Lines to Thomas Poole

Repeating
Such verse as Bowles, heart honour'd Poet sang,
That wakes the Tear, yet steals away the Pang,
Then, or with Berkeley, or with Hobbes romance it,
Dissecting Truth with metaphysic lancet.
Or, drawn from up these dark unfathom'd wells,
In wiser folly chink the Cap and Bells.
How many tales we told! what jokes we made,
Conundrum, Crambo, Rebus, or Charade;
Ænigmas that had driven the Theban mad,
And Puns, these best when exquisitely bad;
And I, if aught of archer vein I hit,
With my own laughter stifled my own wit.