And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole,
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain’s head:
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
In 1712, in a volume of Lintot’s Miscellanies, appeared The Rape of the Lock, one of the most brilliant poems in the language. The occasion of it was trivial enough. A Lord Petre had offended a Miss Fermor by cutting off a lock of her hair; dissensions between the families had followed, and Pope set about to laugh both parties back into good-humor. He makes of the incident a mock-heroic poem, and, rather unwisely, invents elaborate machinery of sylphs, gnomes, and other airy beings that take part in the mortals’ misdemeanors. The length becomes disproportionate to the theme, but the effect is quite dazzling. The style is highly artificial and mannered; but we must remember that Pope is jocular all through, and that he is purposely pitching his style as high as the subject permits. It abounds in rhetorical devices, such as climax, antithesis, and apostrophe. The effect produced is like that of a crackle of colored fireworks; smart epigrams explode in almost every line, and conceits dazzle with their brilliance. Yet so great an artist is Pope that by sheer skill he prevents the work from being flashy or vulgar: the workmanship is too delicate and precise.
But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!