Bever

Not Evesham, that proud nymph, although she still pretend
Herself the first of vales, and though abroad she send
Her awful dread command, that all should tribute pay
To her as our great queen; nor White-horse, though her clay
Of silver seem to be, new-melted; nor the Vale
Of Alsbury, whose grass seems given out by tale,
For it so silken is; nor any of our kind,
Or what or where they be, or howsoe'er inclined,
My Bever shall outbrave, that in my state do scorn
By any of them all (once) to be overborne,
With theirs do but compare the country where I lie,
My hill, and wolds will say, they are the Island's eye.
Consider next my site, and say it doth excell;
Then come unto my soil, and you shall see it swell
With every grass and grain that Britain forth can bring:
I challenge any vale to show me but that thing
I cannot show to her (that truly is mine own);
Besides I dare thus boast, that I as far am known
As any of them all, the South their names doth sound,
The spacious North doth me, that there is scarcely found
A roomth for any else, it is so filled with mine,
Which but a little wants of making me divine:
Nor barren am of brooks, for that I still retain
Two neat and dainty rills, the little Snyte, and Deane,
That from the lovely wolds, their beauteous parent sprong
From the Lecestrian fields, come on with me along,
Till both within one bank, they on my north are meint,
And where I end, they fall, at Newarck, into Trent.