Because Parnassus, though a Mount divine,
Is poor as Irus,[1] or an Irish mine.[2][3]530
Two objects always should the Poet move,
Or one or both,—to please or to improve.
Whate'er you teach, be brief, if you design
For our remembrance your didactic line;
Redundance places Memory on the rack,
For brains may be o'erloaded, like the back.[4]
Fiction does best when taught to look like Truth,
And fairy fables bubble none but youth:
Expect no credit for too wondrous tales,
Since Jonas only springs alive from Whales!540
Young men with aught but Elegance dispense;
Maturer years require a little Sense.
To end at once:—that Bard for all is fit[5]
- ↑ "Iro pauperior:" a proverb: this is the same beggar who boxed with Ulysses for a pound of kid's fry, which he lost and half a dozen teeth besides. (See Odyssey, xviii. 98.)
- ↑
Unlike Potosi holds no silver mine.—[MS. L. (a).] Keeps back his ingots like
Is rather costive—like
Is no Potosi, butan Irish Mine.—[MS. L. (b).] - ↑ The Irish gold mine in Wicklow, which yields just ore enough to swear by, or gild a bad guinea.
- ↑
Write but recite not, e'en Apollo's song
Mouthed in a mortal ear would seem too long,
Long as the last year of a lingering lease,
When Revel pauses until Rents increase.—[MS. M. erased.] - ↑
To finish all.—[MS. L. (b).]
That Bard the mask will fit.—[MS. L. (b).]