SONGS OF THE ROAD
105
Have you not read his poems? Know you not
That in our day a learned chancellor
Might better far dispense unjustest law
Than be suspect of such frivolity
As lies in verse? Therefore his poetry
Was secret. Now that he is gone
'Tis so no longer. You may read his verse,
And judge if mine be better or be worse:
Read and pronounce! The meed of praise is thine;
But still let his be his and mine be mine.
I say no more; but how can you forswear
Outspoken Jonson, he who knew me well;
So, too, the epitaph which still you read?
Think you they faced my sepulchre with lies—
Gross lies, so evident and palpable
That every townsman must have wot of it,
