The Blunder of Strong Spirits; warm and sweet,
Or cold without, and pale; whereof to tread
The wild wet ways is perilous to thy feet,
And in thine eyes, where green was, lo, the red;
And where thy sinew, soft weak fat instead;
Burning of heart, and much uneasiness
About thy girdle, and aching in thine head;
This is the end of every man's excess.
The Blunder of Much Rhyming. If thou write
That once again that should be once for all,
These market-men will buy thy black and white
Till thy keen swift full fervent ways shall fall
On sated ears; thy stinging sweetness pall;
And barren memories of thy bright success
Shall burst in thee the bladder of thy gall;
This is the end of every man's excess.
The Blunder of Long Ballads. Bide in peace;
For when the night is near, the day shall die,
And when the day shall dawn the night shall cease,
And all things have an end of all; and I
An end of this, for that my lips are dry,
And the eleventh hour's exceeding heaviness
Doth overweigh mine eyelid on mine eye . . .
This is the end of every man's excess.
MORAL.
Poets, who tread the fast and flowerful way,
Heed well the burden these sad rhymes impress;
Pleasure is first, and then the time to pay;
This is the end of every man's excess.
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