If you find Pegasus a steed
Scornful of your control,
Who canters well enough, indeed,
But will not caracole,
So much the better, poet mine,
’Tis bottom wins the race.
Let poetasters prance, in fine;
Keep you the steady pace.
Let poetasters hunt for sound,
Chase metres, out of breath;
Great thoughts are not thus run to ground,
Nor fame in at the death.
So, let your Pegasus be free
To hunt some thought sublime,
While you sit still, with clinging knee,
And gallop simple rhyme.
Ah, friend, of all the joys of earth,
There’s nothing like the hunt,
The good horse straining at the girth,
The clear-tongued hounds in front.
And if your Pegasus can bear
You well before the rout,
Don’t curb and make him beat the air;
Loose rein, and let him out.
Oft when a poet’s rhymes I read,
With ornate language wrought,
Its cadences, though sweet indeed,
But hide the lack of thought.
Be yours the poem that can stand
From trappings wholly free,
Each thought a Phryne, to be scanned
In fearless nudity.