Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VIRGIDEMIAE: BOOK 2: SATIRE: 2, by JOSEPH HALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VIRGIDEMIAE: BOOK 2: SATIRE: 2, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: To what ende did our lauish auncestours
Last Line: Let swinish grill delight in dunghill clay.
Subject(s): Muses; Nature; Pain; Suffering; Misery


To what ende did our lauish auncestours,
Erect of olde these stately piles of ours?
For thred-bare clerks, & for the ragged Muse
Whom better fit some cotes of sad secluse?
Blush niggard Age, and be asham'd to see,
These monuments of wiser ancestrie.
And ye faire heapes the Muses sacred shrines,
(In spight of time and enuious repines)
Stand still, and flourish till the worlds last day,
Vpbrayding it with former loues decay.
Here may ye Muses, our deare Soueraines,
Scorne ech base Lordling euer you disdaines,
And euery peasant churle, whose smoky roofe
Denied harbour for your deare behoofe.
Scorne ye the world before it do complaine,
And scorne the world that scorneth you againe.
And scorne contempt it selfe, that doth incite
Each single-sold squire to set you at so light.
What needs me care for any bookish skill,
To blot white papers with my restlesse quill:
Or poare on painted leaues: or beate my braine
With far-fetcht thoughts: or to consume in vaine
In later Euen, or mids of winter nights,
Ill smelling oyles, or some still-watching lights.
Let them that meane by bookish businesse
To earne their bread: or hopen to professe
Their hard got skill: let them alone for mee,
Busie their braines with deeper bookerie.
Great gaines shall bide you sure, when ye haue spent
A thousand Lamps: & thousand Reames haue rent
Of needlesse papers, and a thousand nights
Haue burned out with costly candle lights.
Ye palish ghosts of Athens; when at last,
Your patrimonie spent in witlesse wast,
Your friends all wearie, and your spirits spent,
Ye may your fortunes seeke: and be forwent
Of your kind cosins: and your churlish sires,
Left there alone mids the fast-folding Briers.
Haue not I lands of faire inheritance,
Deriu'd by right of long continuance,
To first-borne males, so list the law to grace,
Natures first fruits in euiternall race?
Let second brothers, and poore nestlings,
Whom more iniurious Nature later brings
Into the naked world: let them assaine
To get hard peny-worths with bootlesse paine.
Tush? what care I to be Arcesilas,
Or some sowre Solon, whose deep-furrowed face
And sullen head, and yellow-clouded sight,
Still on the stedfast earth are musing pight.
Muttring what censures their distracted minde,
Of brain-sicke Paradoxes deeply hath definde:
Of Parmenides, or of darke Heraclite,
Whether all be one, or ought be infinite.
Long would it be, ere thou had'st purchase bought
Or wealthier wexen by such idle thought.
Fond foole, six feete shall serue for all thy store:
And he that cares for most, shall finde no more.
We scorne that wealth should be the finall end,
Whereto the heauenly Muse her course doth bend:
And rather had be pale with learned cares,
Then paunched with thy choyce of changed fares.
Or doth thy glory stand in outward glee,
A laue-ear'd Asse with gold may trapped bee:
Or if in pleasure: liue we as we may:
Let swinish Grill delight in dunghill clay.





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