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Home  »  Complete Poetical Works by Alexander Pope  »  Inscription on a Grotto, the Work of Nine Ladies

Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Complete Poetical Works. 1903.

Poems of Uncertain Date

Inscription on a Grotto, the Work of Nine Ladies

HERE, shunning idleness at once and praise,

This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;

The glitt’ring emblem of each spotless dame,

Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;

Beauty which Nature only can impart,

And such a polish as disgraces Art;

But Fate disposed them in this humble sort,

And hid in deserts what would charm a Court.