Works

Come gentle Air! th' AEolian shepherd said,
While Procris panted in the secret shade:
Come, gentle Air, the fairer Delia cries,
While at her feet her swain expiring lies....

O gate, how cam'st thou here?
Gate. I was brought from Chelsea last year,
Batter'd with wind and weather.
Inigo Jones put me together;
Sir Hans Sloane
Let me alone:
Burlington brought me hither.

Did Milton's prose, O Charles! thy death defend?
A furious foe unconscious proves a friend.
On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know,
A weak officious friend becomes a foe....

When other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavin, Delia, stay in town:
Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

What god, what genius did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?
'Twas friendship, warm as Phoebus, kind as Love,
And strong as Hercules.

Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad Mirror thro' the shadowy Cave;
Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,...

Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,...

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild;
In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child:
With native Humour temp'ring virtuous Rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above Temptation, in a low Estate, 5...

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song,
As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along:
But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride,
That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have died.

Authors the world and their dull brains have traced
To fix the ground where Paradise was placed;
Mind not their learned whims and idle talk;
Here, here's the place where these bright angels walk.

Pallas grew vapourish once, and odd,
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown'd, and, "Use," he cried, "those eyes...

Pallas grew vapourish once, and odd;
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess or for god,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown'd, and 'Use (he cried) those eyes...

1 Lest you should think that verse shall die,
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught, on the wings of truth to fly
Above the reach of vulgar song;

2 Though daring Milton sits sublime,...

Phryne had talents for mankind,
Open she was, and unconfin'd,
Like some free port of trade:
Merchants unloaded here their freight,
And Agents from each foreign state,
Here first their entry made.
...

Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chase,
To mountain wolves and all the savage race,
Wide o'er th' aerial vault extend thy sway,
And o'er th' infernal regions void of day....

Thou art my God, sole object of my love;
Not for the hope of endless joys above;
Nor for the fear of endless pains below,
Which they who love thee not must undergo.
...

"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well."

Grown old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard
Your persevering, unexhausted bard;
Damnation follows death in other men,
But your damn'd poet lives and writes again....

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:...

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:...