Of English Verse
by Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
Poets may boast, as safely vain,
Their work shall with the world remain;
Both bound together live or die,
The verses and the prophecy.
But who can hope his lines should long
Last in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, env`y prevails,
And as that dies, our language fails.
When architects have done their part,
The matter may betray their art;
Time, if we use ill-chosen stone,
Soon brings a well-built palace down.
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must carve in Latin or in Greek;
We write in sand, our language grows,
And like the tide our work o
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