Note 31 — MESSIAH,
Reading edition
The verse, as first published, stood
He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes,
which was from Milton's Lycidas, ver. 181:
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Steele having objected that Pope's line "in exalted and poetical spirit" was below the original, Isaiah xxv. 8,—"The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,"—the poet altered his text without, perhaps, either injuring or improving it.