In these more dull, as more censorious days, When few dare give, and fewer merit praise, A muse sincere, that never flatt'ry knew, Pays what to friendship and desert is due. Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found 5 Art strength'ning nature, sense improved by sound. Unlike those wits whose numbers glide along So smooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song:[5] Laboriously enervate they appear, And write not to the head, but to the ear: 10 Our minds unmoved and unconcerned they lull, And are at best most musically dull: So purling streams with even murmurs creep, And hush the heavy hearers into sleep. As smoothest speech is most deceitful found, } 15 The smoothest numbers oft are empty sound, } And leave our lab'ring fancy quite aground.[6] } But wit and judgment join at once in you, Sprightly as youth, as age consummate too: Your strains are regularly bold, and please } 20 With unforced care, and unaffected ease, } With proper thoughts, and lively images: } Such as by nature to the ancients shown, Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own: For great men's fashions to be followed are, 25 Although disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear. Some in a polished style write pastoral, Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall; Like some fair shepherdess, the sylvan muse,[7] Decked in those flow'rs her native fields produce, 30 With modest charms would in plain neatness please, } But seems a dowdy in the courtly dress, } Whose awkward finery allures us less.[8] } But the true measure of the shepherd's wit Should, like his garb, be for the country fit: 35 Yet must his pure and unaffected thought More nicely than the common swain's be wrought. So, with becoming art, the players dress In silks the shepherd and the shepherdess; Yet still unchanged the form and mode remain, 40 Shaped like the homely russet of the swain. Your rural muse appears to justify The long lost graces of simplicity: So rural beauties captivate our sense With virgin charms, and native excellence. 45 Yet long her modesty those charms concealed, 'Till by men's envy to the world revealed; For wits industrious to their trouble seem, And needs will envy what they must esteem. Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate, 50 Which would, if Virgil lived, on Virgil wait; Whose muse did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight; So larks, which first from lowly fields arise, Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies. 55