Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow EPIGRAM - The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope

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

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

EPIGRAM - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).

About Liberty Fund:

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


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.