Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, While wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, 205 210 What tho' my name stood rubric on the walls 215 Or plaster'd posts, with claps in capitals? Or smoaking forth, a hundred hawkers' load, On wings of winds came flying all abroad? I sought no homage from the race that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: Poems I heeded (now berhym'd so long) 220 No more than thou, great George! a birthday song; B 225 Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd and cry'd, 230 235 240 He paid some bards with port, and some with praise; And others (harder still) he paid in kind. Dryden alone escap'd this judging eye : 245 He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve. May some choice patron bless each gray-goose quill! May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo still! So when a statesman wants a day's defence, 250 Or simple Pride for flatt'ry makes demands, Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn! 260 O! let me live my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do ;) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books, I please; Above a patron, tho' I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs; 265 I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray❜rs; Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead. 270 Why am I ask❜d what next shall see the light? Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? 274 "I found him close with Swift"-" Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus)" something will come out." "Tis all in vain, deny it as I will; "No, such a genius never can lie still ;” And then for mine obligingly mistakes 280 Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, 285 Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmlesss neighbour's peace, 290 That fop whose pride affects a patron's name, Who to the Dean and silver bell can swear, 295 300 306 Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of silk, Sporus! that mere white curd of asses' milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel! Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; 310 Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 315 As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. And as the prompter breathes the puppet squeaks, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 325 Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies; 320 Eve's tempter thus, the Rabbins have exprest, 330 |