A.— Yes, I confess, I do regret the times
When Pope and Dryden knit their manly rhymes;
When Sense, to Fancy near, like light and shade
Each chasing each, their due succession made;
Or, wisely intermingled, wrought to view
Some master-work, not brilliant more than true.

That sister-reign is o'er; and, Queen sublime,
Fancy alone now rules each realm of rhyme;

And too fastidious direct to borrow
From human heart its homely joy or sorrow,
Distils her loves and hatreds, smiles and tears
From flowers and moon-beams, clouds and gossamers,
And fierce by turns or languishingly fine,
Burns, shivers, sobs and throbs through every line.

On as I read, what marvel, if perplext—
Now by half phrases, now half meanings vext;
Now by descriptions tired, that find no close,
Now strained by unimaginable woes;
'Mid flickering lights, to no one focus brought;
'Mid mirage mists, still baffling thirsty thought;
And nightmare fantasies from drowsy grot,
And far similitudes that liken not;
Where, style and story, all is wild or dim
As Pythian oracle or Orphic hymn;
What marvel if my wondering spirit seem
To drift amid the fragments of a dream,
And mocked by moony mysteries all too long,
Crave the clear sense of Pope's and Dryden's song.

Ye, thus who write in spite of critic law,
How had their satire kept your freaks in awe!
And, to sole sway controlling her pretence,
Bound Fancy down to compromise with Sense!

B.— Nay, call not up your satirists,—railers all,
From Gifford downward up to Juvenal.

A.— 'Tis true, of all that ink satiric page,
Few dip the pen from purely virtuous rage.
'Tis true, each stroke erased, not honest quite,
And blackened leaves not few must turn to white
Gone with the trash of many a blockhead's brains,
And perished, too, some else immortal strains.

Fond of the frail applause that waits on wit,
Curio deals right and left each reckless hit;
Dines at their board, then sketches, to the life,
His simple neighbour or his neighbour's wife;
Nay, should the need be pressing, without ruth,
To win a smile will gently wrest a truth.

Yet deem not Curio cruel. Merely gay
He wounds, like gamesome tiger, all in play.
And what, if once he broke an honest heart,
Wit stands his bail—it was but pride of art.
Keen surgeons thus, where milder means might heal,
Will sometimes fly, too fondly, to the steel.
Thus idle sportsmen, over-proud to kill,
Will maim and murder, just to show their skill.

Stern Milo never strove to raise a smile;
Satire with him is but a vent for bile.
Fretful of stomach and of soul severe,
The vice he marks, and paints it broad and clear
So broad, so clear, that his unblushing text
Mends not the present age, and taints the next.

The dilettanti these. Then comes the trade,
With portraits drawn and fitted, ready made;
Prepared, as hunger prompts them, or the metre,
To hang on hapless James or fated Peter.

Some clothe their subjects all in masquerade,
Like great incognitos thence more displayed
From Rome or Greece the gauzy drapery bring,
Then wink and whisper, 'Nero means the king.'

Pimp of the soul, this tickles prurient ears,
Resistless bait, with living characters;
Ambiguous facts gleans up, nor one rejects—
All he half knows, and all but half suspects;
Then o'er each page his nauseous notes he throws,
And tastes, for verse too dull, provokes with prose.
So mountebanks, who know their craft full well,
Loose jests hitch in to bid their poisons sell;
The crowd corrupt flock round with eager eyes,
And buy at once their nostrums, and despise.

Sage Furio's deeplier speculating quill
A nephew's name rhymed from his uncle's will;
Then changed, like serpent's skin, the satirist's tone,
Wound round that uncle, and rhymed in his own.

Not Boileau knew with subtler art to raise
On satire's ground adroit relief of praise;
Boileau, who swooped on every feebler thing,
But tamed his beak in flattery for a king.

These are the vile—but his a viler part,
Who makes his prey some woman's breaking heart,
And pours on penitence his caustic in,
Till the seared frailty hardens into sin.
Or, if the better nature, somewhat nice,
Though dropt to frailty, yet revolt at vice,
And, deeply sorrowing and repenting deep,
Cling to the pardon meant for those that weep;
Each day to some atoning duty given,
Yet deeming all she may too scant for heaven;
Still, not the less, around her home forlorn,
Whirls he the unpitying blast of public scorn,
Till wrecked She sink beneath the driving gale,
Like some unsheltered flow'ret, meek and pale,
That, meant for warmer suns and gentler skies,
Hangs its dejected head, and pines, and dies.

