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504

WORKS OF POPE.

'I hear the beat of Jacob's* drums ;

Poor Ovid finds no quarter!

See first the merry P--+ comes

In haste, without his garter:

'Then lords and lordlings, squires and knights,
Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers :

Garth, at St. James's, and at White's,
Beats up for volunteers.

'What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet, or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or any one.

'If Justice Philips' costive head
Some rigid rhymes disburses:
They shall like Persian tales be read,
And glad both babes and nurses.

'Let Warwick's Muse with Ashurst join,
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's,
Tickell and Addison combine,

And Pope translate with Jervas.

'L- himself, that lively lord,
Who bows to every lady,

Shall join with F- in one accord,
And be like Tate and Brady.

'Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen;
I pray, where can the hurt lie?
Since you have brains as well as men,
As witness Lady Wortley.

'Now, Tonson, list thy forces all,
Review them, and tell noses:

For to poor Ovid shall befall

A strange metamorphosis;

* Jacob Tonson, the editor of the 'Metamorphoses.'
+ Pembroke, probably.

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'A metamorphosis more strange Than all his books can vapour-'

'To what,' quoth squire, 'shall Ovid change?' Quoth Sandys, 'To waste paper.'

A FAREWELL TO LONDON.*

1715.

DEAR, damn'd, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease;

*

*

*

*

To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman's toll;
Let Jervis gratis paint, and Frowde
Save threepence and his soul.

Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery
On every learned sot;

And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go :
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!

Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips and fat Johnson,

Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer, (damn him !) calls.

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed,

Has yet the grace to mourn.

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* Probably written at No. 9, Berkeley-street, London (where Pope then resided), at the time he was about to remove to Twickenham.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound;
Betray, and are betray'd:

Poor Y -rs sold for fifty pounds,
And B--ll is a jade.

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

*

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*

Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.

Solicitous for other ends,

Though fond of dear repose;

Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For salads, tarts, and pease!

Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,

And so may starve with me.

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'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no, 'tisn t) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a virgin hard of feature,

Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly, envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell* and you.

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SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.

FLUTTERING, spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions:
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.

* See Note t, p. 499.

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508

WORKS OF POPE.

Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows;
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying rows.
Melancholy, smooth Mæander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.

Thus when Philomela, drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping:
Melody resigns to fate.

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A FRAGMENT.

WHAT are the falling rills, the pendent shades,
The morning bowers, the evening colonnades,
But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind
To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.

PRAYER.

A Prayer of Brutus, on the occasion of his going to a temple of Diana to offer sacrifice, and inquire of the goddess what country was destined to be his place of settlement. See Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History, Book I. chap. 11.

GODDESS of woods, tremendous in the chase,
To mountain wolves, and all the savage race,

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