Page:The Pennyles Pilgrimage.djvu/33

Blest peace, and plenty on them both have showered,
Exile, and hanging hath the thieves devoured,
That now each subject may securely sleep,
His sheep and neat, the black the white doth keep,
For now those crowns are both in one combined,
Those former borders, that each one confine,
Appears to me (as I do understand)
To be almost the centre of the land,
This was a blessed heaven expounded riddle,
To thrust great kingdoms skirts into the middle.
Long may the instrumental cause survive.
From him and his, succession still derive
True heirs unto his virtues, and his throne,
That these two kingdoms ever may be one;
This county of all Scotland is most poor,
By reason of the outrages before,
Yet mighty store of corn I saw there grow,
And as good grass as ever man did mow:
And as that day I twenty miles did pass,
I saw eleven hundred neat at grass,
By which may be conjectured at the least,
That there was sustenance for man and beast.
And in the kingdom I have truly scanned,
There's many worser parts, are better manned,
For in the time that thieving was in ure,
The gentles fled to places more secure.
And left the poorer sort, to abide the pain,
Whilst they could ne'er find time to turn again.