No More Learning

And for a tankard-bearing muse must we,
As for the basket, Guelphs and Ghibelines be ?
When the sword glitters o'er the judge's head,
And fear has coward churchmen silenced,
Then is the poet's time, *tis then he draws,
And single fights forsaken virtue's cause.
He, when the wheel of empire whirleth back,
And though the world's disjointed axle crack,
Sings still of ancient rights and better times.
Seeks wretched good, arraigns successful crimes ;



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188 THE POBMS

But thou, base man, first prostituted hast.
Our spotless knowledge and the studies chaste,
Apostatizing from our arts and us,
To turn the chronicler to Spabtacus ;
Yet wast thou taken hence with equal fate,
Befgre thou couldst great Chablbs's death re-
late,
But what will deeper wound thy little mind,
Hast lefl surviving Dayenant still behind.
Who laughs to see in this thy death renewed.
Right Roman poverty and gratitude.
Poor poet thou, and grateful senate they.
Who thy last reckoning did so largely pay,
And with the public, gravity would come.
When thou hadst drunk thy last, to lead thee

home.
If that can be thy home where Spexseb lies,
And reverend Chauceb; but their dust does

xise
Against thee, and expels . thee from their side.
As the eagle's plumes from other birds divide :
Nor here thy shade must dwell, return, re-
turn.
Where sulphury Fulegethon does ever burn !
There Cerberus with all his jaws shall gnash,
Megj^ra thee with all her serpents lash ;
Thou, riveted unto Ixion's wheel,
Shalt break and the perpetual vulture feel !
'Tis just what torments poets e'er did feign,
Thou first historically shouldst sustain.



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OF BIARVELL. 189

Thus-, by irrevocable sentence cast,
Mat only master of these revels passed,
And straight he vanished in a cloud of pitch,
Such as unto the sabbath bears the witch.



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190 THE POEMS



OCEANA AND BRITANNIA.

Non ego sum votes, sed prisci conscius isvi.
OCEANA.

Whither, O whither, wander I forlorn,
Fatal to friends, and to my foes a scorn ?
My pregnant womb is laboring to bring forth
Thy offspring, Archon, heir to thy just worth.
Archon, O Archon, hear my groaning cries !
Lucina, help, assuage my miseries !
Saturnian spite pursues me thi-ough the earth.
No corner's left to hide my long wished birth.
Great queen of isles, yield me a safe retreat
From the crowned gods, who would my infants

eat ;
On me, O Delos, on my child-bed, smile.
My happy seed shall fix thy floating isle ;
I feel fierce pangs assault my teeming womb :
Xiucina, O Britannia, mother come !

BRITANNIA.

What doleful shrieks pierce my affrighted ear ?