Pope: Selected Poetry (Poetry Library, Penguin) - Softcover

Pat Rogers is DeBartolo Professor of the Liberal Arts at the University of South Florida. He has written books on Pope, Swift, Johnson, Defoe, and Fielding, as well as general books such as The Augustan Vision (1974), and Literature and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (1985). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature.

Lies
Telling lies to the young is wrong
Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
Telling them that God's in his heaven
and all's well with the world is wrong.
The young people know what you mean. The young are people.
Tell them the difficulties can't be counted,
and let them see not only what will be
but see with clarity these present times.
Say obstacles exist they must encounter
sorrow happens, hardship happens.
The hell with it. Who never knew
the price of happiness will not be happy.
Forgive no error you recognize,
it will repeat itself, increase,
and afterward our pupils
will not forgive in us what we forgave.