Verse makes heroic virtue live; <br />But you can life to verses give. <br />As, when in open air we blow, <br />The breath, though strained, sounds flat and low; <br />But if a trumpet take the blast, <br />It lifts it high, and makes it last: <br />So in your airs and our numbers dressed, <br />Make a shrill sally from the breast <br />Of nymphs, who, singing what we penned, <br />Our passions to themselves commend; <br />While love, victorious with thy art, <br />Governs at once their voice and heart. <br /> <br />You, by the help of tune and time, <br />Can make that song which was but rhyme. <br />Noy pleading, no man doubts the cause; <br />Or questions verses set by Lawes. <br /> <br />As a Church window, thick with paint, <br />Lets in a light but dim and faint, <br />So others, with division, hide <br />The light of sense, the poet's pride; <br />But you alone may truly boast <br />That not a syllable is lost: <br />The writer's and the setter's skill <br />At once the ravished ears do fill. <br />Let those which only warble long, <br />And gargle in their throats a song, <br />Content themselves with <br />ut, re, mi <br />: <br />Let words, and sense, be set by thee.<br /><br />Edmund Waller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mr-henry-lawes-who-had-then-newly-set-a-song-of-mine/
