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POEMS OF UNCERTAIN DATE - 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).

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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.