Classic Poem

I.

T IS sung by minstrels, that in ancient time,
When Reason hid herself in clouds of night,
The priest delivered all the law in rhyme,
Like painted tilting-spear to please the sight,
The which in its fell use doth make much dere;
So did their ancient lay deftly delight the ear.

II.

Perchance in Virtue's cause rhyme might be then,
But oft now flieth to the other side;
In holy priest appears the ribald's pen,
In humble monk appears the baron's pride;
But rhyme with some, as adder without teeth,
Makes pleasure to the sense, but may do little scath.

III.

Sir John, a knight, who hath a barn of lore,
Knows Latin at first sight from French or Greek;
Setteth' his studying ten years or more,
Poring upon the Latin word to speak.
Whoever speaketh English is despised,
The English, him to please, must first be Latinized.

IV.

Vivian, a monk, a goodly requiem sings,
Can preach so well, each hind his meaning knows;
Albeit these good gifts away he flings,
Being as bad in verse as good in prose.
He sings of saints who died for their God,
And every winter night afresh he sheds their blood.

V.

To maidens, housewives, and unlearned dames,
He reads his tales of merriment and woe.
Laugh loudly dinneth from the dolt adrames;
He swells in praise of fools, yet knows them so;
Sometimes at tragedy they laugh and sing,
At merry jesting tale some hard-drained water bring.

VI.

Yet Vivian is no fool, beyond his lines.
Geoffrey makes verse, as craftsmen make their ware;
Words without sense full grovelingly he twines.
Cutting his story off as with a shear;
Wastes months on nothing, and (his story done)
No more you from it know than if you'd ne'er begun.

VII.

Enough of others; of myself to write,
Requiring what I do not now possess,
To you I leave the task; I know your might
Will make my faults, my sum of faults, be less.
" Ælla " with this I send, and hope that you
Will from it cast away what lines may be untrue.

VIII.

Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet,
Let some great story of a man be sung;
When as a man we God and Jesus treat,
In my poor mind, we do the Godhead wrong.
But let no words, which chasteness may not hear,
Be placed in the same. Adieu until anere.