Humbly at Learning’s bar I’ll state my case,
And welcome then distinction or disgrace! 
   When in the man the flights of fancy reign,
Rule in the heart or revel in the brain,
As busy Thought her wild creation apes,
And hangs delighted o’er her varying shapes,
It asks a judgment, weighty and discreet,
To know where wisdom prompts, and where conceit. 
Alike their draughts to every scribbler’s mind
(Blind to their faults as to their danger blind); —
We write enraptured, and we write in haste,
Dream idle dreams, and call them things of taste,
Improvement trace in every paltry line,
And see, transported, every dull design;
Are seldom cautious, all advice detest,
And ever think our own opinions best;
Nor shows my Muse a muse-like spirit here,
Who bids me pause, before I persevere. 
   But she—­who shrinks while meditating flight
In the wide way, whose bounds delude her sight,
Yet tired in her own mazes still to roam,
And cull poor banquets for the soul at home,
Would, ere she ventures, ponder on the way,
Lest dangers yet unthought of, flight betray;
Lest her Icarian wing, by wits unplumed,
Be robb’d of all the honours she assumed;
And Dulness swell,—­a black and dismal sea,
Gaping her grave; while censures madden me. 
   Such was his fate, who flew too near the sun,
Shot far beyond his strength, and was undone;
Such is his fate, who creeping at the shore
The billow sweeps him, and he’s found no more. 
Oh! for some god, to bear my fortunes fair
Midway betwixt presumption and despair! 
   “Has then some friendly critic’s former blow
Taught thee a prudence authors seldom know?”
   Not so! their anger and their love untried,
A woe-taught prudence deigns to tend my side: 
Life’s hopes ill-sped, the Muse’s hopes grow poor,
And though they flatter, yet they charm no more;
Experience points where lurking dangers lay,
And as I run, throws caution in my way. 
   There was a night, when wintry winds did rage,
Hard by a ruin’d pile, I meet a sage;
Resembling him the time-struck place appear’d,
Hollow its voice, and moss its spreading beard;
Whose fate-lopp’d brow, the bat’s and beetle’s dome,
Shook, as the hunted owl flew hooting home. 
His breast was bronzed by many an eastern blast,
And fourscore winters seem’d he to have past;
His thread-bare coat the supple osier bound,
And with slow feet he press’d the sodden ground,
Where, as he heard the wild-wing’d Eurus blow,
He shook, from locks as white, December’s snow;
Inured to storm, his soul ne’er bid it cease,
But lock’d within him meditated peace. 
   Father, I said—­for silver hairs inspire,
And oft I call the bending peasant Sire —
Tell me, as here beneath this ivy bower,
That works fantastic round its trembling tower,
We hear Heaven’s guilt-alarming thunders roar,
Tell me the pains and pleasures of the poor;