TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD,

A N D

EARL MORTIMER.

UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung,
S

Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh, just beheld, and lost! admir'd, and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd !
Blest in each science, blest in every strain;
Dear to the Muse, to Harley dear -- in vain!

For him thou oft haft bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend :
For Swift and him, despis’d the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great ;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning croud to quit,
And pleas’d to scape from flattery to wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A figh the absent claims, the dead a tear)
Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilfome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays :
Who, careless now, of interest, fame, or fate,
Perhaps forgets that Oxford e’er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And sure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine :

A foul

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of

A foul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The

rage power, the blaft of public breath; The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

In vain to deserts thy retreat is made;
The Mufe attends thee to thy silent shade :
Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace,
When interest calls off all her sneaking train,
When all th' oblig'd desert, and all the vain å
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last lingering friend has bid farewell.
Ev’n now he shades thy evening-walk with bays,
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise)
Ev’n now observant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm sun-set of thy various day;
Through Fortune's cloud one truly great caji see,
Nor fears to tell, that Mortimer is he.

Sept. 25, 1721.

A. POPE.

H E SI

D:

OR,

THE RISE OF WOM A N.

WHAT antient times (those times we fancy wile)

Have left on long record of woman's rise,
What morals teach it, and what fables hide,
What author wrote it, how that author dy'd,
All these. I sing. In Greece they fram'd the tale
(In Greece 'twas thought a woman inight be frail);
Ye modern, beauties! where the Poet drew
His softest pencil, think he dreanit of you.;
And, warn’d by him, ye wanton pens beware
How Heaven's concern'd to vindicate the fair.
The case was Hefiod's; he the fable writ;
Some think with meaning, some with idle wit:
Perhaps ’tis either, as the Ladies please.;.
I wave the contest, and commence the lays.

In days of yore (no matter where or when,
''Twas ere the low creation swarmd with men).
That one Prometheus, sprung of heavenly birth,
(Our Author's song can witness) liv'd on earth :
He carv?d the turf to mold a manly frame,
And stole from Jove his animating flame.
The fly contrivance o’er Olympus ran,
When thus the Monarch of the Stars began.

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