The patron's bounty, or the poet's art. Alike with wonder and delight we viewed The Roman genius in thy verse renewed: We saw thee raise soft Ovid's amorous fire, And fit the tuneful Horace to thy lyre: We saw new gall embitter Juvenal's pen, And crabbed Persius made politely plain. Virgil alone was thought too great a task-- What you could scarce perform, or we durst ask; A task, which Waller's Muse could ne'er engage; A task, too hard for Denham's stronger rage. Sure of success, they some slight sallies tried; But the fenced coast their bold attempts defied: With fear, their o'ermatched forces back they drew, Quitting the province Fate reserved for you. In vain thus Philip did the Persians storm; A work his son was destined to perform. O! had Roscommon[269] lived to hail the day, And sing loud Pæans through the crowded way, When you in Roman majesty appear, Which none know better, and none come so near; The happy author would with wonder see, His rules were only prophecies of thee: And, were he now to give translators light, He'd bid them only read thy work, and write. For this great task, our loud applause is due; We own old favours, but must press for new: Th' expecting world demands one labour more; And thy loved Homer does thy aid implore, To right his injured works, and set them free From the lewd rhymes of grovelling Ogleby. Then shall his verse in graceful pomp appear, Nor will his birth renew the ancient jar: On those Greek cities we shall look with scorn, And in our Britain think the poet born. TO MR DRYDEN, ON HIS _TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL_. I. We read, how dreams and visions heretofore The prophet and the poet could inspire, And make them in unusual rapture soar, With rage divine, and with poetic fire. II. O could I find it now!--Would Virgil's shade But for a while vouchsafe to bear the light, To grace my numbers, and that Muse to aid, Who sings the poet that has done him right. III. It long has been this sacred author's fate, To lie at every dull translator's will: Long, long his Muse has groaned beneath the weight Of mangling Ogleby's presumptuous quill. IV. Dryden, at last, in his defence arose: The father now is righted by the son; And, while his Muse endeavours to disclose That poet's beauties, she declares her own. V. In your smooth pompous numbers drest, each line, Each thought, betrays such a majestic touch, He could not, had he finished his design, Have wished it better, or have done so much. VI.