Epigram.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an English poet, best known for his satirical verse, including 'The Rape of the Lock' and 'The Dunciad'. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare. Pope was one of the greatest English poets and the foremost poet of the early 18th century. He also translated Homer. Despite suffering from numerous health problems, Pope made a significant impact on English literature and is remembered for his sharp wit and mastery of the heroic couplet.

Alexander Pope

On The Countess Of Burlington Cutting Paper.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

The Translator.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Verses Left By Mr Pope. On His Lying In The Same Bed Which Wilmot, The Celebrated Earl Of Rochester, Slept In At Adderbury, Then Belonging To The Duke Of Argyll, July 9, 1739.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Book IV. Ode I. To Venus.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

English

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Epigram.

A Bishop, by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated:
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place:
'Tis where God sent some that adore Him,
And whither Enoch went before him.

Alexander Pope

Couplets On Wit

I

But our Great Turks in wit must reign alone
And ill can bear a Brother on the Throne.


II

Wit is like faith by such warm Fools profest
Who to be saved by one, must damn the rest.


III

Some who grow dull religious strait commence
And gain in morals what they lose in sence.


IV

Wits starve as useless to a Common weal
While Fools have places purely for their Zea.

V

Now wits gain praise by copying other wits
As one Hog lives on what another sh---.


VI

Wou'd you your writings to some Palates fit
Purged all you verses from the sin of wit
For authors now are so conceited grown
They praise no works but what are like their own.

Alexander Pope

A Dialogue To The Memory Of Mr. Alexander Pope.

"Non injussa cano."
Virg.


POET. I sing of POPE--

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard,
Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!
POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo,
And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu!
POPE of the Ham-walks story--

P. Scandals all!
Scandals that now I care not to recall.
Surely a little, in two hundred Years,
One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:--
Surely Allowance for the Man may make
That had all Grub-street yelping in his Wake!
And who (I ask you) has been never Mean,
When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?
No: I prefer to look on POPE as one
Not rightly happy till his Life was done;
Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,
Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:"
Think of his ...

Henry Austin Dobson

The First Epistle Of The First Book Of Horace.

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

St John, whose love indulged my labours past,
Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Public too long, ah, let me hide my age!
See, modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retired to their estates,
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates,
In life's cool evening satiate of applause,
Nor fond of bleeding, even in Brunswick's cause.

A voice there is, that whispers in my ear,
('Tis reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)
'Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
And never gallop Pegasus to death;
Lest, still and stately, void of fire or force,
You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse.'

Fare...

Alexander Pope

In Imitation Of E. Of Rochester : On Silence

I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.

II.
Thine was the sway, ere heav'n was form'd, or earth,
Ere fruitful Thought conceiv'd creation's birth,
Or midwife Word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.

III.
Then various elements, against thee join'd,
In one more various animal combin'd,
And fam'd the clam'rous race of busy Human-kind.

IV.
The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,
'Till wrangling Science taught it noise and show,
And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.

V.
But rebel Wit deserts thee oft' in vain;
Lost in the maze of words he turns again,
And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle reign.

VI....

Alexander Pope

The Sixth Epistle Of The First Book Of Horace.

TO MR MURRAY.^[135]

'Not to admire, is all the art I know,
To make men happy, and to keep them so.'
(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech,
So take it in the very words of Creech.)^[136]

This vault of air, this congregated ball,
Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,
There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes
Look through and trust the Ruler with his skies,
To Him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful All without a fear.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;
All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?
Or popularity? or stars and strings?
The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?
Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze...

Alexander Pope