Classic Poem

THE POWER OF VERSE .

To his Mistress.

While those bright eyes subdue where'er you will
And, as you please, can either save or kill;
What youth so bold the conquest to design?
What wealth so great to purchase hearts like thine?
None but the Muse that privilege can claim;
And what you give in love, return in fame.
Riches and titles with your life must end;
Nay cannot, e'en in life, your fame defend;
Verse can give fame, can fading beauties save,
And, after death, redeem them from the grave:
Enbalm'd in verse, through distant times they come,
Preserv'd, like bees, within an amber tomb.
Poets, (like monarchs on an eastern throne,
Restrain'd by nothing but their will alone)
Here can cry up, and there as boldly blame,
And, as they please, give infamy or fame.
In vain the Tyrian queen resigns her life,
For the bright glory of a spotless wife,
If lving bards may false amours rehearse,
And blast her name with arbitrary verse;
While one, who all the absence of her lord
Had her wide courts with pressing lovers stor'd,
Yet, by a poet grac'd, in deathless rhymes,
Stands a chaste pattern to succeeding times.
With pity, then, the Muse's friends survey,
Nor think your favours there are thrown away;
Wisely like seed on fruitful soil they're thrown,
To bring large crops of glory and renown:
For as the sun, that in the marshes breeds
Nothing but nauseous and unwholesome weeds,
With the same rays, on rich and pregnant earth,
To pleasant flowers and useful fruits gives birth:
So favours cast on fools get only shame,
On poets shed produce eternal fame;
Their gen'rous breasts warm with a genial fire,
And more than all the muses can inspire.