Selections from Pope's Works

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 44 THE TEMPLE OF FAME. (1711) ADVERTISEMENT. The hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered, the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title: wherever any hint is taken from him, the passage itself is set down in the marginal notes.?P. IN that soft season, when descending show'rs Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flow'rs; When op'ning buds salute the welcome day, And earth relenting feels the genial ray; As balmy sleep had charmed my cares to rest, 5 And love itself was banished from my breast, (What time the morn mysterious visions brings, While purer slumbers spread their golden wings) A train of phantoms in wild order rose, And, joined, this intellectual scene compose. 10 I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies; The whole creation open to my eyes: In air self-balanced hung the globe below, Where mountains rise and circling oceans flow; Here naked rocks, and empty wastes were seen, 15 There tow'ry cities, and the forests green: Here sailing ships delight the wand'ring eyes: There trees, and intermingled temples rise; Now a clear sun the shining scene displays, The transient landscape now in clouds decays. 20 O'er the wide prospect as I gazed around, Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound, Like broken thunders that at distance roar, Or billows murm'ring on the hollow shore: Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld, 25 Whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds concealed. High on a rock of ice the structure lay, ...