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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto II.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But shall we take the Muse abroad,<br>To drop her idly on the road,<br>And leave our subject in the middle,<br>As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle?<br>Yet he, consummate master, knew<br>When to recede and where pursue:<br>His noble negligence teach<br>What others' toils despair to reach.<br>He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,<br>And balances your fear and hope.<br>If, after some distinguished leap,<br>He drops his pole, and seems to slip, <br>Straight gathering all his active strength,<br>He rises higher half his length:<br>With wonder you approve his sleight,<br>And owe your pleasure to your fright:<br>But like poor Andrew I advance,<br>False mimic of my master's dance;<br>Around the chord a while I sprawl,<br>And thence, though low, in earnest fall.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">My preface tells you I digress'd;<br>He's half absolved who has confess'd.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I like, quoth Dick, your simile,<br>And in return take two from me.<br>As masters in the <br>clare-obscure</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">With various light your eyes allure,<br>A flaming yellow here they spread,<br>Draw off in blue, or change in red;<br>Yet from these colours oddly mix'd<br>Your sight upon the whole is fix'd:<br>Or as, again, your courtly dames<br>(Whose clothes returning birthday claims)<br>By arts improve the stuffs they vary,<br>And things are best as most contrary;<br>The gown with stiff embroidery shining, <br>Looks charming with a slighter lining;<br>Look out, if Indian figure stain,<br>The in-side must be rich and plain:<br>So you, great authors, have thought fit<br>To make digression temper wit:<br>You calm them with a milder air:<br>To break their points you turn their force,<br>And furbelow the plain discourse.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Richard, quoth Matt, these words of thine<br>Speak something sly and something fine;<br>But I shall e'en resume my theme,<br>However thou may'st praise or blame.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">As people marry now and settle,<br>Fierce Love abates his usual mettle;<br>Worldly desires and household cares<br>Disturb the godhead's soft affairs:<br>So now, as health or temper changes,<br>In larger compass Alma ranges,<br>This day below, the next above,<br>As light or solid whimsies move.<br>So merchant has his house in Town,<br>And country seat near Bansted Down;<br>From one he dates his foreign letters,<br>Sends out his goods and duns his debtors:<br>In th' other, at his hours of leisure,<br>He smokes his pipe, and takes his pleasure.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And now your matrimonial Cupid,<br>Lash'd on by Time, grows tired and stupid:<br>For story and experience tell us<br>That man grows cold and woman jealous.<br>Both would their solid ends secure;<br>He sighs for freedom she for power:<br>His wishes tend abroad to roam,<br>And hers to domineer at home.<br>Thus passion flags by slow degrees,<br>And ruffled more delighted legs,<br>The busy mind does seldom go<br>To those once charming seats below;<br>For well-bred feints and future wars,<br>(When he last autumn lay a-dying)<br>Was but to gain him to appoint her<br>By codicil a larger jointure:<br>The woman finds it all a trick<br>That he could swoon when she was sick,<br>And knows that in that grief he reckon'd<br>One black-eyed Susan for his second.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thus having strove some tedious years<br>With feign'd desires and real fears, <br>And tired with answers and replies<br>Of John affirms, and Martha lies,<br>Leaving this endless altercation,<br>The mind affects a higher station.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Poltis, that generous king of Thrace,<br>I think was in this very case.<br>All Asia now was by the ears,<br>And gods beat up for volunteers<br>To Greece and Troy, while Poltis sate<br>In quiet, governing his state.<br>And whence, said the pacific king,<br>Does all this noise and discord spring?<br>Why, Paris took Atrides' wife -<br>With ease I could compose this strife:<br>The injured hero should not lose,<br>Nor the young lover want, a spouse.<br>But Helen changed her first condition<br>Without her husband's just permission.<br>What from the dame can Paris hope?<br>She may as well from him elope.<br>Again, How can her old good man<br>With honour take her back again?<br>From hence I logically gather <br>The woman cannot live with either.