Classic Poem

A LGERNON Lord P ERCY , sonne and heire apparant to the right Honorable Henry Earle of Northumberland .

Thrice Noble, and more hopeful Pupil, I
(Who learnes thy Hand to shew thy Hearts conceits)
Would make thy heart, before it Vice doth trie,
To know her Lures, to shunne her slie deceits
But, in the prime but of thy Pupillage
Before the ioyants of Iudgement can be knit,
(Although for Wit thou mai'st be Wisdomes Page)
Vice throwes her Lures aboue thy reach of Wit.
But yet when Time shall throwly close thy Mould,
Wherein all rare Conceits still cast shall bee,
Then shalt thou (with cleere eies) darke lines behold,
That leade thee to all knowledge fit for thee.
And, sith that Childhood more in Tales delights
Then saddest Truths; Ile tell thee merry Tales,
Of Lords and Ladies with their merry Knights,
Their merry Blisses, and their sory Bales:
The outside of these Tales are painted o're
With colours rich, to please thine eagre sence;
But, lin'd with naked Truth (yet richly poore)
More fit for thy more rich Intelligence .
When thou canst crake this Nut, within the Shell
Thou shalt a Kernell finde will please thy Taste;
The Pallate of thy Wit will like it well
When thou shal swallow it, for ioy, in haste;
Then make this Nut a whirligigge the while,
To make thee merry (if thou canst be so)
To see the turning of our Sports to toile,
Wherein observe how pleasures come and go:
For, as a whirligigge doth turn so fast,
That sharpest sights the fruit do scarse perceiue:
So can no Pallate fruits of Pleasure taste
When they are come, so soone they take their leaue!
Reade little Lord, this Riddle learne to reede;
So, first appose; then, tell it to thy Peeres:
So they shall hold thee (both in name and Deed)
A perfect Pierc-ey that in darkenesse cleeres
A Pierc-ey , or a piercing eye doth shew
Both Wit and Courage: and if thou wilt learne
By morall Tales sinnes mortall to eschew,
Thou shalt be wise, and endlesse glorie earne:
That so thou mai'st, thy meanest Tutor praies;
So Percies fame shall pierce the Eie of Daies;
Then, by those Raies my Pen (inflam'd) shall runne
Beyond the Moone, to make thy Moone a Sunne