Who carry your own air with you, blest sweet
And drencht with many scattered fragrances.
You, sailing in golden ignorance, know not
The anxious flow of life under your way:
Do you not miss half the wonder of you?--
That so your happiness in the thought of God
Stands, that he open'd man's expense of grief
To give your oars unscrupulous room, to be
The buoyancy of your delighted barges,
Sliding with fortunate lanterns and with tunes
And odorous holiday, O kings, O you
The pleasure of God, richly, joyously launcht
On this kind sea, the tame sorrow of Man?
You need poets to reckon your marvellousness----

_Ahasuerus_.
Where is he driving? I set thee not to this;
It was to tell what I, not what they, be.

_Poet_.
How can they know what thou art, if not first
I tell them what they are themselves, my king?

_Ahasuerus_.
Thou hast a night, man, not a week to tell them.
You men of words, dealers in breath, conceit
Too bravely of yourselves;--O I know why
You love to make man's life a villainous thing,
And pose his happiness with heavy words.
You mean to puff your craft into a likeness