Oh! deem for such I hold a scorn like thine—
Better than this the workshop, or the mine—
Or rag-man's trade, or scavenger's, obscene—
A toil more innocent, and quite as clean.

But when, more strong than pulpit and than laws,
Satire her voice uplifts in virtue's cause,
—Stern as the clang from Joshua's trumpet blown,
When the stout walls of Jericho crashed down—
That powerful voice I hail in honest trust,
Join in the fray and vaunt our quarrel just.
With joy I see, beneath the withering blast,
Forth from their holds the conscious vices haste;
Follies and coxcombries their stations yield,
And many a bluff pretension quit the field;
While, 'mid the scared and scampering herds of flight,
Virtue stands firm, and smiles in temperate might.

B.— Thus exercised, e'en I her power revere—

A.— And what though Satire, sometimes too austere,

With reckless onset, whirl away together
Guilt's braving plume, and Folly's harmless feather,
They, who on public stage uncalled appear,
Must take the fortune of the theatre.

And, though I ne'er would grant the searching knife
To probe the trembling quick of private life,
Some wife's, some sister's gentle heart to strain,
The good uncertain, but assured the pain;
Yet still, if so it chance, on private ground,
(Such weeds on virtue's soil are often found)
Some happy folly show its smirking pride,
Too gaily tempting to be passed aside;
Some butt legitimate for gamesome wit;
Why—we must sketch the trifler—bid him sit.

Yet here let satire veil with quaint disguise,
And, while our mirth she tickles, cheat our eyes—
Throw in a whisker—hide a blotch that shows—
And, if not yet be-purpled, tint the nose;
That, while 'the sketch is nature,' all agree,
Nor friend nor foe shall whisper, 'This is he.'

Yet, I re-echo, when by shame unawed,
Some bold intruding villain stalks abroad—
Honour and right who counts as things of straw,
Evading, or perhaps above, the law;
Some prætor knave, half India in his purse,
Some royal favourite, a nation's curse;
Who not content to pamper vice, his own,
Crawls to his Prince's ear and taints the throne;
Some statesman, chafed at liberty's least word,
Whose will would change the pandeets for the sword;
Some patriot, reckless the mad crowd to drive
On danger's brink, if he thenceforth may thrive;
Some muck-worm prelate, earthly gains made sure,
Who leaves a bloated million from the poor;
Some title-hunting judge, whose slanting sight
Can meanly blink a wrong, or wrest a right,
Shifting th' unsteady scales from hour to hour,
Or crushing freedom with the mace of power;
Him (and that worst corruption as I name,
The kindling passion almost bursts to flame)—
Him let the verse with eager hate pursue,
Till seized, and bound, and dragged to public view.

Beneath the well-earned scourge he writhe at length,
And own that Satire hath her hour of strength.

Truth—justice—freedom—these are your's—are mine;
These to no power unquestion'd we resign;
These who invades, or rich, or learn'd, or high,
His meet reward, drinks satire's chalice dry.

'Twas thus of old, when plague his arrows sped—
(Of moral plagues we have our store instead—)
Thy lazarets, fair Venice, could confine
The noblest, proudest, of each ancient line;
Great names, for whom immortal Titian wrought,
And gave to time each beaming brow of thought;
Yet stern o'er these the state-physician stood,
And stoutly drenched them for the public good.

B.— So be it. For the guilty, great or rich,
Her cup let satire, conscience have her twitch.

A.— Yet rank, with crime though stained, hath many a charm
Satire to soothe, nay, conscience to disarm.
Where, chafing at the bold affront, he sits,
Levéed by hungry knaves and fawning wits,
See venal Eloquence—oh! task unmeet—
Cull fairest flowers and strew them at his feet.
See Poesy, that plies a shameless trade,
A prostitute in vestal robes arrayed,
For him her lyre attune, and wreathe her bays,
And brim, with Hebe smile, her cup of praise,
Whose lulling draught, like oil to waves applied,
Steals o'er each rising throb of guilt and pride.

