A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:8 There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts, 220

While from the bounded level of our mind Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

But more advanced, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the
sky,

Th' eternal snows appear already past,

last;

But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way, 230
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandering

eyes,

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the
mind;

240

Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight,
The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep,
We cannot blame indeed-but we may sleep.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportioned
dome,

That gives us back the image of our mind. 300
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.
For works may have more wit than does them
good,

As bodies perish through excess of blood.

Others for language all their care express, And value books, as women men, for dress: Their praise is still, the style is excellent : The sense they humbly take upon content.14 Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found:
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, 311
Its gaudy colours spreads on every place;
The face of nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay:
But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate 'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;

(That e'en in slumber caused her cheek to glow)

Seemed to her ear his winning lips to lay, And thus in whispers said, or seemed to say:

"Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care Of thousand bright inhabitants of air! If e'er one vision touched thy infant thought, Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught, Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, The silver token, and the circled green, Or virgins visited by angel powers, With golden crowns and wreaths of heavenly

flowers;

Hear and believe! thy own importance know, Nor bound thy narrow views to things below.

31

and in the present enlarged form in 1714. The
subject, proposed to Pope by one Mr. Caryll,
was suggested by a trifling feud that had
arisen between two families because Lord
Petre, a dapper little baron, had cut a lock
from the head of Miss Arabella Fermor
("Belinda"). The opening is in imitation of
classic epics, more especially of Virgil's Æneid.
The chief addition in the later form is the
machinery of sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and
salamanders, spirits inhabiting air, earth,
water, and fire, respectively. Dr. Johnson pro-
nounced the poem "the most airy, the most
ingenious, and the most delightful" of all the
author's compositions, and De Quincey went so
far as to declare it "the most exquisite monu-
ment of playful fancy that universal literature
offers."
4 Silver pieces dropped
by falries into the
shoes of tidy maids.

1 Summoning the lady's-
maid.

2 A striking-watch.

3 One befitting the royal birthday ball.

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears; Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side, Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride. Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here The various offerings of the world appear; 130 From each she nicely culls with curious toil, And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.

And mighty hearts are held in slender chains.
With hairy springes, we the birds betray,
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey,
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Th' adventurous baron the bright locks admired;

He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired. 30
Resolved to win, he meditates the way,

By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover's toil attends,

Not with more glories, in th' ethereal plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-dressed youths around
her shone,

But every eye was fixed on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those; 10
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride.
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to
hide;

If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
Nourished two locks, which graceful hung be
hind

In equal curls, and well conspired to deck 21
With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck.
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,

1 head-dress

The rest the winds dispersed in empty air.

But now secure the painted vessel glides,
The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides;
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And softened sounds along the waters die; 50
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play,
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.
All but the sylph-with careful thoughts op-
pressed,

Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.
He summons straight his denizens of air;
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair;
Soft o'er the shrouds aërial whispers breathe,
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 61
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,2
Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies.
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes,
While every beam new transient colours flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their
wings.

Amid the circle, on the gilded mast
Superior by the head, was Ariel placed;

1 Ponderous romances.

like Mlle. de Scudéry's Le Grand Cyrus and Clélie, then in vogue.

70

His purple pinions opening to the sun, He raised his azure wand, and thus begun: "Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear!

Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons, hear!
Ye know the spheres, and various tasks as-
signed

By laws eternal to th' aërial kind.
Some in the fields of purest æther play,
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day.
Some guide the course of wandering orbs on
high,

Or roll the planets through the boundless sky.
Some less refined, beneath the moon's pale
light
81
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night,
Or suck the mists in grosser air below,
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow,
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main,
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain;
Others on earth o'er human race preside,
Watch all their ways, and all their actions
guide:

Of these the chief the care of nations own,
And guard with arms divine the British throne.
"Our humbler province is to tend the fair, 91
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
To save the powder from too rude a gale,
Nor let th' imprisoned essences exhale;

To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers; To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers,

A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay, oft in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a flounce, or add a furbelow. "This day, black omens threat the brightest fair

100

That e'er deserved a watchful spirit 's care;
Some dire disaster, or by force, or sleight;
But what, or where, the fates have wrapped in
night.

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade;
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock
must fall.
110

Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair;

The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign;
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favourite lock;
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock.

3 ear-rings

"Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,

Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins;
Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie,
Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye;
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogged he beats his silken wings in
vain;

Or alum styptics with contracting power 131
Shrink his thin essence like a rivelled flower;
Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling mill,5
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!"

He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend; Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend; Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair; Some hang upon the pendants of her ear; 140 With beating hearts the dire event they wait, Anxiou and trembling for the birth of fate.

In various talk th' instructive hours they passed,

Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,

20