Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

SUPPOSE a painter to a human head

Should join a horse's neck, and wildly spread
The various plumage of the feather'd kind
O'er limbs of different beasts, absurdly join'd;
Or if he gave to view a beauteous maid,
Above the waist with every charm array'd,
Should a foul fish her lower parts unfold,
Would you not laugh such pictures to behold?

HOR.

THE tragic bard, a goat his humble prize,
Bade satyrs naked and uncouth arise;
His muse severe, secure, and undismay'd,
The rustic joke in solemn strain convey'd,
For novelty alone he knew could charm
A lawless crowd, with wine and feasting warm.

THESPIS, inventor of dramatic art,

Convey'd his vagrant actors in a cart,

HOR.

High o'er the crowd the mimic tribe appear'd, And play'd and sung, with lees of wine besmear'd.

HOR.

THEN Eschylus, a decent vizard used,
Built a low stage; the flowing robe diffus'd;
In language more sublime two actors rage,
And in the graceful buskin tread the stage.

HOR.

THE Comic poets, in its earliest age,

Who form'd the manners of the Grecian stage-
Was there a villain who might justly claim
A better right of being damn'd to fame,
Rake, cut-throat, thief, whatever was his crime,
They boldly stigmatiz'd the wretch in rhyme.

HOR.

WITH passions not my own who fires my heart,
Who with unreal terrors fills my breast,
As with a magic influence possess'd.

HOR.

BUT God and man, and letter'd post denies
That poets ever are of middling size.

POETS would profit, or delight mankind,
And with the amusing show the instructive join'd.

PROFIT and pleasure, mingled thus with art,
To soothe the fancy, and improve the heart.

AT ease reclin'd beneath the verdant shade,
No more shall I behold my happy flock
Aloft, hang browzing on the tufted rock.

VIRG.

THESE on the mountain billows hung: to those The yawning waves the yellow sand disclose.

VIRG.

THE WOes of Troy once more she begg'd to hear, Once more the mournful tale employ'd his tongue, While in fond rapture on his lips she hung.

VIRG.

IN shrill-ton'd murmurs sang the twanging bow.

HOM.

WHATE'ER when Phoebus bless'd the Arcadian

plain,

Eurotas heard, and taught his boys the strain.

The senior sung——

VIRG.

SAY, heavenly muse, their youthful frays rehearse,
Begin, ye daughters of immortal verse;
Exulting rocks have own'd the power of song,
And rivers listen'd as they flow'd along.

VIDA.

THE wave that bore him, backward shrank appal'd.

RACINE.

BUT Turnus, chief amidst the warrior train,

In armour towers the tallest on the plain.
The Ganges thus, by seven rich streams supplied,
A mighty mass, devolves in silent pride.
Thus Nilus pours from his prolific urn,

When from the fields o'erflow'd, his vagrant streams

return.

VIRG.

So Philomela froin the umbrageous wood
In strains melodious mourns her tender brood.
Snatch'd from the nest by some rude Phrygian's
hand,

On some lone bough the warbler takes her stand;
The livelong nights she mourns the cruel wrong,
And hill and dale resound the plaintive song.

FOR as a watchman, from some rock on high, O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye, Through such a space of air with thundering sound, At every leap the immortal coursers bound.

HOM.

So joys the lion, if a branching deer,
Or mountain goat, his bulky prize appear.
In vain the youths oppose, the mastiffs bay,
The lordly savage rends the panting prey.
Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound,
In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground.1

HOM.

EAST, west, and south engage with furious sweep, And from its lowest bed upturn the foaming deep.

VIRG.

THE sail then Boreas rends with hideous cry,
And whirls the maddening billows to the sky.

1 These lines altered from Pope.

VIRG.

VERSES.'

THE window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay.
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread,
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The game of goose was there exposed to view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The seasons fram'd with listing, found a place,
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp black face.
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
A rusty grate, unconscious of a fire:
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scor'd,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board

Not with that face, so servile, and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay;
With sulky eye he smok'd the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began :

Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood, He only ruminates his former food.'2

See Goldsmith's Life, p. 64. ed. 1821. 2 See Goldsm. An. Nat. vol iii. p. 6.

« AnteriorContinuar »