What does this idle fiction mean? 
  Is truth at court in such disgrace,
It may not on the walls be seen,
  Nor e’en in picture show its face?

No, no, ’tis not a senseless tale,
  By sweet-tongued Ovid dress’d so fine;[1]
It does important truths conceal,
  And here was placed by wise design.

A lesson deep with learning fraught,
  Worthy the cabinet of kings;
Fit subject of their constant thought,
  In matchless verse the poet sings.

Well should he weigh, who does aspire
  To empire, whether truly great,
His head, his heart, his hand, conspire
  To make him equal to that seat.

If only fond desire of sway,
  By avarice or ambition fed,
Make him affect to guide the day,
  Alas! what strange confusion’s bred!

If, either void of princely care,
  Remiss he holds the slacken’d rein;
If rising heats or mad career,
  Unskill’d, he knows not to restrain: 

Or if, perhaps, he gives a loose,
  In wanton pride to show his skill,
How easily he can reduce
  And curb the people’s rage at will;

In wild uproar they hurry on;—­
  The great, the good, the just, the wise,
(Law and religion overthrown,)
  Are first mark’d out for sacrifice.

When, to a height their fury grown,
  Finding, too late, he can’t retire,
He proves the real Phaethon,
  And truly sets the world on fire.

[Footnote 1:  “Metamorphoseon,” lib. ii.]

A TALE OF A NETTLE[1]

A man with expense and infinite toil,
By digging and dunging, ennobled his soil;
There fruits of the best your taste did invite,
And uniform order still courted the sight. 
No degenerate weeds the rich ground did produce,
But all things afforded both beauty and use: 
Till from dunghill transplanted, while yet but a seed,
A nettle rear’d up his inglorious head. 
The gard’ner would wisely have rooted him up,
To stop the increase of a barbarous crop;
But the master forbid him, and after the fashion
Of foolish good nature, and blind moderation,
Forbore him through pity, and chose as much rather,
To ask him some questions first, how he came thither. 
Kind sir, quoth the nettle, a stranger I come,
For conscience compell’d to relinquish my home,
’Cause I wouldn’t subscribe to a mystery dark,
That the prince of all trees is the Jesuit’s bark,[2]
An erroneous tenet I know, sir, that you,
No more than myself, will allow to be true. 
To you, I for refuge and sanctuary sue,
There’s none so renown’d for compassion as you;
And, though in some things I may differ from these,
The rest of your fruitful and beautiful trees;
Though your digging and dunging, my nature much harms,
And I cannot comply with your garden in forms: 
Yet I and my family, after our fashion,