Epistles To Mr. Pope. Epistle Ii. From Oxford Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDDEEFFGHIIJJKKLM NNOPQQRROSSSJJSSMLSS TTUUSSSSVVWWSSXXYYSS ZZYYJJA2A2JJTTYYYYSS B2B2XXSSYYYYJJSSEC2Y YJJHGSSYYJJSSSSD2E2S SE2E2YYTTYYFFF2F2EEG 2G2H2H2B2B2SSSSXXI2I 2EEYYE2D2J2J2YYYYSSS SHGWWK2K2SSWWYYSSL2L 2SSYYSSD2E2B2B2QQM2M 2YYN2N2D2D2O2JZZWWYY I2I2SSD2D2YYSSYYTTF2 F2SSSSJ2J2P2P2Q2Q2VV D2D2K2K2F2F2SSF2F2SS D2D2R2R2SS| All write at London shall the rage abate | A |
| Here where it most should shine the muses' seat | B |
| Where mortal or immortal as they please | C |
| The learn'd may choose eternity or ease | C |
| Has not a royal patron wisely strove | D |
| To woo the muse in her Athenian grove | D |
| Added new strings to her harmonious shell | E |
| And given new tongues to those who spoke so well | E |
| Let these instruct with truth's illustrious ray | F |
| Awake the world and scare our owls away | F |
| Meanwhile O friend indulge me if I give | G |
| Some needful precepts how to write and live | H |
| Serious should be an author's final views | I |
| Who write for pure amusement ne'er amuse | I |
| An author 'tis a venerable name | J |
| How few deserve it and what numbers claim | J |
| Unblest with sense above their peers refin'd | K |
| Who shall stand up dictators to mankind | K |
| Nay who dare shine if not in virtue's cause | L |
| That sole proprietor of just applause | M |
| Ye restless men who pant for letter'd praise | N |
| With whom would you consult to gain the bays | N |
| With those great authors whose fam'd works you read | O |
| 'Tis well go then consult the laurell'd shade | P |
| What answer will the laurell'd shade return | Q |
| Hear it and tremble he commands you burn | Q |
| The noblest works his envied genius writ | R |
| That boast of nought more excellent than wit | R |
| If this be true as 'tis a truth most dread | O |
| Woe to the page which has not that to plead | S |
| Fontaine and Chaucer dying wish'd unwrote | S |
| The sprightliest efforts of their wanton thought | S |
| Sidney and Waller brightest sons of fame | J |
| Condemn the charm of ages to the flame | J |
| And in one point is all true wisdom cast | S |
| To think that early we must think at last | S |
| Immortal wits ev'n dead break nature's laws | M |
| Injurious still to virtue's sacred cause | L |
| And their guilt growing as their bodies rot | S |
| Revers'd ambition pant to be forgot | S |
| Thus ends your courted fame does lucre then | T |
| The sacred thirst of gold betray your pen | T |
| In prose 'tis blameable in verse 'tis worse | U |
| Provokes the muse extorts Apollo's curse | U |
| His sacred influence never should be sold | S |
| 'Tis arrant simony to sing for gold | S |
| 'Tis immortality should fire your mind | S |
| Scorn a less paymaster than all mankind | S |
| If bribes you seek know this ye writing tribe | V |
| Who writes for virtue has the largest bribe | V |
| All's on the party of the virtuous man | W |
| The good will surely serve him if they can | W |
| The bad when interest or ambition guide | S |
| And 'tis at once their interest and their pride | S |
| But should both fail to take him to their care | X |
| He boasts a greater friend and both may spare | X |
| Letters to man uncommon light dispense | Y |
| And what is virtue but superior sense | Y |
| In parts and learning you who place your pride | S |
| Your faults are crimes your crimes are double dyed | S |
| What is a scandal of the first renown | Z |
| But letter'd knaves and atheists in a gown | Z |
| 'Tis harder far to please than give offence | Y |
| The least misconduct damns the brightest sense | Y |
| Each shallow pate that cannot read your name | J |
| Can read your life and will be proud to blame | J |
| Flagitious manners make impressions deep | A2 |
| On those that o'er a page of Milton sleep | A2 |
| Nor in their dulness think to save your shame | J |
| True these are fools but wise men say the same | J |
| Wits are a despicable race of men | T |
| If they confine their talents to the pen | T |
| When the man shocks us while the writer shines | Y |
| Our scorn in life our envy in his lines | Y |
| Yet proud of parts with prudence some dispense | Y |
| And play the fool because they're men of sense | Y |
| What instances bleed recent in each thought | S |
| Of men to ruin by their genius brought | S |
| Against their wills what numbers ruin shun | B2 |
