No More Learning

I was not born for Courts or great affairs; 265
I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs;
Can sleep without a Poem in my head;
Nor know, if _Dennis_ be alive or dead.

Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light?
Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write? 270
Has Life no joys for me? or, (to be grave)
Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?
"I found him close with _Swift_"--'Indeed? no doubt,'
(Cries prating _Balbus_) 'something will come out. '
'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. 275
'No, such a Genius never can lie still;'
And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first Lampoon Sir _Will_, or _Bubo_ makes.
Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my _Style_? 280

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed Virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, 285
Insults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress,
Who loves a Lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a Libel, or who copies out:
That Fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame: 290
Who can _your_ merit _selfishly_ approve.
And show the _sense_ of it without the _love_;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, 295
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who to the _Dean_, and _silver bell_ can swear,
And sees at _Canons_ what was never there;
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction, Lie.
300
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let _Sporus_ tremble--A. What? that thing of silk,
_Sporus_, that mere white curd of Ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can _Sporus_ feel? 305
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: 310
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks, 315
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of _Eve_, familiar Toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. 320
His wit all see-saw, between _that_ and _this_, }
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, }
And he himself one vile Antithesis. }
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head or the corrupted heart, 325
Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord.
_Eve's_ tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,
A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; 330
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Not Fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile;--be one Poet's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways: 335
That Flatt'ry, ev'n to Kings, he held a shame,
And thought a Lie in verse or prose the same.