I.
But now, as Yorkshire dragon's was,
The poet's sting too in the tail is:
“Long as a flail,” the ballad says;
And there no fence against a flail is.
Music can care and frenzy quell,
Make discord bland and envy hearty;
Nay, make the fiend forego his hell,
But not the Whig forget his party.
II.
Let Pope of Orpheus talk no more;
For Handel's organ can go further:
Were all things into chaos tore,
He could restore them into order.
Lions to tame, or teach a jig
To trees, is but a simple story:
He can extract a passive Whig
Out of a furious rebel Tory.
III.
Behold how Pope in genuine beauty shines,
And sings harmonious his unborrow'd lines:
“Intestine war no more our passions wage;
E'en giddy factions hear away their rage.”
His bullion is; thine, wire alone:
The colour stays, the weight is gone.
“Some secret power the storm restrains,”
You tell us, “when the tempest reigns.”
Know you not, then, the Power who bade it blow,
And taught the' obedient surges where to flow?
The God who made the seas, alone, can say,
“Hither, ye billows, roll; and here, thou whirlwind, stay!”
