Alexander Pope

If Alexander Pope were alive today, he would certainly be a political satirist without peer. No doubt some of the "zing" in his pronouncements would be missing if he had to write in prose (although he was an excellent prose writer), since today's culture pays little heed to serious verse, preferring the inanities of advertising jingles and "rap" lyrics. And no doubt he would be violently attacked as "partisan" by James Carville-types unhappy with the flick of his lash on the back of a corrupt administration. Nevertheless, one would like to say of Pope, as Wordsworth famously did of Milton, that he should "be living at this hour." The moral courage and intellectual force embodied in Pope's bent, four-and-a-half foot frame would do credit to any age.  And the man who endured so many cruel reflections on his birth, his religion, and his personal deformity, as well as his politics and writings, would thoroughly understand what it takes for today's public figures to put up with intense television coverage and tabloid journalism.

T. L. "Tom" Hubeart, Jr.
http://members.aol.com/basfawl ty/pope.htm

                                                    To Tom on Pope

                                When you started out you were doing fine,
                                But then you inscribed that ultimate line
                                Of such beliefs thee I must disabuse,
                                The fox and the hens you surely confuse.
                                Never are our rulers properly bashed
                                Only with noodles are they sometimes lashed.
                                And if your hero were living today,
                                They'd permit him no stage to have his say.
                                 It's sad to say the audience he'd get
                                 Would only be here on the Internet. 

                                 David Martin