The Journey Around Parnassus

Poets are made of clay of dainty worth,
Sweet, ductile, and of delicacy prime,
And fond of lingering at a neighbor's hearth;
For e'en the wisest poet of his time
Is ruled by fond desires and delicate,
Of fancies full and ignorance sublime;
Wrapped in his whimsies, with affection great
For his own offspring, he is not designed
To reach a wealthy, but an honored state.
So let my patient readers henceforth mind—
As saith the vulgar impolite and coarse—
That I'm a poet of the self-same kind;
With snowy hairs of swan, with voice of hoarse
And jet-black crow, the rough bark of my wit
To polish down Time vainly spends its force;
Upon the top of Fortune's wheel to sit,
For one short moment hath not been my fate,
For when I'd mount, it fails to turn a whit;
But yet to learn if one high thought and great
Might not some happier occasion seize,
I travelled on with slow and tardy gait,
A wheaten loaf, with eight small scraps of cheese,
Was all the stock my wallet did contain,
Good for the road, and carried with great ease.
“Farewell,” quoth I, “my humble home and plain!
Farewell, Madrid, thy Prado, and thy springs
Distilling nectar and ambrosial rain!
Farewell, ye gay assemblies, pleasant things
To cheer one aching bosom, and delight
Two thousand faint, aspiring underlings!
Farewell, thou charming and deceitful site,
Where erst two giants great were set ablaze
By thunderbolt of Jove, in fiery might!
Farewell, ye public theatres, whose praise
Rests on the ignorance I see becrown
The countless follies of unnumbered plays!”