Alexander Pope read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

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Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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Nature and Art

from An Essay on Criticism: Part 1

by Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744)

First follow Nature, and your judgment frame

By her just standard, which is still the same:

Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,

Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,

At once the source, and end, and test of art.

Art from that fund each just supply provides,

Works without show, and without pomp presides:

In some fair body thus th' informing soul

With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,

Each motion guides, and ev'ry nerve sustains;

Itself unseen, but in th' effects, remains.

Some, to whom Heav'n in wit has been profuse,

Want as much more, to turn it to its use;

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed;

Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;

The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.

Those Rules of old discover'd, not devis'd,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodis'd;

Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.

Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.