Charms, fuch as hers, inimitably great,
He only can exprefs, that can create.
Could't thou extract the whiteness of the fnow,
Or of its colours rob the heavenly bow,
Yet would her beauty triumph o'er thy skill,
Lovely in thee, herself more lovely ftill!
Thus in the limpid fountain we defcry
The faint refemblance of the glittering sky;
Another fun difplays his leffen'd beams,
Another heaven adorns th' enlightned ftreams;
But though the scene be fair, yet high above
Th' exalted fkies in nobler beauties move;
There the true heaven's eternal lamps display
A deluge of inimitable day.
To Mr. POPE, on his Works, 1726.
ET vulgar fouls triumphal arches raife,
And speaking marble to record their praise ; Or carve with fruitless toil, to fame unknown, The mimic feature on the breathing stone; Mere mortals, fubject to death's total sway, Reptiles of earth, and beings of a day! 'Tis thine, on every heart to grave thy praise, A monument which worth alone can raife; Sure to furvive, when time fhall whelm in duft, The arch, the marble, and the mimic buft; Nor till the volumes of th' expanded sky Blaze in one flame, fhalt Thou and Homer die;
When fink together in the world's last fires
What heaven created, and what heaven infpires.
If aught on earth, when once this breath is fled, With human transport touch the mighty dead; Shakespeare rejoice! his hand thy page refines, Now every scene with native brightness shines; Juft to thy fame, he gives thy genuine thought, So Tully publish'd what Lucretius wrote; Prun'd by his care, thy laurels loftier grow, And bloom afresh on thy immortal brow.
Thus when thy draughts, O Raphael, time invades,
And the bold figure from the canvas fades ;
A rival hand recalls from every part
Some latent grace, and equals art with art;
Transported we furvey the dubious ftrife,
While the fair image starts again to life.
How long untun'd had Homer's facred lyre
Jarr'd grating difcord, all extin&t his fire?
This you beheld; and, taught by heaven to fing,
Call'd the loud mufic from the founding ftring;
Now wak'd from flumbers of three thousand years,
Once more Achilles in dread pomp appears,
Towers o'er the field of death; as fierce he turns,
Keen flash his arms, and all the hero burns ;
His plume nods horrible, his helm on high
With cheeks of iron glares against the sky ;
With martial stalk, and more than mortal might,
He ftrides along, he meets the Gods in fight;
Then the pale Titans, chain'd on burning flores,
Start at the din that rends th' infernal shores;
Tremble the towers of heaven; earth rocks her coafts,
And gloomy Pluto shakes with all his ghosts.
To every theme responds thy various lay,
Here pours a torrent, there meanders play;
Sonorous as the ftorm thy numbers rife,
Tofs the wild waves, and thunder in the skies;
Or fofter than a yielding virgin's figh,
The gentle breezes breathe away, and die.
How twangs the bow, when with a jarring spring
The whizzing arrows vanish from the string!
When giants ftrain some rock's vast weight to shove,
The flow verfe heaves, and the clogg'd words fcarce move;
But when from high it rolls, with many a bound,
Jumping it thundering whirls, and rushes to the ground:
Swift flows the verfe when winged lightnings fly,
Dart from the dazzled view, and flash along the fky:
Thus, like the radiant God who sheds the day,
The vale you paint, or gild the azure way;
And, while with every theme the verfe complies,
Sink, without groveling; without rashness, rife.
Proceed, great bard, awake th' harmonious string, Be ours all Homer, ftill Ulyffes fing!
Ev'n I, the meaneft of the Mufes train,
Inflam'd by thee, attempt a nobler firain;
Adventurous waken the Mæonian lyre,
Tun'd by your hand, and fing as you inspire ;
*The author tranflated eight books of the Odyssey.
So arm'd by great Achilles for the fight,
Patroclus conquer'd in Achilles' might;
Like theirs our friendship! and I boaft my name
To thine united, for thy friendship's fame.
How long Ulyffes, by unfkilful hands
Stript of his robes, a beggar trod our lands,
Such as he wander'd o'er his native coaft,
Shrunk by the wand, and all the hero loft;
O'er his fmooth fkin a bark of wrinkles fpread,
Old age difgrac'd the honours of his head;
Nor longer in his heavy eye-ball fhin'd
The glance divine forth-beaming from the mind:
But you, like Pallas, every limb infold
With royal robes, and bid him fhine in gold;
Touch'd by your hand, his manly frame improves
With air divine, and like a God he moves.
This labour paft, of heavenly fubjects fing,
While hovering angels liften on the wing;
To hear from earth fuch heart-felt raptures rife,
As, when they fing, fufpended hold the fkies:
Or, nobly rifing in fair virtue's caufe,
From thy own life tranfcribe th' unerring laws;
Teach a bad world beneath her fway to bend,
To verfe like thine fierce favages attend,
And men more fierce! When Orpheus tunes the lay,
Ev'n fiends relenting hear their rage away.
See the 16th Odyffey, ver. 186, and 476.
Part of the TENTH BOOK of the ILIADS of
In the Stile of MILTON.
Now high advanc'd the night, o'er all the hoft
Sleep fhed his fofteft balm; restless alone
Atrides lay, and cares revolv'd on cares.
As when with rifing vengeance gloomy Jove
Pours down a watery deluge, or in storms
Of hail or fnow commands the goary jaws
Of war to roar; through all the kindling skies,
With flaming wings on lightnings lightnings play:
So while Atrides meditates the war,
Sighs after fighs burst from his manly breast,
And shake his inmoft foul: round o'er the fields
To Troy he turns his eyes, and round beholds
A thousand fires blaze dreadful; through his ears
Paffes the direful fymphony of war,
Of fife, or pipe, and the loud hum of hofts
Strikes him difmay'd: Now o'er the Grecian tents
His eyes he rolls; now from his royal head
Rends the fair curl in facrifice to Jove,
And his brave heart heaves with imperial woes.
Thus groans the thoughtful king, at length refolves To feek the Pylian fage, in wife debate
To ripen high defigns, and from the sword
Preferve his banded legions: Pale and fad
Uprofe the monarch: inftant o'er his breast
A robe he threw, and on his royal feet
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