Home

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

Copyright information:

The text is in the public domain.

Fair use statement:

This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

DR. SWIFT

THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON

- Parson, these things in thy possessing
- Are better than the bishop’s blessing:
- A wife that makes conserves; a steed
- That carries double when there ’s need;
- October store, and best Virginia,
- Tythe pig, and mortuary guinea;
- Gazettes sent gratis down and frank’d,
- For which thy patron’s weekly thank’d;
- A large Concordance, bound long since;
- Sermons to Charles the First, when prince;
- A Chronicle of ancient standing;
- A Chrysostom to smooth thy band in;
- The Polyglott—three parts—my text,
- Howbeit—likewise—now to my next;
- Lo here the Septuagint—and Paul,
- To sum the whole—the close of all.
- He that has these may pass his life,
- Drink with the ’Squire, and kiss his wife;
- On Sundays preach, and eat his fill,
- And fast on Fridays—if he will;
- Toast Church and Queen, explain the news,
- Talk with Churchwardens about pews,
- Pray heartily for some new gift,
- And shake his head at Doctor S—t.

PASTORALS

Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
Flumma amem, sylvasque, inglorius!
Virg

The Pastorals, by Pope’s account, were written at sixteen, in 1704. ‘Beyond the fact that he systematically antedated his compositions in order to obtain credit for precocity,’ says Courthope, ‘there is nothing improbable in the statement.’ They were first published in 1709, in Tonson’s Sixth Miscellany. The Discourse on Pastoral Poetry did not appear till the edition of 1717, but is here given the place which he desired for it at the head of the Pastorals: and the original footnotes, referring to critical authorities, are retained.

DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL POETRY

There are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of those which are called Pastorals; nor a smaller than of those which are truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind of poem; and it is my design to comprise in this short paper the substance of those numerous dissertations that critics have made on the subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour. You will also find some points reconciled, about which they seem to differ, and a few remarks which, I think, have escaped their observation.

The origin of Poetry is ascribed to that age which succeeded the creation of the world: and as the keeping of flocks seems to have been the first employment of mankind, the most ancient sort of poetry was probably pastoral.1 It is natural to imagine, that the leisure of those ancient shepherds admitting and inviting some diversion, none was so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing; and that in their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity. From hence a poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a former age, might recommend them to the present. And since the life of shepherds was attended with more tranquillity than any other rural employment, the poets chose to introduce their persons, from whom it received the name of Pastoral.

A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or narrative, or mixed of both:2 the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion, but that short and flowing: the expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature.

The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity,3 brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful.

If we would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age: so that we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the employment. To carry this resemblance yet further, it would not be amiss to give these shepherds some skill in astronomy, as far as it may be useful to that sort of life; and an air of piety to the gods should shine through the poem, which so visibly appears in all the works of antiquity; and it ought to preserve some relish of the old way of writing: the connection should be loose, the narrations and descriptions short,4 and the periods concise. Yet it is not sufficient that the sentences only be brief; the whole eclogue should be so too: for we cannot suppose poetry in those days to have been the business of men, but their recreation at vacant hours.

But, with respect to the present age, nothing more conduces to make these composures natural, than when some knowledge in rural affairs is discovered.5 This may be made to appear rather done by chance than on design, and sometimes is best shown by inference; lest, by too much study to seem natural, we destroy that easy simplicity from whence arises the delight. For what is inviting in this sort of poetry proceeds not so much from the idea of that business, as of the tranquillity of a country life.

We must therefore use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful; and this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd’s life, and in concealing its miseries.1 Nor is it enough to introduce shepherds discoursing together in a natural way; but a regard must be had to the subject; that it contain some particular beauty in itself, and that it be different in every eclogue. Besides, in each of them a designed scene or prospect is to be presented to our view, which should likewise have its variety. This variety is obtained, in a great degree, by frequent comparisons, drawn from the most agreeable objects of the country; by interrogations to things inanimate; by beautiful digressions, but those short; sometimes by insisting a little on circumstances; and, lastly, by elegant turns on the words, which render the numbers extremely sweet and pleasing. As for the numbers themselves, though they are properly of the heroic measure, they should be the smoothest, the most easy and flowing imaginable.

It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of Pastoral. And since the instructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of necessity be derived from those in whom it is acknowledged so to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of Pastoral) that the critics have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons, having introduced reapers2 and fishermen as well as shepherds. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the cup in the first pastoral is a remarkable instance. In the manners he seems a little defective, for his swains are sometimes abusive and immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learned their excellences from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and, in all points where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a stranger to.3 He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first of which, perhaps, was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the moderns their success has been greatest who have most endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso, in his Aminta, has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients. Spenser’s Calendar, in Mr. Dryden’s opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil.4 Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points: his eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients; he is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him; he has employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets; his stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough; for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a calendar to his eclogues is very beautiful; since by this, besides the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects. Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words, for three months together, or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it; whence it comes to pass that some of his eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and tenth for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season.

Of the following eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Pastoral; that they have as much variety of description, in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser’s; that, in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age.

But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors; whose works, as I had leisure to study, so, I hope, I have not wanted care to imitate.

I

SPRING; OR, DAMON[ ]

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL

- First in these fields I try the sylvan strains,
- Nor blush to sport on Windsor’s blissful plains:
- Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring,
- While on thy banks Sicilian Muses sing;
- Let vernal airs thro’ trembling osiers play,
- And Albion’s cliffs resound the rural lay.
- You, that too wise for pride, too good for power,
- Enjoy the glory to be great no more,
- And carrying with you all the world can boast,
- To all the world illustriously are lost!10
- O let my Muse her slender reed inspire,
- Till in your native shades you tune the lyre:
- So when the nightingale to rest removes,
- The thrush may chant to the forsaken groves;
- But charm’d to silence, listens while she sings,
- And all th’ aërial audience clap their wings.
- Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews,
- Two swains, whom love kept wakeful, and the Muse,
- Pour’d o’er the whitening vale their fleecy care,
- Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair:20
- The dawn now blushing on the mountain’s side,
- Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied:

daphnis.

Hear how the birds on ev’ry blooming spray
With joyous music wake the dawning day!
Why sit we mute, when early linnets sing,
When warbling Philomel salutes the spring?
Why sit we sad, when Phosphor shines so clear,
And lavish Nature paints the purple year?

strephon.

Sing, then, and Damon shall attend the strain,
While yon slow oxen turn the furrow’d plain.30
Here the bright crocus and blue violet glow;
Here western winds on breathing roses blow.
I’ll stake yon lamb, that near the fountain plays,
And from the brink his dancing shade surveys.

daphnis.

And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines,
And swelling clusters bend the curling vines:
Four figures rising from the work appear,
The various seasons of the rolling year;
And what is that, which binds the radiant sky,
Where twelve fair signs in beauteous order lie?40

damon.

Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing;
Now hawthorns blossom, now the daisies spring;
Now leaves the trees, and flowers adorn the ground:
Begin, the vales shall every note rebound.

strephon.

Inspire me, Phœbus, in my Delia’s praise,
With Waller’s strains, or Granville’s moving lays!
A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand,
That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand.

daphnis.

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes:50
No lambs or sheep for victims I’ll impart,
Thy victim, Love, shall be the shepherd’s heart.

strephon.

Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain,
Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain;
But feigns a laugh to see me search around,
And by that laugh the willing Fair is found.

daphnis.

The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green;
She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen.
While a kind glance at her pursuer flies,
How much at variance are her feet and eyes!60

strephon.

O’er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow,
And trees weep amber on the banks of Po;
Blest Thames’s shores the brightest beauties yield:
Feed here, my lambs, I’ll seek no distant field.

daphnis.

Celestial Venus haunts Idalia’s groves;
Diana Cynthus, Ceres Hybla loves:
If Windsor shades delight the matchless maid,
Cynthus and Hybla yield to Windsor shade.

strephon.

All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers,
Hush’d are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers;70
If Delia smile, the flowers begin to spring,
The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing.

daphnis.

All Nature laughs, the groves are fresh and fair,
The sun’s mild lustre warms the vital air;
If Sylvia smiles, new glories gild the shore,
And vanquish’d Nature seems to charm no more.

strephon.

In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love,
At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove,
But Delia always; absent from her sight,
Nor plains at morn, nor groves at noon delight.80

daphnis.

Sylvia’s like autumn ripe, yet mild as May,
More bright than noon, yet fresh as early day:
Ev’n spring displeases, when she shines not here,
But bless’d with her, ’t is spring throughout the year.

strephon.

Say, Daphnis, say, in what glad soil appears
A wondrous tree , that sacred monarchs bears?
Tell me but this, and I’ll disclaim the prize,
And give the conquest to thy Sylvia’s eyes.

daphnis.

Nay, tell me first, in what more happy fields
The thistle springs , to which the lily yields:
And then a nobler prize I will resign;91
For Sylvia, charming Sylvia, shall be thine.

damon.

Cease to contend; for, Daphnis, I decree
The bowl to Strephon, and the lamb to thee.
Blest swains, whose nymphs in ev’ry grace excel;
Blest nymphs, whose swains those graces sing so well!
Now rise, and haste to yonder woodbine bowers,
A soft retreat from sudden vernal showers;
The turf with rural dainties shall be crown’d,
While opening blooms diffuse their sweets around.100
For see! the gath’ring flocks to shelter tend,
And from the Pleiads fruitful showers descend.

II

SUMMER; OR, ALEXIS

TO DR. GARTH

- A shepherd’s boy (he seeks no better name)
- Led forth his flocks along the silver Thame,
- Where dancing sunbeams on the waters play’d
- And verdant alders form’d a quiv’ring shade.
- Soft as he mourn’d, the streams forgot to flow,
- The flocks around a dumb compassion show,
- The Naiads wept in ev’ry wat’ry bower,
- And Jove consented in a silent shower.
- Accept, O Garth! the Muse’s early lays,
- That adds this wreath of ivy to thy bays;
- Hear what from love unpractis’d hearts endure,11
- From love, the sole disease thou canst not cure.
- Ye shady beeches, and ye cooling streams,
- Defence from Phœbus’, not from Cupid’s beams,
- To you I mourn; nor to the deaf I sing:
- The woods shall answer, and their echo ring.
- The hills and rocks attend my doleful lay,
- Why art thou prouder and more hard than they?
- The bleating sheep with my complaints agree,
- They parch’d with heat, and I inflamed by thee.20
- The sultry Sirius burns the thirsty plains,
- While in thy heart eternal Winter reigns.
- Where stray ye, Muses! in what lawn or grove,
- While your Alexis pines in hopeless love?
- In those fair fields where sacred Isis glides,
- Or else where Cam his winding vales divides?
- As in the crystal spring I view my face,
- Fresh rising blushes paint the wat’ry glass;
- But since those graces please thy eyes no more,
- I shun the fountains which I sought before.30
- Once I was skill’d in ev’ry herb that grew,
- And ev’ry plant that drinks the morning dew;
- Ah, wretched shepherd, what avails thy art,
- To cure thy lambs, but not to heal thy heart!
- Let other swains attend the rural care,
- Feed fairer flocks, or richer fleeces shear:
- But nigh yon mountain let me tune my lays,
- Embrace my love, and bind my brows with bays.
- That flute is mine which Colin’s tuneful breath
- Inspired when living, and bequeath’d in death:40
- He said, ‘Alexis, take this pipe, the same
- That taught the groves my Rosalinda’s name.’
- But now the reeds shall hang on yonder tree,
- Forever silent, since despised by thee.
- Oh! were I made by some transforming power
- The captive bird that sings within thy bower!
- Then might my voice thy list’ning ears employ,
- And I those kisses he receives enjoy.
- And yet my numbers please the rural throng,
- Rough satyrs dance, and Pan applauds the song;50
- The nymphs, forsaking ev’ry cave and spring,
- Their early fruit and milk-white turtles bring;
- Each am’rous nymph prefers her gifts in vain,
- On you their gifts are all bestow’d again.
- For you the swains the fairest flowers design,
- And in one garland all their beauties join;
- Accept the wreath which you deserve alone,
- In whom all beauties are comprised in one.
- See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!59
- Descending Gods have found Elysium here.
- In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray’d,
- And chaste Diana haunts the forest-shade.
- Come, lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours,
- When swains from shearing seek their nightly bowers;
- When weary reapers quit the sultry field,
- And, crown’d with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield.
- This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,
- But in my breast the serpent Love abides.
- Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew,
- But your Alexis knows no sweets but you.
- O deign to visit our forsaken seats,71
- The mossy fountains, and the green retreats!
- Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
- Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;
- Where’er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise,
- And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
- O! how I long with you to pass my days,
- Invoke the Muses, and resound your praise!
- Your praise the birds shall chant in ev’ry grove,
- And winds shall waft it to the powers above.80
- But would you sing, and rival Orpheus’ strain,
- The wond’ring forests soon should dance again;
- The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
- And headlong streams hang list’ning in their fall!
- But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat,
- The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat,
- To closer shades the panting flocks remove:
- Ye Gods! and is there no relief for love?
- But soon the sun with milder rays descends
- To the cool ocean, where his journey ends.90
- On me Love’s fiercer flames forever prey,
- By night he scorches, as he burns by day.

III

AUTUMN; OR, HYLAS AND ÆGON[ ]

TO MR. WYCHERLEY

- Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays,
- Hylas and Ægon sung their rural lays;
- This mourn’d a faithless, that an absent love,
- And Delia’s name and Doris’ fill’d the grove.
- Ye Mantuan Nymphs, your sacred succour bring,
- Hylas and Ægon’s rural lays I sing.
- Thou, whom the Nine with Plautus’ wit inspire,
- The art of Terence, and Menander’s fire;
- Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms,
- Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms!10
- O, skill’d in Nature! see the hearts of swains,
- Their artless passions, and their tender pains.
- Now setting Phœbus shone serenely bright,
- And fleecy clouds were streak’d with purple light;
- When tuneful Hylas, with melodious moan,
- Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan.
- Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!
- To Delia’s ear the tender notes convey.
- As some sad turtle his lost love deplores,
- And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores;20
- Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn,
- Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn.
- Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
- For her, the feather’d quires neglect their song;
- For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny;
- For her, the lilies hang their heads and die.
- Ye flowers that droop, forsaken by the spring,
- Ye birds that, left by Summer, cease to sing,
- Ye trees, that fade when Autumn-heats remove,
- Say, is not absence death to those who love?30
- Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!
- Curs’d be the fields that cause my Delia’s stay!
- Fade ev’ry blossom, wither ev’ry tree,
- Die ev’ry flower, and perish all but she!
- What have I said? Where’er my Delia flies,
- Let Spring attend, and sudden flowers arise!
- Let op’ning roses knotted oaks adorn,
- And liquid amber drop from ev’ry thorn!
- Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
- The birds shall cease to tune their ev’ning song,40
- The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move,
- And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love.
- Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain,
- Not balmy sleep to lab’rers faint with pain,
- Not showers to larks, nor sunshine to the bee,
- Are half so charming as thy sight to me.
- Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!
- Come, Delia, come; ah, why this long delay?
- Thro’ rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds,
- Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds.50
- Ye Powers, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind!
- Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind?
- She comes, my Delia comes!—Now cease, my lay,
- And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away!
- Next Ægon sung, while Windsor groves admired:
- Rehearse, ye Muses, what yourselves inspired.
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!
- Of perjur’d Doris dying I complain:
- Here where the mountains, less’ning as they rise,
- Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies:60
- While lab’ring oxen, spent with toil and heat,
- In their loose traces from the field retreat:
- While curling smokes from village-tops are seen,
- And the fleet shades glide o’er the dusky green.
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!
- Beneath yon poplar oft we pass’d the day:
- Oft on the rind I carv’d her am’rous vows,
- While she with garlands hung the bending boughs:
- The garlands fade, the vows are worn away;
- So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!71
- Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain,
- Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine,
- And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine;
- Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove:
- Just Gods! shall all things yield returns but love?
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!
- The shepherds cry, ‘Thy flocks are left a prey’—
- Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,
- Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep!80
- Pan came, and ask’d, ‘What magic caus’d my smart,
- Or what ill eyes malignant glances dart?’
- What eyes but hers, alas, have power to move!
- And is there magic but what dwells in love?
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains!
- I’ll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow’ry plains;
- From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove,
- Forsake mankind, and all the world—but Love!
- I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred,
- Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed.90
- Thou wert from Ætna’s burning entrails torn,
- Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born!
- Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!
- Farewell, ye woods; adieu the light of day!
- One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains,
- No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains!
- Thus sung the shepherds till th’ approach of night,
- The skies yet blushing with departing light,
- When fallen dews with spangles deck’d the glade,
- And the low sun had lengthen’d ev’ry shade.100

IV

WINTER; OR, DAPHNE[ ]

TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST

lycidas.

Thyrsis! the music of that murm’ring spring
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing;
Nor rivers winding thro’ the vales below
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.
Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie,
The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky;
While silent birds forget their tuneful lays,
O sing of Daphne’s fate, and Daphne’s praise!

thyrsis.

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,
Their beauty wither’d, and their verdure lost.10
Here shall I try the sweet Alexis’ strain,
That call’d the list’ning Dryads to the plain?
Thames heard the numbers as he flow’d along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

lycidas.

So may kind rains their vital moisture yield,
And swell the future harvest of the field.
Begin: this charge the dying Daphne gave,
And said, ‘Ye shepherds, sing around my grave!’
Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn,
And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn.20

thyrsis.

- Ye gentle Muses, leave your crystal spring,
- Let Nymphs and Sylvans cypress garlands bring:
- Ye weeping Loves, the stream with myrtles hide,
- And break your bows, as when Adonis died!
- And with your golden darts, now useless grown,
- Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone:
- ‘Let Nature change, let Heav’n and Earth deplore,
- Fair Daphne’s dead, and Love is now no more!’
- ’T is done; and Nature’s various charms decay,
- See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day!30
- Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear,
- Their faded honours scatter’d on her bier.
- See, where on earth the flow’ry glories lie,
- With her they flourish’d, and with her they die.
- Ah, what avail the beauties Nature wore?
- Fair Daphne’s dead, and Beauty is no more!
- For her the flocks refuse their verdant food,
- The thirsty heifers shun the gliding flood;
- The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan,
- In notes more sad than when they sing their own;40
- In hollow caves sweet Echo silent lies,
- Silent, or only to her name replies;
- Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore;
- Now Daphne’s dead, and Pleasure is no more!
- No grateful dews descend from ev’ning skies,
- Nor morning odours from the flowers arise;
- No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field,
- Nor fragrant herbs their native incense yield.
- The balmy zephyrs, silent since her death ,
- Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath;50
- Th’ industrious bees neglect their golden store:
- Fair Daphne’s dead, and sweetness is no more!
- No more the mountain larks, while Daphne sings,
- Shall, list’ning in mid-air, suspend their wings;
- No more the birds shall imitate her lays,
- Or, hush’d with wonder, hearken from the sprays;
- No more the streams their murmurs shall forbear,
- A sweeter music than their own to hear;
- But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal shore,
- Fair Daphne’s dead, and music is no more!60
- Her fate is whisper’d by the gentle breeze,
- And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;
- The trembling trees, in every plain and wood,
- Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;
- The silver flood, so lately calm, appears
- Swell’d with new passion, and o’erflows with tears;
- The winds and trees and floods her death deplore,
- Daphne, our Grief, our Glory now no more!
- But see! where Daphne wond’ring mounts on high
- Above the clouds, above the starry sky!70
- Eternal beauties grace the shining scene,
- Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green!
- There while you rest in amaranthine bowers,
- Or from those meads select unfading flowers,
- Behold us kindly, who your name implore,
- Daphne, our Goddess, and our Grief no more!

lycidas.

How all things listen, while thy Muse complains!
Such silence waits on Philomela’s strains,
In some still ev’ning, when the whisp’ring breeze
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.80
To thee, bright Goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed,
If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed.
While plants their shade, or flowers their odours give,
Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live!

thyrsis.

But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews;
Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse;
Sharp Boreas blows, and Nature feels decay,
Time conquers all, and we must Time obey.
Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains, streams, and groves;
Adieu, ye shepherds’ rural lays and loves;
Adieu, my flocks; farewell, ye sylvan crew;91
Daphne, farewell; and all the world adieu!

WINDSOR FOREST[ ]

TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN

Non injussa cano:—te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,
Te Nemus omne canet: nec Phœbo gratior ulla est,
Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen.
Virg.Ecl. vi. 10-12.

‘This poem,’ says Pope, ‘was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published.’ The first 289 lines belong to the earlier date. The rest of the poem, with its celebration of the Peace of Utrecht, was added at the instance of Lord Lansdown, the Granville of the opening lines. The aim was obviously that Pope should do for the peaceful triumph of Utrecht what Addison had done for Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim in 1704. It is printed here because the conclusion was an afterthought, and in spite of it the poem as a whole ‘substantially belongs,’ as Courthope remarks, ‘to the Pastoral period.’ Pope ranked it among his ‘juvenile poems.’

- Thy forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats,
- At once the Monarch’s and the Muse’s seats,
- Invite my lays. Be present, Sylvan Maids!
- Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
- Granville commands: your aid, O Muses, bring!
- What muse for Granville can refuse to sing?
- The groves of Eden, vanish’d now so long,
- Live in description, and look green in song:
- These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,
- Like them in Beauty, should be like in Fame.10
- Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
- Here earth and water seem to strive again;
- Not chaos-like together crush’d and bruis’d,
- But, as the world, harmoniously confused:
- Where order in variety we see,
- And where, tho’ all things differ, all agree.
- Here waving groves a chequer’d scene display,
- And part admit, and part exclude the day;
- As some coy nymph her lover’s warm address
- Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
- There, interspers’d in lawns and opening glades,21
- Thin trees arise that shun each other’s shades.
- Here in full light the russet plains extend:
- There wrapt in clouds the bluish hills ascend.
- Ev’n the wild heath displays her purple dyes,
- And ’midst the desert fruitful fields arise,
- That crown’d with tufted trees and springing corn,
- Like verdant isles, the sable waste adorn.
- Let India boast her plants, nor envy we
- The weeping amber or the balmy tree,30
- While by our oaks the precious loads are borne,
- And realms commanded which those trees adorn.
- Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,
- Tho’ Gods assembled grace his tow’ring height,
- Than what more humble mountains offer here,
- Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear.
- See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown’d,
- Here blushing Flora paints th’ enamell’d ground,
- Here Ceres’ gifts in waving prospect stand,
- And nodding tempt the joyful reaper’s hand;40
- Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
- And peace and plenty tell, a Stuart reigns.
- Not thus the land appear’d in ages past,
- A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste,
- To savage beasts and savage laws a prey,
- And Kings more furious and severe than they;
- Who claim’d the skies, dispeopled air and floods,
- The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods:
- Cities laid waste, they storm’d the dens and caves
- (For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves);50
- What could be free, when lawless beasts obey’d,
- And ev’n the elements a Tyrant sway’d?
- In vain kind seasons swell’d the teeming grain,
- Soft showers distill’d, and suns grew warm in vain:
- The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields,
- And famish’d dies amidst his ripen’d fields.
- What wonder then, a beast or subject slain
- Were equal crimes in a despotic reign?
- Both doom’d alike, for sportive tyrants bled,
- But while the subject starv’d, the beast was fed.60
- Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
- A mighty hunter, and his prey was man:
- Our haughty Norman boasts that barb’rous name,
- And makes his trembling slaves the royal game.
- The fields are ravish’d from th’ industrious swains,
- From men their cities, and from Gods their fanes;
- The levell’d towns with weeds lie cover’d o’er;
- The hollow winds thro’ naked temples roar;68
- Round broken columns clasping ivy twin’d;
- O’er heaps of ruin stalk’d the stately hind;
- The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,
- And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.
- Aw’d by his nobles, by his commons curst,
- Th’ Oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst,
- Stretch’d o’er the poor and church his iron rod,
- And serv’d alike his vassals and his God.
- Whom ev’n the Saxon spar’d, and bloody Dane,
- The wanton victims of his sport remain.
- But see, the man who spacious regions gave
- A waste for beasts, himself denied a grave !80
- Stretch’d on the lawn his second hope survey,
- At once the chaser, and at once the prey!
- Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart,
- Bleeds in the forest like a wounded hart!
- Succeeding monarchs heard the subjects’ cries,
- Nor saw displeas’d the peaceful cottage rise:
- Then gath’ring flocks on unknown mountains fed,
- O’er sandy wilds were yellow harvests spread,
- The forest wonder’d at th’ unusual grain,
- And secret transports touch’d the conscious swain.90
- Fair Liberty, Britannia’s Goddess, rears
- Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years.
- Ye vig’rous Swains! while youth ferments your blood,
- And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,
- Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
- Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
- When milder Autumn Summer’s heat succeeds,
- And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
- Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
- Panting with hope, he tries the furrow’d grounds;100
- But when the tainted gales the game betray,
- Couch’d close he lies, and meditates the prey;
- Secure they trust th’ unfaithful field beset,
- Till hov’ring o’er them sweeps the swelling net.
- Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
- When Albion sends her eager sons to war,
- Some thoughtless town, with ease and plenty blest,
- Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;
- Sudden they seize th’ amaz’d, defenceless prize,
- And high in air Britannia’s standard flies.
- See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,111
- And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:
- Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
- Flutters in blood, and panting beasts the ground.
- Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,
- His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
- The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
- His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
- Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
- The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.120
- To plains with well-breathed beagles we repair,
- And trace the mazes of the circling hare
- (Beasts, urged by us, their fellow beasts pursue,
- And learn of man each other to undo).
- With slaught’ring guns th’ unwearied fowler roves,
- When frosts have whiten’d all the naked groves,
- Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o’ershade,
- And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat’ry glade.
- He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
- Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:130
- Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
- The clam’rous lapwings feel the leaden death;
- Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
- They fall, and leave their little lives in air.
- In genial Spring, beneath the quiv’ring shade,
- Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
- The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
- Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:
- With looks unmov’d, he hopes the scaly breed,
- And eyes the dancing cork and bending reed.140
- Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
- The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye,
- The silver eel, in shining volumes roll’d,
- The yellow carp, in scales bedropp’d with gold,
- Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains,
- And pikes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.
- Now Cancer glows with Phœbus’ fiery car:
- The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,
- Swarm o’er the lawns, the forest walks surround,
- Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound.150
- Th’ impatient courser pants in every vein,
- And, pawing, seems to beat the distant plain:
- Hills, vales, and floods appear already cross’d,
- And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.
- See the bold youth strain up the threat’ning steep,
- Rush thro’ the thickets, down the valleys sweep,
- Hang o’er their coursers’ heads with eager speed,
- And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.
- Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,
- Th’ immortal huntress, and her virgin train;160
- Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen
- As bright a Goddess, and as chaste a Queen;
- Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,
- The earth’s fair light, and Empress of the Main.
- Here too, ’t is sung, of old Diana stray’d,
- And Cynthus’ top forsook for Windsor shade;
- Here was she seen o’er airy wastes to rove,
- Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;
- Here arm’d with silver bows, in early dawn,
- Her buskin’d virgins traced the dewy lawn.170
- Above the rest a rural nymph was famed,
- Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona named
- (Lodona’s fate, in long oblivion cast,
- The Muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last).
- Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be known
- But by the crescent and the golden zone.
- She scorn’d the praise of beauty, and the care;
- A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;
- A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
- And with her dart the flying deer she wounds.180
- It chanced as, eager of the chase, the maid
- Beyond the forest’s verdant limits stray’d,
- Pan saw and lov’d, and, burning with desire,
- Pursued her flight; her flight increas’d his fire.
- Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,
- When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
- Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
- When thro’ the clouds he drives the trembling doves:
- As from the God she flew with furious pace,
- Or as the God, more furious, urged the chase.190
- Now fainting, sinking, pale, the Nymph appears;
- Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
- And now his shadow reach’d her as she run,
- His shadow lengthen’d by the setting sun;
- And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
- Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
- In vain on Father Thames she calls for aid,
- Nor could Diana help her injur’d maid.
- Faint, breathless, thus she pray’d, nor pray’d in vain:
- ‘Ah, Cynthia! ah—tho’ banish’d from thy train,200
- Let me, O let me, to the shades repair,
- My native shades—there weep, and murmur there!’
- She said, and melting as in tears she lay,
- In a soft silver stream dissolv’d away.
- The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps,
- For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps;
- Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore,
- And bathes the forest where she ranged before.
- In her chaste current oft the Goddess laves,
- And with celestial tears augments the waves.210
- Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
- The headlong mountains and the downward skies;
- The wat’ry landscape of the pendent woods,
- And absent trees that tremble in the floods:
- In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen,
- And floating forests paint the waves with green;
- Thro’ the fair scene roll slow the ling’ring streams,
- Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.
- Thou, too, great Father of the British Floods!
- With joyful pride survey’st our lofty woods;220
- Where tow’ring oaks their growing honours rear,
- And future navies on thy shores appear.
- Not Neptune’s self from all his streams receives
- A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
- No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
- No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
- Nor Po so swells the fabling poet’s lays,
- While led along the skies his current strays,
- As thine, which visits Windsor’s famed abodes,
- To grace the mansion of our earthly Gods:
- Nor all his stars above a lustre show,231
- Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
- Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,
- Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.
- Happy the man whom this bright court approves,
- His Sov’reign favours, and his Country loves:
- Happy next him, who to these shades retires,
- Whom Nature charms, and whom the Muse inspires:
- Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,
- Successive study, exercise, and ease.240
- He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
- And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:
- With chemic art exalts the mineral powers,
- And draws the aromatic souls of flowers:
- Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high;
- O’er figured worlds now travels with his eye;
- Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
- Consults the dead, and lives past ages o’er:
- Or wand’ring thoughtful in the silent wood,
- Attends the duties of the wise and good,250
- T’ observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
- To follow Nature, and regard his end;
- Or looks on Heav’n with more than mortal eyes,
- Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
- Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
- Survey the region, and confess her home!
- Such was the life great Scipio once admired:—
- Thus Atticus, and Trumbull thus retired.
- Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess,
- Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless,260
- Bear me, O bear me to sequester’d scenes,
- The bowery mazes, and surrounding greens;
- To Thames’s banks, which fragrant breezes fill,
- Or where ye Muses sport on Cooper’s hill.
- (On Cooper’s hill eternal wreaths shall grow,
- While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.)
- I seem thro’ consecrated walks to rove;
- I hear soft music die along the grove:
- Led by the sound, I roam from shade to shade,
- By godlike Poets venerable made:270
- Here his first lays majestic Denham sung;
- There the last numbers flow’d from Cowley’s tongue.
- Oh early lost! what tears the river shed,
- When the sad pomp along his banks was led!
- His drooping swans on every note expire,
- And on his willows hung each Muse’s lyre.
- Since Fate relentless stopp’d their heav’nly voice,
- No more the forests ring, or groves rejoice;
- Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strung
- His living harp, and lofty Denham sung?
- But hark! the groves rejoice, the forest rings!281
- Are these revived, or is it Granville sings?
- ’T is yours, my Lord, to bless our soft retreats,
- And call the Muses to their ancient seats;
- To paint anew the flowery sylvan scenes,
- To crown the forests with immortal greens,
- Make Windsor-hills in lofty numbers rise,
- And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;
- To sing those honours you deserve to wear,
- And add new lustre to her silver star!290
- Here noble Surrey felt the sacred rage,
- Surrey, the Granville of a former age:
- Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance,
- Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance:
- In the same shades the Cupids tuned his lyre,
- To the same notes of love and soft desire;
- Fair Geraldine, bright object of his vow,
- Then fill’d the groves, as heav’nly Mira now.
- Oh wouldst thou sing what heroes Windsor bore,
- What Kings first breathed upon her winding shore,300
- Or raise old warriors, whose ador’d remains
- In weeping vaults her hallow’d earth contains!
- With Edward’s acts adorn the shining page,
- Stretch his long triumphs down thro’ every age,
- Draw Monarchs chain’d, and Cressi’s glorious field,
- The lilies blazing on the regal shield:
- Then, from her roofs when Verrio’s colours fall,
- And leave inanimate the naked wall,
- Still in thy song should vanquish’d France appear,
- And bleed for ever under Britain’s spear.310
- Let softer strains ill-fated Henry mourn,
- And palms eternal flourish round his urn.
- Here o’er the martyr-king the marble weeps,
- And, fast beside him, once-fear’d Edward sleeps,
- Whom not th’ extended Albion could contain,
- From old Bellerium to the northern main;
- The grave unites; where ev’n the great find rest,
- And blended lie th’ oppressor and th’ opprest!
- Make sacred Charles’s tomb for ever known
- (Obscure the place, and uninscribed the stone);320
- Oh fact accurs’d! what tears has Albion shed,
- Heav’ns! what new wounds! and how her old have bled!
- She saw her sons with purple death expire,
- Her sacred domes involv’d in rolling fire,
- A dreadful series of intestine wars,
- Inglorious triumphs, and dishonest scars.
- At length great Anna said, ‘Let discord cease!’
- She said! the world obey’d, and all was peace!
- In that blest moment from his oozy bed
- Old father Thames advanced his rev’rend head;330
- His tresses dropp’d with dews, and o’er the stream
- His shining horns diffused a golden gleam:
- Graved on his urn appear’d the moon, that guides
- His swelling waters and alternate tides;
- The figured streams in waves of silver roll’d,
- And on her banks Augusta rose in gold.
- Around his throne the sea-born brothers stood,
- Who swell with tributary urns his flood:338
- First the famed authors of his ancient name;
- The winding Isis, and the fruitful Thame;
- The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown’d;
- The Lodden slow, with verdant alders crown’d;
- Cole, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave;
- And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave:
- The blue, transparent Vandalis appears;
- The gulfy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;
- And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood;
- And silent Darent, stain’d with Danish blood.
- High in the midst, upon his urn reclin’d
- (His sea-green mantle waving with the wind),350
- The God appear’d: he turn’d his azure eyes
- Where Windsor-domes and pompous turrets rise;
- Then bow’d and spoke; the winds forget to roar,
- And the hush’d waves glide softly to the shore.
- ‘Hail, sacred Peace! hail, long-expected days,
- That Thames’s glory to the stars shall raise!
- Tho’ Tiber’s streams immortal Rome behold,
- Tho’ foaming Hermus swells with tides of gold,
- From Heav’n itself tho’ sev’nfold Nilus flows,
- And harvests on a hundred realms bestows;
- These now no more shall be the Muse’s themes,361
- Lost in my fame, as in the sea their streams.
- Let Volga’s banks with iron squadrons shine,
- And groves of lances glitter on the Rhine;
- Let barb’rous Ganges arm a servile train,
- Be mine the blessings of a peaceful reign.
- No more my sons shall dye with British blood
- Red Iber’s sands, or Ister’s foaming flood:
- Safe on my shore each unmolested swain
- Shall tend the flocks, or reap the bearded grain;370
- The shady empire shall retain no trace
- Of war or blood, but in the sylvan chase;
- The trumpet sleep, while cheerful horns are blown,
- And arms employ’d on birds and beasts alone.
- Behold! th’ ascending villas on my side
- Project long shadows o’er the crystal tide;
- Behold! Augusta’s glitt’ring spires increase,
- And temples rise, the beauteous works of Peace.
- I see, I see, where two fair cities bend
- Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend!
- There mighty nations shall inquire their doom,381
- The world’s great oracle in times to come;
- There Kings shall sue, and suppliant states be seen
- Once more to bend before a British Queen.
- ‘Thy trees, fair Windsor! now shall leave their woods,
- And half thy forests rush into my floods,
- Bear Britain’s thunder, and her cross display
- To the bright regions of the rising day;
- Tempt icy seas, where scarce the waters roll,
- Where clearer flames glow round the frozen pole;390
- Or under southern skies exalt their sails,
- Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales!
- For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,
- The coral redden, and the ruby glow,
- The pearly shell its lucid globe infold,
- And Phœbus warm the ripening ore to gold.
- The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
- Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind,
- Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
- And seas but join the regions they divide;
- Earth’s distant ends our glory shall behold,401
- And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
- Then ships of uncouth form shall stem the tide,
- And feather’d people crowd my wealthy side;
- And naked youths and painted chiefs admire
- Our speech, our color, and our strange attire!
- O stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore,
- Till conquest cease, and slavery be no more;
- Till the freed Indians in their native groves
- Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves;410
- Peru once more a race of kings behold,
- And other Mexicos be roof’d with gold.
- Exiled by thee from earth to deepest Hell,
- In brazen bonds shall barb’rous Discord dwell:
- Gigantic Pride, pale Terror, gloomy Care,
- And mad Ambition shall attend her there:
- There purple Vengeance, bathed in gore, retires,
- Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires:
- There hated Envy her own snakes shall feel,
- And Persecution mourn her broken wheel:
- There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,421
- And gasping Furies thirst for blood in vain.’
- Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallow’d lays
- Touch the fair fame of Albion’s golden days:
- The thoughts of Gods let Granville’s verse recite,
- And bring the scenes of opening fate to light.
- My humble Muse, in unambitious strains,
- Paints the green forests and the flowery plains,
- Where Peace descending bids her olives spring,
- And scatters blessings from her dovelike wing.430
- Ev’n I more sweetly pass my careless days,
- Pleas’d in the silent shade with empty praise;
- Enough for me that to the list’ning swains
- First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.