'Gold too, thou puissant lord where'er we roam,
Yet Britons find thee powerful most at home;
Standard with us of manners and of worth,
Far more than virtue—rival e'en of birth.
On every rank though now this rule be prest,
'Rise if thou canst—keep sternly down the rest,'
E'en where frore coteries their ice oppose,
Thy ray can pierce, dissolving as it goes;

Slides through saloons for proud Precedence built,
And glints its softening hues on vulgarest guilt.
Peeps forth some stigma, wresting Honour's groan,
'True, 'tis a blotch, yet such as friend may own.'
But where the Pylades who dares to note
With recognition frank a threadbare coat?

B.— Thus guarded, why attempt the rich—the great?
Let the muse pause, admonish'd ere too late,
Ere yet, suspended by a single thread,
Stern 'ex officio' tremble o'er her head.
Let learning, talent, weep o'er Wakefield's tomb,
Share thou the grief, but shun the kindred doom.

A.— True! some have made a quarry of a king,
But found a minister a dangerous thing;
Tenacious, sensitive, resentful more;
While e'en the best are ticklish, if not sore.
'Twas thus when once a sprightly kid had dared
The lion's den, the generous despot spared,
But spared in vain.—He 'scaped the monarch's might,
To die beneath the snarling jackal's bite.

Yet laureate Dryden, in no sparing sort,
Could lash, by turns, the people and the court.
On glowing wheels the satire swept along,
And no stern judge forbade the sounding song.

Pope followed next; by toil, by genius fit,
To point the lightest dart of polished wit;
To bend no less firm reason's bow of strength,
And give the high-drawn arrow all its length;
With art, to all beside himself denied,
And such successful art that art to hide,
His best aimed hit seemed but a casual glance,
And labour's finished work th' effect of chance.
His too a sportive scorn—the happy mean
Satire's fierce frown and ribald jest between—
A tempered vein yet feared not less by all,
The court, the town, the senate and the hall.
Him still untired successive lustres saw,
Yet on he wrote, and all unscathed by law.

Churchill, e'en him, the eloquent, the coarse,
The gifted spendthrift, profligate of force,

Spirit and power to scorn, degrade, belie,—
Even him the Dracos of his day passed by.
Statesmen of purer then, or hardier frame,
Or shunned the vice, or stoutly dared the blame.
Our prudish age, more sensitively nice,
Starts from the blame and merely hugs the vice.

B.— Yet these, your wits, oft leapt the boundary line,
The manor right, which conscience must define.
E'en when from sportive mood the chase arose,
Hatred too oft came mangling at the close.

A.— Yet one there was who spurned the lawless taint—
Monster, how rare! The poet and the saint!
Cowper—who, keen and free to choose his ground,
Still made the fence of truth his satire's bound;
Winged lighter follies with no rancorous aim,
And when he smote a vice, yet spared the name.

So still be Satire's chemistry refined,
Her sane drawn forth, mere acrid left behind.

Nay, when, perchance, some glowing guilt may seem
Justly to claim her penalty extreme,
Yet, let her think how oft th' envenomed blame
Of falsehood's tongue hath scarred some noblest name,
And, check'd awhile, suspend the bitter cup,
Lest Socrates himself should drain it up.

Nor turn away, e'en when hard words she use,
Nor always quite refined, our Moral Muse.
If busied oft amid the worthless brood,
Her best-loved themes are still the wise and good;
And strained, betimes, to weave satiric lays,
She strikes her favourite lyre to virtue's praise.

Just so, within that loathsome prison gate,
'Mid guilt and crime, and ribald laugh and hate,
Yon female Saint, with steadfast footstep, moves,
And bears the ill, because the good she loves;
Untainted walks amid that tainted leaven,
Sees earth's worst part, and communes still with heaven.

And thou, my Master-Bard, to whom belong
The heights, at once, of satire and sweet song;
Whom, as I read, my humbled hopes incline
Still but to read, and blot each verse of mine;
Though in thy strain harsh notes erewhile prevail,
'Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail;'
Yet, led by thee, what purest thoughts engage!
With thee I rock a mother's cradled age,
Or following Harley to his dungeon cell,
'When the last lingering friend hath bade farewell,'
There learn, contemptuous of all meaner fame,
That poesy and virtue are the same.

B.— So stout your plea—almost I deem that You,
In nature's spite, would join the scribbling crew.

