IMPROMPTU, To Lady WINCHELSEA.
Occasion'd by four Satyrical Verses on Women-Wits, in the RAPE of the
LOCK.
In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,
And cite those Sapho's we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the Fall of ev'ry Female Wit,
But doom'd it then when first Ardelia writ.
Of all Examples by the World confest,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her Mistress on Britannia's Throne;
Fights, and subdues in Quarrels not her own.
To write their Praise you but in vain essay;
Ev'n while you write, you take that Praise away:
Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.
1714/1741
Printed in Pope's Minor poems, ed. Norman Ault and completed by John
Butt (London and New Haven: Methuen and Yale University Press, 1954), pp.
120.