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song,

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:

In the bright muse, tho' thousand charms conspire,

Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,

Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,

Not for the doctrine, but the music there.

These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join;

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:

While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,

With sure returns of still expected rhymes;

Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"

In the next line, it "whispers through

the trees":

If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,"

The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep":

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught

With some unmeaning thing they call

a thought,

A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its

slow length along.

Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know

What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;

And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The sound must seem an echo to the

sense:

Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:

Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,

And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound!

The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden

now.

Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such,

Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offence, That always shows great pride, or little

sense:

Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,

Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.

Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture

move;

For fools admire, but men of sense approve:

As things seem large which we through mists descry,

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently Dulness is ever apt to magnify. 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 labors, and the words move slow:

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays surprise,

And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove

Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;

Low his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,

Some foreign writers, some our own despise;

The ancients only, or the moderns prize. Thus wit, like faith, by each man is apply'd

To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.

Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,

And force that sun but on a part to shine,

Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,

But ripens spirits in cold northern climes;

Which from the first has shone on ages past,

Enlights the present, and shall warm the

last;

Tho' each may feel increases and decays, And see now clearer and now darker days.

Regard not, then, if wit be old or new, But blame the false, and value still the

true.

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If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,

Nourish'd two locks which graceful hung behind

In equal curls, and well conspired to deck

With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck.

Love in these labyrinths his slave detains,

And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.

With hairy springs we the birds betray, Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,

Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Th' advent'rous Baron the bright locks admir'd:

He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd.

Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way, By force to ravish, or by fraud betray: For when success a lover's toil attends, Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.

For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implor'd

Propitious heav'n, and ev'ry pow'r ador'd,

But chiefly Love to Love an Altar built,

Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.

There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,

And all the trophies of his former loves; With tender billet-doux he lights the

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Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers | Watch all their ways, and all their actions

breathe,

That seemed but Zephyrs to the train

beneath.

Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,

Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds

of gold;

Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,

Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light, Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,

Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,

Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes;

While every beam new transient colors flings,

Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings.

Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd; His purple pinions op'ning to the sun, He rais'd his azure wand, and thus be

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brightest Fair

That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's

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Haste then, ye spirits! to your charge repair:

The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;

And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;

Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite lock;

Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.

To fifty chosen Sylphs, of special note,

We trust th' important charge, the petticoat:

Oft have we known that seven-fold fence

to fail,

Tho' stiff with hoops and arm'd with ribs of whale,

Form a strong line about the silver bound,

And guard the wide circumference around.

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large,

Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,

Be stopp'd in vials, or transfixed with pins;

Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,

While clog'd he beats his silken wings in vain;

Or alum styptics with contracting power Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flower:

Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling mill, In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,

And tremble at the sea that froths below!

He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend;

Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend;

Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair;

Some hang upon the pendants of her

ear;

With beating hearts the dire event they wait,

Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.

CANTO III.

Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flowers,

Where Thames with pride surveys his rising towers,

There stands a structure of majestic frame,

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