Part of the NINTH ODE Of the FOURTH BOOK. L EST 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 ; Tho' daring Milton fits sublime, In Spenser native Muses play ; Nor yet shall Waller yield to time, Nor penfive Cowley's moral lay Sages and Chiefs long fince had birth Ere Cæfar was, or Newton nam'd; These rais'd new Empires o'er the Earth, And Those, new Heav'ns and Systems fram’d. Vain was the Chief's, the Sage's pride! They had no Poet, and they died. They had no Poet, and are dead. E P I S T L E TO . ROBERT Earl of OXFORD, and Earl MORTIMER. UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet fung, "Till Death untimely stop'd his tuneful tongue. Oh just beheld ! and loft ! admir'd and mourn'd! With foftest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd! Bleft in each science, bleft in ev'ry strain ! S Dear to the Muse! to HARLEY dear-in vain ! For him, thou oft haft bid the World attend, 10 Dextrous the craving, fawning crowd to quit, And pleas’d to 'scape from Flattery to Wit. Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear, (A figh the absent claims, the dead a tear) Epift. to Robert Earl of Oxford.) This Epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnell's poems published by our Author, after the said Earl's Imprisonment in the Tower, and Retreat into the Country, in the Year 1721. |