Of Taking things Easy

TELL me what boots to battle, when the end  
 Is foreseen failure? What, by heaven, I ask—  
 By bearded martyrs, and the holy cask  
Of papal comfort, what can struggle lend  
Of true nobility to those who bend  
 Constrainèd after all? ’Twere better bask  
 With resignation and a quiet flask  
Than rush to strokes that heaven will surely send.  
 
Methinks the base desire to change our stars  
 Is but the taint of old mortality,  
 And as the wavelet curls in every sea  
The schoolboy bares his wounds and thinks him Mars.  
 Give me Petrarca and a pot of tea,  
And carry thou thy honourable scars.