EPISTLES.
45
Now from the rugged North unnumber'd swarms
Invade the Latian coasts with barb'rous arms;
A race unpolish'd, but inur'd to toil,
Rough as their heav'n, and barren as their soil: 155
These locusts ev'ry springing art destroy'd,
And soft Humanity before them dy'd.
Picture no more maintain'd the doubtful strife
With Nature's scenes, nor gave the canvass life;
Nor Sculpture exercis'd her skill, beneath 160
Her forming hand to make the marble breathe:
Struck with despair, they stood devoid of thought,
Less lively than the works themselves had wrought.
On those twin-sisters such disasters came,
Tho' colours and proportions are the same 165
In ev'ry age and clime, their beauties known
To ev'ry language, and confin'd by none.
But Fate less freedom to the Muse affords,
And checks her genius with the choice of words:
To paint her thoughts the diction must be found
Of easy grandeur and harmonious sound. 171
Thus when the rais'd her voice, divinely great,
To sing the founder of the Roman state,
The language was adapted to the song,
Sweet and sublime, with native beauty strong; 175
But when the Goths' insulting troops appear'd,
Such dissonance the trembling virgin heard,
Chang'd to a swan, from Tyber's troubled streams
She wing'd her flight, and sought the silver Thames.
Invade the Latian coasts with barb'rous arms;
A race unpolish'd, but inur'd to toil,
Rough as their heav'n, and barren as their soil: 155
These locusts ev'ry springing art destroy'd,
And soft Humanity before them dy'd.
Picture no more maintain'd the doubtful strife
With Nature's scenes, nor gave the canvass life;
Nor Sculpture exercis'd her skill, beneath 160
Her forming hand to make the marble breathe:
Struck with despair, they stood devoid of thought,
Less lively than the works themselves had wrought.
On those twin-sisters such disasters came,
Tho' colours and proportions are the same 165
In ev'ry age and clime, their beauties known
To ev'ry language, and confin'd by none.
But Fate less freedom to the Muse affords,
And checks her genius with the choice of words:
To paint her thoughts the diction must be found
Of easy grandeur and harmonious sound. 171
Thus when the rais'd her voice, divinely great,
To sing the founder of the Roman state,
The language was adapted to the song,
Sweet and sublime, with native beauty strong; 175
But when the Goths' insulting troops appear'd,
Such dissonance the trembling virgin heard,
Chang'd to a swan, from Tyber's troubled streams
She wing'd her flight, and sought the silver Thames.
