Imitations Of Horace: The First Epistle Of The Second Book Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Ne Rubeam Pingui donatus Munere	A
Horace Epistles II i	B
While you great patron of mankind sustain	C
The balanc'd world and open all the main	C
Your country chief in arms abroad defend	D
At home with morals arts and laws amend	D
How shall the Muse from such a monarch steal	E
An hour and not defraud the public weal	E
Edward and Henry now the boast of fame	F
And virtuous Alfred a more sacred name	F
After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd	G
The Gaul subdu'd or property secur'd	G
Ambition humbled mighty cities storm'd	H
Or laws establish'd and the world reform'd	H
Clos'd their long glories with a sigh to find	I
Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind	I
All human virtue to its latest breath	J
Finds envy never conquer'd but by death	J
The great Alcides ev'ry labour past	K
Had still this monster to subdue at last	K
Sure fate of all beneath whose rising ray	A
Each star of meaner merit fades away	A
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat	L
Those suns of glory please not till they set	M
	-
To thee the world its present homage pays	N
The harvest early but mature the praise	N
Great friend of liberty in kings a name	F
Above all Greek above all Roman fame	F
Whose word is truth as sacred and rever'd	O
As Heav'n's own oracles from altars heard	P
Wonder of kings like whom to mortal eyes	Q
None e'er has risen and none e'er shall rise	Q
	-
Just in one instance be it yet confest	P
Your people Sir are partial in the rest	P
Foes to all living worth except your own	R
And advocates for folly dead and gone	S
Authors like coins grow dear as they grow old	P
It is the rust we value not the gold	P
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote	P
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote	P
One likes no language but the Faery Queen	T
A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green	T
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil	E
He swears the Muses met him at the Devil	E
	-
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires	U
Why should not we be wiser than our sires	U
In ev'ry public virtue we excel	E
We build we paint we sing we dance as well	E
And learned Athens to our art must stoop	V
Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop	V
	-
If time improve our wit as well as wine	W
Say at what age a poet grows divine	W
Shall we or shall we not account him so	X
Who died perhaps an hundred years ago	X
End all dispute and fix the year precise	Y
When British bards begin t'immortalize	Q
	-
Who lasts a century can have no flaw	E
I hold that wit a classic good in law	E
	-
Suppose he wants a year will you compound	P
And shall we deem him ancient right and sound	P
Or damn to all eternity at once	Z
At ninety nine a modern and a dunce	Z
	-
We shall not quarrel for a year or two	A2
By courtesy of England he may do	A2
	-
Then by the rule that made the horsetail bare	A
I pluck out year by year as hair by hair	A
And melt down ancients like a heap of snow	X
While you to measure merits look in Stowe	X
And estimating authors by the year	A
Bestow a garland only on a bier	A
	-
Shakespeare whom you and ev'ry playhouse bill	E
Style the divine the matchless what you will	E
For gain not glory wing'd his roving flight	P
And grew immortal in his own despite	P
Ben old and poor as little seem'd to heed	P
The life to come in ev'ry poet's creed	P
Who now reads Cowley if he pleases yet	P
His moral pleases not his pointed wit	P
Forgot his epic nay Pindaric art	P
But still I love the language of his heart	P
	-
Yet surely surely these were famous men	B2
What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben	B2
In all debates where critics bear a part	P
Not one but nods and talks of Jonson's art	P
Of Shakespeare's nature and of Cowley's wit	P
How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ	P
How Shadwell hasty Wycherley was slow	X
But for the passions Southerne sure and Rowe	X
These only these support the crowded stage	C2
From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age	C2
	-
All this may be the people's voice is odd	P
It is and it is not the voice of God	P
To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays	Z
And yet deny the Careless Husband praise	Z
Or say our fathers never broke a rule	E
Why then I say the public is a fool	E
But let them own that greater faults than we	D2
They had and greater virtues I'll agree	D2
Spenser himself affects the obsolete	P
And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet	P
Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound	P
Now serpent like in prose he sweeps the ground	P
In quibbles angel and archangel join	E2
And God the Father turns a school divine	W
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book	F2
Like slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook	F2
Or damn all Shakespeare like th' affected fool	E
At court who hates whate'er he read at school	E
	-
	-
But for the wits of either Charles's days	Z
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease	Z
Sprat Carew Sedley and a hundred more	A
Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er	A
One simile that solitary shines	Z
In the dry desert of a thousand lines	Z
Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page	C2
Has sanctified whole poems for an age	C2
	-
	-
I lose my patience and I own it too	A2
When works are censur'd not as bad but new	A2
While if our elders break all reason's laws	Z
These fools demand not pardon but applause	Z
	-
	-
On Avon's bank where flow'rs eternal blow	X
If I but ask if any weed can grow	X
One tragic sentence if I dare deride	P
Which Betterton's grave action dignified	P
Or well mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims	Z
Though but perhaps a muster roll of names	Z
How will our fathers rise up in a rage	C2
And swear all shame is lost in George's age	C2
You'd think no fools disgrac'd the former reign	C
Did not some grave examples yet remain	C
Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill	E
And having once been wrong will be so still	E
He who to seem more deep than you or I	B
Extols old bards or Merlin's Prophecy	D2
Mistake him not he envies not admires	Z
And to debase the sons exalts the sires	Z
Had ancient times conspir'd to disallow	E
What then was new what had been ancient now	E
Or what remain'd so worthy to be read	P
By learned critics of the mighty dead	P
	-
	-
In days of ease when now the weary sword	P
Was sheath'd and luxury with Charles restor'd	P
In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv'd	P
All by the King's example liv'd and lov'd	P
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excel	E
Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell	E
The soldier breath'd the gallantries of France	Z
And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance	Z
Then marble soften'd into life grew warm	G2
And yielding metal flow'd to human form	G2
Lely on animated canvas stole	E
The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul	E
No wonder then when all was love and sport	P
The willing Muses were debauch'd at court	P
On each enervate string they taught the note	P
To pant or tremble through an eunuch's throat	P
But Britain changeful as a child at play	A
Now calls in princes and now turns away	A
Now Whig now Tory what we lov'd we hate	P
Now all for pleasure now for Church and state	P
Now for prerogative and now for laws	Z
Effects unhappy from a noble cause	Z
	-
	-
Time was a sober Englishman would knock	H2
His servants up and rise by five o'clock	H2
Instruct his family in ev'ry rule	E
And send his wife to church his son to school	E
To worship like his fathers was his care	A
To teach their frugal virtues to his heir	A
To prove that luxury could never hold	P
And place on good security his gold	P
Now times are chang'd and one poetic itch	I2
Has sei	Z

Alexander Pope

Imitations Of Horace: The First Epistle Of The Second Book Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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