An Exhortation

Chameleons feed on light and air:

      Poets' food is love and fame:

If in this wide world of care

      Poets could but find the same

With as little toil as they,

      Would they ever change their hue

      As the light chameleons do,

Suiting it to every ray

            Twenty times a-day?

Poets are on this cold earth,

      As chameleons might be,

Hidden from their early birth

      In a cave beneath the sea;

Where light is, chameleons change:

      Where love is not, poets do:

      Fame is love disguised: if few

Find either never think it strange

            That poets range.

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power

      A poet's free and heavenly mind:

If bright chameleons should devour

      Any food but beams and wind,

They would grow as earthly soon

      As their brother lizards are.

      Children of a sunnier star,

Spirits from beyond the moon,

            Oh, refuse the boon!