At length corruption, like a general flood
(So long by watchful Ministers, withstood)
Shall deluge all; and Avarice, creeping on,
Spread like a lowborn mist, and blot out the Sun;
Statesman and Patriot ply alike the stocks,
Peer and butler share alike the Box,
And Judges job and Bishops bite the Town,
And mighty Dukes pack cards for half-a-crown
See Britain sunk in lucre’s sordid charms; ~Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle III (lines 135-143)
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September 27th, 2006 at 6:25 am
jlbarnard
Pope on George W. Bush:
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day,
‘Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.
O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, may Cam and Isis, preach it long!
‘The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong’.
– Pope, The Dunciad