Of these consist our bodies, clothes, and food,
The world, the useful, hurtful, and the good.
Sweet harmony they keep, yet jar ofttimes-
Their discord doth appear by these harsh rhymes.
Yours did contest for wealth, for arts, for age;
My first do show their good, and then their rage.
My other Fours do intermixéd tell
Each other's faults, and where themselves excel;
How hot and dry contend with moist and cold,
How air and earth no correspondence hold,
And yet, in equal tempers, how they agree,
How divers natures make one unity.
Something of all, though mean, I did intend,
But feared you'd judge Du Bartas was my friend.
I honor him, but dare not wear his wealth.
My goods are true, though poor; I love no stealth;
But if I did I durst not send them you,
Who must reward a thief but with his due.
I shall not need mine innocence to clear:
These ragged lines will do it when they appear.
On what they are, your mild aspect I crave;
Accept my best, my worst vouchsafe a grave.
From her that to yourself more duty owes
Than water in the boundless ocean flows.
To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,
Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,
For my mean pen are too superior things:
Or how they all, or each, their dates have run;
Let poets and historians set these forth,
My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth.
But when my wondering eyes and envious heart
Great Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,
Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part
'Twixt him and me that overfluent store;-
A Bartas can do what a Bartas will,
But simple I according to my skill.
From school-boys' tongues no rhetoric we expect,
Nor yet a sweet consort from broken strings,
Nor perfect beauty where 's a main defect:
My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings;
And this to mend, alas, no art is able,
'Cause nature made it so, irreparable.
Nor can I, like that fluent, sweet-tongued Greek
Who lisped at first, in future times speak plain;
By art he gladly found what he did seek
A full requital of his striving pain.
Art can do much, but this maxim 's most sure:
A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits.
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong;
For such despite they cast on female wits,
If what I do prove well, it won't advance—
They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance.
But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,
Else of our sex why feignéd they those Nine,
And Poesy made Calliope's own child?
So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine.
But this weak knot they will full soon untie—
The Greeks did naught but play the fools and lie.
Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are.
Men have precedency, and still excel.
It is but vain unjustly to wage war:
Men can do best, and women know it well.
Preeminence in all and each is yours
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours.
And oh, ye high flown quills that soar the skies, And ever with your prey still catch your praise, If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes, Give thyme or parsley wreath; I ask no bays. This mean and unrefinéd ore of mine
Will make your glistering gold but more to shine.
The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water did contest
Which was the strongest, noblest, and the best;
Who was of greatest use and mightiest force.
In placid terms they thought now to discourse,
That in due order each her turn should speak.
But enmity this amity did break:
All would be chief, and all scorned to be under;
Whence issued winds and rains, lightning and thunder;
The quaking earth did groan, the sky looked black,
The fire the forcéd air in sunder crack;
The sea did threat the heavens, the heavens the earth;
All looked like a chaos, or new birth.
Fire broiléd earth, and scorchéd earth it choked;
Both, by their darings, water so provoked
That roaring in it came, and with its source
Soon made the combatants abate their force.
The rumbling, hissing, puffing, was so great
The world's confusion it did seem to threat;
Till gentle Air contention so abated
That betwixt hot and cold she arbitrated.
The others' difference, being less, did cease,
All storms now laid, and they in perfect peace.
That Fire should first begin the rest consent,
The noblest and most active element.
"What is my worth both ye and all men know.
In little time I can but little show.
But what I am, let learned Grecians say;
What I can do, well-skilled mechanics may;
The benefit all living by me find,
All sorts of artists here declare your mind.
What tool was ever framed but by my might?
Ye martialists, what weapons for your fight,
To try your valor by, but it must feel
My force?—your sword, and gun, your lance of steel.
Your cannon's bootless, and your powder, too,
Without mine aid. Alas, what can they do
The adverse wall's not shaked, the mine 's not blown, And in despite the city keeps her own.
But I with one granado or petard
Set ope those gates that 'fore so strong were barred.
Ye husbandmen, your coulters 're made by me,
Your hoes, your mattocks, and whate'er you see
Subdue the earth, and fit it for your grain,
That so it might in time requite your pain;
Though strong-limbed Vulcan forged it by his skill,
I made it flexible unto his will.
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