Come, Brethren of the water and let us all assemble

To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble;

For we shall rue, if it be true, that the Fens be undertaken,

And where we feed in Fen and Reed, they’ll feed both Beef and Bacon.

They’ll sow both beans and oats where never man yet thought it,

Where men did row in boat, ere the undertakers bought it:

But, Ceres, thou behold us now, let wild oats be their venture,

Oh let the frog and miry bogs destory where they do enter.

Behold the great design, which they do now determine,

Will make our bodies pine, a prey to cows and vermine:

For they do mean all Fens to drain, and waters overmaster,

All will be dry, and we must die, ‘cause Essex calves want pasture.

Away with boats and rudder, farewell both boots and skatches,

No need of one nor th’other, men now make better matched;

Stilt-makers all and tanners shall complain of this disaster;

For they will make each muddy lake for Essex calves a pasture.

This is the first four stanzas of a ten-stanza poem, and was first published in 1662 by William Dugdale

I Sing no Battels fought, nor Armies foil’d,

Nor Cities raz’d, nor Commonwealths embroil’d,

Nor any History, which may move your tears,

Or raise your Spleens, or multiply your Fears;

But I bespeak your wonder, your delight,

And would your Emulation fain invite.

I sing Floods muzled, and the Ocean tam’d,

Luxurious Rivers govern’d, and reclam’d,

Waters with Banks confin’d, as in a Gaol,

Till kinder Sluces let them go on Bail;

Streams curb’d with Dammes like bridles, taught t’ obey,

And run as strait, as if they saw their way.

I sing of heaps of Water turn’d to Land,

Like an Elixar by the Chymist’s hand,

of Dropsies cur’d, where not one limb was sound,

The Liver rotted, all the Vitals drown’d.

No late discover’d Isle, nor old Plantation,

New christned, but a kind of New Creation.

This is the first three stanzas of a thirty-six-stanza poem, originally published in the “History or Narrative of the Great Level of the Fens”