And send them, to repay to thee

The torments thou hast heap'd on me.

For you, ye scribblers, hence! I spurn you ;
Again to that same place return ye
Whence ye began your cursed journey.
Avaunt, our age's worst disasters!

Avaunt, ye wretched poetasters!

DEFENCE OF HIS AMATORY POEMS +.

TO AURELIUS AND FURIUS.

AND dare ye, Profligates, arraign
The ardour of my sprightly strain,
And e'en myself asperse?

And, if his lines are gay and free,、
Deem ye the poet's self must be

As wanton as his verse?

The sacred bard, to Muses dear,

Himself should pass a chaste career†,

And

pure his blood should roll:

But let his numbers warmly flow,

And paint in all their native glow

The passions of the soul.

His verse should be of power to move

Not only fervent boys with love,

And feed the blazing flame ;

But torpid age should feel the strain

Raise every youthful heat again,
And nerve the feeblest frame.

No more, ye Rakes, peruse my line: By minds debauch'd and base as thine It scarce is understood.

It sings of wine, of woman's charms,

Of love, of all that cheers and warms and the good.

The

generous

But ye, on whom no fair one smiles, Whose hours no social board beguiles, I scorn your blame or praise.

Whom love and favouring woman bless,

Who taste the raptures they express,

ON A STUPID HUSBAND.

ADDRESSED TO THE TOWN WHERE HE RESIDED.

THOU lively town†, that wouldst with gladness see
On thy long bridge the sports † of rustic glee,
And nimble dancers bounding to the strain,

Didst thou not fear the rotten props would throw
Thy tottering bridge into the marsh below,

Ne'er from its muddy bed to rise again ;

One boon, one sight, to raise my laughter, grant;
And may a bridge so strong supply thy want,
That the wild Salii's dance † can nothing hurt.

I ask that one, a townsman of thine own,
May only from thy bridge be headlong thrown,

And neck and shoulders plump into the dirtt.

It should be there, where lies the deepest mud,
And greenest mire of all the stagnant flood.

The Man's a senseless dolt, whom nought can warm. His wit or sense no rivalry can hold

With any boy, who is but two years old,
And rock'd to sleep upon his father's arm.

His wife's a girl in blooming beauty's dawn,
More soft and tender than the youngling fawn;
Like ripest grapes demanding gentlest care.
He lets her rove uncheck'd her giddy way,
Where'er, with whom she lists, to jest and play,
Nor values all her charms a single hair.

Life, for his only care himself, he keeps,
Dull as the axe-fell'd alder tree, that sleeps
In some remote Ligurian† ditch confined:
He scarcely seems to know he has a wife;
And doses on his lethargy of life

Deaf to her accents, to her beauty blind.