To His Brother, Nicholas Herrick.

What others have with cheapness seen and ease     In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,     Or read in volumes and those books with all     Their large narrations incanonical,     Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,     And tell'st to us what once they were, and are.     So that with bold truth thou can'st now relate     This kingdom's fortune, and that empire's fate:     Can'st talk to us of Sharon, where a spring     Of roses have an endless flourishing;     Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them     Make known to us the new Jerusalem;     The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where     Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre.     So that the man that will but lay his ears     As inapostate to the thing he hears,     Shall by his hearing quickly come to see     The truth of travels less in books than thee.