<br>Now I have two right honest wives,<br>For whose possession no man strives:<br>One to Atrides I will send,<br>And t'other to my Trojan friend.<br>Each prince shall thus with honour have<br>What both so warmly seem to crave;<br>The wrath of gods and men shall cease,<br>And Poltis live and die in peace.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Dick, if this story pleaseth thee,<br>Pray thank Dan Pope, who told it me.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Howe'er swift Alma's flight may vary,<br>(Take this by way of corollary)<br>Some limbs she finds the very same<br>In place, and dignity, and name:<br>These dwell at such convenient distance,<br>That each may give his friend assistance.<br>Thus he who runs or dances, begs<br>The equal vigour of two legs;<br>So much to both does Alma trust<br>She ne'er regards which goes the first.<br>Teague could make neither of them stay,<br>For whilst one hand exalts the blow,<br>And on the earth extends the foe,<br>Th' other would take it wondrous ill<br>If in your pocket he lay still.<br>And when you shoot and shut one eye,<br>To lend the other friendly aid,<br>Or wink as coward, and afraid.<br>No, Sir; whilst he withdraws his flame,<br>His comrade takes the surer aim.<br>One moment if his beams recede,<br>As soon as e'er the bird is dead, <br>Opening again, he lays his claim<br>To half the profit, half the fame,<br>And helps to pocket up the game.<br>'Tis thus one tradesman slips away<br>To give his partner fairer play.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Some limbs again, in bulk or stature<br>Unlike, and not a-kin by Nature,<br>In concert act, like modern friends,<br>Because one serves the other's ends.<br>The arm thus waits upon the heart,<br>So quick to take the bully's part,<br>That one, though warm, decides more slow<br>Than th' other executes the blow:<br>A stander-by may chance to have it<br>Ere Hack himself perceives he gave it.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The amorous eyes thus always go<br>A strolling for their friends below;<br>For long before the squire and dame<br>Have <br>tete a tete<br>relieved their flame,<br>Ere visits yet are brought about,<br>They eye by sympathy looks out, <br>Knows Florimel, and longs to meet her,<br>And if he sees is sure to greet her,<br>Though at sash-window, on the stairs,<br>At court, nay, (authors say) at prayers -</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The funeral of some valiant knight<br>May give this thing its proper light.<br>View his two gauntlets; these declare<br>That both his hands were used to war;<br>And from his two gilt spurs 'tis learn'd <br>His feet were equally concern'd:<br>But have you not with thought beheld<br>The sword hang dangling o'er his shield?<br>Which shows the breast that plate was used to<br>Had an ally right arm to trust to;<br>And by the peep holes in his crest,<br>Is it not virtually confess'd<br>That there his eye took distant aim,<br>And glances respect to that bright dame,<br>In whose delight his hope was center'd, <br>And for whose glove his life he ventured?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Objections to my general system<br>May rise, perhaps, and I have miss'd them;<br>But I can call to my assistance<br>Proximity (mark that!) and distance;<br>Can prove that all things, on occasion,<br>Love union, and desire adhesion!<br>That Alma merely is a scale,<br>And motives, like the weights prevail.<br>If neither side turn down or up,<br>With loss or gain, with fear or hope,<br>The balance always would hang even,<br>Like Mahomet's tomb, 'twixt earth and heaven.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This, Richard, is a curious case:<br>Suppose your eyes sent equal rays<br>Upon two distant pots of ale,<br>Not knowing which was mild or stale;<br>In this sad state your doubtful choice<br>Would never have the casting voice;<br>Which best nor worst you could not think,<br>And die you must for want of drink,<br>Unless some chance inclines your sight,<br>Setting one pot in fairer light;<br>Then you prefer or A or B,<br>As lines and angles best agree;<br>Your sense resolved impels your will;<br>She guides your hand - So drink your fill. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Have you not seen a baker's maid<br>Between two equal panniers sway'd?<br>Her tallies useless lie and idle<br>If placed exactly in the middle;<br>But forced from this unactive state<br>By virtue of some casual weight,<br>On either side you hear them clatter,<br>And judge of right and left hand matter.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now, Richard, this coercive force<br>Without your choice must take its course.