  “SHUT, shut the door, good John!” fatigued I said; Tie up the knocker; say I’m sick, I’m dead. The dog-star rages! nay, ’tis past a doubt, Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide. By land, by water, they renew the charge; They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. No place is sacred, not the church is free; Ev’n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me; Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me—just at dinner-time. Is there a parson much bemus’d in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoom’d his father’s soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross? Is there, who, lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls With desperate charcoal round his darken’d walls? All fly to Twit’nam, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn’d works the cause; Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope. Friend to my life (which did you not prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song), What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love? A dire dilemma—either way I’m sped; If foes, they write; if friends, they read me dead. Seiz’d and ty’d down to judge, how wretched I, Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie. To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace; I sit with sad civility; I read With honest anguish, and an aching head, And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, This saving counsel, “Keep your piece nine years.” “Nine years!” cries he, who high in Drury Lane, Lull’d by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends, Oblig’d by hunger, and request of friends: “The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why take it; I’m all submission; what you’d have it, make it.” Three things another’s modest wishes bound, My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon sends to me: “You know his grace. I want a patron: ask him for a place.” Pitholeon libell’d me. “But here’s a letter Informs you, sir, ’twas when he knew no better. Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine; He’ll write a journal, or he’ll turn divine.” Bless me! a packet. “’Tis a stranger sues, A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.” If I dislike it, “Juries, death, and rage!” If I approve, “Commend it to the stage.” There (thank my stars!), my whole commission ends; The players and I are luckily no friends. Fir’d that the house reject him, “’Sdeath! I’ll print it, And shame the fools. Your interest, sir, with Lintot.” “Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much.” All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, “Do, and we go snacks.” Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door: “Sir, let me see your works and you no more!” Alexander Pope. |
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