Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SATIRE, by GEORGE CRABBE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I love not the satiric muse Last Line: To sting wherever they alight? | ||||||||
I LOVE not the satiric Muse: No man on earth would I abuse; Nor with empoison'd verses grieve The most offending son of Eve. Leave him to law, if he have done What injures any other son: It hardens man to see his name Exposed to public mirth or shame; And rouses, as it spoils his rest, The baser passions of his breast. Attack a book -- attack a song -- You will not do essential wrong; You may their blemishes expose, And yet not be the writer's foes. But when the man you thus attack, And him expose with critic art, You put a creature to the rack -- You wring, you agonise, his heart. No farther honest Satire can In all her enmity proceed, Than passing by the wicked Man, To execrate the wicked Deed. If so much virtue yet remain That he would feel the sting and pain, That virtue is a reason why The Muse her sting should not apply: If no such Virtue yet survive, What is your angry Satire worth, But to arouse the sleeping hive, And send the raging Passions forth, In bold, vindictive, angry flight, To sting wherever they alight? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A HUMBLE INVOCATION by GEORGE CRABBE A MARRIAGE RING by GEORGE CRABBE A WEARY TRAVELLER by GEORGE CRABBE AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND by GEORGE CRABBE BELVOIR CASTLE; WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF DUCHESS OF RUTLAND by GEORGE CRABBE CONCLUDING LINES OF PRIZE POEM ON HOPE by GEORGE CRABBE EPISTLE TO PRINCE WILLIAM HENRY by GEORGE CRABBE |
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