On a Fan of the Author's Design

Come gentle Air! th' AEolian shepherd said,

While Procris panted in the secret shade:

Come, gentle Air, the fairer Delia cries,

While at her feet her swain expiring lies.

Lo the glad gales o'er all her beauties stray,

Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play!

In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found,

Nor could that fabled dart more surely wound:

Both gifts destructive to the givers prove;

Alike both lovers fall by those they love.

Yet guiltless too this bright destroyer lives,

At random wounds, nor knows the wound she gives:

She views the story with attentive eyes,

And pities Procris, while her lover dies.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope, (born May 21, 1688, London, England—died May 30, 1744, Twickenham, near London), poet and satirist of the English Augustan period, best known for his poems An Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock (1712–14), The Dunciad (1728), and An Essay on Man (1733–34). He is one of the most epigrammatic of all English authors. Pope’s command of diction is no less happily adapted to his theme and to the type of poem, and the range of his imagery is remarkably wide. He has been thought defective in imaginative power, but this opinion cannot be sustained in view of the invention and organizing ability shown notably in The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad. He was the first English poet to enjoy contemporary fame in France and Italy and throughout the European continent and to see translations of his poems into modern as well as ancient languages.

More poems from same author

On a Certain Lady at Court On a Fan of the Author's Design On Certain Ladies On Colley Cibber Macer : A Character

On a Fan of the Author's Design

More poems from same author

Subscribe to our newsletter.