English Poets of the Eighteenth Century - Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
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TO A LADY
SHE REFUSING TO CONTINUE A DISPUTE WITH ME, AND LEAVING ME IN THE
ARGUMENT
Spare, generous victor, spare the slave
Who did unequal war pursue,
That more than triumph he might have
In being overcome by you.
In the dispute whate'er I said,
My heart was by my tongue belied,
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.
You, far from danger as from fear,
Might have sustained an open fight:
For seldom your opinions err;
Your eyes are always in the right.
Why, fair one, would you not rely
On reason's force with beauty's joined?
Could I their prevalence deny,
I must at once be deaf and blind.
Alas! not hoping to subdue,
I only to the fight aspired;
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory I desired.
But she, howe'er of victory sure,
Contemns the wreath too long delayed,
And, armed with more immediate power,
Calls cruel silence to her aid.
Deeper to wound, she shuns the fight:
She drops her arms, to gain the field;
Secures her conquest by her flight,
And triumphs when she seems to yield.
So when the Parthian turned his steed
And from the hostile camp withdrew,
With cruel skill the backward reed
He sent, and as he fled he slew.
[THE DYING HADRIAN TO HIS SOUL]
Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing,
Must we no longer live together?
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,
To take thy flight, thou know'st not whither?
Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,
Lies all neglected, all forgot:
And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
Thou dread'st and hop'st, thou know'st not what.
A BETTER ANSWER
Dear Chloe, how blubbered is that pretty face!
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurled!
Prithee quit this caprice, and (as old Falstaff says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
How canst thou presume thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy;
More ordinary eyes may serve people for weeping.
To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ,
Your judgment at once and my passion you wrong;
You take that for fact which will scarce be found wit:
Od's life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The difference there is betwixt nature and art:
I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose;
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
The god of us verse-men (you know, child), the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest;
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he reclines on his Thetis's breast.
So when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war,
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree;
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me.
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
FROM THE GRUMBLING HIVE; OR, KNAVES TURNED HONEST
A spacious hive, well stocked with bees,
That lived in luxury and ease;
And yet as famed for laws and arms,
As yielding large and early swarms;
Was counted the great nursery
Of sciences and industry.
* * * * *
Vast numbers thronged the fruitful hive;
Yet those vast numbers made 'em thrive;
Millions endeavouring to supply
Each others lust and vanity,
While other millions were employed
To see their handiworks destroyed;
They furnished half the universe,
Yet had more work than labourers.
Some with vast stocks, and little pains,
Jumped into business of great gains;
And some were damned to scythes and spades,
And all those hard laborious trades
Where willing wretches daily sweat
And wear out strength and limbs, to eat;
While others followed mysteries
To which few folks, bind prentices,
That want no stock but that of brass,
And may set up without a cross,--
As sharpers, parasites, pimps, players,
Pickpockets, coiners, quacks, soothsayers,
And all those that in enmity
With downright working, cunningly
Convert to their own use the labour
Of their good-natured heedless neighbour.
These were called knaves; but bar the name,
The grave industrious were the same:
All trades and places knew some cheat,
No calling was without deceit.
* * * * *
Thus every part was full of vice,
Yet the whole mass a paradise:
Flattered in peace, and feared in wars,
They were th' esteem of foreigners,
And lavish of their wealth and lives,
The balance of all other hives.
Such were the blessings of that state;
Their crimes conspired to make them great.
* * * * *
The root of evil, avarice,
That damned, ill-natured, baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality,
That noble sin; whilst luxury
Employed a million of the poor,
And odious pride a million more;
Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry;
Their darling folly--fickleness
In diet, furniture, and dress--
That strange, ridiculous vice, was made
The very wheel that turned the trade.
Their laws and clothes were equally
Objects of mutability;
For what was well done for a time,
In half a year became a crime.
* * * * *
How vain, is mortal happiness!
Had they but known the bounds of bliss,
And that perfection here below
Is more than gods can well bestow,
The grumbling brutes had been content
With ministers and government.
But they, at every ill success,
Like creatures lost without redress,
Cursed politicians, armies, fleets;
While every one cried, 'Damn the cheats!'
And would, though conscious of his own,
In others barbarously bear none.
One that had got a princely store
By cheating master, king, and poor,
Dared cry aloud, 'The land must sink
For all its fraud'; and whom d'ye think
The sermonizing rascal chid?
A glover that sold lamb for kid!
The least thing was not done amiss,
Or crossed the public business,
But all the rogues cried brazenly,
'Good Gods, had we but honesty!'
