The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Alexander Pope

  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,

  340 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;

  350 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,

  360 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.

  370 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:

  380 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.

  Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such

  Who still are pleased 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.

  390 Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move,

  For fools admire, but men of sense approve:

  As things seem large which we through mist descry,

  Dullness is ever apt to magnify.

  Some foreign writers, some our own despise;

  The ancients only, or the moderns prize:

  Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied

  To one small sect, and all are damned beside.

  Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,

  And force that sun but on a part to shine,

  400 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;

  Though 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.

  Some ne’er advance a judgement of their own,

  But catch the spreading notion of the town;

  410 They reason and conclude by precedent,

  And own stale nonsense which they ne’er invent.

  Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then

  Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

  Of all this servile herd, the worst is he

  That in proud dullness joins with quality,

  A constant critic at the great man’s board,

  To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord.

  What woeful stuff this madrigal would be

  In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me!

  420 But let a lord once own the happy lines,

  How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

  Before his sacred name flies ev’ry fault,

  And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

  The vulgar thus through imitation err,

  As oft the learn’d by being singular;

  So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng

  By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.

  So schismatics the plain believers quit,

  And are but damned for having too much wit.

  430 Some praise at morning what they blame at night,

  But always think the last opinion right.

  A Muse by these is like a mistress used,

  This hour she’s idolized, the next abused;

  While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,

  ’Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.

  Ask them the cause: they’re wiser still, they say;

  And still tomorrow’s wiser than today.

  We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;

  Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so.

  440 Once school-divines this zealous isle o’erspread;

  Who knew most sentences was deepest read;

  Faith, gospel, all seemed made to be disputed,

  And none had sense enough to be confuted.

  Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain

  Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane.

  If faith itself has diff’rent dresses worn,

  What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?

  Oft, leaving what is natural and fit,

  The current folly proves the ready wit;

  450 And authors think their reputation safe,

  Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.

  Some, valuing those of their own side or mind,

  Still make themselves the measure of mankind:

  Fondly we think we honour merit then,

  When we but praise ourselves in other men.

  Parties in wit attend on those of state,

  And public faction doubles private hate.

  Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose,

  In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaus:

  460 But sense survived when merry jests were past,

  For rising merit will buoy up at last.

  Might he return and bless once more our eyes,

  New Blackmores and new Milbournes must arise;

  Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,

  Zoilus again would start up from the dead.

  Envy will merit as its shade pursue,

  But like a shadow, proves the substance true;

  For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known

  Th’ opposing body’s grossness, not its own.

  470 When first that sun too powerful beams displays,

  It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;

  But e’en those clouds at last adorn its way,

  Reflect new glories, and augment the day.

  Be thou the first true merit to befriend;

  His praise
is lost who stays till all commend.

  Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes,

  And ’tis but just to let them live betimes.

  No longer now that golden age appears,

  When patriarch wits survived a thousand years;

  480 Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,

  And bare threescore is all ev’n that can boast:

  Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,

  And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.

  So when the faithful pencil has designed

  Some bright idea of the master’s mind,

  Where a new world leaps out at his command,

  And ready nature waits upon his hand;

  When the ripe colours soften and unite,

  And sweetly melt into just shade and light;

  490 When mell’wing years their full perfection give,

  And each bold figure just begins to live;

  The treach’rous colours the fair art betray,

  And all the bright creation fades away!

  Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,

  Atones not for that envy which it brings:

  In youth alone its empty praise we boast,

  But soon the short-lived vanity is lost;

  Like some fair flower the early spring supplies,

  That gaily blooms, but ev’n in blooming dies.

  500 What is this wit, which must our cares employ?

  The owner’s wife that other men enjoy;

  Then most our trouble still when most admired,

  And still the more we give, the more required;

  Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,

  Sure some to vex, but never all to please;

  ’Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;

  By fools ’tis hated, and by knaves undone!

  If wit so much from ign’rance undergo,

  Ah, let not learning too commence its foe!

  510 Of old those met rewards who could excel,

  And such were praised who but endeavoured well:

  Though triumphs were to gen’rals only due,

  Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

  Now they who reach Parnassus’ lofty crown

  Employ their pains to spurn some others down;

  And while self-love each jealous writer rules,

  Contending wits become the sport of fools;

  But still the worst with most regret commend,

  For each ill author is as bad a friend.

  520 To what base ends, and by what abject ways,

  Are mortals urged through sacred lust of praise!

  Ah, ne’er so dire a thirst of glory boast,

  Nor in the critic let the man be lost.

  Good nature and good sense must ever join;

  To err is human, to forgive, divine.

  But if in noble minds some dregs remain,

  Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain,

  Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,

  Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.

  530 No pardon vile obscenity should find,

  Though wit and art conspire to move your mind;

  But dullness with obscenity must prove

  As shameful sure as impotence in love.