A.— Ironic, flout not thus the race sublime,
Founders of souls—immortal heirs of time;
When laws are changed, when dynasties are gone,
Names that shall live transcendent and alone.

When ruin drives, as ruin oft hath driven,
O'er realms, the favoured realms long deemed of heaven;
Thy peopled shores, my more than native land,
(Far be the day) like Tyre's, a desert strand;
Yet then—if prophet thought unscorned may press
Through time's far scope, nor faint beneath the stress—
O'er southern isles, now struggling from the deep,
When busy sounds of population sweep,
To dusky tribes shall these their power impart,
And of new clustering nations build the heart;
While coral reefs, where now but sea-birds throng,
Learn Bacon's sense and echo Milton's song.

Proud lot is his, whose comprehensive soul,
Keen for the parts, capacious for the whole,
Thought's mingled hues can separate, dark from bright,
Like the fine lens that sifts the solar light;
Then recompose again th' harmonious rays,
And pour them powerful in collected blaze—
Wakening, where'er they glance, creations new,
In beauty steeped, nor less to nature true;

With eloquence that hurls from reason's throne
A voice of might, or pleads in pity's tone;
To agitate, to melt, to win, to soothe,
Yet kindling ever on the side of truth;
Or swerved, by no base interest warped awry,
But erring in his heart's deep fervency;
Genius for him asserts the unthwarted claim,
With these to mate—the sacred Few of fame—
Explore, like them, new regions for mankind,
And leave, like theirs, a deathless name behind.

But ne'er for me 'twas meant, with daring prow,
To cleave wide oceans, unexplored till now;
And having gained some yet sea-shrouded clime,
Scale with intrepid foot its cliffs sublime;
Then point to some untravelled upland's brow,
Or green savannah, sweetly spread below;
Or gaily plunging thro' some new found glade,
Invite the rest 'to choice of sun and shade;'
Strange stream to track, refreshening unnam'd flowers,
Of sweeter scent, or brighter hue than ours;

Or taste the fruit, yet plucked by none but me,
Or the wild honey, spoil of forest bee.
Enough for me, to whom benignant heaven,
That still dooms best, far humbler lot hath given;
Enough for me, remote from tracks of praise,
To stray through well-known fields by trodden ways;
Musing of things, tho' neither new nor deep,
Well pleased to smile, and not too cold to weep;
Content, tho' conscious of no lofty call,
And if not high, thence fearless of a fall.

Yet in our Carib isle, young Savage yet,
—My earliest playmates of the race of jet;
With whom, unclad, I crawled or climbed at will,
And loved them then—and love in memory still;
There, if some palm-tree, to my wondering sight,
Strained up aloft—as seemed to infinite;
Or, flung from thunder-cloud, down-clashing rain
Smote the live rock, then upward steamed amain;
—Or when some day of languid heat was done,
And woke the land-breeze to the setting sun,

Wafting, how sweet! its perfumed snatches by,
From citrons or ananas clustering nigh;
Or from that garden-nook, with flowers o'ercrept—
My Mother's grave—the first o'er which I wept,
(For so in that fair isle our 'Parted slept
Or when from forth night's darkly blue expanse
Bright tropic stars by myriads met my glance,
Or countless fire-flies, frisking as in mirth,
Twinkled along—my little stars of earth;
All these, if fancy cheat not, breathed for me—
Young Savage yet—their silent poesy.

But when, o'er years, as yet of lore quite scant,
Uprose the horn-book—Glorious Visitant!
The Muses came with that expanding day,
First pious Watts, then—strange transition—Gray!
A chance-found book! Oh! how I loved to read
Of kingly Odin and the coal-black steed—
The gory shuttle, tossed from hand to hand,
And all the mysteries of that Runic land.
Still 'mid the depths my childish thought was drown'd,
But when the sense I miss'd I hung upon the sound.

The Sacred Volume, too, in that fond time,
Would stir me with its Beauteous or Sublime;
Yet pictures more than precepts for each age
Culls its own lore from that all-pregnant page.
There novice Childhood pores with curious eye,
There learns the Man—to live, the Sire—to die.

