Ye idler things, that soothed my hours of care,

Where would ye wander, triflers, tell me where?

As maids neglected, do ye fondly dote

On the fair type, or the embroider'd coat;

Detest my modest shelf, and long to fly,

Where princely Popes and mighty Miltons lie?

Taught but to sing, and that in simple style,

Of Lycia's lip, and Musidora's smile,

Go, then! and taste a yet unfelt distress,

The fear that guards the captivating press;

Yet rush not all, but let some scout go forth.

View the strange land, and tell us of its worth;

And, should he there barbarian usage meet,

The patriot scrap shall warn us to retreat.

And thou, the first of thy eccentric race,

A forward imp, go, search the dangerous place,

Where Fame's eternal blossoms tempt each bard,

Though dragon-wits there keep eternal guard.

Hope not unhurt the golden spoil to seize,

The Muses yield, as the Hesperides;

Who bribes the guardian, all his labour's done,

For every maid is willing to be won.

Before the lords of verse a suppliant stand,

And beg our passage through the fairy land:

Beg more—to search for sweets each blooming field,

The pious pilot, whom the Gods provide,

Through the rough seas the shatter'd bark to guide,

Trusts not alone his knowledge of the deep,

Its rocks that threaten, and its sands that sleep;

But, whilst with nicest skill he steers his way,

The guardian Tritons hear their favourite pray.

Hence borne his vows to Neptune's coral dome,

The God relents, and shuts each gulfy tomb.

Thus as on fatal floods to fame I steer,

I dread the storm, that ever rattles here;

Nor think enough, that long my yielding soul

Has felt the Muse's soft, but strong, control;

Nor think enough that manly strength and ease,

Such as have pleased a friend, will strangers please;

But, suppliant, to the critic's throne I bow,

Here burn my incense, and here pay my vow;

That censure hush'd, may every blast give o'er,

And the lash'd coxcomb hiss contempt no more.

And ye, whom authors dread or dare in vain,

Affecting modest hopes or poor disdain,

Receive a bard, who, neither mad nor mean,

Despises each extreme, and sails between;

Who fears; but has, amid his fears confess'd,

The conscious virtue of a Muse oppressed;

A Muse in changing times and stations nursed,

By nature honour'd and by fortune cursed.

The supple slave to regal pomp bows down,

Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown;

The bolder villain spurns a decent awe,

Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law;

But he whose soul on honest truth relies,

Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies.

Thus timid authors bear an abject mind,

And plead for mercy they but seldom find.

Some, as the desperate to the halter run,

Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun;

But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop,

Yet hope for fame, and dare avow their hope;

Who neither brave the judges of their cause,

Nor beg in soothing strains a brief applause.

And such I'd be;—and, ere my fate is past,

Ere clear'd with honour, or with culprits cast,

Humbly at Learning's bar I'll state my case,

And welcome then distinction or disgrace!

When in the man the flights of fancy reign,

Rule in the heart, or revel in the brain,

As busy Thought her wild creation apes,

And hangs delighted o'er her varying shapes,

It asks a judgment, weighty and discreet,

To know where wisdom prompts, and where conceit;

Alike their draughts to every scribbler's mind

(Blind to their faults as to their danger blind)—

We write enraptured, and we write in haste,

Dream idle dreams, and call them things of taste;

Improvement trace in every paltry line,

And see, transported, every dull design;

Are seldom cautious, all advice detest,

And ever think our own opinions best;

Nor shows my Muse a muse-like spirit here,

But she—who shrinks, while meditating flight

In the wide way, whose bounds delude her sight,

Yet tired in her own mazes still to roam,

And cull poor banquets for the soul at home—

Would, ere she ventures, ponder on the way,

Lest dangers yet unthought-of flight betray;

Lest her Icarian wing, by wits unplumed,

Be robb'd of all the honours she assumed,

And Dulness swell—a black and dismal sea,

Gaping her grave, while censures madden me.

Such was his fate, who flew too near the sun,

Shot far beyond his strength, and was undone;

Such is his fate, who creeping at the shore

The billow sweeps him, and he's found no more.

Oh! for some God, to bear my fortunes fair

Midway betwixt presumption and despair!

"Has then some friendly critic's former blow

Taught thee a prudence authors seldom know?"

Not so! their anger and their love untried,

A wo-taught prudence deigns to tend my side:

Life's hopes ill-sped, the Muse's hopes grow poor,

And though they flatter, yet they charm no more;

Experience points where lurking dangers lay,

And as I run, throws caution in my way.

