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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Description of His Muse (from The Prophecy of Famine)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Charles Churchill (1731–1764)

Description of His Muse (from The Prophecy of Famine)

ME, whom no muse of heavenly birth inspires,

No judgment tempers when rash genius fires:

Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme,

Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time,

Who cannot follow where trim Fancy leads

By ‘prattling streams,’ o’er ‘flower-empurpled meads’:

Who often, but without success, have prayed

For apt alliteration’s artful aid:

Who would, but cannot, with a master’s skill,

Coin fine new epithets, which mean no ill—

Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit

For pacing poesy, and ambling wit,

TASTE with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place

Among the lowest of her favoured race!