Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

VII

Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre :

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;
When to her organ vocal breath was given,

An angel heard, and straight appeared,

Mistaking earth for heaven.

Grand Chorus

As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the bless'd above;

So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

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THE PERIOD OF CLASSICISM

MATTHEW PRIOR

1664-1721

AN ODE

THE merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name :
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre,

Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;

When Chloe noted her desire,

That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;

But with my numbers mix my sighs: And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,

I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.

Fair Chloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd :
I sung and gaz'd: I played and trembled:

And Venus to the Loves around

Remark'd how ill we all dissembled.

JOHN GAY

1685-1732

GO, ROSE, MY CHLOE'S BOSOM GRACE

'Go, rose, my Chloe's bosom grace!

How happy should I prove,

Might I supply that envied place

With never-fading love!

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15

There, Phoenix-like, beneath her eye,
Involved in fragrance, burn and die!
Know, hapless flower! that thou shalt find
More fragrant roses there;

I see thy with'ring head reclined

With envy and despair!

One common fate we both must prove;
You die, with envy; I, with love.'

O, RUDDIER THAN THE CHERRY

[From Acis and Galatea]

O, RUDDIER than the cherry!
O, sweeter than the berry!

O, Nymph more bright
Than moonshine night!
Like kidlings blithe and merry!

Ripe as the melting cluster !

No lily has such luster!

Yet hard to tame

As raging flame;

And fierce as storms that bluster !

ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM

[From Part II]

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools,

5

ΙΟ

5

ΙΟ

Whatever nature has in worth denied,

She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind:
Pride, where wit fails, steps into our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend and ev'ry foe.

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
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,
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 tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last :
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way,

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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

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Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;

Nor lose for that malignant dull delight,

The gen'rous 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,
(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprise,

All comes united to th' admiring eyes ;

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No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;
The whole at once is bold, and regular.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
In ev'ry work regard the writer's end,

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Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,
T' avoid great errors, must the less commit:
Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,
For not to know some trifles, is a praise.
Most critics, fond of some subservient art,
Still make the whole depend upon a part:
They talk of principles, but notions prize,
And all to one loved folly sacrifice.

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Once on a time, La Mancha's Knight, they say, A certain bard encount'ring on the way, Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,

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As e'er could Dennis of the Grecian stage;
Concluding all were desp'rate sots and fools,
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.
Our author, happy in a judge so nice,

Produced his play, and begged the knight's advice;