Читать книгу A Burlesque Translation of Homer - Francis Grose - Страница 2

Good people, would you know the reason

I write at this unlucky season,

When all the nation is so poor

That few can keep above one whore,

Except the lawyers – (whose large fees

Maintain as many as they please) —

And Pope, with taste and judgement great,

Has deign'd this author to translate —

The reason's this: – He may not please

The jocund tribe so well as these;

For all capacities can't climb

To comprehend the true sublime.

Another reason I can tell,

Though silence might do full as well;

But being charg'd – discharge I must,

For bladder, if too full, will burst.

The writers of the merry class,

E'er since the time of Hudibras,

In this strange blunder all agree,

To murder short-legg'd poetry.

Words, though design'd to make ye smile,

Why mayn't they run as smooth as oil?

No poetaster can convince

A man of any kind of sense,

That verse can be the greater treasure,

Because it wants both weight and measure

Or can persuade, that false rough metre,

Than true and smooth, by far is sweeter.

This is the wherefore; and the why,

Have patience, you'll see by-and-by.