YOU'RE in love with the Muses! Well, grant it be true, When, good Sir, were the Muses enamour'd of you? Read first, -- if my lectures your fancy delight, -- Your taste is diseased: -- can your cure be to write? You suppose you're a genius, that ought to engage The attention of wits, and the smiles of the age: Would the wits of the age their opinion make known, Why -- every man thinks just the same of his own. You imagine that Pope -- but yourself you beguile -- Would have wrote the same things, had he chose the same style. Delude not yourself with so fruitless a hope, -- Had he chose the same style, he had never been Pope. You think of my muse with a friendly regard, And rejoice in her author's esteem and reward: But let not his glory your spirits elate, When pleased with his honours, remember his fate. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DAY AND THE WORK by EDWIN MARKHAM A WINTER NIGHT by SARA TEASDALE SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 13 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT by THOMAS HARDY SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE: 12. AT THE DRAPER'S by THOMAS HARDY THE COMET AT YELL'HAM by THOMAS HARDY |