Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/72

As wrought by heav'n these wonders they relate,
All airy visions of the ivory gate.

Speak things but once if order be your care,$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$
For more the cloy'd attention will not bear,
And tedious repetitions tire the ear.
In this we differ from the Grecian train,
Who ^[1] tell Atrides' visions o'er again.
'Tis not enough with them to tell the cause
Why great Achilles from the war withdraws,
Unless the ^[2] weeping hero on the shore,
Tells his blue mother all we heard before.
So much on punctual niceties they stand,
That when their kings dispatch some high command,
All, word for word, the ^[3] Embassadors rehearse
In the same tenor of unvaried verse.
Not so did ^[4] Venulus from Arpi bring
The final answer of th' Ætolian king.

Let others labour on a vast design,
A less, but polisht with due care, be thine.

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1. Vid. Iliad. Lib. 2.
2. Ibid. Lib. 1. vers. 370.
3. Ibid. Lib 9. v. 264.
4. Æneid. L. 11. v. 243.