SATIRE.
I love not the satiric Muse:
No man on earth would I abuse;
Nor with empoison’d verses grieve
The most offending son of Eve.
Leave him to law, if he have done
What injures any other son!
It hardens man to see his name
Exposed to public mirth or shame;
And rouses, as it spoils his rest,
The baser passions of his breast. 10
Attack a book—attack a song—
You will not do essential wrong;
You may their blemishes expose,
And yet not be the writer’s foes.
But, when the man you thus attack,
And him expose with critic art,
You put a creature to the rack—
You wring, you agonise, his heart.
No farther honest Satire can
In all her enmity proceed, 20
Than, passing by the wicked Man,
To execrate the wicked Deed.
If so much virtue yet remain
That he would feel the sting and pain,
That virtue is a reason why
The Muse her sting should not apply.
If no such Virtue yet survive,
What is your angry Satire worth,
But to arouse the sleeping hive,
And send the raging Passions forth, 30
In bold, vindictive, angry flight,
To sting wherever they alight?