Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/123

 The Blunder of Strong Spirits; warm and sweet,

Or cold without, and pale; whereof to tread

The wild wet ways is perilous to thy feet,

And in thine eyes, where green was, lo, the red;

And where thy sinew, soft weak fat instead;

Burning of heart, and much uneasiness

About thy girdle, and aching in thine head;

This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Much Rhyming. If thou write

That once again that should be once for all,

These market-men will buy thy black and white

Till thy keen swift full fervent ways shall fall

On sated ears; thy stinging sweetness pall;

And barren memories of thy bright success

Shall burst in thee the bladder of thy gall;

This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Long Ballads. Bide in peace;

For when the night is near, the day shall die,

And when the day shall dawn the night shall cease,

And all things have an end of all; and I

An end of this, for that my lips are dry,

And the eleventh hour's exceeding heaviness

Doth overweigh mine eyelid on mine eye. ..

This is the end of every man's excess.

MORAL.

Poets, who tread the fast and flowerful way,

Heed well the burden these sad rhymes impress;

Pleasure is first, and then the time to pay;

This is the end of every man's excess.

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