Classic Poem

IF any carp, for that my younger times
Brought forth such idle fruit as these slight rhymes;
It is no matter, so they do not swear
That they so ill employed never were.
Whilst their desires, perhaps, they looselier spent,
I gave my heats of youth this better vent,
And oft by writing thus the blood have tamed,
Which some with reading wanton lays enflamed.
Nor care I though their censure some have past,
Because my songs exceed the fiddler's last;
For do they think that I will make my measures
The longer or the shorter for their pleasures?
Or maim or curtailise my free invention,
Because fools weary are of their attention: —
No, let them know, who do their length contemn,
I make to please myself, and not for them.