103 Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
\n104 Ignoble themes obtain’d mistaken praise,
\n105 When sense and wit with poesy allied,
\n106 No fabl’d graces, flourish’d side by side;
\n107 From the same fount their inspiration drew,
\n108 And, rear’d by taste, bloom’d fairer as they grew.
\n109 Then, in this happy isle, a Pope’s pure strain
\n110 Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
\n111 A polish’d nation’s praise aspir’d to claim,
\n112 And rais’d the people’s, as the poet’s fame.
\n113 Like him great Dryden pour’d the tide of song,
\n114 In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
\n115 Then Congreve’s scenes could cheer, or Otway’s melt–
\n116 For nature then an English audience felt.
\n117 But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
\n118 When all to feebler bards resign their place?
\n119 Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
\n120 When taste and reason with those times are past.
\n121 Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
\n122 Survey the precious works that please the age;
\n123 This truth at least let satire’s self allow,
\n124 No dearth of bards can be complain’d of now.
\n125 The loaded press beneath her labour groans,
\n126 And printers’ devils shake their weary bones;
\n127 While Southey’s epics cram the creaking shelves,
\n128 And Little’s lyrics shine in hot-press’d twelves.
\n129 Thus saith the Preacher: “Nought beneath the sun
\n130 Is new”; yet still from change to change we run:
\n131 What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
\n132 The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism and gas,
\n133 In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,
\n134 Till the swoln bubble bursts–and all is air!
\n135 Nor less new schools of Poetry arise,
\n136 Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize:
\n137 O’er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail;
\n138 Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal,
\n139 And, hurling lawful genius from the throne,
\n140 Erects a shrine and idol of its own;
\n141 Some leaden calf–but whom it matters not,
\n142 From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott.<\/p>\n
143 Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew,
\n144 For notice eager, pass in long review:
\n145 Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,
\n146 And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race;
\n147 Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
\n148 And tales of terror jostle on the road;
\n149 Immeasurable measures move along;
\n150 For simpering folly loves a varied song,
\n151 To strange mysterious dulness still the friend,
\n152 Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
\n153 Thus Lays of Minstrels–may they be the last!–
\n154 On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.
\n155 While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
\n156 That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
\n157 And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner’s brood,
\n158 Decoy young border-nobles through the wood,
\n159 And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
\n160 And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;
\n161 While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
\n162 Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,
\n163 Despatch a courier to a wizard’s grave,
\n164 And fight with honest men to shield a knave.<\/p>\n
165 Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,
\n166 The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
\n167 Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
\n168 Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
\n169 The gibbet or the field prepar’d to grace;
\n170 A mighty mixture of the great and base.
\n171 And think’st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance,
\n172 On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
\n173 Though Murray with his Miller may combine
\n174 To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
\n175 No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
\n176 Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.
\n177 Let such forego the poet’s sacred name,
\n178 Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
\n179 Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
\n180 And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
\n181 Such be their meed, such still the just reward
\n182 Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
\n183 For this we spurn Apollo’s venal son,
\n184 And bid a long “good night to Marmion.”<\/p>\n
185 These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
\n186 These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
\n187 While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
\n188 Resign their hallow’d bays to Walter Scott.<\/p>\n
189 The time has been, when yet the muse was young,
\n190 When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung,
\n191 An epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
\n192 While awe-struck nations hail’d the magic name;
\n193 The work of each immortal bard appears
\n194 The single wonder of a thousand years.
\n195 Empires have moulder’d from the face of earth,
\n196 Tongues have expir’d with those who gave them birth,
\n197 Without the glory such a strain can give,
\n198 As even in ruin bids the language live.
\n199 Not so with us, though minor bards, content
\n200 On one great work a life of labour spent:
\n201 With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
\n202 Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise!
\n203 To him let Camo\u00ebns, Milton, Tasso yield,
\n204 Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field.
\n205 First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
\n206 The scourge of England and the boast of France!
\n207 Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
\n208 Behold her statue plac’d in glory’s niche;
\n209 Her fetters burst, and just releas’d from prison,
\n210 A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.
\n211 Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
\n212 Arabia’s monstrous, wild and wondrous son:
\n213 Domdaniel’s dread destroyer, who o’erthrew
\n214 More mad magicians than the world e’er knew.
\n215 Immortal hero! all thy foes o’ercome,
\n216 For ever reign–the rival of Tom Thumb!
\n217 Since startled metre fled before thy face,
\n218 Well wert thou doom’d the last of all thy race!
\n219 Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence,
\n220 Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
\n221 Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
\n222 Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales;
\n223 Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
\n224 More old than Mandeville’s, and not so true.
\n225 Oh Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song!
\n226 A bard may chant too often and too long:
\n227 As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare!
\n228 A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
\n229 But if, in spite of all the world can say,
\n230 Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
\n231 If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil,
\n232 Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,
\n233 The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
\n234 “God help thee,” Southey, and thy readers too.<\/p>\n
235 Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
\n236 That mild apostate from poetic rule,
\n237 The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay
\n238 As soft as evening in his favourite May,
\n239 Who warns his friend “to shake off toil and trouble,
\n240 And quit his books, for fear of growing double”;
\n241 Who, both by precept and example, shows
\n242 That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
\n243 Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
\n244 Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
\n245 And Christmas stories tortur’d into rhyme
\n246 Contain the essence of the true sublime.
\n247 Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
\n248 The idiot mother of “an idiot boy”;
\n249 A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
\n250 And, like his bard, confounded night with day;
\n251 So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
\n252 And each adventure so sublimely tells,
\n253 That all who view the “idiot in his glory”
\n254 Conceive the bard the hero of the story.<\/p>\n
255 Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnotic’d here,
\n256 To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
\n257 Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
\n258 Yet still obscurity’s a welcome guest.
\n259 If Inspiration should her aid refuse
\n260 To him who takes a pixy for a muse,
\n261 Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
\n262 The bard who soars to elegize an ass.
\n263 So well the subject suits his noble mind,
\n264 He brays the laureat of the long-ear’d kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
103 Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days 104 Ignoble themes obtain’d mistaken praise, 105 When sense and wit with poesy allied, 106 No fabl’d graces, flourish’d side by side; 107 From the same fount their inspiration drew, 108 And, rear’d by taste, bloom’d fairer as they grew. 109 Then, in this happy isle, […]<\/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\/566"}],"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=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}