Classic Poem

Twice had the cock crown, and in cities strong
The bellman's doleful noise and careful song
Told men, whose watchful eyes no slumber hent,
What store of hours theft-guilty night had spent,
Yet had not Morpheus with this maiden been,
As fearing Limos, whose impetuous teen
Kept gentle rest from all to whom his cave
Yielded enclosure deadly as the grave;
But to all sad laments left her forlorn,
In which three watches she had nigh outworn.
Fair silver-footed Thetis that time threw
Along the ocean with a beauteous crew
Of her attending sea-nymphs, Jove's bright lamps
Guiding from rocks her chariot's hippocamps:
A journey only made unwares to spy
If any mighties of her empery
Oppress'd the least, and forc'd the weaker sort
To their designs by being great in court.
O! should all potentates whose higher birth
Enrols their titles, other gods on earth,
Should they make private search, in veil of night,
For cruel wrongs done by each favourite;
Here should they find a great one paling in
A mean man's land, which many years had been
His charge's life, and by the other's hest,
The poor must starve to feed a scurvy beast.
If any recompense drop from his fist,
His time's his own, the money what he list.
There should they see another that commands
His farmer's team from furrowing his lands,
To bring him stones to raise his building vast,
The while his tenant's sowing time is past.
Another (spending) doth his rents enhance,
Or gets by tricks the poor's inheritance.
But as a man whose age hath dimm'd his eyes,
Useth his spectacles, and as he prys
Through them all characters seem wondrous fair,
Yet when his glasses quite removed are,
Though with all careful heed he nearly look,
Cannot perceive one tittle in the book;
So if a king behold such favourites,
Whose being great was being parasites,
With th' eyes of favour, all their actions are
To him appearing plain and regular:
But let him lay his sight of grace aside,
And see what men he hath so dignified,
They all would vanish, and not dare appear,
Who, atom-like, when their sun shined clear,
Danc'd in his beam; but now his rays are gone,
Of many hundred we perceive not one.
Or as a man who, standing to descry
How great floods far off run, and valleys lie,
Taketh a glass prospective good and true,
By which things most remote are full in view:
If monarchs, so, would take an instrument
Of truth compos'd to spy their subjects drent
In foul oppression by those high in seat,
Who care not to be good but to be great,
In full aspect the wrongs of each degree
Would lie before them; and they then would see
The devilish politician all convinces,
In murd'ring statesmen and in pois'ning princes;
The prelate in pluralities asleep,
Whilst that the wolf lies preying on his sheep;
The drowsy lawyer, and the false attorneys
Tire poor men's purses with their lifelong journeys;
The country gentleman from's neighbour's hand
Forceth th' inheritance, joins land to land,
And most insatiate seeks under his rent
To bring the world's most spacious continent;
The fawning citizen (whose love's bought dearest)
Deceives his brother when the sun shines clearest,
Gets, borrows, breaks, lets in, and stops out light,
And lives a knave to leave his son a knight;
The griping farmer hoards the seed of bread,
Whilst in the streets the poor lie famished:
And free there's none from all this worldly strife,
Except the shepherd's heaven-bless'd happy life.
But stay, sweet Muse, forbear this harsher strain!
Keep with the shepherds; leave the satyrs' vein;
Coop not with bears; let Icarus alone
To scorch himself within the torrid zone:
Let Phaeton run on, Ixion fall,
And with an humble styled Pastoral
Tread through the valleys, dance about the streams.
The lowly dales will yield us anadems
To shade our temples, 'tis a worthy meed,
No better garland seeks mine oaten reed;
Let others climb the hills, and to their praise,
Whilst I sit girt with flowers, be crown'd with bays.
Show now, fair Muse, what afterward became
Of great Achilles' mother; she whose name
The mermaids sing, and tell the weeping strand
A braver lady never tripp'd on land,
Except the ever-living Faëry Queen,
Whose virtues by her swain so written been,
That time shall call her high enhanced story
In his rare song, the Muses' chiefest glory.
So mainly Thetis drove her silver throne,
Inlaid with pearls of price and precious stone,
For whose gay purchase she did often make
The scorched negro dive the briny lake,
That by the swiftness of her chariot wheels,
Scouring the main as well-built English keels,
She of the new-found world all coasts had seen,
The shores of Thessaly, where she was queen,
Her brother Pontus' waves, embrac'd, with those
Mœotian fields and vales of Tenedos,
Strait Hellespont, whose high-brow'd cliffs yet sound
The mournful name of young Leander drown'd;
Then with full speed her horses doth she guide
Through the Ægean Sea, that takes a pride
In making difference 'twixt the fruitful lands,
Europe and Asia almost joining hands,
But that she thrusts her billows all afront
To stop their meeting through the Hellespont.
The Midland Sea so swiftly was she scouring,
The Adriatic gulf brave ships devouring.
To Padus' silver stream then glides she on,
Enfamoused by reckless Phaeton,
Padus that doth beyond his limits rise,
When the hot dog-star rains his maladies,
And robs the high and air-invading Alps
Of all their winter-suits and snowy scalps,
To drown the levell'd lands along his shore,
And make him swell with pride. By whom of yore
The sacred Heliconian damsels sat,
To whom was mighty Pindus consecrate,
And did decree, neglecting other men,
Their height of art should flow from Maro's pen;
And prattling echoes evermore should long
For repetition of sweet Naso's song.
It was enacted here in after days
What wights should have their temples crown'd with bays;
Learn'd Ariosto, holy Petrarch's quill,
And Tasso should ascend the Muses' hill.
Divinest Bartas, whose enriched soul
Proclaim'd his Maker's worth, should so enroll
His happy name in brass, that Time nor Fate
That swallow all, should ever ruinate:
Delightful Saluste, whose all-blessed lays
The shepherds make their hymns on holy-days;
And truly say thou in one week hast penn'd
What time may ever study, ne'er amend.
Marot and Ronsard, Garnier's buskin'd Muse
Should spirit of life in very stones infuse;
And many another swan whose powerful strain
Should raise the golden world to life again.