Page:The dispensary - a poem in six canto's (sic) (IA b30356775).pdf/20

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TO MY

Friend the Author,

Desiring My

Opinion of his POEM.

ASK me not, Friend, what I Approve or Blame,
Perhaps I know not why I Like, or Damn;
I can be Pleas'd; and I dare own I am.
I read Thee over with a Lover's Eye,
Thou hast no Faults, or I no Faults can spy;
Thou art all Beauty, or all Blindness I.
Criticks, and aged Beaux of Fancy chast,
Who ne'er had Fire, or else whose Fire is past,
Must judge by Rules what they want Force to Taste.
I wou'd a Poet, like a Mistress, try,
Not by her Hair, her Hand, her Nose, her Eye;
But by some Nameless Pow'r, to give me Joy.
The Nymph has G———n's, C———l's, C———l's Charm,
If with resistless Fires my Soul she warms
With Balm upon her Lips, and Raptures in her Arms.
Such is thy Genius, and such Art is thine,
Some secret Magick works in ev'ry Line;
We judge not, but we feel the Pow'r Divine.
Where all is Just, is Beauteous, and is Fair,
Distinctions vanish of peculiar Air.

Lost