University of Virginia Library


195

EPIGRAM XLVII.

[Let poets for goddesses rack their invention]

BREVIS ESSE LABORO.

Let poets for goddesses rack their invention;
Let philosophers dress up ideas of virtue;
Let historians to merit invite our attention,
While fable, or fancy, or fact, they recur to:—
We can put all they say, aye and more, all they mean,
Into one little syllable's compass—the Queen!