, shall be my theme: lest Time too much should wrong
Such Princes as were ours, since sever'd we have been;
And as themselves, their fame be limited between
The Severne and our Sea, long pent within this place,
Till with the term of Welsh, the English now embase
The nobler Britons' name, that well-near was destroy'd
With pestilence and war, which this great Isle annoyd.

Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, The Ninth Song

Comments

[larryhammer]

Okay, I know why I'm reading obscure works of Drayton, but what's you're excuse?

---L.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Having just used Camden to check something about Spenser, it seemed only natural to turn to a work that owes so much to both!

[larryhammer]

Heh. Fair enough. (Or given the quality of my typing today, possibly that's fai're enough.)

I do find Poly-Olbion interesting, but I suspect I'd appreciate more if I were better versed in what a typical reader of the time knew about English/British history, and while I've poked at e.g. Stowe and Albion's England, it's been a while.

---L.