Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/120

 We see him now, remissive of his force, Glide with a low, and inoffensive course; Stript of the gawdygaudy [sic] dress of words he goes, And scarcely lifts the poem up from prose: And now he brings with loosen'd reins along All in a full career the boundless song; In wide array luxuriantly he pours A crowd of words, and opens all his stores. The lavish eloquence redundant flows, Thick as the fleeces of the winter-snows. When Jove invests the naked Alps, and sheds The silent tempest on their hoary heads. Sometimes the god-like fury he restrains, Checks his impetuous speed, and draws the reins; Balanc'd and pois'd, he neither sinks nor soars, But ploughs the midmost space, and steers between the shores, And shaves the confines;---'till, all dangers past, He shoots with joy into the port at last.


 * what remains unsung: I now declare

What claims the poet's last and strictest care. When, all adventures past, his labours tend In one continu'd order to their end;