but to my taske. Neptune besids the sway
of every salt flood & each ebbing streame
tooke in by lot twixt high, & neather Jove
imp̳iall rule of all the sea-girt Isles
that like to rich & various gems inlay
the unadorned bosome of y^e deepe
w^ch he to grace his tributarie gods
by course committs to severall goverment
and give them leave to weare their saphire crowns
and weild thire little tridents, but this Isle
the greatest & the best of all the maine
he quarters to his blu-hair’d dieties

Milton, A Mask. Poems, Reproduced in Facsimile from the Manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge. Menston Ilkley: Scolar Press, 1973. The line through the character p̳  indicates an abbreviation; in this case, an abbreviation of the word “imperial.”