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The noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouse's silent tide,
When, 'scaped from literary cares,
I wander'd on his side.


My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree...

When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore;...

Far away in the twilight time
Of every people, in every clime,
Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
Born of water, and air, and fire,
Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud...

It chanced that while the pious troops of France
Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached,
What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands
(The Hur and Aaron meet for such a Moses),...

When Minerva, to give pleasure
To Prometheus, her well-loved one,
Brought a brimming bowl of nectar
From the glorious realms of heaven
As a blessing for his creatures,
And to pour into their bosoms...

The Dunciad. IN FOUR BOOKS.


A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER,

OCCASIONED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.

...

The dying need but little, dear, --
A glass of water's all,
A flower's unobtrusive face
To punctuate the wall,

A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,
And certainly that one...

I plead with tears to thee,
Sweet warbler of the shade,
Breathe not such strains to me,
The sweetest ever made.
Who bade thee slight my woes?
Who taught to pierce my heart?...

Well sang the Bard who called the grave, in strains
Thoughtful and sad, the "narrow house." No style
Of fond sepulchral flattery can beguile
Grief of her sting; nor cheat, where he detains...

Once the Emperor Charles of Spain,
With his swarthy, grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged, in mud and rain,
Some old frontier town of Flanders.

Up and down the dreary camp,...

Welcome! but yet no entrance, till we bless
First you, then you, and both for white success.
Profane no porch, young man and maid, for fear
Ye wrong the Threshold-god that keeps peace here:...

Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood,
Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood;
Well skill'd, in fight, the quivering lance to wield,
Or pour his arrows thro' th' embattled field:...

Time with his back against the mighty wall,
Which hides from view all future joy and sorrow,
Hears, without answer, the impatient call
Of puny man, to tell him of to-morrow.
...

"To every Form of being is assigned,"
Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,
"An 'active' Principle: howe'er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all natures; in the stars...

Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially to her who has perseveringly taken them down from my dictation. Towa...

You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
I the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,...

When the heavy, midnight shadows
Gather o'er a slumbering world,
And the banner folds of darkness
Are in gloomy pomp unfurled, -
Think, lone watcher, pale and tearful,
In thy sad, unpitied lot,...

Too tall our structures, and too swift our pace;
Not so we mount, not so we gain the race.
Too loud the voice of commerce in the land;
Not so truth speaks, not so we understand....

The fault is not mine if I love you too much,
I loved you too little too long,
Such ever your graces, your tenderness such,
And the music the heart gave the tongue.
...

"Tweet" pipes the robin as the cat creeps by
Her nestling young that in the elderns lie,
And then the bluecap tootles in its glee,
Picking the flies from orchard apple tree,...