It seems some floating piece of Paradise,
Preserved by wonder from the flood,
Long wandering through the deep, as we are told
Fam'd Delos did of old;
And the transported Muse imagin'd it
To be a fitter birth-place for the God of wit,
Or the much-talk'd oracular grove;
When, with amazing joy, she hears
An unknown musick all around,
Charming her greedy ears,
With many a heavenly song
Of nature and of art, of deep philosophy and love;
While angels tune the voice, and God inspires the tongue.
In vain she catches at the empty sound,
In vain pursues the musick with her longing eye,
And courts the wanton echoes as they fly.
III.
Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excursions of a youthful pen;
Forgive a young, and (almost) virgin Muse,
Whom blind and eager curiosity
(Yet curiosity, they say,
Is in her sex a crime needs no excuse)
Has forc'd to grope her uncouth way,
After a mighty light that leads her wandering eye.
No wonder then she quits the narrow path of sense
For a dear ramble through impertinence;
Impertinence! the scurvy of mankind.
And all we fools, who are the greater part of it,
Though we be of two different factions still,
Both the good-natur'd and the ill,
Yet wheresoe'er you look, you'll always find
We join, like flies and wasps, in buzzing about wit.
In
