Richly bitter, richly sweet, Such as will exhilarate; While the fair-one's rubied lip Give the girl, whose sword-like eye Bids the understanding die, Tempting mortals to their fate With the goblet's smiling bait; Damsels give with flowing hair, Guileful as the hunter's snare! Give, to spend the classic hour, One deep-read in learned lore, One, whose merry, tuneful vein Flows like our gay poet's strain, Mortals, wilfully unwise, Who these mirthful gifts despise, Entertain no pleasing sense Of voluptuous elegance: Scarce of such can it be said, That they differ from the dead. ON A GROTTO Near the Thames, at Twickenham, Composed of Marbles, Spars, and Minerals.* BY A. POPE. THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translu cent wave Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave, Approach. Great Nature studiously behold! * The improving and finishing this Grotto, was the favourite amusement of Mr. Pope's declining years; and the beauty of his poetie genius in the disposition and ornaments of this romantic recess, appears to as much advantage as in his best-contrived Poems.-See his description of it in a letter to Edward Blount, Esq. vol. viii. of his works. Approach: But aweful! Lo th' Ægerian* grot Where, nobly-pensive, St. John sate and thought; Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole, And the bright flame was shot thro' Marchmont's soul. Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country, and be poor. * Alluding to Numa's projecting his System of Politics in this Grot; assisted, as he gave out, by the Goddess Egeria. AN ODE ON EOLUS's HARP.* BY A. POPE. ETHERIAL race, inhabitants of air! Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair, And raise majestic strains, or melt in love. Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid! With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart! Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid, Who dy'd of love, these sweet complainings part. But hark! that strain was of a graver tone; In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes. * Æolus's Harp is a musical instrument, which plays with the wind, invented by Mr. Oswald; its properties are fully described in The Castle of Indolence. |