And thus undoubtedly ’twill fare
    With what unhappy men shall dare
  To be successors to these great unknown,
    On learning’s high-establish’d throne. 
    Censure, and Pedantry, and Pride,
Numberless nations, stretching far and wide,
Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come forth
    From Ignorance’s universal North,
And with blind rage break all this peaceful government:  Yet shall the traces of your wit remain,
  Like a just map, to tell the vast extent
  Of conquest in your short and happy reign: 
    And to all future mankind shew
    How strange a paradox is true,
  That men who lived and died without a name
Are the chief heroes in the sacred lists of fame.

[Footnote 1:  “I have been told, that Dryden having perused these verses, said, ‘Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet;’ and that this denunciation was the motive of Swift’s perpetual malevolence to Dryden.”—­Johnson in his “Life of Swift.”—­W.  E. B.

In Malone’s “Life of Dryden,” p. 241, it is stated that John Dunton, the original projector of the Athenian Society, in his “Life and Errours,” 1705, mentions this Ode, “which being an ingenious poem, was prefixed to the fifth Supplement of the Athenian Mercury.”—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  The Ode I writ to the king in Ireland.—­Swift.]

[Footnote 3:  The floating island, which, by order of Neptune, became fixed for the use of Latona, who there brought forth Apollo and Diana.  See Ovid, “Metam.,” vi, 191, etc.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 4:  Gyges, who, thanks to the possession of a golden ring, which made him invisible, put Candaules to death, married his widow, and mounted the throne, 716 B.C.  See the story in Cicero, “De Off.,” iii, 9.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 5:  Proteus.  See Ovid, “Fasti,” lib. i.—­W.  E. B.]

TO MR. CONGREVE

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1693

Thrice, with a prophet’s voice, and prophet’s power,
  The Muse was called in a poetic hour,
And insolently thrice the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid;
Then with that grief we form in spirits divine,
Pleads for her own neglect, and thus reproaches mine. 
  Once highly honoured! false is the pretence
You make to truth, retreat, and innocence! 
Who, to pollute my shades, bring’st with thee down
The most ungenerous vices of the town;
Ne’er sprung a youth from out this isle before
I once esteem’d, and loved, and favour’d more,
Nor ever maid endured such courtlike scorn,
So much in mode, so very city-born;
’Tis with a foul design the Muse you send,
Like a cast mistress, to your wicked friend;
But find some new address, some fresh deceit,
Nor practise such an antiquated cheat;
These are the beaten methods of the stews,
Stale forms, of course, all mean deceivers use,