Dost thou, satiric, vice and folly brand,
Intent to purge the town, the court, the land?
Is thy design to make men good and wise,
Exposing the deformity of vice?
Dost thou thy wit at once and courage show,
Strike hard, and bravely vindicate the blow!
Dost thou delineate God, or trace out man,
The vast immensity, or mortal span ?
Thy hand is known; nor needs thy work a name, 15
The Poem loudly must the pen proclaim.
I see my friend! O sacred Poet, hail!
The brightness of thy face defeats the veil.
Write thou, and let the world the writing view;
The world will know, and will pronounce it you. 20
Dark in thy grove, or in thy closet sit,
We see thy wisdom, harmony, and wit:
Forth breaks the blaze, astonishing our sight,
Enshrin'd in clouds, we see, we see thee write.
So the sweet warbler of the spring, alone,
Sings darkling, but unseen her note is known;
And so the lark, inhabiting the skies,
Thrills unconceal'd, tho' wrapt from mortal eyes.
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ESSAY ON MAN.
As when some student first with curious eye
Thro' Nature's wondrous frame attempts to pry,
His doubtful reason seeming faults surprise,
He asks if this be just, if that be wise?
Storms, tempests, earthquakes, virtue in distress, 5 And vice unpunish'd with strange thoughts oppress; Till thinking on, unclouded by degrees,
His mind he opens, fair is all he sees;
Storms, tempests, earthquakes, Virtue's ragged plight,
And Vice's triumph, all are just and right;
Beauty is found, and order and design,
And the whole scheme acknowledg'd, all divine.
So when at first I view'd thy wondrous plan,
Leading thro' all the winding maze of Man,
Bewilder'd, weak, unable to pursue,
My pride would fain have laid the fault on you.
This false, that ill-express'd, this thought not good,
And all was wrong which I misunderstood;
But reading more attentive, soon I found
The diction nervous, and the doctrine sound;
Saw man a part of that stupendous whole,
"Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;"
Saw in the scale of things his middle state,
And all his pow'rs adapted just to that;
Saw reason, passion, weakness, how of use,
How all to good, to happiness, conduce;
Saw my own weakness, thy superior pow'r,
And still the more I read admire the more.
FATHER of verse! indulge an artless Muse,
Just to the warmth thy envy'd lays infuse.
Rais'd by the soul that breathes in ev'ry line,
(My Phœbus thou, thy awful works my shrine!)
Grateful I bow, thy mighty genius own,
And hail thee seated on thy natal throne.
Stung by thy fame, tho' aided by thy light,
See bards, till now unknown, essay to write;
Rouz'd by thy heat, unnumber'd swarms arise,
As insects live beneath autumnal skies;
While Envy pines with unappeas'd desire,
And each mean breast betrays th' invidious fire.
Yet thou, great Leader of the sacred train !
(Whose Parthian shaft ne'er took its flight in vain)
Go on, like Juvenal, arraign the age,
Let wholesome Satire loose thro' ev'ry page,
Born for the task, whom no mean views inflame,
Who lance to cure, and scourge but to reclaim.
Yet not on Satire all your hours bestow;
Oft from your lyre let gentler numbers flow;
Such strains as breath'd thro' Windsor's lov'd retreats,
"And call'd the Muses to their ancient seats."
Thy manly force, and genius unconfin'd,
Shall mould to future fame the growing mind;
To ripen'd souls more solid aids impart,
And while you touch the sense correct the heart.
Yet tho' o'er all you shed diffusive light
Base minds will envy still, and scribblers write.
Thus the imperial source of genial heat Gilds the aspiring domes and mean retreat; Bids gems a semblance of himself unfold, And warms the purer ductile ore to gold; Yet the same heat assists each reptile birth, And draws infectious vapours from the earth.
AN ODE TO THE EARLOF CHESTERFIELD.
IN ALLUSION TO HORACE.
Pindarum quisquis, &c.
For me how vain to urge my vent'rous flight,
Where only Pope's strong pinion can aspire!
Horace, great source of true poetic light,
Would melt my waxen wings before his fire.
As Thames' clear stream thro' flow'ry margins flows,
At first the humbler treasure of the plain,
Till with each spring the swelling current grows,
And rolls his pow'r and commerce o'er the main :
So soft descending from the Muses' hill
Pope's spreading genius passes ev'ry bound,
Big with experience, knowledge, taste, and skill,
And flows uncheck'd o'er all poetic ground..
Fresh wreaths on ev'ry side await his head,
Whether in Fancy's wilds (a) he youthful stray,
In humours (6) frolic round new measures tread, 15
Or boldly follow Pindar's (c) pathless way.
(a) Pastorals, and Windsor Forest. (6) Rape of the Lock. (c) Odes.
Religious he maintains the Muse's trust;
Pure in his breast he guards the sacred fire;
To his progressive genius strictly just,
Its use dilating as its pow'rs aspire.
Whether from antique rust, with pious toil,
He polish Britain's ancient poets' (d) praise,
Or planting careful in his better soil,
Preserve more green the Greek and Roman bays. (c)
Whether the nobler monument (f) he frame
To those whom virtues, arts, or arms, adorn;
Or snatch from Envy (g), or the grave, their fame,
Whom Pride oppresses, or the virtuous mourn;
Till (as of old some heav'n-instructed bard)
To man (b) he pleads in Truth and Wisdom's cause;
Chastises Vice, deals Virtue her reward,
Supports the pulpit, and supplies the laws.
High on the swelling gale of constant praise
We see this Swan of Thames sublimely rise;
Ev'n Envy's (i) breath but serves his flight to raise,
And lift his spotless plumage to the skies.
While on the humble banks, far, far below!
Unmark'd, my tuneless reed Į painful try;
Like the small bee, with toil collecting slow
The faint perfume which lowly shrubs supply.
(d) Chaucer and Donne. (e) Homer, Horace, Ovid. (f) Epitaphs. (g) Epistles. (b) Essay on Man. (i) The Dunciad.
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