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Ben Jonson - An Ode to Himself
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Where dost thou careless lie,
    Buried in ease and sloth?
    Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
    And this security,
    It is the common moth
    That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

    Are all th` Aonian springs
    Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
    Doth Clarius` harp want strings,
   That not a nymph now sings?
   Or droop they as disgrac`d,
   To see their seats and bowers by chatt`ring pies defac`d?

   If hence thy silence be,
   As `tis too just a cause,
   Let this thought quicken thee:
   Minds that are great and free
   Should not on fortune pause;
   `Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

   What though the greedy fry
   Be taken with false baites
   Of worded balladry,
   And think it poesy?
   They die with their conceits,
   And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

   Then take in hand thy lyre,
   Strike in thy proper strain,
   With Japhet`s line aspire
   Sol`s chariot for new fire,
   To give the world again;
   Who aided him will thee, the issue of Jove`s brain.

   And since our dainty age
   Cannot endure reproof,
   Make not thyself a page
   To that strumpet, the stage,
   But sing high and aloof,
   Safe from the wolf`s black jaw and the dull ass`s hoof.
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