Know (which few kings, alas! have ever known)
How affability becomes a throne,
Destroys all fear, bids love with rev'rence live,
And gives those graces pride can never give.
Let the stern tyrant keep a distant state,
And hating all men fear return of hate,
Conscious of guilt retreat behind his throne,
Secure from all upbraidings but his own:
Let all my subjects have access to ine;
Be my ears open as my heart is free;
In full fair tide let information flow;
That evil is half cur'd whose cause we know.
And thou, where'er thou art, thou wretched thing! Who art afraid to look up to a king,
Lay by thy fears-make but thy grievance plain, And if I not redress thee may my reign
Close up that very moment-To prevent
The course of Justice from her fair intent
In vain my nearest dearest friend shall plead,
In vain my mother kneel-My soul may bleed, 660
But must not change-When Justice draws the dart,
-Tho' it is doom'd to pierce a fav'rite's heart,
'Tis mine to give it force, to give it aim
I know it duty and I feel it fame.
INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.
WHEN Cupid first instructs his darts to fly
From the sly corner of some cookmaid's eye,
The stripling raw, just enter'd in his teens,
Receives the wound, and wonders what it means;
His heart, like dripping, melts, and new desire
Within him stirs each time she stirs the fire;
Trembling and blushing he the fair one views,
And fain would speak, but cann't-without a Muse.
So to the sacred mount he takes his way,
Prunes his young wings and tunes his infant lay, 10
His oaten reed to rural ditties frames,
To flocks and rocks to hills and rilis proclaims
In simplest notes and all unpolish'd strains,
The loves of nymphs and eke the loves of swains.
Clad as your nymphs were always clad of yore, 15
In rustic weeds a cookmaid now no more-
Beneath an aged oak Lardella lies-
Green moss her couch, her canopy the skies.
From aromatic shrubs the roguish gale
Steals young perfumes, and wafts them thro' the vale: The youth turn'd swain, and skill'd in rustic lays, Fast by her side his am'rous descant plays.
Herds lowe, flocks bleat, pies chatter, ravens scream,
And the full chorus dies a-down the stream.
The streams, with music freighted, as they pass 25
Present the fair Lardella with a glass,
And Zephyr, to complete the love-sick plan,
Waves his light wings, and serves her for a fan.
But when maturer Judgment takes the lead These childish toys on Reason's altar bleed; Form'd after some great man whose name breeds awe, Whose ev'ry sentence fashion makes a law, Who on mere credit his vain trophies rears, And founds his merit on our servile fears; Then we discard the workings of the heart, And nature's banish'd by mechanic art : Then, deeply read, our reading must be shown; Vain is that knowledge which remains unknown: Then Ostentation marches to our aid,
And letter'd Pride stalks forth in full parade; 40
Beneath their care behold the work refine,
Pointed each sentence, polish'd ev'ry line :
Trifles are dignify'd, and taught to wear
The robes of ancients with a modern air:
Nonsense with classic ornaments is grac'd,
And passes current with the stamp of taste.
Then the rude Theocrite is ransack'd o'er,
And courtly Maro call'd from Mincio's shore;
Sicilian Muses on our mountains roam,
Easy and free, as if they were at home;
Nymphs, Naiads, Nereids, Dryads, Satyrs, Fauns,
Sport in our floods and trip it o'er our lawns; [Rome
Flow'rs which once flourish'd fair in Greece and
More fair revive, in England's meads to bloom ;
Skies without cloud exotic suns adorn,
And roses blush, but blush without a thorn;
Landscapes unknown to dowdy Nature rise,
And new creations strike our wond'ring eyes.
For bards like these, who neither sing nor say,
Grave without thought, and without feeling gay, 60
Whose numbers in one even tenor flow,
Attun'd to pleasure and attun'd to wo,
Who, if plain Commonsense her visit pays,
And mars one couplet in their happy lays,
As at some ghost affrighted, start and stare,
And ask the meaning of her coming there.
For bards like these a wreath shall Mason bring,
Lin'd with the softest down of Folly's wing;
In Love's pagoda shall they ever doze,
And Gisbal kindly rock them to repose;
My Lord- -to letters as to faith most true.
At once their patron and example too-
Shall quaintly fashion his love-labour'd dreams,
Sigh with sad winds, and weep with weeping streams,
Curious in grief, (for real grief, we know,
Is curious to dress up the tale of wo)
From the green umbrage of some Druid's seat
Shall his own works in his own way repeat.
Me, whom no Muse of heav'nly birth inspires, No judgment tempers when rash genius fires, Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme, Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time, Who cannot follow where trim Fancy leads, By prattling streams o'er flow'r-empurpled meads, Who often, but without success, have pray'd 85 For apt Alliteration's artful aid,
Who would but cannot, with a master's skill
Coin fine new epithets which mean no ill :
Me, thus uncouth, thus ev'ry way unfit
For pacing poesy and ambling wit,
Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place Amongst the lowest of her favour'd race.
Thou, Nature art my goddess-to thy law Myself I dedicate—hence, slavish awe,
Which bends to fashion, and obeys the rules 95 Impos'd at first, and since observ'd by fools; Hence those vile tricks which mar fair Nature's hue, And bring the sober matron forth to view,
With all that artificial tawdry glare
Which virtue scorns, and none but strumpets wear.
Sick of those pomps, those vanities, that waste 101
Of toil, which critics now mistake for taste,
Of false refinements sick, and labour d ease,
Which art too thinly veil'd forbids to please,
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