Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam? <br />Far safer 'twere to stay at home; <br />Where thou mayst sit, and piping, please <br />The poor and private cottages. <br />Since cotes and hamlets best agree <br />With this thy meaner minstrelsy. <br />There with the reed thou mayst express <br />The shepherd's fleecy happiness; <br />And with thy Eclogues intermix: <br />Some smooth and harmless Bucolics. <br />There, on a hillock, thou mayst sing <br />Unto a handsome shepherdling; <br />Or to a girl, that keeps the neat, <br />With breath more sweet than violet. <br />There, there, perhaps such lines as these <br />May take the simple villages; <br />But for the court, the country wit <br />Is despicable unto it. <br />Stay then at home, and do not go <br />Or fly abroad to seek for woe; <br />Contempts in courts and cities dwell <br />No critic haunts the poor man's cell, <br />Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read <br />By no one tongue there censured. <br />That man's unwise will search for ill, <br />And may prevent it, sitting still.<br /><br />Robert Herrick<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-his-muse/