Mercury smiled at th' impudence,
And others called it want of sense,
Always to rail at what they loved:
But Jove, with indignation moved,
At last in anger swore he'd rid
The bawling hive of fraud; and did.
The very moment it departs,
And honesty fills all their hearts,
There shews 'em, like th' instructive tree,
Those crimes which they're ashamed to see,
Which now in silence they confess
By blushing at their ugliness;
Like children that would hide their faults
And by their colour own their thoughts,
Imagining when they're looked upon,
That others see what they have done.
But, O ye Gods! what consternation!
How vast and sudden was th' alternation!
In half an hour, the nation round,
Meat fell a penny in the pound.
* * * * *
Now mind the glorious hive, and see
How honesty and trade agree.
The show is gone; it thins apace,
And looks with quite another face.
For 'twas not only that they went
By whom vast sums were yearly spent;
But multitudes that lived on them,
Were daily forced to do the same.
In vain to other trades they'd fly;
All were o'erstocked accordingly.
* * * * *
As pride and luxury decrease,
So by degrees they leave the seas.
Not merchants now, but companies,
Remove whole manufactories.
All arts and crafts neglected lie:
Content, the bane of industry,
Makes 'em admire their homely store,
And neither seek nor covet more.
So few in the vast hive remain,
The hundredth part they can't maintain
Against th' insults of numerous foes,
Whom yet they valiantly oppose,
Till some well-fenced retreat is found,
And here they die or stand their ground.
No hireling in their army's known;
But bravely fighting for their own
Their courage and integrity
At last were crowned with victory.
They triumphed not without their cost,
For many thousand bees were lost.
Hardened with toil and exercise,
They counted ease itself a vice;
Which so improved their temperance
That, to avoid extravagance,
They flew into a hollow tree,
Blessed with content and honesty.
THE MORAL:
Then leave complaints: fools only strive
To make a great an honest hive.
T' enjoy the world's conveniences,
Be famed in war, yet live in ease,
Without great vices, is a vain
Utopia seated in the brain.
* * * * *
ISAAC WATTS
THE HAZARD OF LOVING THE CREATURES
Where'er my flattering passions rove,
I find a lurking snare;
'Tis dangerous to let loose our love
Beneath th' eternal fair.
Souls whom the tie of friendship binds,
And things that share our blood,
Seize a large portion of our minds,
And leave the less for God.
Nature has soft but powerful bands,
And reason she controls;
While children with their little hands
Hang closest to our souls.
Thoughtless they act th' old Serpent's part;
What tempting things they be!
Lord, how they twine about our heart,
And draw it off from Thee!
Our hasty wills rush blindly on
Where rising passion rolls,
And thus we make our fetters strong
To bind our slavish souls.
Dear Sovereign, break these fetters off.
And set our spirits free;
God in Himself is bliss enough;
For we have all in Thee.
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
When the fierce north-wind with his airy forces,
Bears up the Baltic to a foaming fury;
And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes
Rushing amain down;
How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble,
While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters,
Quick to devour them.
Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder
(If things eternal may be like these earthly),
Such the dire terror when the great Archangel
Shakes the creation;
Tears the strong pillars of the vault of heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes.
See the graves open, and the bones arising,
Flames all around them!
Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches!
Lively bright horror and amazing anguish
Stare through their eyelids, while the living worm lies
Gnawing within them.
Thoughts like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings,
And the smart twinges, when the eye beholds the
Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance
Rolling afore Him.
Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver,
While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning
Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong
Down to the centre!
Stop here, my fancy: (all away, ye horrid
Doleful ideas!) come, arise to Jesus,
How He sits God-like! and the saints around Him
Throned, yet adoring!
O may I sit there when He comes triumphant,
Dooming the nations! then arise to glory,
While our hosannas all along the passage
Shout the Redeemer.
O GOD, OUR HELP IN AGES PAST
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years for to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
Under the shadow of Thy throne,
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past;
Our hope for years to come;
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home!
A CRADLE HYMN
Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.
Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,
House and home, thy friends provide;
All without thy care or payment:
All thy wants are well supplied.
How much better thou'rt attended
Than the Son of God could be,
When from Heaven He descended
And became a child like thee!
Soft and easy is thy cradle:
Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay,
When His birthplace was a stable
And His softest bed was hay.
Blessed babe! what glorious features--
Spotless fair, divinely bright!
Must He dwell with brutal creatures?
How could angels bear the sight?
Was there nothing but a manger
Cursed sinners could afford
To receive the heavenly stranger?
Did they thus affront their Lord?
