acquainted with. It allows the sententiousness of the couplet, as well
as the more complex modulation of blank verse. What some critics have
remarked, of its uniformity growing at last tiresome to the ear, will be
found to hold true only when the poetry is faulty in other respects.


BOOK I.


Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae,
Quarum sacra fero, ingenti perculsus amore,
Accipiant--

VIRGIL


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Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime
Has felt the influence of malignant star,
And waged with Fortune an eternal war--
Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar--
In life's low vale remote has pined alone,
Then dropp'd into the grave, unpitied and unknown?


2