Classic Poem

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF THE BRITISH PRINCES .

SIR ,

You have oblig'd the British nation more
Than all their bards could ever do before;
And, at your own charge, monuments more hard
Than brass or marble to their fame have rear'd:
For as all warlike nations take delight
To hear how brave their ancestors could fight,
You have advanc'd to wonder their renown,
And no less virtuously improv'd your own:
I or 'twill be doubted whether you do write,
Or they have acted at a nobler height.
You of their ancient princes have retriev'd
More than the ages knew in which they liv'd;
Describ'd their customs and their rites anew,
Better than all their Druids ever knew;
Unriddle their dark oracles as well
As those themselves that made them could foretell:
For as the Britons long have hop'd, in vain,
Arthur would come to govern them again,
You have fulfill'd that prophecy alone,
And in this poem plac'd him on his throne.
Such magic pow'r has your prodigious pen,
To raise the dead, and give new life to men;
Make rival princes meet in arms and love,
Whom distant ages did so far remove:
For as eternity has neither past
Nor future, (authors say) nor first nor last,
But is all instant; your eternal Muse
All ages can to any one reduce.
Then why should you, whose miracle of art
Can life at pleasure to the dead impart,
Trouble in vain your better-busied head
To' observe what time they liv'd in, or were dead?
For since you have such arbitrary power,
It were defect in judgment to go lower,
Or stoop to things so pitifully lewd,
As use to take the vulgar latitude.
There's no man fit to read what you have writ,
That holds not some proportion with your wit;
As light can no way but by light appear,
He must bring sense that understands it here.