And hail with music its propitious ray. 1[This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 135 And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake.2] This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, 3 When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; 4 And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome. 140 Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair, Which adds new glory to the shining sphere! 145 And all those tresses shall be laid in dust: 148 This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name. Shrines where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep, And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep! Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown, I have not yet forgot myself to stone. Nor tears, for ages taught to flow in vain. Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose, That well-known name awakens all my woes. Oh, name forever sad! forever dear! 31 Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a There died the best of passions, love and fame. No happier task these faded eyes pursue; Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief; Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief. Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's ALEXANDER POPE When love approached me under friendship's name; 60 My fancy formed thee of angelic kind, 65 And truths divine came mended1 from that tongue. From lips like those what precept failed to Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love; ran, Nor wished an angel whom I loved a man. 70 away, Then conscience sleeps, and leaving nature All my loose soul unbounded springs to thee. improved 2 Quoted from Crashaw. Sudden you mount, you beckon from the Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arise. FROM AN ESSAY ON MAN Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things 5 Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. But vindicate the ways of God to man. 15 I. Say first, of God above, or man below, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. 20 25 May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, 30 Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Looked through? or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35 41 Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? man: 45 And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one single can its end produce; 55 60 From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: 80 Or who could suffer being here below? Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, 85 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind 102 How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine! 'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier, Forever separate, yet forever near ! Remembrance and reflection how allied; 225 What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; 2 Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; name: 281 P. Shut, shut the door, good John!1 fatigued, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide; By land, by water, they renew the charge, They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. ΙΟ No place is sacred, not the church is free; E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me: Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me just at dinner-time. Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,15 A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza, when he should engross? Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls? All fly to Twit'nam 5 and in humble strain 21 Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, 161 And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, 165 Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, E'en such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's |