Ode to Himself [“Come leave the loathéd stage”]

Come leave the loathéd stage,

         And the more loathsome age,

Where pride and impudence in faction knit

         Usurp the chair of wit,

Indicting and arraigning, every day,

         Something they call a play.

     Let their fastidious, vain

     Commission of the brain

Run on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn:

They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

 

         Say that thou pour’st ’em wheat,

         And they would acorns eat;

‘Twere simple fury, still thyself to waste

         On such as have no taste;

To offer them a surfeit of pure bread,

         Whose appetites are dead;

     No, give them grains their fill,

     Husks, draff to drink, and swill;

If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine,

Envy them not, their palate’s with the swine.

 

         No doubt a moldy tale,

         Like Pericles, and stale

As the shrive’s crusts, and nasty as his fish,

         Scraps out of every dish

Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub,

         May keep up the Play Club.

     Broome’s sweepings do as well

     There as his master’s meal;

For who the relish of these guests will fit

Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit.

 

         And much good do’t ye then,

         Brave plush and velvet men

Can feed on orts, and safe in your scene clothes,

         Dare quit upon your oaths

The stagers, and the stage-wrights too (your peers)

         Of stuffing your large ears

     With rage of comic socks,

     Wrought upon twenty blocks;

Which, if they’re torn, and foul, and patched enough,

The gamesters share your guilt, and you their stuff.

 

         Leave things so prostitute,

         And take th’Alcaic lute;

Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon’s lyre;

         Warm thee by Pindar’s fire;

And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold,

         Ere years have made thee old,

     Strike that disdainful heat

     Throughout, to their defeat;

As curious fools, and envious of thy stain,

May, blushing, swear no palsy’s in thy brain.

 

         But when they hear thee sing

         The glories of thy King,

His zeal to God, and his just awe of men,

         They may be blood-shaken, then

Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers,

         That no tuned harp like ours,

     In sound of peace or wars,

     Shall truly hit the stars

When they shall read the acts of Charles his reign,

And see his chariot triumph ’bove his wain.