All Things Can Tempt Me

    All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
    One time it was a woman’s face, or worse,
    The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
    Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
    Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
    I had not given a penny for a song
    Did not the poet sing it with such airs
    That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
    Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
    Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.