Quemadmodum a Cupidine, pro bellis amoris scribere coactus sit.
We which were Ovid's five books, now are three,
For these before the rest preferreth he:
If reading five thou plain'st of tediousness,
Two ta'en away, thy labour will be less;
With Muse prepared, I meant to sing of arms,
Choosing a subject fit for fierce alarms:
Both verses were alike till Love (men say)
Began to smile and took one foot away.
Rash boy, who gave thee power to change a line?
We are the Muses' prophets, none of thine.
What, if thy mother take Diana's bow,
Shall Dian fan when love begins to glow?
In woody groves is't meet that Ceres reign,
And quiver-bearing Dian till the plain?
Who'll set the fair-tressed Sun in battle-ray
While Mars doth take the Aonian harp to play?
Great are thy kingdoms, over-strong and large,
Ambitious imp, why seek'st thou further charge?
Are all things thine? the Muses' Tempe thine?
Then scarce can Phoebus say, "This harp is mine."
When in this work's first verse I trod aloft,
Love slaked my muse, and made my numbers soft:
I have no mistress nor no favourite,
Being fittest matter for a wanton wit.
Thus I complained, but Love unlocked his quiver,
Took out the shaft, ordained my heart to shiver,
And bent his sinewy bow upon his knee,
Saying, "Poet, here's a work beseeming thee."
O, woe is me! he never shoots but hits,
I burn, love in my idle bosom sits:
Let my first verse be six, my last five feet:
Farewell stern war, for blunter poets meet!
Elegian muse, that warblest amorous lays,
Girt my shine brow with seabank myrtle sprays.