Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ON BENEVOLENCE:

AN

EPISTLE TO EUMENES.

KIND to my frailties still, Eumenes, hear;
Once more I try the patience of your ear.
Not oft I sing; the happier for the town,
So stunn'd already they're quite stupid grown
With monthly, daily-charming things I own.
Happy for them, I seldom court the Nine;
Another art, a serious art, is mine.

Of nauseous verses offer'd once a week,
You cannot say I did it, if you're sick.

'Twas ne'er my pride to shine by flashy fits
Amongst the Daily Advertiser wits.

Content if some few friends indulge my name,

So slightly am I stung with Love of Fame,

[blocks in formation]

I would not scrawl one hundred idle lines—
Not for the praise of all the magazines.

Yet once a moon, perhaps, I steal a night; And, if our Sire Apollo pleases, write.

You smile; but all the train the Muse that follow,

Christians and dunces, still we quote Apollo.
Unhappy still our Poets will rehearse

To Goths, that stare astonish'd at their verse;
To the rank tribes submit their virgin lays:
So gross, so bestial, is the lust of praise!

I to sound judges from the mob appeal, And write to those who most my subject feel. Eumenes, these dry moral lines I trust

With you, whom nought that's moral can disgust. With you I venture, in plain home-spun sense, What I imagine of Benevolence.

Of all the monsters of the human kind, What strikes you most is the low selfish mind."

« ZurückWeiter »