Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in …

Alexander Pope
322 citations
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. ✨ 'An Essay on Criticism' (1711) l. 368
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You eat, in dreams, the custard of the day. ✨ Alexander Pope, Homer, Samuel Johnson (1830). The poetical works of Alexander Pope, Esq: to which is prefixed the life of the author, p.177
The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like sort should our author accustom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature. ✨ A … ▶
Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. ✨ Alexander Pope (1824). The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: With Notes and Illustrations, p.35
Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise. ✨ William Lisle Bowles, Alexander Pope (1820). A reply to an Unsentimental sort of critic,: the reviewer of Spence's Anecdotes in the Quarterly review for Oc … ▶
An honest man's the noblest work of God. ✨ An Essay on Man Epistle 4, l. 248 (1734)

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