POPE! though thy pen has strove with heedless rage
To make my name obnoxious to the age,
While, dipp’d in gall, and tarnish’d with the spleen,
It dealt in taunts ridiculous and mean,
Aiming to lessen what it could not reach,
And giving license to ungrateful speech,
Still I forgive its enmity, and feel
Regrets I would not stifle, nor conceal;
For though thy temper, and imperious soul,
Needed, at times, subjection and controul,
There was a majesty--a march of sense--
A proud display of rare intelligence,
In many a line of that transcendent pen,
We never, perhaps, may contemplate again--
An energy peculiarly its own,
And sweetness perfectly before unknown!
Then deign, thou mighty master of the lyre!
T’ accept what justice and remorse inspire;
Justice that prompts the willing muse to tell,
None ever wrote so largely and so well--
Remorse that feels no future bard can fill
The vacant chair with half such Attic skill,
Or leave behind so many proofs of taste,
As those rich poems dulness ne’er disgrac’d!
Farewell, dear shade! all enmity is o’er,
Since Pope has left us for a brighter shore,
Where neither rage, nor jealousy, nor hate,
Can rouse the little, nor offend the great;
Where worldly contests are at once forgot,
In the bright glories of a happier lot;
And where the dunces of the Dunciad see
Thy genius crown’d with immortality!