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;...
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense:...
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....
Sylvia my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd Awed without sense, and without beauty charm'd: But some odd graces and some flights she had, Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:...