That every work which lasts in prose or song,
Two thousand years, deserves to last so long.
For not to mention some eternal blades
Known only now in th' academic shades, 130
(Those sacred groves where raptur'd spirits stray,
And in word-hunting waste the live-long day)
Ancients whom none but curious critics scan,
Do, read[A] Messala's praises if you can.
Ah! who but feels the sweet contagious smart 135
While soft Tibullus pours his tender heart?
With him the Loves and Muses melt in tears;
But not a word of some hexameters.
"You grow so squeamish and so dev'lish dry,
You'll call Lucretius vapid next." Not I. 140
Some find him tedious, others think him lame:
But if he lags his subject is to blame.
Rough weary roads thro' barren wilds he tried,
Yet still he marches with true Roman pride:
Sometimes a meteor, gorgeous, rapid, bright, 145
He streams athwart the philosophic night.
Find you in Horace no insipid Odes?--
He dar'd to tell us Homer sometimes nods;
And but for such a aide's hardy skill
Homer might slumber unsuspected still. 150

[Footnote A: A poem of Tibullus's in hexameter verse; as yawning and
insipid as his elegies are tender and natural.]

Tasteless, implicit, indolent and tame,
At second-hand we chiefly praise or blame.