PARAPHRASES FROM CHAUCER

JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE

Pope says that this ‘translation’ was done at sixteen or seventeen years of age. It was first published, with the Pastorals, in 1709, in Tonson’s sixth Miscellany. Eventually Pope grouped the Chaucer imitations with Eloisa to Abelard, the translations from Ovid and Statius and the brief Imitations of English Poets. To this collection be prefixed this Advertisement:—

‘The following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the Languages, and carried by his early bent to Poetry to perform them rather in Verse than Prose. Mr. Dryden’s Fables came out about that time, which occasioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the Quarto Edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which are added at the end, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old; but having also got into Miscellanies, we have put them here together to complete this Juvenile Volume.’

THE WIFE OF BATH

HER PROLOGUE

Not published until 1714, but naturally classified with January and May, and not improbably the product of the same period.

- Behold the woes of matrimonial life,
- And hear with rev’rence an experienced wife;
- To dear-bought wisdom give the credit due,
- And think for once a woman tells you true.
- In all these trials I have borne a part:
- I was myself the scourge that caus’d the smart;
- For since fifteen in triumph have I led
- Five captive husbands from the church to bed.
- Christ saw a wedding once, the Scripture says,
- And saw but one, ’t was thought, in all his days;10
- Whence some infer, whose conscience is too nice,
- No pious Christian ought to marry twice.
- But let them read, and solve me if they can,
- The words address’d to the Samaritan:
- Five times in lawful wedlock she was join’d,
- And sure the certain stint was ne’er defin’d.
- ‘Increase and multiply’ was Heav’n’s command,
- And that ’s a text I clearly understand:
- This too, ‘Let men their sires and mothers leave,19
- And to their dearer wives for ever cleave.’
- More wives than one by Solomon were tried,
- Or else the wisest of mankind’s belied.
- I’ve had myself full many a merry fit,
- And trust in Heav’n I may have many yet;
- For when my transitory spouse, unkind, }
- Shall die and leave his woful wife behind, }
- I’ll take the next good Christian I can find. }
- Paul, knowing one could never serve our turn,
- Declared ’t was better far to wed than burn.
- There ’s danger in assembling fire and tow;
- I grant ’em that; and what it means you know.31
- The same apostle, too, has elsewhere own’d
- No precept for virginity he found:
- ’T is but a counsel—and we women still
- Take which we like, the counsel or our will.
- I envy not their bliss, if he or she
- Think fit to live in perfect chastity:
- Pure let them be, and free from taint or vice;
- I for a few slight spots am not so nice.
- Heav’n calls us diff’rent ways; on these bestows40
- One proper gift, another grants to those;
- Not every man’s obliged to sell his store,
- And give up all his substance to the poor:
- Such as are perfect may, I can’t deny;
- But by your leaves, Divines! so am not I.
- Full many a saint, since first the world began,
- Liv’d an unspotted maid in spite of man:
- Let such (a God’s name) with fine wheat be fed,
- And let us honest wives eat barley bread.
- For me, I’ll keep the post assign’d by Heav’n,50
- And use the copious talent it has giv’n:
- Let my good spouse pay tribute, do me right,
- And keep an equal reck’ning every night;
- His proper body is not his, but mine;
- For so said Paul, and Paul’s a sound divine.
- Know then, of those five husbands I have had,
- Three were just tolerable, two were bad.
- The three were old, but rich and fond beside,
- And toil’d most piteously to please their bride;
- But since their wealth (the best they had) was mine,60
- The rest without much loss I could resign:
- Sure to be lov’d, I took no pains to please,
- Yet had more pleasure far than they had ease.
- Presents flow’d in apace: with showers of gold
- They made their court, like Jupiter of old:
- If I but smiled, a sudden youth they found,
- And a new palsy seiz’d them when I frown’d.
- Ye sov’reign Wives! give ear, and understand:
- Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command;
- For never was it giv’n to mortal man70
- To lie so boldly as we women can:
- Forswear the fact, tho’ seen with both his eyes,
- And call your maids to witness how he lies.
- Hark, old Sir Paul! (’t was thus I used to say)
- Whence is our neighbour’s wife so rich and gay?
- Treated, caress’d, where’er she’s pleas’d to roam—
- I sit in tatters, and immured at home.
- Why to her house dost thou so oft repair?
- Art thou so am’rous? and is she so fair?
- If I but see a cousin or a friend,80
- Lord! how you swell and rage like any fiend!
- But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear,
- Then preach till midnight in your easy chair;
- Cry, wives are false, and every woman evil,
- And give up all that’s female to the devil.
- If poor (you say), she drains her husband’s purse;
- If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse;
- If highly born, intolerably vain,
- Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain;
- Now gaily mad, now sourly splenetic,90
- Freakish when well, and fretful when she ’s sick.
- If fair, then chaste she cannot long abide,
- By pressing youth attack’d on every side;
- If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures,
- Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures,
- Or else she dances with becoming grace,
- Or shape excuses the defects of face.
- There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late
- She finds some honest gander for her mate.
- Horses (thou say’st) and asses men may try,100
- And ring suspected vessels ere they buy;
- But wives, a random choice, untried they take,
- They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake;
- Then, not till then, the veil’s remov’d away,
- And all the woman glares in open day.
- You tell me, to preserve your wife’s good grace,
- Your eyes must always languish on my face,
- Your tongue with constant flatt’ries feed my ear,
- And tag each sentence with ‘My life! my dear!’
- If by strange chance a modest blush be rais’d,110
- Be sure my fine complexion must be prais’d.
- My garments always must be new and gay,
- And feasts still kept upon my wedding day.
- Then must my nurse be pleas’d, and fav’rite maid;
- And endless treats and endless visits paid
- To a long train of kindred, friends, allies:
- All this thou say’st, and all thou say’st are lies.
- On Jenkin, too, you cast a squinting eye:
- What! can your ’prentice raise your jealousy?
- Fresh are his ruddy cheeks, his forehead fair,120
- And like the burnish’d gold his curling hair.
- But clear thy wrinkled brow, and quit thy sorrow;
- I’d scorn your ’prentice should you die tomorrow.
- Why are thy chests all lock’d? on what design?
- Are not thy worldly goods and treasure mine?
- Sir, I’m no fool; nor shall you, by St. John,
- Have goods and body to yourself alone.
- One you shall quit, in spite of both your eyes—
- I heed not, I, the bolts, the locks, the spies.
- If you had wit, you ’d say, ‘Go where you will,130
- Dear spouse! I credit not the tales they tell:
- Take all the freedoms of a married life;
- I know thee for a virtuous, faithful wife.’
- Lord! when you have enough, what need you care
- How merrily soever others fare?
- Tho’ all the day I give and take delight,
- Doubt not sufficient will be left at night.
- ’T is but a just and rational desire
- To light a taper at a neighbour’s fire.
- There ’s danger too, you think, in rich array,140
- And none can long be modest that are gay.
- The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin,
- The chimney keeps, and sits content within:
- But once grown sleek, will from her corner run,
- Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun:
- She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad
- To show her fur, and to be catterwaw’d.
- Lo thus, my friends, I wrought to my desires
- These three right ancient venerable sires.
- I told them, Thus you say, and thus you do;150
- And told them false, but Jenkin swore ’t was true.
- I, like a dog, could bite as well as whine,
- And first complain’d whene’er the guilt was mine.
- I tax’d them oft with wenching and amours,
- When their weak legs scarce dragg’d them out of doors;
- And swore the rambles that I took by night
- Were all to spy what damsels they bedight:
- That colour brought me many hours of mirth;
- For all this wit is giv’n us from our birth.
- Heav’n gave to woman the peculiar grace
- To spin, to weep, and cully human race.161
- By this nice conduct and this prudent course,
- By murm’ring, wheedling, stratagem, and force,
- I still prevail’d, and would be in the right;
- Or curtain lectures made a restless night.
- If once my husband’s arm was o’er my side,
- ‘What! so familiar with your spouse?’ I cried:
- I levied first a tax upon his need;
- Then let him—’t was a nicety indeed!
- Let all mankind this certain maxim hold;
- Marry who will, our sex is to be sold.171
- With empty hands no tassels you can lure,
- But fulsome love for gain we can endure;
- For gold we love the impotent and old,
- And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold.
- Yet with embraces curses oft I mixt,
- Then kiss’d again, and chid, and rail’d betwixt.
- Well, I may make my will in peace, and die,
- For not one word in man’s arrears am I.
- To drop a dear dispute I was unable,180
- Ev’n though the Pope himself had sat at table;
- But when my point was gain’d, then thus I spoke:
- ‘Billy, my dear, how sheepishly you look!
- Approach, my spouse, and let me kiss thy cheek;
- Thou shouldst be always thus resign’d and meek!
- Of Job’s great patience since so oft you preach,
- Well should you practise who so well can teach.
- ’T is difficult to do, I must allow,
- But I, my dearest! will instruct you how.
- Great is the blessing of a prudent wife,190
- Who puts a period to domestic strife.
- One of us two must rule, and one obey; }
- And since in man right Reason bears the sway, }
- Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way. }
- The wives of all my family have ruled
- Their tender husbands, and their passions cool’d.
- Fie! ’t is unmanly thus to sigh and groan:
- What! would you have me to yourself alone?
- Why, take me, love! take all and every part!
- Here ’s your revenge! you love it at your heart.200
- Would I vouchsafe to sell what Nature gave,
- You little think what custom I could have.
- But see! I ’m all your own—nay hold—for shame!
- What means my dear?—indeed—you are to blame.’
- Thus with my first three lords I pass’d my life,
- A very woman and a very wife.
- What sums from these old spouses I could raise
- Procur’d young husbands in my riper days.
- Tho’ past my bloom, not yet decay’d was I,209
- Wanton and wild, and chatter’d like a pie.
- In country dances still I bore the bell,
- And sung as sweet as ev’ning Philomel.
- To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul,
- Full oft I drain’d the spicy nut-brown bowl;
- Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve,
- And warm the swelling veins to feats of love:
- For ’t is as sure as cold engenders hail,
- A liquorish mouth must have a lech’rous tail:
- Wine lets no lover unrewarded go,219
- As all true gamesters by experience know.
- But oh, good Gods! whene’er a thought I cast
- On all the joys of youth and beauty past,
- To find in pleasures I have had my part
- Still warms me to the bottom of my heart.
- This wicked world was once my dear delight;
- Now all my conquests, all my charms, good night!
- The flour consumed, the best that now I can
- Is ev’n to make my market of the bran.
- My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true;
- He kept, ’t was thought, a private miss or two;230
- But all that score I paid—As how? you ’ll say:
- Not with my body, in a filthy way;
- But I so dress’d, and danc’d, and drank, and din’d
- And view’d a friend with eyes so very kind,
- As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry,
- With burning rage and frantic jealousy.
- His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory,
- For here on earth I was his purgatory.
- Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung,239
- He put on careless airs, and sat and sung.
- How sore I gall’d him only Heav’n could know,
- And he that felt, and I that caus’d the woe.
- He died when last from pilgrimage I came,
- With other gossips, from Jerusalem;
- And now lies buried underneath a rood,
- Fair to be seen, and rear’d of honest wood:
- A tomb, indeed, with fewer sculptures graced
- Than that Mausolus’ pious widow placed,
- Or where enshrin’d the great Darius lay;
- But cost on graves is merely thrown away.
- The pit fill’d up, with turf we cover’d o’er;
- So bless the good man’s soul! I say no more.252
- Now for my fifth lov’d lord, the last and best;
- (Kind Heav’n afford him everlasting rest!)
- Full hearty was his love, and I can show
- The tokens on my ribs in black and blue;
- Yet with a knack my heart he could have won,
- While yet the smart was shooting in the bone.
- How quaint an appetite in women reigns!
- Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains.260
- Let men avoid us, and on them we leap;
- A glutted market makes provision cheap.
- In pure good will I took this jovial spark,
- Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk.
- He boarded with a widow in the town,
- A trusty gossip, one dame Alison;
- Full well the secrets of my soul she knew,
- Better than e’er our parish priest could do.
- To her I told whatever could befall:269
- Had but my husband piss’d against a wall,
- Or done a thing that might have cost his life,
- She—and my niece—and one more worthy wife,
- Had known it all: what most he would conceal,
- To these I made no scruple to reveal.
- Oft has he blush’d from ear to ear for shame
- That e’er he told a secret to his dame.
- It so befell, in holy time of Lent,
- That oft a day I to this gossip went;
- (My husband, thank my stars, was out of town)
- From house to house we rambled up and down,280
- This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse,
- To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.
- Visits to every church we daily paid,
- And march’d in every holy masquerade;
- The stations duly and the vigils kept;
- Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
- At sermons, too, I shone in scarlet gay: }
- The wasting moth ne’er spoil’d my best array; }
- The cause was this, I wore it every day. }
- ’Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields,290
- This clerk and I were walking in the fields.
- We grew so intimate, I can’t tell how,
- I pawn’d my honour, and engaged my vow,
- If e’er I laid my husband in his urn,
- That he, and only he, should serve my turn.
- We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed;
- I still have shifts against a time of need.
- The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
- Can never be a mouse of any soul.
- I vow’d I scarce could sleep since first I knew him,300
- And durst be sworn he had bewitch’d me to him;
- If e’er I slept I dream’d of him alone, }
- And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown. }
- All this I said; but dreams, Sirs, I had none: }
- I follow’d but my crafty crony’s lore,
- Who bid me tell this lie—and twenty more.
- Thus day by day, and month by month we past;
- It pleas’d the Lord to take my spouse at last.
- I tore my gown, I soil’d my locks with dust,
- And beat my breasts, as wretched widows—must.310
- Before my face my handkerchief I spread,
- To hide the flood of tears I—did not shed.
- The good man’s coffin to the church was borne;
- Around the neighbours and my clerk too mourn.
- But as he march’d, good Gods! he show’d a pair
- Of legs and feet so clean, so strong, so fair!
- Of twenty winters’ age he seem’d to be;
- I (to say truth) was twenty more than he;
- But vig’rous still, a lively buxom dame,319
- And had a wondrous gift to quench a flame.
- A conjurer once, that deeply could divine,
- Assur’d me Mars in Taurus was my sign.
- As the stars order’d, such my life has been:
- Alas, alas! that ever love was sin!
- Fair Venus gave me fire and sprightly grace,
- And Mars assurance and a dauntless face.
- By virtue of this powerful constellation,
- I follow’d always my own inclination.
- But to my tale:—A month scarce pass’d away,
- With dance and song we kept the nuptial day.330
- All I possess’d I gave to his command,
- My goods and chattels, money, house, and land;
- But oft repented, and repent it still;
- He prov’d a rebel to my sov’reign will;
- Nay, once, by Heav’n! he struck me on the face:
- Hear but the fact, and judge yourselves the case.
- Stubborn as any lioness was I,
- And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
- As true a rambler as I was before,
- And would be so in spite of all he swore.340
- He against this right sagely would advise,
- And old examples set before my eyes;
- Tell how the Roman matrons led their life,
- Of Gracehus’ mother, and Duilius’ wife;
- And close the sermon, as beseem’d his wit,
- With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.
- Oft would he say, ‘Who builds his house on sands,
- Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
- Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
- Deserves a fool’s-cap and long ears at home.’350
- All this avail’d not, for whoe’er he be
- That tells my faults, I hate him mortally!
- And so do numbers more, I’ll boldly say,
- Men, women, clergy, regular and lay.
- My spouse (who was, you know, to learning bred)
- A certain treatise oft at evening read,
- Where divers authors (whom the devil confound
- For all their lies) were in one volume bound:
- Valerius whole, and of St. Jerome part;
- Chrysippus and Tertullian, Ovid’s Art,360
- Solomon’s Proverbs, Eloisa’s loves,
- And many more than sure the church approves.
- More legends were there here of wicked wives
- Than good in all the Bible and saints’ lives.
- Who drew the lion vanquish’d? ’T was a man:
- But could we women write as scholars can,
- Men should stand mark’d with far more wickedness
- Than all the sons of Adam could redress.
- Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
- And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.370
- Those play the scholars who can’t play the men,
- And use that weapon which they have, their pen;
- When old, and past the relish of delight,
- Then down they sit, and in their dotage write
- That not one woman keeps her marriagevow.
- (This by the way, but to my purpose now.)
- It chanc’d my husband, on a winter’s night,
- Read in this book aloud with strange delight,
- How the first female (as the Scriptures show)
- Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe;380
- How Samson fell; and he whom Dejanire
- Wrapp’d in th’ envenom’d shirt, and set on fire;
- How curs’d Eriphyle her lord betray’d,
- And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid;
- But what most pleas’d him was the Cretan dame
- And husband-bull—Oh, monstrous! fie, for shame!
- He had by heart the whole detail of woe
- Xantippe made her good man undergo;
- How oft she scolded in a day he knew,389
- How many pisspots on the sage she threw—
- Who took it patiently, and wiped his head:
- ‘Rain follows thunder,’ that was all he said.
- He read how Arius to his friend complain’d
- A fatal tree was growing in his land,
- On which three wives successively had twin’d
- A sliding noose, and waver’d in the wind.
- ‘Where grows this plant,’ replied the friend, ‘oh where?
- For better fruit did never orchard bear:
- Give me some slip of this most blissful tree,
- And in my garden planted it shall be.’400
- Then how two wives their lords’ destruction prove,
- Thro’ hatred one, and one thro’ too much love;
- That for her husband mix’d a pois’nous draught,
- And this for lust an am’rous philtre bought;
- The nimble juice soon seiz’d his giddy head,
- Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.
- How some with swords their sleeping lords have slain,
- And some have hammer’d nails into their brain,
- And some have drench’d them with a deadly potion:
- All this he read, and read with great devotion.410
- Long time I heard, and swell’d, and blush’d, and frown’d;
- But when no end of these vile tales I found,
- When still he read, and laugh’d, and read again,
- And half the night was thus consumed in vain,
- Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore,
- And with one buffet fell’d him on the floor.
- With that my husband in a fury rose,
- And down he settled me with hearty blows.
- I groan’d, and lay extended on my side;
- ‘Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth,’ I cried!420
- ‘Yet I forgive thee—take my last embrace’—
- He wept, kind soul! and stoop’d to kiss my face:
- I took him such a box as turn’d him blue,
- Then sigh’d and cried, ‘Adieu, my dear, adieu!’
- But after many a hearty struggle past,
- I condescended to be pleas’d at last.
- Soon as he said, ‘My mistress and my wife!
- Do what you list the term of all your life;’
- I took to heart the merits of the cause,
- And stood content to rule by wholesome laws;430
- Receiv’d the reins of absolute command, }
- With all the government of house and land, }
- And empire o’er his tongue and o’er his hand. }
- As for the volume that revil’d the dames,
- ’T was torn to fragments, and condemn’d to flames.
- Now Heav’n on all my husbands gone bestow
- Pleasures above for tortures felt below:
- That rest they wish’d for grant them in the grave,
- And bless those souls my conduct help’d to save!

THE TEMPLE OF FAME[ ]

Pope asserted that this poem was composed in 1711. Its date of publication is indicated by a letter from Pope to Martha Blount, written in 1714, in which he speaks of it as ‘just out.’ Eventually it was classed by the poet as a ‘juvenile poem’ among the earlier translations and imitations. This Advertisement was prefixed:—

The hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer’s House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered; the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title.

- In that soft season , when descending showers
- Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flowers,
- When opening buds salute the welcome day,
- And earth relenting feels the genial ray;
- As balmy sleep had charm’d my cares to rest,
- And love itself was banish’d from my breast,
- (What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
- While purer slumbers spread their golden wings)
- A train of phantoms in wild order rose,9
- And join’d, this intellectual scene compose.
- I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies,
- The whole Creation open to my eyes;
- In air self-balanced hung the globe below,
- Where mountains rise and circling oceans flow;
- Here naked rocks and empty wastes were seen,
- There towery cities, and the forests green;
- Here sailing ships delight the wand’ring eyes,
- There trees and intermingled temples rise:
- Now a clear sun the shining scene displays,
- The transient landscape now in clouds decays.20
- O’er the wide prospect as I gazed around,
- Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound,
- Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
- Or billows murm’ring on the hollow shore:
- Then gazing up, a glorious Pile beheld,
- Whose tow’ring summit ambient clouds conceal’d;
- High on a rock of ice the structure lay,
- Steep its ascent, and slipp’ry was the way;
- The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone,29
- And seem’d, to distant sight, of solid stone.
- Inscriptions here of various names I view’d,
- The greater part by hostile time subdued;
- Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
- And poets once had promis’d they should last.
- Some fresh engraved appear’d of wits renown’d;
- I look’d again, nor could their trace be found.
- Critics I saw, that other names deface,
- And fix their own with labour, in their place:
- Their own, like others, soon their place resign’d,
- Or disappear’d and left the first behind.40
- Nor was the work impair’d by storms alone,
- But felt th’ approaches of too warm a sun;
- For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays
- Not more by envy than excess of praise.
- Yet part no injuries of Heav’n could feel,
- Like crystal faithful to the graving steel:
- The rock’s high summit, in the temple’s shade,
- Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade.
- Their names inscribed unnumber’d ages past
- From Time’s first birth, with Time itself shall last:50
- These ever new, nor subject to decays,
- Spread, and grow brighter with the length of days.
- So Zembla’s rocks (the beauteous work of frost)
- Rise white in air, and glitter o’er the coast;
- Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
- And on th’ impassive ice the lightnings play;
- Eternal snows the growing mass supply,
- Till the bright mountains prop th’ incumbent sky:
- As Atlas fix’d, each hoary pile appears,59
- The gather’d winter of a thousand years.
- On this foundation Fame’s high temple stands;
- Stupendous pile! not rear’d by mortal hands.
- Whate’er proud Rome or artful Greece beheld,
- Or elder Babylon, its frame excell’d.
- Four faces had the dome , and ev’ry face
- Of various structure, but of equal grace:
- Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high,
- Salute the diff’rent quarters of the sky.
- Here fabled Chiefs in darker ages born,
- Or Worthies old whom Arms or Arts adorn,70
- Who cities raised or tamed a monstrous race,
- The walls in venerable order grace:
- Heroes in animated marble frown,
- And Legislators seem to think in stone.
- Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear’d,
- On Doric pillars of white marble rear’d,
- Crown’d with an architrave of antique mould,
- And sculpture rising on the roughen’d gold.
- In shaggy spoils here Theseus was beheld,
- And Perseus dreadful with Minerva’s shield:80
- There great Alcides , stooping with his toil,
- Rests on his club, and holds th’ Hesperian spoil:
- Here Orpheus sings; trees moving to the sound
- Start from their roots, and form a shade around:
- Amphion there the loud creating lyre
- Strikes, and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire;
- Cithæron’s echoes answer to his call,
- And half the mountain rolls into a wall:
- There might you see the length’ning spires ascend,
- The domes swell up, and widening arches bend,90
- The growing towers, like exhalations, rise,
- And the huge columns heave into the skies.
- The eastern front was glorious to behold,
- With diamond flaming, and barbaric gold.
- There Ninus shone, who spread th’ Assyrian fame,
- And the great founder of the Persian name ;
- There in long robes the royal Magi stand,
- Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand;
- The sage Chaldeans robed in white appear’d,
- And Brahmans, deep in desert woods revered.100
- These stopp’d the moon, and call’ th’ unbodied shades
- To midnight banquets in the glimm’ring glades;
- Made visionary fabrics round them rise,
- And airy spectres skim before their eyes;
- Of talismans and sigils knew the power,
- And careful watch’d the planetary hour.
- Superior, and alone, Confucius stood,
- Who taught that useful science,—to be good.
- But on the south, a long majestic race109
- Of Egypt’s priests the gilded niches grace,
- Who measured earth, described the starry spheres,
- And traced the long records of Lunar Years.
- High on his car Sesostris struck my view,
- Whom sceptred slaves in golden harness drew:
- His hands a bow and pointed jav’lin hold;
- His giant limbs are arm’d in scales of gold.
- Between the statues obelisks were placed,
- And the learn’d walls with hieroglyphics graced.
- Of Gothic structure was the northern side,
- O’erwrought with ornaments of barb’rous pride.120
- There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crown’d,
- And Runic characters were graved around;
- There sat Zamolxis with erected eyes,
- And Odin here in mimic trances dies.
- There on rude iron columns, smear’d with blood,
- The horrid forms of Scythian Heroes stood,
- Druids and Bards (their once loud harps unstrung)
- And youths that died to be by poets sung.
- These and a thousand more of doubtful fame,
- To whom old fables gave a lasting name,130
- In ranks adorn’d the temple’s outward face;
- The wall in lustre and effect like glass,
- Which o’er each object casting various dyes,
- Enlarges some, and others multiplies;
- Nor void of emblem was the mystic wall,
- For thus romantic Fame increases all.
- The temple shakes, the sounding gates unfold,
- Wide vaults appear, and roofs of fretted gold,
- Rais’d on a thousand pillars, wreath’d around
- With laurel foliage, and with eagles crown’d.140
- Of bright transparent beryl were the walls,
- The friezes gold, and gold the capitals;
- As Heav’n with stars, the roof with jewels glows,
- And ever-living lamps depend in rows.
- Full in the passage of each spacious gate
- The sage Historians in white garments wait;
- Graved o’er their seats the form of Time was found,
- His scythe revers’d, and both his pinions bound.
- Within stood Heroes, who thro’ loud alarms
- In bloody fields pursued renown in arms.
- High on a throne, with trophies charged, I view’d151
- The youth that all things but himself subdued;
- His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod,
- And his horn’d head belied the Libyan God,
- There Cæsar, graced with both Minervas, shone;
- Cæsar, the world’s great master, and his own;
- Unmov’d, superior still in ev’ry state,
- And scarce detested in his country’s fate.
- But chief were those who not for empire fought,
- But with their toils their people’s safety bought:160
- High o’er the rest Epaminondas stood;
- Timoleon, glorious in his brother’s blood ;
- Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state,
- Great in his triumphs, in retirement great;
- And wise Aurelius, in whose well-taught mind }
- With boundless power unbounded virtue join’d, }
- His own strict judge, and patron of mankind. }
- Much-suff’ring heroes next their honours claim.
- Those of less noisy, and less guilty fame,
- Fair Virtue’s silent train: supreme of these170
- Here ever shines the godlike Socrates:
- He whom ungrateful Athens could expel,
- At all times just, but when he sign’d the shell:
- Here his abode the martyr’d Phocion claims,
- With Agis, not the last of Spartan names:
- Unconquer’d Cato shows the wound he tore,
- And Brutus his ill genius meets no more.
- But in the centre of the hallow’d choir
- Six pompous columns o’er the rest aspire:
- Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand,180
- Hold the chief honours and the fane command.
- High on the first the mighty Homer shone;
- Eternal adamant composed his throne;
- Father of verse! in holy fillets drest,
- His silver beard waved gently o’er his breast;
- Tho’ blind, a boldness in his looks appears;
- In years he seem’d, but not impair’d by years.
- The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen;
- Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;189
- Here Hector, glorious from Patroclus’ fall,
- Here, dragg’d in triumph round the Trojan wall.
- Motion and life did ev’ry part inspire,
- Bold was the work, and prov’d the master’s fire:
- A strong expression most he seem’d t’ affect,
- And here and there disclosed a brave neglect.
- A golden column next in rank appear’d,
- On which a shrine of purest gold was rear’d;
- Finish’d the whole, and labour’d ev’ry part,
- With patient touches of unwearied art.199
- The Mantuan there in sober triumph sate,
- Composed his posture, and his look sedate;
- On Homer still he fix’d a rev’rend eye,
- Great without pride, in modest majesty.
- In living sculpture on the sides were spread
- The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead;
- Eliza stretch’d upon the funeral pyre;
- Æneas bending with his aged sire:
- Troy flamed in burning gold, and o’er the throne
- ‘Arms and the man’ in golden ciphers shone.
- Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,210
- With heads advanced, and pinions stretch’d for flight:
- Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,
- And seem’d to labour with th’ inspiring God.
- Across the harp a careless hand he flings,
- And boldly sinks into the sounding strings.
- The figured games of Greece the column grace:
- Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race;
- The youths hang o’er the chariots as they run;
- The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone;
- The champions in distorted postures threat;220
- And all appear’d irregularly great.
- Here happy Horace tuned th’ Ausonian lyre
- To sweeter sounds, and temper’d Pindar’s fire:
- Pleas’d with Alcæus’ manly rage t’ infuse
- The softer spirit of the Sapphic Muse.
- The polish’d pillar diff’rent sculptures grace;
- A work outlasting monumental brass.
- Here smiling loves and bacchanals appear,
- The Julian star, and great Augustus here;
- The doves, that round the infant poet spread230
- Myrtles and bays, hung hov’ring o’er his head.
- Here, in a shrine that cast a dazzling light,
- Sate fix’d in thought the mighty Stagyrite;
- His sacred head a radiant Zodiac crown’d,
- And various animals his sides surround:
- His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view
- Superior worlds, and look all Nature thro’.
- With equal rays immortal Tully shone;
- The Roman rostra deck’d the consul’s throne;
- Gath’ring his flowing robe, he seem’d to stand240
- In act to speak, and graceful stretch’d his hand;
- Behind, Rome’s Genius waits with civic crowns,
- And the great father of his country owns.
- These massy columns in a circle rise,
- O’er which a pompous dome invades the skies;
- Scarce to the top I stretch’d my aching sight,
- So large it spread, and swell’d to such a height.
- Full in the midst proud Fame’s imperial seat
- With jewels blazed, magnificently great;
- The vivid em’ralds there revive the eye,250
- The flaming rubies show their sanguine dye,
- Bright azure rays from lively sapphires stream,
- And lucid amber casts a golden gleam.
- With various-colour’d light the pavement shone,
- And all on fire appear’d the glowing throne;
- The dome’s high arch reflects the mingled blaze,
- And forms a rainbow of alternate rays.
- When on the Goddess first I cast my sight,
- Scarce seem’d her stature of a cubit’s height;259
- But swell’d to larger size, the more I gazed,
- Till to the roof her tow’ring front she rais’d.
- With her, the temple ev’ry moment grew,
- And ampler vistas open’d to my view:
- Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,
- And arches widen, and long aisles extend.
- Such was her form, as ancient bards have told;
- Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold;
- A thousand busy tongues the Goddess bears,
- A thousand open eyes, and thousand list’ning ears.269
- Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful Nine
- (Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine;
- With eyes on Fame for ever fix’d, they sing;
- For Fame they raise the voice, and tune the string;
- With Time’s first birth began the heav’nly lays,
- And last, eternal, thro’ the length of days.
- Around these wonders as I cast a look,
- The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook,
- And all the nations summon’d at the call,
- From diff’rent quarters fill the crowded hall.
- Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard;280
- In various garbs promiscuous throngs appear’d:
- Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew
- Their flowery toils, and sip the fragrant dew,
- When the wing’d colonies first tempt the sky,
- O’er dusky fields and shaded waters fly,
- Or, settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield,
- And a low murmur runs along the field.
- Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend,288
- And all degrees before the Goddess bend;
- The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage,
- And boasting youth, and narrative old age.
- Their pleas were diff’rent, their request the same;
- For good and bad alike are fond of Fame.
- Some she disgraced and some with honours crown’d;
- Unlike successes equal merits found.
- Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns,
- And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
- First at the shrine the learned world appear,
- And to the Goddess thus prefer their prayer:
- ‘Long have we sought t’ instruct and please mankind,300
- With studies pale, with midnight-vigils blind;
- But thank’d by few, rewarded yet by none,
- We here appeal to thy superior throne:
- On Wit and Learning the just prize bestow,
- For Fame is all we must expect below.’
- The Goddess heard, and bade the Muses raise
- The golden trumpet of eternal praise:
- From pole to pole the winds diffuse the sound,
- That fills the circuit of the world around;
- Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud,310
- The notes at first were rather sweet than loud;
- By just degrees they every moment rise,
- Fill the wide earth, and gain upon the skies.
- At every breath were balmy odours shed,
- Which still grew sweeter as they wider spread;
- Less fragrant scents th’ unfolding rose exhales,
- Or spices breathing in Arabian gales.
- Next these the good and just, an awful train,
- Thus on their knees address the sacred fane:319
- ‘Since living virtue is with envy curs’d,
- And the best men are treated like the worst,
- Do thou, just Goddess, call our merits forth,
- And give each deed th’ exact intrinsic worth.’
- ‘Not with bare justice shall your act be crown’d
- (Said Fame), but high above desert renown’d:
- Let fuller notes th’ applauding world amaze,
- And the loud clarion labour in your praise.’
- This band dismiss’d, behold another crowd
- Preferr’d the same request, and lowly bow’d;
- The constant tenor of whose well-spent days330
- No less deserv’d a just return of praise.
- But straight the direful trump of Slander sounds;
- Thro’ the big dome the doubling thunder bounds;
- Loud as the burst of cannon rends the skies,
- The dire report thro’ every region flies,
- In every ear incessant rumours rung,
- And gath’ring scandals grew on every tongue.
- From the black trumpet’s rusty concave broke
- Sulphureous flames, and clouds of rolling smoke:
- The pois’nous vapour blots the purple skies,340
- And withers all before it as it flies.
- A troop came next, who crowns and armour wore,
- And proud defiance in their looks they bore:
- ‘For thee (they cried) amidst alarms and strife,
- We sail’d in tempests down the stream of life;
- For thee whole nations fill’d with flames and blood,
- And swam to Empire thro’ the purple flood:
- Those ills we dared, thy inspiration own;
- What virtue seem’d, was done for thee alone.’
- ‘Ambitious fools!’ (the Queen replied, and frown’d)350
- ‘Be all your acts in dark oblivion drown’d;
- There sleep forgot, with mighty tyrants gone,
- Your statues moulder’d, and your names unknown!’
- A sudden cloud straight snatch’d them from my sight,
- And each majestic phantom sunk in night.
- Then came the smallest tribe I yet had seen;
- Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien:
- ‘Great Idol of mankind! we neither claim
- The praise of Merit, nor aspire to Fame!
- But safe in deserts from th’ applause of men,360
- Would die unheard of, as we liv’d unseen;
- ’T is all we beg thee, to conceal from sight
- Those acts of goodness which themselves requite.
- O let us still the secret joy partake,
- To follow Virtue ev’n for Virtue’s sake.’
- ‘And live there men who slight immortal fame?
- Who then with incense shall adore our name?
- But, mortals! know, ’t is still our greatest pride
- To blaze those virtues which the good would hide.
- Rise! Muses, rise! add all your tuneful breath;370
- These must not sleep in darkness and in death.’
- She said: in air the trembling music floats,
- And on the winds triumphant swell the notes;
- So soft, tho’ high, so loud, and yet so clear,
- Ev’n list’ning angels lean’d from Heav’n to hear:
- To farthest shores th’ ambrosial spirit flies,
- Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies.
- Next these a youthful train their vows express’d,
- With feathers crown’d, with gay embroid’ry dress’d:
- ‘Hither’ they cried ‘direct your eyes, and see380
- The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry.
- Ours is the place at banquets, balls, and plays,
- Sprightly our nights, polite are all our days;
- Courts we frequent, where ’t is our pleasing care
- To pay due visits, and address the Fair;
- In fact, ’t is true, no nymph we could persuade,
- But still in fancy vanquish’d ev’ry maid;
- Of unknown Duchesses lewd tales we tell,
- Yet, would the world believe us, all were well;389
- The joy let others have, and we the name,
- And what we want in pleasure, grant in fame.’
- The Queen assents: the trumpet rends the skies,
- And at each blast a lady’s honour dies.
- Pleas’d with the strange success, vast numbers prest
- Around the shrine, and made the same request:
- ‘What you’ she cried, ‘unlearn’d in arts to please,
- Slaves to yourselves, and ev’n fatigued with ease,
- Who lose a length of undeserving days,
- Would you usurp the lover’s dear-bought praise?
- To just contempt, ye vain pretenders, fall,
- The people’s fable, and the scorn of all.’401
- Straight the black clarion sends a horrid sound,
- Loud laughs burst out, and bitter scoffs fly round;
- Whispers are heard, with taunts reviling loud,
- And scornful hisses run thro’ all the crowd.
- Last, those who boast of mighty mischiefs done,
- Enslave their country, or usurp a throne;
- Or who their glory’s dire foundation laid
- On sov’reigns ruin’d, or on friends betray’d;
- Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix,410
- Of crooked counsels and dark politics;
- Of these a gloomy tribe surround the throne,
- And beg to make th’ immortal treasons known.
- The trumpet roars, long flaky flames expire,
- With sparks that seem’d to set the world on fire.
- At the dread sound pale mortals stood aghast,
- And startled Nature trembled with the blast.
- This having heard and seen, some Power unknown
- Straight changed the scene, and snatch’d me from the throne.
- Before my view appear’d a structure fair,420
- Its site uncertain, if in earth or air;
- With rapid motion turn’d the mansion round;
- With ceaseless noise the ringing walls resound:
- Not less in number were the spacious doors
- Than leaves on trees, or sands upon the shores;
- Which still unfolded stand, by night, by day,
- Previous to winds, and open every way.
- As flames by nature to the skies ascend,
- As weighty bodies to the centre tend,
- As to the sea returning rivers roll,430
- And the touch’d needle trembles to the pole,
- Hither, as to their proper place, arise
- All various sounds from earth, and seas, and skies,
- Or spoke aloud, or whisper’d in the ear;
- Nor ever silence, rest, or peace is here.
- As on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes
- The sinking stone at first a circle makes;
- The trembling surface by the motion stirr’d,
- Spreads in a second circle, then a third;
- Wide, and more wide, the floating rings advance,440
- Fill all the wat’ry plain, and to the margin dance:
- Thus every voice and sound, when first they break,
- On neighb’ring air a soft impression make;
- Another ambient circle then they move;
- That in its turn, impels the next above;
- Thro’ undulating air the sounds are sent,
- And spread o’er all the fluid element.
- There various news I heard of love and strife,
- Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life,449
- Of loss and gain, of famine, and of store,
- Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
- Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,
- Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
- Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
- The fall of fav’rites, projects of the great,
- Of old mismanagements, taxations new;
- All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.
- Above, below, without, within, around,
- Confused, unnumber’d multitudes are found,
- Who pass, repass, advance, and glide away,460
- Hosts rais’d by fear, and phantoms of a day:
- Astrologers, that future fates foreshew,
- Projectors, quacks, and lawyers not a few;
- And priests, and party zealots, numerous bands,
- With home-born lies or tales from foreign lands;
- Each talk’d aloud, or in some secret place,
- And wild impatience stared in ev’ry face.
- The flying rumours gather’d as they roll’d,
- Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
- And all who told it added something new, }
- And all who heard it made enlargements too;471 }
- In ev’ry ear it spread, on ev’ry tongue it grew. }
- Thus flying east and west, and north and south,
- News travel’d with increase from mouth to mouth.
- So from a spark that, kindled first by chance,
- With gath’ring force the quick’ning flames advance;
- Till to the clouds their curling heads aspire,
- And towers and temples sink in floods of fire.
- When thus ripe lies are to perfection sprung,
- Full grown, and fit to grace a mortal tongue,480
- Thro’ thousand vents, impatient, forth they flow,
- And rush in millions on the world below.
- Fame sits aloft, and points them out their course,
- Their date determines, and prescribes their force;
- Some to remain, and some to perish soon,
- Or wane and wax alternate like the moon.
- Around, a thousand winged wonders fly,
- Borne by the trumpet’s blast, and scatter’d thro’ the sky.
- There, at one passage, oft you might survey
- A lie and truth contending for the way;490
- And long ’t was doubtful, both so closely pent,
- Which first should issue thro’ the narrow vent:
- At last agreed, together out they fly,
- Inseparable now the truth and lie;
- The strict companions are for ever join’d,
- And this or that unmix’d, no mortal e’er shall find,
- While thus I stood, intent to see and hear,
- One came, methought, and whisper’d in my ear:
- ‘What could thus high thy rash ambition raise?
- Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praise?’500
- ‘’T is true,’ said I, ‘not void of hopes I came,
- For who so fond as youthful bards of Fame?
- But few, alas! the casual blessing boast,
- So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.
- How vain that second life in others’ breath,
- Th’ estate which wits inherit after death!
- Ease, health, and life for this they must resign,
- (Unsure the tenure, but how vast the fine!)
- The great man’s curse, without the gains, endure,
- Be envied, wretched; and be flatter’d, poor;
- All luckless wits their enemies profest,511
- And all successful, jealous friends at best.
- Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call;
- She comes unlook’d for, if she comes at all.
- But if the purchase costs so dear a price
- As soothing Folly, or exalting Vice;
- Oh! if the Muse must flatter lawless sway,
- And follow still where Fortune leads the way;
- Or if no basis bear my rising name,
- But the fall’n ruins of another’s fame;520
- Then teach me, Heav’n! to scorn the guilty bays;
- Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise;
- Unblemish’d let me live or die unknown;
- Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!’

TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID

SAPPHO TO PHAON

FROM THE FIFTEENTH OF OVID’S EPISTLES

Written, according to Pope, in 1707. First published in Tonson’s Ovid, 1712.

- Say, lovely Youth, that dost my heart command,
- Can Phaon’s eyes forget his Sappho’s hand?
- Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
- To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?
- Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose,
- The lute neglected and the lyric Muse;
- Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
- And tuned my heart to elegies of woe.
- I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn
- By driving winds the spreading flames are borne!10
- Phaon to Ætna’s scorching fields retires,
- While I consume with more than Ætna’s fires!
- No more my soul a charm in music finds;
- Music has charms alone for peaceful minds.
- Soft scenes of solitude no more can please;
- Love enters there, and I’m my own disease.
- No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
- Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
- All other loves are lost in only thine,
- O youth, ungrateful to a flame like mine!
- Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise,21
- Those heav’nly looks, and dear deluding eyes?
- The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,
- A brighter Phœbus Phaon might appear;
- Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
- Not Bacchus’ self with Phaon could compare:
- Yet Phœbus lov’d, and Bacchus felt the flame,
- One Daphne warm’d, and one the Cretan dame;
- Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me,
- Than ev’n those Gods contend in charms with thee.30
- The Muses teach me all their softest lays,
- And the wide world resounds with Sappho’s praise.
- Tho’ great Alcæus more sublimely sings,
- And strikes with bolder rage the sounding strings,
- No less renown attends the moving lyre,
- Which Venus tunes, and all her loves inspire;
- To me what Nature has in charms denied,
- Is well by Wit’s more lasting flames supplied.
- Tho’ short my stature, yet my name extends
- To Heav’n itself, and earth’s remotest ends.40
- Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
- Inspired young Perseus with a gen’rous flame;
- Turtles and doves of diff’rent hues unite,
- And glossy jet is pair’d with shining white.
- If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign,
- But such as merit, such as equal thine,
- By none, alas! by none thou canst be mov’d,
- Phaon alone by Phaon must be lov’d!
- Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ,
- Once in her arms you centred all your joy:
- No time the dear remembrance can remove,51
- For oh! how vast a memory has Love!
- My music, then, you could for ever hear,
- And all my words were music to your ear.
- You stopp’d with kisses my enchanting tongue,
- And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
- In all I pleas’d, but most in what was best;
- And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
- Then with each word, each glance, each motion fired,
- You still enjoy’d, and yet you still desired,
- Till, all dissolving, in the trance we lay,61
- And in tumultuous raptures died away.
- The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame;
- Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian dame?
- But ah, beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast
- That wand’ring heart which I so lately lost;
- Nor be with all those tempting words abused,
- Those tempting words were all to Sappho used.
- And you that rule Sicilia’s happy plains,
- Have pity, Venus, on your poet’s pains!70
- Shall fortune still in one sad tenor run,
- And still increase the woes so soon begun?
- Inured to sorrow from my tender years,
- My parents’ ashes drank my early tears:
- My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame,
- Ignobly burn’d in a destructive flame:
- An infant daughter late my griefs increas’d,
- And all a mother’s cares distract my breast.
- Alas! what more could Fate itself impose,
- But thee, the last, and greatest of my woes?80
- No more my robes in waving purple flow,
- Nor on my hand the sparkling diamonds glow;
- No more my locks in ringlets curl’d diffuse
- The costly sweetness of Arabian dews,
- Nor braids of gold the varied tresses bind,
- That fly disorder’d with the wanton wind:
- For whom should Sappho use such arts as these?
- He’s gone, whom only she desired to please!
- Cupid’s light darts my tender bosom move;
- Still is there cause for Sappho still to love:90
- So from my birth the sisters fix’d my doom,
- And gave to Venus all my life to come;
- Or, while my Muse in melting notes complains,
- My yielding heart keeps measure to my strains.
- By charms like thine which all my soul have won,
- Who might not—ah! who would not be undone?
- For those Aurora Cephalus might scorn,
- And with fresh blushes paint the conscious morn.
- For those might Cynthia lengthen Phaon’s sleep,99
- And bid Endymion nightly tend his sheep.
- Venus for those had rapt thee to the skies;
- But Mars on thee might look with Venus’ eyes.
- O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy!
- O useful time for lovers to employ!
- Pride of thy age, and glory of thy race,
- Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace!
- The vows you never will return, receive;
- And take, at least, the love you will not give.
- See, while I write, my words are lost in tears!
- The less my sense, the more my love appears.110
- Sure ’t was not much to bid one kind adieu
- (At least to feign was never hard to you):
- ‘Farewell, my Lesbian love,’ you might have said;
- Or coldly thus, ‘Farewell, O Lesbian maid!’
- No tear did you, no parting kiss receive,
- Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.
- No lover’s gift your Sappho could confer,
- And wrongs and woes were all you left with her.
- No charge I gave you, and no charge could give,
- But this, ‘Be mindful of our loves, and live.’120
- Now by the Nine, those powers ador’d by me,
- And Love, the God that ever waits on thee,
- When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew)
- That you were fled, and all my joys with you,
- Like some sad statue, speechless, pale, I stood,
- Grief chill’d my breast, and stopt my freezing blood;
- No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow,
- Fix’d in a stupid lethargy of woe:
- But when its way th’ impetuous passion found,
- I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound;
- I rave, then weep; I curse, and then complain;131
- Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again.
- Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame,
- Whose first-born infant feeds the funeral flame.
- My scornful brother with a smile appears,
- Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears;
- His hated image ever haunts my eyes;
- ‘And why this grief? thy daughter lives,’ he cries,
- Stung with my love, and furious with despair,
- All torn my garments, and my bosom bare,
- My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim,141
- Such inconsistent things are Love and Shame!
- ’T is thou art all my care and my delight,
- My daily longing, and my dream by night:
- O night more pleasing than the brightest day,
- When fancy gives what absence takes away,
- And, dress’d in all its visionary charms,
- Restores my fair deserter to my arms!
- Then round your neck in wanton wreaths I twine;
- Then you, methinks, as fondly circle mine:
- A thousand tender words I hear and speak;151
- A thousand melting kisses give and take:
- Then fiercer joys—I blush to mention these,
- Yet, while I blush, confess how much they please.
- But when, with day, the sweet delusions fly,
- And all things wake to life and joy but I,
- As if once more forsaken, I complain,
- And close my eyes to dream of you again:
- Then frantic rise, and like some fury rove
- Thro’ lonely plains, and thro’ the silent grove;160
- As if the silent grove, and lonely plains,
- That knew my pleasures, could relieve my pains.
- I view the grotto, once the scene of love,
- The rocks around, the hanging roofs above,
- That charm’d me more, with native moss o’ergrown,
- Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone:
- I find the shades that veil’d our joys before;
- But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more.
- Here the press’d herbs with bending tops betray
- Where oft entwin’d in am’rous folds we lay;170
- I kiss that earth which once was press’d by you,
- And all with tears the with’ring herbs bedew.
- For thee the fading trees appear to mourn,
- And birds defer their songs till thy return:
- Night shades the groves, and all in silence lie,
- All but the mournful Philomel and I:
- With mournful Philomel I join my strain,
- Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain.
- A spring there is, whose silver waters show,
- Clear as a glass, the shining sands below:
- A flowery lotos spreads its arms above,181
- Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove;
- Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
- Watch’d by the sylvan genius of the place.
- Here as I lay, and swell’d with tears the flood,
- Before my sight a wat’ry virgin stood:
- She stood and cried, ‘O you that love in vain!
- Fly hence, and seek the fair Leucadian main.
- There stands a rock, from whose impending steep
- Apollo’s fane surveys the rolling deep;190
- There injur’d lovers, leaping from above,
- Their flames extinguish, and forget to love.
- Deucalion once with hopeless fury burn’d;
- In vain he lov’d, relentless Pyrrha scorn’d;
- But when from hence he plunged into the main,
- Deucalion scorn’d, and Pyrrha lov’d in vain.
- Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw
- Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!’
- She spoke, and vanish’d with the voice—I rise,
- And silent tears fall trickling from my eyes.200
- I go, ye Nymphs! those rocks and seas to prove;
- How much I fear, but ah, how much I love!
- I go, ye Nymphs! where furious love inspires,
- Let female fears submit to female fires.
- To rocks and seas I fly from Phaon’s hate,
- And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate.
- Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow,
- And softly lay me on the waves below!
- And thou, kind Love, my sinking limbs sustain, }
- Spread thy soft wings, and waft me o’er the main,210 }
- Nor let a lover’s death the guiltless flood profane; }
- On Phœbus’ shrine my harp I’ll then bestow,
- And this inscription shall be placed below:
- ‘Here she who sung, to him that did inspire,
- Sappho to Phœbus consecrates her lyre;
- What suits with Sappho, Phœbus, suits with thee;
- The Gift, the Giver, and the God agree.’
- But why, alas! relentless youth, ah why
- To distant seas must tender Sappho fly?
- Thy charms than those may far more powerful be,220
- And Phœbus’ self is less a God to me.
- Ah! canst thou doom me to the rocks and sea,
- Oh! far more faithless and more hard than they?
- Ah! canst thou rather see this tender breast
- Dash’d on these rocks than to thy bosom press’d?
- This breast which once, in vain! you liked so well
- Where the Loves play’d, and where the Muses dwell.
- Alas! the Muses now no more inspire;
- Untuned my lute, and silent is my lyre.229
- My languid numbers have forgot to flow,
- And fancy sinks beneath a weight of woe.
- Ye Lesbian virgins, and ye Lesbian dames,
- Themes of my verse, and objects of my flames,
- No more your groves with my glad songs shall ring,
- No more these hands shall touch the trembling string:
- My Phaon’s fled, and I those arts resign;
- (Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!)
- Return, fair youth, return, and bring along
- Joy to my soul, and vigour to my song:239
- Absent from thee, the poet’s flame expires;
- But ah! how fiercely burn the lover’s fires!
- Gods! can no prayers, no sighs, no numbers move
- One savage heart, or teach it how to love?
- The winds my prayers, my sighs, my numbers bear,
- The flying winds have lost them all in air!
- Oh when, alas! shall more auspicious gales
- To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails!
- If you return—ah, why these long delays?
- Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
- O launch thy bark, nor fear the wat’ry plain;250
- Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.
- O launch thy bark, secure of prosp’rous gales;
- Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails.
- If you will fly—(yet ah! what cause can be,
- Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)
- If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
- Ah let me seek it from the raging seas:
- To raging seas unpitied I ’ll remove,
- And either cease to live or cease to love!

THE FABLE OF DRYOPE[ ]

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

- She said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs;
- When the fair consort of her son replies:
- ‘Since you a servant’s ravish’d form bemoan,
- And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own,
- Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
- A nearer woe, a sister’s stranger fate.
- No nymph of all Œchalia could compare
- For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,
- Her tender mother’s only hope and pride
- (Myself the offspring of a second bride).10
- This nymph compress’d by him who rules the day,
- Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,
- Andræmon lov’d; and bless’d in all those charms
- That pleas’d a God, succeeded to her arms.
- ‘A lake there was with shelving banks around,
- Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown’d.
- These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,
- And to the Naiads flowery garlands brought:
- Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she prest
- Within her arms, and nourish’d at her breast.20
- Not distant far a wat’ry lotos grows;
- The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs
- Adorn’d with blossoms, promis’d fruits that vie
- In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye.
- Of these she cropp’d, to please her infant son,
- And I myself the same rash act had done:
- But, lo! I saw (as near her side I stood)
- The violated blossoms drop with blood;
- Upon the tree I cast a frightful look;
- The trembling tree with sudden horror shook.30
- Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true)
- As from Priapus’ lawless lust she flew,
- Forsook her form, and, fixing here, became
- A flowery plant, which still preserves her name.
- ‘This change unknown, astonish’d at the sight,
- My trembling sister strove to urge her flight;
- And first the pardon of the Nymphs implor’d,
- And those offended sylvan Powers ador’d:
- But when she backward would have fled, she found
- Her stiff’ning feet were rooted in the ground:40
- In vain to free her fasten’d feet she strove,
- And as she struggles only moves above;
- She feels th’ encroaching bark around her grow
- By quick degrees, and cover all below:
- Surprised at this, her trembling hand she heaves
- To rend her hair; her hand is fill’d with leaves:
- Where late was hair the shooting leaves are seen
- To rise, and shade her with a sudden green.
- The child Amphissus, to her bosom prest,
- Perceiv’d a colder and a harder breast,50
- And found the springs, that ne’er till then denied
- Their milky moisture, on a sudden dried.
- I saw, unhappy! what I now relate,
- And stood the helpless witness of thy fate;
- Embraced thy boughs, thy rising bark delay’d,
- There wish’d to grow, and mingle shade with shade.
- ‘Behold Andræmon and th’ unhappy sire
- Appear, and for their Dryope inquire:
- A springing tree for Dryope they find,
- And print warm kisses on the panting rind;
- Prostrate, with tears, their kindred plant bedew,61
- And close embrace as to the roots they grew.
- The face was all that now remain’d of thee,
- No more a woman, nor yet quite a tree;
- Thy branches hung with humid pearls appear,
- From ev’ry leaf distils a trickling tear;
- And straight a voice, while yet a voice remains,
- Thus thro’ the trembling boughs in sighs complains.
- ‘If to the wretched any faith be giv’n,
- I swear by all th’ unpitying powers of Heav’n,70
- No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred;
- In mutual innocence our lives we led:
- If this be false, let these new greens decay, }
- Let sounding axes lop my limbs away, }
- And crackling flames on all my honours prey. }
- But from my branching arms this infant bear;
- Let some kind nurse supply a mother’s care;
- And to his mother let him oft be led,
- Sport in her shades, and in her shades be fed.
- Teach him, when first his infant voice shall frame80
- Imperfect words, and lisp his mother’s name,
- To hail this tree, and say with weeping eyes,
- “Within this plant my hapless parent lies:”
- And when in youth he seeks the shady woods,
- Oh! let him fly the crystal lakes and floods,
- Nor touch the fatal flowers; but, warn’d by me,
- Believe a Goddess shrined in every tree.
- My sire, my sister, and my spouse, farewell!
- If in your breasts or love or pity dwell,
- Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel90
- The browsing cattle or the piercing steel.
- Farewell! and since I cannot bend to join
- My lips to yours, advance at least to mine.
- My son, thy mother’s parting kiss receive,
- While yet thy mother has a kiss to give.
- I can no more; the creeping rind invades
- My closing lips, and hides my head in shades:
- Remove your hands; the bark shall soon suffice
- Without their aid to seal these dying eyes.’
- ‘She ceas’d at once to speak and ceas’d to be,100
- And all the Nymph was lost within the tree;
- Yet latent life thro’ her new branches reign’d
- And long the plant a human heat retain’d.’

VERTUMNUS AND POMONA

FROM THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

- The fair Pomona flourish’d in his reign;
- Of all the virgins of the sylvan train
- None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
- Or more improv’d the vegetable care.
- To her the shady grove, the flowery field,
- The streams and fountains no delights could yield;
- ’T was all her joy the ripening fruits to tend,
- And see the boughs with happy burdens bend.
- The hook she bore instead of Cynthia’s spear.
- To lop the growth of the luxuriant year,10
- To decent form the lawless shoots to bring,
- And teach th’ obedient branches where to spring.
- Now the cleft rind inserted grafts receives,
- And yields an offspring more than Nature gives;
- Now sliding streams the thirsty plants renew,
- And feed their fibres with reviving dew.
- These cares alone her virgin breast employ,
- Averse from Venus and the nuptial joy.
- Her private orchards, wall’d on every side,
- To lawless sylvans all access denied.20
- How oft the Satyrs and the wanton Fauns,
- Who haunt the forests or frequent the lawns,
- The God whose ensign scares the birds of prey,
- And old Silenus, youthful in decay,
- Employ’d their wiles and unavailing care
- To pass the fences, and surprise the Fair?
- Like these Vertumnus own’d his faithful flame,
- Like these rejected by the scornful dame.
- To gain her sight a thousand forms he wears;
- And first a reaper from the field appears:30
- Sweating he walks, while loads of golden grain
- O’ercharge the shoulders of the seeming swain:
- Oft o’er his back a crooked scythe is laid,
- And wreaths of hay his sunburnt temples shade:
- Oft in his harden’d hand a goad he bears,
- Like one who late unyoked the sweating steers:
- Sometimes his pruning-hook corrects the vines,
- And the loose stragglers to their ranks confines:
- Now gath’ring what the bounteous year allows,
- He pulls ripe apples from the bending boughs:40
- A soldier now, he with his sword appears;
- A fisher next, his trembling angle bears:
- Each shape he varies, and each art he tries,
- On her bright charms to feast his longing eyes.
- A female form at last Vertumnus wears, }
- With all the marks of rev’rend age appears, }
- His temples thinly spread with silver hairs: }
- Propp’d on his staff, and stooping as he goes,
- A painted mitre shades his furrow’d brows.
- The God in this decrepit form array’d,50 }
- The gardens enter’d, and the fruit survey’d; }
- And, ‘Happy you!’ he thus address’d the maid, }
- ‘Whose charms as far all other nymphs outshine,
- As other gardens are excell’d by thine!’
- Then kiss’d the Fair; (his kisses warmer grow
- Than such as women on their sex bestow)
- Then placed beside her on the flowery ground,
- Beheld the trees with autumn’s bounty crown’d.
- An elm was near, to whose embraces led,
- The curling vine her swelling clusters spread:60
- He view’d her twining branches with delight,
- And prais’d the beauty of the pleasing sight.
- ‘Yet this tall elm, but for this vine,’ he said,
- “Had stood neglected, and a barren shade;
- And this fair vine, but that her arms surround
- Her married elm, had crept along the ground.
- Ah! beauteous maid! let this example move
- Your mind, averse from all the joys of love.
- Deign to be lov’d, and every heart subdue!
- What Nymph could e’er attract such crowds as you?70
- Not she whose beauty urged the Centaur’s arms,
- Ulysses’ queen, nor Helen’s fatal charms.
- Ev’n now, when silent scorn is all they gain,
- A thousand court you, tho’ they court in vain,
- A thousand Sylvans, Demigods, and Gods,
- That haunt our mountains and our Alban woods.
- But if you ’ll prosper, mark what I advise,
- Whom age and long experience render wise,
- And one whose tender care is far above
- All that these lovers ever felt of love80
- (Far more than e’er can by yourself be guess’d);
- Fix on Vertumnus, and reject the rest:
- For his firm faith I dare engage my own;
- Scarce to himself himself is better known.
- To distant lands Vertumnus never roves;
- Like you, contented with his native groves;
- Nor at first sight, like most, admires the Fair; }
- For you he lives; and you alone shall share }
- His last affection as his early care. }
- Besides, he’s lovely far above the rest,90
- With youth immortal, and with beauty blest.
- Add, that he varies every shape with ease,
- And tries all forms that may Pomona please.
- But what should most excite a mutual flame,
- Your rural cares and pleasures are the same.
- To him your orchard’s early fruits are due
- (A pleasing off’ring when ’t is made by you);
- He values these; but yet, alas! complains
- That still the best and dearest gift remains.
- Not the fair fruit that on yon branches glows100
- With that ripe red th’ autumnal sun bestows;
- Nor tasteful herbs that in these gardens rise,
- Which the kind soil with milky sap supplies;
- You, only you, can move the God’s desire.
- O crown so constant and so pure a fire!
- Let soft compassion touch your gentle mind;
- Think ’t is Vertumnus begs you to be kind:
- So may no frost, when early buds appear,
- Destroy the promise of the youthful year;
- Nor winds, when first your florid orchard blows,110
- Shake the light blossoms from their blasted boughs!’
- This, when the various God had urged in vain,
- He straight assumed his native form again:
- Such, and so bright an aspect now he bears,
- As when thro’ clouds th’ emerging sun appears,
- And thence exerting his refulgent ray,
- Dispels the darkness, and reveals the day.
- Force he prepared, but check’d the rash design;
- For when, appearing in a form divine,
- The Nymph surveys him, and beholds the grace120
- Of charming features and a youthful face,
- In her soft breast consenting passions move,
- And the warm maid confess’d a mutual love.

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM[ ]

This, the first mature original work of the author, was written in 1709, when Pope was in his twentieth year. It was not published till 1711.

PART I

Introduction. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.

- ’T is hard to say if greater want of skill
- Appear in writing or in judging ill;
- But of the two less dangerous is th’ offence
- To tire our patience than mislead our sense:
- Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
- Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
- A fool might once himself alone expose;
- Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
- ’T is with our judgments as our watches, none
- Go just alike, yet each believes his own.10
- In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
- True Taste as seldom is the Critic’s share;
- Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light,
- These born to judge, as well as those to write.
- Let such teach others who themselves excel,
- And censure freely who have written well;
- Authors are partial to their wit, ’t is true,
- But are not Critics to their judgment too?
- Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
- Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:20
- Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light;
- The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right:
- But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced, }
- Is by ill col’ring but the more disgraced, }
- So by false learning is good sense defaced: }
- Some are bewilder’d in the maze of schools,
- And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools:
- In search of wit these lose their common sense,
- And then turn Critics in their own defence:
- Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
- Or with a rival’s or an eunuch’s spite.31
- All fools have still an itching to deride,
- And fain would be upon the laughing side.
- If Mævius scribble in Apollo’s spite,
- There are who judge still worse than he can write.
- Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass’d;
- Turn’d Critics next, and prov’d plain Fools at last.
- Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,
- As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
- Those half-learn’d witlings, numerous in our isle,40
- As half-form’d insects on the banks of Nile;
- Unfinish’d things, one knows not what to call,
- Their generation ’s so equivocal;
- To tell them would a hundred tongues require,
- Or one vain Wit’s, that might a hundred tire.
- But you who seek to give and merit fame,
- And justly bear a Critic’s noble name,
- Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
- How far your Genius, Taste, and Learning go,
- Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,50
- And mark that point where Sense and Dulness meet.
- Nature to all things fix’d the limits fit,
- And wisely curb’d proud man’s pretending wit.
- As on the land while here the ocean gains,
- In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
- Thus in the soul while Memory prevails,
- The solid power of Understanding fails;
- Where beams of warm Imagination play,
- The Memory’s soft figures melt away.
- One Science only will one genius fit;60
- So vast is Art, so narrow human wit:
- Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
- But oft in those confin’d to single parts.
- Like Kings we lose the conquests gain’d before,
- By vain ambition still to make them more:
- Each might his sev’ral province well command,
- Would all but stoop to what they understand.
- First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
- By her just standard, which is still the same;
- Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,70
- One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
- Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
- At once the source, and end, and test of Art.
- Art from that fund each just supply provides,
- Works without show, and without pomp presides.
- In some fair body thus th’ informing soul
- With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole;
- Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains,
- Itself unseen, but in th’ effects remains.
- Some, to whom Heav’n in wit has been profuse,80
- Want as much more to turn it to its use;
- For Wit and Judgment often are at strife,
- Tho’ meant each other’s aid, like man and wife.
- ’T is more to guide than spur the Muse’s steed,
- Restrain his fury than provoke his speed:
- The winged courser, like a gen’rous horse,
- Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
- Those rules of old, discover’d, not devised,
- Are Nature still, but Nature methodized;
- Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain’d90
- By the same laws which first herself ordain’d.
- Hear how learn’d Greece her useful rules indites
- When to repress and when indulge our flights:
- High on Parnassus’ top her sons she show’d,
- And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;
- Held from afar, aloft, th’ immortal prize,
- And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.
- Just precepts thus from great examples giv’n,
- She drew from them what they derived from Heav’n.
- The gen’rous Critic fann’d the poet’s fire,
- And taught the world with reason to admire.101
- Then Criticism the Muse’s handmaid prov’d,
- To dress her charms, and make her more belov’d:
- But following Wits from that intention stray’d:
- Who could not win the mistress woo’d the maid;
- Against the Poets their own arms they turn’d,
- Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn’d.
- So modern ’pothecaries, taught the art
- By doctors’ bills to play the doctor’s part,
- Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,110
- Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
- Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey;
- Nor time nor moths e’er spoil’d so much as they;
- Some drily plain, without invention’s aid,
- Write dull receipts how poems may be made;
- These leave the sense their learning to display,
- And those explain the meaning quite away.
- You then whose judgment the right course would steer,
- Know well each ancient’s proper character;
- His fable, subject, scope in every page;120
- Religion, country, genius of his age:
- Without all these at once before your eyes,
- Cavil you may, but never criticise.
- Be Homer’s works your study and delight,
- Read them by day, and meditate by night;
- Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,
- And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
- Still with itself compared, his text peruse;
- And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.
- When first young Maro in his boundless mind130
- A work t’ outlast immortal Rome design’d,
- Perhaps he seem’d above the critic’s law,
- And but from Nature’s fountains scorn’d to draw;
- But when t’ examine ev’ry part he came,
- Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
- Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design, }
- And rules as strict his labour’d work confine }
- As if the Stagyrite o’erlook’d each line. }
- Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
- To copy Nature is to copy them.140
- Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
- For there ’s a happiness as well as care.
- Music resembles poetry; in each }
- Are nameless graces which no methods teach, }
- And which a master-hand alone can reach. }
- If, where the rules not far enough extend,
- (Since rules were made but to promote their end)
- Some lucky license answer to the full
- Th’ intent proposed, that license is a rule.
- Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,150
- May boldly deviate from the common track.
- Great Wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
- And rise to faults true Critics dare not mend;
- From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
- And snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art,
- Which, without passing thro’ the judgment, gains
- The heart, and all its end at once attains.
- In prospects thus some objects please our eyes, }
- Which out of Nature’s common order rise, }
- The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice. }
- But tho’ the ancients thus their rules invade,161
- (As Kings dispense with laws themselves have made)
- Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
- Against the precept, ne’er transgress its end;
- Let it be seldom, and compell’d by need;
- And have at least their precedent to plead;
- The Critic else proceeds without remorse,
- Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.
- I know there are to whose presumptuous thoughts
- Those freer beauties, ev’n in them, seem faults.170
- Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,
- Consider’d singly, or beheld too near,
- Which, but proportion’d to their light or place,
- Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
- A prudent chief not always must display
- His powers in equal ranks and fair array,
- But with th’ occasion and the place comply,
- Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.
- Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
- Nor is it Homer nods , but we that dream.
- Still green with bays each ancient altar stands181
- Above the reach of sacrilegious hands,
- Secure from flames, from Envy’s fiercer rage,
- Destructive war, and all-involving Age.
- See from each clime the learn’d their incense bring!
- Hear in all tongues consenting pæans ring!
- In praise so just let ev’ry voice be join’d,
- And fill the gen’ral chorus of mankind.
- Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days,
- Immortal heirs of universal praise!190
- Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
- As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;
- Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
- And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!
- O may some spark of your celestial fire
- The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,
- (That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights,
- Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes)
- To teach vain Wits a science little known,
- T’ admire superior sense, and doubt their own.200

PART II

Causes hindering a true judgment. Pride. Imperfect learning. Judging by parts, and not by the whole. Critics in wit, language, versification only. Being too hard to please, or too apt to admire. Partiality—too much love to a sect—to the ancients or moderns. Prejudice or prevention. Singularity. Inconstancy. Party spirit. Envy. Against envy, and in praise of good-nature. When severity is chiefly to be used by critics.

