A Letter To Monsieur Boileau Despreaux, Occasioned By The Victory At Blenheim
Since hired for life, thy servile Muse must sing
Successive conquests and a glorious King;
Must of a man immortal vainly boast,
And bring him laurels whatsoe'er they cost,
What turn wilt thou employ, what colours lay,
On the event of that superior day,
In which one English subject's prosperous hand
(So Jove did will, so Anna did command)
Broke the proud column of thy master's praise,
Which sixty winters had conspired to raise?
From the lost field a hundred standards brought
Must be the work of Chance, and Fortune's fault.
Bavaria's stars must be accused, which shone,
That fatal day the mighty work was done,
With rays oblique upon the Gallic sun.
Some demon envying France misled the sight,
And Mars mistook, though Louis order'd right.
When thy young Muse invoked the tuneful Nine,
To say how Louis did not pass the Rhine,
What work had we with Wageninghen, Arnheim,
Places that could not be reduced to rhyme?
And though the poet made his last efforts,
Wurts -- who could mention in heroic -- Wurts?
But, tell me, hast thou reason to complain
Of the rough triumphs of the last campaign?
The Danube rescued and the Empire saved,
Say, is the majesty of verse retrieved?
And would it prejudice thy softer vein
To sing the princes Louis and Eugene?
Is it too hard in happy verse to place
The Vans and Vanders of the Rhine and Maese?
Her warriors Anna sends from Tweed and Thames,
That France may fall by more harmonious names.
Canst thou not Hamilton or Lumley bear?
Would Ingoldsby or Palmes offend thy ear?
And is there not a sound in Marlbro's name
Which thou and all thy brethren ought to claim,
Sacred to verse, and sure of endless fame?
Cutts is in metre something harsh to read;
Place me the valiant Gouram in his stead;
Let the intention make the number good;
Let generous Sylvius speak for honest Wood,
And though rough Churchill scarce in verse will stand,
So as to have one rhyme at his command.
With ease the bard reciting Blenheim's plain,
May close the verse, remembering but the Dane.
I grant, old friend, old foe, (for such we are
Alternate as the chance of peace and war)
That we poetic folks, who must restrain
Our measured sayings in an equal chain,
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poem by Matthew Prior
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