Classic Poem

Yet as when I with other swains have been
Invited by the maidens of our green
To wend to yonder wood, in time of year
When cherry-trees enticing burdens bear,
He that with wreathed legs doth upwards go,
Plucks not alone for those which stand below;
But now and then is seen to pick a few
To please himself as well as all his crew:
Or if from where he is he do espy
Some apricock upon a bough thereby,
Which overhangs the tree on which he stands,
Climbs up and strives to take it with his hands:
So if to please myself I somewhat sing,
Let it not be to you less pleasuring.
No thirst of glory tempts me: for my strains
Befit poor shepherds on the lowly plains;
The hope of riches cannot draw from me
One line that tends to servile flattery,
Nor shall the most in titles on the earth
Blemish my Muse with an adulterate birth,
Nor make me lay pure colours on a ground
Where nought substantial can be ever found.
No; such as sooth a base and dunghill spirit,
With attributes fit for the most of merit,
Cloud their free Muse; as when the sun doth shine
On straw and dirt mix'd by the sweating hyne,
It nothing gets from heaps so much impure
But noisome steams that do his light obscure.
My freeborn Muse will not like Danae be,
Won with base dross to clip with slavery;
Nor lend her choicer balm to worthless men,
Whose names would die but for some hired pen.
No; if I praise, virtue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me do it.
What now I sing is but to pass away
A tedious hour, as some musicians play;
Or make another my own griefs bemoan;
Or to be least alone when most alone,
In this can I as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet content by my retired Muse,
And in a study find as much to please
As others in the greatest palaces.
Each man that lives, according to his power,
On what he loves bestows an idle hour.
Instead of hounds that make the wooded hills
Talk in a hundred voices to the rills,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Struck by the consort of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of hawks, the raptures of my soul
Transcend their pitch and baser earth's control.
For running horses, Contemplation flies
With quickest speed to win the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing, I can take more pleasure
To hear a verse keep time and equal measure.
For winning riches, seek the best directions
How I may well subdue mine own affections,
For raising stately piles for heirs to come,
Here in this poem I erect my tomb,
And Time may be so kind in these weak lines
To keep my name enroll'd past his that shines
In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves:
Since verse preserves, when stone and brass deceives.
Or if (as worthless) Time not lets it live
To those full days which others' Muses give,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most severest eld and kinder young
Beyond my days; and, maugre Envy's strife,
Add to my name some hours beyond my life.
Such of the Muses are the able powers,
And since with them I spent my vacant hours,
I find nor hawk, nor hound, nor other thing,
Tourneys nor revels, pleasures for a king,
Yield more delight; for I have oft possess'd
As much in this as all in all the rest,
And that without expense, when others oft
With their undoings have their pleasures bought.
On now, my loved Muse, and let us bring
Thetis to hear the Cornish Michael sing;
And after him to see a swain unfold
The tragedy of Drake in leaves of gold.
Then hear another Grenville's name relate,
Which times succeeding shall perpetuate,
And make those two the pillars great of fame,
Beyond whose worths shall never sound a name,
Nor Honour in her everlasting story
More deeper grave for all ensuing glory.
Now Thetis stays to hear the shepherds tell
Where Arthur met his death, and Mordred fell:
Of holy Ursula, that fam'd her age,
With other virgins in her pilgrimage:
And as she forwards steers is shown the rock
Main-Amber, to be shook with weakest shock,
So equal is it pois'd; but to remove
All strength would fail, and but an infant's prove.
Thus while to please her some new songs devise,
And others diamonds (shaped angle-wise,
And smooth'd by Nature, as she did impart
Some willing time to trim herself by art,)
Sought to present her and her happy crew;
She of the Gulf and Scillies took a view,
And doubling then the Point, made on away
Tow'rds goodly Severn and the Irish Sea;
There meets a shepherd that began sing o'er
The lay which aged Robert sung of yore,
In praise of England and the deeds of swains
That whilom fed and rul'd upon our plains.
The British bards then were not long time mute,
But to their sweet harps sung their famous Brute:
Striving in spite of all the mists of eld,
To have his story more authentic held.
Why should we envy them those wreaths of fame;
Being as proper to the Trojan name,
As are the dainty flowers which Flora spreads
Unto the spring in the discolour'd meads?
Rather afford them all the worth we may,
For what we give to them adds to our ray.
And, Britons, think not that your glories fall,
Derived from a mean original;
Since lights that may have power to check the dark,
Can have their lustre from the smallest spark.
“Not from nobility doth virtue spring,
But virtue makes fit nobles for a king.
From highest nests are croaking ravens born,
When sweetest nightingales sit in the thorn.”
From what low fount soe'er your beings are,
In softer peace and mighty brunts of war,
Your own worths challenge as triumphant bays
As ever Trojan hand had power to raise.
And when I leave my music's plainer ground,
The world shall know it from Bellona's sound.
Nor shall I err from truth; for what I write
She doth peruse, and helps me to indite.
The small converse which I have had with some,
Branches which from those gallant trees have come,
Doth what I sing in all their acts approve,
And with more days increase a further love.