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| EXERT 1 thy voice, sweet harbinger of Spring! | |
| This moment is thy time to sing, | |
| This moment I attend to praise, | |
| And set my numbers to thy lays. | |
| Free as thine shall be my song; | 5 |
| As thy music, short or long. | |
| Poets wild as thee were born, | |
| Pleasing best when unconfined, | |
| When to please is least designed, | |
| Soothing but their cares to rest: | 10 |
| Cares do still their thoughts molest, | |
| And still th’ unhappy poet’s breast, | |
| Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn. | |
| She begins, let all be still! | |
| Muse, thy promise now fulfil! | 15 |
| Sweet, oh sweet! still sweeter yet! | |
| Can thy words such accents fit? | |
| Canst thou syllables refine, | |
| Melt a sense that shall retain | |
| Still some spirit of the brain, | 20 |
| Till with sounds like these it joins? | |
| ’Twill not be! then change thy note; | |
| Let division shake thy throat: | |
| Hark! division now she tries, | |
| Yet as far the Muse outflies. | 25 |
| Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune! | |
| Trifler, wilt thou sing till June? | |
| Till thy business all lies waste, | |
| And the time of building’s past? | |
| Thus we poets that have speech, | 30 |
| Unlike what thy forests teach, | |
| If a fluent vein be shown | |
| That’s transcendent to our own, | |
| Criticise, reform, or preach, | |
| Or centure what we cannot reach. | 35 |