  In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease,

  Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase;

  When love was all an easy monarch’s care;

  Seldom at council, never in a war;

  Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ;

  Nay wits had pensions, and young lords had wit;

  540 The fair sat panting at a courtier’s play,

  And not a mask went unimproved away;

  The modest fan was lifted up no more,

  And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.

  The following licence of a foreign reign

  Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain;

  Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation,

  And taught more pleasant methods of salvation,

  Where Heav’n’s free subjects might their rights dispute,

  Lest God himself should seem too absolute:

  550 Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare,

  And vice admired to find a flatt’rer there!

  Encouraged thus, wit’s Titans braved the skies,

  And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies.

  These monsters, critics! with your darts engage,

  Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!

  Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,

  Will needs mistake an author into vice:

  All seems infected that th’ infected spy,

  As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

  Part III

  Rules for the conduct and manners in a critic. Candour. Modesty. Good breeding. Sincerity and freedom of advice. When one’s counsel is to be restrained. Character of an incorrigible poet. And of an impertinent critic. Character of a good critic. The history of criticism, and characters of the best critics; Aristotle. Horace. Dionysius. Petronius. Quintilian. Longinus. Of the decay of Criticism, and its revival. Erasmus. Vida. Boileau. Lord Roscommon, etc. Conclusion.

  560 Learn then what morals critics ought to show,

  For ’tis but half a judge’s task to know.

  ’Tis not enough taste, judgement, learning join;

  In all you speak let truth and candour shine,

  That not alone what to your sense is due

  All may allow, but seek your friendship too.

  Be silent always when you doubt your sense,

  And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence;

  Some positive persisting fops we know,

  Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;

  570 But you with pleasure own your errors past,

  And make each day a critique on the last.

  ’Tis not enough your counsel still be true;

  Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;

  Men must be taught as if you taught them not,

  And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

  Without good breeding, truth is disapproved;

  That only makes superior sense belov’d.

  Be niggards of advice on no pretence,

  For the worst avarice is that of sense.

  580 With mean complacence ne’er betray your trust,

  Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.

  Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;

  Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

  ’Twere well might critics still this freedom take,

  But Appius reddens at each word you speak,

  And stares, tremendous, with a threat’ning eye,

  Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.

  Fear most to tax an honourable fool,

  Whose right it is, uncensured, to be dull:

  590 Such, without wit, are poets when they please,

  As without learning they can take degrees.

  Leave dang’rous truths to unsuccessful satyrs,

  And flattery to fulsome dedicators;

  Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more

  Than when they promise to give scribbling o’er.

  ’Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,

  And charitably let the dull be vain:

  Your silence there is better than your spite,

  For who can rail so long as they can write?

  600 Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep,

  And lashed so long, like tops, are lashed asleep.

  False steps but help them to renew the race,

  As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.

  What crowds of these, impenitently bold,

  In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,

  Still run on poets, in a raging vein,

  Ev’n to the dregs and squeezings of the brai
n,

  Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,

  And rhyme with all the rage of impotence.

  610 Such shameless bards we have; and yet ’tis true,

  There are as mad abandoned critics too.

  The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,

  With loads of learnèd lumber in his head,

  With his own tongue still edifies his ears,

  And always list’ning to himself appears.

  All books he reads, and all he reads assails,

  From Dryden’s Fables down to Durfey’s Tales.

  With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;

  Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

  620 Name a new play, and he’s the poet’s friend;

  Nay, showed his faults – but when would poets mend?

  No place so sacred from such fops is barred,

  Nor is Paul’s church more safe than Paul’s churchyard:

  Nay, fly to altars; there they’ll talk you dead,

  For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

  Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks;

  It still looks home, and short excursions makes;

  But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,

  And never shocked, and never turned aside,

  630 Bursts out, resistless, with a thund’ring tide.

  But where’s the man who counsel can bestow,

  Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?

  Unbiased or by favour or by spite,

  Not dully prepossessed nor blindly right;

  Though learn’d, well bred, and though well bred, sincere;

  Modestly bold, and humanly severe;

  Who to a friend his faults can freely show,

  And gladly praise the merit of a foe?

  Blessed with a taste exact, yet unconfined;

  640 A knowledge both of books and human kind;

  Gen’rous converse; a soul exempt from pride;

  And love to praise, with reason on his side?

  Such once were critics; such the happy few

  Athens and Rome in better ages knew.

  The mighty Stagyrite first left the shore,

  Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore;

  He steered securely, and discovered far,

  Led by the light of the Maeonian star.

  Poets, a race long unconfined and free,

  650 Still fond and proud of savage liberty,

  Received his laws, and stood convinced ’twas fit

  Who conquered nature should preside o’er wit.