Page:Madagascar, with other poems - Davenant (1638).djvu/36
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Madagascar.
Where Fishes wonder at their red-dy'd flood,And by long nourishment on humane blood,May grow so neere a kin to men, that hewho feeds on them hereafter, needs must beEsteem'd as true a Caniball, as thoseWhose luscious diet is their conquer'd Foes. Sure Adam when himselfe he first did spieSo singular, and onely in his eye;Yet knew, all to that single selfe pertain'd,Which the Sunne saw, or Elements sustain'd;He not beleev'd, a race from him might comeSo num'rous, that to make new off-spring roome,Is now the best excuse of Nature, whyMen long in growth, so easily must die.Eden, which God did this first Prince allow,But as his Privie-garden then, is nowA spacious Country found; else wee supplieWith dreames, not truth, long lost Geographie:And each high Island then (though nere so wide)Was but his Mount, by Nature fortifi'd;And every Sea, wherein those Islands float,Most aptly then, he might have call'd his Moat.
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