 | The poems (1969) |  |
527
22 [Lines of Composite Authorship]
But why, you'll say to me, this [OMITTED] song?Can these proud aims to private life belong?
Fair instances your verse unbidden brings,
The ambitious names of ministers and kings.
Am I that statesman whom a realm obeys?
What ready tributes will my mandate raise?
Or like the pontiff can my word command
Exacted sums from every pliant land,
That all of which the men of leisure read,
This taste and splendour, must from me proceed?
Tell me, if wits reprove or fortune frown,
Where is my hope but in the uncertain town.
Yet ere you urge, weigh well the mighty task:
Behold what sums one poet's dramas ask.
When Shakespeare shifts the place so oft to view,
Must each gay scene be beautiful and new?
Come, you who trade in ornament, appear,
Come, join your aids through all the busy year;
Plan, build and paint through each laborious day,
And let us once produce this finished play.
Yes, the proud cost allows some short suspense:
I grant the terrors of that word ‘expence’.
Did taste at once for full perfection call,
That sole objection might determine all.
But such just elegance not gained at ease,
Scarce wished and seen, may come by slow degrees
Today [OMITTED] may one fair grace restore,
And some kind season add one beauty more.
528
The critic's unities, 'tis sure, conspire;
And though no scenes suffice to deck the wild,
[OMITTED] round their works on whom the Muse has smiled,
Some scenes may still the fair design admit,
Chaste scenes which Addison or Philips writ.
Is but our just delight in one increased,
'Tis something gained to decency at least;
And what thy judgement first by nature planned,
May find completion from some future hand. &c.
The pomp [OMITTED]
| The poems (1969) | |