Poetry - Alexander Pope

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Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.

       So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art,

       By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part,

       Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, 110

       Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.

       Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,

       Nor time nor moths e'er spoil'd so much as they.

       Some drily plain, without invention's aid,

       Write dull receipts how poems may be made.

       These leave the sense, their learning to display,

       And those explain the meaning quite away.

       You then, whose judgment the right course would steer,

       Know well each ancient's proper character;

       His fable, subject, scope in every page; 120

       Religion, country, genius of his age;

       Without all these at once before your eyes,

       Cavil you may, but never criticise.

       Be Homer's works your study and delight,

       Read them by day, and meditate by night;

       Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,

       And trace the Muses upward to their spring.

       Still with itself compared, his text peruse;

       And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.

       When first young Maro in his boundless mind, 130

       A work t' outlast immortal Rome design'd,

       Perhaps he seem'd above the critic's law,

       And but from Nature's fountains scorn'd to draw:

       But when t' examine every part he came,

       Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.

       Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design,

       And rules as strict his labour'd work confine,

       As if the Stagyrite13 o'erlook'd each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem; To copy nature is to copy them. 140 Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, For there's a happiness as well as care. Music resembles poetry, in each Are nameless graces which no methods teach, And which a master-hand alone can reach. If, where the rules not far enough extend, (Since rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky license answer to the full The intent proposed, that license is a rule; Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, 150 May boldly deviate from the common track; Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, And rise to faults true critics dare not mend, From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which, without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all its end at once attains. In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes, Which out of nature's common order rise, The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice. 160 But though the ancients thus their rules invade, (As kings dispense with laws themselves have made) Moderns, beware! or if you must offend Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end; Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need, And have at least their precedent to plead. The critic else proceeds without remorse, Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force. I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts, Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults. 170 Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their light, or place, Due distance reconciles to form and grace. A prudent chief not always must display His powers in equal ranks, and fair array, But with the occasion and the place comply, Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly. Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. 180 Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age. See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! Hear in all tongues consenting paeans ring! In praise so just let every voice be join'd, And fill the general chorus of mankind. Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days; Immortal heirs of universal praise! 190 Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, And worlds applaud that must not yet be found! Oh may some spark of your celestial fire, The last, the meanest of your sons inspire, (That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights, Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes) To teach vain wits a science little known, T' admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200

       Table of Contents

      Between ver. 25 and 26 were these lines, since omitted by the author:—

       Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng,

       Who with great pains teach youth to reason wrong.

       Tutors, like virtuosos, oft inclined

       By strange transfusion to improve the mind,

       Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new;

       Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er could do.

       VER. 80,81:—

       There are whom Heaven has bless'd with store of wit,

       Yet want as much again to manage it.

       VER. 123. The author after this verse originally inserted the following,

       which he has however omitted in all the editions:—

       Zoilus, had these been known, without a name

       Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame;

       The sense of sound antiquity had reign'd,

       And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned.

       None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind

       To modern customs, modern rules confined;

       Who for all ages writ, and all mankind.

       VER. 130, 131:—

       When first young Maro sung of kings and wars,

       Ere warning Phoebus touch'd his trembling ears

       Table of Contents

      Of all the causes which conspire to blind

       Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

       What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

       Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.

       Whatever Nature has in worth denied,

       She gives in large recruits of needless pride;

       For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

       What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:

       Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,

       And fills up all the mighty void of sense: 210

       If once right reason drives that cloud away,

       Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.

       Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,

       Make use of every friend—and every foe.

       A little learning is a dangerous thing;

       Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

       There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

       And drinking largely sobers us again.

       Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

      

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