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POPE. 



BY SIR EGERTON BRYDGES. 



WRITTEN MAY 14, 1831. 



THE wild confusions of the mind to clear, 



Make objects in their genuine light appear, 



Direct the movements of the generous heart, 



And courage to the humble to impart 



Of Virtue arid of Wisdom claims the praise, 



And, if it does not win, deserves the bays. 



The moral lesson, clothed in gentle rhyme, 



Does not in empty toils consume the time ; 



And light upon the intellect to throw, 



May teach what it were sinful not to know : 10 



Our thoughts and feelings right to regulate, 



Is the first duty of the human state ; 



And if the head and bosom be not pure, 



Action correct but shortly will endure. 



" But who," perchance the censor rude will plead, 



" Of strains beyond the present stores has need? 



Our bards their streams abundant have supplied, 



The listener by immortal verse to guide ; 



And Pope has told us all that taste requires 



To learn from lessons of didactic lyres/' 20 



But who on moral truths, exhaustless fields, 

 The sceptre of extended empire wields? 

 Various the powers that suit to various climes ; 

 So various genius works for various times. 

 The manners change ; the passions take their course 

 In various paths, by accident or force. 

 Language in fashions new, attention calls, 

 While the same tune, for e'er repeated, palls. 

 In Pope, sense, harmony, expression pure, 

 Clear, terse, and strong, the critic's praise secure : 30 



But it has something of mechanic art, 

 Which fails too oft to move the human heart. 

 It is a studied intellectual strain, 

 Which, rather than the bosom, tries the brain : 

 In reason strong, words polished and concise, 

 It forces on the judgment its advice : 

 But, in the burst of overwhelming song, 

 It rarely pours the tide of verse along. 

 The words combined by pressure more than ease, 

 By strength compel us, not by nature seize. 40 



But oft the thoughts are, like the language, dry ; 

 Or pleasure only to the ear supply. 



Yet such is genius whatsoe'er the way 

 It shows its mastery at the present day, 

 It leads the public taste ; and all submit 

 To think it the supremacy of wit. 

 M.M. No. 4. 3D 



