Difficile est proprie communia dicere
\nHOR. Epist. ad Pison<\/p>\n
I<\/p>\n
Bob Southey! You’re a poet–Poet-laureate,
\nAnd representative of all the race;
\nAlthough ’tis true that you turn’d out a Tory at
\nLast–yours has lately been a common case;
\nAnd now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
\nWith all the Lakers, in and out of place?
\nA nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
\nLike “four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;<\/p>\n
II<\/p>\n
“Which pye being open’d they began to sing”
\n(This old song and new simile holds good),
\n“A dainty dish to set before the King,”
\nOr Regent, who admires such kind of food;
\nAnd Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
\nBut like a hawk encumber’d with his hood,
\nExplaining Metaphysics to the nation–
\nI wish he would explain his Explanation.<\/p>\n
III<\/p>\n
You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
\nAt being disappointed in your wish
\nTo supersede all warblers here below,
\nAnd be the only Blackbird in the dish;
\nAnd then you overstrain yourself, or so,
\nAnd tumble downward like the flying fish
\nGasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
\nAnd fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!<\/p>\n
IV<\/p>\n
And Wordsworth, in a rather long “Excursion”
\n(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),
\nHas given a sample from the vasty version
\nOf his new system to perplex the sages;
\n‘Tis poetry–at least by his assertion,
\nAnd may appear so when the dog-star rages–
\nAnd he who understands it would be able
\nTo add a story to the Tower of Babel.<\/p>\n
V<\/p>\n
You–Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion
\nFrom better company, have kept your own
\nAt Keswick, and, through still continu’d fusion
\nOf one another’s minds, at last have grown
\nTo deem as a most logical conclusion,
\nThat Poesy has wreaths for you alone:
\nThere is a narrowness in such a notion,
\nWhich makes me wish you’d change your lakes for Ocean.<\/p>\n
VI<\/p>\n
I would not imitate the petty thought,
\nNor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
\nFor all the glory your conversion brought,
\nSince gold alone should not have been its price.
\nYou have your salary; was’t for that you wrought?
\nAnd Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.
\nYou’re shabby fellows–true–but poets still,
\nAnd duly seated on the Immortal Hill.<\/p>\n
VII<\/p>\n
Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows–
\nPerhaps some virtuous blushes–let them go–
\nTo you I envy neither fruit nor boughs–
\nAnd for the fame you would engross below,
\nThe field is universal, and allows
\nScope to all such as feel the inherent glow:
\nScott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore and Crabbe, will try
\n‘Gainst you the question with posterity.<\/p>\n
VIII<\/p>\n
For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,
\nContend not with you on the winged steed,
\nI wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses,
\nThe fame you envy, and the skill you need;
\nAnd, recollect, a poet nothing loses
\nIn giving to his brethren their full meed
\nOf merit, and complaint of present days
\nIs not the certain path to future praise.<\/p>\n
IX<\/p>\n
He that reserves his laurels for posterity
\n(Who does not often claim the bright reversion)
\nHas generally no great crop to spare it, he
\nBeing only injur’d by his own assertion;
\nAnd although here and there some glorious rarity
\nArise like Titan from the sea’s immersion,
\nThe major part of such appellants go
\nTo–God knows where–for no one else can know.<\/p>\n
X<\/p>\n
If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,
\nMilton appeal’d to the Avenger, Time,
\nIf Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs,
\nAnd makes the word “Miltonic” mean ” sublime ,”
\nHe deign’d not to belie his soul in songs,
\nNor turn his very talent to a crime;
\nHe did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,
\nBut clos’d the tyrant-hater he begun.<\/p>\n
XI<\/p>\n
Think’st thou, could he–the blind Old Man–arise
\nLike Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more
\nThe blood of monarchs with his prophecies
\nOr be alive again–again all hoar
\nWith time and trials, and those helpless eyes,
\nAnd heartless daughters–worn–and pale–and poor;
\nWould he adore a sultan? he obey
\nThe intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?<\/p>\n
XII<\/p>\n
Cold-blooded, smooth-fac’d, placid miscreant!
\nDabbling its sleek young hands in Erin’s gore,
\nAnd thus for wider carnage taught to pant,
\nTransferr’d to gorge upon a sister shore,
\nThe vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,
\nWith just enough of talent, and no more,
\nTo lengthen fetters by another fix’d,
\nAnd offer poison long already mix’d.<\/p>\n
XIII<\/p>\n
An orator of such set trash of phrase
\nIneffably–legitimately vile,
\nThat even its grossest flatterers dare not praise,
\nNor foes–all nations–condescend to smile,
\nNot even a sprightly blunder’s spark can blaze
\nFrom that Ixion grindstone’s ceaseless toil,
\nThat turns and turns to give the world a notion
\nOf endless torments and perpetual motion.<\/p>\n
XIV<\/p>\n
A bungler even in its disgusting trade,
\nAnd botching, patching, leaving still behind
\nSomething of which its masters are afraid,
\nStates to be curb’d, and thoughts to be confin’d,
\nConspiracy or Congress to be made–
\nCobbling at manacles for all mankind–
\nA tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,
\nWith God and Man’s abhorrence for its gains.<\/p>\n
XV<\/p>\n
If we may judge of matter by the mind,
\nEmasculated to the marrow It
\nHath but two objects, how to serve, and bind,
\nDeeming the chain it wears even men may fit,
\nEutropius of its many masters, blind
\nTo worth as freedom, wisdom as to Wit,
\nFearless–because no feeling dwells in ice,
\nIts very courage stagnates to a vice.<\/p>\n
XVI<\/p>\n
Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds,
\nFor I will never feel them?–Italy!
\nThy late reviving Roman soul desponds
\nBeneath the lie this State-thing breath’d o’er thee–
\nThy clanking chain, and Erin’s yet green wounds,
\nHave voices–tongues to cry aloud for me.
\nEurope has slaves–allies–kings–armies still,
\nAnd Southey lives to sing them very ill.<\/p>\n
XVII<\/p>\n
Meantime–Sir Laureate–I proceed to dedicate,
\nIn honest simple verse, this song to you,
\nAnd, if in flattering strains I do not predicate,
\n‘Tis that I still retain my “buff and blue”;
\nMy politics as yet are all to educate:
\nApostasy’s so fashionable, too,
\nTo keep one creed’s a task grown quite Herculean;
\nIs it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Difficile est proprie communia dicere HOR. Epist. ad Pison I Bob Southey! You’re a poet–Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although ’tis true that you turn’d out a Tory at Last–yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}