Proud as Apollo on his forkèd hill,
Sate full-blown Bufo, puffed by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead
And a true Pindar stood without a head)
Received of wits an undistinguished race,
Who first his judgment asked, and then a place:
Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat,
And flattered ev'ry day, and some days eat:
Till grown more frugal in his riper days,

He paid some bards with port, and some with praise;
To some a dry rehearsal was assigned,
And others (harder still) he paid in kind.
Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh,
Dryden alone escaped this judging eye:

But still the great have kindness in reserve,

He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.

May some choice patron bless each grey goose quill!

May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo still!

So when a statesman wants a day's defense,

Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense,
Or simple pride for flattery makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
Blessed be the great, for those they take away,
And those they left me, for they left me Gay;

Left me to see neglected genius bloom,

Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:

Of all thy blameless life the sole return

My verse, and Queensberry weeping o'er thy urn!...

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
Let Sporus tremble-

A.

What, that thing of silk?
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all see-saw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's temper thus the rabbins have exprest,

A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshiper, nor fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways:
That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralized his song:
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dullness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libeled person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead:
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear
Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair virtue! welcome ev'n the last!

ESSAY ON MAN.

BY ALEXANDER POPE.

[ALEXANDER POPE: An English poet; born May 22, 1688. His whole career was one of purely poetic work and the personal relations it brought him into. He published the "Essay on Criticism" in 1710, the "Rape of the Lock" in 1711, the "Messiah" in 1712, his translation of the Iliad in 17181720, and of the Odyssey in 1725. HisEssay on Man," whose thoughts were mainly suggested by Bolingbroke, appeared in 1733. His "Satires," modeled on Horace's manner, but not at all in his spirit, are among his best-known works. He died May 30, 1744.]

I. KNOW then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;

Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurled:

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides,

Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the Sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw

A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed a NEWTON as we show an Ape.

Could he, whose rules the rapid Comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his Mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning, or his end?
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Trace Science then, with Modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of Pride;
Deduct what is but Vanity, or Dress,

Or Learning's Luxury, or Idleness;

Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;
Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts
Of all our Vices have created Arts;

Then see how little the remaining sum,

Which served the past, and must the times to come!
II. Two Principles in human nature reign:
Self-love, to urge, and Reason, to restrain;
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all:
And to their proper operation still,

Ascribe all Good; to their improper, Ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And but for this, were active to no end:
Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteorlike, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroyed.

Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,

Formed but to check, delib'rate, and advise.
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:
That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence.
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At best more watchful this, but that more strong.

The action of the stronger to suspend,
Reason still use, to Reason still attend.
Attention, habit and experience gains;

Each strengthens Reason, and Self-love restrains.

Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite;

And Grace and Virtue, Sense and Reason split,

With all the rash dexterity of wit.

Wits, just like Fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and Reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, Pleasure their desire;
But greedy That, its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flower;
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III. Modes of Self-love the Passions we may call;
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all:
But since not every good we can divide,
And Reason bids us for our own provide;
Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
List under Reason, and deserve her care;
Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some Virtue's name.
In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast
Their Virtue fixed; 'tis fixed as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is Exercise, not Rest:
The rising tempest puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but Passion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,

He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Passions, like Elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite:
These 'tis enough to temper and employ;
But what composes Man, can Man destroy?
Suffice that Reason keep to Nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train,
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,
These mixed with art, and to due bounds confined,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:

The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife