The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Alexander Pope

  The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,

  The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod.

  240 See them survey their limbs by Durer’s rules,

  Of all beau-kind the best proportioned fools!

  Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw

  Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw:

  But oh! what terrors must distract the soul

  Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole!

  Or should one pound of powder less bespread

  Those monkey tails that wag behind their head!

  Thus finished, and corrected to a hair,

  They march, to prate their hour before the fair.

  250 So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes,

  With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,

  Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim,

  Neatness itself impertinent in him.

  Let but the ladies smile, and they are blest;

  Prodigious! how the things protest, protest.

  Peace, fools! or Gonson will for papists seize you,

  If once he catch you at your ‘Jesu! Jesu!’

  Nature made ev’ry fop to plague his brother,

  Just as one beauty mortifies another.

  260 But here’s the captain, that will plague them both;

  Whose air cries ‘Arm!’ whose very look’s an oath,

  Though his soul’s bullet, and his body buff!

  Damn him, he’s honest, sir – and that’s enough.

  He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,

  Like batt’ring rams, beats open ev’ry door;

  And with a face as red, and as awry,

  As Herod’s hang-dogs in old tapestry,

  Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman’s curse,

  Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;

  270 Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,

  Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.

  Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so

  As men from jails to execution go,

  For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,

  And lined with giants, deadlier than them all:

  Each man an Ascapart, of strength to toss,

  For quoits, both Temple Bar and Charing Cross.

  Scared at the grisly forms, I sweat, I fly,

  And shake all o’er, like a discovered spy.

  280 Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine;

  Charge them with Heaven’s artill’ry, bold divine!

  From such alone the great rebukes endure,

  Whose satire’s sacred, and whose rage secure.

  ’Tis mine to wash a few light stains; but theirs

  To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.

  Howe’er, what’s now apocrypha, my wit,

  In time to come, may pass for holy writ.

  An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot

  Neque sermonibus vulgi dederis te, nec in praemiis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum; suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Quid de te alii loquantur, ipsi videant, sed loquentur tamen.

  ADVERTISEMENT

  This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the authors of Verses to the imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a doctor of divinity from a nobleman at Hampton Court) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

  Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please.

  I would have some of them know it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.

  ‘Shut, shut the door, good John!’ fatigued, I said;

  ‘Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.’

  The dog-star rages! nay, ’tis past a doubt

  All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

  Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

  They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

  What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?

  They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide,

  By land, by water, they renew the charge,

  10 They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.

  No place is sacred, not the church is free,

  E’vn Sunday shines no sabbath day to me:

  Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,

  Happy to catch me, just at dinner time.

  Is there a parson much bemused in beer,

  A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

  A clerk foredoomed his father’s soul to cross,

  Who pens a stanza when he should engross?

  Is there, who locked from ink and paper, scrawls

  20 With desp’rate charcoal round his darken’d walls?

  All fly to Twit’nam, and in humble strain

  Apply to me to keep them mad or vain.

  Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,

  Imputes to me and my damned works the cause;

  Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,

  And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

  Friend to my life (which did not you prolong,

  The world had wanted many an idle song),

  What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?

  30 Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love?

  A dire dilemma! either way I’m sped;

  If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.

  Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I!

  Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie.

  To laugh were want of goodness and of grace,

  And to be grave exceeds all power of face.

  I sit with sad civility, I read

  With honest anguish and an aching head,

  And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

  40 This saving counsel, ‘Keep your piece nine years.’

  ‘Nine years!’ cries he, who high in Drury Lane,

  Lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,

  Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,

  Obliged by hunger and request of friends.

  ‘The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it,

  I’m all submission: what you’d have it, make it.’

  Three things another’s modest wishes bound,

  My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.

  Pitholeon sends to me: ‘You know his Grace,

  50 I want a patron; ask him for a place.’

  Pitholeon libelled me – ‘but here’s a letter

  Informs you, sir, ’twas when he knew no better.

  Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,

  He’ll write a journal, or he’ll turn divine.’

  Bless me! a packet – ’Tis a stranger sues,

  A virgin tragedy, an orphan Muse.’

  If I dislike it, ‘Furies, death, and rage!’

  If I approve, ‘Commend it to the stage.’

  There (thank my stars) my whole c
ommission ends,

  60 The play’rs and I are, luckily, no friends.

  Fired that the house rejects him, ‘’Sdeath, I’ll print it,

  And shame the fools – your interest, sir, with Lintot.’

  Lintot,dull rogue! will think your price too much:

  ‘Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.’

  All my demurs but double his attacks;

  At last he whispers, ‘Do, and we go snacks.’

  Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door;

  ‘Sir, let me see your works and you no more.’

  ’Tis sung, when Midas’ ears began to spring

  70 (Midas, a sacred person and a king),

  His very minister who spied them first

  (Some say his queen) was forced to speak or burst.

  And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,

  When ev’ry coxcomb perks them in my face?

  ‘Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang’rous things;

  I’d never name queens, ministers, or kings;

  Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,

  ’Tis nothing’ – Nothing! if they bite and kick?

  Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,

  80 That secret to each fool, that he’s an ass.

  The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?),

  The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

  You think this cruel? take it for a rule,

  No creature smarts so little as a fool.

