O You Virtuous Owle, The Wise Minerva's

Whether Your Time Calls You To Live Or Die, Do Both Like A Prince.

Courage Ought To Be Guided By Skill, And Skill Armed By Courage. Neither Should Hardiness Darken Wit, Nor Wit Cool Hardiness. Be Valiant As Men Despising Death, But Confident As Unwonted To Be Overcome.

But Words Came Halting Forth, Wanting Invention's Stay; Invention, Nature's Child, Fled Stepdame Study's Blows; And Others' Feet Still Seemed But Strangers In My Way. Thus, Great With Child To Speak, And Helpless In My Throes, Biting My Truant Pen, Beating Myself For Spite: "fool," Said My Muse To Me, "look In Thy Heart, And Write.

When It Shall Please God To Bring Thee To Man's Estate, Use Great Providence And Circumspection In Choosing Thy Wife. For From Thence Will Spring All Thy Future Good Or Evil; And It Is An Action Of Life, Like Unto A Stratagem Of War; Wherein A Man Can Err But Once!

Ambition, Like Love, Can Abide No Lingering; And Ever Urgeth On His Own Successes, Hating Nothing But What May Stop Them.