- Of all the causes which conspire to blind
- Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
- What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
- Is Pride, the never failing vice of fools.
- Whatever Nature has in worth denied
- She gives in large recruits of needful Pride:
- For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
- What wants in blood and spirits swell’d with wind:
- Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our defence,
- And fills up all the mighty void of Sense:10
- If once right Reason drives that cloud away,
- Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
- Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
- Make use of ev’ry friend—and ev’ry foe.
- A little learning is a dangerous thing;
- Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
- There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
- And drinking largely sobers us again.
- Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
- In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,20
- While from the bounded level of our mind
- Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind:
- But more advanc’d, behold with strange surprise
- New distant scenes of endless science rise!
- So pleas’d at first the tow’ring Alps we try,
- Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
- Th’ eternal snows appear already past,
- And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
- But those attain’d, we tremble to survey
- The growing labours of the lengthen’d way;30
- Th’ increasing prospect tires our wand’ring eyes,
- Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
- A perfect judge will read each work of wit
- With the same spirit that its author writ;
- Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
- Where Nature moves, and Rapture warms the mind:
- Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
- The gen’rous pleasure to be charm’d with wit.
- But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
- Correctly cold, and regularly low,40
- That shunning faults one quiet tenor keep,
- We cannot blame indeed—but we may sleep.
- In Wit, as Nature, what affects our hearts
- Is not th’ exactness of peculiar parts;
- ’T is not a lip or eye we beauty call,
- But the joint force and full result of all.
- Thus when we view some well proportion’d dome,
- (The world’s just wonder, and ev’n thine, O Rome!)
- No single parts unequally surprise,
- All comes united to th’ admiring eyes;50
- No monstrous height, or breadth, or length, appear;
- The whole at once is bold and regular.
- Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
- Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
- In every work regard the writer’s end,
- Since none can compass more than they intend;
- And if the means be just, the conduct true,
- Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
- As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
- T’ avoid great errors must the less commit;
- Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,61
- For not to know some trifles is a praise.
- Most critics, fond of some subservient art,
- Still make the whole depend upon a part:
- They talk of Principles, but Notions prize,
- And all to one lov’d folly sacrifice.
- Once on a time La Mancha’s Knight, they say,
- A certain bard encount’ring on the way,
- Discours’d in terms as just, with looks as sage,
- As e’er could Dennis, of the Grecian Stage;
- Concluding all were desperate sots and fools71
- Who durst depart from Aristotle’s rules.
- Our author, happy in a judge so nice,
- Produced his play, and begg’d the knight’s advice;
- Made him observe the Subject and the Plot,
- The Manners, Passions, Unities; what not?
- All which exact to rule were brought about,
- Were but a combat in the lists left out.
- ‘What! leave the combat out?’ exclaims the knight.
- ‘Yes, or we must renounce the Stagyrite.’
- ‘Not so, by Heaven! (he answers in a rage)81
- Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage.’
- ‘So vast a throng the stage can ne’er contain.’
- ‘Then build a new, or act it in a plain.’
- Thus critics of less judgment than caprice,
- Curious, not knowing, not exact, but nice,
- Form short ideas, and offend in Arts
- (As most in Manners), by a love to parts.
- Some to Conceit alone their taste confine,
- And glitt’ring thoughts struck out at every line;90
- Pleas’d with a work where nothing ’s just or fit,
- One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
- Poets, like painters, thus unskill’d to trace
- The naked nature and the living grace,
- With gold and jewels cover every part,
- And hide with ornaments their want of Art.
- True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’d,
- What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d;
- Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
- That gives us back the image of our mind.
- As shades more sweetly recommend the light,101
- So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit:
- For works may have more wit than does them good,
- As bodies perish thro’ excess of blood.
- Others for language all their care express,
- And value books, as women men, for dress:
- Their praise is still—the Style is excellent;
- The Sense they humbly take upon content.
- Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
- Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
- False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,111
- Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;
- The face of Nature we no more survey,
- All glares alike, without distinction gay;
- But true expression, like th’ unchanging sun, }
- Clears and improves whate’er it shines upon; }
- It gilds all objects, but it alters none. }
- Expression is the dress of thought, and still
- Appears more decent as more suitable.
- A vile Conceit in pompous words express’d
- Is like a clown in regal purple dress’d:121
- For diff’rent styles with diff’rent subjects sort,
- As sev’ral garbs with country, town, and court.
- Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
- Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
- Such labour’d nothings, in so strange a style,
- Amaze th’ unlearn’d, and make the learned smile;
- Unlucky as Fungoso in the play ,
- These sparks with awkward vanity display
- What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
- And but so mimic ancient wits at best,131
- As apes our grandsires in their doublets drest.
- In words as fashions the same rule will hold,
- Alike fantastic if too new or old:
- Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
- Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
- But most by Numbers judge a poet’s song,
- And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong.
- In the bright Muse tho’ thousand charms conspire,139
- Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
- Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, }
- Not mend their minds; as some to church repair, }
- Not for the doctrine, but the music there. }
- These equal syllables alone require,
- Tho’ oft the ear the open vowels tire,
- While expletives their feeble aid do join,
- And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:
- While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
- With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
- Where’er you find ‘the cooling western breeze,’150
- In the next line, it ‘whispers thro’ the trees;’
- If crystal streams ‘with pleasing murmurs creep,’
- The reader’s threaten’d (not in vain) with ‘sleep;’
- Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught
- With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
- A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
- That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
- Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
- What’s roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
- And praise the easy vigour of a line160
- Where Denham’s strength and Waller’s sweetness join.
- True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,
- As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
- ’T is not enough no harshness gives offence;
- The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
- Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
- And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
- But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
- The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
- When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,170
- The line, too, labours, and the words move slow:
- Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
- Flies o’er th’ unbending corn, and skims along the main.
- Hear how Timotheus’ varied lays surprise,
- And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
- While at each change the son of Libyan Jove
- Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
- Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
- Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
- Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,180
- And the world’s Victor stood subdued by sound!
- The power of music all our hearts allow,
- And what Timotheus was is Dryden now.
- Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such
- Who still are pleas’d too little or too much.
- At ev’ry trifle scorn to take offence;
- That always shows great pride or little sense:
- Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best
- Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
- Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;190
- For fools admire, but men of sense approve:
- As things seem large which we thro’ mist descry,
- Dulness is ever apt to magnify.
- Some foreign writers, some our own despise;
- The ancients only, or the moderns prize.
- Thus Wit, like Faith, by each man is applied
- To one small sect, and all are damn’d beside.
- Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,
- And force that sun but on a part to shine,
- Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,200
- But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;
- Which from the first has shone on ages past,
- Enlights the present, and shall warm the last;
- Tho’ each may feel increases and decays,
- And see now clearer and now darker days.
- Regard not then if wit be old or new,
- But blame the False and value still the True.
- Some ne’er advance a judgment of their own,
- But catch the spreading notion of the town;
- They reason and conclude by precedent,210
- And own stale nonsense which they ne’er invent.
- Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then
- Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
- Of all this servile herd, the worst is he
- That in proud dulness joins with quality;
- A constant critic at the great man’s board,
- To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord.
- What woful stuff this madrigal would be
- In some starv’d hackney sonneteer or me!
- But let a lord once own the happy lines,
- How the Wit brightens! how the Style refines!221
- Before his sacred name flies every fault,
- And each exalted stanza teems with thought!
- The vulgar thus thro’ imitation err,
- As oft the learn’d by being singular;
- So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng
- By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.
- So schismatics the plain believers quit,
- And are but damn’d for having too much wit.
- Some praise at morning what they blame at night,230
- But always think the last opinion right.
- A Muse by these is like a mistress used,
- This hour she ’s idolized, the next absued;
- While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
- ’Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.
- Ask them the cause; they ’re wiser still they say;
- And still to-morrow ’s wiser than to-day.
- We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
- Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so.
- Once school-divines this zealous isle o’erspread;240
- Who knew most sentences was deepest read.
- Faith, Gospel, all seem’d made to be disputed,
- And none had sense enough to be confuted.
- Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain
- Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Ducklane .
- If Faith itself has diff’rent dresses worn,
- What wonder modes in Wit should take their turn?
- Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,
- The current Folly proves the ready Wit;
- And authors think their reputation safe,250
- Which lives as long as fools are pleas’d to laugh.
- Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,
- Still make themselves the measure of mankind:
- Fondly we think we honour merit then,
- When we but praise ourselves in other men.
- Parties in wit attend on those of state,
- And public faction doubles private hate.
- Pride, Malice, Folly, against Dryden rose,
- In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux:
- But sense survived when merry jests were past;260
- For rising merit will buoy up at last.
- Might he return and bless once more our eyes,
- New Blackmores and new Milbournes must arise.
- Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,
- Zoilus again would start up from the dead.
- Envy will Merit as its shade pursue,
- But like a shadow proves the substance true;
- For envied Wit, like Sol eclips’d, makes known
- Th’ opposing body’s grossness, not its own.
- When first that sun too powerful beams displays,270
- It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;
- But ev’n those clouds at last adorn its way,
- Reflect new glories, and augment the day.
- Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
- His praise is lost who stays till all commend.
- Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,
- And ’t is but just to let them live betimes.
- No longer now that Golden Age appears,
- When patriarch wits survived a thousand years:
- Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,280
- And bare threescore is all ev’n that can boast:
- Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,
- And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.
- So when the faithful pencil has design’d
- Some bright idea of the master’s mind,
- Where a new world leaps out at his command,
- And ready Nature waits upon his hand;
- When the ripe colours soften and unite,
- And sweetly melt into just shade and light;
- When mellowing years their full perfection give,290
- And each bold figure just begins to live,
- The treach’rous colours the fair art betray,
- And all the bright creation fades away!
- Unhappy Wit, like most mistaken things,
- Atones not for that envy which it brings:
- In youth alone its empty praise we boast,
- But soon the short-lived vanity is lost;
- Like some fair flower the early Spring supplies,
- That gaily blooms, but ev’n in blooming dies.
- What is this Wit, which must our cares employ?300
- The owner’s wife that other men enjoy;
- Then most our trouble still when most admired,
- And still the more we give, the more required;
- Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
- Sure some to vex, but never all to please,
- ’T is what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;
- By fools ’t is hated, and by knaves undone!
- If Wit so much from Ignorance undergo,
- Ah, let not Learning too commence its foe!
- Of old those met rewards who could excel,310
- And such were prais’d who but endeavour’d well;
- Tho’ triumphs were to gen’rals only due,
- Crowns were reserv’d to grace the soldiers too.
- Now they who reach Parnassus’ lofty crown
- Employ their pains to spurn some others down;
- And while self-love each jealous writer rules,
- Contending wits become the sport of fools;
- But still the worst with most regret commend,
- For each ill author is as bad a friend.
- To what base ends, and by what abject ways,320
- Are mortals urged thro’ sacred lust of praise!
- Ah, ne’er so dire a thirst of glory boast,
- Nor in the critic let the man be lost!
- Good nature and good sense must ever join;
- To err is human, to forgive divine.
- But if in noble minds some dregs remain,
- Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain,
- Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,
- Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.
- No pardon vile obscenity should find,330
- Tho’ Wit and Art conspire to move your mind;
- But dulness with obscenity must prove
- As shameful sure as impotence in love.
- In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease
- Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase:
- When love was all an easy monarch’s care,
- Seldom at council, never in a war;
- Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ;
- Nay wits had pensions, and young lords had wit;339
- The Fair sat panting at a courtier’s play,
- And not a mask went unimprov’d away;
- The modest fan was lifted up no more,
- And virgins smil’d at what they blush’d before.
- The following license of a foreign reign
- Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain;
- Then unbelieving priests reform’d the nation,
- And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;
- Where Heav’n’s free subjects might their rights dispute,
- Lest God himself should seem too absolute;349
- Pulpits their sacred satire learn’d to spare,
- And vice admired to find a flatt’rer there!
- Encouraged thus, Wit’s Titans braved the skies,
- And the press groan’d with licens’d blasphemies.
- These monsters, Critics! with your darts engage,
- Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!
- Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,
- Will needs mistake an author into vice:
- All seems infected that th’ infected spy,
- As all looks yellow to the jaundic’d eye.

PART III

Rules for the conduct and manners in a Critic. Candour. Modesty. Good breeding. Sincerity and freedom of advice. When one’s counsel is to be restrained. Character of an incorrigible poet. And of an impertinent critic. Character of a good critic. The history of criticism, and characters of the best critics; Aristotle. Horace. Dionysius. Petronius. Quintilian. Longinus. Of the decay of Criticism, and its revival. Erasmus. Vida. Boileau. Lord Roscommon, &c. Conclusion.

- Learn then what morals Critics ought to show,
- For ’t is but half a judge’s task to know.
- ’T is not enough Taste, Judgment, Learning join;
- In all you speak let Truth and Candour shine;
- That not alone what to your Sense is due
- All may allow, but seek your friendship too.
- Be silent always when you doubt your Sense,
- And speak, tho’ sure, with seeming diffidence.
- Some positive persisting fops we know,
- Who if once wrong will needs be always so;10
- But you with pleasure own your errors past,
- And make each day a critique on the last.
- ’T is not enough your counsel still be true;
- Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
- Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
- And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
- Without good breeding truth is disapprov’d;
- That only makes superior Sense belov’d.
- Be niggards of advice on no pretence,
- For the worst avarice is that of Sense.20
- With mean complacence ne’er betray your trust,
- Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
- Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
- Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.
- ’T were well might critics still this freedom take,
- But Appius reddens at each word you speak,
- And stares tremendous , with a threat’ning eye,
- Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.
- Fear most to tax an honourable fool,
- Whose right it is, uncensured to be dull:30
- Such without Wit, are poets when they please,
- As without Learning they can take degrees.
- Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,
- And flattery to fulsome dedicators;
- Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more
- Than when they promise to give scribbling o’er.
- ’T is best sometimes your censure to restrain,
- And charitably let the dull be vain;
- Your silence there is better than your spite,
- For who can rail so long as they can write?40
- Still humming on their drowsy course they keep,
- And lash’d so long, like tops, are lash’d asleep.
- False steps but help them to renew the race,
- As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.
- What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
- In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
- Still run on poets, in a raging vein,
- Ev’n to the dregs and squeezings of the brain,
- Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,
- And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!50
- Such shameless bards we have; and yet ’t is true
- There are as mad abandon’d critics too.
- The bookful blockhead ignorantly read,
- With loads of learned lumber in his head,
- With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
- And always list’ning to himself appears.
- All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
- From Dryden’s Fables down to Durfey’s Tales.
- With him most authors steal their works, or buy;
- Garth did not write his own Dispensary.60
- Name a new play, and he’s the poet’s friend;
- Nay, show’d his faults—but when would poets mend?
- No place so sacred from such fops is barr’d,
- Nor is Paul’s church more safe than Paul’s churchyard :
- Nay, fly to altars; there they ’ll talk you dead;
- For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
- Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks, }
- It still looks home, and short excursions makes; }
- But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks }
- And never shock’d, and never turn’d aside,70
- Bursts out, resistless, with a thund’ring tide.
- But where ’s the man who counsel can bestow,
- Still pleas’d to teach, and yet not proud to know?
- Unbiass’d or by favour or by spite;
- Not dully prepossess’d nor blindly right;
- Tho’ learn’d, well bred, and tho’ well bred sincere;
- Modestly bold, and humanly severe;
- Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
- And gladly praise the merit of a foe;
- Bless’d with a taste exact, yet unconfin’d,
- A knowledge both of books and humankind;81
- Gen’rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;
- And love to praise, with reason on his side?
- Such once were critics; such the happy few
- Athens and Rome in better ages knew.
- The mighty Stagyrite first left the shore,
- Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore;
- He steer’d securely, and discover’d far,
- Led by the light of the Mæonian star.
- Poets, a race long unconfin’d and free,90
- Still fond and proud of savage liberty,
- Receiv’d his laws, and stood convinc’d ’t was fit
- Who conquer’d Nature should preside o’er Wit.
- Horace still charms with graceful negligence,
- And without method talks us into sense;
- Will, like a friend, familiarly convey
- The truest notions in the easiest way.
- He who, supreme in judgment as in wit,
- Might boldly censure as he boldly writ,
- Yet judg’d with coolness, though he sung with fire;100
- His precepts teach but what his works inspire.
- Our critics take a contrary extreme,
- They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm;
- Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations
- By Wits, than Critics in as wrong quotations.
- See Dionysius Homer’s thoughts refine,
- And call new beauties forth from ev’ry line!
- Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,
- The Scholar’s learning with the courtier’s ease.
- In grave Quintilian’s copious work we find110
- The justest rules and clearest method join’d.
- Thus useful arms in magazines we place,
- All ranged in order, and disposed with grace;
- But less to please the eye than arm the hand,
- Still fit for use, and ready at command.
- Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,
- And bless their critic with a poet’s fire:
- An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,
- With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;
- Whose own example strengthens all his laws,120
- And is himself that great sublime he draws.
- Thus long succeeding critics justly reign’d,
- License repress’d, and useful laws ordain’d:
- Learning and Rome alike in empire grew,
- And arts still follow’d where her eagles flew;
- From the same foes at last both felt their doom,
- And the same age saw learning fall and Rome.
- With tyranny then superstition join’d,
- As that the body, this enslaved the mind;
- Much was believ’d, but little understood,
- And to be dull was construed to be good;
- A second deluge learning thus o’errun,132
- And the monks finish’d what the Goths begun.
- At length Erasmus, that great injur’d name,
- (The glory of the priesthood and the shame!)
- Stemm’d the wild torrent of a barb’rous age,
- And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.
- But see! each Muse in Leo’s golden days
- Starts from her trance, and trims her wither’d bays.
- Rome’s ancient genius, o’er its ruins spread,140
- Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev’rend head.
- Then sculpture and her sister arts revive;
- Stones leap’d to form, and rocks began to live;
- With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;
- A Raphael painted and a Vida sung:
- Immortal Vida! on whose honour’d brow
- The poet’s bays and critic’s ivy grow:
- Cremona now shall ever boast thy name,
- As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!
- But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,150
- Their ancient bounds the banish’d Muses pass’d;
- Thence arts o’er all the northern world advance,
- But critic learning flourish’d most in France;
- The rules a nation born to serve obeys,
- And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.
- But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised,
- And kept unconquer’d and uncivilized;
- Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,
- We still defied the Romans, as of old.
- Yet some there were, among the sounder few160
- Of those who less presumed and better knew,
- Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
- And here restor’d Wit’s fundamental laws.
- Such was the Muse whose rules and practice tell
- ‘Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well.’
- Such was Roscommon, not more learn’d than good,
- With manners gen’rous as his noble blood;
- To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
- And every author’s merit but his own.
- Such late was Walsh—the Muse’s judge and friend,170
- Who justly knew to blame or to commend;
- To failings mild but zealous for desert,
- The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.
- This humble praise, lamented Shade! receive;
- This praise at least a grateful Muse may give:
- The Muse whose early voice you taught to sing,
- Prescribed her heights, and pruned her tender wing,
- (Her guide now lost), no more attempts to rise,
- But in low numbers short excursions tries;
- Content if hence th’ unlearn’d their wants may view,180
- The learn’d reflect on what before they knew;
- Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
- Still pleas’d to praise, yet not afraid to blame;
- Averse alike to flatter or offend;
- Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1708 AND 1712

ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA’S DAY

This ode was written at the suggestion of Richard Steele, in 1708. It was recast in 1730 in briefer form so that it might be set to music; and the first four stanzas were considerably changed.

I
Descend, ye Nine, descend and sing:
The breathing instruments inspire,
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre.
In a sadly pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain;
Let the loud trumpet sound,
Till the roofs all around
The shrill echoes rebound;
While in more lengthen’d notes and slow
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.11
Hark! the numbers soft and clear
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies:
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats:
Till by degrees, remote and small,
The strains decay,
And melt away20
In a dying, dying fall.

II
By Music minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft assuasive voice applies;
Or when the soul is press’d with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds,
Pours balm into the bleeding lover’s wounds;
Melancholy lifts her head,30
Morpheus rouses from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List’ning Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our passions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away their rage.

III
But when our country’s cause provokes to arms,
How martial music ev’ry bosom warms!
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian rais’d his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees40
Descend from Pelion to the main:
Transported demigods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Inflamed with Glory’s charms:
Each chief his sev’nfold shield display’d,
And half unsheath’d the shining blade;
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms, to arms, to arms!

IV
But when thro’ all th’ infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,50
Love, strong as Death, the Poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear’d,
O’er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,60
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre,
And see! the tortured ghosts respire!
See, shady forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance;
The Furies sink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl’d hang list’ning round their heads.70

V
By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O’er th’ Elysian flowers;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of Asphodel,
Or Amaranthine bowers;
By the heroes’ armed shades,
Glitt’ring thro’ the gloomy glades;
By the youths that died for love,
Wand’ring in the myrtle grove,80
Restore, restore Eurydice to life!
Oh, take the husband, or return the wife!
He sung, and Hell consented
To hear the Poet’s prayer:
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the Fair.
Thus song could prevail
O’er Death and o’er Hell,
A conquest how hard and how glorious!
Tho’ fate had fast bound her,90
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet music and love were victorious.

VI
But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if ’t is no crime to love.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in meanders,100
All alone,
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan;
And calls her ghost,
For ever, ever, ever lost!
Now with Furies surrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
He trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope’s snows.
See, wild as the winds, o’er the desert he flies!110
Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals’ cries—
Ah see, he dies!
Yet ev’n in death Eurydice he sung,
Eurydice still trembled on his tongue;
Eurydice the woods,
Eurydice the floods,
Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung.

VII
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And Fate’s severest rage disarm:
Music can soften pain to ease,120
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker’s praise confin’d the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th’ immortal Powers incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire,
And Angels lean from Heav’n to hear.130
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell;
To bright Cecilia greater power is giv’n:
His numbers rais’d a shade from Hell,
Hers lift the soul to Heav’n.

ARGUS

Written in 1709 and sent in a letter to Henry Cromwell in 1711.

When wise Ulysses, from his native coast
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss’d,
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,
To all his friends, and ev’n his Queen unknown,
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrow’d his rev’rend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forc’d to ask his bread,
Scorn’d by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew,
The faithful Dog alone his rightful master knew!
Unfed, unhous’d, neglected, on the clay,
Like an old servant now cashier’d, he lay;
Touch’d with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again.
Him when he saw he rose, and crawl’d to meet,
(’T was all he could) and fawn’d and kiss’d his feet,
Seiz’d with dumb joy; then falling by his side,
Own’d his returning lord, look’d up, and died!

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE

Now Europe balanc’d, neither side prevails:
For nothing’s left in either of the scales.

THE TRANSLATOR

‘Egbert Sanger,’ says Warton, ‘served his apprenticeship with Jacob Tonson, and succeeded Bernard Lintot in his shop at Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street. Lintot printed Ozell’s translation of Perrault’s Characters, and Sanger his translation of Boileau’s Lutrin, recommended by Rowe, in 1709.’

Ozell, at Sanger’s call, invoked his Muse—
For who to sing for Sanger could refuse?
His numbers such as Sanger’s self might use.
Reviving Perrault, murd’ring Boileau, he
Slander’d the ancients first, then Wycherley;
Which yet not much that old bard’s anger rais’d,
Since those were slander’d most whom Ozell prais’d.
Nor had the gentle satire caused complaining,
Had not sage Rowe pronounc’d it entertaining;
How great must be the judgment of that writer,
Who The Plain Dealer damns, and prints The Biter!

ON MRS. TOFTS, A FAMOUS OPERA-SINGER

Katharine Tofts was an English opera singer popular in London between 1703 and 1709.

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,
As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along:
But such is thy av’rice, and such is thy pride,
That the beasts must have starv’d, and the poet have died.

EPISTLE TO MRS. BLOUNT, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.

To Teresa Blount. First published in Lintot’s Miscellany, in 1712. See note.

- In these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
- And all the writer lives in ev’ry line;
- His easy Art may happy Nature seem,
- Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
- Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,
- Who without flatt’ry pleas’d the Fair and Great;
- Still with esteem no less convers’d than read,
- With wit well-natured, and with books well-bred:
- His heart his mistress and his friend did share,9
- His time the Muse, the witty, and the fair.
- Thus wisely careless, innocently gay,
- Cheerful he play’d the trifle, Life, away;
- Till Fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest,
- As smiling infants sport themselves to rest.
- Ev’n rival Wits did Voiture’s death deplore,
- And the gay mourn’d who never mourn’d before;
- The truest hearts for Voiture heav’d with sighs,
- Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes:
- The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture’s death,19
- But that for ever in his lines they breathe.
- Let the strict life of graver mortals be
- A long, exact, and serious Comedy;
- In ev’ry scene some Moral let it teach,
- And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
- Let mine an innocent gay farce appear,
- And more diverting still than regular,
- Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace,
- Tho’ not too strictly bound to Time and Place:
- Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,
- Few write to those, and none can live to these.30
- Too much your Sex is by their forms confin’d,
- Severe to all, but most to Womankind;
- Custom, grown blind with Age, must be your guide;
- Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
- By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame,
- Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame;
- Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase;
- But sets up one, a greater, in their place;
- Well might you wish for change by those accurst,39
- But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.
- Still in constraint your suff’ring Sex remains,
- Or bound in formal, or in real chains:
- Whole years neglected, for some months ador’d,
- The fawning Servant turns a haughty Lord.
- Ah, quit not the free innocence of life,
- For the dull glory of a virtuous Wife;
- Nor let false shows, or empty titles please;
- Aim not at Joy, but rest content with Ease.
- The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray’rs,
- Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,50
- The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
- And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.
- She glares in Balls, front Boxes, and the Ring,
- A vain, unquiet, glitt’ring, wretched thing!
- Pride, Pomp, and State but reach her outward part;
- She sighs, and is no Duchess at her heart.
- But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you
- Are destin’d Hymen’s willing victim too;
- Trust not too much your now resistless charms,
- Those Age or Sickness soon or late disarms:60
- Good humour only teaches charms to last,
- Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past;
- Love, rais’d on Beauty, will like that decay,
- Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day;
- As flow’ry bands in wantonness are worn,
- A morning’s pleasure, and at evening torn;
- This binds in ties more easy, yet more strong,
- The willing heart, and only holds it long.
- Thus Voiture’s early care still shone the same,69
- And Montausier was only changed in name;
- By this, ev’n now they live, ev’n now they charm,
- Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.
- Now crown’d with myrtle, on th’ Elysian coast,
- Amid those lovers, joys his gentle Ghost:
- Pleas’d, while with smiles his happy lines you view,
- And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you.
- The brightest eyes of France inspired his Muse;
- The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse;
- And dead, as living, ’t is our Author’s pride
- Still to charm those who charm the world beside.80

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL

This Ode was written, we find [in 1712], at the desire of Steele; and our Poet, in a letter to him on that occasion, says,—‘You have it, as Cowley calls it, just warm from the brain; it came to me the first moment I waked this morning; yet you ’ll see, it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head, not only the verses of Hadrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho.’ It is possible, however, that our Author might have had another composition in his head, besides those he here refers to: for there is a close and surprising resemblance between this Ode of Pope, and one of an obscure and forgotten rhymer of the age of Charles the Second, Thomas Flatman. (Warton). Pope’s version of the Adriani morientis ad Animam was written at about this date, and sent to Steele for publication in The Spectator. It ran as follows:—

‘Ah, fleeting Spirit! wand’ring fire,
That long hast warm’d my tender breast,
Must thou no more this frame inspire,
No more a pleasing cheerful guest?
Whither, ah whither, art thou flying,
To what dark undiscover’d shore?
Thou seem’st all trembling, shiv’ring, dying,
And Wit and Humour are no more!’

I
Vital spark of heav’nly flame,
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

II
Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul! can this be Death?

III
The world recedes; it disappears;
Heav’n opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy Victory?
O Death! where is thy Sting?

EPISTLE TO MR. JERVAS[ ]

WITH DRYDEN’S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY’S ART OF PAINTING

Charles Jervas was an early and firm friend of Pope’s, and, himself an indifferent painter, at one time gave Pope some instruction in painting. Dryden’s translation of Fresnoy appears to have been a hasty and perfunctory piece of work. The poem was first published in 1712.

- This verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
- This from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
- Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
- Where life awakes, and dawns at ev’ry line,
- Or blend in beauteous tints the colour’d mass,
- And from the canvas call the mimic face:
- Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
- Fresnoy’s close Art and Dryden’s native Fire;
- And reading wish like theirs our fate and fame,
- So mix’d our studies, and so join’d our name;10
- Like them to shine thro’ long succeeding age,
- So just thy skill, so regular my rage.
- Smit with the love of Sister-Arts we came,
- And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;
- Like friendly colours found them both unite,
- And each from each contract new strength and light.
- How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day,
- While summer suns roll unperceiv’d away!
- How oft our slowly growing works impart,
- While images reflect from art to art!20
- How oft review; each finding, like a friend,
- Something to blame, and something to commend.
- What flatt’ring scenes our wand’ring fancy wrought,
- Rome’s pompous glories rising to our thought!
- Together o’er the Alps methinks we fly,
- Fired with ideas of fair Italy.
- With thee on Raphael’s monument I mourn,
- Or wait inspiring dreams at Maro’s urn:
- With thee repose where Tully once was laid,
- Or seek some ruin’s formidable shade:30
- While Fancy brings the vanish’d piles to view,
- And builds imaginary Rome anew.
- Here thy well-studied marbles fix our eye;
- A fading fresco here demands a sigh;
- Each heav’nly piece unwearied we compare,
- Match Raphael’s grace with thy lov’d Guido’s air,
- Carracci’s strength, Correggio’s softer line,
- Paulo’s free stroke, and Titian’s warmth divine.
- How finish’d with illustrious toil appears
- This small well-polish’d Gem , the work of years,40
- Yet still how faint by precept is exprest
- The living image in the painter’s breast!
- Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow,
- Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow;
- Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, supplies
- An Angel’s sweetness, or Bridgewater’s eyes.
- Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed
- Those tears eternal that embalm the dead;
- Call round her tomb each object of desire,
- Each purer frame inform’d with purer fire;50
- Bid her be all that cheers or softens life,
- The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife;
- Bid her be all that makes mankind adore,
- Then view this marble, and be vain no more!
- Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage,
- Her modest cheek shall warm a future age.
- Beauty, frail flower, that ev’ry season fears,
- Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
- Thus Churchill’s race shall other hearts surprise,
- And other beauties envy Worsley’s eyes ;60
- Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow,
- And soft Belinda’s blush for ever glow.
- O, lasting as those colours may they shine,
- Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line;
- New graces yearly like thy works display,
- Soft without weakness, without glaring gay!
- Led by some rule that guides, but not constrains,
- And finish’d more thro’ happiness than pains.
- The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire,69
- One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre.
- Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
- And breathe an air divine on ev’ry face;
- Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll
- Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul;
- With Zeuxis’ Helen thy Bridgewater vie,
- And these be sung till Granville’s Myra die;
- Alas! how little from the grave we claim!
- Thou but preserv’st a Face and I a Name!

IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

‘The four verses,’ says Ward, ‘are apparently Canto IV. vv. 59-62. The Countess of Winchilsea, a poetess whom Rowe hailed as inspired by ‘more than Delphic ardour,’ replied by some pretty lines, where she declares that “disarmed with so genteel an air,” she gives over the contest.’

In vain you boast poetic names of yore,
And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:
Fate doom’d the fall of every female wit;
But doom’d it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all examples by the world confess’d,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her mistress on Britannia’s throne,
Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own.
To write their praise you but in vain essay:
Ev’n while you write, you take that praise away.
Light to stars the sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.

ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY

It was long rumored that this poem was literally founded on fact: that the unfortunate lady was a maiden with whom Pope was in love, and from whom he was separated. The fact seems to be that the poem’s only basis in truth lay in Pope’s sympathy for an unhappy married woman about whom he wrote to Caryll in 1712. The verses were not published till 1717, but were probably written several years earlier.

- What beck’ning ghost along the moonlight shade
- Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
- ’T is she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor’d?
- Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
- Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
- Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well?
- To bear too tender or too firm a heart,
- To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
- Is there no bright reversion in the sky
- For those who greatly think, or bravely die?10
- Why bade ye else, ye Powers! her soul aspire
- Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
- Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes,
- The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods:
- Thence to their images on earth it flows,
- And in the breasts of Kings and Heroes glows.
- Most souls, ’t is true, but peep out once an age,
- Dull sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage;
- Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
- Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;20
- Like eastern Kings a lazy state they keep,
- And, close confin’d to their own palace, sleep.
- From these, perhaps (ere Nature bade her die),
- Fate snatch’d her early to the pitying sky.
- As into air the purer spirits flow,
- And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below;
- So flew the soul to its congenial place,
- Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
- But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
- Thou, mean deserter of thy brother’s blood!30
- See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
- These cheeks now fading at the blast of death;
- Cold is that breast which warm’d the world before,
- And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
- Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
- Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
- On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
- And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates;
- There passengers shall stand, and pointing say
- (While the long funerals blacken all the way),40
- Lo! these were they whose souls the furies steel’d,
- And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.
- Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
- The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
- So perish all, whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow
- For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe.
- What can atone, O ever injured shade!
- Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?
- No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear
- Pleas’d thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier;50
- By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
- By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
- By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d,
- By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d.
- What tho’ no friends in sable weeds appear,
- Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
- And bear about the mockery of woe
- To midnight dances, and the public show?
- What tho’ no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
- Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?60
- What tho’ no sacred earth allow thee room,
- Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb?
- Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress’d,
- And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
- There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
- There the first roses of the year shall blow;
- While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
- The ground, now sacred by thy relics made.
- So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
- What once had Beauty, Titles, Wealth and Fame.70
- How lov’d, how honour’d once, avails thee not,
- To whom related, or by whom begot;
- A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
- ’T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
- Poets themselves must fall like those they sung,
- Deaf the prais’d ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
- Ev’n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
- Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays;
- Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
- And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;80
- Life’s idle bus’ness at one gasp be o’er,
- The Muse forgot, and thou belov’d no more!

MESSIAH

Written, according to Courthope, in 1712.

In reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah, which foretell the coming of Christ, and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of Pastoral Poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting any thing of my own; since it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptions of the Prophet are superior to those of the Poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.

- Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
- To heav’nly themes sublimer strains belong.
- The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
- The dreams of Pindus, and th’ Aonian maids,
- Delight no more—O Thou my voice inspire
- Who touch’d Isaiah’s hallow’d lips with fire!
- Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
- A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son!1
- From Jesse’s2 root behold a branch arise,
- Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies;10
- Th’ ethereal spirit o’er its leaves shall move,
- And on its top descends the mystic dove.
- Ye Heav’ns!3 from high the dewy nectar pour,
- And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
- The sick4 and weak the healing plant shall aid,
- From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
- All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail,
- Returning Justice5 lift aloft her scale;
- Peace o’er the world her olive wand extend,
- And white-robed Innocence from Heav’n descend.20
- Swift fly the years, and rise th’ expected morn!
- O spring to light, auspicious babe! be born.
- See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,6
- With all the incense of the breathing spring:
- See lofty Lebanon7 his head advance,
- See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
- See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
- And Carmel’s flow’ry top perfumes the skies!
- Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;1
- Prepare the way!2 a God, a God appears!
- A God, a God! the vocal hills reply;31
- The Rocks proclaim th’ approaching Deity.
- Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
- Sink down, ye Mountains, and, ye valleys, rise;
- With heads declin’d, ye Cedars, homage pay;
- Be smooth, ye Rocks; ye rapid floods, give way;
- The Saviour comes, by ancient bards foretold!
- Hear him,3 ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!
- He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
- And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:40
- ’T is he th’ obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
- And bid new music charm th’ unfolding ear:
- The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
- And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
- No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear,
- From every face he wipes off every tear.
- In4 adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
- And Hell’s grim tyrant feel th’ eternal wound.
- As the good Shepherd5 tends his fleecy care,
- Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,
- Explores the lost, the wand’ring sheep directs,51
- By day o’ersees them, and by night protects;
- The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
- Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;
- Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
- The promis’d Father6 of the future age.
- No more shall7 nation against nation rise,
- Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
- Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover’d o’er,
- The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
- But useless lances into scythes shall bend,61
- And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
- Then palaces shall rise; the joyful8 son
- Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
- Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
- And the same hand that sow’d shall reap the field:
- The swain in barren9 deserts with surprise
- See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;10
- And start, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
- New falls of water murm’ring in his ear.70
- On rifted rocks, the dragon’s late abodes,
- The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods;
- Waste1 sandy valleys, once perplex’d with thorn,
- The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;
- To leafless shrubs the flow’ring palms succeed,
- And od’rous myrtle to the noisome weed.
- The lambs2 with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
- And boys in flow’ry bands the tiger lead;3
- The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
- And harmless serpents4 lick the pilgrim’s feet;80
- The smiling infant in his hand shall take
- The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
- Pleas’d, the green lustre of the scales survey,
- And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
- Rise, crown’d with light, imperial Salem,5 rise!6
- Exalt thy tow’ry head, and lift thy eyes!
- See a long race7 thy spacious courts adorn;
- See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
- In crowding ranks on every side arise,
- Demanding life, impatient for the skies!90
- See barb’rous nations8 at thy gates attend,
- Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
- See thy bright altars throng’d with prostrate kings,
- And heap’d with products of Sabæan9 springs;
- For thee Idume’s spicy forests blow,
- And seeds of gold in Ophir’s mountains glow;
- See Heav’n its sparkling portals wide display,
- And break upon thee in a flood of day!
- No more the rising sun10 shall gild the morn,
- Nor ev’ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;
- But lost, dissolv’d in thy superior rays,101
- One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
- O’erflow thy courts: the light himself shall shine
- Reveal’d, and God’s eternal day be thine!
- The seas11 shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
- Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
- But fix’d his word, his saving power remains;—
- Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM[ ]

Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
Mart. Epig. xii. 84.

‘It appears by this motto,’ says Pope, in a footnote supplied for Warburton’s edition, ‘that the following poem was written or published at the lady’s request. But there are some other circumstances not unworthy relating. Mr. Caryll (a gentleman who was secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he followed into France, author of the comedy of Sir Solomon Single, and of several translations in Dryden’s Miscellanies) originally proposed it to him in a view of putting an end, by this piece of ridicule, to a quarrel that was risen between two noble families, those of Lord Petre and Mrs. Fermor, on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her hair. The author sent it to the lady, with whom he was acquainted; and she took it so well as to give about copies of it. That first sketch (we learn from one of his letters) was written in less than a fortnight, in 1711, in two cantos only, and it was so printed first, in a Miscellany of Bern. Lintot’s, without the name of the author. But it was received so well that he made it more considerable the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five cantos.’

TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR

Madam,—

It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you. Yet you may bear me witness it was intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex’s little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the air of a secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been offer’d to a bookseller, you had the good-nature for my sake, to consent to the publication of one more correct: this I was forced to, before I had executed half my design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to complete it.

The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the critics, to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons, are made to act in a poem: for the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies; let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These Machines I determined to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits.

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady; but it is so much the concern of a poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms. The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. The best account I know of them is in a French book called La Comte de Gabalis, which, both in its title and size, is so like a novel, that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. According to these gentlemen, the four elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or Dæmons of earth, delight in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best-conditioned creatures imaginable; for, they say, any mortal may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts,—an inviolate preservation of chastity.

As to the following cantos, all the passages of them are as fabulous as the Vision at the beginning, or the Transformation at the end (except the loss of your hair, which I always mention with reverence). The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and the character of Belinda, as it is now managed, resembles you in nothing but in beauty.

If this poem had as many graces as there are in your person or in your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro’ the world half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem, Madam,

Your most obedient, humble servant,

A. Pope.

CANTO I

- What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,
- What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
- I sing—This verse to Caryll, muse! is due:
- This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
- Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
- If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
- Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
- A well-bred Lord t’ assault a gentle Belle?
- O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor’d,
- Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?10
- In tasks so bold can little men engage,
- And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?
- Sol thro’ white curtains shot a tim’rous ray,
- And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day.
- Now lapdogs give themselves the rousing shake,
- And sleepless lovers just at twelve awake:
- Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock’d the ground,
- And the press’d watch return’d a silver sound.
- Belinda still her downy pillow prest,
- Her guardian Sylph prolong’d the balmy rest.20
- ’T was he had summon’d to her silent bed
- The morning-dream that hover’d o’er her head;
- A youth more glitt’ring than a Birthnight Beau
- (That ev’n in slumber caus’d her cheek to glow)
- Seem’d to her ear his winning lips to lay,
- And thus in whispers said, or seem’d to say:
- ‘Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish’d care
- Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!
- If e’er one vision touch’d thy infant thought,
- Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught—30
- Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,
- The silver token, and the circled green,
- Or virgins visited by Angel-powers,
- With golden crowns and wreaths of heav’nly flowers;
- Hear and believe! thy own importance know,
- Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.
- Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal’d,
- To maids alone and children are reveal’d:
- What tho’ no credit doubting Wits may give?
- The fair and innocent shall still believe.40
- Know, then, unnumber’d Spirits round thee fly,
- The light militia of the lower sky:
- These, tho’ unseen, are ever on the wing,
- Hang o’er the Box , and hover round the Ring.
- Think what an equipage thou hast in air,
- And view with scorn two pages and a chair.
- As now your own, our beings were of old,
- And once inclosed in woman’s beauteous mould;
- Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
- From earthly vehicles to these of air.50
- Think not, when woman’s transient breath is fled,
- That all her vanities at once are dead;
- Succeeding vanities she still regards,
- And, tho’ she plays no more, o’erlooks the cards.
- Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive,
- And love of Ombre, after death survive.
- For when the Fair in all their pride expire,
- To their first elements their souls retire.
- The sprites of fiery termagants in flame59
- Mount up, and take a Salamander’s name.
- Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
- And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental tea.
- The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome
- In search of mischief still on earth to roam.
- The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,
- And sport and flutter in the fields of air.
- ‘Know further yet: whoever fair and chaste
- Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embraced;
- For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
- Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.70
- What guards the purity of melting maids,
- In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
- Safe from the treach’rous friend, the daring spark,
- The glance by day, the whisper in the dark;
- When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
- When music softens, and when dancing fires?
- ’T is but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know,
- Tho’ Honour is the word with men below.
- ‘Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,
- For life predestin’d to the Gnome’s embrace.80
- These swell their prospects and exalt their pride,
- When offers are disdain’d, and love denied:
- Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain,
- While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train,
- And garters, stars, and coronets appear,
- And in soft sounds, “Your Grace” salutes their ear.
- ’T is these that early taint the female soul,
- Instruct the eyes of young conquettes to roll,
- Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know,
- And little hearts to flutter at a Beau.90
- ‘Oft, when the world imagine women stray,
- The Sylphs thro’ mystic mazes guide their way;
- Thro’ all the giddy circle they pursue,
- And old impertinence expel by new.
- What tender maid but must a victim fall
- To one man’s treat, but for another’s ball?
- When Florio speaks, what virgin could withstand,
- If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand?
- With varying vanities, from every part,
- They shift the moving toyshop of their heart;100
- Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,
- Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
- This erring mortals levity may call;
- Oh blind to truth! the Sylphs contrive it all.
- ‘Oh these am I, who thy protection claim,
- A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
- Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air,
- In the clear mirror of thy ruling star
- I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
- Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
- But Heav’n reveals not what, or how or where.111
- Warn’d by the Sylph, O pious maid, beware!
- This to disclose is all thy guardian can:
- Beware of all, but most beware of Man!’
- He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long,
- Leap’d up, and waked his mistress with his tongue.
- ’T was then, Belinda, if report say true,
- Thy eyes first open’d on a billet-doux;
- Wounds, charms, and ardours were no sooner read,119
- But all the vision vanish’d from thy head.
- And now, unveil’d, the toilet stands display’d,
- Each silver vase in mystic order laid.
- First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,
- With head uncover’d, the cosmetic powers.
- A heav’nly image in the glass appears;
- To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.
- Th’ inferior priestess, at her altar’s side,
- Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.
- Unnumber’d treasures ope at once, and here
- The various off’rings of the world appear;
- From each she nicely culls with curious toil,131
- And decks the Goddess with the glitt’ring spoil.
- This casket India’s glowing gems unlocks,
- And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
- The tortoise here and elephant unite,
- Transform’d to combs, the speckled, and the white.
- Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
- Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
- Now awful beauty puts on all its arms;139
- The Fair each moment rises in her charms,
- Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace,
- And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
- Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
- And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
- The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,
- These set the head, and those divide the hair,
- Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown;
- And Betty’s prais’d for labours not her own.

CANTO II

- Not with more glories, in th’ ethereal plain,
- The sun first rises o’er the purpled main,
- Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
- Launch’d on the bosom of the silver Thames.
- Fair nymphs, and well-dress’d youths around her shone,
- But every eye was fix’d on her alone.
- On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
- Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
- Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
- Quick as her eyes, and as unfix’d as those:
- Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;11
- Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
- Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
- And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
- Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
- Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide;
- If to her share some female errors fall,
- Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.
- This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
- Nourish’d two locks, which graceful hung behind20
- In equal curls, and well conspired to deck
- With shining ringlets the smooth iv’ry neck.
- Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,
- And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
- With hairy springes we the birds betray,
- Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,
- Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare,
- And beauty draws us with a single hair.
- Th’ adventurous Baron the bright locks admired;
- He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspired.
- Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,31
- By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
- For when success a lover’s toil attends,
- Few ask if fraud or force attain’d his ends.
- For this, ere Phœbus rose, he had implor’d
- Propitious Heav’n, and every Power ador’d,
- But chiefly Love—to Love an altar built
- Of twelve vast French romances , neatly gilt.
- There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
- And all the trophies of his former loves;40
- With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,
- And breathes three am’rous sighs to raise the fire.
- Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes
- Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize:
- The Powers gave ear , and granted half his prayer,
- The rest the winds dispers’d in empty air.
- But now secure the painted vessel glides,
- The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides;
- While melting music steals upon the sky,
- And soften’d sounds along the waters die:
- Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,51
- Belinda smil’d, and all the world was gay.
- All but the Sylph—with careful thoughts opprest
- Th’ impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
- He summons straight his denizens of air;
- The lucid squadrons round the sails repair:
- Soft o’er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe
- That seem’d but zephyrs to the train beneath.
- Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,
- Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;60
- Transparent forms too fine for mortal sight,
- Their fluid bodies half dissolv’d in light,
- Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
- Thin glitt’ring textures of the filmy dew,
- Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies,
- Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes,
- While ev’ry beam new transient colours flings,
- Colours that change whene’er they wave their wings.
- Amid the circle, on the gilded mast,
- Superior by the head was Ariel placed;70
- His purple pinions opening to the sun,
- He raised his azure wand, and thus begun:
- ‘Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear.
- Fays, Fairies, Genii , Elves, and Dæmons, hear!
- Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign’d
- By laws eternal to th’ aërial kind.
- Some in the fields of purest ether play,
- And bask and whiten in the blaze of day:
- Some guide the course of wand’ring orbs on high,
- Or roll the planets thro’ the boundless sky:80
- Some, less refin’d, beneath the moon’s pale light
- Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
- Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
- Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
- Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
- Or o’er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
- Others, on earth, o’er human race preside,
- Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide:
- Of these the chief the care of nations own,
- And guard with arms divine the British Throne.90
- ‘Our humbler province is to tend the Fair,
- Not a less pleasing, tho’ less glorious care;
- To save the Powder from too rude a gale;
- Nor let th’ imprison’d Essences exhale;
- To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers;
- To steal from rainbows ere they drop in showers
- A brighter Wash; to curl their waving hairs,
- Assist their blushes and inspire their airs;
- Nay oft, in dreams invention we bestow,
- To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelow.
- ‘This day black omens threat the brightest Fair,101
- That e’er deserv’d a watchful spirit’s care;
- Some dire disaster, or by force or slight;
- But what, or where, the Fates have wrapt in night.
- Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
- Or some frail China jar receive a flaw;
- Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,
- Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,
- Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
- Or whether Heav’n has doom’d that Shock must fall.110
- Haste, then, ye Spirits! to your charge repair:
- The flutt’ring fan be Zephyretta’s care;
- The drops to thee, Brillaute, we consign;
- And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
- Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav’rite Lock;
- Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.
- ‘To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note,
- We trust th’ important charge, the petticoat;
- Oft have we known that sev’n-fold fence to fail,
- Tho’ stiff with hoops, and arm’d with ribs of whale:120
- Form a strong line about the silver bound,
- And guard the wide circumference around.
- ‘Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
- His post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large,
- Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o’ertake his sins:
- Be stopp’d in vials, or transfix’d with pins,
- Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie,
- Or wedg’d whole ages in a bodkin’s eye;
- Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
- While clogg’d he beats his silken wings in vain,130
- Or alum styptics with contracting power
- Shrink his thin essence like a rivell’d flower:
- Or, as Ixion fix’d, the wretch shall feel
- The giddy motion of the whirling mill,
- In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
- And tremble at the sea that froths below!’
- He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;
- Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;
- Some thread the mazy ringlets of her hair;
- Some hang upon the pendants of her ear;
- With beating hearts the dire event they wait,141
- Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.

CANTO III

- Close by those meads, for ever crown’d with flowers,
- Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers
- There stands a structure of majestic frame,
- Which from the neighb’ring Hampton takes its name.
- Here Britain’s statesmen oft the fall foredoom
- Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home;
- Here, thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
- Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.
- Hither the Heroes and the Nymphs resort,
- To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;10
- In various talk th’ instructive hours they past,
- Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
- One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
- And one describes a charming Indian screen;
- A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
- At every word a reputation dies.
- Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
- With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
- Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
- The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
- The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,21
- And wretches hang that jurymen may dine;
- The merchant from th’ Exchange returns in peace,
- And the long labours of the toilet cease.
- Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
- Burns to encounter two adventurous knights,
- At Ombre singly to decide their doom,
- And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.
- Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,
- Each band the number of the sacred Nine.
- Soon as she spreads her hand, th’ aerial guard31
- Descend, and sit on each important card:
- First Ariel perch’d upon a Matadore,
- Then each according to the rank they bore;
- For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race,
- Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.
- Behold four Kings in majesty revered,
- With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
- And four fair Queens, whose hands sustain a flower
- Th’ expressive emblem of their softer power;40
- Four Knaves, in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
- Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand
- And party-colour’d troops, a shining train,
- Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.
- The skilful nymph reviews her force with care;
- ‘Let Spades be trumps!’ she said, and trumps they were.
- Now move to war her sable Matadores,
- In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.
- Spadillio first, unconquerable lord!
- Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.50
- As many more Manillio forced to yield,
- And march’d a victor from the verdant field.
- Him Basto follow’d, but his fate more hard
- Gain’d but one trump and one plebeian card.
- With his broad sabre next, a chief in years,
- The hoary Majesty of Spades appears,
- Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal’d;
- The rest his many colour’d robe conceal’d.
- The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,
- Proves the just victim of his royal rage.60
- Ev’n mighty Pam , that kings and queens o’erthrew,
- And mow’d down armies in the fights of Loo,
- Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,
- Falls undistinguish’d by the victor Spade.
- Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
- Now to the Baron Fate inclines the field.
- His warlike amazon her host invades,
- Th’ imperial consort of the crown of Spades.
- The Club’s black tyrant first her victim died,
- Spite of his haughty mien and barb’rous pride:70
- What boots the regal circle on his head,
- His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;
- That long behind he trails his pompous robe,
- And of all monarchs only grasps the globe?
- The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace;
- Th’ embroider’d King who shows but half his face,
- And his refulgent Queen, with powers combin’d,
- Of broken troops an easy conquest find.
- Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
- With throngs promiscuous strew the level green.80
- Thus when dispers’d a routed army runs,
- Of Asia’s troops, and Afric’s sable sons,
- With like confusion diff’rent nations fly,
- Of various habit, and of various dye;
- The pierced battalions disunited fall
- In heaps on heaps; one fate o’erwhelms them all.
- The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,
- And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts.
- At this, the blood the virgin’s cheek forsook,
- A livid paleness spreads o’er all her look;
- She sees, and trembles at th’ approaching ill,91
- Just in the jaws of ruin , and Codille.
- And now (as oft in some distemper’d state)
- On one nice trick depends the gen’ral fate!
- An Ace of Hearts steps forth: the King unseen
- Lurk’d in her hand, and mourn’d his captive Queen.
- He springs to vengeance with an eager pace,
- And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.
- The nymph, exulting, fills with shouts the sky;
- The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.100
- Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
- Too soon dejected, and too soon elate:
- Sudden these honours shall be snatch’d away,
- And curs’d for ever this victorious day.
- For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown’d,
- The berries crackle, and the mill turns round;
- On shining altars of japan they raise
- The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze:
- From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
- While China’s earth receives the smoking tide.110
- At once they gratify their scent and taste,
- And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
- Straight hover round the Fair her airy band;
- Some, as she sipp’d, the fuming liquor fann’d,
- Some o’er her lap their careful plumes display’d,
- Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.
- Coffee (which makes the politician wise,
- And see thro’ all things with his half-shut eyes)
- Sent up in vapors to the Baron’s brain
- New stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain.
- Ah, cease, rash youth! desist ere ’t is too late,121
- Fear the just Gods, and think of Scylla’s fate!
- Changed to a bird , and sent to flit in air,
- She dearly pays for Nisus’ injured hair!
- But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
- How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
- Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace
- A two-edg’d weapon from her shining case:
- So ladies in romance assist their knight,
- Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.130
- He takes the gift with rev’rence, and extends
- The little engine on his fingers’ ends;
- This just behind Belinda’s neck he spread,
- As o’er the fragrant steams she bends her head.
- Swift to the Lock a thousand sprites repair;
- A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair;
- And thrice they twitch’d the diamond in her ear;
- Thrice she look’d back, and thrice the foe drew near.138
- Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
- The close recesses of the virgin’s thought:
- As on the nosegay in her breast reclin’d,
- He watch’d th’ ideas rising in her mind,
- Sudden he view’d, in spite of all her art,
- An earthly Lover lurking at her heart.
- Amazed, confused, he found his power expired,
- Resign’d to fate, and with a sigh retired.
- The Peer now spreads the glitt’ring forfex wide,
- T’ inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
- Ev’n then, before the fatal engine closed,
- A wretched Sylph too fondly interposed;
- Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain151
- (But airy substance soon unites again ).
- The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
- From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!
- Then flash’d the living lightning from her eyes,
- And screams of horror rend th’ affrighted skies.
- Not louder shrieks to pitying Heav’n are cast,
- When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;
- Or when rich China vessels, fall’n from high,
- In glitt’ring dust and painted fragments lie!160
- ‘Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,’
- The Victor cried, ‘the glorious prize is mine!
- While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
- Or in a coach and six the British Fair,
- As long as Atalantis shall be read,
- Or the small pillow grace a lady’s bed,
- While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
- When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze:
- While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
- So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!170
- What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date,
- And monuments, like men, submit to Fate!
- Steel could the labour of the Gods destroy,
- And strike to dust th’ imperial towers of Troy;
- Steel could the works of mortal pride confound
- And hew triumphal arches to the ground.
- What wonder, then , fair Nymph! thy hairs should feel
- The conquering force of unresisted steel?’

CANTO IV

- But anxious cares the pensive nymph opprest,
- And secret passions labour’d in her breast.
- Not youthful kings in battle seiz’d alive,
- Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
- Not ardent lovers robb’d of all their bliss,
- Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss,
- Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
- Not Cynthia when her mantua’s pinn’d awry,
- E’er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
- As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ravish’d hair.
- For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew,11
- And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew,
- Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite
- As ever sullied the fair face of light,
- Down to the central earth, his proper scene,
- Repair’d to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.
- Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome,
- And in a vapour reach’d the dismal dome.
- No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,
- The dreaded East is all the wind that blows.20
- Here in a grotto shelter’d close from air,
- And screen’d in shades from day’s detested glare,
- She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,
- Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head.
- Two handmaids wait the throne; alike in place,
- But diff’ring far in figure and in face.
- Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid,
- Her wrinkled form in black and white array’d!
- With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and noons,
- Her hand is fill’d; her bosom with lampoons.30
- There Affectation, with a sickly mien,
- Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,
- Practis’d to lisp, and hang the head aside,
- Faints into airs, and languishes with pride;
- On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,
- Wrapt in a gown for sickness and for show.
- The fair ones feel such maladies as these,
- When each new night-dress gives a new disease.
- A constant vapour o’er the palace flies
- Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise;
- Dreadful as hermits’ dreams in haunted shades,41
- Or bright as visions of expiring maids:
- Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
- Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires;
- Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
- And crystal domes, and angels in machines.
- Unnumber’d throngs on ev’ry side are seen,
- Of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen.
- Here living Teapots stand, one arm held out,
- One bent; the handle this, and that the spout:50
- A Pipkin there, like Homer’s Tripod walks;
- Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks ;
- Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works,
- And maids turn’d bottles call aloud for corks.
- Safe pass’d the Gnome thro’ this fantastic band,
- A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand.
- Then thus address’d the Power—‘Hail, wayward Queen!
- Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen:
- Parent of Vapours and of female wit,
- Who give th’ hysteric or poetic fit,60
- On various tempers act by various ways,
- Make some take physic, others scribble plays;
- Who cause the proud their visits to delay,
- And send the godly in a pet to pray.
- A nymph there is that all your power disdains,
- And thousands more in equal mirth maintains.
- But oh! if e’er thy Gnome could spoil a grace,
- Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face,
- Like citron-waters matrons’ cheeks inflame,
- Or change complexions at a losing game;70
- If e’er with airy horns I planted heads,
- Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds,
- Or caused suspicion when no soul was rude,
- Or discomposed the head-dress of a prude,
- Or e’er to costive lapdog gave disease,
- Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease,
- Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin;
- That single act gives half the world the spleen.’
- The Goddess, with a discontented air,
- Seems to reject him tho’ she grants his prayer.80
- A wondrous Bag with both her hands she binds,
- Like that where once Ulysses held the winds;
- There she collects the force of female lungs,
- Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues.
- A Vial next she fills with fainting fears,
- Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.
- The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away,
- Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day.
- Sunk in Thalestris’ arms the nymph he found,
- Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound.90
- Full o’er their heads the swelling Bag he rent,
- And all the Furies issued at the vent.
- Belinda burns with more than mortal ire,
- And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire.
- ‘O wretched maid!’ she spread her hands, and cried
- (While Hampton’s echoes, ‘Wretched maid!’ replied),
- Was it for this you took such constant care
- The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare?
- For this your locks in paper durance bound?
- For this with torturing irons wreathed around?100
- For this with fillets strain’d your tender head,
- And bravely bore the double loads of lead?
- Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair,
- While the fops envy, and the ladies stare!
- Honour forbid! at whose unrivall’d shrine
- Ease, Pleasure, Virtue, all, our sex resign.
- Methinks already I your tears survey,
- Already hear the horrid things they say,
- Already see you a degraded toast,
- And all your honour in a whisper lost!110
- How shall I, then, your hapless fame defend?
- ’T will then be infamy to seem your friend!
- And shall this prize, th’ inestimable prize,
- Exposed thro’ crystal to the gazing eyes,
- And heighten’d by the diamond’s circling rays,
- On that rapacious hand for ever blaze?
- Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow,
- And Wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow ;
- Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall,
- Men, monkeys, lapdogs, parrots, perish all!’120
- She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs,
- And bids her beau demand the precious hairs
- (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
- And the nice conduct of a clouded cane):
- With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
- He first the snuff-box open’d, then the case,
- And thus broke out—‘My lord, why, what the devil!
- Z—ds! damn the Lock! ’fore Gad, you must be civil!
- Plague on ’t! ’t is past a jest—nay, prithee, pox!
- Give her the hair.’—He spoke, and rapp’d his box.130
- ‘It grieves me much,’ replied the Peer again,
- ‘Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain:
- But by this Lock, this sacred Lock, I swear
- (Which never more shall join its parted hair;
- Which never more its honours shall renew,
- Clipp’d from the lovely head where late it grew),
- That, while my nostrils draw the vital air,
- This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear.’
- He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread
- The long-contended honours of her head.140
- But Umbriel, hateful Gnome, forbears not so;
- He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow.
- Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears,
- Her eyes half-languishing, half drown’d in tears;
- On her heav’d bosom hung her drooping head,
- Which with a sigh she rais’d, and thus she said:
- ‘For ever curs’d be this detested day,
- Which snatch’d my best, my fav’rite curl away!
- Happy! ah, ten times happy had I been,
- If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen!150
- Yet am not I the first mistaken maid,
- By love of courts to numerous ills betray’d.
- O had I rather unadmired remain’d
- In some lone isle, or distant northern land;
- Where the gilt chariot never marks the way,
- Where none learn Ombre, none e’er taste Bohea!
- There kept my charms conceal’d from mortal eye,
- Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die.
- What mov’d my mind with youthful lords to roam?
- O had I stay’d, and said my prayers at home;160
- ’T was this the morning omens seem’d to tell,
- Thrice from my trembling hand the patchbox fell;
- The tott’ring china shook without a wind;
- Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind!
- A Sylph, too, warn’d me of the threats of fate,
- In mystic visions, now believ’d too late!
- See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs!
- My hands shall rend what ev’n thy rapine spares.
- These, in two sable ringlets taught to break,
- Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck;
- The sister-lock now sits uncouth alone,171
- And in its fellow’s fate foresees its own;
- Uncurl’d it hangs, the fatal shears demands,
- And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands.
- O hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize
- Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!’

CANTO V

- She said: the pitying audience melt in tears;
- But Fate and Jove had stopp’d the Baron’s ears.
- In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
- For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
- Not half so fix’d the Trojan could remain,
- While Anna begg’d and Dido raged in vain.
- Then grave Clarissa graceful waved her fan;
- Silence ensued, and thus the nymph began:
- ‘Say, why are beauties prais’d and honour’d most,
- The wise man’s passion, and the vain man’s toast?10
- Why deck’d with all that land and sea afford,
- Why angels call’d, and angel-like ador’d?
- Why round our coaches crowd the whiteglov’d beaux?
- Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows?
- How vain are all these glories, all our pains,
- Unless Good Sense preserve what Beauty gains;
- That men may say when we the front-box grace,
- “Behold the first in virtue as in face!”
- Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
- Charm’d the smallpox, or chased old age away;20
- Who would not scorn what housewife’s cares produce,
- Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?
- To patch, nay, ogle, might become a saint,
- Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
- But since, alas! frail beauty must decay,
- Curl’d or uncurl’d, since locks will turn to gray;
- Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
- And she who scorns a man must die a maid;
- What then remains, but well our power to use,
- And keep good humour still whate’er we lose?30
- And trust me, dear, good humour can prevail,
- When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.
- Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
- Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.’
- So spoke the dame, but no applause ensued;
- Belinda frown’d, Thalestris call’d her prude.
- ‘To arms, to arms!’ the fierce virago cries,
- And swift as lightning to the combat flies.
- All side in parties, and begin th’ attack;
- Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whale-bones crack;40
- Heroes’ and heroines’ shouts confusedly rise,
- And bass and treble voices strike the skies.
- No common weapons in their hands are found,
- Like Gods they fight nor dread a mortal wound.
- So when bold Homer makes the Gods engage,
- And heav’nly breasts with human passions rage;
- ’Gainst Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes arms;
- And all Olympus rings with loud alarms;
- Jove’s thunder roars, Heav’n trembles all around,
- Blue Neptune storms, the bell’wing deeps resound:50
- Earth shakes her nodding towers, the ground gives way,
- And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day!
- Triumphant Umbriel, on a sconce’s height ,
- Clapp’d his glad wings, and sat to view the fight:
- Propp’d on their bodkin-spears, the sprites survey
- The growing combat, or assist the fray.
- While thro’ the press enraged Thalestris flies,
- And scatters death around from both her eyes,
- A Beau and Witling perish’d in the throng,
- One died in metaphor, and one in song:60
- ‘O cruel Nymph! a living death I bear,’
- Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair.
- A mournful glance Sir Fopling upwards cast,
- ‘Those eyes are made so killing’—was his last.
- Thus on Mæander’s flowery margin lies
- Th’ expiring swan, and as he sings he dies.
- When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down,
- Chloe stepp’d in, and kill’d him with a frown;
- She smiled to see the doughty hero slain,
- But, at her smile, the beau revived again.
- Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air ,71
- Weighs the men’s wits against the lady’s hair;
- The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;
- At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.
- See fierce Belinda on the Baron flies,
- With more than usual lightning in her eyes;
- Nor fear’d the chief th’ unequal fight to try,
- Who sought no more than on his foe to die.
- But this bold lord, with manly strength endued,
- She with one finger and a thumb subdued:
- Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew,81
- A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw;
- The Gnomes direct, to every atom just,
- The pungent grains of titillating dust.
- Sudden, with starting tears each eye o’erflows,
- And the high dome reechoes to his nose.
- ‘Now meet thy fate,’ incens’d Belinda cried,
- And drew a deadly bodkin from her side.
- (The same, his ancient personage to deck,
- Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck,90
- In three seal-rings; which after, melted down,
- Form’d a vast buckle for his widow’s gown:
- Her infant grandame’s whistle next it grew,
- The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew;
- Then in a bodkin graced her mother’s hairs,
- Which long she wore and now Belinda wears.)
- ‘Boast not my fall,’ he cried, ‘insulting foe!
- Thou by some other shalt be laid as low;
- Nor think to die dejects my lofty mind:
- All that I dread is leaving you behind!100
- Rather than so, ah, let me still survive,
- And burn in Cupid’s flames—but burn alive.’
- ‘Restore the Lock!’ she cries; and all around
- ‘Restore the Lock!’ the vaulted roofs rebound.
- Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain
- Roar’d for the handkerchief that caus’d his pain.
- But see how oft ambitious aims are cross’d,
- And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost!
- The lock, obtain’d with guilt, and kept with pain,
- In ev’ry place is sought, but sought in vain:110
- With such a prize no mortal must be blest.
- So Heav’n decrees! with Heav’n who can contest?
- Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere,
- Since all things lost on earth are treasured there.
- There heroes’ wits are kept in pond’rous vases,
- And beaux’ in snuffboxes and tweezercases.
- There broken vows, and deathbed alms are found,
- And lovers’ hearts with ends of riband bound,
- The courtier’s promises, and sick man’s prayers,
- The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs,120
- Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea,
- Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry.
- But trust the Muse—she saw it upward rise,
- Tho’ mark’d by none but quick poetic eyes
- (So Rome’s great founder to the heav’ns withdrew,
- To Proculus alone confess’d in view):
- A sudden star, it shot thro’ liquid air,
- And drew behind a radiant trail of hair.
- Not Berenice’s locks first rose so bright,
- The heav’ns bespangling with dishevell’d light.130
- The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies,
- And pleas’d pursue its progress thro’ the skies.
- This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey,
- And hail with music its propitious ray;
- This the blest lover shall for Venus take,
- And send up vows from Rosamonda’s lake;
- This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,
- When next he looks thro’ Galileo’s eyes;
- And hence th’ egregious wizard shall foredoom
- The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome.140
- Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn thy ravish’d hair,
- Which adds new glory to the shining sphere!
- Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
- Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost.
- For after all the murders of your eye,
- When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
- When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
- And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
- This Lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
- And ’midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.150

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1713 AND 1717

PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON’S CATO

This prologue was written in 1713, after Addison had given Pope two of the main causes which led to their estrangement; and itself led the way for the third. Addison’s faint praise of the Pastorals, and disagreement with Pope as to the advisability of revising The Rape of the Lock, had not as yet led to their estrangement. But when not long after the presentation of Cato, Pope ventured to become its champion against the attacks of John Dennis, Addison’s quiet disclaimer of responsibility for his anonymous defender cut Pope to the quick.

