Jealousy and Art
If bright Apollo be the type of Art,
So is flay’d Marsyas that of Jealousy:
With the bare fibres which for ever smart
Under the sunbeams that rejoice the sky.
Had Marsyas ask’d not with the god to vie,
The god had praised the cunning of his flute.
Thou stealest half Apollo’s melody,
Tune but thy reed in concert with his lute.
Each should enrich the other—each enhance
By his own gift the common Beautiful:
That every colour more may charm the glance,
All varying flowers the garland-weavers cull;
Adorn’d by Contrast, Art no rival knows,—
The violet steals not perfume from the rose.