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Nor (as some servile Imitators do)
Prescribe at first such strict uneasie rules,
As they must ever slavishly observe,
Or all the laws of decency renounce:
Begin not as th' old Poetaster did,
(Troys famous War, and Priams Fate, I sing)
In what will all this Ostentation end?
The laboring mountain scarce brings forth a mouse:
How far is this from the Meonian Stile?
Muse, speak the Man, who since the siege of Troy,
So many Towns, such change of Manners saw.
One with a flash begins, and ends in smoak,
The other out of smoak brings glorious light,
And (without raising Expectation high)
Surprizes us with darling miracles,
The bloody Lestrygons inhumane Feasts,
With all the Monsters, of the Land and Sea
Prescribe at first such strict uneasie rules,
As they must ever slavishly observe,
Or all the laws of decency renounce:
Begin not as th' old Poetaster did,
(Troys famous War, and Priams Fate, I sing)
In what will all this Ostentation end?
The laboring mountain scarce brings forth a mouse:
How far is this from the Meonian Stile?
Muse, speak the Man, who since the siege of Troy,
So many Towns, such change of Manners saw.
One with a flash begins, and ends in smoak,
The other out of smoak brings glorious light,
And (without raising Expectation high)
Surprizes us with darling miracles,
The bloody Lestrygons inhumane Feasts,
With all the Monsters, of the Land and Sea
How
