An Ode to Himself

An Ode to Himself

by Ben Jonson

Where dost thou careless lie,

Buried in ease and sloth?

Knowledge that sleeps doth die;

And this security,

It is the common moth

That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th' Aonian springs

Dried up? lies Thespia waste?

Doth Clarius' harp want strings,

That not a nymph now sings?

Or droop they as disgrac'd,

To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?

If hence thy silence be,

As 'tis too just a cause,

Let this thought quicken thee:

Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause;

'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry

Be taken with false baites

Of worded balladry,

And think it poesy?

They die with their conceits,

And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Then take in hand thy lyre,

Strike in thy proper strain,

With Japhet's line aspire

Sol's chariot for new fire,

To give the world again;

Who aided him will thee, the issue of Jove's brain.

And since our dainty age

Cannot endure reproof,

Make not thyself a page

To that strumpet, the stage,

But sing high and aloof,

Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof.