Selected Poems (13 page)

Let monodies on Fox regale your crew,

And Melville’s Mantle
¹
prove a blanket too!

One common Lethe waits each hapless bard

750

And, peace be with you! ’tis your best reward.

Such damning fame as Dunciads only give

Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;

But now at once your fleeting labours close,

With names of greater note in blest repose.

755

Far be’t from me unkindly to upbraid

The lovely Rosa’s prose in masquerade,

Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,

Leave wondering comprehension far behind.
²

Though Crusca’s bards no more our journals fill,

760

Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still;

Last of the howling host which once was Bell’s,

Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells;

And Merry’s metaphors appear anew,

Chain’d to the signature of O.P.Q.
³

765

When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,

Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,

Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,

St Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse,

Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud!

770

How ladies read, and literati laud!
¹

If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest,

‘Tis sheer ill-nature – don’t the world know best?

Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,

And Capel Lofft
²
declares ’tis quite sublime.

775

Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade!

Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade!

Lo! Burns and Bloomfield, nay, a greater far,

Gifford was born beneath an adverse star,

Forsook the labours of a servile state,

780

Stemm’d the rude storm, and triumph’d over fate:

Then why no more? if Phœbus smiled on you

Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too?
³

Him too the mania, not the muse, has seized;

Not inspiration, but a mind diseased:

785

And now no boor can seek his last abode,

No common be enclosed without an ode.

Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile

On Britain’s sons, and bless our genial isle,

Let poesy go forth pervade the whole

790

Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul!

Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,

Compose at once a slipper and a song;

So shall the fair your handywork peruse,

Your sonnets sure shall please – perhaps your shoes.

795

May Moorland weavers
¹
boast Pindaric skill,

And tailors’ lays be longer than their bill!

While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,

And pay for poems – when they pay for coats.

To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,

800

Neglected genius! let me turn to you.

Come forth, oh Campbell!
²
give thy talents scope;

Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?

And thou, melodious Rogers!
³
rise at last,

Recall the pleasing memory of the past;

805

Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,

And strike to wonted tones thy hallow’d lyre;

Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,

Assert thy country’s honour and thine own.

What! must deserted Poesy still weep

810

Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?

Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,

To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns!

No! though contempt hath mark’d the spurious brood,

The race who rhyme from folly, or for food,

815

Yet still some genuine sons ‘tis hers to boast,

Who, least affecting, still affect the most:

Feel as they write, and write but as they feel –

Bear witness Gifford,
⁴
Sotheby,
⁵
Macneil.
⁶

‘Why slumbers Gifford?’ once was ask’d in vain;

820

Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again.

Are there no follies for his pen to purge?
¹

Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge?

Are there no sins for satire’s bard to greet?

Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street?

825

Shall peers or princes tread pollution’s path,

And ’scape alike the law’s and muse’s wrath?

Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,

Eternal beacons of consummate crime?

Arouse thee, Gifford! be thy promise claim’d,

830

Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

Unhappy White!
²
while life was in its spring,

And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,

The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away,

Which else had sounded an immortal lay.

835

Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,

When Science’s self destroy’d her favourite son!

Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,

She sow’d the seeds, but death has reap’d the fruit.

‘Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,

840

And help’d to plant the wound that laid thee low:

So the struck eagle, stretch’d upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View’d his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing’d the shaft that quiver’d in his heart;

845

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel

He nursed the pinion which impell’d the steel;

While the same plumage that had warm’d his nest

Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be, who say, in these enlighten’d days,

850

That splendid lies are all the poet’s praise;

That strain’d invention, ever on the wing,

Alone impels the modern bard to sing:

‘Tis true, that all who rhyme – nay, all who write,

Shrink from that fatal word to genius – trite;

855

Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,

And decorate the verse herself inspires:

This fact in Virtue’s name let Crabbe
¹
attest;

Though nature’s sternest painter, yet the best.

And here let Shee
²
and Genius find a place,

860

Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;

To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,

And trace the poet’s or the painter’s line;

Whose magic touch can bid the canvass glow,

Or pour the easy rhyme’s harmonious flow;

865

While honours, doubly merited, attend

The poet’s rival, but the painter’s friend.

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower

Where dwelt the muses at their natal hour;

Whose steps have press’d, whose eye has mark’d afar,

870

The clime that nursed the sons of song and war,

The scenes which glory still must hover o’er,

Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore.

But doubly blest is he whose heart expands

With hallow’d feelings for those classic lands;

875

Who rends the veil of ages long gone by,

And views their remnants with a poet’s eye!

Wright!
³
’twas thy happy lot at once to view

Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;

And sure no common muse inspired thy pen

880

To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

And you, associate bards!
¹
who snatch’d to light

Those gems too long withheld from modern sight;

Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath

Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe,

885

And all their renovated fragrance flung,

To grace the beauties of your native tongue;

Now let those minds, that nobly could transfuse

The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse

Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow’d tone:

890

Resign Achaia’s lyre, and strike your own.

Let these, or such as these, with just applause,

Restore the muse’s violated laws;