ODE 9.
[A Skeltoniad.]
He Muse should be sprightly;
Yet not handling lightly
Things grave: as much loath
Things that be slight, to cloathe
Curiously. To retain
The Comeliness in mean
Is true Knowledge and Wit.
Nor me forced rage doth fit,
That I thereto should lack
Tobacco, or need Sack;
Which to the colder brain
Is the true Hippocrene.
Nor did I ever care
For Great Fools, nor them spare.
Virtue, though neglected,
Is not so dejected
As vilely to descend
To low baseness, their end:
Neither each rhyming slave
Deserves the name to have
Of Poet. So, the rabble
Of Fools, for the table,
That have their jests by heart,
As an Actor his part,
Might assume them chairs
Amongst the Muses' heirs.
Parnassus is not clomb
By every such Mome:
Up whose steep side who swerves,
It behoves t'have strong nerves.
My resolution such
How well, and not how much,
To write. Thus do I fare
Like some few good, that care
(The evil sort among)
How well to live, and not how long.