XVII.
No: a born Poet at his cradle fire
The Muses nursed him as their bud unblown,
And gave him, as his mind grew high and higher,
Their ducal strawberry leaf’s unwreathed renown.
Alas! that mightiest masters of the lyre,
Whose pens above an eagle’s heart have grown,
In all the proud nobility of wing,
Should stoop to dip their points in passion’s poison spring.
XVIII.