Original - Duke Divinity School

Epitaph 198
A Pleasing Form; a firm, yet cautious Mind,
Sincere, tho’ prudent, constant, yet resign’d;
Honour unchang’d, a principle profest,
Fixt to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest Courtier, and a Patriot too,
Just to his Prince, and to his Country true.
Fill’d with the sense of Age, the Fire of Youth,
A Scorn of wrangling, yet a Zeal for Truth,
A gen’rous Faith, from Superstition free;
A love to Peace, and Hate of Tyranny;
Such this man was; who now from Earth remov’d,
At length enjoys that Liberty he lov’d.
Messiah
In Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio 199
Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the Song:
To heav’nly Themes sublimer Strains belong.
The mossy Fountains, and the Sylvan Shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th’Aonian Maids,
Delight no more—O Thou my Voice inspire
Who touch’d Isaiah’s hallow’d Lips with Fire!
Rapt into future times, the Bard begun,
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse’s root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the Skies:
Th’ Ethereal Spirit o’er its Leaves shall move,
And on its Top descends the Mystic Dove.
Ye heav’ns, from high the dewy Nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly Shower!
198Pope, “Epitaph,” Miscellany Poems, 1:200. Wesley published in Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems,
1:279.
199Pope, “Messiah: A Sacred Ecologue. In Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio,” Miscellany Poems, 1:27–32.
Wesley published in Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems, 1:281–85; and Arminian Magazine 9 (1786): 60–63
[He goes back to Pope’s original, as none of his slight changes here appear in the published form].
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