True poets can depress and raise,
Are lords of infamy and praise;
They are not scurrilous in satire,
Nor will in panegyrick flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinuate what is true.
Now, should my praises owe their truth,
To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,
What stoicks call without our power,
They could not be ensur'd an hour:
'Twere grafting on an annual stock,
That must our expectation mock,
And, making one luxuriant shoot,
Die the next year for want of root:
Before I could my verses bring,
Perhaps you're quite another thing.
So Mævius, when he drain'd his skull
To celebrate some suburb trull,
His similes in order set,
And every crambo he could get,
Had gone through all the common places
Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces,
Before he could his poem close,
The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
Your virtues safely I commend;
They on no accidents depend:
Let malice look with all her eyes,
She dares not say the poet lies.
Stella, when you these lines transcribe,
Lest you should take them for a bribe,
Resolv'd to mortify your pride,
I'll here expose your weaker side.
