 | Poems on several occasions |  |
TO THE CONCEALED AUTHOR OF ------, 1708–9.
Such is the fate of modern writers still,
That those that least are able take the quill;
To fame by books they awkwardly aspire,
And doom them to the press and not the fire:
While you, by too much modesty confined,
Only in secret to yourself have shined;
(Like lamps of urns with subterranean light,
Your fire as lasting, and your flame as bright;)
Till, by some accident at length reveal'd,
You show the glories you had long conceal'd.
But, ah! as soon as to the public shown,
Let not the lustre be for ever gone.
Write! write again! your youthful Muse display;
Nor let there be a dawn without a day.
That those that least are able take the quill;
To fame by books they awkwardly aspire,
And doom them to the press and not the fire:
641
Only in secret to yourself have shined;
(Like lamps of urns with subterranean light,
Your fire as lasting, and your flame as bright;)
Till, by some accident at length reveal'd,
You show the glories you had long conceal'd.
But, ah! as soon as to the public shown,
Let not the lustre be for ever gone.
Write! write again! your youthful Muse display;
Nor let there be a dawn without a day.
Valour has in your verse his journey run,
Bright as the' inspiring god of wit,—the sun.
Our heroine in noble lines we see,
And Boadicea turns Penthesile.
Poetic Greece and warlike Rome conspire
To raise the English hero's glory higher.
You scorn to tell us in a vulgar strain
The naked actions of a great campaign.
Your artful Muse in never-dying lays
Finds means to praise him in another's praise.
So Virgil, in an age like ours refined,
A prince's praise judiciously design'd:
No truths unveil'd throughout the whole appear,
No Actian navy or Philippic war:
Starting from Troy he to Hesperia tends;
Begins at Venus, and at Cæsar ends.
Bright as the' inspiring god of wit,—the sun.
Our heroine in noble lines we see,
And Boadicea turns Penthesile.
Poetic Greece and warlike Rome conspire
To raise the English hero's glory higher.
You scorn to tell us in a vulgar strain
The naked actions of a great campaign.
Your artful Muse in never-dying lays
Finds means to praise him in another's praise.
So Virgil, in an age like ours refined,
A prince's praise judiciously design'd:
No truths unveil'd throughout the whole appear,
No Actian navy or Philippic war:
Starting from Troy he to Hesperia tends;
Begins at Venus, and at Cæsar ends.
| Poems on several occasions | |