Where dost thou careless lie, <br /> Buried in ease and sloth? <br /> Knowledge that sleeps doth die; <br /> And this security, <br /> It is the common moth <br /> That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both. <br /> <br /> Are all th' Aonian springs <br /> Dried up? lies Thespia waste? <br /> Doth Clarius' harp want strings, <br /> That not a nymph now sings? <br /> Or droop they as disgrac'd, <br /> To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd? <br /> <br /> If hence thy silence be, <br /> As 'tis too just a cause, <br /> Let this thought quicken thee: <br /> Minds that are great and free <br /> Should not on fortune pause; <br /> 'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause. <br /> <br /> What though the greedy fry <br /> Be taken with false baites <br /> Of worded balladry, <br /> And think it poesy? <br /> They die with their conceits, <br /> And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits. <br /> <br /> Then take in hand thy lyre, <br /> Strike in thy proper strain, <br /> With Japhet's line aspire <br /> Sol's chariot for new fire, <br /> To give the world again; <br /> Who aided him will thee, the issue of Jove's brain. <br /> <br /> And since our dainty age <br /> Cannot endure reproof, <br /> Make not thyself a page <br /> To that strumpet, the stage, <br /> But sing high and aloof, <br /> Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof.<br /><br />Benjamin Jonson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-ode-to-himself/
