and in due time,
     They turned upon the thought, and not the rime. 
     Thus in all parts disorders did abate;
     Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate,
     Insipid jesters and unpleasant fools,
     A corporation of dull, punning drolls. 
     ’Tis not but that sometimes a dextrous muse
     May with advantage a turned sense abuse,
     And on a word may trifle with address;
     But above all, avoid the fond excess,
     And think not, when your verse and sense are lame,
     With a dull point to tag your epigram.

     TO MOLIERE

     From ‘The Satires’

     Unequaled genius, whose warm fancy knows
     No rhyming labor, no poetic throes;
     To whom Apollo has unlocked his store;
     Whose coin is struck from pure Parnassian ore;
     Thou, dextrous master, teach thy skill to me,
     And tell me, Moliere, how to1 rhyme like thee!

     You never falter when the close comes round,
     Or leave the substance to preserve the sound;
     You never wander after words that fly,
     For all the words you need before you lie. 
     But I, who—­smarting for my sins of late—­
     With itch of rhyme am visited by fate,
     Expend on air my unavailing force,
     And, hunting sounds, am sweated like a horse. 
     In vain I often muse from dawn till night: 
     When I mean black, my stubborn verse says white;
     If I should paint a coxcomb’s flippant mien,
     I scarcely can forbear to name the Dean;
     If asked to tell the strains that purest flow,
     My heart says Virgil, but my pen Quinault;
     In short, whatever I attempt to say,
     Mischance conducts me quite the other way.

     At times, fatigued and fretted with the pain,
     When every effort for relief is vain,
     The fruitless chase I peevishly give o’er,
     And swear a thousand times to write no more: 
     But, after thousand vows, perhaps by chance,
     Before my careless eyes the couplets dance. 
     Then with new force my flame bursts out again,
     Pleased I resume the paper and the pen;
     And, all my anger and my oaths forgot,
     I calmly muse and resolutely blot.

     Yet, if my eager hand, in haste to rhyme,
     Should tack an empty couplet at a time,
     Great names who do the same I might adduce;
     Nay, some who keep such hirelings for their use. 
     Need blooming Phyllis be described in prose
     By any lover who has seen a rose?
     Who can forget heaven’s masterpiece, her eye,
     Where, within call, the Loves and Graces lie? 
     Who can forget her smile, devoid of art,
     Her heavenly sweetness and her frozen heart? 
     How easy thus forever to compound,
     And ring new changes on recurring sound;
     How easy, with a reasonable store