Fate Shall Yield To Fickle Chance, And

Fairy Damsels Met In Forest Wide / By Knights Of Logres, Or Of Lyones, / Lancelot Or Pelleas, Or Pellenore.

In Vain Doth Valour Bleed, While Avarice And Rapine Share The Land.

Thus Belial, With Words Clothed In Reason's Garb, Counseled Ignoble Ease, And Peaceful Sloth, Not Peace.

Lethe, The River Of Oblivion, Rolls His Watery Labyrinth, Which Whoso Drinks Forgets Both Joy And Grief.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.