| Purely through want of wit to be undone | B2 |
| Nature has shown by making it so rare | X |
| That wit's a jewel which we need not wear | X |
| Of plain sound sense life's current coin is made | S |
| With that we drive the most substantial trade | S |
| Prudence protects and guides us wit betrays | Y |
| A splendid source of ill ten thousand ways | Y |
| A certain snare to miseries immense | Y |
| A gay prerogative from common sense | Y |
| Unless strong judgment that wild thing can tame | J |
| And break to paths of virtue and of fame | J |
| But grant your judgment equal to the best | S |
| Sense fills your head and genius fires your breast | S |
| Yet still forbear your wit consider well | E |
| 'Tis great to show but greater to conceal | C2 |
| As it is great to seize the golden prize | Y |
| Of place or power but greater to despise | Y |
| If still you languish for an author's name | J |
| Think private merit less than public fame | J |
| And fancy not to write is not to live | H |
| Deserve and take the great prerogative | G |
| But ponder what it is how dear 'twill cost | S |
| To write one page which you may justly boast | S |
| Sense may be good yet not deserve the press | Y |
| Who write an awful character profess | Y |
| The world as pupil of their wisdom claim | J |
| And for their stipend an immortal fame | J |
| Nothing but what is solid or refin'd | S |
| Should dare ask public audience of mankind | S |
| Severely weigh your learning and your wit | S |
| Keep down your pride by what is nobly writ | S |
| No writer fam'd in your own way pass o'er | D2 |
| Much trust example but reflection more | E2 |
| More had the ancients writ they more had taught | S |
| Which shows some work is left for modern thought | S |
| This weigh'd perfection know and known adore | E2 |
| Toil burn for that but do not aim at more | E2 |
| Above beneath it the just limits fix | Y |
| And zealously prefer four lines to six | Y |
| Write and re write blot out and write again | T |
| And for its swiftness ne'er applaud your pen | T |
| Leave to the jockeys that Newmarket praise | Y |
| Slow runs the Pegasus that wins the bays | Y |
| Much time for immortality to pay | F |
| Is just and wise for less is thrown away | F |
| Time only can mature the labouring brain | F2 |
| Time is the father and the midwife pain | F2 |
| The same good sense that makes a man excel | E |
| Still makes him doubt he ne'er has written well | E |
| Downright impossibilities they seek | G2 |
| What man can be immortal in a week | G2 |
| Excuse no fault though beautiful 'twill harm | H2 |
| One fault shocks more than twenty beauties charm | H2 |
| Our age demands correctness Addison | B2 |
| And you this commendable hurt have done | B2 |
| Now writers find as once Achilles found | S |
| The whole is mortal if a part's unsound | S |
| He that strikes out and strikes not out the best | S |
| Pours lustre in and dignifies the rest | S |
| Give e'er so little if what's right be there | X |
| We praise for what you burn and what you spare | X |
| The part you burn smells sweet before the shrine | I2 |
| And is as incense to the part divine | I2 |
| Nor frequent write though you can do it well | E |
| Men may too oft though not too much excel | E |
| A few good works gain fame more sink their price | Y |
| Mankind are fickle and hate paying twice | Y |
| They granted you writ well what can they more | E2 |
| Unless you let them praise for giving o'er | D2 |
| Do boldly what you do and let your page | J2 |
| Smile if it smiles and if it rages rage | J2 |
| So faintly Lucius censures and commends | Y |
| That Lucius has no foes except his friends | Y |
| Let satire less engage you than applause | Y |
| It shows a gen'rous mind to wink at flaws | Y |
| Is genius yours be yours a glorious end | S |
| Be your king's country's truth's religion's friend | S |
| The public glory by your own beget | S |
| Run nations run posterity in debt | S |
| And since the fam'd alone make others live | H |
| First have that glory you presume to give | G |
| If satire charms strike faults but spare the man | W |
| 'Tis dull to be as witty as you can | W |
| Satire recoils whenever charg'd too high | K2 |
| Round your own fame the fatal splinters fly | K2 |
| As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart | S |
| Good breeding sends the satire to the heart | S |