<br>Great kings to wars are pointed forth<br>Like loaded needles to the North,<br>And thou and I, by power unseen,<br>Are barely passive and suck'd in <br>To Henault's vaults or Celia's chamber,<br>As straw and paper are by amber.<br>If we sit down to play or set,<br>(Suppose at Ombre or Basset)<br>Let people call us cheats or fools,<br>Our cards and we are equal tools,<br>We sure in vain the cards condemn;<br>Ourselves both cut and shuffled them:<br>In vain on Fortune's aid rely;<br>She only is a stander-by.<br>Poor men! poor papers! we and they<br>Do some impulsive force obey,<br>Are but play'd with - do not play.<br>But space and matter we should blame;<br>They palm'd the trick that lost the game.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thus to save further contradiction<br>Against what you may think but fiction,<br>I for attraction, Dick, declare, <br>Deny it those bold men that dare.<br>As well your mention as your thought <br>Is all by hidden impulse wrought:<br>Even saying that you think or walk,<br>How like a country squire you talk?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Mark then; - Where fancy or desire<br>Collects the beams of vital fire,<br>Into that limb fair Alma slides<br>And there <br>pro tempore<br>resides:<br>She dwells in Nicholini's tongue,<br>When Pyrrhus chants the heavenly song;<br>When Pedro does the lute command,<br>She guides the cunning artist's hand;<br>Through Macer's gullet she runs down,<br>When the vile glutton dines alone;<br>And, void of modesty and thought,<br>She follows Bibo's endless draught,<br>Through the soft sex again she ranges,<br>As youth, caprice, or fashion, changes:<br>Fair Alma, careless and serene,<br>In Fanny's sprightly eyes is seen.<br>While they diffuse their infant beams,<br>Themselves not conscious of their flames.<br>Again, fair Alma sits confess'd<br>On Florimel's experter breast,<br>When she the rising sigh constrains,<br>And by concealing speaks her pains.<br>In Cynthia's neck fair Alma glows,<br>When the vain thing her jewels shows;<br>When Jenny's stays are newly laced<br>Fair Alma plays about her waist;<br>And when the swelling hoop sustains<br>The rich brocade, fair Alma deigns<br>Into that lower space to enter, <br>Of the large round herself the center.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Again; that single limb or feature<br>(Such is the cogent force of Nature)<br>Which most did Alma's passion move,<br>In the first object of her love,<br>For ever will be found confess'd,<br>And printed on the amorous breast.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O Abelard! ill-fated youth,<br>Thy tale will justify this truth;<br>But well I weet thy cruel wrong<br>Adorns a nobler poet's song,<br>Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieve!,<br>With kind concern and skill has weaved <br>A silken web, and ne'er shall fade<br>Its colours gently: as he laid<br>The mantle o'er thy sad distress,<br>And Venus shall the texture bless.<br>He o'er the weeping nun has drawn<br>Such artful folds of sacred lawn,<br>That Love, with equal grief and pride,<br>Shall see the crime he strives to hide,<br>And softly drawing back the veil,<br>The god shall to his votaries tell<br>Each conscious tear, each blushing grace,<br>That deck'd dear Eloisa's face.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Happy the poet, bless'd the lays,<br>Which Buckingham has deign'd to praise.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Next, Dick, as youth and habit sways,<br>A hundred gambols Alma plays.<br>If, whilst a boy, Jack run from school,<br>Fond of his hunting-horn and pole,<br>Though gout and age his speed detain,<br>Old John halloos his hounds again:<br>By his fireside he starts the hare,<br>And turns her in his wicker chair.<br>His feet, however lame, you find,<br>Have got the better of his mind.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">If, while the Mind was in her leg,<br>The dance affected nimble Peg,<br>Old Madge bewitch'd, at sixty-one<br>Calls for Green Sleeves and Jumping Joan.<br>In public mask or private ball,<br>From Lincoln's-inn to Goldsmith's-Hall,<br>All Christmas long away she trudges, <br>Trips it was 'prentices and judges;<br>In vain her children urge her stay,<br>And age or palsy bar the way:<br>But if those images prevail,<br>Which whilom did affect the tail,<br>She still reviews the ancient scene,<br>Forgets the forty years between;<br>Awkwardly gay, and oddly merry, <br>Her scarf pale pink, her headknot cherry,<br>O'erheated with ideal rage,<br>She cheats her son to wed her page.