WHEN Dryden's fool, 'unknowing what he sought,' His hours in whistling spent, 'for want of thought,' This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense Supplied, and amply too, by innocence; Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers, In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours, The offended guests would not, with blushing, see These fair green walks disgraced by infamy. Severe the fate of modern fools, alas! When vice and folly mark them as they pass. Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall, The filth they leave still points out where they crawl. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 7 by PHILIP SIDNEY L. OF G.'S PURPORT by WALT WHITMAN HYMN TO THE NAIADS by MARK AKENSIDE FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: MURDERER'S HAUNTED COUCH by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE LAST MAN: BONA DE MORTUIS by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES A MORNING PIECE; WRITTEN IN ABSENCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN VERSES: THE SECOND BOY by JOHN BYROM OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 20. ELEGIAC VRSE: THE THIRD EPIGRAM by THOMAS CAMPION TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. BY LAKE WACHUSETT by EDWARD CARPENTER |