The Dunciad and Other Poems ...

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John Long, 1906 - 160 pages

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Page 113 - Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux. Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; The fair each moment rises in her charms, Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
Page 93 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 78 - Night primaeval and of Chaos old ! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain ; As Argus
Page 110 - Soft yielding minds to Water glide away, And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea. The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of mischief still on Earth to roam. The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the fields of Air.
Page 80 - Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss ; A fool might once himself alone expose, Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
Page 92 - 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.
Page 124 - Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine, (The victor cried) the glorious prize is mine ! While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, Or in a coach and six the British fair, As long as Atalantis shall be read...
Page 132 - Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce, Or who would learn one earthly thing of use? To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint; Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint. But since, alas! frail beauty must decay...
Page 152 - Oh let me live my own! and die so too! ("To live and die is all I have to do:") Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please. Above a patron, though I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend...
Page 123 - The little engine on his fingers' ends ; This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her headj.

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