Quotes
Quotes - Pope
E'en copious Dryden wanted or forgot
The last and greatest art,--the art to blot.
Who pants for glory finds but short repose:
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.
There still remains to mortify a wit
The many-headed monster of the pit.
Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise.
Years following years steal something every day;
At last they steal us from ourselves away.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spoke.
Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honour'd at the House of Lords.
Vain was the chief's the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.
O thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy-chair.
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,
But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
Next o'er his books his eyes begin to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole.
Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is sav'd by beauties not his own.
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
Another, yet the same.
Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn,
And Pan to Moses lends his pagan horn.
All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to fame.
Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous; --answer him, ye owls!
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
