Vain Was The Chief's The Sage's Pride! They Had No Poet, And They Died.

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Vain was the chief's the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
-- Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace, Odes, Book iv, Ode 9

For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old.
Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spoke.
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one.
Who says in verse what others say in prose.
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame.

Vain Was The Chief's The Sage's Pride! They Had No Poet, And They Died.

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