| |
| WHERE dost thou careless lie | |
| Buried in ease and sloth? | |
| Knowledge that sleeps, doth die | |
| And this security, | |
| It is the common moth | 5 |
| That eats on wits and arts, and that destroys them both. | |
| |
| Are all the Aonian springs | |
| Dried up? lies Thespia waste? | |
| Doth Clarius’ harp want strings, | |
| That not a nymph now sings; | 10 |
| Or droop they as disgraced, | |
| To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defaced? | |
| |
| If hence thy silence be, | |
| As ’tis too just a cause, | |
| Let this thought quicken thee: | 15 |
| Minds that are great and free | |
| Should not on fortune pause; | |
| ’Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause. | |
| |
| What though the greedy fry | |
| Be taken with false baits | 20 |
| Of worded balladry, | |
| And think it poesy? | |
| They die with their conceits, | |
| And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits. | |
| |
| Then take in hand thy lyre; | 25 |
| Strike in thy proper strain; | |
| With Japhet’s line aspire | |
| Sol’s chariot, for new fire | |
| To give the world again: | |
| Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove’s brain. | 30 |
| |
| And, since our dainty age | |
| Cannot endure reproof, | |
| Make not thyself a page | |
| To that strumpet the stage; | |
| But sing high and aloof, | 35 |
| Safe from the wolf’s black jaw, and the dull ass’s hoof. | |
| |