Then every image won, where all was new,
And more to win, the Wondrous was the True;
The stork, who knows th' appointed hour at hand;
The turtle heard soft murmuring thro' the land;
Ships that to Ophir or to Tarshish sail;
Leviathan—Behemoth—mighty Whale!
Then too the Cherubim and sword of flame,
And Red Sea rushing round as Egypt came,
And Burning Bush, and that dread issuing Voice,
With fearful joy—all bade my heart rejoice,
And then, as now, I thrilled beneath Prose speech
Of loftier power than Verse shall ever reach.

Next he, the lord of each upgrowing mind,
Poet and legislator of mankind,

Next Homer came—as yet, not He of Greek,
But Homer, such as Pope had made him speak.
What vows were straight for every hero sped,
The while, as temper willed, or fancy led,
We parted, like Seamander's branching tide,
This to the Grecian, this the Trojan side;
Then with mock sword, and slate, our mimic shield,
Hector or Ajax, overfought each field!

E'en now, when years their dawning tints of rose
Have lost, and hopes, like flowers, are fain to close;
E'en now I feel o'er life's descending hour
Steal back those joys with recollected power;
My school-boy days around me group anew,
And the heart's witness vouches Rogers true!

Thee, Shakspeare, half might memory overlook,
For thou to me wert Nature more than Book.
To thee my days, my nights, I loved to give,
Nor seemed, the while, so much to read—as live.

A further day maturer pleasures brought,
Yet Feeling still was powerful over Thought;
Then proud I heard the pomp of Dryden roll,
And humbly dared to measure Milton's soul.

Thus years trod upward, till the impatient mind
Stood on the verge of manhood unconfined;
A World beneath at will, and Alps sublime
Sparkling afar, a very bliss to climb;
And Pleasures then were an uncounted Sum,
And Being—but a Poesy to come.

Nay, I confess, in those tumultuous hours
When future life seemed glory all or flowers,
Yet to myself unknown—then who can blame?—
I 'scaped not quite the Calenture of Fame.

As one who sails with some long-lingering fleet,
Till his brain fevers with the tropic heat,
In the green hue that clothes the barren seas,
Views his own native fields, his village trees;

Vision or truth in vain he questions o'er,
The strong delusion gains him more and more;
Till down he dashes 'mid the ravening foam,
And the wave closes o'er his dream of home;
So on my youth the strong temptation came,
The cheating view, the feverish thirst of fame.
To me her sterile waves, her storm-ridged sands,
Were thrifty meadows all or furrowed lands.
Long time I gazed, long ponder'd on the brink,
And all but took the headlong plunge—in ink.

B.— Temptation mad! If such again allure,
And hellebore and blister fail of cure,
Why, let the critic lancet breathe a vein,
And free from folly at the expense of pain.

A.— Nor need. For, disenchanted now by truth,
Stand forth in real guise the dreams of youth.
Dicers I know them now in desperate game,
Mad jousters in the tournament of fame,
Where the too tempting prize though thousands miss,
Yet every rash adventurer deems it his.

—Mere doting usurers, their last guinea lent,
E'en avarice dozed in dreams of cent. per cent.,
Whom Hope, long Promiser that seldom pays,
Cheats with post-obit bonds of distant praise.

Oh lettered life, for men of rich degree
Soft cradle, rocking them to rickety,
Thou art for Him—the unstivered Wretch—to whom
Genius for curse was given—the treadmill's doom.
He, while plump Publishers stand by and smile,
Whirls endless on his still revolving mile,
Sighs for his labour's end—sighs on—and dies the while!

How blest are they to whom the immortal lyre
Yields their full joy to listen and admire.
What anxious hopes, what jealous fears arise,
Ourselves the candidates and fame the prize.

The Student pale, with glory's passion fraught,
To glory gives his daily, nightly thought;
Day following day, long week succeeding week,
More strong his love, and paler grows his cheek,

While to that inner heart's consuming glow
The lofty Mistress still replies him 'No.'
Yet still lured on, tho' trembling for his pains,
When of ten blotted lines scarce one remains,
Of love, of fear, he knows each anxious turn,
Now fondly prizes, gladly now would burn
Till blest, at length, in Bulmer's loveliest dress,
Proudly his babe he shows, his darling of the press.

