Poems. ODE ON SOLITUDE. HAPPY the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, In winter fire. Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, Quiet by day. Sound sleep by night; study and ease, With meditation. Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. [In a letter to Henry Cromwell, July 17, 1709, Pope says-" Having a vacant space here, I will fill it with a short Ode on Solitude, which I found yesterday by great accident, and which I find by the date was written when I was not twelve years old; that you may perceive how long I have continued in my passion for a rural life, and in the same employment of it." The original letter is now before us-a beautiful specimen of penmanship -and it confirms what we have said as to Pope's correction of his early pieces. Two lines in the first stanza of the poem had been erased and rewritten, and stand as follows: And in the first line of the fourth verse, instead of "sound sleep by night," we have "repose at night." Very little of the original poem, written in the poet's twelfth year, can now remain. Dr. Johnson considered there was nothing in this piece more than other forward boys have attained, and that it was not equal to Cowley's performances at the same age. It is more correct, the distinguishing feature of Pope's early poems; but as it is always interesting to compare such manifestations of genius, we subjoin an effusion of Cowley's in the same sentimental strain, written when he was thirteen years old. "The beginning of it," Cowley himself observes, "is boyish, but of this part which I here set down (if a very little were corrected) I should hardly now be much ashamed: " "This only grant me that my means may lie Some honour I would have, Not from good deeds, but good alone: Rumour can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends Books should, not business, entertain the light, Than palace, and should fitting be For all my use, no luxury. My garden painted o'er With Nature's hand, not Art's, and pleasures yield Thus would I double my life's fading space- These unbought sports, that happy state I would not fear nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them-I have lived to-day!" The paraphrase of Horace in the concluding lines is obvious enough; but the poem is wonderful for a boy of thirteen, who published a collection of poems at fifteen.] TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED SUCCESSIO. BEGONE, ye critics, and restrain your spite, And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky. [The author of "Successio" was Elkanah Settle, the London City Poet, the Doeg of Dryden's satire. Pope, as the legitimate successor of "Glorious John," continued his feuds and enmities, as well as his friendships, and Elkanah occupies a prominent place in the Dunciad. Settle's poem was written on the accession of Queen Anne in 1702. He had previously dis. tinguished himself by writing against the Duke of York, after James II., as the Popish Successor.] |