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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354720" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Journey</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some of my friends (for friends I must suppose<br>All, who, not daring to appear my foes,<br>Feign great good-will, and not more full of spite<br>Than full of craft, under false colours fight)<br>Some of my friends (so lavishly I print)<br>As more in sorrow than in anger, hint<br>(Tho' that indeed will scarce admit a doubt)<br>That I shall run my stock of genius out,<br>My no great stock, and, publishing so fast,<br>Must needs become a bankrupt at the last.<br>Recover'd from the vanity of youth,<br>I feel, alas! this melancholy truth,<br>Thanks to each cordial, each advising friend,<br>And am, if not too late, resolv'd to mend,<br>Resolv'd to give some respite to my pen,<br>Apply myself once more to books and men,<br>View what is present, what is past review,<br>And my old stock exhausted, lay in new.<br>For twice six moons (let winds, turn'd porters, bear<br>This oath to Heav'n), for twice six moons, I swear,<br>No Muse shall tempt me with her siren lay,<br>Nor draw me from Improvement's thorny way;<br>Verse I abjure, nor will forgive that friend,<br>Who in my hearing shall a rhyme commend.<br>It cannot be--Whether I will, or no,<br>Such as they are, my thoughts in measure flow.<br>Convinc'd, determin'd, I in prose begin,<br>But ere I write one sentence, verse creeps in,<br>And taints me thro' and thro': by this good light,<br>In verse I talk by day, I dream by night;<br>If now and then I curse, my curses chime,<br>Nor can I pray, unless I pray in rhyme,<br>E'en now I err, in spite of common-sense,<br>And my confession doubles my offence.<br>Here is no lie, no gall, no art, no force;<br>Mean are the words, and such as come of course,<br>The subject not less simple than the lay;<br>A plain, unlabour'd Journey of a day.<br>Far from me now be ev'ry tuneful Maid,<br>I neither ask, nor can receive their aid.<br>Pegasus turn'd into a common hack,<br>Alone I jog, and keep the beaten track,<br>Nor would I have the Sisters of the Hill<br>Behold their bard in such a dishabille.<br>Absent, but only absent for a time,<br>Let them caress some dearer son of rhyme;<br>Let them, as far as decency permits,<br>Without suspicion, play the fool with wits,<br>'Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,<br>Wits are false things, there's danger in a fool.<br>Let them, tho' modest, Gray more modest woo;<br>Let them with Mason bleat, and bray, and coo;<br>Let them with Franklin, proud of some small Greek,<br>Make Sophocles disguis'd, in English speak;<br>Let them with Glover o'er Medea doze;<br>Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes,<br>Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears,<br>Melts, as they melt, and weeps with weeping peers;<br>Let them with simple Whitehead, taught to creep<br>Silent and soft, lay Fontenelle asleep;<br>Let them with Browne contrive, to vulgar trick,<br>To cure the dead, and make the living sick;<br>Let them in charity to Murphy give<br>Some old French piece, that he may steal and live;<br>Let them with antic Foote subscriptions get,<br>And advertise a Summer-house of Wit.<br>Thus, or in any better way they please,<br>With these great men, or with great men like these,<br>Let them their appetite for laughter feed;<br>I on my Journey all alone proceed.<br>If fashionable grown, and fond of pow'r,<br>With hum'rous Scots let them disport their hour:<br>Let them dance, fairy-like, round Ossian's tomb;<br>Let them forge lies, and histories for Hume;<br>Let them with Home, the very prince of verse,<br>Make something like a Tragedy in Erse;<br>Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil<br>Let them with Ogilvie spin out a tale<br>Of rueful length; Let them plain things obscure,<br>Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor<br>Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth;<br>With ev'ry pert, prim prettiness of youth<br>Born of false Taste, with Fancy (like a child<br>Not knowing what it cries for) running wild,<br>With bloated style, by affectation taught,<br>With much false colouring, and little thought,<br>With phrases strange, and dialect decreed<br>By reason never to have pass'd the Tweed,<br>With words which Nature meant each other's foe,<br>Forc'd to compound whether they will or no;<br>With such materials let them, if they will,<br>To prove at once their pleasantry and skill,<br>Build up a bard to war 'gainst Common-Sense,<br>By way of compliment to Providence;<br>Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of Sense,<br>Read musty lectures on Benevolence,<br>Or con the pages of his gaping Day,<br>Where all his former fame was thrown away,<br>Where all but barren labour was forgot,<br>And the vain stiffness of a letter'd Scot;<br>Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light,<br>But not one hour of darkness; when the night<br>Suspends this mortal coil, when Memory wakes,<br>When for our past misdoings Conscience takes<br>A deep revenge, when by Reflection led,<br>She draws his curtain, and looks Comfort dead,<br>Let ev'ry Muse be gone; in vain he turns<br>And tries to pray for sleep; an Etna burns,<br>A more than Etna in his coward breast,<br>And Guilt, with vengeance arm'd, forbids him rest:<br>Tho' soft as plumage from young zephyr's wing,<br>His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring.<br>Ingratitude hath planted daggers there,<br>No good man can deserve, no brave man bear.<br>Thus, or in any better way they please,<br>With these great men, or with great men like these,<br>Let them their appetite for laughter feed<br>I on my Journey all alone proceed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Charles+Churchill">Charles Churchill</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354720" data-title="The Journey de Charles Churchill" data-description="Some of my friends (for friends I must suppose
All, who, not daring to appear my foes,
Feign great good-will, and not more full of spite
Than full of craft, under false colours fight)
Some of my friends (so lavishly I print)
As more in sorrow than..."></div>
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