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The reprobated race grows judgment proof:

Earth shakes beneath them, and Heav'n roars

above;

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But nothing scares them from the course they love:
To the lascivious pipe and wanton song,
That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,

Down to the gulf, from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail-
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail!
They trust in armies, and their courage dies;
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies;
But all they trust in withers, as it must,

470

When He commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast
A long despised, but now victorious, host;
Tyranny sends the chain, that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege;

Gives Liberty the last, the mortal shock:

Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.

A. Such lofty strains embellish what

you teach,

Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach?

479

B. I know the mind, that feels indeed the fire The muse imparts, and can command the lyre, Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal, Whate'er the theme, that others never feel. If human woes her soft attention claim, A tender sympathy pervades the frame, She pours a sensibility divine

Along the nerve of ev'ry feeling line.

But if a deed not tamely to be borne

Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,

489

The strings are swept with such a pow'r, so loud, The storm of musick shakes th' astonish'd crowd.

So, when remote futurity is brought

Before the keen inquiry of her thought,

A terrible sagacity informs

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms;
He hears the thunder ere the tempest low'rs;

And, arm'd with strength surpassing human

pow'rs,

Seizes events as yet unknown to man,

And darts his soul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the same;

Hence British poets too the priesthood shar'd,
And ev'ry hallow'd druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong;

I play with syllables, and sport

in song.

A. At Westminster, where little poets strive, To set a distich upon six and five,

501

Where Discipline helps th' op'ning buds of sense, And makes his pupils proud with silver pence,

I was a poet too: but modern taste

Is so refin'd, and delicate, and chaste,

That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
Thus, all success depending on an ear,

And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,

And truth cut short to make a period round,

510

I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse,

Than

caper

in the morris-dance of verse.

B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit,

520

And some wits flag through fear of losing it.
Give me the line that ploughs it's stately course
Like a proud swan, conqu'ring the stream by force;
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.

When Labour and when Dulness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand,
Beating alternately, in measur'd time,
The clockwork tintinabulum of rhyme,

Exact and regular the sounds will be;

But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,

530

All birks and braes, though he was never there; Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains, Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;

A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke—
An art contriv'd to advertise a joke,

So that the jest is clearly to be seen,

Not in the words-but in the gap between:
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,

The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

To dally much with subjects mean and low Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so. Neglected talents rust into decay,

And ev'ry effort ends in pushpin play.

540

The man, that means success, should soar above

A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove;

Else, summoning the muse to such a theme,

The fruit of all her labour is whipp'd cream.

As if an eagle flew aloft, and then

550

Stoop'd from it's highest pitch to pounce a wren.
As if the poet, purposing to wed,

Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread.
Ages elaps'd ere Homer's lamp appear'd,

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:

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