Classic Poem

'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fixed upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due,
It can nor judge nor write; and yet 'tis true
Thy comic Muse from the exalted line
Touched by thy Alchemist doth since decline
From that her zenith, and foretells a red
And blushing evening when she goes to bed--
Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light
With which all stars shall gild the following night.
Nor think it much (since all thy eaglets may
Endure the sunny trial) if we say,
This hath the stronger wing, or that doth shine
Tricked up in fairer plumes, since all are thine.
Who hath his flock of cackling geese compared
With thy tuned choir of swans? or who hath dared
To call thy births deformed? But if thou bind
By city-custom, or by gavel-kind,
In equal shares thy love to all thy race,
We may distinguish of their sex and place:
Though one hand shape them and though one brain strike
Souls into all, they are not all alike.
Why should the follies then of this dull age
Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage
As seems to blast thy else-immortal bays,
When thine own tongue proclaims thy itch of praise?
Such thirst will argue drought. No, let be hurled
Upon thy works by the detracting world
What malice can suggest; let the rout say
The running sands that, ere thou make a play,
Count the slow minutes might a Goodwin frame
To swallow when th' hast done thy shipwrecked name.
Let them the dear expense of oil upbraid,
Sucked by thy watchful lamp that hath betrayed
To theft the blood of martyred authors, spilt
Into thy ink, while thou growest pale with guilt.
Repine not at the taper's thrifty waste,
That sleeks thy terser poems; nor is haste
Praise, but excuse; and if thou overcome
A knotty writer, bring the booty home;
Nor think it theft if the rich spoils so torn
From conquered authors be as trophies worn.
Let others glut on the extorted praise
Of vulgar breath: trust thou to after days.
Thy labored works shall live when Time devours
Th' abortive offspring of their hasty hours.
Thou art not of their rank, the quarrel lies
Within thine own verge--then let this suffice,
The wiser world doth greater thee confess
Than all men else, than thy self only less.