Epistle To Mr Jervas, With Mr Dryden's Translation Of Fresnoy's 'art Of Painting.' Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDEEFFGG FFHHIIJJKK LLMNOPQQRRMMSSBB TTUUVVWW XXEEYYZZ GGTTWWVV BBIIA2A2EB2DDC2C2MMF F| This verse be thine my friend nor thou refuse | A |
| This from no venal or ungrateful Muse | A |
| Whether thy hand strike out some free design | B |
| Where life awakes and dawns at every line | B |
| Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass | C |
| And from the canvas call the mimic face | D |
| Read these instructive leaves in which conspire | E |
| Fresnoy's close art and Dryden's native fire | E |
| And reading wish like theirs our fate and fame | F |
| So mix'd our studies and so join'd our name | F |
| Like them to shine through long succeeding age | G |
| So just thy skill so regular my rage | G |
| - | |
| Smit with the love of sister arts we came | F |
| And met congenial mingling flame with flame | F |
| Like friendly colours found them both unite | H |
| And each from each contract new strength and light | H |
| How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day | I |
| While summer suns roll unperceived away | I |
| How oft our slowly growing works impart | J |
| While images reflect from art to art | J |
| How oft review each finding like a friend | K |
| Something to blame and something to commend | K |
| - | |
| What flattering scenes our wandering fancy wrought | L |
| Rome's pompous glories rising to our thought | L |
| Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly | M |
| Fired with ideas of fair Italy | N |
| With thee on Raphael's monument I mourn | O |
| Or wait inspiring dreams at Maro's urn | P |
| With thee repose where Tully once was laid | Q |
| Or seek some ruin's formidable shade | Q |
| While fancy brings the vanish'd piles to view | R |
| And builds imaginary Rome anew | R |
| Here thy well studied marbles fix our eye | M |
| A fading fresco here demands a sigh | M |
| Each heavenly piece unwearied we compare | S |
| Match Raphael's grace with thy loved Guide's air | S |
| Carracci's strength Correggio's softer line | B |
| Paulo's free stroke and Titian's warmth divine | B |
| - | |
| How finish'd with illustrious toil appears | T |
| This small well polish'd gem the work of years | T |
| Yet still how faint by precept is express'd | U |
| The living image in the painter's breast | U |
| Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow | V |
| Strike in the sketch or in the picture glow | V |
| Thence Beauty waking all her forms supplies | W |
| An angel's sweetness or Bridgewater's eyes | W |
| - | |
| Muse at that name thy sacred sorrows shed | X |
| Those tears eternal that embalm the dead | X |
| Call round her tomb each object of desire | E |
| Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire | E |
| Bid her be all that cheers or softens life | Y |
| The tender sister daughter friend and wife | Y |
| Bid her be all that makes mankind adore | Z |
| Then view this marble and be vain no more | Z |
| - | |
| Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage | G |
| Her modest cheek shall warm a future age | G |
| Beauty frail flower that every season fears | T |
| Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years | T |
| Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts surprise | W |
| And other beauties envy Worsley's eyes | W |
| Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow | V |
| And soft Belinda's blush for ever glow | V |
| - | |
| Oh lasting as those colours may they shine | B |
| Free as thy stroke yet faultless as thy line | B |
| New graces yearly like thy works display | I |
| Soft without weakness without glaring gay | I |
| Led by some rule that guides but not constrains | A2 |
| And finish'd more through happiness than pains | A2 |
| The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire | E |
| One dip the pencil and one string the lyre | B2 |
| Yet should the Graces all thy figures place | D |
| And breathe an air divine on every face | D |
| Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll | C2 |
| Strong as their charms and gentle as their soul | C2 |
| With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie | M |
| And these be sung till Granville's Myra die | M |
| Alas how little from the grave we claim | F |
| Thou but preserv'st a face and I a name | F |
Alexander Pope
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