Classic Poem

Went you to conquer? and have so much lost
Yourself, that what in you was best and most,
Respective friendship, should so quickly die?
In public gain my share' is not such that I
Would lose your love for Ireland: better cheap
I pardon death (who though he do not reap
Yet gleans he many of our friends away)
Than that your waking mind should be a prey
To lethargies. Let shot, and bogs, and skeins
With bodies deal, as fate bids or restrains;
Ere sicknesses attack, young death is best,
Who pays before his death doth 'scape arrest.
Let not your soul (at first with graces filled,
And since, and thorough crooked limbecs, stilled
In many schools and Courts, which quicken it,)
Itself unto the Irish negligence submit.
I ask not laboured letters which should wear
Long papers out: nor letters which should fear
Dishonest carriage; or a seer's art,
Nor such as from the brain come, but the heart.