  Let peals of laughter, Codrus, round thee break,

  Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack:

  Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled,

  Thou stand’st unshook amidst a bursting world.

  Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,

  90 He spins the slight self-pleasing thread anew:

  Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain;

  The creature’s at his dirty work again,

  Throned in the centre of his thin designs,

  Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!

  Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,

  Lost the arched eyebrow or Parnassian sneer?

  And has not Colley still his lord and whore?

  His butchers Henley? his freemasons Moore?

  Does not one table Bavius still admit?

  100 Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?

  Still Sappho – ‘Hold! for God’s sake – you’ll offend.

  No names – be calm – learn prudence of a friend:

  I too could write, and I am twice as tall;

  But foes like these’ – One flatt’rer’s worse than all.

  Of all mad creatures, if the learn’d are right,

  It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.

  A fool quite angry is quite innocent;

  Alas! ’tis ten times worse when they repent.

  One dedicates in high heroic prose,

  110 And ridicules beyond a hundred foes;

  One from all Grub Street will my fame defend,

  And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.

  This prints my letters, that expects a bribe,

  And others roar aloud, ‘Subscribe, subscribe!’

  There are who to my person pay their court:

  I cough like Horace; and, though lean, am short;

  Ammon’s great son one shoulder had too high,

  Such Ovid’s nose, and ‘Sir! you have an eye –.’

  Go on, obliging creatures! make me see

  120 All that disgraced my betters met in me.

  Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed,

  ‘Just so immortal Maro held his head’;

  And when I die, be sure you let me know

  Great Homer died three thousand years ago.

  Why did I write? what sin to me unknown

  Dipped me in ink, my parents’, or my own?

  As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

  I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came;

  I left no calling for this idle trade,

  130 No duty broke, no father disobeyed:

  The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,

  To help me through this long disease, my life,

  To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,

  And teach the being you preserved to bear.

  ‘But why then publish?’ Granville the polite,

  And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;

  Well natured Garth inflamed with early praise,

  And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays;

  The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,

  140 Ev’n mitred Rochester would nod the head,

  And St John’s self (great Dryden’s friends before)

  With open arms received one poet more.

  Happy my studies, when by these approved!

  Happier their author, when by these beloved!

  From these the world will judge of men and books,

  Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.

  Soft were my numbers; who could take offence

  While pure description held the place of sense?

  Like gentle Fanny’s was my flow’ry theme,

  150 A painted mistress, or a purling stream.

  Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;

  I wished the man a dinner, and sat still;

  Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;

  I never answered; I was not in debt.

  If want provoked, or madness made them print,

  I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.

  Did some more sober critic come abroad,

  If wrong, I smiled, if right, I kissed the rod.

  Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,

  160 And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.

  Commas and points they set exactly right,

  And ’twere a sin to rob them of their mite.

  Yet ne’er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds,

  From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds:

  Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells,

  Each word-catcher that lives on syllables,

  E’vn such small critics some regard may claim,

  Preserved in Milton’s or in Shakespeare’s name.

  Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

  170 Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!

  The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,

  But wonder how the devil they got there.

  Were others angry, I excused them too;

  Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.

  A man’s true merit ’tis not hard to find;

  But each man’s secret standard in his mind,

  That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,

  This, who can gratify? for who can guess?

  The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,

  180 Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,

  Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

  And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year;

  He who still wanting, though he lives on theft,

  Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left;

  And he who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,

  Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;

  And he whose fustian’s so sublimely bad,

  It is not poetry, but prose run mad:

  All these, my modest satire bade translate,

  190 And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.

  How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!

  And swear not Addison himself was safe.

  Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires

  True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,

  Blessed with each talent and each art to please,

  And born to write, converse, and live with ease;

  Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,

  Bear, like the Tu
rk, no brother near the throne;

  View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,

  200 And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;

  Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

  And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;

  Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,

  Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;

  Alike reserved to blame or to commend,

  A tim’rous foe, and a suspicious friend;

  Dreading ev’n fools, by flatterers besieged,

  And so obliging that he ne’er obliged;

  Like Cato, give his little senate laws,

  210 And sit attentive to his own applause;

  While wits and templars ev’ry sentence raise,

  And wonder with a foolish face of praise –

  Who but must laugh if such a man there be?

  Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

  What though my name stood rubric on the walls,

  Or plastered posts, with claps, in capitals?

  Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers’ load,

  On wings of winds came flying all abroad?

  I sought no homage from the race that write;

  220 I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight:

  Poems I heeded (now berhymed so long)

  No more than thou, great George! a birthday song.

  I ne’er with wits or witlings passed my days

  To spread about the itch of verse and praise;

  Nor like a puppy daggled through the town

  To fetch and carry sing-song up and down;

  Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouthed, and cried,

  With handkerchief and orange at my side;

  But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,

  230 To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.

  Proud as Apollo on his forkèd hill

  Sat full blown Bufo, puffed by ev’ry quill:

  Fed with soft dedication all day long,

  Horace and he went hand in hand in song.

  His library (where busts of poets dead,

  And a true Pindar stood without a head)

  Received of wits an undistinguished race,

  Who first his judgement asked, and then a place:

  Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat,

  240 And flattered ev’ry day, and some days eat:

  Till grown more frugal in his riper days,

  He paid some bards with port, and some with praise;