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POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE
ornamented book of verses, would produce something like the following:—
- 'A creature
- Of feature
- More dark, more dark, more dark than skies,
- Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise:
- Darkly wise as a formless fate
- And if he be great
- If he be great, then rudely great,
- Rudely great as a plough that plies,
- And darkly wise, and darkly wise.'
Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope.
There is, of course, an idea in our time
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