away,
  And those they left me; for they left me Gay;
  Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
  Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: 
  Of all thy blameless life the sole return
  My verse, and Queensbury weeping o’er thy urn! 
    Oh, let me live my own, and die so too! 
  (To live and die is all I have to do:)
  Maintain a poet’s dignity and ease,
  And see what friends, and read what books I please;
  Above a patron, though I condescend
  Sometimes to call a minister my friend. 
  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;
  Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. 
    Why am I asked what next shall see the light? 
  Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? 
  Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
  Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? 
  “I found him close with Swift”—­“Indeed? no doubt,”
  (Cries prating Balbus) “something will come out.” 
  ’Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. 
  No, such a genius never can lie still;
  And then for mine obligingly mistakes
  The first lampoon Sir Will,[203] or Bubo[204] makes. 
  Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
  When every coxcomb knows me by my style? 
    Cursed be the verse, how well soe’er it flow,
  That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
  Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
  Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear! 
  But he who hurts a harmless neighbour’s peace,
  Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress,
  Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
  Who writes a libel, or who copies out: 
  That fop, whose pride affects a patron’s name,
  Yet absent, wounds an author’s honest fame: 
  Who can your merit selfishly approve,
  And show the sense of it without the love;
  Who has the vanity to call you friend,
  Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend;
  Who tells whate’er you think, whate’er you say,
  And, if he lie not, must at least betray: 
  Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear,[205]
  And sees at canons what was never there;
  Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
  Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie. 
  A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
  But all such babbling blockheads in his stead. 
    Let Sporus[206] tremble—­
    A.  What? that thing of silk,
  Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk? 
  Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? 
  Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
    P.  Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
  This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
  Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
  Yet wit ne’er tastes, and beauty ne’er enjoys: 
  So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
  In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 
  Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,