Premonitory Caution
We find it written of Simonides
That travelling in strange countries once he found
A corpse that lay expiring on the ground,
For which, with pain, he caused due obsequies
To be performed, and paid all holy fees.
Soon after, this man’s Ghost unto him came
And told him not to sail, as was his aim,
On board a ship then ready for the seas.
Simonides, admonished by the Ghost,
Remained behind; the ship the following day
Set sail, was wrecked, and all on board was lost.
Thus was the tenderest Poet that could be,
Who sang in ancient Greece his loving lay,
Saved out of many by his piety.