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">If Alma, whilst the man was young,<br>Slipp'd up too soon into his tongue,<br>Pleased with his own fantastic skill,<br>He lets that weapon ne'er lie still;<br>On any point if you dispute,<br>Depend upon it he'll confute:<br>Change sides, and you increase your pain,<br>For he'll confute you back again:<br>For one may speak with Tully's tongue,<br>Yet all the while be in the wrong;<br>And 'tis remarkable that they <br>talk most who have the least to say.<br>Your dainty speakers have the curse<br>To plead bad causes down to worse;<br>As dames who native beauty want,<br>Still uglier look the more they paint.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Again: if in the female sex<br>Alma should on this member fix,<br>(A cruel and a desperate case,<br>From which Heaven shield my lovely lass!)<br>For ever more all care is vain<br>That would bring Alma down again.<br>As in habitual gout or stone,<br>The only thing that can be done<br>Is to correct your drink and diet,<br>And keep the inward foe in quiet;<br>So if, for any sins of ours,<br>Or our forefathers, higher powers,<br>Severe, though just, afflict our life,<br>With that prime ill, a talking wife,<br>Till death shall bring the kind relief,<br>We must be patient or be deaf.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">You know a certain lady, Dick,<br>Who saw me when I last was sick;<br>She kindly talk'd, at least three hours,<br>Of plastic forms and mental powers;<br>Described our pre-existing station,<br>Before this vile terrene creation;<br>And, lest I should be wearied, Madam,<br>To cut things short, came down to Adam;<br>From whence, as fast as she was able, <br>She drowns the world, and builds up Babel:<br>Through Syria, Persia, Greece, she goes,<br>And takes the Romans in the close.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But we'll descant on general Nature;<br>This is a system, not a satire.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Turn we this globe, and let us see<br>How different nations disagree,<br>In what we wear, or eat, and drink;<br>Nay, Dick, perhaps in what we think.<br>In water as you smell and taste<br>The soils through which it rose and past,<br>In Alma's manners you may read<br>The place where she was born and bred.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">One people from their swaddling-bands<br>Released their infants' feet and hands:<br>Here Alma to these limbs was brought <br>And Sparta's offspring kick'd and fought.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Another taught their babes to talk<br>Ere they could yet in go-carts walk:<br>There Alma settled in the tongue,<br>And orators from Athens sprung.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Observe but in these neighbouring lands<br>The different use of mouth and hands:<br>As men reposed their various hopes,<br>In battles these, and those in tropes.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In Britain's isles, as Heylin notes,<br>The ladies trip in petticoats,<br>Which, for the honour of their nation,<br>They quit but on some great occasion,<br>Men there in breeches clad you view;<br>They claim that garment as their due.<br>In Turkey the reverse appears;<br>Long coats the haughty husband wears,<br>And greets his wife with angry speeches,<br>If she be seen without her breeches.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In our fantastic climes the fair<br>With cleanly powder dry their hair,<br>And round their lovely breast and head<br>Fresh flowers their mingled odours shed:<br>Your nicer Hottentots think meet<br>With guts and tripe to deck their feet;<br>With downcast looks on Totta's legs<br>The ogling youth most humbly begs<br>She would not from his hopes remove<br>At once his breakfast and his love;<br>And if the skittish nymph should fly,<br>He in a double sense must die.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We simple toasters take delight<br>To see our women's teeth look white,<br>And every saucy ill-bred fellow<br>Sneers at a mouth profoundly yellow<br>In China none hold women sweet,<br>Except their snags are black as jet:<br>King Chihu put nine queens to death,<br>Convict on statute, ivory teeth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At Tonquin, if a prince should die,<br>(As Jesuits write, who never lie)<br>The wife, and counsellor, and priest,<br>Who served him most, and loved him best,<br>Prepare and light his funeral fire,<br>And cheerful on the pile expire.<br>In Europe 'twould be hard to find<br>In each degree on half so kind.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now turn we to the farthest East,<br>And there observe the gentry drest.