- To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
- To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
- To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
- Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold:
- For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,
- Commanding tears to stream thro’ ev’ry age:
- Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
- And foes to virtue wonder’d how they wept.
- Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
- The Hero’s glory, or the Virgin’s love;10
- In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,
- And wild Ambition well deserves its woe.
- Here tears shall flow from a more gen’rous cause,
- Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws.
- He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
- And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes:
- Virtue confess’d in human shape he draws,
- What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
- No common object to your sight displays,
- But what with pleasure Heav’n itself surveys,20
- A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
- And greatly falling with a falling state.
- While Cato gives his little senate laws,
- What bosom beats not in his country’s cause?
- Who sees him act, but envies ev’ry deed?
- Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
- Ev’n when proud Cæsar, midst triumphal cars,
- The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
- Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
- Show’d Rome her Cato’s figure drawn in state;30
- As her dead father’s rev’rend image past,
- The pomp was darken’d, and the day o’ercast;
- The triumph ceas’d, tears gush’d from ev’ry eye,
- The world’s great Victor pass’d unheeded by;
- Her last good man dejected Rome ador’d,
- And honour’d Cæsar’s less than Cato’s sword.
- Britons, attend: be worth like this approv’d,
- And show you have the virtue to be mov’d.
- With honest scorn the first famed Cato view’d
- Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued;40
- Your scene precariously subsists too long
- On French translation and Italian song.
- Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
- Be justly warm’d with your own native rage:
- Such plays alone should win a British ear
- As Cato’s self had not disdain’d to hear.

EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE’S JANE SHORE

DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD

Nicholas Rowe’s play was acted at Drury Lane in February, 1714. Mrs. Oldfield played the leading part, but Pope’s Epilogue was not used.

- Prodigious this! the Frail-one of our play
- From her own sex should mercy find today!
- You might have held the pretty head aside,
- Peep’d in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,—
- ‘The play may pass—but that strange creature, Shore,
- I can’t—indeed now—I so hate a whore!’
- Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
- And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
- So from a sister sinner you shall hear,
- ‘How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!10
- But let me die, all raillery apart,
- Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
- And, did not wicked custom so contrive,
- We’d be the best good-natured things alive.’
- There are, ’t is true, who tell another tale,
- That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
- Such rage without betrays the fire within;
- In some close corner of the soul they sin;
- Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
- Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.20
- The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
- Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.
- Would you enjoy soft nights and solid dinners?
- Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners.
- Well, if our author in the Wife offends,
- He has a Husband that will make amends:
- He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving;
- And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
- In days of old, they pardon’d breach of vows;29
- Stern Cato’s self was no relentless spouse.
- Plu—Plutarch, what ’s his name that writes his life,
- Tells us, that Cato dearly lov’d his wife:
- Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her,
- He ’d recommend her as a special breeder.
- To lend a wife, few here would scruple make;
- But, pray, which of you all would take her back?
- Tho’ with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring,
- The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing.
- The man had courage, was a sage, ’t is true,
- And lov’d his country—but what ’s that to you?40
- Those strange examples ne’er were made to fit ye,
- But the kind cuckold might instruct the city:
- There, many an honest man may copy Cato
- Who ne’er saw naked sword, or look’d in Plato.
- If, after all, you think it a disgrace,
- That Edward’s Miss thus perks it in your face,
- To see a piece of failing flesh and blood,
- In all the rest so impudently good:
- Faith, let the modest matrons of the town
- Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down.50

TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME

What ’s Fame with men, by custom of the nation,
Is call’d, in women, only Reputation:
About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I ’ll renounce the other.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK

Atria longa patent; sed nec coenantibus usquam,
Nec somno, locus est: quam bene non habitas.
Martial.

These verses were first published in 1714. There is no actual proof that they are Pope’s, but as his editors have always retained them, they are here given.

- See, Sir, here ’s the grand approach,
- This way is for his Grace’s coach;
- There lies the bridge, and here ’s the clock;
- Observe the lion and the cock,
- The spacious court, the colonnade,
- And mark how wide the hall is made!
- The chimneys are so well design’d,
- They never smoke in any wind.
- This gallery ’s contrived for walking,
- The windows to retire and talk in;
- The council-chamber for debate,
- And all the rest are rooms of state.
- Thanks, Sir, cried I, ’t is very fine,
- But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ ye dine?
- I find by all you have been telling
- That ’t is a house, but not a dwelling.

LINES TO LORD BATHURST

In illustration Mitford refers to Pope’s letter to Lord Bathurst of September 13, 1732, where ‘Mr. L.’ is spoken of as ‘more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber.’ (Ward.) Proof is lacking that these lines belong to Pope. They were printed by E. Curll in 1714.

‘A Wood!’ quoth Lewis, and with that
He laugh’d, and shook his sides of fat.
His tongue, with eye that mark’d his cunning,
Thus fell a-reas’ning, not a-running:
‘Woods are—not to be too prolix—
Collective bodies of straight sticks.
It is, my lord, a mere conundrum
To call things woods for what grows under ’em.
For shrubs, when nothing else at top is,
Can only constitute a coppice.
But if you will not take my word,
See anno quint. of Richard Third;
And that’s a coppice call’d, when dock’d,
Witness an. prim. of Harry Oct.
If this a wood you will maintain,
Merely because it is no plain,
Holland, for all that I can see,
May e’en as well be term’d the sea,
Or C[onings]by be fair harangued
An honest man, because not hang’d.’

MACER[ ]

A CHARACTER

This was first printed in 1727 in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, but was probably written in 1715. Macer is supposed to be Ambrose Philips. The ‘borrow’d Play’ of the eighth line would then have been The Distrest Mother, adapted by Philips from Racine.

- When simple Macer, now of high renown,
- First sought a poet’s fortune in the town,
- ’T was all th’ ambition his high soul could feel
- To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
- Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
- And gave the harmless fellow a good word:
- Set up with these he ventured on the town,
- And with a borrow’d play outdid poor Crowne .
- There he stopp’d short, nor since has writ a tittle,
- But has the wit to make the most of little;
- Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got11
- Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
- Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
- Not of the Wits his foes, but Fools his friends.
- So some coarse country wench, almost decay’d,
- Trudges to town and first turns chamber-maid;
- Awkward and supple each devoir to pay,
- She flatters her good lady twice a day;
- Thought wondrous honest, tho’ of mean degree,
- And strangely liked for her simplicity:20
- In a translated suit then tries the town,
- With borrow’d pins and patches not her own:
- But just endured the winter she began,
- And in four months a batter’d harridan:
- Now nothing left, but wither’d, pale, and shrunk,
- To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

EPISTLE TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT

ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN AFTER THE CORONATION

This was written shortly after the coronation of George I. ‘Zephalinda’ was a fanciful name employed by Teresa Blount in correspondence.

- As some fond virgin, whom her mother’s care
- Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
- Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
- And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh—
- From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
- Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever—
- Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
- Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
- Not that their pleasures caus’d her discontent;
- She sigh’d not that they stay’d, but that she went.10
- She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
- Old-fashion’d halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
- She went from Op’ra, Park, Assembly, Play,
- To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;
- To part her time ’twixt reading and Bohea,
- To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
- Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
- Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
- Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
- Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
- Up to her godly garret after sev’n,21
- There starve and pray, for that’s the way to Heav’n.
- Some Squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack,
- Whose game is Whist, whose treat a toast in sack;
- Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
- Then gives a smacking buss, and cries—‘No words!’
- Or with his hounds comes hollowing from the stable,
- Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
- Whose laughs are hearty, tho’ his jests are coarse,
- And loves you best of all things—but his horse.30
- In some fair ev’ning, on your elbow laid,
- You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
- In pensive thought recall the fancied scene,
- See coronations rise on ev’ry green:
- Before you pass th’ imaginary sights
- Of Lords and Earls and Dukes and garter’d Knights,
- While the spread fan o’ershades your closing eyes;
- Then gives one flirt, and all the vision flies.
- Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
- And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!40
- So when your Slave, at some dear idle time
- (Not plagued with headaches or the want of rhyme)
- Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
- And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
- Just when his fancy paints your sprightly eyes,
- Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
- Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
- Streets, Chairs, and Coxcombs rush upon my sight;
- Vext to be still in town, I knit my brow,
- Look sour, and hum a tune, as you may now.50

LINES OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

Muse, ’t is enough, at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phœbus bends,
And I and malice from this hour are friends.

A FAREWELL TO LONDON[ ]

IN THE YEAR 1715

- Dear, damn’d, distracting town, farewell!
- Thy fools no more I’ll tease:
- This year in peace, ye Critics, dwell,
- Ye Harlots, sleep at ease!
- Soft B—s and rough C[ragg]s, adieu!
- Earl Warwick, make your moan;
- The lively II[inchenbroo]k and you
- May knock up whores alone.
- To drink and droll be Rowe allow’d
- Till the third watchman’s toll;
- Let Jervas gratis paint, and Froude
- Save threepence and his soul.
- Farewell Arbuthnot’s raillery
- On every learned sot;
- And Garth, the best good Christian he,
- Although he knows it not.
- Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
- Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
- Heav’n gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
- Lean Philips and fat Johnson.
- Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
- My vixen mistress squalls;
- The Wits in envious feuds engage;
- And Homer (damn him!) calls.
- The love of arts lies cold and dead
- In Halifax’s urn;
- And not one Muse of all he fed
- Has yet the grace to mourn.
- My friends, by turns, my friends confound,
- Betray, and are betray’d:
- Poor Y[ounge]r’s sold for fifty pounds,
- And B[ickne]ll is a jade.
- Why make I friendships with the great,
- When I no favour seek?
- Or follow girls seven hours in eight?—
- I need but once a week.
- Still idle, with a busy air,
- Deep whimseys to contrive;
- The gayest valetudinaire,
- Most thinking rake alive.
- Solicitous for others’ ends,
- Tho’ fond of dear repose;
- Careless or drowsy with my friends,
- And frolic with my foes.
- Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
- For sober, studious days!
- And Burlington’s delicious meal,
- For salads, tarts, and pease!
- Adieu to all but Gay alone,
- Whose soul sincere and free,
- Loves all mankind but flatters none,
- And so may starve with me.

IMITATION OF MARTIAL

Referred to in a letter from Trumbull to Pope dated January, 1716. The epigram imitated is the twenty-third of the tenth book.

At length, my Friend (while Time, with still career,
Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year),
Sees his past days safe out of Fortune’s power,
Nor dreads approaching Fate’s uncertain hour;
Reviews his life, and in the strict survey, }
Finds not one moment he could wish away, }
Pleased with the series of each happy day. }
Such, such a man extends his life’s short space,
And from the goal again renews the race;
For he lives twice, who can at once employ
The present well, and ev’n the past enjoy.

IMITATION OF TIBULLUS

See the fourth elegy of Tibullus, lines 55, 56. In the course of his high-flown correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, after her departure for the East, Pope often suggests the possibility of his travelling to meet her. ‘But if my fate be such,’ he says on the occasion which brought forth this couplet, ‘that this body of mine (which is as ill matched to my mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it!’

Here, stopt by hasty Death, Alexis lies,
Who cross’d half Europe, led by Wortley’s eyes.

THE BASSET-TABLE[ ]

AN ECLOGUE

This mock pastoral was one of three which made up the original volume of Town Eclogues, published anonymously in 1716. Three more appeared in a later edition. It is now known that only the Basset-Table is Pope’s, the rest being the work of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

cardelia, smilinda, lovet

Card.

The Basset-Table spread, the Tallier come,
Why stays Smilinda in the dressing-room?
Rise, pensive nymph! the Tallier waits for you. }

Smil.

Ah, madam! since my Sharper is untrue, }
I joyless make my once adored Alpeu. }
I saw him stand behind Ombrelia’s chair, }
And whisper with that soft deluding air, }
And those feign’d sighs which cheat the list’ning Fair. }

Card.

Is this the cause of your romantic strains?
A mightier grief my heavy heart sustains:
As you by love, so I by Fortune crost;11
One, one bad Deal, three Septlevas have lost.

Smil.

Is that the grief which you compare with mine?
With ease the smiles of fortune I resign:
Would all my gold in one bad Deal were gone,
Were lovely Sharper mine, and mine alone.

Card.

A lover lost is but a common care,
And prudent nymphs against that change prepare:
The Knave of Clubs thrice lost: Oh! who could guess19
This fatal stroke, this unforeseen distress?

Smil.

See Betty Lovet! very àpropos;
She all the cares of love and play does know.
Dear Betty shall th’ important point decide;
Betty! who oft the pain of each has tried;
Impartial she shall say who suffers most,
By cards’ ill usage, or by lovers lost.

Lov.

Tell, tell your griefs; attentive will I stay,
Though time is precious, and I want some tea.

Card.

Behold this equipage, by Mathers wrought,
With fifty guineas (a great pen’worth) bought.30
See on the toothpick Mars and Cupid strive,
And both the struggling figures seem alive.
Upon the bottom shines the Queen’s bright face;
A myrtle foliage round the thimble case.
Jove, Jove himself does on the scissors shine:
The metal, and the workmanship, divine.

Smil.

This snuff-box—once the pledge of Sharper’s love,
When rival beauties for the present strove;
At Corticelli’s he the raffle won;39
Then first his passion was in public shown:
Hazardia blush’d, and turn’d her head aside,
A rival’s envy (all in vain) to hide.
This snuffbox—on the hinge see brilliants shine—
This snuffbox will I stake, the Prize is mine.

Card.

Alas! far lesser losses than I bear
Have made a soldier sigh, a lover swear.
And oh! what makes the disappointment hard,
’T was my own Lord that drew the fatal card.
In complaisance I took the Queen he gave,
Tho’ my own secret wish was for the Knave.50
The Knave won Sonica, which I had chose,
And the next pull my Septleva I lose.

Smil.

- But ah! what aggravates the killing smart,
- The cruel thought that stabs me to the heart,
- This curs’d Ombrelia, this undoing Fair,
- By whose vile arts this heavy grief I bear,
- She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears,
- She owes to me the very charms she wears.
- An awkward thing when first she came to town,
- Her shape unfashion’d, and her face unknown:60
- She was my friend; I taught her first to spread
- Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red;
- I introduced her to the park and plays,
- And by my int’rest Cozens made her Stays.
- Ungrateful wretch! with mimic airs grown pert,
- She dares to steal my favourite lover’s heart.

Card.

Wretch that I was, how often have I swore,
When Winnall tallied, I would punt no more!
I know the bite, yet to my ruin run,
And see the folly which I cannot shun.70

Smil.

How many maids have Sharper’s vows deceiv’d?
How many curs’d the moment they believ’d?
Yet his known falsehoods could no warning prove:
Ah! what is warning to a maid in love?

Card.

But of what marble must that breast be form’d,
To gaze on Basset, and remain unwarm’d?
When Kings, Queens, Knaves, are set in decent rank,
Exposed in glorious heaps the tempting Bank,
Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train,
The winner’s pleasure, and the loser’s pain.80
In bright confusion open Rouleaux lie,
They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye:
Fired by the sight, all reason I disdain,
My passions rise, and will not bear the rein.
Look upon Basset, you who reason boast,
And see if reason must not there be lost.

Smil.

What more than marble must that heart compose
Can harken coldly to my Sharper’s vows?
Then when he trembles! when his blushes rise!
When awful love seems melting in his eyes!90
With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves:
‘He loves’—I whisper to myself, ‘He loves!’
Such unfeign’d passion in his looks appears,
I lose all mem’ry of my former fears;
My panting heart confesses all his charms,
I yield at once, and sink into his arms.
Think of that moment, you who Prudence boast;
For such a moment Prudence well were lost.

Card.

At the Groom-Porter’s batter’d bullies play,99
Some dukes at Mary-bone bowl time away;
But who the Bowl or rattling Dice compares
To Basset’s heav’nly joys and pleasing cares?

Smil.

Soft Simplicetta dotes upon a beau;
Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show:
Their several graces in my Sharper meet,
Strong as the footman, as the master sweet.

Lov.

Cease your contention, which has been too long;
I grow impatient, and the tea ’s too strong.
Attend, and yield to what I now decide;
The equipage shall grace Smilinda’s side;110
The snuffbox to Cardelia I decree;
Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.

EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB[ ]

ANNO 1716

- Whence deathless ‘Kit-cat’ took its name,
- Few critics can unriddle:
- Some say from ‘Pastrycook’ it came,
- And some, from ‘cat’ and ‘fiddle.’
- From no trim Beaux its name it boasts,
- Gray Statesmen, or green wits;
- But from this pellmell pack of Toasts
- Of old ‘cats’ and young ‘kits.’

THE CHALLENGE

A COURT BALLAD

TO THE TUNE OF ‘TO ALL YOU LADIES NOW AT LAND,’ ETC.

This lively ballad, written in 1717, belongs to the period of Pope’s intimacy with court society. The three ladies here addressed were attached to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

- I
- To one fair lady out of Court,
- And two fair ladies in,
- Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,
- And wit and love no sin;
- Come these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,
- To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.
- With a fa, la, la.
- II
- What passes in the dark third row,
- And what behind the scene,
- Couches and crippled chairs I know,
- And garrets hung with green;
- I know the swing of sinful hack,
- Where many damsels cry alack.
- With a fa, la, la.
- III
- Then why to Courts should I repair,
- Where’s such ado with Townshend?
- To hear each mortal stamp and swear,
- And every speech with Zounds end;
- To hear ’em rail at honest Sunderland,
- And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland.
- With a fa, la, la.
- IV
- Alas! like Schutz, I cannot pun,
- Like Grafton court the Germans;
- Tell Pickenbourg how slim she ’s grown,
- Like Meadows run to sermons;
- To Court ambitious men may roam,
- But I and Marlbro’ stay at home.
- With a fa, la, la.
- V
- In truth, by what I can discern,
- Of courtiers ’twixt you three,
- Some wit you have, and more may learn
- From Court, than Gay or me;
- Perhaps, in time, you ’ll leave high diet,
- To sup with us on milk and quiet.
- With a fa, la, la.
- VI
- At Leicester-Fields, a house full high,
- With door all painted green,
- Where ribbons wave upon the tie
- (A milliner I mean),
- There may you meet us three to three,
- For Gay can well make two of me.
- With a fa, la, la.
- VII
- But should you catch the prudish itch
- And each become a coward,
- Bring sometimes with you lady Rich,
- And sometimes mistress Howard;
- For virgins to keep chaste must go
- Abroad with such as are not so.
- With a fa, la, la.
- VIII
- And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends:
- God send the King safe landing;
- And make all honest ladies friends
- To armies that are standing;
- Preserve the limits of those nations,
- And take off ladies’ limitations.
- With a fa, la, la.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

ON MRS. PULTENEY

Mrs. Pulteney was a daughter of one John Gumley, who had made a fortune by a glass manufactory.

With scornful mien, and various toss of air,
Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,
Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,
She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
Far other carriage graced her virgin life,
But charming Gumley’s lost in Pulteney’s wife.
Not greater arrogance in him we find,
And this conjunction swells at least her mind.
O could the sire, renown’d in glass, produce
One faithful mirror for his daughter’s use!
Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
And by reflection learn to mend her face:
The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
Be what she was, and charm mankind once more.

PROLOGUE, DESIGNED FOR MR. D’URFEY’S LAST PLAY

‘Tom’ D’Urfey was a writer of popular farces under the Restoration. Through Addison’s influence his play The Plotting Sisters was revived for his benefit; and the present prologue was possibly written for that occasion. It was first published in 1727.

- Grown old in rhyme, ’t were barb’rous to discard
- Your persevering, unexhausted Bard:
- Damnation follows death in other men,
- But your damn’d poet lives and writes again.
- The adventurous lover is successful still,
- Who strives to please the Fair against her will.
- Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
- Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.
- He scorn’d to borrow from the Wits of yore,
- But ever writ, as none e’er writ before.10
- You modern Wits, should each man bring his claim,
- Have desperate debentures on your fame;
- And little would be left you, I’m afraid,
- If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
- From this deep fund our author largely draws,
- Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
- Tho’ plays for honour in old time he made,
- ’T is now for better reasons—to be paid.
- Believe him, he has known the world too long,
- And seen the death of much immortal song.20
- He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
- As pimps grow rich while gallants are undone.
- Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
- The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
- Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;
- But ’t is substantial happiness to eat.
- Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
- Nor force him to be damn’d to get his living.

PROLOGUE TO THE ‘THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE’

Three Hours after Marriage was a dull and unsuccessful farce produced in January, 1717, at the Drury Lane Theatre. Though it was attributed to the joint authorship of Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, direct proof is lacking not only of Pope’s share in the play, but of his authorship of the Prologue. Of the latter fact, at least, we have, however, indirect evidence in Pope’s resentment of the ridicule cast by Cibber, in a topical impromptu, upon the play; the incident which first roused Pope’s enmity for Cibber, which resulted in his eventually displacing Theobald as the central figure in The Dunciad.

- Authors are judged by strange capricious rules,
- The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:
- Yet sure the best are most severely fated;
- For Fools are only laugh’d at, Wits are hated.
- Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
- But fool ’gainst fool, is barb’rous civil war.
- Why on all Authors then should Critics fall?
- Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
- Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;
- Cry, ‘Damn not us, but damn the French, who made it.’10
- By running goods these graceless Owlers gain;
- Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain:
- But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,
- Dash’d by these rogues, turns English common draught.
- They pall Molière’s and Lopez’ sprightly strain,
- And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain.
- How shall our Author hope a gentler fate,
- Who dares most impudently not translate?
- It had been civil, in these ticklish times,
- To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes.20
- Spaniards and French abuse to the world’s end,
- But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend.
- If any fool is by our satire bit,
- Let him hiss loud, to show you all he ’s hit.
- Poets make characters, as salesmen clothes;
- We take no measure of your Fops and Beaux;
- But here all sizes and all shapes you meet,
- And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street.
- Gallants, look here! this Foolscap has an air29
- Goodly and smart, with ears of Issachar.
- Let no one fool engross it, or confine
- A common blessing! now ’t is yours, now mine.
- But poets in all ages had the care
- To keep this cap for such as will, to wear.
- Our Author has it now (for every Wit
- Of course resign’d it to the next that writ)
- And thus upon the stage ’t is fairly thrown;
- Let him that takes it wear it as his own.

PRAYER OF BRUTUS

FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

The Rev. Aaron Thompson, of Queen’s College, Oxon., translated the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He submitted the translation to Pope, 1717, who gave him the following lines, being a translation of a Prayer of Brutus. (Carruthers.)

Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chase
To mountain wolves and all the savage race,
Wide o’er th’ aerial vault extend thy sway,
And o’er th’ infernal regions void of day.
On thy Third Reign look down; disclose our fate;
In what new station shall we fix our seat?
When shall we next thy hallow’d altars raise,
And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

While there is no absolute date to be given for this or the following poem, both evidently belong to the period of Pope’s somewhat fanciful attachment for Lady Mary.

- I
- In beauty, or wit,
- No mortal as yet
- To question your empire has dar’d;
- But men of discerning
- Have thought that in learning,
- To yield to a lady was hard.
- II
- Impertinent schools,
- With musty dull rules,
- Have reading to females denied:
- So Papists refuse
- The Bible to use,
- Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.
- III
- ’T was a woman at first,
- (Indeed she was curst)
- In Knowledge that tasted delight,
- And sages agree
- The laws should decree
- To the first possessor the right.
- IV
- Then bravely, fair Dame,
- Resume the old claim,
- Which to your whole sex does belong;
- And let men receive,
- From a second bright Eve,
- The knowledge of right and of wrong.
- V
- But if the first Eve
- Hard doom did receive,
- When only one apple had she,
- What a punishment new
- Shall be found out for you,
- Who tasting have robb’d the whole tree?

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES

ON A PORTRAIT OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, PAINTED BY KNELLER

The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth,
So would I draw (but oh! ’t is vain to try;
My narrow Genius does the power deny;)
The equal lustre of the heav’nly mind,
Where ev’ry grace with ev’ry virtue ’s join’d;
Learning not vain, and Wisdom not severe,
With Greatness easy, and with Wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,
And the whole Princess in my work should shine.

ELOISA TO ABELARD[ ]

The origin of this famous poem seems to have lain jointly in Pope’s perception of the poetic availability of the Héloise-Abelard legend, and in his somewhat factitious grief in his separation from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. They met in 1715, became friends, and in 1716 Lady Mary left England. In a letter of June, 1717, Pope commends the poem to her consideration, with a suggestion of the personal applicability of the concluding lines to his own suffering under the existing circumstance of their separation.

ELOISA TO ABELARD

ARGUMENT

Abelard and Eloisa flourished in the twelfth century; they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in Learning and Beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a several convent, and consecrated the remainder of their days to Religion. It was many years after this separation that a letter of Abelard’s to a friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloisa. This, awakening all her tenderness, occasioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted), which give so lively a picture of the struggles of Grace and Nature, Virtue and Passion.

- In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
- Where heav’nly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
- And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,
- What means this tumult in a vestal’s veins?
- Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
- Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
- Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came,
- And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.
- Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal’d,
- Nor pass these lips, in holy silence seal’d:10
- Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
- Where, mix’d with God’s, his lov’d idea lies:
- O write it not, my hand—the name appears
- Already written—wash it out, my tears!
- In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,
- Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys.
- Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains
- Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:
- Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn;
- Ye grots and caverns shagg’d with horrid thorn!20
- Shrines! where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep,
- And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
- Tho’ cold like you, unmov’d and silent grown,
- I have not yet forgot myself to stone .
- All is not Heav’n’s while Abelard has part,
- Still rebel Nature holds out half my heart;
- Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
- Nor tears, for ages taught to flow in vain.
- Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
- That well-known name awakens all my woes.30
- Oh name for ever sad! for ever dear!
- Still breathed in sighs, still usher’d with a tear.
- I tremble too, where’er my own I find,
- Some dire misfortune follows close behind.
- Line after line my gushing eyes o’erflow,
- Led thro’ a safe variety of woe:
- Now warm in love, now with’ring in my bloom,
- Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!
- There stern religion quench’d th’ unwilling flame,
- There died the best of passions, Love and Fame.40
- Yet write, O write me all, that I may join
- Griefs to thy griefs, and echo sighs to thine.
- Nor foes nor fortune take this power away;
- And is my Abelard less kind than they?
- Tears still are mine, and those I need not spare;
- Love but demands what else were shed in prayer.
- No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
- To read and weep is all they now can do.
- Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
- Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief.50
- Heav’n first taught letters for some wretch’s aid,
- Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid;
- They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
- Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
- The virgin’s wish without her fears impart,
- Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
- Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
- And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
- Thou know’st how guiltless first I met thy flame,
- When Love approach’d me under Friendship’s name;60
- My fancy form’d thee of angelic kind,
- Some emanation of th’ all-beauteous Mind.
- Those smiling eyes, attemp’ring every ray,
- Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day,
- Guiltless I gazed; Heav’n listen’d while you sung;
- And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
- From lips like those what precept fail’d to move?
- Too soon they taught me ’t was no sin to love:
- Back thro’ the paths of pleasing sense I ran,69
- Nor wish’d an angel whom I loved a man.
- Dim and remote the joys of saints I see;
- Nor envy them that Heav’n I lose for thee.
- How oft, when press’d to marriage, have I said,
- Curse on all laws but those which Love has made!
- Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
- Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
- Let Wealth, let Honour, wait the wedded dame,
- August her deed, and sacred be her fame;
- Before true passion all those views remove;
- Fame, Wealth, and Honour! what are you to Love?80
- The jealous God, when we profane his fires,
- Those restless passions in revenge inspires,
- And bids them make mistaken mortals groan,
- Who seek in love for aught but love alone.
- Should at my feet the world’s great master fall,
- Himself, his throne, his world, I ’d scorn ’em all:
- Not Cæsar’s empress would I deign to prove;
- No, make me mistress to the man I love;
- If there be yet another name more free,
- More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!90
- O happy state! when souls each other draw,
- When Love is liberty, and Nature law;
- All then is full, possessing and possess’d,
- No craving void left aching in the breast:
- Ev’n thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part,
- And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart.
- This sure is bliss (if bliss on earth there be),
- And once the lot of Abelard and me.
- Alas, how changed! what sudden horrors rise!
- A naked lover bound and bleeding lies!100
- Where, where was Eloise? her voice, her hand,
- Her poniard had opposed the dire command.
- Barbarian, stay! that bloody stroke restrain;
- The crime was common, common be the pain.
- I can no more; by shame, by rage suppress’d,
- Let tears and burning blushes speak the rest.
- Canst thou forget that sad, that solemn day,
- When victims at you altar’s foot we lay?
- Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
- When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?110
- As with cold lips I kiss’d the sacred veil,
- The shrines all trembled, and the lamps grew pale:
- Heav’n scarce believ’d the conquest it survey’d,
- And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.
- Yet then, to those dread altars as I drew,
- Not on the cross my eyes were fix’d, but you:
- Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
- And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.
- Come! with thy looks, thy words, relieve my woe;119
- Those still at least are left thee to bestow.
- Still on that breast enamour’d let me lie,
- Still drink delicious poison from thy eye,
- Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press’d;
- Give all thou canst—and let me dream the rest.
- Ah, no! instruct me other joys to prize,
- With other beauties charm my partial eyes!
- Full in my view set all the bright abode,
- And make my soul quit Abelard for God.
- Ah, think at least thy flock deserves thy care,
- Plants of thy hand, and children of thy prayer.130
- From the false world in early youth they fled,
- By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts led.
- You raised these hallow’d walls; the desert smil’d,
- And Paradise was open’d in the wild.
- No weeping orphan saw his father’s stores
- Our shrines irradiate or emblaze the floors;
- No silver saints, by dying misers giv’n,
- Here bribed the rage of ill-requited Heav’n;
- But such plain roofs as piety could raise,
- And only vocal with the Maker’s praise.140
- In these lone walls (their day’s eternal bound),
- These moss-grown domes with spiry turrents crown’d,
- Where awful arches make a noonday night,
- And the dim windows shed a solemn light,
- Thy eyes diffused a reconciling ray,
- And gleams of glory brighten’d all the day.
- But now no face divine contentment wears,
- ’T is all blank sadness, or continual tears.
- See how the force of others’ prayers I try,
- (O pious fraud of am’rous charity!)150
- But why should I on others’ prayers depend?
- Come thou, my father, brother, husband, friend!
- Ah, let thy handmaid, sister, daughter, move,
- And all those tender names in one, thy love!
- The darksome pines, that o’er yon rocks reclin’d,
- Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind,
- The wand’ring streams that shine between the hills,
- The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,
- The dying gales that pant upon the trees,
- The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze—160
- No more these scenes my meditation aid,
- Or lull to rest the visionary maid:
- But o’er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
- Long-sounding aisles and intermingled graves,
- Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws
- A death-like silence, and a dread repose:
- Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
- Shades every flower, and darkens every green,
- Deepens the murmur of the falling floods,
- And breathes a browner horror on the woods.170
- Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;
- Sad proof how well a lover can obey!
- Death, only Death can break the lasting chain;
- And here, ev’n then shall my cold dust remain;
- Here all its frailties, all its flames resign,
- And wait till ’t is no sin to mix with thine.
- Ah, wretch! believ’d the spouse of God in vain.
- Confess’d within the slave of Love and man.
- Assist me, Heav’n! but whence arose that prayer?
- Sprung it from piety or from despair?180
- Ev’n here, where frozen Chastity retires,
- Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.
- I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;
- I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;
- I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
- Repent old pleasures, and solicit new;
- Now turn’d to Heav’n, I weep my past offence,
- Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.
- Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
- ’T is sure the hardest science to forget!190
- How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
- And love th’ offender, yet detest th’ offence?
- How the dear object from the crime remove,
- Or how distinguish Penitence from Love?
- Unequal task! a passion to resign,
- For hearts so touch’d, so pierced, so lost as mine:
- Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
- How often must it love, how often hate!
- How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
- Conceal, disdain—do all things but forget!200
- But let Heav’n seize it, all at once ’t is fired;
- Not touch’d, but rapt; not waken’d, but inspired!
- O come! O teach me Nature to subdue,
- Renounce my love, my life, myself—and You:
- Fill my fond heart with God alone, for he
- Alone can rival, can succeed to thee.
- How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
- The world forgetting, by the world forgot;
- Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,
- Each prayer accepted, and each wish resign’d;210
- Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
- Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;
- Desires composed, affections ever ev’n;
- Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav’n.
- Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
- And whisp’ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
- For her th’ unfading rose of Eden blooms,
- And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes;
- For her the spouse prepares the bridal ring;
- For her white virgins hymeneals sing;220
- To sounds of heav’nly harps she dies away,
- And melts in visions of eternal day.
- Far other dreams my erring soul employ,
- Far other raptures of unholy joy.
- When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day,
- Fancy restores what vengeance snatch’d away,
- Then conscience sleeps, and leaving Nature free,
- All my loose soul unbounded springs to thee!
- Oh curst, dear horrors of all-conscious night!
- How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!
- Provoking demons all restraint remove,231
- And stir within me every source of love.
- I hear thee, view thee, gaze o’er all thy charms,
- And round thy phantom glue my clasping arms.
- I wake:—no more I hear, no more I view,
- The phantom flies me, as unkind as you.
- I call aloud; it hears not what I say:
- I stretch my empty arms; it glides away.
- To dream once more I close my willing eyes;
- Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise!240
- Alas, no more! methinks we wand’ring go
- Thro’ dreary wastes, and weep each other’s woe,
- Where round some mould’ring tower pale ivy creeps,
- And low-brow’d rocks hang nodding o’er the deeps.
- Sudden you mount, you beckon from the skies;
- Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arise.
- I shriek, start up, the same sad prospect find,
- And wake to all the griefs I left behind.
- For thee the Fates, severely kind, ordain
- A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain;250
- Thy life a long dead calm of fix’d repose;
- No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.
- Still as the sea, ere winds were taught to blow,
- Or moving spirit bade the waters flow;
- Soft as the slumbers of a saint forgiv’n,
- And mild as opening gleams of promised Heav’n.
- Come, Abelard! for what hast thou to dread?
- The torch of Venus burns not for the dead.
- Nature stands check’d; Religion disapproves;
- Ev’n thou art cold—yet Eloisa loves.260
- Ah, hopeless, lasting flames; like those that burn
- To light the dead, and warm th’ unfruitful urn!
- What scenes appear where’er I turn my view;
- The dear ideas, where I fly, pursue;
- Rise in the grove, before the altar rise,
- Stain all my soul, and wanton in my eyes.
- I waste the matin lamp in sighs for thee,
- Thy image steals between my God and me:
- Thy voice I seem in every hymn to hear,
- With every bead I drop too soft a tear.270
- When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,
- And swelling organs lift the rising soul,
- One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,
- Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight:
- In seas of flame my plunging soul is drown’d,
- While altars blaze, and angels tremble round.
- While prostrate here in humble grief I lie,
- Kind virtuous drops just gath’ring in my eye,
- While praying, trembling, in the dust I roll,
- And dawning grace is opening on my soul:
- Come, if thou dar’st, all charming as thou art!281
- Oppose thyself to Heav’n; dispute my heart;
- Come, with one glance of those deluding eyes
- Blot out each bright idea of the skies;
- Take back that grace, those sorrows and those tears,
- Take back my fruitless penitence and prayers;
- Snatch me, just mounting, from the blest abode:
- Assist the fiends, and tear me from my God!
- No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;
- Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!290
- Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,
- Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.
- Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign;
- Forget, renounce me, hate whate’er was mine.
- Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view),
- Long lov’d, ador’d ideas, all adieu!
- O Grace serene! O Virtue heav’nly fair!
- Divine Oblivion of low-thoughted care!
- Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the sky!
- And Faith, our early immortality!300
- Enter each mild, each amicable guest;
- Receive, and wrap me in eternal rest!
- See in her cell sad Eloisa spread,
- Propt on some tomb, a neighbour of the dead.
- In each low wind methinks a spirit calls,
- And more than echoes talk along the walls.
- Here, as I watch’d the dying lamps around,
- From yonder shrine I heard a hollow sound:
- ‘Come, sister, come! (it said, or seem’d to say)
- Thy place is here, sad sister, come away;
- Once, like thyself, I trembled, wept, and pray’d,311
- Love’s victim then, tho’ now a sainted maid:
- But all is calm in this eternal sleep;
- Here grief forgets to groan, and love to weep;
- Ev’n superstition loses ev’ry fear:
- For God, not man, absolves our frailties here.’
- I come, I come! prepare your roseate bowers,
- Celestial palms, and ever-blooming flowers.
- Thither, where sinners may have rest, I go,
- Where flames refin’d in breasts seraphic glow;320
- Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay,
- And smooth my passage to the realms of day:
- See my lips tremble, and my eyeballs roll,
- Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul!
- Ah, no—in sacred vestments mayst thou stand,
- The hallow’d taper trembling in thy hand,
- Present the cross before my lifted eye,
- Teach me at once, and learn of me, to die.
- Ah then, thy once lov’d Eloisa see!
- It will be then no crime to gaze on me.330
- See from my cheek the transient roses fly!
- See the last sparkle languish in my eye!
- Till ev’ry motion, pulse, and breath be o’er,
- And ev’n my Abelard be lov’d no more.
- O Death, all-eloquent! you only prove
- What dust we doat on, when ’t is man we love.
- Then too, when Fate shall thy fair frame destroy
- (That cause of all my guilt, and all my joy),
- In trance ecstatic may thy pangs be drown’d,
- Bright clouds descend, and angels watch thee round;340
- From opening skies may streaming glories shine,
- And saints embrace thee with a love like mine.
- May one kind grave unite each hapless name,
- And graft my love immortal on thy fame!
- Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o’er,
- When this rebellious heart shall beat no more;
- If ever chance two wand’ring lovers brings,
- To Paraclete’s white walls and silver springs,
- O’er the pale marble shall they join their heads,
- And drink the falling tears each other sheds;350
- Then sadly say, with mutual pity mov’d,
- ‘O may we never love as these have lov’d!’
- From the full choir, when loud hosannas rise,
- And swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice,
- Amid that scene if some relenting eye
- Glance on the stone where our cold relics lie,
- Devotion’s self shall steal a thought from Heav’n,
- One human tear shall drop, and be forgiv’n.
- And sure if Fate some future bard shall join
- In sad similitude of griefs to mine,360
- Condemn’d whole years in absence to deplore,
- And image charms he must behold no more,—
- Such if there be, who loves so long, so well,
- Let him our sad, our tender story tell;
- The well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost;
- He best can paint them who shall feel them most.

