To Mr. Thomas Southern, On His Birth Day

Resign'd to live, prepar'd to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his tow'ring genius marks
In yonder wild goose and the larks!
The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden!
And for his judgement, lo a pudden!
Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, altho' a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom heav'n send down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
He ev'ry birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.

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

In Imitation Of E. Of Rochester : On Silence

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Epitaph XIV. On Edmund Duke Of Buckingham, Who Died In The Nineteenth Year Of His Age, 1735.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

Impromptu, To Lady Winchelsea

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

The First Epistle Of The First Book Of Horace.

Alexander Pope, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Prologue, Designed For Mr D'Urfey's Last Play.

Grown old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard
Your persevering, unexhausted bard;
Damnation follows death in other men,
But your damn'd poet lives and writes again.
The adventurous lover is successful still,
Who strives to please the fair against her will:
Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.
He scorn'd to borrow from the wits of yore,
But ever writ, as none e'er writ before.
You modern wits, should each man bring his claim,
Have desperate debentures on your fame;
And little would be left you, I'm afraid,
If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
From this deep fund our author largely draws,
Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
Though plays for honour in old time he made,
'Tis now for better...

Alexander Pope

Book I. Epistle VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR SWIFT.

'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it--as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores:
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W---- and H---- both in town!

'The dog-days are no more the case.'
'Tis true, but winter comes apace:
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies toge...

Alexander Pope

A Farewell To London

IN THE YEAR 1715.

1 Dear, damn'd, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,
Ye harlots, sleep at ease!

2 Soft B----s and rough C----s, adieu!
Earl Warwick, make your moan,
The lively H----k and you
May knock up whores alone.

3 To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman's toll;
Let Jervas gratis paint, and Frowde
Save threepence and his soul.

4 Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery
On every learnèd sot;
And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.

5 Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heaven gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips and fat Johnson.

6 Why should I stay? Both parties rage;<...

Alexander Pope

To The Rev. Charles Overton, Curate Of Romaldkirk.

AUTHOR OF THE POETICAL PORTRAITURE OF THE CHURCH.


Sweet singer of Romaldkirk, thou who art reckoned,
By critics Episcopal, David the Second,^[1]
If thus, as a Curate, so lofty your flight,
Only think, in a Rectory, how you would write!
Once fairly inspired by the "Tithe-crowned Apollo,"
(Who beats, I confess it, our lay Phoebus hollow,
Having gotten, besides the old Nine's inspiration,
The Tenth of all eatable things in creation.)
There's nothing in fact that a poet like you,
So be-nined and be-tenthed, couldn't easily do.

Round the lips of the sweet-tongued Athenian^[2] they say,
While yet but a babe in his cradle he lay,
Wild honey-bees swarmed as presage to tell
Of the sweet-flowing words that t...

Thomas Moore

1827; Or, The Poet's Last Poem.

Ye Bards in all your thousand dens,
Great souls with fewer pence than pens,
Sublime adorers of Apollo,
With folios full, and purses hollow;
Whose very souls with rapture glisten,
When you can find a fool to listen;
Who, if a debt were paid by pun,
Would never be completely done.
Ye bright inhabitants of garrets,
Whose dreams are rich in ports and clarets,
Who, in your lofty paradise,
See aldermanic banquets rise--
And though the duns around you troop,
Still float in seas of turtle soup.
I here forsake the tuneful trade,
Where none but lordlings now are paid,
Or where some northern rogue sits puling,
(The curse of universal schooling)--
A ploughman to his country lost,
An author to his printer's cost--
A slave to every man who'll buy ...

Thomas Gent

Satires And Epistles Of Horace Imitated. - Satire II. To Mr Bethel.

What, and how great, the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart;
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;
Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound philosophy aside;
Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll,
And the brain dances to the mantling bowl.

Hear Bethel's sermon, one not versed in schools,
But strong in sense, and wise without the rules.

Go, work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began)
Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can.
Your wine lock'd up, your butler stroll'd abroad,
Or fish denied (the river yet unthaw'd),
If then plain bread and milk will do the feat,
The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat.

Preach as I please, I doubt our curious me...

Alexander Pope