Classic Poem

Whether the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,
The seeds of arts and infant science bore,
'Tis sure the noble plant, translated first,
Advanced its head in Grecian gardens nursed.
The Grecians added verse, their tuneful tongue
Made nature first, and nature's God their song.
Nor stopped translation here: for conquering Rome
With Grecian spoils brought Grecian numbers home,
Enriched by those Athenian Muses more
Than all the vanquished world could yield before;
Till barb'rous nations, and more barb'rous times,
Debased the majesty of verse to rhymes:
Those rude at first, a kind of hobbling prose
That limped along, and tinkled in the close;
But Italy, reviving from the trance
Of Vandal, Goth, and monkish ignorance,
With pauses, cadence, and well-vowelled words,
And all the graces a good ear affords,
Made rhyme an art; and Dante's polished page
Restored a silver, not a golden age.
Then Petrarch followed, and in him we see
What rhyme improved in all its height can be:
At best a pleasing sound, and fair barbarity.
The French pursued their steps, and Britain last
In manly sweetness all the rest surpassed.
The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome,
Appear exalted in the British loom;
The Muses' empire is restored again
In Charles his reign, and by Roscommon's pen.
Yet modestly he does his work survey,
And calls a finished poem an " essay":
For all the needful rules are scattered here,
Truth smoothly told, and pleasantly severe
(So well is art disguised, for nature to appear).
Nor need those rules to give translation light:
His own example is a flame so bright
That he who but arrives to copy well
Unguided will advance, unknowing will excel.
Scarce his own Horace could such rules ordain,
Or his own Virgil sing a nobler strain.
How much in him may rising Ireland boast,
How much in gaining him has Britain lost!
Their island in revenge has ours reclaimed,
The more instructed we, the more we still are shamed.
'Tis well for us his generous blood did flow
Derived from British channels long ago,
That here his conquering ancestors were nursed,
And Ireland but translated England first:
By this reprisal we regain our right,
Else must the two contending nations fight
A nobler quarrel for his native earth
Than what divided Greece for Homer's birth.
To what perfection will our tongue arrive,
How will invention and translation thrive,
When authors nobly born will bear their part,
And not disdain th' inglorious praise of art!
Great generals thus descending from command
With their own toil provoke the soldiers' hand.
How will sweet Ovid's ghost be pleased to hear
His fame augmented by an English peer;
How he embellishes his Helen's loves,
Outdoes his softness, and his sense improves!
When these translate, and teach translators too,
Nor firstling kid, nor any vulgar vow
Should at Apollo's grateful altar stand:
Roscommon writes; to that auspicious hand,
Muse, feed the bull that spurns the yellow sand.
Roscommon, whom both court and camps commend,
True to his Prince, and faithful to his friend;
Roscommon, first in fields of honour known,
First in the peaceful triumphs of the gown,
He both Minervas justly makes his own.
Now let the few beloved by Jove, and they
Whom infused Titan formed of better clay,
On equal terms with ancient wit engage,
Nor mighty Homer fear, nor sacred Virgil's page:
Our English palace opens wide in state,
And without stooping they may pass the gate.