Classic Poem

TO DISSUADE YOUNG PERSONS FROM POETICAL PURSUITS .

Bold is th' aspiring youth, who dares to climb
Th' aerial summit of the sacred mount;
Who dares to woo the muse, to build the rhyme,
And dauntless drinks the deep Aonian fount.

Fair spreads the opening prospect to his view,
What vernant meads! what golden plains appear!
Unclouded suns, and skies serenely blue,
What splendid glories mark the circling year!

His pride impels him to the love of fame,
Alost he soars upon her eagle wings;
Eager he grasps at an ideal name,
And o'er the lyre his hand he boldly flings.

Fond youth, beware, you tread on magic ground,
Court not a garland of poetic bays:
Still with the rose the painful thorn is found,
It is a doubtful, and a dangerous praise.

Soon will your smiling landscape fade away,
Soon will you find your glory in its wane;
When wint'ry suns shall shoot a languid ray,
And dark'ning clouds obscure th' ethereal plain.

What mighty meed has been the poet's lot?
What bright reward has crown'd his ceaseless toil?
What, tho' his labour'd lines are ne'er forgot,
His tedious vigils o'er the midnight oil?

Who like great Homer wak'd the living lyre?
Yet by precarious bounty was he fed;
Had not immortal Lucan Jove's own fire?
Yet in imperial Rome the poet bled.

Disaft'rous chance, Torquato, sure, was thine,
Tho' thy transcendant lustre never dies,
Ne'er with her smiles on thee did fortune shine,
Thy death was lanc'd from Eleanora's eyes.

Sublime Camoens wins a deathless fame,
See Mars and Phaebus on the bard attend;
The distant east reveres his honour'd name,
Yet in affliction doth his sun descend.

Ev'n Colinet, whom all the muses love,
Whom all the nymphs, and all the swains adore;
Keen disappointment often did he prove,
And pin'd in anguish by his Mulla's shore.

Fond youth beware, decline th' insidious muse,
Hear not the magic of her syren strain;
Unwise the man who still her track pursues,
For science, wit, and genius blaze in vain.

I, too, have courted the Pierian maids,
From sad experience, I rehearse the tale;
My morn I spent beneath their barren shades,
Cold winds still nip them, and sharp frosts assail.

He, who shall wait until the evening's close,
And with a fancied wreath adorn his brow;
What cares, what sorrows must he not oppose?
Such cares, such sorrows, as invade me now.

The muse's voice shall charm my soul no more,
Adieu! O Phaebus, and ye laurel'd nine;
I'll guide my small skiss to some shelter'd shore,
Where zephyrs blow, and kinder suns shall shine.