f poesie?
Faction and envy now are<90.16> downright rage.
Once a five-knotted whip there was, the stage:
The beadle and the executioner,
To whip small errors, and the great ones tear;
Now, as er'e Nimrod the first king, he writes:
That's strongest, th' ablest deepest bites.
The muses weeping fly their hill, to see
Their noblest sons of peace in mutinie.
Could there nought else this civil war compleat,
But poets raging with poetic heat,
Tearing themselves and th' endlesse wreath, as though
Immortal they, their wrath should be so, too?
And doubly fir'd Apollo burns to see
In silent Helicon a naumachie.
Parnassus hears these at his first alarms;
Never till now Minerva was in arms.
O more then conqu'ror of the world, great Rome!
Thy heros did with gentleness or'e come
Thy foes themselves, but one another first,
Whilst envy stript alone was left, and burst.
The learn'd Decemviri, 'tis true, did strive,
But to add flames to keep their fame alive;
Whilst the eternal lawrel hung ith' air:
Nor of these ten sons was there found one heir.
Like to the golden tripod, it did pass
From this to this, till 't came to him, whose 'twas.
Caesar to Gallus trundled it, and he
To Maro: Maro, Naso, unto thee?
Naso to his Tibullus flung the wreath,
He to Catullus thus did bequeath.
This glorious circle, to another round,
At last the temples of their god it bound.
I might believe at least, that each might have
A quiet fame contented in his grave,
Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite:
For after death all men receave their right.<90.17>
If it be sacriledge for to profane
Their holy ashes, what is't then their flame?
He does that wrong unweeting<90.18> or in ire,
As if one should put out the vestal fire.
Let earths four quarters speak, and thou, Sun, bear
Now witnesse for thy fellow-traveller.
I was ally'd, dear Uncle,<90.19> unto thee
In blood, but thou, alas, not unto me;
Your vertues, pow'rs, and mine differ'd at best,
As they whose springs you saw, the east and west.<90.20>
Let me awhile be twisted in thy shine,
And pay my due devotions at thy shrine.
Might learned Waynman<90.21> rise, who went with thee
In thy heav'ns work beside divinity,
I should sit still; or mighty Falkland<90.22> stand
To justifie with breath his pow'rful hand;
The glory, that doth circle your pale urn,
Might hallow'd still and undefiled burn:
But I forbear. Flames, that are wildly thrown
At sacred heads, curle back upon their own;
Sleep, h