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1718 AND 1727

AN INSCRIPTION UPON A PUNCH-BOWL

IN THE SOUTH SEA YEAR, FOR A CLUB: CHASED WITH JUPITER PLACING CALLISTO IN THE SKIES, AND EUROPA WITH THE BULL

Pope himself became seriously involved in the South Sea speculations, and while he does not appear to have been a heavy loser in the end, his unwise action for friends, notably for Lady Mary Wortley seems to have gotten him into some difficulties. This was of course written before the bursting of the bubble; presumably in 1720.

Come, fill the South Sea goblet full;
The gods shall of our stock take care;
Europa pleased accepts the Bull,
And Jove with joy puts off the Bear.

EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

SECRETARY OF STATE

Craggs was made Secretary of War in 1717, when Addison was Secretary of State. He succeeded Addison in 1720, and died in the following year. He was an intimate friend and correspondent of Pope’s after 1711.

A soul as full of Worth as void of Pride,
Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide,
Which nor to guilt nor fear its Caution owes,
And boasts a Warmth that from no passion flows;
A face untaught to feign; a judging eye,
That darts severe upon a rising lie,
And strikes a blush thro’ frontless Flattery—
All this thou wert; and being this before,
Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed, a Minister, but still a Man.
Be not (exalted to whate’er degree)
Ashamed of any friend, not ev’n of me:
The patriot’s plain but untrod path pursue;
If not, ’t is I must be ashamed of you.

A DIALOGUE

- POPE
- Since my old friend is grown so great,
- As to be Minister of State,
- I ’m told, but ’t is not true, I hope,
- That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.
- CRAGGS
- Alas! if I am such a creature,
- To grow the worse for growing greater,
- Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
- ’T is Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.

VERSES TO MR. C.

ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, OCT. 22

Probably Craggs, who was in office at the time when Pope established himself at Twickenham. (Ward.)

- Few words are best; I wish you well;
- Bethel, I ’m told, will soon be here;
- Some morning walks along the Mall,
- And ev’ning friends, will end the year.
- If, in this interval, between
- The falling leaf and coming frost,
- You please to see, on Twit’nam green,
- Your friend, your poet, and your host:
- For three whole days you here may rest
- From Office bus’ness, news, and strife;
- And (what most folks would think a jest)
- Want nothing else, except your wife.

TO MR. GAY

WHO HAD CONGRATULATED POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND GARDENS

Written early in 1722.

- Ah, friend! ’t is true—this truth you lovers know—
- In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow,
- In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
- Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens;
- Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
- And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.
- What are the gay Parterre, the chequer’d Shade,
- The morning Bower, the ev’ning Colonnade,
- But soft recesses of uneasy minds,
- To sigh unheard in to the passing winds?
- So the struck deer in some sequester’d part
- Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
- He stretch’d unseen in coverts hid from day,
- Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES

MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER

These drawings were made for the adornment of Pope’s house at Twickenham.

What god, what genius did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?
’T was friendship, warm as Phœbus, kind as Love,
And strong as Hercules.

EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER

PREFIXED TO PARNELL’S POEMS

- Such were the notes thy once-lov’d Poet sung,
- Till Death untimely stopp’d his tuneful tongue.
- Oh, just beheld and lost! admired and mourn’d!
- With softest manners, gentlest arts, adorn’d!
- Bless’d in each science! bless’d in ev’ry strain!
- Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear—in vain!
- For him thou oft hast bid the world attend,
- Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
- For Swift and him despised the farce of state,
- The sober follies of the wise and great,10
- Dext’rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
- And pleas’d to ’scape from Flattery to Wit.
- Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear
- (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear);
- Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
- Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays;
- Who, careless now of Int’rest, Fame, or Fate,
- Perhaps forgets that Oxford e’er was great;
- Or deeming meanest what we greatest call,
- Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.20
- And sure if aught below the seats divine
- Can touch immortals, ’t is a soul like thine;
- A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
- Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
- The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
- The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.
- In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
- The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade;
- ’T is hers the brave man’s latest steps to trace,
- Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.30
- When Int’rest calls off all her sneaking train,
- And all th’ obliged desert, and all the vain,
- She waits, or to the scaffold or the cell,
- When the last ling’ring friend has bid farewell.
- Ev’n now she shades thy evening walk with bays
- (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise);
- Ev’n now, observant of the parting ray,
- Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day,
- Thro’ fortune’s cloud one truly great can see,
- Nor fears to tell that Mortimer is he.40

TWO CHORUSES TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS

Brutus, says Pope, was a play ‘altered from Shakespeare by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose desire these choruses were composed to supply as many wanting in his play.’ Marcus Brutus was one of two plays (the other retaining Shakespeare’s title) manufactured by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, out of Julius Cæsar. Both were published in 1722. Pope’s choruses stand after the first and second acts of Brutus. The plays have no literary merit.

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS

Strophe I
Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought,
Groves, where immortal sages taught,
Where heav’nly visions Plato fired,
And Epicurus lay inspired!
In vain your guiltless laurels stood
Unspotted long with human blood.
War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses’ shades.

Antistrophe I
O Heav’n-born sisters! source of Art!
Who charm the sense, or mend the heart;
Who lead fair Virtue’s train along,
Moral Truth and mystic Song!
To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forsaken, friendless, shall ye fly?
Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

Strophe II
When Athens sinks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians spurn her dust;
Perhaps ev’n Britain’s utmost shore
Shall cease to blush with strangers’ gore,
See Arts her savage sons control,
And Athens rising near the pole!
Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

Antistrophe II
Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball?
Freedom and Arts together fall;
Fools grant whate’er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are slaves.
O curs’d effects of civil hate,
In ev’ry age, in ev’ry state!
Still, when the lust of tyrant Power succeeds,
Some Athens perishes, some Tully bleeds.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS

Semichorus
O tyrant Love! hast thou possest
The prudent, learned, and virtuous breast?
Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,
And arts but soften us to feel thy flame.
Love, soft intruder, enters here,
But ent’ring learns to be sincere.
Marcus with blushes owns he loves,
And Brutus tenderly reproves.
Why, Virtue, dost thou blame desire
Which Nature hath imprest?
Why, Nature, dost thou soonest fire
The mild and gen’rous breast?

Chorus
Love’s purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bend to love:
Brutus for absent Portia sighs,
And sterner Cassius melts at Junia’s eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a sudden storm of lust,
A vapour fed from wild desire,
A wand’ring, self-consuming fire.
But Hymen’s kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one;
Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,
Productive as the sun.

Semichorus
O source of ev’ry social tie,
United wish, and mutual joy!
What various joys on one attend,
As son, as father, brother, husband, friend?
Whether his hoary sire he spies,
While thousand grateful thoughts arise;
Or meets his spouse’s fonder eye,
Or views his smiling progeny;
What tender passions take their turns!
What home-felt raptures move!
His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With Rev’rence, Hope, and Love.

Chorus
Hence guilty joys, distastes, surmises,
Hence false tears, deceits, disguises,
Dangers, doubts, delays, surprises,
Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine!
Purest Love’s unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leisure,
Days of ease, and nights of pleasure,
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTHDAY

Written to Martha Blount in 1723. Lines 5-10 were elsewhere adapted for a versified celebration of his own birthday, and for an epitaph on a suicide!

- Oh, be thou blest with all that Heav’n can send,
- Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and a Friend:
- Not with those Toys the female world admire,
- Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.
- With added years if Life bring nothing new,
- But, like a sieve, let ev’ry blessing thro’,
- Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o’er,
- And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;
- Is that a birthday? ’t is alas! too clear,
- ’T is but the funeral of the former year.
- Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,
- And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,
- Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace,
- Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
- Let day improve on day, and year on year,
- Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;
- Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
- In some soft dream, or extasy of joy,
- Peaceful sleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,
- And wake to raptures in a life to come.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOWE

Mary Howe was appointed Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, in 1720. ‘Lepell’ was another Maid of Honour, referred to in The Challenge.

What is Prudery?
’T is a beldam,
Seen with Wit and Beauty seldom.
’T is a fear that starts at shadows;
’T is (no, ’t is n’t) like Miss Meadows.
’T is a virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
’T is an ugly envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell and you.

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

Catharine Howard, one of Queen Caroline’s waiting-women; afterward Countess of Suffolk and mistress to George II. Her identification as the Chloe of Moral Essays, II., makes it easier to believe Walpole’s statement that this lady once reprieved a condemned criminal that ‘an experiment might be made on his ears for her benefit.’

- I know the thing that ’s most uncommon;
- (Envy, be silent, and attend!)
- I know a reasonable Woman,
- Handsome and witty, yet a friend:
- Not warp’d by Passion, awed by Rumour,
- Not grave thro’ Pride, nor gay thro’ Folly,
- An equal mixture of Good-humour,
- And sensible soft Melancholy.
- ‘Has she no faults then (Envy says), sir?’
- Yes, she has one, I must aver:
- When all the world conspires to praise her,
- The woman ’s deaf and does not hear.

TO MR. JOHN MOORE

AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER

- How much, egregious Moore! are we
- Deceiv’d by shows and forms!
- Whate’er we think, whate’er we see,
- All humankind are Worms.
- Man is a very Worm by birth,
- Vile reptile, weak, and vain!
- A while he crawls upon the earth,
- Then shrinks to earth again.
- That woman is a Worm we find,
- E’er since our Grandam’s evil:
- She first convers’d with her own kind,
- That ancient Worm, the Devil.
- The learn’d themselves we Bookworms name,
- The blockhead is a Slowworm;
- The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
- Is aptly term’d a Glowworm.
- The fops are painted Butterflies,
- That flutter for a day;
- First from a Worm they take their rise,
- And in a Worm decay.
- The flatterer an Earwig grows;
- Thus worms suit all conditions;
- Misers are Muckworms; Silkworms, beaux;
- And Deathwatches, physicians.
- That statesmen have the worm, is seen
- By all their winding play;
- Their conscience is a Worm within,
- That gnaws them night and day.
- Ah, Moore, thy skill were well employ’d,
- And greater gain would rise,
- If thou couldst make the courtier void
- The Worm that never dies!
- O learned friend of Abchurch-Lane,
- Who sett’st our entrails free,
- Vain is thy Art, thy Powder vain,
- Since Worms shall eat ev’n thee.
- Our fate thou only canst adjourn
- Some few short years, no more!
- Ev’n Button’s Wits to Worms shall turn,
- Who Maggots were before.

THE CURLL MISCELLANIES UMBRA

Though speculation has connected several other persons with this poem, it is probably still another hit at the luckless Ambrose Philips. It, with the three following poems, was first published in the Miscellanies, 1727.

- Close to the best known author Umbra sits,
- The constant index to old Button’s Wits.
- ‘Who ’s here?’ cries Umbra. ‘Only Johnson.’—‘O!
- Your slave,’ and exit; but returns with Rowe.
- ‘Dear Rowe, let’s sit and talk of tragedies:’
- Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.
- Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel,
- And in a moment fastens upon Steele;
- But cries as soon, ‘Dear Dick, I must be gone,
- For, if I know his tread, here’s Addison.’
- Says Addison to Steele, ‘’T is time to go:’
- Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.
- Poor Umbra, left in this abandon’d pickle,
- Ev’n sits him down, and writes to honest Tickell.
- Fool! ’t is in vain from Wit to Wit to roam;
- Know, Sense, like Charity, ‘begins at home.’

BISHOP HOUGH

A Bishop, by his neighbors hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem’d by all the nation?
Yet if it be the old man’s case,
I’ll lay my life I know the place:
’T is where God sent some that adore him,
And whither Enoch went before him.

SANDYS’ GHOST[ ]

OR, A PROPER NEW BALLAD ON THE NEW OVID’S METAMORPHOSES: AS IT WAS INTENDED TO BE TRANSLATED BY PERSONS OF QUALITY

This refers to the translation undertaken by Sir Samuel Garth, which aimed to complete Dryden’s translation of Ovid, avoiding the rigidness of Sandys’ method. The enterprise was begun in 1718, when these verses were probably written.

- Ye Lords and Commons, men of wit
- And pleasure about town,
- Read this, ere you translate one bit
- Of books of high renown.
- Beware of Latin authors, all,
- Nor think your verses sterling,
- Tho’ with a golden pen you scrawl,
- And scribble in a Berlin.
- For not the desk with silver nails,
- Nor bureau of expense,
- Nor standish well japann’d, avails
- To writing of good sense.
- Hear how a Ghost in dead of night,
- With saucer eyes of fire,
- In woful wise did sore affright
- A Wit and courtly Squire:
- Rare imp of Phœbus, hopeful youth!
- Like puppy tame, that uses
- To fetch and carry in his mouth
- The works of all the Muses.
- Ah! why did he write poetry,
- That hereto was so civil;
- And sell his soul for vanity
- To Rhyming and the Devil?
- A desk he had of curious work,
- With glitt’ring studs about;
- Within the same did Sandys lurk,
- Tho’ Ovid lay without.
- Now, as he scratch’d to fetch up thought,
- Forth popp’d the sprite so thin,
- And from the keyhole bolted out,
- All upright as a pin.
- With whiskers, band, and pantaloon,
- And ruff composed most duly,
- This Squire he dropp’d his pen full soon,
- While as the light burnt bluely.
- Ho! master Sam, quoth Sandys’ sprite,
- Write on, nor let me scare ye!
- Forsooth, if rhymes fall not in right,
- To Budgell seek or Carey .
- I hear the beat of Jacob’s drums,
- Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
- See first the merry comes
- In haste without his garter.
- Then Lords and Lordlings, Squires and Knights,
- Wits, Witlings, Prigs, and Peers:
- Garth at St. James’s, and at White’s,
- Beats up for volunteers.
- What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
- Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
- Tom B[urne]t , or Tom D’Urfey may,
- John Dunton, Steele, or any one.
- If Justice Philips’ costive head
- Some frigid rhymes disburses,
- They shall like Persian tales be read,
- And glad both babes and nurses.
- Let W[a]rw[ic]k’s Muse with Ash[urs]t join,
- And Ozell’s with Lord Hervey’s,
- Tickell and Addison combine,
- And P[o]pe translate with Jervas.
- L[ansdowne] himself, that lively lord,
- Who bows to every lady,
- Shall join with F[rowde] in one accord,
- And be like Tate and Brady.
- Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen;
- I pray, where can the hurt lie?
- Since you have brains as well as men,
- As witness Lady Wortley.
- Now, Tonson, list thy forces all,
- Review them and tell noses;
- For to poor Ovid shall befall
- A strange metamorphosis;
- A metamorphosis more strange
- Than all his books can vapour—
- ‘To what (quoth ’Squire) shall Ovid change?’
- Quoth Sandys, ‘To waste paper.’

EPITAPH

Imitated from a Latin couplet on Joannes Mirandula:—

Joannes jacet hic Mirandula: cætera norunt
Et Tagus et Ganges—forsan et Antipodes.

First applied by Pope to Francis Chartres, but published in this form in 1727.

Here lies Lord Coningsby—be civil!
The rest God knows—perhaps the Devil.

THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS

Of gentle Philips will I ever sing,
With gentle Philips shall the valleys ring.
My numbers too for ever will I vary,
With gentle Budgell, and with gentle Carey.
Or if in ranging of the names I judge ill,
With gentle Carey and with gentle Budgell.
Oh! may all gentle bards together place ye,
Men of good hearts, and men of delicacy.
May Satire ne’er befool ye or beknave ye,
And from all Wits that have a knack, God save ye!

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER

- Pallas grew vapourish once and odd;
- She would not do the least right thing,
- Either for Goddess or for God,
- Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
- Jove frown’d, and ‘Use (he cried) those eyes
- So skilful, and those hands so taper;
- Do something exquisite and wise—’
- She bow’d, obey’d him, and cut paper.
- This vexing him who gave her birth,
- Thought by all Heav’n a burning shame,
- What does she next, but bids, on earth,
- Her Burlington do just the same.
- Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;
- But sure you ’ll find it hard to spoil
- The Sense and Taste of one that bears
- The name of Saville and of Boyle.
- Alas! one bad example shown,
- How quickly all the sex pursue!
- See, madam, see the arts o’erthrown
- Between John Overton and you!

EPIGRAM

AN EMPTY HOUSE

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come:
Knock as you please, there ’s nobody at home.

POEMS SUGGESTED BY GULLIVER

ODE TO QUINBUS FLESTRIN

THE MAN MOUNTAIN, BY TITTY TIT, POET LAUREATE TO HIS MAJESTY OF LILLIPUT. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

This ‘Ode’ and the three following poems, were written by Pope after reading Gulliver’s Travels, and first published in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, in 1727.

In amaze
Lost I gaze!
Can our eyes
Reach thy size!
May my lays
Swell with praise,
Worthy thee!
Worthy me!
Muse, inspire
All thy fire!
Bards of old
Of him told,
When they said
Atlas’ head
Propp’d the skies:
See! and believe your eyes!
See him stride
Valleys wide,
Over woods,
Over floods!
When he treads,
Mountains’ heads
Groan and shake,
Armies quake;
Lest his spurn
Overturn
Man and steed:
Troops, take beed!
Left and right,
Speed your flight!
Lest an host
Beneath his foot be lost;
Turn’d aside
From his hide
Safe from wound,
Darts rebound.
From his nose
Clouds he blows!
When he speaks,
Thunder breaks!
When he eats,
Famine threats!
When he drinks,
Neptune shrinks!
Nigh thy ear
In mid air,
On thy hand
Let me stand;
So shall I,
Lofty poet! touch the sky.

THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG

A PASTORAL

- Soon as Glumdalclitch miss’d her pleasing care,
- She wept, she blubber’d, and she tore her hair;
- No British miss sincerer grief has known,
- Her squirrel missing, or her sparrow flown.
- She furl’d her sampler, and haul’d in her thread,
- And stuck her needle into Grildrig’s bed;
- Then spread her hands, and with a bonnce let fall
- Her baby, like the giant in Guildhall.
- In peals of thunder now she roars, and now
- She gently whimpers like a lowing cow:10
- Yet lovely in her sorrow still appears:
- Her locks dishevell’d, and her flood of tears,
- Seem like the lofty barn of some rich swain,
- When from the thatch drips fast a shower of rain.
- In vain she search’d each cranny of the house,
- Each gaping chink, impervious to a mouse.
- ‘Was it for this (she cried) with daily care
- Within thy reach I set the vinegar,
- And fill’d the cruet with the acid tide,
- While pepper-water worms thy bait supplied?20
- Where twined the silver eel around thy hook,
- And all the little monsters of the brook!
- Sure in that lake he dropt; my Grilly’s drown’d!’
- She dragg’d the cruet, but no Grildrig found.
- ‘Vain is thy courage, Grilly, vain thy boast!
- But little creatures enterprise the most.
- Trembling I’ ve seen thee dare the kitten’s paw,
- Nay, mix with children, as they play’d at taw,
- Nor fear the marbles as they bounding flew;
- Marbles to them, but rolling rocks to you!30
- ‘Why did I trust thee with that giddy youth?
- Who from a page can ever learn the truth?
- Versed in court tricks, that money-loving boy
- To some lord’s daughter sold the living toy;
- Or rent him limb from limb in cruel play,
- As children tear the wings of flies away.
- From place to place o’er Brobdingnag I’ ll roam,
- And never will return, or bring thee home.
- But who hath eyes to trace the passing wind?
- How then thy fairy footsteps can I find?40
- Dost thou bewilder’d wander all alone
- In the green thicket of a mossy stone;
- Or, tumbled from the toadstool’s slipp’ry round,
- Perhaps, all maim’d, lie grovelling on the ground
- Dost thou, embosom’d in the lovely rose,
- Or, sunk within the peach’s down repose?
- Within the kingcup if thy limbs are spread,
- Or in the golden cowslip’s velvet head,
- O show me, Flora, midst those sweets, the flower
- Where sleeps my Grildrig in the fragrant bower.50
- ‘But ah! I fear thy little fancy roves
- On little females, and on little loves;
- Thy pigmy children, and thy tiny spouse,
- The baby playthings that adorn thy house,
- Doors, windows, chimneys, and the spacious rooms,
- Equal in size to cells of honeycombs.
- Hast thou for these now ventured from the shore,
- Thy bark a bean shell, and a straw thy oar?
- Or in thy box now bounding on the main,
- Shall I ne’er bear thyself and house again?
- And shall I set thee on my hand no more,61
- To see thee leap the lines, and traverse o’er
- My spacious palm; of stature scarce a span,
- Mimic the actions of a real man?
- No more behold thee turn my watch’s key,
- As seamen at a capstan anchors weigh?
- How wert thou wont to walk with cautious tread,
- A dish of tea, like milkpail, on thy head!
- How chase the mite that bore thy cheese away,
- And keep the rolling maggot at a bay!’70
- She spoke; but broken accents stopp’d her voice,
- Soft as the speaking-trumpet’s mellow noise:
- She sobb’d a storm, and wiped her flowing eyes,
- Which seem’d like two broad suns in misty skies.
- O squander not thy grief! those tears command
- To weep upon our cod in Newfoundland;
- The plenteous pickle shall preserve the fish,
- And Europe taste thy sorrows in a dish.

TO MR. LEMUEL GULLIVER

THE GRATEFUL ADDRESS OF THE UNHAPPY HOUYHNHNMS NOW IN SLAVERY AND BONDAGE IN ENGLAND

- To thee, we wretches of the Houyhnhnm band,
- Condemn’d to labour in a barb’rous land,
- Return our thanks. Accept our humble lays,
- And let each grateful Houyhnhnms neigh thy praise.
- O happy Yahoo, purged from human crimes,
- By thy sweet sojourn in those virtuous climes,
- Where reign our sires; there, to thy country’s shame,
- Reason, you found, and Virtue were the same.
- Their precepts razed the prejudice of youth,
- And ev’n a Yahoo learn’d the love of Truth.10
- Art thou the first who did the coast explore?
- Did never Yahoo tread that ground before?
- Yes, thousands! But in pity to their kind,
- Or sway’d by envy, or thro’ pride of mind,
- They hid their knowledge of a nobler race,
- Which own’d, would all their sires and sons disgrace.
- You, like the Samian, visit lands unknown,
- And by their wiser morals mend your own.
- Thus Orpheus travell’d to reform his kind,
- Came back, and tamed the brutes he left behind.20
- You went, you saw, you heard: with virtue fought,
- Then spread those morals which the Houyhnhnms taught.
- Our labours here must touch thy gen’rous heart,
- To see us strain before the coach and cart;
- Compell’d to run each knavish jockey’s heat!
- Subservient to Newmarket’s annual cheat!
- With what reluctance do we lawyers bear,
- To fleece their country clients twice a year!
- Or managed in your schools, for fops to ride,
- How foam, how fret beneath a load of pride!30
- Yes, we are slaves—but yet, by reason’s force,
- Have learn’d to bear misfortune like a horse.
- O would the stars, to ease my bonds ordain
- That gentle Gulliver might guide my rein!
- Safe would I bear him to his journey’s end,
- For ’t is a pleasure to support a friend.
- But if my life be doom’d to serve the bad,
- Oh! mayst thou never want an easy pad!
- Houyhnhnm

MARY GULLIVER TO CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER

AN EPISTLE

ARGUMENT

The captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr. Sympson’s in the country, Mrs. Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulatory, soothing, and tenderly complaining epistle.

- Welcome, thrice welcome to thy native place!
- What, touch me not? what, shun a wife’s embrace?
- Have I for this thy tedious absence borne,
- And waked, and wish’d whole nights for thy return?
- In five long years I took no second spouse;
- What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows?
- Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray;
- Your nose you stop, your eyes you turn away.
- ’T is said, that thou shouldst ‘cleave unto thy wife;’
- Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life.10
- Hear, and relent! hark how thy children moan!
- Be kind at least to these; they are thy own:
- Behold, and count them all; secure to find
- The honest number that you left behind.
- See how they bat thee with their pretty paws:
- Why start you? are they snakes? or have they claws?
- Thy Christian seed, our mutual flesh and bone:
- Be kind at least to these; they are thy own.
- Biddel, like thee, might farthest India rove;
- He changed his country, but retain’d his love.20
- There’s Captain Pannel, absent half his life,
- Comes back, and is the kinder to his wife;
- Yet Pannel’s wife is brown compared to me,
- And Mrs. Biddel sure is fifty-three.
- Not touch me! never neighbour call’d me slut!
- Was Flimnap’s dame more sweet in Lilliput?
- I’ve no red hair to breathe an odious fume;
- At least thy Consort’s cleaner than thy Groom.
- Why then that dirty stable-boy thy care?
- What mean those visits to the Sorrel Mare?30
- Say, by what witchcraft, or what demon led,
- Preferr’st thou litter to the marriage-bed?
- Some say the Devil himself is in that mare:
- If so, our Dean shall drive him forth by prayer.
- Some think you mad, some think you are possess’d,
- That Bedlam and clean straw will suit you best.
- Vain means, alas, this frenzy to appease!
- That straw, that straw would heighten the disease.
- My bed (the scene of all our former joys,
- Witness two lovely girls, two lovely boys)
- Alone I press: in dreams I call my dear,41
- I stretch my hand; no Gulliver is there!
- I wake, I rise, and shiv’ring with the frost
- Search all the house; my Gulliver is lost!
- Forth in the street I rush with frantic cries;
- The windows open, all the neighbours rise:
- ‘Where sleeps my Gulliver? O tell me where.’
- The neighbours answer, ‘With the Sorrel Mare.’
- At early morn I to the market haste
- (Studious in every thing to please thy taste);50
- A curious fowl and ’sparagus I chose
- (For I remember’d you were fond of those);
- Three shillings cost the first, the last seven groats;
- Sullen you turn from both, and call for oats.
- Others bring goods and treasure to their houses,
- Something to deck their pretty babes and spouses:
- My only token was a cup like horn,
- That’s made of nothing but a lady’s corn.
- ’T is not for that I grieve; O, ’t is to see
- The Groom and Sorrel Mare preferr’d to me!60
- These, for some moments when you deign to quit,
- And at due distance sweet discourse admit,
- ’T is all my pleasure thy past toil to know;
- For pleas’d remembrance builds delight on woe.
- At ev’ry danger pants thy consort’s breast,
- And gaping infants squall to hear the rest.
- How did I tremble, when by thousands bound,
- I saw thee stretch’d on Lilliputian ground!
- When scaling armies climb’d up every part,
- Each step they trod I felt upon my heart.
- But when thy torrent quench’d the dreadful blaze,71
- King, Queen, and Nation staring with amaze,
- Full in my view how all my husband came;
- And what extinguish’d theirs increas’d my flame.
- Those spectacles, ordain’d thine eyes to save,
- Were once my present; love that armour gave.
- How did I mourn at Bolgolam’s decree!
- For when he sign’d thy death, he sentenc’d me.
- When folks might see thee all the country round
- For sixpence, I’d have giv’n a thousand pound.80
- Lord! when the giant babe that head of thine
- Got in his mouth, my heart was up in mine!
- When in the marrow bone I see thee ramm’d,
- Or on the housetop by the monkey cramm’d,
- The piteous images renew my pain,
- And all thy dangers I weep o’er again.
- But on the maiden’s nipple when you rid,
- Pray Heav’n, ’t was all a wanton maiden did!
- Glumdalclitch, too! with thee I mourn her case,
- Heaven guard the gentle girl from all disgrace!90
- O may the king that one neglect forgive,
- And pardon her the fault by which I live!
- Was there no other way to set him free?
- My life, alas! I fear prov’d death to thee.
- O teach me, dear, new words to speak my flame;
- Teach me to woo thee by thy best lov’d name!
- Whether the style of Grildrig please thee most,
- So call’d on Brobdingnag’s stupendous coast,
- When on the monarch’s ample hand you sate,99
- And halloo’d in his ear intrigues of state;
- Or Quinbus Flestrin more endearment brings,
- When like a mountain you look’d down on kings:
- If ducal Nardac, Lilliputian peer,
- Or Glumglum’s humbler title soothe thy ear:
- Nay, would kind Jove my organs so dispose,
- To hymn harmonious Houyhnhnm thro’ the nose,
- I’d call thee Houyhnhnm, that high sounding name
- Thy children’s noses all should twang the same;
- So might I find my loving spouse of course
- Endued with all the virtues of a horse.110

LATER POEMS

ON CERTAIN LADIES

When other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloë, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:
Those ghosts of beauty wand’ring here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

CELIA

Celia, we know, is sixty-five,
Yet Celia’s face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,
While summer in her face is seen.
How cruel Celia’s fate, who hence
Our heart’s devotion cannot try;
Too pretty for our reverence,
Too ancient for our gallantry!

PROLOGUE

TO A PLAY FOR MR. DENNIS’S BENEFIT, IN 1733, WHEN HE WAS OLD, BLIND, AND IN GREAT DISTRESS, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS DEATH

As when that hero, who in each campaign
Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,
Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe,
Wept by each friend, forgiv’n by ev’ry foe;
Was there a gen’rous, a reflecting mind,
But pitied Belisarius old and blind?
Was there a chief but melted at the sight?
A common soldier but who clubb’d his mite?
Such, such emotions should in Britons rise,
When, press’d by want and weakness, Dennis lies;
Dennis! who long had warr’d with modern Huns,
Their quibbles routed, and defied their puns;
A desp’rate bulwark, sturdy, firm, and fierce,
Against the Gothic sons of frozen verse.
How changed from him who made the boxes groan,
And shook the stage with thunders all his own!
Stood up to dash each vain pretender’s hope,
Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the Pope!
If there’s a Briton, then, true bred and born,
Who holds dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn;
If there’s a critic of distinguish’d rage;
If there’s a senior who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the Critic’s, Briton’s, old man’s friend.

SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733

The public astonished Pope by taking this burlesque seriously, and praising it as poetry.

