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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=537536" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis not that I design to rob <br>Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,--<br>For thou art born sole heir and single <br>Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;<br>Nor that I mean, while thus I knit<br>My threadbare sentiments together,<br>To show my genius or my wit,<br>When God and you know I have neither,<br>Or such, as might be better shown<br>By letting poetry alone.<br>'Tis not with either of these views,<br>That I presume to address the Muse:<br>But to divert a fierce banditti,<br>(Sworn foes to everything that's witty),<br>That, with a black infernal train,<br>Make cruel inroads in my brain,<br>And daily threaten to drive thence<br>My little garrison of sense:<br>The fierce banditti which I mean,<br>Are gloomy thoughts led on by spleen.<br>Then there's another reason yet,<br>Which is, that I may fairly quit<br>The debt which justly became due<br>The moment when I heard from you:<br>And you might grumble, crony mine,<br>If paid in any other coin;<br>Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,<br>(I would say twenty sheets of prose),<br>Can ne'er be deemed worth half so much<br>As one of gold, and yours was such.<br>Thus the preliminaries settled, <br>I fairly find myself pitch-kettled;<br>And cannot see, though few see better,<br>How I shall hammer out a letter.<br>First, for a thought -- since all agree--<br>A thought -- I have it -- let me see--<br>'Tis gone again -- plague on't! I thought<br>I had it -- but I have it not.<br>Dame Gurton thus and Hodge her son<br>That useful thing, her needle, gone,<br>Rake well the cinders, sweep the floor,<br>And sift the dust behind the door;<br>While eager Hodge beholds the prize<br>In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;<br>And Gammar finds it on her knees<br>In every shining straw she sees.<br>This simile were apt enough,<br>But I've another, critic-proof.<br>The virtuoso thus at noon,<br>Broiling beneath a July sun,<br>The gilded butterfly pursues<br>O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews,<br>And after many a vain essay<br>To captivate the tempting prey,<br>Gives him at length the lucky pat,<br>And has him safe beneath his hat:<br>Then lifts it gently from the ground,<br>But ah! 'tis lost as soon as found;<br>Culprit his liberty regains;<br>Flits out of sight and mocks his pains.<br>The sense was dark, 'twas therefore (--?)<br>With simile to illustrate it;<br>But as too much obscures the sight,<br>As often as too little light,<br>We have our similes cut short,<br>For matters of more grave import.<br>That Matthew's numbers run with ease<br>Each man of common sense agrees;<br>All men of common sense allow,<br>That Robert's lines are easy too;<br>Where then the preference shall we place,<br>Or how do justice in this case?<br>Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains<br>Smoothed and refined the meanest strains,<br>Nor suffered one ill-chosen rhyme<br>To escape him at the idlest time;<br>And thus o'er all a lustre cast,<br>That while the language lives shall last.<br>An't please your ladyship, (quoth I,<br>For 'tis my business to reply);<br>Sure so much labour, so much toil,<br>Bespeak at least a stubborn soil.<br>Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,<br>Who both write well and write full speed;<br>Who throw their Helicon about<br>As freely as a conduit spout. <br>Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant,<br>Lets fall a poem en passant,<br>Nor needs his genuine ore refine;<br>'Tis ready polished from the mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Cowper">William Cowper</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=537536" data-title="An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq. de William Cowper" data-description="'Tis not that I design to rob 
Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,--
For thou art born sole heir and single 
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Nor that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,
To show my genius or my wit,
When G..."></div>
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