Others

In wit a man, simplicity a child.

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many wiles.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.

Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.

If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.

But where’s the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleas’d to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance. ’Tis not enough no harshness gives offense; The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th’ unlearn’d, and make the learned smile.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

True wit is nature to advantage dress’d, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.

True wit is nature to advantage dress’d, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

When we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.

Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer.

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.