Classic Poem

If to admire were to commend, my praise
Might then both thee, thy work and merit raise:
But, as it is (the child of ignorance,
And utter stranger to all air of France)
How can I speak of thy great pains, but err?
Since they can only judge, that can confer.
Behold! The reverend shade of Bartas stands
Before my thought, and (in thy right) commands
That to the world I publish, for him, this:
Bartas doth wish thy English now were his.
So well in that are his inventions wrought,
As his will now be the translation thought,
Thine the original; and France shall boast,
No more, those maiden glories she hath lost.