| Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Complete Poetical Works. 1903. | | | | Satires | Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace Imitated
The Ninth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace |
| | A Fragment
LEST you should think that verse shall die | |
| Which sounds the silver Thames along, | |
| Taught on the wings of truth to fly | |
| Above the reach of vulgar song; | |
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| Tho’ daring Milton sits sublime, | 5 |
| In Spenser native muses play; | |
| Nor yet shall Waller yield to time, | |
| Nor pensive Cowley’s moral lay— | |
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| Sages and Chiefs long since had birth | |
| Ere Cæsar was or Newton named; | 10 |
| These rais’d new empires o’er the earth, | |
| And those new heav’ns and systems framed. | |
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| Vain was the Chief’s, the Sage’s Pride! | |
| They had no Poet, and they died. | |
| In vain they schemed, in vain they bled! | 15 |
| They had no Poet, and are dead. | | | | |
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