Authors are judged by strange capricious rules; The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools: Yet sure the best are most severely fated; For fools are only laugh'd at, wits are hated....
When Learning, after the long Gothic night, Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light, With arts arising, Sophonisba rose; The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes....
Roxana, from the Court returning late, Sigh'd her soft sorrow at St James's gate: Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast, Not her own chairmen with more weight oppress'd:...
Say, lovely youth, that dost my heart command, Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand? Must then her name the wretched writer prove, To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?...
Say, lovely youth, that dost my heart command, Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand? Must then her name the wretched writer prove, To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?...
What, and how great, the virtue and the art To live on little with a cheerful heart; (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine) Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;...
First in these fields I try the sylvan strains, Nor blush to sport on Windsor's blissful plains: Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring, While on thy banks Sicilian Muses sing;...
A Shepherd's Boy (he seeks no better name) Led forth his flocks along the silver Thame, Where dancing sun-beams n the waters play'd, And verdant alders form'd a quiv'ring shade....
I. To one fair lady out of Court, And two fair ladies in, Who think the Turk and Pope a sport, And wit and love no sin! Come, these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,...
The Mighty Mother, and her son who brings The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings, I sing. Say you, her instruments the great! Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;...