| Painters and surgeons may the structure scan | W |
| Genius and morals be with you the man | W |
| Defaults in those alone should give offence | Y |
| Who strikes the person pleads his innocence | Y |
| My narrow minded satire can't extend | S |
| To Codrus' form I'm not so much his friend | S |
| Himself should publish that the world agree | L2 |
| Before his works or in the pillory | L2 |
| Let him be black fair tall short thin or fat | S |
| Dirty or clean I find no theme in that | S |
| Is that call'd humour It has this pretence | Y |
| 'Tis neither virtue breeding wit or sense | Y |
| Unless you boast the genius of a Swift | S |
| Beware of humour the dull rogue's last shift | S |
| Can others write like you Your task give o'er | D2 |
| 'Tis printing what was publish'd long before | E2 |
| If nought peculiar through your labours run | B2 |
| They're duplicates and twenty are but one | B2 |
| Think frequently think close read nature turn | Q |
| Men's manners o'er and half your volumes burn | Q |
| To nurse with quick reflection be your strife | M2 |
| Thoughts born from present objects warm from life | M2 |
| When most unsought such inspirations rise | Y |
| Slighted by fools and cherish'd by the wise | Y |
| Expect peculiar fame from these alone | N2 |
| These make an author these are all your own | N2 |
| Life like their Bibles coolly men turn o'er | D2 |
| Hence unexperienc'd children of threescore | D2 |
| True all men think of course as all men dream | O2 |
| And if they slightly think 'tis much the same | J |
| Letters admit not of a half renown | Z |
| They give you nothing or they give a crown | Z |
| No work e'er gain'd true fame or ever can | W |
| But what did honour to the name of man | W |
| Weighty the subject cogent the discourse | Y |
| Clear be the style the very sound of force | Y |
| Easy the conduct simple the design | I2 |
| Striking the moral and the soul divine | I2 |
| Let nature art and judgment wit exceed | S |
| O'er learning reason reign o'er that your creed | S |
| Thus virtue's seeds at once and laurel's grow | D2 |
| Do thus and rise a Pope or a Despreau | D2 |
| And when your genius exquisitely shines | Y |
| Live up to the full lustre of your lines | Y |
| Parts but expose those men who virtue quit | S |
| A fallen angel is a fallen wit | S |
| And they plead Lucifer's detested cause | Y |
| Who for bare talents challenge our applause | Y |
| Would you restore just honours to the pen | T |
| From able writers rise to worthy men | T |
| Who's this with nonsense nonsense would restrain | F2 |
| Who's this they cry so vainly schools the vain | F2 |
| Who damns our trash with so much trash replete | S |
| As three ells round huge Cheyne rails at meat | S |
| Shall I with Bavius then my voice exalt | S |
| And challenge all mankind to find one fault | S |
| With huge examens overwhelm my page | J2 |
| And darken reason with dogmatic rage | J2 |
| As if one tedious volume writ in rhyme | P2 |
| In prose a duller could excuse the crime | P2 |
| Sure next to writing the most idle thing | Q2 |
| Is gravely to harangue on what we sing | Q2 |
| At that tribunal stands the writing tribe | V |
| Which nothing can intimidate or bribe | V |
| Time is the judge time has nor friend nor foe | D2 |
| False fame must wither and the true will grow | D2 |
| Arm'd with this truth all critics I defy | K2 |
| For if I fall by my own pen I die | K2 |
| While snarlers strive with proud but fruitless pain | F2 |
| To wound immortals or to slay the slain | F2 |
| Sore prest with danger and in awful dread | S |
| Of twenty pamphlets levell'd at my head | S |
| Thus have I forg'd a buckler in my brain | F2 |
| Of recent form to serve me this campaign | F2 |
| And safely hope to quit the dreadful field | S |
| Delug'd with ink and sleep behind my shield | S |
| Unless dire Codrus rouses to the fray | D2 |
| In all his might and damns me for a day | D2 |
| As turns a flock of geese and on the green | R2 |
| Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen | R2 |
| Ridiculous in rage to hiss not bite | S |
| So war their quills when sons of dulness write | S |
Edward Young
(1)
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About Epistles To Mr. Pope. Epistle Ii. From Oxford
Epistles To Mr. Pope. Epistle Ii. From Oxford is a poem by Edward Young. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.