They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains, Which only poets know.

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared, And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard; To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.

And spare the poet for his subject's sake.

The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal