'Thou dost not wisely, Bard. A double voice is Truth's, to use at will: One, with the abysmal scorn of good for ill, Smiting the brutish ear with doctrine hard, Wherein She strives to look as near a lie As can comport with her divinity; The other tender-soft as seem The embraces of a dead Love in a dream. These thoughts, which you have sung In the vernacular, Should be, as others of the Church's are, Decently cloak'd in the Imperial Tongue. Have you no fears Lest, as Lord Jesus bids your sort to dread, Yon acorn-munchers rend you limb from limb, You, with Heaven's liberty affronting theirs!' So spoke my monitor; but I to him, 'Alas, and is not mine a language dead?' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PISGAH SIGHTS by ROBERT BROWNING FIRST BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 11 by THOMAS CAMPION ON A TREE FALLEN ACROSS THE ROAD (TO HEAR US TALK) by ROBERT FROST THE SCARE-FIRE by ROBERT HERRICK LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM by THOMAS MOORE YEW-TREES by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |