diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5181-0.txt | 786 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5181-h/5181-h.htm | 809 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 1611 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5181-0.txt b/5181-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87df509 --- /dev/null +++ b/5181-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,786 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5181 *** +Inebriety and The Candidate +by George Crabbe + + + + +Contents: + Inebriety + The Candidate + An Introductory Address + To the Reader + To the Authors of the Monthly Review + + + +"INEBRIETY" {1} + + + +The mighty spirit, and its power, which stains +The bloodless cheek, and vivifies the brains, +I sing. Say, ye, its fiery vot'ries true, +The jovial curate, and the shrill-tongued shrew; +Ye, in the floods of limpid poison nurst, +Where bowl the second charms like bowl the first; +Say how, and why, the sparkling ill is shed, +The heart which hardens, and which rules the head. + When winter stern his gloomy front uprears, +A sable void the barren earth appears; +The meads no more their former verdure boast, +Fast bound their streams, and all their beauty lost; +The herds, the flocks, in icy garments mourn, +And wildly murmur for the spring's return; +From snow-topp'd hills the whirlwinds keenly blow, +Howl through the woods, and pierce the vales below; +Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, +Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; +The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, +And shed their substance on the floating air; +The floating air their downy substance glides +Through springing waters, and prevents their tides; +Seizes the rolling waves, and, as a god, +Charms their swift race, and stops the refluent flood; +The opening valves, which fill the venal road, +Then scarcely urge along the sanguine flood; +The labouring pulse a slower motion rules, +The tendons stiffen, and the spirit cools; +Each asks the aid of Nature's sister, Art, +To cheer the senses, and to warm the heart. + The gentle fair on nervous tea relies, +Whilst gay good-nature sparkles in her eyes; +An inoffensive scandal fluttering round, +Too rough to tickle, and too light to wound; +Champagne the courtier drinks, the spleen to chase, +The colonel burgundy, and port his grace; +Turtle and 'rrac the city rulers charm, +Ale and content the labouring peasants warm: +O'er the dull embers, happy Colin sits, +Colin, the prince of joke, and rural wits; +Whilst the wind whistles through the hollow panes, +He drinks, nor of the rude assault complains; +And tells the tale, from sire to son retold, +Of spirits vanishing near hidden gold; +Of moon-clad imps that tremble by the dew, +Who skim the air, or glide o'er waters blue: +The throng invisible that, doubtless, float +By mouldering tombs, and o'er the stagnant meat: +Fays dimly glancing on the russet plain, +And all the dreadful nothing of the green. +Peace be to such, the happiest and the best, +Who with the forms of fancy urge their jest; +Who wage no war with an avenger's rod, +Nor in the pride of reason curse their God. + When in the vaulted arch Lucina gleams, +And gaily dances o'er the azure streams; +On silent ether when a trembling sound +Reverberates, and wildly floats around, +Breaking through trackless space upon the ear, +Conclude the Bacchanalian rustic near: +O'er hills and vales the jovial savage reels, +Fire in his head and frenzy at his heels; +From paths direct the bending hero swerves, +And shapes his way in ill-proportioned curves. +Now safe arrived, his sleeping rib he calls, +And madly thunders on the muddy walls; +The well-known sounds an equal fury move, +For rage meets rage, as love enkindles love: +In vain the waken'd infant's accents shrill, +The humble regions of the cottage fill; +In vain the cricket chirps the mansion through, +'Tis war, and blood, and battle must ensue. +As when, on humble stage, him Satan hight +Defies the brazen hero to the fight: +From twanging strokes what dire misfortunes rise, +What fate to maple arms and glassen eyes! +Here lies a leg of elm, and there a stroke +From ashen neck has whirl'd a head of oak. +So drops from either power, with vengeance big, +A remnant night-cap and an old cut wig; +Titles unmusical retorted round, +On either ear with leaden vengeance sound; +Till equal valour, equal wounds create, +And drowsy peace concludes the fell debate; +Sleep in her woollen mantle wraps the pair, +And sheds her poppies on the ambient air; +Intoxication flies, as fury fled, +On rooky pinions quits the aching head; +Returning reason cools the fiery blood, +And drives from memory's seat the rosy god. +Yet still he holds o'er some his maddening rule. +Still sways his sceptre, and still knows his fool; +Witness the livid lip, and fiery front, +With many a smarting trophy placed upon't; +The hollow eye, which plays in misty springs, +And the hoarse voice, which rough and broken rings; +These are his triumphs, and o'er these he reigns, +The blinking deity of reeling brains. + See Inebriety! her wand she waves, +And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves! +Sots in embroidery, and sots in crape, +Of every order, station, rank, and shape: +The king, who nods upon his rattle throne; +The staggering peer, to midnight revel prone; +The slow-tongued bishop, and the deacon sly, +The humble pensioner, and gownsman dry; +The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great, +Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state. + Lo! proud Flaminius at the splendid board, +The easy chaplain of an atheist lord, +Quaffs the bright juice, with all the gust of sense, +And clouds his brain in torpid elegance; +In china vases, see! the sparkling ill, +From gay decanters view the rosy rill; +The neat-carved pipes in silver settle laid, +The screw by mathematic cunning made: +Oh, happy priest! whose God, like Egypt's, lies +At once the deity and sacrifice. +But is Flaminius then the man alone +To whom the joys of swimming brains are known? +Lo! the poor toper whose untutor'd sense, +Sees bliss in ale, and can with wine dispense; +Whose head proud fancy never taught to steer +Beyond the muddy ecstasies of beer; +But simple nature can her longing quench, +Behind the settle's curve, or humbler bench: +Some kitchen fire diffusing warmth around, +The semi-globe by hieroglyphics crown'd; +Where canvas purse displays the brass enroll'd, +Nor waiters rave, nor landlords thirst for gold; +Ale and content his fancy's bounds confine. +He asks no limpid punch, no rosy wine; +But sees, admitted to an equal share, +Each faithful swain the heady potion bear: +Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of taste, +Weigh gout and gravel against ale and rest; +Call vulgar palates what thou judgest so; +Say beer is heavy, windy, cold, and slow; +Laugh at poor sots with insolent pretence, +Yet cry, when tortured, where is Providence? + In various forms the madd'ning spirit moves, +This drinks and fights, another drinks and loves. +A bastard zeal, of different kinds it shows, +And now with rage, and now religion glows: +The frantic soul bright reason's path defies, +Now creeps on earth, now triumphs in the skies; +Swims in the seas of error, and explores, +Through midnight mists, the fluctuating shores; +From wave to wave in rocky channel glides, +And sinks in woe, or on presumption slides; +In pride exalted, or by shame deprest, +An angel-devil, or a human-beast. + Some rage in all the strength of folly mad; +Some love stupidity, in silence clad, +Are never quarrelsome, are never gay, +But sleep, and groan, and drink the night away; +Old Torpio nods, and as the laugh goes round, +Grunts through the nasal duct, and joins the sound. +Then sleeps again, and, as the liquors pass, +Wakes at the friendly jog, and takes his glass: +Alike to him who stands, or reels, or moves, +The elbow chair, good wine, and sleep he loves, +Nor cares of state disturb his easy head, +By grosser fumes and calmer follies fed; +Nor thoughts of when, or where, or how to come, +The canvass general, or the general doom; +Extremes ne'er reach'd one passion of his soul, +A villain tame, and an unmettled fool; +To half his vices he has but pretence, +For they usurp the place of common sense; +To half his little merits has no claim, +For very indolence has raised his name; +Happy in this, that, under Satan's sway, +His passions tremble, but will not obey. + The vicar at the table's front presides, +Whose presence a monastic life derides; +The reverend wig, in sideway order placed, +The reverend band, by rubric stains disgraced, +The leering eye, in wayward circles roll'd, +Mark him the pastor of a joyial fold, +Whose various texts excite a loud applause, +Favouring the bottle, and the good old cause. +See! the dull smile which fearfully appears, +When gross indecency her front uprears, +The joy conceal'd, the fiercer burns within, +As masks afford the keenest gust to sin; +Imagination helps the reverend sire, +And spreads the sails of sub-divine desire; +But when the gay immoral joke goes round, +When shame and all her blushing train are drown'd, +Rather than hear his God blasphemed, he takes +The last loved glass, and then the board forsakes. +Not that religion prompts the sober thought, +But slavish custom has the practice taught; +Besides, this zealous son of warm devotion +Has a true Levite bias for promotion. +Vicars must with discretion go astray, +Whilst bishops may be damn'd the nearest way; +So puny robbers individuals kill, +When hector-heroes murder as they will. + Good honest Curio elbows the divine, +And strives a social sinner how to shine; +The dull quaint tale is his, the lengthen'd tale, +That Wilton farmers give you with their ale, +How midnight ghosts o'er vaults terrific pass, +Dance o'er the grave, and slide along the grass; +Or how pale Cicely within the wood +Call'd Satan forth, and bargain'd with her blood. +These, honest Curio, are thine, and these +Are the dull treasures of a brain at peace; +No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull, +Of heavy, native, unwrought folly full: +Bowl upon bowl in vain exert their force, +The breathing spirit takes a downward course, +Or mainly soaring upwards to the head, +Meets an impenetrable fence of lead. + Hast thou, oh reader! searched o'er gentle Gay, +Where various animals their powers display? +In one strange group a chattering race are hurl'd, +Led by the monkey who had seen the world. +Like him Fabricio steals from guardian's side, +Swims not in pleasure's stream, but sips the tide: +He hates the bottle, yet but thinks it right +To boast next day the honours of the night; +None like your coward can describe a fight. +See him as down the sparkling potion goes, +Labour to grin away the horrid dose; +In joy-feigned gaze his misty eyeballs float, +Th' uncivil spirit gurgling at his throat; +So looks dim Titan through a wintry scene, +And faintly cheers the woe-foreboding swain. + Timon, long practised in the school of art, +Has lost each finer feeling of the heart; +Triumphs o'er shame, and, with delusive wiles, +Laughs at the idiot he himself beguiles: +So matrons, past the awe of censure's tongue, +Deride the blushes of the fair and young. +Few with more fire on every subject spoke, +But chief he loved the gay immoral joke; +The words most sacred, stole from holy writ, +He gave a newer form, and called them wit. +Vice never had a more sincere ally, +So bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly; +Learn'd, but not wise, and without virtue brave, +A gay, deluding, philosophic knave. +When Bacchus' joys his airy fancy fire, +They stir a new, but still a false desire; +And to the comfort of each untaught fool, +Horace in English vindicates the bowl. +"The man," says Timon, "who is drunk is blest, +No fears disturb, no cares destroy his rest; +In thoughtless joy he reels away his life, +Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife." +"Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come, +And thunders worse than thine afflict the room, +Where one eternal nothing flutters round, +And senseless titt'ring sense of mirth confound; +Or lead me bound to garret, Babel-high, +Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye, +Tiring the ear with oft-repeated chimes, +And smiling at the never-ending rhymes: +E'en here, or there, I'll be as blest as Jove, +Give me tobacco, and the wine I love." +Applause from hands the dying accents break, +Of stagg'ring sots who vainly try to speak; +From Milo, him who hangs upon each word, +And in loud praises splits the tortured board, +Collects each sentence, ere it's better known, +And makes the mutilated joke his own. +At weekly club to flourish, where he rules, +The glorious president of grosser fools. + But cease, my Muse! of those or these enough, +The fools who listen, and the knaves who scoff; +The jest profane, that mocks th' offended God, +Defies his power, and sets at nought his rod; +The empty laugh, discretion's vainest foe, +From fool to fool re-echoed to and fro; +The sly indecency, that slowly springs +From barren wit, and halts on trembling wings: +Enough of these, and all the charms of wine, +Be sober joys and social evenings mine; +Where peace and reason, unsoil'd mirth, improve +The powers of friendship and the joys of love; +Where thought meets thought ere words its form array, +And all is sacred, elegant, and gay: +Such pleasure leaves no sorrow on the mind, +Too great to fall, to sicken too refined; +Too soft for noise, and too sublime for art, +The social solace of the feeling heart, +For sloth too rapid, and for wit too high, +'Tis virtue's pleasure, and can never die! + + + +"THE CANDIDATE" {2} +A POETICAL EPISTLE TO THE AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY REVIEW. + + + +AN INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS OF THE AUTHOR TO HIS POEMS. + +Multa quidem nobis facimus mala saepe poetae, +(Ut vineta egomet caedam mea) cum tibi librum +Sollicito damus, aut fesso, &c. + HORACE, Epistle 1. + + +Ye idler things, that soothed my hours of care, +Where would ye wander, triflers, tell me where? +As maids neglected, do ye fondly dote, +On the tair type, or the embroider'd coat; +Detest my modest shelf, and long to fly +Where princely Popes and mighty Miltons lie? +Taught but to sing, and that in simple style, +Of Lycia's lip, and Musidora's smile; - +Go then! and taste a yet unfelt distress, +The fear that guards the captivating press; +Whose maddening region should ye once explore, +No refuge yields my tongueless mansion more. +But thus ye'll grieve, Ambition's plumage stript, +"Ah, would to Heaven, we'd died in manuscript!" +Your unsoil'd page each yawning wit shall flee, +- For few will read, and none admire like me. - +Its place, where spiders silent bards enrobe, +Squeezed betwixt Cibber's Odes and Blackmore's Job; +Where froth and mud, that varnish and deform, +Feed the lean critic and the fattening worm; +Then sent disgraced--the unpaid printer's bane - +To mad Moorfields, or sober Chancery Lane, +On dirty stalls I see your hopes expire, +Vex'd by the grin of your unheeded sire, +Who half reluctant has his care resign'd, +Like a teased parent, and is rashly kind. + Yet rush not all, but let some scout go forth, +View the strange land, and tell us of its worth; +And should he there barbarian usage meet, +The patriot scrap shall warn us to retreat. + And thou, the first of thy eccentric race, +A forward imp, go, search the dangerous place, +Where Fame's eternal blossoms tempt each bard, +Though dragon-wits there keep eternal guard; +Hope not unhurt the golden spoil to seize, +The Muses yield, as the Hesperides; +Who bribes the guardian, all his labour's done, +For every maid is willing to be won. + Before the lords of verse a suppliant stand, +And beg our passage through the fairy land: +Beg more--to search for sweets each blooming field, +And crop the blossoms woods and valleys yield, +To snatch the tints that beam on Fancy's bow; +And feel the fires on Genius' wings that glow; +Praise without meanness, without flattery stoop, +Soothe without fear, and without trembling, hope. + + +TO THE READER. + + +The following Poem being itself of an introductory nature, its +author supposes it can require but little preface. + +It is published with a view of obtaining the opinion of the candid +and judicious reader on the merits of the writer as a poet; very +few, he apprehends, being in such cases sufficiently impartial to +decide for themselves. + +It is addressed to the Authors of the Monthy Review, as to critics +of acknowledged merit; an acquaintance with whose labours has +afforded the writer of this Epistle a reason for directing it to +them in particular, and, he presumes, will yield to others a just +and sufficient plea for the preference. + +Familiar with disappointment, he shall not be much surprised to find +he has mistaken his talent. + +However, if not egregiously the dupe of his vanity, he promises to +his readers some entertainment, and is assured that however little +in the ensuing Poem is worthy of applause, there is yet less that +merits contempt. + + +TO THE AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY REVIEW. + + +The pious pilot, whom the gods provide, +Through the rough seas the shatter'd bark to guide, +Trusts not alone his knowledge of the deep, +Its rocks that threaten, and its sands that sleep; +But whilst with nicest skill he steers his way, +The guardian Tritons hear their favourite pray. +Hence borne his vows to Neptune's coral dome, +The god relents, and shuts each gulfy tomb. + Thus as on fatal floods to fame I steer, +I dread the storm that ever rattles here, +Nor think enough, that long my yielding soul +Has felt the Muse's soft but strong control, +Nor think enough, that manly strength and ease, +Such as have pleased a friend, will strangers please; +But, suppliant, to the critic's throne I bow, +Here burn my incense, and here pay my vow; +That censure hush'd, may every blast give o'er, +And the lash'd coxcomb hiss contempt no more. +And ye, whom authors dread or dare in vain, +Affecting modest hopes, or poor disdain, +Receive a bard, who neither mad nor mean, +Despises each extreme, and sails between; +Who fears; but has, amid his fears confess'd, +The conscious virtue of a Muse oppress'd; +A muse in changing times and stations nursed, +By nature honour'd, and by fortune cursed. + No servile strain of abject hope she brings, +Nor soars presumptuous, with unwearied wings, +But, pruned for flight--the future all her care - +Would know her strength, and, if not strong, forbear. + The supple slave to regal pomp bows down, +Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown; +The bolder villain spurns a decent awe, +Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law; +But he whose soul on honest truth relies, +Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies. +Thus timid authors bear an abject mind, +And plead for mercy they but seldom find. +Some, as the desperate, to the halter run, +Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun; +But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop, +Yet hope for fame, and dare avow their hope, +Who neither brave the judges of their cause, +Nor beg in soothing strains a brief applause. +And such I'd be;--and ere my fate is past, +Ere clear'd with honour, or with culprits cast, +Humbly at Learning's bar I'll state my case, +And welcome then distinction or disgrace! + When in the man the flights of fancy reign, +Rule in the heart or revel in the brain, +As busy Thought her wild creation apes, +And hangs delighted o'er her varying shapes, +It asks a judgment, weighty and discreet, +To know where wisdom prompts, and where conceit. +Alike their draughts to every scribbler's mind +(Blind to their faults as to their danger blind); - +We write enraptured, and we write in haste, +Dream idle dreams, and call them things of taste, +Improvement trace in every paltry line, +And see, transported, every dull design; +Are seldom cautious, all advice detest, +And ever think our own opinions best; +Nor shows my Muse a muse-like spirit here, +Who bids me pause, before I persevere. + But she--who shrinks while meditating flight +In the wide way, whose bounds delude her sight, +Yet tired in her own mazes still to roam, +And cull poor banquets for the soul at home, +Would, ere she ventures, ponder on the way, +Lest dangers yet unthought of, flight betray; +Lest her Icarian wing, by wits unplumed, +Be robb'd of all the honours she assumed; +And Dulness swell,--a black and dismal sea, +Gaping her grave; while censures madden me. + Such was his fate, who flew too near the sun, +Shot far beyond his strength, and was undone; +Such is his fate, who creeping at the shore +The billow sweeps him, and he's found no more. +Oh! for some god, to bear my fortunes fair +Midway betwixt presumption and despair! + "Has then some friendly critic's former blow +Taught thee a prudence authors seldom know?" + Not so! their anger and their love untried, +A woe-taught prudence deigns to tend my side: +Life's hopes ill-sped, the Muse's hopes grow poor, +And though they flatter, yet they charm no more; +Experience points where lurking dangers lay, +And as I run, throws caution in my way. + There was a night, when wintry winds did rage, +Hard by a ruin'd pile, I meet a sage; +Resembling him the time-struck place appear'd, +Hollow its voice, and moss its spreading beard; +Whose fate-lopp'd brow, the bat's and beetle's dome, +Shook, as the hunted owl flew hooting home. +His breast was bronzed by many an eastern blast, +And fourscore winters seem'd he to have past; +His thread-bare coat the supple osier bound, +And with slow feet he press'd the sodden ground, +Where, as he heard the wild-wing'd Eurus blow, +He shook, from locks as white, December's snow; +Inured to storm, his soul ne'er bid it cease, +But lock'd within him meditated peace. + Father, I said--for silver hairs inspire, +And oft I call the bending peasant Sire - +Tell me, as here beneath this ivy bower, +That works fantastic round its trembling tower, +We hear Heaven's guilt-alarming thunders roar, +Tell me the pains and pleasures of the poor; +For Hope, just spent, requires a sad adieu, +And Fear acquaints me I shall live with you. + There was a time when, by Delusion led, +A scene of sacred bliss around me spread, +On Hope's, as Pisgah's lofty top, I stood, +And saw my Canaan there, my promised good; +A thousand scenes of joy the clime bestow'd, +And wine and oil through vision's valleys flow'd; +As Moses his, I call'd my prospect bless'd, +And gazed upon the good I ne'er possess'd: +On this side Jordan doom'd by fate to stand, +Whilst happier Joshuas win the promised land. +"Son," said the Sage--"be this thy care suppress'd; +The state the gods shall chose thee is the best: +Rich if thou art, they ask thy praises more, +And would thy patience when they make thee poor; +But other thoughts within thy bosom reign, +And other subjects vex thy busy brain, +Poetic wreaths thy vainer dreams excite, +And thy sad stars have destined thee to write. +Then since that task the ruthless fates decree, +Take a few precepts from the gods and me! + "Be not too eager in the arduous chase; +Who pants for triumph seldom wins the race: +Venture not all, but wisely hoard thy worth, +And let thy labours one by one go forth: +Some happier scrap capricious wits may find +On a fair day, and be profusely kind; +Which, buried in the rubbish of a throng, +Had pleased as little as a new-year's song, +Or lover's verse, that cloy'd with nauseous sweet, +Or birth-day ode, that ran on ill-pair'd feet. +Merit not always--Fortune feeds the bard, +And as the whim inclines bestows reward: +None without wit, nor with it numbers gain; +To please is hard, but none shall please in vain: +As a coy mistress is the humour'd town, +Loth every lover with success to crown; +He who would win must every effort try, +Sail in the mode, and to the fashion fly; +Must gay or grave to every humour dress, +And watch the lucky Moment of Success; +That caught, no more his eager hopes are crost; +But vain are Wit and Love, when that is lost." + Thus said the god; for now a god he grew +His white locks changing to a golden hue, +And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue. +His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed +Of dove-like Delia when her doubts reposed; +Mira's alone a softer lustre bear, +When woe beguiles them of an angel's tear; +Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood, +Then sought on airy wing his blest abode. + Ah! truth, distasteful in poetic theme, +Why is the Muse compell'd to own her dream? +Whilst forward wits had sworn to every line, +I only wish to make its moral mine. + Say then, O ye who tell how authors speed, +May Hope indulge her flight, and I succeed? +Say, shall my name, to future song prefixed, +Be with the meanest of the tuneful mix'd? +Shall my soft strains the modest maid engage, +My graver numbers move the silver "d sage, +My tender themes delight the lover's heart, +And comfort to the poor my solemn songs impart? + For Oh! thou Hope's, thou Thought's eternal King, +Who gav'st them power to charm, and me to sing - +Chief to thy praise my willing numbers soar, +And in my happier transports I adore; +Mercy! thy softest attribute proclaim, +Thyself in abstract, thy more lovely name; +That flings o'er all my grief a cheering ray, +As the full moon-beam gilds the watery way. +And then too, Love, my soul's resistless lord, +Shall many a gentle, generous strain afford, +To all the soil of sooty passion blind, +Pure as embracing angels and as kind; +Our Mira's name in future times shall shine, +And--though the harshest--Shepherds envy mine. + Then let me (pleasing task!) however hard, +Join, as of old, the prophet and the bard; +If not, ah! shield me from the dire disgrace, +That haunts our wild and visionary race; +Let me not draw my lengthen'd lines along, +And tire in untamed infamy of song, +Lest, in some dismal Dunciad's future page, +I stand the CIBBER of this tuneless age; +Lest, in another POPE th' indulgent skies +Should give inspired by all their deities, +My luckless name, in his immortal strain, +Should, blasted, brand me as a second Cain; +Doom'd in that song to live against my will, +Whom all must scorn, and yet whom none could kill. + The youth, resisted by the maiden's art, +Persists, and time subdues her kindling heart; +To strong entreaty yields the widow's vow, +As mighty walls to bold beseigers bow; +Repeated prayers draw bounty from the sky, +And heaven is won by importunity; +Ours, a projecting tribe, pursue in vain, +In tedious trials, an uncertain gain; +Madly plunge on through every hope's defeat, +And with our ruin only find the cheat. + "And why then seek that luckless doom to share?" +Who, I?--To shun it is my only care. + I grant it true, that others better tell +Of mighty WOLFE, who conquer'd as he fell; +Of heroes born, their threaten'd realms to save, +Whom Fame anoints, and Envy tends whose grave; +Of crimson'd fields, where Fate, in dire array, +Gives to the breathless the short-breathing clay; +Ours, a young train, by humbler fountains dream, +Nor taste presumptuous the Pierian stream; +When Rodney's triumph comes on eagle-wing, +We hail the victor whom we fear to sing; +Nor tell we how each hostile chief goes on, +The luckless Lee, or wary Washington; +How Spanish bombast blusters--they were beat, +And French politeness dulcifies--defeat. +My modest Muse forbears to speak of kings, +Lest fainting stanzas blast the name she sings; +For who--the tenant of the beechen shade, +Dares the big thought in regal breasts pervade? +Or search his soul, whom each too-favouring god +Gives to delight in plunder, pomp, and blood? +No; let me free from Cupid's frolic round, +Rejoice, or more rejoice by Cupid bound; +Of laughing girls in smiling couplets tell, +And paint the dark-brow'd grove, where wood-nymphs dwell; +Who bid invading youths their vengeance feel, +And pierce the votive hearts they mean to heal. +Such were the themes I knew in school-day ease, +When first the moral magic learn'd to please, +Ere Judgment told how transports warm'd the breast, +Transported Fancy there her stores imprest; +The soul in varied raptures learn'd to fly, +Felt all their force, and never question'd why; +No idle doubts could then her peace molest, +She found delight, and left to heaven the rest; +Soft joys in Evening's placid shades were born; +And where sweet fragrance wing'd the balmy morn, +When the wild thought roved vision's circuit o'er, +And caught the raptures, caught, alas! no more: +No care did then a dull attention ask, +For study pleased, and that was every task; +No guilty dreams stalk'd that heaven-favour'd round, +Heaven-guarded, too, no Envy entrance found; +Nor numerous wants, that vex advancing age, +Nor Flattery's silver tale, nor Sorrow's sage; +Frugal Affliction kept each growing dart, +To o'erwhelm in future days the bleeding heart. +No sceptic art veil'd Pride in Truth's disguise, +But prayer unsoil'd of doubt besieged the skies; +Ambition, avarice, care, to man retired, +Nor came desires more quick than joys desired. + A summer morn there was, and passing fair, +Still was the breeze, and health perfumed the air; +The glowing east in crimson'd splendour shone, +What time the eye just marks the pallid moon, +Vi'let-wing'd Zephyr fann'd each opening flower, +And brush'd from fragrant cups the limpid shower; +A distant huntsman fill'd his cheerful horn, +The vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn, +And mists, like creeping rocks, arose to meet the morn. +Huge giant shadows spread along the plain, +Or shot from towering rocks o'er half the main, +There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide +Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side; +Such is that sound, which fond designs convey, +When, true to love, the damsel speeds away; +The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl'd, +And simpering nigh, the languid current curl'd; +A crumbling ruin, once a city's pride, +The well-pleased eye through withering oaks descried, +Where Sadness, gazing on time's ravage, hung, +And Silence to Destruction's trophy clung - +Save that as morning songsters swell'd their lays, +Awaken'd Echo humm'd repeated praise: +The lark on quavering pinion woo'd the day, +Less towering linnets fill'd the vocal spray, +And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray. +Here at a pine-press'd hill's embroider'd base +I stood, and hail'd the Genius of the place. + Then was it doom'd by fate, my idle heart, +Soften'd by Nature, gave access to Art; +The Muse approach'd, her syren-song I heard, +Her magic felt, and all her charms revered: +E'er since she rules in absolute control, +And Mira only dearer to my soul. +Ah! tell me not these empty joys to fly, +If they deceive, I would deluded die; +To the fond themes my heart so early wed, +So soon in life to blooming visions led, +So prone to run the vague uncertain course, +'Tis more than death to think of a divorce. + What wills the poet of the favouring gods, +Led to their shrine, and blest in their abodes? +What when he fills the glass, and to each youth +Names his loved maid, and glories in his truth? +Not India's spoils, the splended nabob's pride, +Not the full trade of Hermes' own Cheapside, +Nor gold itself, nor all the Ganges laves, +Or shrouds, well shrouded in his sacred waves; +Nor gorgeous vessels deck'd in trim array, +Which the more noble Thames bears far away; +Let those whose nod makes sooty subjects flee? +Hack with blunt steel the savory callipee; +Let those whose ill-used wealth their country fly, +Virtue-scorn'd wines from hostile France to buy; +Favour'd by Fate, let such in joy appear, +Their smuggled cargoes landed thrice a year; +Disdaining these, for simpler food I'll look, +And crop my beverage at the mantled brook. + O Virtue! brighter than the noon-tide ray, +My humble prayers with sacred joys repay! +Health to my limbs may the kind gods impart, +And thy fair form delight my yielding heart! +Grant me to shun each vile inglorious road, +To see thy way, and trace each moral good: +If more--let Wisdom's sons my page peruse, +And decent credit deck my modest Muse. + Nor deem it pride that prophesies my song +Shall please the sons of taste, and please them long. +Say ye! to whom my Muse submissive brings +Her first-fruit offering, and on trembling wings, +May she not hope in future days to soar, +Where fancy's sons have led the way before? +Where genius strives in each ambrosial bower +To snatch with agile hand the opening flower? +To cull what sweets adorn the mountain's brow, +What humbler blossoms crown the vales below? +To blend with these the stores by art refined, +And give the moral Flora to the mind? + Far other scenes my timid hour admits, +Relentless critics and avenging wits; +E'en coxcombs take a licence from their pen, +And to each "Let him perish," cry Amen! +And thus, with wits or fools my heart shall cry, +For if they please not, let the trifles die: +Die, and be lost in dark oblivion's shore, +And never rise to vex their author more. + I would not dream o'er some soft liquid line, +Amid a thousand blunders form'd to shine; +Yet rather this, than that dull scribbler be, +From every fault and every beauty free, +Curst with tame thoughts and mediocrity. +Some have I found so thick beset with spots, +'Twas hard to trace their beauties through their blots; +And these, as tapers round a sick man's room +Or passing chimes, but warn'd me of the tomb! + O! if you blast, at once consume my bays, +And damn me not with mutilated praise. +With candour judge; and, a young bard in view, +Allow for that, and judge with kindness too; +Faults he must own, though hard for him to find, +Not to some happier merits quite so blind; +These if mistaken Fancy only sees, +Or Hope, that takes Deformity for these: +If Dunce, the crowd-befitting title falls +His lot, and Dulness her new subject calls, +To the poor bard alone your censures give - +Let his fame die, but let his honour live; +Laugh if you must--be candid as you can, +And when you lash the Poet, spare the Man. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} First published in Ipswich, 1775. + +{2} First published 1780. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5181 *** diff --git a/5181-h/5181-h.htm b/5181-h/5181-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..005cd9d --- /dev/null +++ b/5181-h/5181-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,809 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>Inebriety and the Candidate | Project Gutenberg</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5181 ***</div> + +<p> +Inebriety and The Candidate<br/> +by George Crabbe<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +Contents:<br/> + Inebriety<br/> + The Candidate<br/> + An Introductory Address<br/> + To the Reader<br/> + To the Authors of the Monthly Review<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +“INEBRIETY” <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a><br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +The mighty spirit, and its power, which stains<br/> +The bloodless cheek, and vivifies the brains,<br/> +I sing. Say, ye, its fiery vot’ries true,<br/> +The jovial curate, and the shrill-tongued shrew;<br/> +Ye, in the floods of limpid poison nurst,<br/> +Where bowl the second charms like bowl the first;<br/> +Say how, and why, the sparkling ill is shed,<br/> +The heart which hardens, and which rules the head.<br/> + When winter stern his gloomy front uprears,<br/> +A sable void the barren earth appears;<br/> +The meads no more their former verdure boast,<br/> +Fast bound their streams, and all their beauty lost;<br/> +The herds, the flocks, in icy garments mourn,<br/> +And wildly murmur for the spring’s return;<br/> +From snow-topp’d hills the whirlwinds keenly blow,<br/> +Howl through the woods, and pierce the vales below;<br/> +Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies,<br/> +Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies;<br/> +The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare,<br/> +And shed their substance on the floating air;<br/> +The floating air their downy substance glides<br/> +Through springing waters, and prevents their tides;<br/> +Seizes the rolling waves, and, as a god,<br/> +Charms their swift race, and stops the refluent flood;<br/> +The opening valves, which fill the venal road,<br/> +Then scarcely urge along the sanguine flood;<br/> +The labouring pulse a slower motion rules,<br/> +The tendons stiffen, and the spirit cools;<br/> +Each asks the aid of Nature’s sister, Art,<br/> +To cheer the senses, and to warm the heart.<br/> + The gentle fair on nervous tea relies,<br/> +Whilst gay good-nature sparkles in her eyes;<br/> +An inoffensive scandal fluttering round,<br/> +Too rough to tickle, and too light to wound;<br/> +Champagne the courtier drinks, the spleen to chase,<br/> +The colonel burgundy, and port his grace;<br/> +Turtle and ’rrac the city rulers charm,<br/> +Ale and content the labouring peasants warm:<br/> +O’er the dull embers, happy Colin sits,<br/> +Colin, the prince of joke, and rural wits;<br/> +Whilst the wind whistles through the hollow panes,<br/> +He drinks, nor of the rude assault complains;<br/> +And tells the tale, from sire to son retold,<br/> +Of spirits vanishing near hidden gold;<br/> +Of moon-clad imps that tremble by the dew,<br/> +Who skim the air, or glide o’er waters blue:<br/> +The throng invisible that, doubtless, float<br/> +By mouldering tombs, and o’er the stagnant meat:<br/> +Fays dimly glancing on the russet plain,<br/> +And all the dreadful nothing of the green.<br/> +Peace be to such, the happiest and the best,<br/> +Who with the forms of fancy urge their jest;<br/> +Who wage no war with an avenger’s rod,<br/> +Nor in the pride of reason curse their God.<br/> + When in the vaulted arch Lucina gleams,<br/> +And gaily dances o’er the azure streams;<br/> +On silent ether when a trembling sound<br/> +Reverberates, and wildly floats around,<br/> +Breaking through trackless space upon the ear,<br/> +Conclude the Bacchanalian rustic near:<br/> +O’er hills and vales the jovial savage reels,<br/> +Fire in his head and frenzy at his heels;<br/> +From paths direct the bending hero swerves,<br/> +And shapes his way in ill-proportioned curves.<br/> +Now safe arrived, his sleeping rib he calls,<br/> +And madly thunders on the muddy walls;<br/> +The well-known sounds an equal fury move,<br/> +For rage meets rage, as love enkindles love:<br/> +In vain the waken’d infant’s accents shrill,<br/> +The humble regions of the cottage fill;<br/> +In vain the cricket chirps the mansion through,<br/> +’Tis war, and blood, and battle must ensue.<br/> +As when, on humble stage, him Satan hight<br/> +Defies the brazen hero to the fight:<br/> +From twanging strokes what dire misfortunes rise,<br/> +What fate to maple arms and glassen eyes!<br/> +Here lies a leg of elm, and there a stroke<br/> +From ashen neck has whirl’d a head of oak.<br/> +So drops from either power, with vengeance big,<br/> +A remnant night-cap and an old cut wig;<br/> +Titles unmusical retorted round,<br/> +On either ear with leaden vengeance sound;<br/> +Till equal valour, equal wounds create,<br/> +And drowsy peace concludes the fell debate;<br/> +Sleep in her woollen mantle wraps the pair,<br/> +And sheds her poppies on the ambient air;<br/> +Intoxication flies, as fury fled,<br/> +On rooky pinions quits the aching head;<br/> +Returning reason cools the fiery blood,<br/> +And drives from memory’s seat the rosy god.<br/> +Yet still he holds o’er some his maddening rule.<br/> +Still sways his sceptre, and still knows his fool;<br/> +Witness the livid lip, and fiery front,<br/> +With many a smarting trophy placed upon’t;<br/> +The hollow eye, which plays in misty springs,<br/> +And the hoarse voice, which rough and broken rings;<br/> +These are his triumphs, and o’er these he reigns,<br/> +The blinking deity of reeling brains.<br/> + See Inebriety! her wand she waves,<br/> +And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves!<br/> +Sots in embroidery, and sots in crape,<br/> +Of every order, station, rank, and shape:<br/> +The king, who nods upon his rattle throne;<br/> +The staggering peer, to midnight revel prone;<br/> +The slow-tongued bishop, and the deacon sly,<br/> +The humble pensioner, and gownsman dry;<br/> +The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great,<br/> +Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state.<br/> + Lo! proud Flaminius at the splendid board,<br/> +The easy chaplain of an atheist lord,<br/> +Quaffs the bright juice, with all the gust of sense,<br/> +And clouds his brain in torpid elegance;<br/> +In china vases, see! the sparkling ill,<br/> +From gay decanters view the rosy rill;<br/> +The neat-carved pipes in silver settle laid,<br/> +The screw by mathematic cunning made:<br/> +Oh, happy priest! whose God, like Egypt’s, lies<br/> +At once the deity and sacrifice.<br/> +But is Flaminius then the man alone<br/> +To whom the joys of swimming brains are known?<br/> +Lo! the poor toper whose untutor’d sense,<br/> +Sees bliss in ale, and can with wine dispense;<br/> +Whose head proud fancy never taught to steer<br/> +Beyond the muddy ecstasies of beer;<br/> +But simple nature can her longing quench,<br/> +Behind the settle’s curve, or humbler bench:<br/> +Some kitchen fire diffusing warmth around,<br/> +The semi-globe by hieroglyphics crown’d;<br/> +Where canvas purse displays the brass enroll’d,<br/> +Nor waiters rave, nor landlords thirst for gold;<br/> +Ale and content his fancy’s bounds confine.<br/> +He asks no limpid punch, no rosy wine;<br/> +But sees, admitted to an equal share,<br/> +Each faithful swain the heady potion bear:<br/> +Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of taste,<br/> +Weigh gout and gravel against ale and rest;<br/> +Call vulgar palates what thou judgest so;<br/> +Say beer is heavy, windy, cold, and slow;<br/> +Laugh at poor sots with insolent pretence,<br/> +Yet cry, when tortured, where is Providence?<br/> + In various forms the madd’ning spirit moves,<br/> +This drinks and fights, another drinks and loves.<br/> +A bastard zeal, of different kinds it shows,<br/> +And now with rage, and now religion glows:<br/> +The frantic soul bright reason’s path defies,<br/> +Now creeps on earth, now triumphs in the skies;<br/> +Swims in the seas of error, and explores,<br/> +Through midnight mists, the fluctuating shores;<br/> +From wave to wave in rocky channel glides,<br/> +And sinks in woe, or on presumption slides;<br/> +In pride exalted, or by shame deprest,<br/> +An angel-devil, or a human-beast.<br/> + Some rage in all the strength of folly mad;<br/> +Some love stupidity, in silence clad,<br/> +Are never quarrelsome, are never gay,<br/> +But sleep, and groan, and drink the night away;<br/> +Old Torpio nods, and as the laugh goes round,<br/> +Grunts through the nasal duct, and joins the sound.<br/> +Then sleeps again, and, as the liquors pass,<br/> +Wakes at the friendly jog, and takes his glass:<br/> +Alike to him who stands, or reels, or moves,<br/> +The elbow chair, good wine, and sleep he loves,<br/> +Nor cares of state disturb his easy head,<br/> +By grosser fumes and calmer follies fed;<br/> +Nor thoughts of when, or where, or how to come,<br/> +The canvass general, or the general doom;<br/> +Extremes ne’er reach’d one passion of his soul,<br/> +A villain tame, and an unmettled fool;<br/> +To half his vices he has but pretence,<br/> +For they usurp the place of common sense;<br/> +To half his little merits has no claim,<br/> +For very indolence has raised his name;<br/> +Happy in this, that, under Satan’s sway,<br/> +His passions tremble, but will not obey.<br/> + The vicar at the table’s front presides,<br/> +Whose presence a monastic life derides;<br/> +The reverend wig, in sideway order placed,<br/> +The reverend band, by rubric stains disgraced,<br/> +The leering eye, in wayward circles roll’d,<br/> +Mark him the pastor of a joyial fold,<br/> +Whose various texts excite a loud applause,<br/> +Favouring the bottle, and the good old cause.<br/> +See! the dull smile which fearfully appears,<br/> +When gross indecency her front uprears,<br/> +The joy conceal’d, the fiercer burns within,<br/> +As masks afford the keenest gust to sin;<br/> +Imagination helps the reverend sire,<br/> +And spreads the sails of sub-divine desire;<br/> +But when the gay immoral joke goes round,<br/> +When shame and all her blushing train are drown’d,<br/> +Rather than hear his God blasphemed, he takes<br/> +The last loved glass, and then the board forsakes.<br/> +Not that religion prompts the sober thought,<br/> +But slavish custom has the practice taught;<br/> +Besides, this zealous son of warm devotion<br/> +Has a true Levite bias for promotion.<br/> +Vicars must with discretion go astray,<br/> +Whilst bishops may be damn’d the nearest way;<br/> +So puny robbers individuals kill,<br/> +When hector-heroes murder as they will.<br/> + Good honest Curio elbows the divine,<br/> +And strives a social sinner how to shine;<br/> +The dull quaint tale is his, the lengthen’d tale,<br/> +That Wilton farmers give you with their ale,<br/> +How midnight ghosts o’er vaults terrific pass,<br/> +Dance o’er the grave, and slide along the grass;<br/> +Or how pale Cicely within the wood<br/> +Call’d Satan forth, and bargain’d with her blood.<br/> +These, honest Curio, are thine, and these<br/> +Are the dull treasures of a brain at peace;<br/> +No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull,<br/> +Of heavy, native, unwrought folly full:<br/> +Bowl upon bowl in vain exert their force,<br/> +The breathing spirit takes a downward course,<br/> +Or mainly soaring upwards to the head,<br/> +Meets an impenetrable fence of lead.<br/> + Hast thou, oh reader! searched o’er gentle Gay,<br/> +Where various animals their powers display?<br/> +In one strange group a chattering race are hurl’d,<br/> +Led by the monkey who had seen the world.<br/> +Like him Fabricio steals from guardian’s side,<br/> +Swims not in pleasure’s stream, but sips the tide:<br/> +He hates the bottle, yet but thinks it right<br/> +To boast next day the honours of the night;<br/> +None like your coward can describe a fight.