- I
- Flutt’ring spread thy purple Pinions,
- Gentle Cupid, o’er my Heart;
- I a Slave in thy Dominions;
- Nature must give Way to Art.
- II
- Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
- Nightly nodding o’er your Flocks,
- See my weary Days consuming,
- All beneath you flow’ry Rocks.
- III
- Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,
- Mourn’d Adonis, darling Youth:
- Him the Boar in Silence creeping,
- Gored with unrelenting Tooth.
- IV
- Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers;
- Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;
- Soothe my ever-waking Slumbers:
- Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.
- V
- Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,
- Arm’d in adamantine Chains,
- Lead me to the Crystal Mirrors,
- Wat’ring soft Elysian Plains.
- VI
- Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow,
- Gilding my Aurelia’s Brows,
- Morpheus hov’ring o’er my Pillow,
- Hear me pay my dying Vows.
- VII
- Melancholy smooth Mœander,
- Swiftly purling in a Round,
- On thy Margin Lovers wander,
- With thy flow’ry Chaplets crown’d.
- VIII
- Thus when Philomela drooping,
- Softly seeks her silent Mate,
- See the Bird of Juno stooping;
- Melody resigns to Fate.

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE

ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, THE CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER, SLEPT IN AT ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, JULY 9TH, 1739

- With no poetic ardour fired
- I press the bed where Wilmot lay;
- That here he lov’d, or here expired,
- Begets no numbers grave or gay.
- Beneath thy roof, Argyle, are bred
- Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie
- Stretch’d out in honour’s nobler bed,
- Beneath a nobler roof—the sky.
- Such flames as high in patriots burn,
- Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
- And such as wicked kings may mourn,
- When Freedom is more dear than Life.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM

COMPOSED OF MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS

These lines were enclosed in a letter to Bolingbroke, dated September 3, 1740.

Thou who shalt stop where Thames’ translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror thro’ the shadowy cave;
Where ling’ring drops from min’ral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill;
Unpolish’d gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow;
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach; but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sate and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot thro’ Marchmont’s soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS

Lady Frances Shirley was daughter of Earl Ferrers, a neighbor of Pope’s at Twickenham.

- Yes, I beheld th’ Athenian Queen
- Descend in all her sober charms;
- ‘And take’ (she said, and smiled serene),
- ‘Take at this hand celestial arms:
- ‘Secure the radiant weapons wield;
- This golden lance shall guard Desert,
- And if a Vice dares keep the field,
- This steel shall stab it to the heart.’
- Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
- Received the weapons of the sky;10
- And dipt them in the sable well,
- The fount of Fame or Infamy.
- ‘What well? what weapons?’ (Flavia cries,)
- ‘A standish, steel and golden pen!
- It came from Bertrand’s, not the skies;
- I gave it you to write again.
- ‘But, Friend, take heed whom you attack;
- You ’ll bring a House (I mean of Peers)
- Red, blue, and green, nay white and black,
- L[ambeth] and all about your ears.
- ‘You ’d write as smooth again on glass,
- And run, on ivory, so glib,
- As not to stick at Fool or Ass,
- Nor stop at Flattery or Fib.
- ‘Athenian Queen! and sober charms!
- I tell ye, fool, there ’s nothing in ’t:
- ’T is Venus, Venus gives these arms;
- In Dryden’s Virgil see the print.
- ‘Come, if you ’ll be a quiet soul,
- That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies,
- I ’ll lift you in the harmless roll
- Of those that sing of these poor eyes.’

ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK

The Lord Treasurer Middlesex’s house at Chelsea, after passing to the Duke of Beaufort, was called Beaufort House. It was afterwards sold to Sir Hans Sloane. When the house was taken down in 1740, its gateway, built by Inigo Jones, was given by Sir Hans Sloane to the Earl of Burlington, who removed it with the greatest care to his garden at Chiswick, where it may be still seen. (Ward.)

I was brought from Chelsea last year,
Batter’d with wind and weather;
Inigo Jones put me together;
Sir Hans Sloane let me alone;
Burlington brought me hither.

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN

ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742

Southern was invited to dine on his birthday with Lord Orrery, who had prepared the entertainment, of which the bill of fare is here set down.

Resign’d to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin but poetry,
This day Tom’s fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle before his poet lays
A table with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his tow’ring Genius marks
In yonder wildgoose and the larks!
The mushrooms show his Wit was sudden!
And for his Judgment, lo, a pudden!
Roast beef, tho’ old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom Heav’n sent down to raise
The price of Prologues and of Plays,
Be ev’ry birthday more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner,
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a Rascal and a Coach.

EPIGRAM

My Lord complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,
Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings.
‘But he’s my neighbour,’ cries the Peer polite:
‘And if he visit me, I’ll waive the right.’
What! on compulsion, and against my will,
A lord’s acquaintance? Let him file his bill!

EPIGRAM

Explained by Carruthers to refer to the large sums of money given in charity on account of the severity of the weather about the year 1740.

- Yes! ’t is the time (I cried), impose the chain,
- Destin’d and due to wretches self-enslaved;
- But when I saw such charity remain,
- I half could wish this people should be saved.
- Faith lost, and Hope, our Charity begins;
- And ’t is a wise design in pitying Heav’n,
- If this can cover multitude of sins,
- To take the only way to be forgiv’n.

1740: A POEM[ ]

‘I shall here,’ says Dr. Warton, ‘present the reader with a valuable literary curiosity, a Fragment of an unpublished Satire of Pope, entitled, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty; communicated to me by the kindness of the learned and worthy Dr. Wilson, formerly fellow and librarian of Trinity College, Dublin; who speaks of the Fragment in the following terms:—

‘ “This poem I transcribed from a rough draft in Pope’s own hand. He left many blanks for fear of the Argus eye of those who, if they cannot find, can fabricate treason; yet, spite of his precaution, it fell into the hands of his enemies. To the hieroglyphics there are direct allusions, I think, in some of the notes on the Dunciad. It was lent me by a grandson of Lord Chetwynd, an intimate friend of the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who gratified his curiosity by a boxful of the rubbish and sweepings of Pope’s study, whose executor he was, in conjunction with Lord Marchmont.” ’

- O wretched B[ritain], jealous now of all,
- What God, what Mortal shall prevent thy fall?
- Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
- And see what succour from the patriot race.
- C[ampbell], his own proud dupe, thinks Monarchs things
- Made just for him, as other fools for Kings;
- Controls, decides, insults thee ev’ry hour,
- And antedates the hatred due to power.
- Thro’ clouds of passion P[ulteney]’s views are clear;
- He foams a Patriot to subside a Peer;10
- Impatient sees his country bought and sold,
- And damns the market where he takes no gold.
- Grave, righteous S[andys] jogs on till, past belief,
- He finds himself companion with a thief.
- To purge and let thee blood with fire and sword
- Is all the help stern S[hippen] would afford.
- That those who bind and rob thee would not kill,
- Good C[ornbury] hopes, and candidly sits still.
- Of Ch[arle]s W[illiams] who speaks at all?19
- No more than of Sir Har[r]y or Sir P[aul]:
- Whose names once up, they thought it was not wrong
- To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long.
- G[owe]r, C[obha]m, B[athurs]t, pay thee due regards.
- Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards.

with wit that must

And C[hesterfiel]d who speaks so well and writes,
Whom (saving W.) every S[harper bites,]

must needs

- Whose wit and . . . equally provoke one,
- Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on.
- As for the rest, each winter up they run,
- And all are clear, that something must be done.30
- Then urged by C[artere]t, or by C[artere]t stopp’d,
- Inflamed by P[ultene]y, and by P[ultene]y dropp’d;
- They follow rev’rently each wondrous wight,
- Amazed that one can read, that one can write
- (So geese to gander prone obedience keep,
- Hiss if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep);
- Till having done whate’er was fit or fine,
- Utter’d a speech, and ask’d their friends to dine,
- Each hurries back to his paternal ground,
- Content but for five shillings in the pound,40
- Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give,
- And all agree Sir Robert cannot live.
- Rise, rise, great W[alpole], fated to appear,
- Spite of thyself a glorious minister!
- Speak the loud language princes . . .
- And treat with half the . . .
- At length to B[ritain] kind, as to thy . . .
- Espouse the nation, you . . .
- What can thy H[orace] . . .
- Dress in Dutch . . .50
- Though still he travels on no bad pretence,
- To show . . .
- Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue,
- Veracious W[innington] and frontless Yonge;
- Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there
- So late a foe, yet more sagacious H[are]?
- Hervey and Hervey’s school, F[ox], H[enle]y, H[into]n,
- Yea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton.
- How! what can O[nslo]w, what can D[elaware],
- The wisdom of the one and other chair,60
- N[ewcastle] laugh, or D[orset]’s sager [sneer],
- Or thy dread truncheon M[arlboro]’s mighty Peer?
- What help from J[ekyl]l’s opiates canst thou draw
- Or H[ardwic]k’s quibbles voted into law?
- C[ummins], that Roman in his nose alone,
- Who hears all causes, B[ritain], but thy own,
- Or those proud fools whom nature, rank, and fate
- Made fit companions for the sword of state.
- Can the light Packhorse, or the heavy Steer,69
- The sowzing Prelate, or the sweating Peer,
- Drag out with all its dirt and all its weight,
- The lumb’ring carriage of thy broken state?
- Alas! the people curse, the carman swears,
- The drivers quarrel, and the master stares.
- The plague is on thee, Britain, and who tries
- To save thee, in th’ infectious office dies.
- The first firm P[ultene]y soon resign’d his breath,
- Brave S[carboro] loved thee, and was lied to death.
- Good M[arch]m[on]t’s fate tore P[olwar]th from thy side,
- And thy last sigh was heard when W[yndha]m died.80
- Thy nobles sl[ave]s, thy se[nate]s bought with gold,
- Thy clergy perjured, thy whole people sold,
- An atheist , a ″′s ad. . . . . . . . .
- Blotch thee all o’er, and sink. . . . . .
- Alas! on one alone our all relies,
- Let him be honest, and he must be wise.
- Let him no trifler from his school,
- Nor like his. . . . . . . . . still a. . . .
- Be but a man! unminister’d, alone,
- And free at once the Senate and the Throne;90
- Esteem the public love his best supply,
- A ’s true glory his integrity;
- Rich with his. . . . . . in his. . . . . strong,
- Affect no conquest, but endure no wrong.
- Whatever his religion or his blood,
- His public Virtue makes his title good.
- Europe’s just balance and our own may stand,
- And one man’s honesty redeem the land.

POEMS OF UNCERTAIN DATE

TO ERINNA

Tho’ sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleas’d soul surveys,
The mild Erinna, blushing in her bays.
So, while the sun’s broad beam yet strikes the sight,
All mild appears the moon’s more sober light;
Serene, in virgin majesty she shines,
And, unobserv’d, the glaring sun declines.

LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST

Sent in an undated letter to Martha Blount.

All hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade,
Scene of my youthful loves, and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray’d,
And gently press’d my hand, and said, ‘Be ours.’
Take all thou e’er shalt have, a constant Muse:
At Court thou mayst be liked, but nothing gain:
Stocks thou mayst buy and sell, but always lose;
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU

FIRST PUBLISHED BY WARBURTON IN 1751

Un jour, dit un auteur, etc.

Once (says an author, where I need not say)
Two travellers found an Oyster in their way:
Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong,
While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass’d along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain’d the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it before their sight.
The cause of strife remov’d so rarely well,
‘There take (says Justice), take ye each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
’T was a fat Oyster—Live in peace—Adieu.’

LINES ON SWIFT’S ANCESTORS

Swift set up a plain monument to his grandfather, and also presented a cup to the church of Goodrich, or Gotheridge (in Herefordshire). He sent a pencilled elevation of the monument (a simple tablet) to Mrs. Howard, who returned it with the following lines, inscribed on the drawing by Pope. The paper is endorsed, in Swift’s hand: ‘Model of a monument for my grandfather, with Pope’s roguery.’ (Scott’s Life of Swift.)

- Jonathan Swift
- Had the gift,
- By fatherige, motherige,
- And by brotherige
- To come from Gotherige,
- But now is spoil’d clean,
- And an Irish dean;
- In this church he has put
- A stone of two foot,
- With a cup and a can, sir,
- In respect to his grandsire;
- So, Ireland, change thy tone,
- And cry, O hone! O hone!
- For England hath its own.

ON SEEING THE LADIES AT CRUX EASTON WALK IN THE WOODS BY THE GROTTO

EXTEMPORE BY MR. POPE

Authors the world and their dull brains have traced
To fix the ground where Paradise was placed;
Mind not their learned whims and idle talk;
Here, here ’s the place where these bright angels walk.

INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO, THE WORK OF NINE LADIES

Here, shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;
The glitt’ring emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;
Beauty which Nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces Art;
But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm a Court.

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF OXFORD

UPON A PIECE OF NEWS IN MIST [MIST’S JOURNAL] THAT THE REV. MR. W. REFUSED TO WRITE AGAINST MR. POPE BECAUSE HIS BEST PATRON HAD A FRIENDSHIP FOR THE SAID POPE

- Wesley, if Wesley ’t is they mean,
- They say on Pope would fall,
- Would his best Patron let his Pen
- Discharge his inward gall.
- What Patron this, a doubt must be,
- Which none but you can clear,
- Or father Francis, ’cross the sea,
- Or else Earl Edward here.
- That both were good must be confess’d,
- And much to both he owes;
- But which to him will be the best
- The Lord of Oxford knows.

EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS

ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE

DRAWN BY LADY BURLINGTON

It is not known who the Bishop was. The ‘lying Dean’ refers to Dr. Alured Clarke, who preached a fulsome sermon upon the Queen’s death.

Peace, flatt’ring Bishop! lying Dean!
This portrait only paints the Queen!

EPIGRAM ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

‘His Highness’ was Frederick, Prince of Wales.
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?

LINES WRITTEN IN EVELYN’S BOOK ON COINS

First printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735.

Tom Wood of Chiswick, deep divine,
To Painter Kent gave all this coin.
’T is the first coin, I ’m bold to say,
That ever churchman gave to lay.

FROM THE GRUB-STREET JOURNAL

This Journal was established in January, 1730, and carried on for eight years by Pope and his friends, in answer to the attacks provoked by the Dunciad. It corresponds in some measure to the Xenien of Goethe and Schiller. Only such pieces are here inserted as bear Pope’s distinguishing signature A.; several others are probably his. (Ward.)

[1 ] Fontenelle’s Discourse on Pastorals.

[2 ] Heinsius in Theocr.

[3 ] Rapin de Carm. Past. p. 2.

[4 ] Rapin, Réflex. sur l’Art Poét. d’Arist. part ii. réfl. xxvii.

[5 ] Pref. to Virg. Past. in Dryd. Virg.

[1 ] Fontenelle’s Discourse on Pastorals.

[2 ] Θερίσται, Idyl. x. and Ἁλιει̑ς, Idyl. xxi.

[3 ] Rapin, Refl. on Arist. part ii. refl. xxvii.—Pref. to the Ecl. in Dryden’s Virg.

[4 ] Dedication to Virg. Ecl.

IMITATIONS

[1] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 6.

‘Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto.
Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,
Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras. . . .
Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.’

‘Now the virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new progeny is sent down from high heaven. By means of thee, whatever relics of our crimes remain, shall be wiped away, and free the world from perpetual fears. He shall govern the earth in peace, with the virtues of his father.’

Isaiah, ch. vii. ver. 14. ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.’ Chap. ix. ver. 6, 7. ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given . . . the Prince of Peace: of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it, with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.’

[2 ] Isaiah, ch. xi. ver. 1.

[3 ] Ch. xlv. ver. 8.

[4 ] Ch. xxv. ver. 4.

[5 ] Ch. ix. ver. 7.

[6 ] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 18.

‘At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu,
Errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus,
Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho—
Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores.’

‘For thee, O child, shall the earth, without being tilled, produce her early offerings; winding ivy, mixed with baccar, and colocasia with smiling acanthus. Thy cradle shall pour forth pleasing flowers about thee.’

Isaiah, ch. xxxv. ver. 1. ‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad . . . and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’ Ch. lx. ver. 13. ‘The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together to beautify the place of my sanctuary.’

[7 ] Isaiah, ch. xxxv. ver. 2.

IMITATIONS

[1] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 48, Ecl. v. ver. 62.

‘Aggredere o magnos, aderit jam tempus, honores,
Cara deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum!
Ipsi lætitia voces ad sidera jactant
Intonsi montes, ipsæ jam carmina rupes,
Ipsa sonant arbusta, Deus, deus ille, Menalca!’

‘O come and receive the mighty honours: the time draws nigh, O beloved offspring of the Gods, O great increase of Jove! . . . The uncultivated mountains send shouts of joy to the stars, the very rocks sing in verse, the very shrubs cry out, A God, a God.’

Isaiah, chap. xl. ver. 3, 4. ‘The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.’ Chap. xliv. ver. 23. ‘Break forth into singing, ye mountains! O forest, and every tree therein! for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob.’

[2 ] Ch. xl. ver. 3, 4.

[3 ] Isaiah, ch. xlii. ver. 18; ch. xxxv. ver. 5, 6.

[4 ] Ch. xxv. ver. 8.

[5 ] Ch. xl. ver. 11.

[6 ] Ch. ix. ver. 6.

[7 ] Isaiah, ch. ii. ver. 4.

[8 ] Ch. lxv. ver. 21, 22.

[9 ] Ch. xxxv. ver. 1, 7.

[10 ] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 28.

‘Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista,
Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,
Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella.’

‘The fields shall grow yellow with ripened ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oaks shall distil honey like dew.’

Isaiah, chap. xxxv. ver. 7. ‘The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.’—Chap. lv. ver. 13. ‘Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.’

[1 ] Isaiah, ch. xli. ver. 19, and ch. lv. ver. 13.

[2 ] Ch. xi. ver. 6, 7, 8.

[3 ] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 21.

‘Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ
Ubera, nec magnos metuent armenta leones. . . .
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet.’—

‘The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk: nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die.’

Isaiah, chap. xi. ver. 6, &c. ‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.—And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.’

[4 ] Ch. lxv. ver. 25.

[5 ] Isaiah, ch. lx. ver. 1.

[6 ] The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio.

‘Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo
—toto surget gens aurea mundo!
—incipient magni procedere menses!
Aspice, venturo lætantur ut omnia sæclo!’ &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah here cited.

[7 ] Ch. lx. ver. 4.

[8 ] Ch. lx. ver. 3.

[9 ] Ch. lx. ver. 6.

[10 ] Isaiah ch. lx. ver. 19, 20.

[11 ] Ch. li. ver. 6, and ch. liv. ver. 10.

[Page 21.]Spring: or, Damon.

[Line 86.]A wondrous tree, etc. An allusion to the Royal Oak, in which Charles II. had been hid from the pursuit after the battle of Worcester. (Pope.)

[Line 90.]The thistle springs, to which the lily yields. Alludes to the device of the Scots monarchs, the thistle worn by Queen Anne; and to the arms of France, the fleur de lys. (Pope.)

[Page 24.]Autumn; or, Hylas and Ægon.

[Line 7.]Thou, whom the Nine, etc. Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were The Plain-Dealer and The Country Wife. He was a writer of infinite spirit, satire, and wit. The only objection made to him was that he had too much. However, he was followed, in the same way, by Mr. Congreve, though with a little more correctness. (Pope.)

[Page 26.]Winter; or, Daphne.

Mrs. Tempest. This lady was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the author’s friend, Mr. Walsh, who, having celebrated her in a pastoral elegy, desired his friend to do the same, as appears from one of his letters, dated Sept. 9, 1706: ‘Your last eclogue being on the same subject with mine on Mrs. Tempest’s death, I should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn as if it were to the memory of the same lady.’ Her death having happened on the night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this eclogue, which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the pastoral lies in a grove, the time at midnight. (Pope.)

[Lines 49, 50.]The balmy zephyrs, etc. ‘I wish,’ said Johnson, ‘that his fondness had not overlooked a line in which the zephyrs are made to lament in silence.’

[Page 28.]Windsor Forest.

[Line 65.]The fields are ravish’d, etc. Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. (Pope.)

[Line 80.]Himself denied a grave. The place of his interment at Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb; so that they were obliged to compound with the owner before they could perform the king’s obsequies. (Warburton.)

[Line 81.]His second hope. Richard, Duke of Bernay, said to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest. (Ward.)

[Line 398.]Unbounded Thames shall flow, etc. A wish that London may be made a free port. (Pope.)

[Page 52.]The Temple of Fame.

[Line 1.]In that soft season, etc. This poem is introduced in the manner of the Provençal poets, whose works were for the most part visions, or pieces of imagination, and constantly descriptive. From these, Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrowed the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and Dream, Flower and the Leaf, etc., of the latter. The author of this, therefore, chose the same sort of exordium. (Pope.)

[Line 66.]Four faces had the dome, etc. The Temple is described to be square, the four fronts with open gates facing the different quarters of the world, as an intimation that all nations of the earth may alike be received into it. The western front is of Grecian architecture; the Doric order was peculiarly sacred to Heroes and Worthies. Those whose statues are after mentioned were the first names of old Greece in arms and arts. (Pope.)

[Line 81.]There great Alcides, etc. This figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the position of the famous statue of Farnese. (Pope.)

[Line 96.]And the great founder of the Persian name. Cyrus was the beginning of the Persian, as Minas was of the Assyrian monarchy. The Magi and Chaldæans (the chief of whom was Zoroaster) employed their studies upon magic and astrology, which was in a manner almost the learning of the ancient Asian people. We have scarce any account of a moral philosopher except Confucius, the great law-giver of the Chinese, who lived about two thousand years ago. (Pope.)

[Line 152.]The youth that all things, etc. Alexander the Great. The tiara was the crown peculiar to the Asian princes. His desire to be thought the son of Jupiter Ammon caused him to wear the horns of that God, and to represent the same upon his coins, which was continued by several of his successors. (Pope.)

[Line 162.]Timoleon, glorious in his brother’s blood. Timoleon had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in the battle between the Argives and the Corinthians; but afterwards killed him when he affected the tyranny, preferring his duty to his country to all obligations of blood. (Pope.)

[Line 172.]He whom ungrateful Athens, etc. Aristides, who for his great integrity was distinguished by the appellation of The Just. When his countrymen would have banished him by the ostracism, where it was the custom for every man to sign the name of the person he voted to exile in an oyster-shell, a peasant, who could not write, came to Aristides to do it for him, who readily signed his own name. (Pope.)

[Line 206.]Eliza. Elissa (Dido).

[Page 63.]The Fable of Dryope. Upon occasion of the death of Hercules, his mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who answers with a relation of those of her own family, in particular the transformation of her sister Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing Fable. (Pope.)

[Page 67.]An Essay on Criticism.Part I.

[Line 15.]Let such teach others, etc. ‘Qui scribit artificiose, ab aliis commode scripta facile intelligere poterit.’ Cic. ad Herenn. lib. iv. ‘De pictore, sculptore, fictore, nisi artifex, judicare non potest.’ Pliny. (Pope.)

[Line 20.]Most have the seeds of judgment, etc. ‘Omnes tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte, aut ratione, quae sint in artibus ac rationibus recta et prava dijudicant.’ Cic. de Orat. lib. iii. (Pope.)

[Line 25.]So by false learning, etc. ‘Plus sine doctrina prudentia, quam sine prudentia valet doctrina.’ Quintilian. (Pope.)

[Line 98.]Just precepts, etc. ‘Nec enim artibus editis factum est ut argumenta inveniremus, sed dicta sunt omnia antequam praeciperentur; mox ea scriptoris observata et collecta ediderunt.’ Quintilian. (Pope.)

[Line 180.]Nor is it Homer nods, etc. ‘Modesto ac circumspecto judicio de tantis viris pronunciandum est, ne quod (quod plerisque accidit) damnent quod non intelligunt.’ Quintilian. (Pope.)

[Part II. Line 124.]Some by old words, etc. ‘Abolita et abrogata retinere, insolentiae cujusdam est, et frivolae in parvis jactantiae.’ Quintilian. (Pope.)

[Line 128.]Fungoso in the play. In Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour.

[Lines 147, 148.]While expletives, etc. ‘He creeps along with ten little words in every line, and helps out his numbers with for, to, and unto, and all the pretty expletives he can find, while the sense is left half tired behind it.’ Dryden, Essay on Dramatic Poetry.

[Line 245.]Duck-lane. A place where old and second-hand books were sold formerly, near Smithfield. (Pope.)

[Part III. Line 27.]And stares tremendous, etc. This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this essay and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic; for, as to the mention made of him in v. 270 (Part I.), he took it as a compliment, and said it was treacherously meant to cause him to overlook this abuse of his person. (Pope.) Dennis’s unsuccessful play, Appius and Virginia, appeared in 1709. Tremendous was a favorite word of his.

[Line 60.]Garth did not write, etc. A common slander at that time in prejudice of that deserving author. Our poet did him this justice when that slander most prevailed, and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten. (Pope.)

[Line 64.]Paul’s churchyard. St. Paul’s Churchyard was long the headquarters of the booksellers.

[Page 82.]Epistle to Mr. Jervas.

[Line 40.]This small well polish’d Gem, the work of years. Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing his poem. (Pope.)

[Line 60.]Worsley’s eyes. Frances, Lady Worsley. ‘The name,’ says Carruthers, ‘originally stood Wortley, but the compliment was transferred from her [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu] after her quarrel with Pope, by the alteration of a single letter.’

[Page 88.]The Rape of the Lock.Canto I.

[Line 23.]Birthnight Beau. A fine gentleman such as might be seen at the state ball given on the anniversary of the royal birthday. (Hales.)

[Line 44.]Box, at the opera. Ring, a circus, or circular promenade, like that in Hyde Park, London.

[Lines 54-56.]Succeeding vanities, etc.

‘Quae gratia currum
Armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentes
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos.’
Æneid, vi. (Pope.)

[Line 108.]In the clear mirror, etc. The language of the Platonists. (Pope.)

[Canto II. Line 28.]And beauty draws us with a single hair. In allusion to those lines of Hudibras, applied to the same purpose,—

‘And tho’ it be a two-foot trout,
’T is with a single hair pull’d out.’
(Warburton.)

[Line 38.]Twelve vast French romances. Clélie, one of the popular French romances of the period, appeared in ten volumes of 800 pages each. (Hales.)

[Line 45.]The Powers gave ear, etc. ‘See Æneid, xi. 794, 795. (Pope.)

[Line 74.]Fays, Fairies, Genii, etc. This line obviously echoes Satan’s address to his followers:—

‘Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers!’

Paradise Lost, v. 601.

[Line 106.]Or some frail China jar, etc. Pope repeats this anti-climax in Canto iii. 159, below.

[Canto III. Line 27.]Ombre and Piquet were the fashionable card games of Queen Anne’s day. Ombre was a game of Spanish origin. The three principal trumps were called Matadores; these are, in the order of their rank, Spadillio, the ace of spades; Manillio, the deuce of clubs when trumps are black, the seven when they are red; and Basto, the ace of clubs.

[Line 61.]Mighty Pam. Pam, the knave of clubs, is the highest card in the game of Loo.

[Line 92.]Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille. Each has won four tricks. If the Baron, who is ‘defending the pool,’ takes more tricks than Belinda, who is ‘defending the game,’ he will ‘win the Codille.’

[Line 107.]Altars of Japan. Small japanned tables.

[Line 123.]Changed to a bird, etc. See Ovid, Metam. viii. (Pope.)

[Line 152.]But airy substance soon unites again. Pope, in a note, refers us to the following passage:—

‘But the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible: and from the gash
A stream of nectarous humor issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed.’
Paradise Lost, vi. 330-334.

[Lines 165.] Atalantis. The new Atalantis, by Mrs. Manley; a book just then popular.

[Lines 176, 177.]What wonder, then, etc.

‘Quid faciant crines, cum ferro talia cedant.’
Catullus, de Com. Berenice. (Ward.)

[Canto IV. Line 1.]But anxious cares, etc.

‘At regina gravi jamdudum saucia cura
Vulnus alit venis, et caeco carpitur igni.’
Æneid, iv. 1. (Pope.)

[Line 24.]Megrim. The ‘megrims’ and ‘the vapours’ were fashionable terms in Queen Anne’s day for what we call ‘the blues.’

[Line 51.]Like Homer’s tripod. See Iliad, xviii. 372-381.

[Line 52.]A Goose-pie talks. Alludes to a real fact; a lady of distinction imagined herself in this condition. (Pope.)

[Line 69.]Citron-waters. Spirits distilled from citron-rind.

[Line 116.]The sound of Bow. Within the sound of Bow-bells lay the least fashionable quarter, containing Grub Street, and other Bohemian haunts, as well as the dwellings of tradesmen.

[Line 119.]Sir Plume. Sir George Brown. He was the only one of the party who took the thing seriously. He was angry that the poet should make him talk nothing but nonsense. (Warburton.) Thalestris (line 87) was Mrs. Morley, Sir George’s sister.

[Canto V. Line 45.]So when bold Homer, etc. See Homer, Iliad, xx. (Pope.)

[Line 53.]Umbriel, on a sconce’s height. Minerva, in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors, perches on a beam of the roof to behold it. (Pope.)

[Line 65.]Thus on Mæander’s flow’ry margin, etc.

‘Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis,
Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus color.’
Ovid, Epistle vii. 2. (Pope.)

[Line 71.]Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air. See Homer, Iliad, viii., and Virgil, Æneid, xii. (Pope.)

[Page 102.]Macer.

[Line 8.]Crowne, John, a dramatist and adapter of plays, died 1698.

[Page 103.] A Farewell to London.

Stanza ii. C—s is evidently Craggs; and H—k, as Carruthers interprets the hiatus, Lord Hinchinbrook, a young nobleman of spirit and fashion. (Ward.)

Stanza viii., lines 3 and 4. Most likely Miss Younger and Mrs. Bicknell, sisters, both actresses. (Carruthers.)

[Page 104.]The Basset-Table.

[Line 99.] The Groom-Porter was an officer in the King’s household, who, under a provision exempting royalty from the laws against gambling, was enabled to provide a resort for London gamesters.

[Line 100.]Some dukes at Mary-bone. The reference is supposed to have been to the Duke of Buckinghamshire, who frequented a bowling-alley in Marylebone parish.

[Page 106.]Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-cat Club.

The Kit-cat Club, named for Christopher Katt, a pastry-cook, numbered among its members most of the town wits, including Steele and Addison.

[Page 110.]Eloisa to Abelard.

[Line 24.]Forgot myself to stone. ‘Forget thyself to marble.’ Milton, Il Penseroso. The expression ‘caverns shagg’d with horrid thorn,’ and the epithets ‘pale-eyed,’ ‘twilight,’ ‘low-thoughted care,’ and others, are first used in the smaller poems of Milton, which Pope seems to have been just reading. (Warton.)

[Line 74.]Curse on all laws, etc.

‘And own no laws but those which love ordains.’
Dryden, Cinyras and Myrrha.
(Pope.)

[Line 212.]Obedient slumbers, etc. This line Pope confesses to having borrowed from Crashaw.

[Line 342.]May one kind grave, etc. Abelard and Eloisa were interred in the same grave, or in monuments adjoining, in the Monastery of the Paraclete; he died in the year 1142, she in 1163. (Pope.)

[Page 120.]Sandys’ Ghost.

[Stanza x.]Carey. Probably John Carey.

[Stanza xi.]Jacob. Jacob Tonson. Pembroke. The Earl of Pembroke.

[Stanza xii.]Tom Burnet. Son of Bishop Burnet.

[Stanza xiii.]Justice Philips. Ambrose Philips.

[Page 128.] 1740: A Poem.

These verses are supposed to be a fragment found by Lord Bolingbroke among Pope’s papers. There is much doubt about many of the persons referred to; the readings here suggested being merely a choice among many suggested by Bowles and Carruthers.

Home

The Forum

Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

The Library

Return to Title Page for The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope

The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

DR. SWIFT THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

About Liberty Fund:

Copyright information:

Fair use statement:

DR. SWIFT THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON

PASTORALS

DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL POETRY

I

SPRING; OR, DAMON[ ]TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

damon.

strephon.

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

strephon.

daphnis.

damon.

II

SUMMER; OR, ALEXIS TO DR. GARTH

III

AUTUMN; OR, HYLAS AND ÆGON[ ]TO MR. WYCHERLEY

IV

WINTER; OR, DAPHNE[ ]TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST

lycidas.

thyrsis.

lycidas.

thyrsis.

lycidas.

thyrsis.

WINDSOR FOREST[ ]TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN

PARAPHRASES FROM CHAUCER

JANUARY AND MAY: OR, THE MERCHANT’S TALE

THE WIFE OF BATH HER PROLOGUE

THE TEMPLE OF FAME[ ]

TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID

SAPPHO TO PHAON FROM THE FIFTEENTH OF OVID’S EPISTLES

THE FABLE OF DRYOPE[ ]FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

VERTUMNUS AND POMONA FROM THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM[ ]

PART I

PART II

PART III

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1708 AND 1712

ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA’S DAY

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

ARGUS

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE

THE TRANSLATOR

ON MRS. TOFTS, A FAMOUS OPERA-SINGER

EPISTLE TO MRS. BLOUNT, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL

I

II

DR. SWIFT

THE HAPPY LIFE OF A COUNTRY PARSON

SPRING; OR, DAMON[ ]

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL

SUMMER; OR, ALEXIS

TO DR. GARTH

AUTUMN; OR, HYLAS AND ÆGON[ ]

TO MR. WYCHERLEY

WINTER; OR, DAPHNE[ ]

TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST

WINDSOR FOREST[ ]

TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE LORD LANSDOWN

THE WIFE OF BATH

HER PROLOGUE

SAPPHO TO PHAON

FROM THE FIFTEENTH OF OVID’S EPISTLES

THE FABLE OF DRYOPE[ ]

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

VERTUMNUS AND POMONA

FROM THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES

EPISTLE TO MR. JERVAS[ ]

WITH DRYDEN’S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY’S ART OF PAINTING

IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE’S JANE SHORE

DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD

MACER[ ]

A CHARACTER

EPISTLE TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT

ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN AFTER THE CORONATION

A FAREWELL TO LONDON[ ]

IN THE YEAR 1715

THE BASSET-TABLE[ ]

AN ECLOGUE

EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB[ ]

ANNO 1716

THE CHALLENGE

A COURT BALLAD

THE LOOKING-GLASS

ON MRS. PULTENEY

PRAYER OF BRUTUS

FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES

ON A PORTRAIT OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, PAINTED BY KNELLER