Horace, Book IV, Ode IX, Addressed To Archbishop King,[1] 1718

Virtue conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure;
Or suffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame,
In good and evil times, the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
    Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;[2]
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,
With life, his country or his friend.

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is remembered for works such as "A Tale of a Tub" (1704), "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1712), and "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier's Letters as MB Drapier—and works were sometimes attributed to Anonymous.

Jonathan Swift

Epitaph On Frederick, Duke Of Schomberg[1]

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

The Dog And Thief.

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

The Yahoo's Overthrow, Or, The Kevan Bayl's New Ballad, Upon Sergeant Kite's Insulting The Dean [1]

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

To Charles Mordaunt, Earl Of Peterborough[1]

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

English

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Horace, Book III, Ode II; To The Earl Of Oxford, Late Lord Treasurer

SENT TO HIM WHEN IN THE TOWER, 1716

These spirited verses, although they have not the affecting pathos of those addressed by Pope to the same great person, during his misfortunes, evince the firmness of Swift's political principles and personal attachment. - Scott. See Moral Essays, Epistle V, Pope's "Works," edit. Elwin and Courthope, iii, 191.


How blest is he who for his country dies,
Since death pursues the coward as he flies!
The youth in vain would fly from Fate's attack;
With trembling knees, and Terror at his back;
Though Fear should lend him pinions like the wind,
Yet swifter Fate will seize him from behind.
    Virtue repulsed, yet knows not to repine;
But shall with unattainted honour shine;
Nor stoops to take the staff, nor lays it down,
Just as the...

Jonathan Swift

The Birth Of Manly Virtue

Inscribed To Lord Carteret[1] (Verses Written During Lord Carteret's Administration Of Ireland)
1724

Gratior et pulcro veniens in corpore virtus. - VIRG., Aen., v, 344.

Once on a time, a righteous sage,
Grieved with the vices of the age,
Applied to Jove with fervent prayer -
"O Jove, if Virtue be so fair
As it was deem'd in former days,
By Plato and by Socrates,
Whose beauties mortal eyes escape,
Only for want of outward shape;
Make then its real excellence,
For once the theme of human sense;
So shall the eye, by form confined,
Direct and fix the wandering mind,
And long-deluded mortals see,
With rapture, what they used to flee!"
    Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth,
And bids him bless and mend the earth.
Behold him ...

Jonathan Swift

The Fourth Epistle Of The First Book Of Horace.[128]

Say, St John, who alone peruse
With candid eye the mimic Muse,
What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?
'Or shoots he folly as it flies?
Or catches manners as they rise?'
Or urged by unquench'd native heat,
Does St John Greenwich sports repeat?
Where (emulous of Chartres' fame)
E'en Chartres' self is scarce a name.

To you (the all-envied gift of heaven)
The indulgent gods, unask'd, have given
A form complete in every part,
And, to enjoy that gift, the art.

What could a tender mother's care
Wish better, to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful fluency of speech,

Alexander Pope

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

Odes From Horace. - To The Hon. Thomas Erskine. Horace, Book The Second, Ode The Third, Imitated.

OCTOBER 1796.


Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast,
O, ERSKINE! still an equal mind maintain,
That wild Ambition ne'er may goad thy rest,
Nor Fortune's smile awake thy triumph vain,

Whether thro' toilsome tho' renowned years
'T is thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze,
Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares
To high decrees devote thy honor'd days.

Where silver'd Poplars with the stately Pines
Mix their thick branches in the summer sky,
And the cool stream, whose trembling surface shines,
Laboriously oblique, is hurrying by;

There let thy duteous Train the banquet bring,
In whose bright cups the liquid ruby flows,
As Life's warm season, on expanded wing,
Presents her too, too transitory rose;

While every Mu...

Anna Seward

A Dialogue Between An Eminent Lawyer[1] And Dr. Jonathan Swift, D.S.P.D. In Allusion To Horace, Book II, Satire I

"Sunt quibus in Satirâ," etc.

WRITTEN BY MR. LINDSAY, IN 1729


DR. SWIFT

Since there are persons who complain
There's too much satire in my vein;
That I am often found exceeding
The rules of raillery and breeding;
With too much freedom treat my betters,
Not sparing even men of letters:
You, who are skill'd in lawyers' lore,
What's your advice? Shall I give o'er?
Nor ever fools or knaves expose,
Either in verse or humorous prose:
And to avoid all future ill,
In my scrutoire lock up my quill?

LAWYER

    Since you are pleased to condescend
To ask the judgment of a friend,
Your case consider'd, I must think
You should withdraw from pen and ink,
Forbear your poetry and jokes,
And live like other Christian ...

Jonathan Swift