There was a night, when wintry winds did rage,

Hard by a ruin'd pile I met a sage;

Resembling him the time-struck place appear'd,

Hollow its voice, and moss its spreading beard;

Whose fate-lopp'd brow, the bat's and beetle's dome,

Shook, as the hunted owl flew hooting home.

His breast was bronzed by many an eastern blast,

And fourscore winters seem'd he to have past;

His thread-bare coat the supple osier bound,

And with slow feet he press'd the sodden ground;

Where, as he heard the wild-wing'd Eurus blow,

"Father," I said—for silver hairs inspire,

And oft I call the bending peasant Sire—

"Tell me, as here beneath this ivy bower,

That works fantastic round its trembling tower,

We hear Heaven's guilt-alarming thunders roar,

Tell me the pains and pleasures of the poor;

For Hope, just spent, requires a sad adieu,

And Fear acquaints me I shall live with you.

"There was a time when, by Delusion led,

A scene of sacred bliss around me spread;

On Hope's, as Pisgah's lofty top, I stood,

And saw my Canaan there, my promised good.

A thousand scenes of joy the clime bestow'd,

And wine and oil through vision's valleys flow'd;

As Moses his, I call'd my prospect bless'd,

And gazed upon the good I ne'er possess'd:

On this side Jordan doom'd by fate to stand,

Whilst happier Joshuas win the promised land."

"Son," said the Sage—"be this thy care suppressed;

The state the Gods shall choose thee is the best:

Rich if thou art, they ask thy praises more,

And would thy patience, when they make thee poor.

But other thoughts within thy bosom reign,

And other subjects vex thy busy brain;

Poetic wreaths thy vainer dreams excite,

And thy sad stars have destined thee to write.

Then, since that task the ruthless fates decree,

Take a few precepts from the Gods and me!

"Be not too eager in the arduous Chase:

Who pants for triumph seldom wins the race;

Venture not all, but wisely hoard thy worth,

And let thy labours one by one go forth;

Some happier scrap capricious wits may find

On a fair day, and be profusely kind;

}

Thus said the God; for now a God he grew,

}

His white locks changing to a golden hue,

}

And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue.

His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed

Of dove-like Delia, when her doubts reposed;

Mira's alone a softer lustre bear,

When wo beguiles them of an angel's tear;

Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood,

Then sought on airy wing his blest abode.

Ah! truth distasteful in poetic theme,

Why is the Muse compell'd to own her dream?

Whilst forward wits had sworn to every line,

I only wish to make its moral mine.

Say then, O ye who tell how authors speed,

May Hope indulge her flight, and I succeed?

Say, shall my name, to future song prefix'd,

Be with the meanest of the tuneful mix'd?

Shall my soft strains the modest maid engage,

My graver numbers move the silver'd sage,

My tender themes delight the lover's heart,

For O! thou, Hope's—thou, Thought's eternal King,

Who gav'st them power to charm, and me to sing,

Chief to thy praise my willing numbers soar,

And in my happier transports I adore;

Mercy thy softest attribute proclaim,

Thyself in abstract, thy more lovely name;

That flings o'er all my grief a cheering ray,

As the foil moon-beam gilds the watery way.

And then too, Love, my soul's resistless lord,

Shall many a gentle, generous strain afford,

To all the soil of sooty passions blind,

Pure as embracing angels, and as kind;

Our Mira's name in future times shall shine,

And—though the harshest—Shepherds envy mine.

Then let me (pleasing task!) however hard,

Join, as of old, the prophet and the bard;

If not, ah! shield me from the dire disgrace

That haunts the wild and visionary race;

Let me not draw my lengthen'd lines along,

And tire in untamed infamy of song;

Lest, in some dismal Dunciad's future page,

I stand the Cibber of this tuneless age;

Lest, if another Pope th' indulgent skies

Should give, inspired by all their deities,

My luckless name, in his immortal strain,

Should, blasted, brand me as a second Cain;

Doom'd in that song to live against my will,

Whom all must scorn, and yet whom none could kill.

The youth, resisted by the maiden's art,

Persists, and time subdues her kindling heart;

To strong entreaty yields the widow's vow,

As mighty walls to bold besiegers bow;

Repeated prayers draw bounty from the sky,

And heaven is won by importunity.

Ours, a projecting tribe, pursue in vain,

In tedious trials, an uncertain gain;

"And why then seek that luckless doom to share?"

Who, I?—To shun it is my only care.

