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Conclude us only partial for the Dead,
And grudge the Sign of old Ben. Johnson's Head;
When the intrinsick value of the Stage;
Can scarce be judg'd but by the following Age;
For Dances, Flutes, Italian Songs, and Rhime
May keep up sinking Nonsence for a time.
But that will fail, which now so much o'r-rules,
And Sence no longer will submit to Fools.
By painful steps we are at last got upEpick Poetry.
Parnassus Hill on whose bright Airy Top
The Epick Poets so divinely show,
And with just Pride behold the rest below.
Heroick Poems have a just pretence
To be the utmost reach of human Sence,
A Work of such inestimable Worth,
There are but two the World has yet brought forth,
Homer and Virgil: with what awful sound
Do those meer Words the Ears of Poets wound!
Just as a Changeling seems below the rest
Of Men, or rather is a two legg'd Beast,
So those Gigantick Souls amaz'd we find
As much above the rest of human kind.
Nature's whole strength united! endless Fame,
And universal Shouts attend their Name.
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all things else appear so dull and poor.
