Pictures (weak images of him) are sold, The French are proud to have the head for gold: The echo of his verse has charmed their ear,-- O could they comprehend the sound they hear! Who hug the cloud, caress an airy face, What would they give the goddess to embrace? The characters his steady muse could frame, Are more than like, they are so much the same; The pencil and the mirror faintly live, ’Tis but the shadow of a life they give; Like resurrection from the silent grave, He the numeric soul and body gave. No art, no hand but his could e’er bring home The noblest choicest flowers of Greece and Rome; Transplant them with sublimest art and toil, And make them flourish in a British soil. Whatever ore he cast into his mould } He did the dark philosophy unfold, } And by a touch converted all to gold. } With epic feet who ere can steady run, May drive the fiery chariot of the sun, Must neither soar too high, nor fall too low; Must neither burn like fire, nor freeze like snow. All ages mighty conquerors have known, Who courage and their power in arms have shown: Greece knew but one, and Rome the Mantuan swain, Who durst engage in lofty epic strain; Heroics here were lands unknown before, Our great Columbus first descried the shore. No prophet moved the passions of the mind, With sovereign power and force so unconfined: We sympathised with his poetic rage, In lofty buskins when he ruled the stage; He roused our love, our hope, despairs, and fears, Dissolved in joy we were, or drowned in tears. When juster indignation roused his hate, Insipid rhymes to lash, or knaves of state; Each line’s a sting, and ev’ry sting a death, As if their fate depended on his breath. Like sun-beams swift, his fiery shafts were sent, Or lightning darted from the firmament. No warmer clime, no age or muse divine, In pointed satire could our bard outshine. His unexhausted force knew no decay; In spite of years, his muse grew young and gay, And vigorous, like the patriarch of old, His last-born Joseph cast in finest mould; This son of sixty-nine, surpassing fair, With any elder offspring may compare, Has charms in courts of monarchs to be seen, Caressed and cherished by a longing queen. Great prophets oft extend their just command, Receive the tribute of a foreign land; When in their own ungrateful native ground Few just admiring votaries they found. But when these god-like men their clay resign, Pale Envy’s laid a victim at their shrine; United mortals do their worth proclaim, And altars raise to their eternal fame. Wealth, beauty, force of wit, without allay, In Dryden’s heavenly muse profusely lay; Which mighty charms did never yet combine, In any single deity to shine,