VI.
Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile,
That seem’d at once to pity and revile,
And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,
The melancholy Cowley said:
Ah, wanton foe, dost thou upbraid
The ills which thou thyself hast made?
When, in the cradle, innocent I lay,
Thou, wicked spirit, stolest me away,
And my abused soul didst bear
Into thy new-found words I know not where,
Thy golden Indies in the air;
And ever since I strive in vain
My ravish’d freedom to regain:
Still I rebel, still thou dost reign,
Lo, still in verse against thee I complain.
There is a sort of stubborn weeds,
Which if the earth but once, it ever breeds;
No wholesome herb can near them thrive,
No useful plant can keep alive;
The foolish sports I did on thee bestow,
Make all my art and labour fruitless now;
Where once such Fairies dance no grass doth ever grow.