Classic Poem

I.

Strange doom it'is, that in these days, of ours,
Naught but a bare recital can have place;
Now shapely poesy hath lost its powers
And painful history is only grace;
They pick up loathsome weedes instead of flowers,
And families, instead of wit, they trace:
Now poesy can meet with no regrate,
Whilst prose and heraldry rise in estate.

II.

Let kings and rulers, when they gain a throne,
Shew what their grandsires and great-grandsires bore,
Emblazoned arms that, not before their own,
Now rang'd with what their fathers had before;
Let trades and town-folk let such things alone,
Nor fight for sable in a field of or;
Seldom or never are arms virtue's meed,
She ne'er to take too much doth aye take heed.

III.

A man askance upon a piece may look,
And shake his head to stir his wit about;
Quoth he, if I should glance upon this book,
And find therein that truth is left without;
Eke if unto a view perchance I took
The long bede-roll of all the writing rout,
Asserius, Ingulphus, Turgot, Bede,
Throughout them all naught like it I could read.

IV.

Pardon, ye graybeards, if I say, unwise
Ye are to stick so close and bysmarelie
To history; you do it too much prize,
Which hath diminished thoughts of poesy;
Some trivial share you should to that devise,
Not making everything be history;
Instead of mounting on a winged horse,
You on a cart-horse drive in doleful course.

V.

Canynge and I from common course dissent,
We ride the steed, but give to him the rein,
Nor will between craz'd mouldering books be pent,
But soar on high, amid the sunbeams' sheen;
And where we find some scattered flowers besprent,
We take it, and from old rust make it clean;
We will not chained to one pasture be,
But sometimes soar 'bove truth of history.

VI.

Say, Canynge, what was verse in days of yore?
Fine thoughts, and couplets dext'rously bewryen,
Not such as do annoy this age so sore,
A careful pencil resting at each line.
Verse may be good, but poesy wants more,
A boundless subject, and a song adygne;
According to the rule I have this wrought,
If it please Canynge, I care not a groat.

VII.

The thing itself must be its own defence,
Some metre may not please a woman's ear.
Canynge looks not for poesy, but sense;
And high and worthy thoughts are all his care.
Canynge, adieu! I do you greet from hence;
Full soon I hope to taste of your good cheer;
Good bishop Carpenter did bid me say
He wish'd you health and happiness for aye.