To Mr. Basil Brooke by John Donne

Is not thy sacred hunger of science / Yet satisfied? is not thy brain's rich hive / Fulfill'd with honey, which thou dost derive / From the arts' spirits and their quintessence? / Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw / From Cambridge thy old nurse, and, as the rest, / Here toughly chew, and sturdily digest / Th' immense vast volumes of our common law. / And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too, / Which is, that that, which I should have begun / In my youth's morning, now late must be done; / And I, as giddy travellers must do, / Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost / Light and strength, dark and tired must then ride post.

If thou unto thy Muse be married, / Embrace her ever, ever multiply; / Be far from me that strange adultery / To tempt thee, and procure her widowhood. / My Muse-for I had one-because I'm cold, / Divorced herself, the cause being in me. / That I can take no new in bigamy, / Not my will only, but power doth withhold. / Hence comes it, that these rhymes which never had / Mother, want matter, and they only have / A little form, the which their father gave; / They are profane, imperfect-O, too bad / To be counted children of poetry, / Except confirm'd and bishoped by thee.