Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid.
Who with his axe thy father's midwife played.
Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,
Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports;
Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts.
Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task,
Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;
His absence in my verse is all I ask.
Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,
Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus,
And rifle him; or pawn his petasus.
Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
Though they were crushed into one form, could make
A beauty of that merit, that should take
My muse up by commission; no, I bring
My own true fire: now my thought takes wing,
And now an epode to deep ears I sing.
EPODE
Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue and not fate:
Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel.
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
Or safe, but she'll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch and ward
At th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
That no strange, or unkind
Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,
Give knowledge instantly
To wakeful reason, our affections' king:
Who, in th' examining,
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit
Close, the close cause of it.
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