An Exhortation

Percy Bysshe Shelley  

Chameleons feed on light and air: 

Poets' food is love and fame: 

If in this wide world of care 

Poets could but find the same 

With as little toil as they, 

Would they ever change their hue 

As the light chameleons do, 

Suiting it to every ray 

Twenty times a day? 

Poets are on this cold earth, 

As chameleons might be, 

Hidden from their early birth 

In a cave beneath the sea; 

Where light is, chameleons change: 

Where love is not, poets do: 

Fame is love disguised: if few 

Find either, never think it strange 

That poets range. 

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power 

A poet's free and heavenly mind: 

If bright chameleons should devour 

Any food but beams and wind, 

They would grow as earthly soon 

As their brother lizards are. 

Children of a sunnier star, 

Spirits from beyond the moon, 

O, refuse the boon!