Classic Poem

Now if a painter to his art were wed,
Would he a horse's neck, a fish's tail,
Join with the drawing of a human head,
And then expect the painting not to fail?
Would you, my friends, restrain your loud derision
If you were asked to look on such a vision?

Believe me, Pisos, many a book and song
Are fashioned on such helter-skelter themes —
Formless and vain and mixed together wrong,
Jumbled and hazy as a sick man's dreams.
" But poetry and arts pertaining thereto, "
You say, " should take what liberty they dare to. "

That I concede, but let me have a word:
License I give, and liberty I take.
But wild and tame will not unite; the bird,
I hold, cannot be coupled with the snake.
And I am one who always will disparage
In life and letters, a lamb-and-tiger marriage.

Some poets make a glittering, gaudy show
In introductions, promising too much,
As when they speak about the river's flow,
Diana's altar, and the woods, and such;
Perhaps a rainbow when the shower passes,
A purling stream, perhaps, through summer grasses.

If cypresses are the only thing you know,
What profits you your skill in painting trees
When what you are essaying now to show
Is shipwreck on the green and angry seas?
Your aiming by your target be directed.
In brief, be simple, short, and unaffected.

But poets — most of us — are led by lure;
We often lose the reason for the rhyme;
And so when you'd be brief, you are obscure,
Bombastic when you wish to be sublime.
You want your verses smooth and full of virtue,
And lo! your spirit and your nerves desert you.

He who is overcautious and who fears
The threatening storm will stay along the shore;
While he who dares to soar in rarer spheres
Puts fish on land, or in the sea the boar.
Too cautious do not be, nor too meticulous,
For that's a certain way to be ridiculous.

Though not without a certain skill,
The Æmilian sculptor who can make
The nails and waving hair does ill,
If that the rest of it be fake.
Rather would I have no ambition
Than fashion such a composition.

O ye that would caress the Muse,
Or sweet or sturdy be your song,
Learn what she'll take, and what refuse,
And is she weak, or is she strong?
Bright be your flame, nor aught can dim it,
If you but know your Muse's limit.

For ye that well select your theme
Need have no silly, foolish fear;
Your words will shine, your phrases gleam.
Your method will be crystal clear.
Think what to say at once, and say it;
And as to what can wait, delay it.