Soft, my child: I did not chide thee,
Though my song might sound too hard;
'Tis thy mother sits beside thee,
And her arms shall be thy guard.
Yet to read the shameful story
How the Jews abused their King,
How they served the Lord of Glory,
Makes me angry while I sing.
See the kinder shepherds round Him,
Telling wonders from the sky!
Where they sought Him, there they found Him,
With His virgin mother by.
See the lovely babe a-dressing;
Lovely infant, how He smiled!
When He wept, the mother's blessing
Soothed and hushed the holy child.
Lo, He slumbers in His manger,
Where the horned oxen fed;
Peace, my darling: here's no danger,
Here's no ox a-near thy bed.
'Twas to save thee, child, from dying.
Save my dear from burning flame,
Bitter groans and endless crying,
That thy blest Redeemer came.
May'st thou live to know and fear him,
Trust and love Him all thy days;
Then go dwell forever near Him,
See His face, and sing His praise!
ALEXANDER POPE
FROM AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM
'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less dangerous is th' offense
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In poets as true genius is but rare,
True taste as seldom is the critic's share;
Both must alike from heaven derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment too?
* * * * *
But you who seek to give and merit fame
And justly bear a critic's noble name,
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
* * * * *
First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides:
In some fair body thus th' informing soul
With spirit feeds, with vigour fills the whole.
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide than spur the Muse's steed;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodized;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained.
You, then, whose judgment the right course would steer,
Know well each ancient's proper character;
His fable, subject, scope in every page;
Religion, country, genius of his age:
Without all these at once before your eyes,
Cavil you may, but never criticise,
Be Homer's works your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
Still with itself compared, his text peruse;
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.
When first young Maro in his boundless mind
A work t' outlast immortal Rome designed,
Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law,
And but from nature's fountains scorned to draw:
But when t' examine every part he came,
Nature and Homer were, he found, the same.
Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design;
And rules as strict his laboured work confine
As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line.
Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy nature is to copy them.
Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,
For there's a happiness as well as care.
Music resembles poetry, in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master-hand alone can reach.
If, where the rules not far enough extend,
(Since rules were made but to promote their end)
Some lucky license answer to the full
Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common track;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,
Which without passing through the judgment, gains
The heart, and all its end at once attains.
In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes,
Which out of nature's common order rise,
The shapeless rock, or hanging precipice.
Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.
But tho' the ancients thus their rules invade,
(As kings dispense with laws themselves have made)
Moderns, beware! or if you must offend
Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end;
Let it be seldom and compelled by need;
And have, at least, their precedent to plead.
The critic else proceeds without remorse,
Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.
I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts
Those freer beauties, e'en in them, seem faults.
Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,
Considered singly, or beheld too near,
Which, but proportioned to their light or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.
A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks, and fair array,
But with th' occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.
* * * * *
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way,
Th' increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The gen'rous pleasure to be charmed with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;
We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts:
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportioned dome,
(The world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome!)
So single parts unequally surprise,
All comes united to th' admiring eyes;
No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;
The whole at once is bold, and regular.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due;
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
T' avoid great errors, must the less commit:
Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,
For not to know some trifles, is a praise.
Most critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the whole depend upon a part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize,
And all to one loved folly sacrifice.
Once on a time, La Mancha's knight, they say,
A certain bard encountering on the way,
Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,
As e'er could Dennis of the Grecian stage;
Concluding all were desperate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.
Our author, happy in a judge so nice,
Produced his play, and begged the knight's advice;
Made him observe the subject, and the plot,
The manners, passions, unities, what not?
All which, exact to rule, were brought about,
Were but a combat in the lists left out.
'What! leave the combat out?' exclaims the knight;
Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.
'Not so, by Heaven' (he answers in a rage),
'Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage.'
So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain.
'Then build a new, or act it in a plain.'
Thus critics, of less judgment than caprice,
Curious not knowing, not exact but nice,
Form short ideas; and offend in arts
(As most in manners) by a love to parts.
Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at every line;
Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;
Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.
For works may have more wit than does 'em good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.
Others for language all their care express,
And value books, as women, men, for dress:
Their praise is still,--the style is excellent;
The sense, they humbly take upon content.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;
The face of nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed:
For different styles with different subjects sort,
As several garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;
Such laboured nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play,
These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,
As apes our grandsires, in their doublets dressed.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
But most by numbers judge a poet's song;
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse though 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,
Though 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 threatened (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 vigour 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 learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently 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 labours, 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' varied 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;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdued by sound!
The power of music all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.