ON HONOURED POEMS OF HIS HONOURED FRIEND SIR JOHN BEAUMONT by BEN JONSON

This book will live; it hath a genius: this
Above his reader, or his praiser, is.
Hence, then, profane: here needs no words' expense
In bulwarks, ravelins, ramparts, for defence,
Such, as the creeping common pioneers use
When they do sweat to fortify a muse.
Though I confess a Beaumont's book to be
The bound, and frontier of our poetry;
And doth deserve all muniments of praise,
That art, or engine, on the strength can raise.
Yet, who dares offer a redoubt to rear?
To cut a dike, or stick a stake up, here,
Before this work, where envy hath not cast
A trench against it, nor a battery placed?
Stay, till she make her vain approaches. Then
If, maimed, she come off, 'tis not of men
This fort of so impregnable access,
But higher power, as spite could not make less,
Nor flattery! But secured, by the author's name,
Defies, what's cross to piety, or good fame.
And like a hallowed temple, free from taint
Of ethnicism, makes his muse a saint.

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