TO THE MEMORY OF MR. ALEXANDER POPE.

POET. I sing of POPE —

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard,

Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!

POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo,

And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu!

POPE of the Ham-walks story —

P. Scandals all!

Scandals that now I care not to recall.

Surely a little, in two hundred Years,

One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:—

Surely Allowance for the Man may make

That had all Grub-street yelping in his Wake!

And who ( I ask you ) has been never Mean,

When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?

No: I prefer to look on POPE as one

Not rightly happy till his Life was done;

Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,

Was ( what he call'd it ) but a “long Disease:”

Think of his Lot,— his Pilgrimage of Pain,

His “crazy Carcass” and his restless Brain;

Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead,

His dreary Vigil and his aching Head;

Think of all this, and marvel then to find

The “crooked Body with a crooked Mind!”

Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite,

You find so much to solace and delight,—

So much of Courage, and of Purpose high

In that unequal Struggle not to die.

I grant you freely that POPE played his Part

Sometimes ignobly — but he lov'd his Art;

I grant you freely that he sought his Ends

Not always wisely — but he lov'd his Friends;

And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show —

Swift, St. John, Bathurst, Marchmont, Peterb'ro’,

Arbuthnot —