Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

From PART II

A little learning is a dangerous thing; 15 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian

spring:

For works may have more wit than does 'em good,

As bodies perish through excess of blood. Others for language all their care express,

105

There shallow draughts intoxicate the And value books, as women men, for

[blocks in formation]

90

And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;

One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover every part, 95 And hide with ornaments their want of art.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;

Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,

That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, 101.

So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

sense;

125

Such labored nothings, in so strange a style,

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.

Unlucky as Fungoso in the play, These sparks with awkward vanity display

What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; And but so mimic ancient wits at best, 131 As apes our grandsires, in their doublets dressed.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;

Alike fantastic if too new or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

1 accord.

135

But most by numbers judge a poet's But when loud surges lash the sounding song; shore, And smooth or rough, with them, is right The hoarse, rough verse should like the or wrong. torrent roar. In the bright Muse though thousand When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight charms conspire,

[blocks in formation]

to throw,

170

The line, too, labors, and the words move slow.

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims
along the main.

Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise! 175
While, at each change, the son of Libyan
Jove

Now burns with glory, and then melts with
love;

Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,

Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:

Persians and Greeks like turns of nature

[blocks in formation]

I sing. This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due; This, e'en Belinda may vouchsafe to view.

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 5 If she inspire, and he approve my lays.

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle? Oh say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,

Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?

In tasks so bold, can little men engage, And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

50

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair
From earthly vehicles to these of air,
Think
Think not, when woman's transient
breath is fled,

That all her vanities at once are dead;
Succeeding vanities she still regards,
And though she plays no more, o'erlooks
the cards.

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, 55
And love of ombre, after death survive.
For when the fair in all their pride expire,
To their first elements their souls retire:
The sprites of fiery termagants in flame
Mount up, and take a salamander's name.
Soft yielding minds to water glide away, 61
And sip, with nymphs, their elemental

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »