English Poets of the Eighteenth Century · Chapter 17From the Epilogue to the Satires
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Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me: Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone. O sacred weapon! left for truth's defense, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence! To all but Heaven-directed hands denied, The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide: Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal, To rouse the watchmen of the public weal; To virtue's work provoke the tardy hall, And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall, Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains, That counts your beauties only by your stains, Spin all your cobwebs, o'er the eye of day! The Muse's wing shall brush you all away.