Classic Poem

Fond man, Musophilus, that thus dost spend
In an ungainful art thy dearest days,
Tiring thy wits and toiling to no end,
But to attain that idle smoke of praise;
Now when this busy world cannot attend
Th' untimely music of neglected lays.
Other delights than these, other desires,
This wiser profit-seeking age requires.

Musophilus.

Friend Philocosmus, I confess indeed
I love this sacred art thou set'st so light,
And though it never stand my life in stead,
It is enough it gives myself delight,
The whiles my unafflicted mind doth feed
On no unholy thoughts for benefit.

Be it that my unseasonable song
Come out of time, that fault is in the time,
And I must not do virtue so much wrong
As love her aught the worse for others' crime;
And yet I find some blessed spirits among
That cherish me, and like and grace my rhyme.

A gain, that I do more in soul esteem,
Than all the gain of dust the world doth crave;
And if I may attain but to redeem
My name from dissolution and the grave,
I shall have done enough, and better deem
T' have lived to be, than to have died to have.

Short-breathed mortality would yet extend
That span of life so far forth as it may,
And rob her fate, seek to beguile her end
Of some few lingering days of after stay,
That all this little all might not descend
Into the dark a universal prey.

And give our labours yet this poor delight,
That when our days do end they are not done;
And though we die, we shall not perish quite,
But live two lives, where others have but one.

Philocosmus.

Silly desires of self-abusing man,
Striving to gain th'inheritance of air,
That, having done the uttermost he can,
Leaves yet, perhaps, but beggary to his heir.
All that great purchase of the breath he wan
Feeds not his race or makes his house more fair.

And what art thou the better, thus to leave
A multitude of words to small effect,
Which other times may scorn, and so deceive
Thy promised name of what thou dost expect?
Besides, some viperous critic may bereave
Th' opinion of thy worth for some defect,

And get more reputation of his wit,
By but controlling of some word or sense,
Than thou shalt honour for contriving it,
With all thy travail, care, and diligence;
Being learned now enough to contradict
And censure others with bold insolence.

Besides, so many so confusedly sing,
As diverse discords have the music marred,
And in contempt that mystery doth bring,
That he must sing aloud that will be heard;
And the received opinion of the thing,
For some unhallowed strings that vildly jarred,

Hath so unseasoned now the ears of men,
That who doth touch the tenour of that vein
Is held but vain, and his unreckoned pen
The title but of levity doth gain.
A poor, light gain, to recompense their toil,
That thought to get eternity the while.

And therefore, leave the left and outworn course
Of unregarded ways, and labour how
To fit the times with what is most in force;
Be new with men's affections that are now;
Strive not to run an idle counter-course
Out from the scent of humours men allow.

For not discreetly to compose our parts
Unto the frame of men, which we must be,
Is to put off ourselves, and make our arts
Rebels to times and to society;
Whereby we come to bury our deserts
In th'obscure grave of singularity.