<br>Prince Giolo and his royal sisters,<br>Scarr'd with ten thousand comely blisters,<br>The marks remaining on the skin,<br>To tell the quality within:<br>Distinguish'd flashes deck the great,<br>As each excels in birth or state;<br>His oylet-holes are more and ampler:<br>The king's own body was a sampler.<br>Happy the climate where the beau<br>Wears the same suit for use and show;<br>And at a small expense your wife,<br>If once well pink'd, is cloath'd for life.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Westward again, the Indian fair<br>Is nicely smear'd with fat of bear:<br>Before you see you smell your toast,<br>And sweetest she who stinks the most.<br>The finest sparks and cleanest beaux<br>Drip from the shoulders to the toes.<br>How sleek their skins, their joints how easy!<br>There slovens only are not greasy.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I mention'd different ways of breeding;<br>Begin we in our children's reading,<br>To master John the English maid<br>A hornbrook gives of gingerbread,<br>And that the child may learn the better,<br>As he can name he eats the letter;<br>Proceeding thus with vast delight,<br>He spells and gnaws from left to right.<br>But show a Hebrew's hopeful son<br>Where we suppose the book begun, <br>The child would thank you for your kindness,<br>And read quite backward from our <br>finis<br>;<br>Devour he learning ne'er so fast,<br>Great A would be reserved the last.<br>An equal instance of this matter<br>Is in the manners of a daughter.<br>In Europe if a harmless maid,<br>By Nature and by Love betray'd,<br>Should ere a wife become a nurse,<br>Her friends would look on her the worse.<br>In China, Dampier's Travels tell ye,<br>(Look in his index for Pagelli)<br>Soon as the British ships unmoor,<br>And jolly long-boats row to shore,<br>Down come the nobles of the land,<br>Each brings his daughter in his hand,<br>Beseeching the mysterious tar<br>To make her but one hour his care:<br>The tender mother stands affrighted,<br>Les her dear daughter should be slighted,<br>And poor Miss Yaya dreads the shame<br>Of going back the maid she came.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Observe how custom, Dick, compels<br>The lady that in Europe dwells:<br>After her tea she slips away,<br>And what to do one need not say.<br>Now see how great Pomonque's queen<br>Behaved herself amongst the men;<br>Pleased with her punch, the gallant soul<br>First drank, then water'd in the bowl,<br>And sprinkled in the captain's face<br>The marks of her peculiar grace. -</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">To close this point we need not roam<br>For instances so far from home.<br>What parts gay France from sober Spain?<br>A little rising rocky chain.<br>Of men born south or north o' the hill,<br>Those seldom move, these ne'er stand still.<br>Dick, you love maps, and may perceive<br>Rome not far distant from Geneve.<br>If the good Pope remains at home,<br>He's the first prince in Christendom.<br>Choose then, good Pope, at home to stay,<br>Nor westward, curious, take thy way:<br>Thy way, unhappy, shouldst thou take<br>From Tiber's bank to Leman lake,<br>Thou art an aged priest no more,<br>But a young flaring painted bunny:<br>Thy sex is lost, thy town is gone;<br>No longer Rome, but Babylon.<br>That some few leagues should make this change,<br>To men unlearn'd seems mighty strange.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But need we, friend, insist on this?<br>Since, in the very Cantons Swiss,<br>All your philosophers agree,<br>And prove it plain, that one may be<br>A heretic or true believer,<br>On this or t'other side the rive.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here, with an artful smile, quoth Dick -<br>Your proofs come mighty full and thick -</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=457094" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The bard, on this extensive chapter,<br>Wound up into poetic rapture,<br>Continued: Richard, cast your eye<br>By night upon a winter sky;<br>Cast it by day-light on the strand,<br>Which compasses fair Albion's land;<br>If you can count the stars that glow<br>Above, or sands that lie below,<br>Into these common places look,<br>Which from great authors I have took,<br>And count the proofs I have collected,<br>To have my writings well protected:<br>These I lay by for time of need,<br>And thou may'st at thy leisure read:<br>For standing every critic's rage,<br>I safely will, to future age<br>My system as a gift bequeath,<br>Victorious over spite and death.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Matthew+Prior">Matthew Prior</a></strong></div>

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