Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/202

 But 'twill not screen the unnatural and absurd, Unions of lamb with tiger, snake with bird.
 * When poets would be lofty, they commence

With some gay patch of cheap magnificence: Of Dian's altar and her grove we read, Or rapid streams meandering through the mead; Or grand descriptions of the river Rhine, Or watery bow, will take up many a line. All in their way good things, but not just now: You're happy at a cypress, we'll allow; But what of that? you're painting by command A shipwrecked sailor, striking out for land: That crockery was a jar when you began; It ends a pitcher: you an artist, man! Make what you will, in short, so, when 'tis done, 'Tis but consistent, homogeneous, one.
 * Ye worthy trio! we poor sons of song

Oft find 'tis fancied right that leads us wrong. I prove obscure in trying to be terse; Attempts at ease emasculate my verse; Who aims at grandeur into bombast falls; Who fears to stretch his pinions creeps and crawls; Who hopes by strange variety to please Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas. Thus zeal to 'scape from error, if unchecked By sense of art, creates a new defect. Fix on some casual sculptor; he shall know How to give nails their sharpness, hair its flow; Yet he shall fail, because he lacks the soul To comprehend and reproduce the whole.