Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/143

i I BEN JONSON 127 1 63 1." And, heated with the fire of battle, he recovered his old haughty self-confidence, and rang out vigorous defiance in an ode to himself. I must give three of its six stanzas : — "Come, leave the loathed stage. And the more loathsome age ; Where pride and impudence, in faction knit. Usurp the chair of wit ! Indicting and arraigning every day Something they call a play. Let their fastidious, vain Commission of the brain Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn ; They were not made for thee, less thou for them. Say that thou pour'st them wheat, And they will acorns eat ; 'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste On such as have no taste ! To offer them a surfeit of pure bread Whose appetites are dead ! No, give them grains their fill. Husks, draff to drink and swill : If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, Envy them not, their palate's with the swine. Leave things so prostitute. And take the Alcaic lute ; Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre ; Warm thee by Pindar's fire : And though thy nerves be shrunk and blood be cold Ere years have made thee old. Strike that disdainful heat Throughout, to their defeat, As curious fools, and envious of thy strain. May, blushing, swear no palsy's in thy brain." The spirit of this ode is that which breathes through much of the latest book of Robert Browning,