'Tis true, no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:
To Hounslow Heath I point and Banstead Down, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:
From yon old walnut-tree a shower shall fall;And grapes, long lingering on my only wall, And figs from standard and espalier join;The devil is in you if you cannot dine:
Then cheerful healths (your mistress shall have place), And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.
Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;Though double taxed, how little have I lost?
My life's amusements have been just the same, Before, and after, standing armies came.
My lands are sold, my father's house is gone;I'll hire another's; is not that my own, And yours, my friends? through whose free-opening gate None comes too early, none departs too late;(For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest).
"Pray Heaven it last!" (cries Swift!) "as you go on;I wish to God this house had been your own:
Pity! to build without a son or wife:
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one, Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share;Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)
The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son, Who cries, "My father's damned, and all's my own."Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby lord;And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, Slides to a scrivener or a city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fixed, and our own masters still.
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.
St. John, whose love indulged my labours past, Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Public too long, ah let me hide my age!
See, modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retired to their estates, Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates, In life's cool evening satiate of applause, Nor fond of bleeding, even in Brunswick's cause.
A voice there is, that whispers in my ear, ('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)"Friend Pope, be prudent, let your muse take breath, And never gallop Pegasus to death;Lest stiff and stately, void of fire or force, You limp, like Blackmore, on a lord mayor's horse."Farewell then verse, and love, and every toy, The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy;What right, what true, what fit we justly call, Let this be all my care--for this is all.
To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste What every day will want, and most, the last.
But ask not, to what doctors I apply?
Sworn to no master, of no sect am I:
As drives the storm, at any door I knock:
And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke.
Sometimes a patriot, active in debate, Mix with the world, and battle for the State, Free as young Lyttelton, her cause pursue, Still true to virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul, Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;Back to my native moderation slide, And win my way by yielding to the tide.
Long, as to him who works for debt, the day, Long as the night to her whose love's away, Long as the year's dull circle seems to run, When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one:
So slow th' unprofitable moments roll, That lock up all the functions of my soul;That keep me from myself; and still delay Life's instant business to a future day:
That task, which as we follow, or despise, The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise;Which done, the poorest can no wants endure;And which not done, the richest must be poor.
Late as it is, I put myself to school, And feel some comfort, not to be a fool.
Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight, Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite;I'll do what Mead and Cheselden advise, To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
Not to go back, is somewhat to advance, And men must walk at least before they dance.
Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move With wretched avarice, or as wretched love?
Know, there are words and spells, which can control Between the fits this fever of the soul:
Know, there are rhymes, which fresh and fresh applied Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride.
Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk, Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk, A Switz, a High Dutch, or a Low Dutch bear;All that we ask is but a patient ear.
'Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor;
And the first wisdom, to be fool no more.
But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure, and a small estate.
To either India see the merchant fly, Scared at the spectre of pale poverty!
See him, with pains of body, pangs of soul, Burn through the Tropic, freeze beneath the pole!
Wilt thou do nothing for a nobler end, Nothing, to make philosophy thy friend?
To stop thy foolish views, thy long desires, And ease thy heart of all that it admires?
Here, wisdom calls: "Seek virtue first, be bold!
As gold to silver, virtue is to gold."
There, London's voice: "Get money, money still!
And then let virtue follow, if she will."This, this the saving doctrine, preached to all, From low St. James's up to high St. Paul;From him whose quills stand quivered at his ear, To him who notches sticks at Westminster.
Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds;"Pray then, what wants he?" fourscore thousand pounds;A pension, or such harness for a slave As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
Barnard, thou art a Cit, with all thy worth;But Bug and D * l, their honours, and so forth.
Yet every child another song will sing:
"Virtue, brave boys! 'tis virtue makes a king."True, conscious honour is to feel no sin, He's armed without that's innocent within;Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass;Compared to this, a minister's an ass.
And say, to which shall our applause belong, This new Court jargon, or the good old song?
