Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=426431" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To Stella, Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">As, when a lofty pile is raised,<br>We never hear the workmen praised,<br>Who bring the lime, or place the stones;<br>But all admire Inigo Jones:<br>So, if this pile of scattered rhymes<br>Should be approved in aftertimes;<br>If it both pleases and endures,<br>The merit and the praise are yours.<br>Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,<br>When first for thee my harp was strung,<br>Without one word of Cupid's darts,<br>Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;<br>With friendship and esteem possest,<br>I ne'er admitted Love a guest.<br>In all the habitudes of life,<br>The friend, the mistress, and the wife,<br>Variety we still pursue,<br>In pleasure seek for something new;<br>Or else, comparing with the rest,<br>Take comfort that our own is best;<br>The best we value by the worst,<br>As tradesmen show their trash at first;<br>But his pursuits are at an end,<br>Whom Stella chooses for a friend.<br>A poet starving in a garret,<br>Invokes his mistress and his Muse,<br>And stays at home for want of shoes:<br>Should but his Muse descending drop<br>A slice of bread and mutton-chop;<br>Or kindly, when his credit's out,<br>Surprise him with a pint of stout;<br>Or patch his broken stocking soles;<br>Or send him in a peck of coals;<br>Exalted in his mighty mind,<br>He flies and leaves the stars behind;<br>Counts all his labours amply paid,<br>Adores her for the timely aid.<br>Or, should a porter make inquiries<br>For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris;<br>Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,<br>The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;<br>Fair Chloe would perhaps be found<br>With footmen tippling under ground;<br>The charming Sylvia beating flax,<br>Her shoulders marked with bloody tracks;<br>Bright Phyllis mending ragged smocks:<br>And radiant Iris in the pox.<br>These are the goddesses enrolled<br>In Curll's collection, new and old,<br>Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em,<br>If they should meet them in a poem.<br>True poets can depress and raise,<br>Are lords of infamy and praise;<br>They are not scurrilous in satire,<br>Nor will in panegyric flatter.<br>Unjustly poets we asperse;<br>Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,<br>And all the fictions they pursue<br>Do but insinuate what is true.<br>Now, should my praises owe their truth<br>To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,<br>What stoics call without our power,<br>They could not be ensured an hour;<br>'Twere grafting on an annual stock,<br>That must our expectation mock,<br>And, making one luxuriant shoot,<br>Die the next year for want of root:<br>Before I could my verses bring,<br>Perhaps you're quite another thing.<br>So Maevius, when he drained his skull<br>To celebrate some suburb trull,<br>His similes in order set,<br>And every crambo he could get;<br>Had gone through all the common-places<br>Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces;<br>Before he could his poem close,<br>The lovely nymph had lost her nose.<br>Your virtues safely I commend;<br>They on no accidents depend:<br>Let malice look with all her eyes,<br>She dare not say the poet lies.<br>Stella, when you these lines transcribe,<br>Lest you should take them for a bribe,<br>Resolved to mortify your pride,<br>I'll here expose your weaker side.<br>Your spirits kindle to a flame,<br>Moved by the lightest touch of blame;<br>And when a friend in kindness tries<br>To show you where your error lies,<br>Conviction does but more incense;<br>Perverseness is your whole defence;<br>Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite,<br>Regardless both of wrong and right;<br>Your virtues all suspended wait,<br>Till time has opened reason's gate;<br>And, what is worse, your passion bends<br>Its force against your nearest friends,<br>Which manners, decency, and pride,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Have taught from you the world to hide;<br>In vain; for see, your friend has brought<br>To public light your only fault;<br>And yet a fault we often find<br>Mixed in a noble, generous mind:<br>And may compare to Etna's fire,<br>Which, though with trembling, all admire;<br>The heat that makes the summit glow,<br>Enriching all the vales below.<br>Those who, in warmer climes, complain<br>From Phoebus' rays they suffer pain,<br>Must own that pain is largely paid<br>By generous wines beneath a shade.<br>Yet, when I find your passions rise,<br>And anger sparkling in your eyes,<br>I grieve those spirits should be spent,<br>For nobler ends by nature meant.<br>One passion, with a different turn,<br>Makes wit inflame, or anger burn:<br>So the sun's heat, with different powers,<br>Ripens the grape, the liquor sours:<br>Thus Ajax, when with rage possest,<br>By Pallas breathed into his breast,<br>His valour would no more employ,<br>Which might alone have conquered Troy;<br>But, blinded be resentment, seeks<br>For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.<br>You think this turbulence of blood<br>From stagnating preserves the flood,<br>Which, thus fermenting by degrees,<br>Exalts the spirits, sinks the lees.<br>Stella, for once your reason wrong;<br>For, should this ferment last too long,<br>By time subsiding, you may find<br>Nothing but acid left behind;<br>From passion you may then be freed,<br>When peevishness and spleen succeed.<br>Say, Stella, when you copy next,<br>Will you keep strictly to the text?<br>Dare you let these reproaches stand,<br>And to your failing set your hand?<br>Or, if these lines your anger fire,<br>Shall they in baser flames expire?<br>Whene'er they burn, if burn they must,<br>They'll prove my accusation just.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Jonathan+Swift">Jonathan Swift</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<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=426431" data-title="To Stella, Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems de Jonathan Swift" data-description="As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The mer..."></div>
</div>
</div>