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=577673" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Pastoral, The Elegy, The Ode, And The Epigram</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">As A fair nymph, when rising from her bed,<br>With sparkling diamonds dresses not her head,<br>But without gold, or pearl, or costly scents,<br>Gathers from neighboring fields her ornaments:<br>Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,<br>Ought to appear a perfect Pastoral.<br>Its humble method nothing has of fierce,<br>But hates the rattling of a lofty verse;<br>There native beauty pleases and excites,<br>And never with harsh sounds the ear affrights.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But in this style a poet, often spent<br>In rage, throws by his rural instrument,<br>And vainly, when disordered thoughts abound,<br>Amidst the eclogue makes the trumpet sound;<br>Pan flies alarmed into the neighboring woods,<br>And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Opposed to this, another, low in style,<br>Makes shepherds speak a language low and vile;<br>His writings, flat and heavy, without sound,<br>Kissing the earth and creeping on the ground;<br>You'd swear that Randal, in his rustic strains,<br>Again was quavering to the country swains,<br>And changing, without care of sound or dress,<br>Strephon and Phyllis into Tom and Bess.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twixt these extremes 'tis hard to keep the right:<br>For guides take Virgil and read Theocrite;<br>Be their just writings, by the gods inspired,<br>Your constant pattern, practiced and admired.<br>By them alone you'll easy comprehend<br>How poets without shame may condescend<br>To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers and fruit,<br>To stir up shepherds and to tune the flute;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,<br>Daphne a tree, Narcissus make a flower,<br>And by what means the eclogue yet has power<br>To make the woods worthy a conqueror;<br>This of their writings is the grace and flight;<br>Their risings lofty, yet not out of sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Elegy, that loves a mournful style,<br>With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile;<br>It paints the lover's torments and delights,<br>A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites;<br>But well these raptures if you'll make us see,<br>You must know love as well as poetry.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I hate those lukewarm authors, whose forced fire<br>In a cold style describes a hot desire;<br>That sigh by rule, and raging in cold blood,<br>Their sluggish muse whip to an amorous mood.<br>Their transports feigned appear but flat and vain;<br>They always sigh, and always hug their chain,<br>Adore their prisons and their sufferings bless,<br>Make sense and reason quarrel as they please.<br>'Twas not of old in this affected tone<br>That smooth Tibullus made his amorous moan;<br>Nor Ovid, when, instructed from above,<br>By nature's rule he taught the art of love.<br>The heart in elegies forms the discourse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Ode is bolder and has greater force;<br>Mounting to heaven in her ambitious flight,<br>Amongst the gods and heroes takes delight;<br>Of Pisa's wrestlers tells the sinewy force,<br>And sings the lusty conqueror's glorious course;<br>To Simois's streams does fierce Achilles bring,<br>And makes the Ganges bow to Britain's king.<br>Sometimes she flies like an industrious bee,<br>And robs the flowers by nature's chemistry;<br>Describes the shepherd's dances, feasts, and bliss,<br>And boasts from Phyllis to surprise a kiss,<br>When gently she resists with feigned remorse,<br>That what she grants may seem to be by force.<br>Her generous style at random oft will part,<br>And by a brave disorder shows her art.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unlike those fearful poets whose cold rime<br>In all their raptures keeps exactest time;<br>That sing the illustrious hero's mighty praise--<br>Lean writers!--by the terms of weeks and days,<br>And dare not from least circumstances part,<br>But take all towns by strictest rules of art.<br>Apollo drives those fops from his abode;<br>And some have said that once the humorous god,<br>Resolving all such scribblers to confound,<br>For the short Sonnet ordered this strict bound,<br>Set rules for the just measure and the time,<br>The easy-running and alternate rime;<br>But above all, those licenses denied<br>Which in these writings the lame sense supplied,<br>Forbade a useless line should find a place,<br>Or a repeated word appear with grace.<br>A faultless sonnet, finished thus, would be<br>Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry.<br>A hundred scribbling authors, without ground,<br>Believe they have this only phoenix found,<br>When yet the exactest scarce have two or three,<br>Among whole tomes, from faults and censure free;<br>The rest, but little read, regarded less,<br>Are shoveled to the pastry from the press.<br>Closing the sense within the measured time,<br>'Tis hard to fit the reason to the rime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Epigram, with little art composed,<br>Is one good sentence in a distich closed.<br>These points, that by Italians first were prized,<br>Our ancient authors knew not, or despised;<br>The vulgar, dazzled with their glaring light,<br>To their false pleasures quickly they invite;<br>But public favor so increased their pride,<br>They overwhelmed Parnassus with their tide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Madrigal at first was overcome,<br>And the proud Sonnet fell by the same doom;<br>With these grave Tragedy adorned her flights,<br>And mournful Elegy her funeral rites,<br>A hero never failed them on the stage:<br>Without his point a lover durst not rage;<br>The amorous shepherds took more care to prove<br>True to his point, than faithful to their love.<br>Each word, like Janus, had a double face,<br>And prose, as well as verse, allowed it place;<br>The lawyer with conceits adorned his speech,<br>The parson without quibbling could not preach.<br>At last affronted reason looked about,<br>And from all serious matters shut them out;<br>Declared that none should use them without shame,<br>Except a scattering, in the epigram--<br>Provided that by art, and in due time,<br>They turned upon the thought, and not the rime.<br>Thus in all parts disorders did abate;<br>Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate,<br>Insipid jesters and unpleasant fools,<br>A corporation of dull, punning drolls.<br>'Tis not but that sometimes a dextrous muse<br>May with advantage a turned sense abuse,<br>And on a word may trifle with address;<br>But above all, avoid the fond excess,<br>And think not, when your verse and sense are lame,<br>With a dull point to tag your epigram.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Nicholas+Boileau-Despreaux">Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux</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=577673" data-title="The Pastoral, The Elegy, The Ode, And The Epigram de Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux" data-description="As A fair nymph, when rising from her bed,
With sparkling diamonds dresses not her head,
But without gold, or pearl, or costly scents,
Gathers from neighboring fields her ornaments:
Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,
Ought to appear a pe..."></div>
</div>
</div>