Classic Poem

Ben doe not leave the stage
'Cause 'tis a loathsome age;
For Pride, and Impudence will grow too bold,
When they shall heare it told
They frighted thee: stand high as is thy cause,
Their hisse is thy applause.
More just were thy disdaine,
Had they approv'd thy vaine.
So thou for them, and they for thee were borne,
They to incense, and thou as much to scorne.

Wilt thou engrosse thy store
Of wheat, and powre no more,
Because their Bacon-braines have such a tast
As more delight in mast?
No; set 'em forth a board of dainties, full
As thy best Muse can cull;
While they the while doe pine
And thirst, midst all their wine.
What greater plague can hell it selfe devise,
Then to be willing thus to tantalize?

Thou canst not find them stuffe
That will be bad enough
To please their pallats; let 'em thine refuse
For some Pye-corner Muse;
She is too faire an hostesse, 'twere a sinne
For them to like thine Inne:
Twas made to entertaine,
Guests of a nobler straine,
Yet if they will have any of thy store,
Give 'em some scraps, and send them from thy dore.

And let those things in plush,
Till they be taught to blush
Like what they will, and more contented bee
With what Broome swept from thee.
I know thy worth, and that thy lofty straines
Write not to clothes but Braines:
But thy great spleene doth rise
Cause moles will have no eyes;
This only in my Ben , I faulty find
He's angry, they'le not see him that are blind.

Why should the Scene be Mute
'Cause thou canst touch a Lute
And string thy Horace? let each Muse of nine
Claime thee, and say thou art mine.
'Twere fond to let all other flames expire
To sitt by Pindar's fire:
For by so strange neglect,
I should my selfe suspect
The Palsie were as well, thy braines disease;
If they could shake thy Muse which way they please.
And though thou well canst sing,
The glories of thy King;
And on the wings of verse his chariot beare
To heaven, and fixe it there:
Yet let thy Muse as well some raptures raise,
To please him, as to praise.
I would not have thee choose
Only a treble Muse;
But have this envious, ignorant Age to know,
Thou that canst sing so high, canst reach as low.