I grant it true, that others better tell

Of mighty Wolfe, who conquer'd as he fell[12];

Of heroes born their threaten'd realms to save,

Whom Fame anoints, and Envy tends whose grave;

Of crimson'd fields, where Fate, in dire array,

Gives to the breathless the short-breathing clay;

Ours, a young train, by humbler fountains dream,

Nor taste presumptuous the Pierian stream;

When Rodney's triumph comes on eagle-wing,

We hail the victor, whom we fear to sing;

Nor tell we how each hostile chief goes on,

The luckless Lee, or wary Washington;

How Spanish bombast blusters—they were beat,

And French politeness dulcifies—defeat.

My modest Muse forbears to speak of kings,

Lest fainting stanzas blast the name she sings;

For who, the tenant of the beechen shade,

Dares the big thought in regal breasts pervade?

Or search his soul, whom each too-favouring God

Gives to delight in plunder, pomp, and blood?

No; let me, free from Cupid's frolic round,

Rejoice, or more rejoice by Cupid bound;

Of laughing girls in smiling couplets tell,

And paint the dark-brow'd grove, where wood-nymphs dwell,

Who bid invading youths their vengeance feel,

And pierce the votive hearts they mean to heal.

Such were the themes I knew in school-day ease,

When first the moral magic learn'd to please;

Ere Judgment told how transports warm'd the breast,

A summer morn there was, and passing fair;

Still was the breeze, and health perfumed the air;

The glowing east in crimson'd splendour shone,

What time the eye just marks the pallid moon;

Vi'let-wing'd Zephyr fann'd each opening flower,

And brush'd from fragrant cups the limpid shower;

}

A distant huntsman fill'd his cheerful horn,

}

The vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn,

}

And mists, like creeping rocks, arose to meet the morn.

Huge giant shadows spread along the plain,

Or shot from towering rocks o'er half the main.

There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide

Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side;

Such is that sound, which fond designs convey,

When, true to love, the damsel speeds away;

The sails, unshaken, hung aloft unfurl'd,

And, simpering nigh, the languid current curl'd;

What wills the poet of the favouring gods,

Led to their shrine, and blest in their abodes[13]?

What, when he fills the glass, and to each youth

Names his loved maid, and glories in his truth?

Not India's spoils, the splendid nabob's pride,

Not the full trade of Hermes' own Cheapside,

Nor gold itself, nor all the Ganges laves,

Or shrouds, well shrouded in his sacred waves;

Nor gorgeous vessels deck'd in trim array,

Which the more noble Thames bears far away.

Let those whose nod makes sooty subjects flee,

Hack with blunt steel the savory callipee;

Let those whose ill-used wealth their country fly,

O Virtue! brighter than the noon-tide ray,

My humble prayers with sacred joys repay!

Health to my limbs may the kind Gods impart,

And thy fair form delight my yielding heart!

Grant me to shun each vile inglorious road,

To see thy way, and trace each moral good;

If more—let Wisdom's sons my page peruse,

And decent credit deck my modest Muse.

Nor deem it pride that prophesies, my song

Shall please the sons of taste, and please them long.

Say, ye, to whom my Muse submissive brings

Her first-fruit offering, and on trembling wings,

May she not hope in future days to soar,

Where fancy's sons have led the way before?

Where genius strives in each ambrosial bower

To snatch with agile hand the opening flower?

To cull what sweets adorn the mountain's brow,

What humbler blossoms crown the vales below?

To blend with these the stores by art refined,

And give the moral Flora to the mind?

Far other scenes my timid hour admits,

Relentless critics, and avenging wits;

E'en coxcombs take a licence from their pen,

And to each "let-him-perish" cry Amen!

And thus, with wits or fools my heart shall cry,

For if they please not, let the trifles die—

Die, and be lost in dark oblivion's shore,

And never rise to vex their author more.

I would not dream o'er some soft liquid line,

Amid a thousand blunders form'd to shine;

}

Yet rather this, than that dull scribbler be,

}

From every fault, and every beauty free,

O! if you blast, at once consume my bays,

And damn me not with mutilated praise.

With candour judge; and, a young bard in view.

Allow for that, and judge with kindness too.

Faults he must own, though hard for him to find,

Not to some happier merits quite so blind;

These if mistaken Fancy only sees,

Or Hope, that takes Deformity for these;

If Dunce, the crowd-befitting title, falls

His lot, and Dulness her new subject calls:

To the poor bard alone your censures give—

Let his fame die, but let his honour live;

Laugh if you must—be candid as you can,

And when you lash the Poet, spare the Man.