Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what n'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. All which exact to rule were brought about, Were but a combat in the lists left out. Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit, One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover every part, And hide with ornaments their want of Art. As bodies perish thro' excess of blood.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent as more suitable.
But most by Numbers judge a poet's song, And smooth or rough with them is right or wrong. Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was is Dryden now. Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.