zure way; 50
And while with ev'ry theme the verse complies,
Sink without grov'ling, without rashness rise.
Proceed, great bard! awake th' harmonious string,
Be ours all Homer; still Ulysses sing.
How long[24] that hero, by unskilful hands, 55
Stripped of his robes, a beggar trod our lands!
Such as he wandered o'er his native coast,
Shrunk by the wand, and all the warrior lost;
O'er his smooth skin a bark of wrinkles spread;
Old age disgraced the honours of his head; 60
Nor longer in his heavy eye-ball shined
The glance divine, forth-beaming from the mind.
But you, like Pallas, ev'ry limb infold
With royal robes, and bid him shine in gold;
Touched by your hand his manly frame improves 65
With grace divine, and like a god he moves.
Ev'n I, the meanest of the muses' train,
Inflamed by thee, attempt a nobler strain;
Advent'rous waken the Maeonian lyre,
Tuned by your hand, and sing as you inspire: 70
So armed by great Achilles for the fight,
Patroclus conquered in Achilles' right:
Like theirs, our friendship! and I boast my name
To thine united--for thy friendship's fame.
This labour past, of heav'nly subjects sing, 75
While hov'ring angels listen on the wing,
To hear from earth such heart-felt raptures rise,
As, when they sing, suspended hold the skies:
Or nobly rising in fair virtue's cause,
From thy own life transcribe th' unerring laws: 80
Teach a bad world beneath her sway to bend:
To verse like thine fierce savages attend,
And men more fierce: when Orpheus tunes the lay,
Ev'n fiends relenting hear their rage away.

LORD LYTTELTON.[25]

TO MR. POPE.[26]

_From Rome, 1730._

Immortal bard! for whom each muse has wove
The fairest garlands of th' Aonian grove;
Preserved, our drooping genius to restore,
When Addison and Congreve are no more;
After so many stars extinct in night, 5
The darkened age's last remaining light!
To thee from Latian realms this verse is writ,
Inspired by memory of ancient wit:
For now no more these climes their influence boast,
Fall'n is their glory, and their virtue lost: