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Title: A Skeltoniad
Author: Michael Drayton [
More Titles by Drayton]
The Muse should be sprightly,
Yet not handling lightly
Things grave; as much loath,
Things that be slight, to cloath
Curiously: To retain
The Comeliness in mean,
Is true Knowledge and Wit.
Not me forced Rage doth fit,
That I thereto should lack
Tobacco, or need Sack,
Which to the colder Brain
Is the true Hyppocrene;
Nor did I ever care
For great Fool, nor them spare.
Virtue, though neglected,
Is not so dejected,
As vilely to descend
To low Baseness their end;
Neither each ryming 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 clome
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 doe I fare,
Like some few good that care
(The evil sort among)
How well to live, and not how long.
[The end]
Michael Drayton's poem: Skeltoniad
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