Robert Herrick: To His Brother, Nicholas Herrick.

TO HIS BROTHER, NICHOLAS HERRICK.
by Robert Herrick

WHAT others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,
Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,
And tell'st to us what once they were, and are.
So that with bold truth thou canst now relate
This kingdom's fortune, and that empire's fate :
Can'st talk to us of Sharon, where a spring
Of roses have an endless flourishing ;
Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them
Make known to us the new Jerusalem ;
The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where
Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre.
So that the man that will but lay his ears
As inapostate to the thing he hears,
Shall by his hearing quickly come to see
The truth of travels less in books than thee.

Large, exaggerated.
Incanonical, untrustworthy.

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol II.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 161.

to Works of Robert Herrick