Mildmay Fane. In Praise of Fidelia.

from Otia Sacra

IN PRAISE OF FIDELIA

by Mildmay Fane

Get thee a ship well rigged and tight,
With ordnance-store, and manned for fight,
Snug in her timbers' mould for th' seas,
Yet large in hold for merchandise ;
Spread forth her cloth, and anchors weigh,
And let her on the curled waves play,
Till, fortune-towed, she chance to meet
Th' Hesperian home-bound western fleet ;
Then let her board 'em, and for price
Take gold ore, sugar canes, and spice :
Yet when all these sh' hath brought ashore,
In my Fidelia I'll find no more.

Source:
Black, Matthew W., ed. Elizabethan and Seventeenth-Century Lyrics
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1938. 561.

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