University of Virginia Library

To my Friends against POETRY.

Dear Friends, if you'll be rul'd by me,
Beware o'th' Charms of Poetry;
And meddle with no fawning Muse,
They'll but your harmless Loves abuse.
Though to Orinda they were ty'd,
That nought their Friendship cou'd divide;
And Cowley's Mistriss had a Flame
As pure and lasting as his Fame:
Yet now they're all grown Prostitutes,
And wantonly admit the Suits
Of any Fop, that will pretend
To be their Servant or their Friend.
Though they to Wit no Homage pay,
Nor yet the Laws of Verse obey,
But ride poor Six-foot out of breath,
And wrack a Metaphor to death;
Who make their Verse imbibe the crimes,
And the lewd Follies too o'th' times;
Who think all Wit consists in Ranting,
And Vertuous Love in wise Gallanting:
And Thousand sorts of Fools, like these,
Make Love and Vertue what they please:
And yet as silly as they show,
Are Favourites o'th' Muses now.
Who then would honour such a Shee,
Where Fools their happier Rivals be?
We, surely, may conclude there's none,
Unless they're drunk with Helicon,
Which is a Liquor that can make
A Dunce set up for Rhiming Quack:
A Liquor of so strange a temper,
As can our Faculties all hamper;
That whoso drinks thereof is curs'd
Unto a constant Rhiming thirst;
I know not by what spell of Witch,
It strikes the Mind into an itch;
Which being scrub'd by praise, thereby
Becomes a spreading Leprosie;
As hard to cure as Dice or Whore,
And makes the Patient too as poor;
For Poverty's the certain Fate
Which attends a Poet's state.