But as, not seldom, o'er the peasant's field,
His children's bread, with hope, with rapture till'd,
Comes sudden blight to mar his fondest aim,—
So fares it with the toiling Serf of fame.
Too soon, on hurrying wings, or grey or blue,
Sweeps o'er his hopes the Demon of Review,
Casts on his babe an eye of evil power,
And withers all his greatness in an hour.
Struggles awhile the strong but shrinking pride,
The hapless frame with genius still allied,
Struggles awhile, in vain; then, bending low,
Disdains, yet bows in anguish to the blow,

Spirits, I know, there are of steadfast force,
With genius linked, steel-strung and yet not coarse,
That proved, not worsted, in the Herculean thrall,
Rise, like Antæus, stronger from the fall.
But they, the most, whom weaker nerves sustain,
Shrink, like the plant, instinctive from the pain;
And some, like Keats, heart-stricken overmuch,
While the world sneer'd, have died beneath the touch.

Or grant, perchance, the splendid guerdon gained
Springs sorrow sudden on the good attained.
The critic's jest though 'scaped, or truth severe,
Yet comes the foe's loud laugh or silent sneer;
While every dunce would mar the hard-won fame,
And mix his hisses with the world's acclaim.

Or if thy verse, in high poetic spasm,
Hath stirred some unadvised enthusiasm;
Or calmlier-purposed, yet mean fears above,
Roused from drugged sleep duty, or human love;

Such love—such duty—as cold worldlings shun,
Or one, or both; or both more oft in one;
Then of those worldly tribes starts each thy foe,
The thoughtful wish derides—the impassioned glow,
And shouts it crime—to Teach—and guilt—to Know.

Nor foes alone, nor dunces, shall combine;—
E'en he, that earliest, best-loved friend of thine,
With whom thou brak'st the bread of trusting truth,
Sheltering beneath the sacred tents of youth;
With him, so love had planned, through scenes to go
Of mingled pleasure or partaken woe;
The last affections of the parting man
To close in fondness, as the boy's began —
E'en he, at length, takes up the torturer's part,
With surer knowledge barbs the unthought-of dart,
Or drives the poniard right into the heart.

But He for blighted hopes thus doomed to mourn,
And warmest friendship chilled with cold return,

And all too-conscious of the grief that stings,
Or soothed awhile yet startled by the strings,
Well may He shrink with touch of tuneful shell
To rouse the slumberers from their silent cell.
The long-loved lyre, that would renew his pains,
He views in secret anguish and abstains,
Like Zion's saddened harps, which willows bore
Once struck with cheerful hand—now struck no more!

Monster of faith! or should the friend forbear;
Should foes molest not, nay, should dunces spare;
Yet wait not less, to nip or prose, or rhyme,
The silent blights, the sealing frosts of Time.
Men fade like leaves! Leaves, budded from the pen,—
Forgive the equivoque,—fade fast as men.
Fanned by hope's vernal breeze awhile they play,
Or fondly flaunt in glory's summer ray;
But o'er their freshness steals th' unheeded year,
Words change their hues, and very thought grows sere,
'Till winter comes to rend each lingering name,
And prove how few the evergreens of fame.

E'en Ye, majestic band, to whom I owe,
By turns, or lofty thrill, or pause from woe;
E'en Ye, far-beaming lights from centuries past,
Or so despondence deems, shall fade at last.
O'er surging years, our arts—our arms that whelm,
Shall unborn races drift, or guide the helm,
Nor heed, perchance, amid their fate or care,
To ask of old Tradition what We were.
Then by that deluge sea, our destined grave,
Shall lonely Silence sit, and watch the wave,
Where of all glory's peaks, now proudly steep,
Scarce one lone Ararat shall spot the deep.

B.— Enough! when talk thus allegoric grows,
Fain would I yawn, and wish it at a close.

A.— Then here we part. Yet end we here to say,
This hand may ne'er presume to touch the bay.
For me more fit, at leisure laid along,
My days to cheat with charm of others' song,

And court in peace, nor mocked at nor admired,
Th' unpurchased duties of a life retired.
From guilt, from hate, as best I may, aloof;
Too weak to cast, too shy to meet reproof;
Yet proud, in Virtue's cause, faint voice to raise,
And be, for one brief hour, the thing I praise;
Well pleased, meanwhile, to see once more commence
The reign of temperate Fancy, leagued with Sense;
And, if the lash were plied with honest view,
Not much displeased that Sense were Satire too.