Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose

What you recommend to me with the solemnity of a last request shall have its due weight with me. That disdain and indignation ag ...

so safe to join in an assassination as in a libel. I will consult my safety so far as I think becomes a prudent man, but not so ...

your last to me, and to perform it with temper, justice and resolution. As your approbation, (being the testimony of a sound hea ...

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 ...

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 ...

(Some say his queen) was forced to speak or burst: And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my ...

One from all Grub Street will my fame defend, And, more abusive, calls himself my friend. This prints my Letters, that expects a ...

A painted mistress, or a purling stream. 150 Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. ...

All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate. 190 How did they fume, and stamp, and ro ...

With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castalian state. 230 Pr ...

I was not born for courts or great affairs: I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head, No ...

Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk? Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel, Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’ Yet le ...

The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laughed at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad ...

That harmless mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! Unspotted names, and memorable long! ...

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE IMITATED To Mr Fortescue P. There are (I scarce can think it, but am told) There a ...

They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a year; And justly Caesar scorns the poet’s lays,— It is to history he trusts for prai ...

Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors. Save but our army! and let Jove incrust Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlastin ...

Could pensioned Boileau lash, in honest strain, Flatterers and bigots even in Louis’ reign? Could Laureate Dryden pimp and frair ...

P. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed! 150 But grave epistles, bringing vice to light, Such as a king might read, a bisho ...

Sworn to no master, of no sect am I: As drives the storm, at any door I knock: And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke; ...