THIS verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse | |
| This from no venal or ungrateful Muse. | |
| Whether thy hand strike out some free design, | |
| Where life awakes, and dawns at ev’ry line, | |
| Or blend in beauteous tints the colour’d mass, | 5 |
| And from the canvas call the mimic face: | |
| Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire | |
| Fresnoy’s close Art and Dryden’s native Fire; | |
| And reading wish like theirs our fate and fame, | |
| So mix’d our studies, and so join’d our name; | 10 |
| Like them to shine thro’ long succeeding age, | |
| So just thy skill, so regular my rage. | |
| Smit with the love of Sister-Arts we came, | |
| And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; | |
| Like friendly colours found them both unite, | 15 |
| And each from each contract new strength and light. | |
| How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, | |
| While summer suns roll unperceiv’d away! | |
| How oft our slowly growing works impart, | |
| While images reflect from art to art! | 20 |
| How oft review; each finding, like a friend, | |
| Something to blame, and something to commend. | |
| What flatt’ring scenes our wand’ring fancy wrought, | |
| Rome’s pompous glories rising to our thought! | |
| Together o’er the Alps methinks we fly, | 25 |
| Fired with ideas of fair Italy. | |
| With thee on Raphael’s monument I mourn, | |
| Or wait inspiring dreams at Maro’s urn: | |
| With thee repose where Tully once was laid, | |
| Or seek some ruin’s formidable shade: | 30 |
| While Fancy brings the vanish’d piles to view, | |
| And builds imaginary Rome anew. | |
| Here thy well-studied marbles fix our eye; | |
| A fading fresco here demands a sigh; | |
| Each heav’nly piece unwearied we compare, | 35 |
| Match Raphael’s grace with thy lov’d Guido’s air, | |
| Carracci’s strength, Correggio’s softer line, | |
| Paulo’s free stroke, and Titian’s warmth divine. | |
| How finish’d with illustrious toil appears | |
| This small well-polish’d Gem, the work of years, | 40 |
| Yet still how faint by precept is exprest | |
| The living image in the painter’s breast! | |
| Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow, | |
| Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow; | |
| Thence Beauty, waking all her forms, supplies | 45 |
| An Angel’s sweetness, or Bridgewater’s eyes. | |
| Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed | |
| Those tears eternal that embalm the dead; | |
| Call round her tomb each object of desire, | |
| Each purer frame inform’d with purer fire; | 50 |
| Bid her be all that cheers or softens life, | |
| The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife; | |
| Bid her be all that makes mankind adore, | |
| Then view this marble, and be vain no more! | |
| Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage, | 55 |
| Her modest cheek shall warm a future age. | |
| Beauty, frail flower, that ev’ry season fears, | |
| Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years. | |
| Thus Churchill’s race shall other hearts surprise, | |
| And other beauties envy Worsley’s eyes; | 60 |
| Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow, | |
| And soft Belinda’s blush for ever glow. | |
| O, lasting as those colours may they shine, | |
| Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line; | |
| New graces yearly like thy works display, | 65 |
| Soft without weakness, without glaring gay! | |
| Led by some rule that guides, but not constrains, | |
| And finish’d more thro’ happiness than pains. | |
| The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, | |
| One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. | 70 |
| Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, | |
| And breathe an air divine on ev’ry face; | |
| Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll | |
| Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; | |
| With Zeuxis’ Helen thy Bridgewater vie, | 75 |
| And these be sung till Granville’s Myra die; | |
| Alas! how little from the grave we claim! | |
| Thou but preserv’st a Face and I a Name! | |
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