So this rude Babe I to your Mercy yield,
Rough as the Soil of some untillag'd Field:
Can Nature please? — Not 'till she's well refin'd,
Reforming Art shou'd follow close behind;
But that proud Dame with me disdains to dwell,
And far she flies — Ah far from  Cell.
What then remains? What Hope for me or mine,
But the kind Silence of forgetful Time?
To save us from the sly buffooning Leer,
The spiteful Grimace, and the scornful Sneer;
The threat'ning Critic with his dreadful Rules,
The Wit's keen Satire and the Burst of Fools.
The wretched Villain pinion'd up on high,
Two Hours pendent 'twixt the Earth and Sky,
With Eggs and Turnips whirling round his Pate,
Is but an Emblem of an Author's Fate.
A dread Example to the rhyming Fry,
So Poets tell me, but I hope they lye:
The World's good-natur'd, if it is not cross'd,
But Wits are often saucy to their Cost.