A 'DARK' CONCEIT.

O muse! that did me somedeal favour erst,
Whereas I piped my silly oaten reede,
And songs in homely guise to mine reherst,
Well pleased with maiden's smilings for my meed;
Sweet muse, do give my Pegasus good speede,
And send to him of thy high, potent might,
Whiles mortalls I all of my theme do rede,
Thatte is the story of a doughty knight,
Who eftsoons wageth war, Kyng COTEN is he hight.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
Though black it was, as records sothly tell;
But thatte is nought, which only is the face,
And ne the hart, where alle goode beings dwell;
For witness him the puissant Hannibal,
Who was in veray sooth a Black-a-Moor;
And Cleopatra, Egypt's darksome belle,
And others, great on earth, a hundred score;
Howbeit, ilke kyng was white, which doth amaze me sore.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
As born of fathers clean as many as
The sands thatte doe the mighty sea-shore grace,
But black, as sayde, as dark is Erebus.
His rule the Southron Federation was,
Thatte was a part of great Columbia,
Which was as fayre a clyme as man mote pass;
And situate where Vesper holds his swaye,
But habited wilome by men of salvage fray.

Farre in the North he had an enimie,
Who certes was the knight's true soveraine,
Who liked not his wicked slaverie,
Which 'cross God's will was counter-wisely laine,
Whiles he himself, it seemeth now right playne,
Did seek to have a kyngdom of his kynde,
Where he, as tyrant-like, mote lonly raine;
So to a treacherie he fetched his mynde,
Which soon was rent in four, and sent upon each wynde.

His enimie thatte liveth in the North,
Who, after all, was not his enimie,
Ydeemed he was a gentilman of worth,
Too proud to make so vile a villianie,
And, therefore, did ne tent his railerie,
But went his ways, as was his wont wilome;
Goliah, he turned out eftsoons, ah! me,
Who leaned upon his speare when David come,
And laughed to scorn the sillie boy his threat'ning doom.

But when his stronghold in ye Southron land,
Of formidable front, Forte Sumter hight,
Did fall into Kyng Coten's rebell hand,
Who coward-wise did challenge to the fight,
Some several men again his host of might;
Then Samuel, for so was he yclipt,
Begun in batail's gear himself to dight,
As being fooled by him with whom he sippt,
And hied him out, loud crying, 'Treason must be nippt!'

O ye who doe the crusades' musters tell,
In wise that maketh myndes incredulous,
And paynte how like Dan Neptune's sweeping swell
The North bore down on the perfidious!
Ne nigh so potent thatte as was with us;
Where men, like locusts, darkened all the land,
As marched they toward the place that's treacherous,
And shippes, that eke did follow the command,
Like forests, motion-got, doe walk along the strand.

Fierce battails ther were fought upon the ground,
Thatte rob'd the heavens alle in ayer dunne;
And shoke the world as doth the thunder's sound,
Till, soth to say, it well-nigh was undone:
But of them alle, ther is an one
That frayle pen dispairs for to descrive,
Which mortalls call the Battail of Bull Run;
But why I mote ne tell, as I'm alive,
Unless it haply he ther _running_ did most thrive.