<br/> +See him as down the sparkling potion goes,<br/> +Labour to grin away the horrid dose;<br/> +In joy-feigned gaze his misty eyeballs float,<br/> +Th’ uncivil spirit gurgling at his throat;<br/> +So looks dim Titan through a wintry scene,<br/> +And faintly cheers the woe-foreboding swain.<br/> + Timon, long practised in the school of art,<br/> +Has lost each finer feeling of the heart;<br/> +Triumphs o’er shame, and, with delusive wiles,<br/> +Laughs at the idiot he himself beguiles:<br/> +So matrons, past the awe of censure’s tongue,<br/> +Deride the blushes of the fair and young.<br/> +Few with more fire on every subject spoke,<br/> +But chief he loved the gay immoral joke;<br/> +The words most sacred, stole from holy writ,<br/> +He gave a newer form, and called them wit.<br/> +Vice never had a more sincere ally,<br/> +So bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly;<br/> +Learn’d, but not wise, and without virtue brave,<br/> +A gay, deluding, philosophic knave.<br/> +When Bacchus’ joys his airy fancy fire,<br/> +They stir a new, but still a false desire;<br/> +And to the comfort of each untaught fool,<br/> +Horace in English vindicates the bowl.<br/> +“The man,” says Timon, “who is drunk is blest,<br/> +No fears disturb, no cares destroy his rest;<br/> +In thoughtless joy he reels away his life,<br/> +Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife.”<br/> +“Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come,<br/> +And thunders worse than thine afflict the room,<br/> +Where one eternal nothing flutters round,<br/> +And senseless titt’ring sense of mirth confound;<br/> +Or lead me bound to garret, Babel-high,<br/> +Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye,<br/> +Tiring the ear with oft-repeated chimes,<br/> +And smiling at the never-ending rhymes:<br/> +E’en here, or there, I’ll be as blest as Jove,<br/> +Give me tobacco, and the wine I love.”<br/> +Applause from hands the dying accents break,<br/> +Of stagg’ring sots who vainly try to speak;<br/> +From Milo, him who hangs upon each word,<br/> +And in loud praises splits the tortured board,<br/> +Collects each sentence, ere it’s better known,<br/> +And makes the mutilated joke his own.<br/> +At weekly club to flourish, where he rules,<br/> +The glorious president of grosser fools.<br/> + But cease, my Muse! of those or these enough,<br/> +The fools who listen, and the knaves who scoff;<br/> +The jest profane, that mocks th’ offended God,<br/> +Defies his power, and sets at nought his rod;<br/> +The empty laugh, discretion’s vainest foe,<br/> +From fool to fool re-echoed to and fro;<br/> +The sly indecency, that slowly springs<br/> +From barren wit, and halts on trembling wings:<br/> +Enough of these, and all the charms of wine,<br/> +Be sober joys and social evenings mine;<br/> +Where peace and reason, unsoil’d mirth, improve<br/> +The powers of friendship and the joys of love;<br/> +Where thought meets thought ere words its form array,<br/> +And all is sacred, elegant, and gay:<br/> +Such pleasure leaves no sorrow on the mind,<br/> +Too great to fall, to sicken too refined;<br/> +Too soft for noise, and too sublime for art,<br/> +The social solace of the feeling heart,<br/> +For sloth too rapid, and for wit too high,<br/> +’Tis virtue’s pleasure, and can never die!<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +“THE CANDIDATE” <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a><br/> +A POETICAL EPISTLE TO THE AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY REVIEW.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +AN INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS OF THE AUTHOR TO HIS POEMS.<br/> +<br/> +Multa quidem nobis facimus mala saepe poetae,<br/> +(Ut vineta egomet caedam mea) cum tibi librum<br/> +Sollicito damus, aut fesso, &c.<br/> + HORACE, +Epistle 1.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +Ye idler things, that soothed my hours of care,<br/> +Where would ye wander, triflers, tell me where?<br/> +As maids neglected, do ye fondly dote,<br/> +On the tair type, or the embroider’d coat;<br/> +Detest my modest shelf, and long to fly<br/> +Where princely Popes and mighty Miltons lie?<br/> +Taught but to sing, and that in simple style,<br/> +Of Lycia’s lip, and Musidora’s smile; -<br/> +Go then! and taste a yet unfelt distress,<br/> +The fear that guards the captivating press;<br/> +Whose maddening region should ye once explore,<br/> +No refuge yields my tongueless mansion more.<br/> +But thus ye’ll grieve, Ambition’s plumage stript,<br/> +“Ah, would to Heaven, we’d died in manuscript!”<br/> +Your unsoil’d page each yawning wit shall flee,<br/> +- For few will read, and none admire like me. -<br/> +Its place, where spiders silent bards enrobe,<br/> +Squeezed betwixt Cibber’s Odes and Blackmore’s Job;<br/> +Where froth and mud, that varnish and deform,<br/> +Feed the lean critic and the fattening worm;<br/> +Then sent disgraced - the unpaid printer’s bane -<br/> +To mad Moorfields, or sober Chancery Lane,<br/> +On dirty stalls I see your hopes expire,<br/> +Vex’d by the grin of your unheeded sire,<br/> +Who half reluctant has his care resign’d,<br/> +Like a teased parent, and is rashly kind.<br/> + Yet rush not all, but let some scout go forth,<br/> +View the strange land, and tell us of its worth;<br/> +And should he there barbarian usage meet,<br/> +The patriot scrap shall warn us to retreat.<br/> + And thou, the first of thy eccentric race,<br/> +A forward imp, go, search the dangerous place,<br/> +Where Fame’s eternal blossoms tempt each bard,<br/> +Though dragon-wits there keep eternal guard;<br/> +Hope not unhurt the golden spoil to seize,<br/> +The Muses yield, as the Hesperides;<br/> +Who bribes the guardian, all his labour’s done,<br/> +For every maid is willing to be won.<br/> + Before the lords of verse a suppliant stand,<br/> +And beg our passage through the fairy land:<br/> +Beg more - to search for sweets each blooming field,<br/> +And crop the blossoms woods and valleys yield,<br/> +To snatch the tints that beam on Fancy’s bow;<br/> +And feel the fires on Genius’ wings that glow;<br/> +Praise without meanness, without flattery stoop,<br/> +Soothe without fear, and without trembling, hope.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +TO THE READER.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +The following Poem being itself of an introductory nature, its author +supposes it can require but little preface.<br/> +<br/> +It is published with a view of obtaining the opinion of the candid and +judicious reader on the merits of the writer as a poet; very few, he +apprehends, being in such cases sufficiently impartial to decide for +themselves.<br/> +<br/> +It is addressed to the Authors of the Monthy Review, as to critics of +acknowledged merit; an acquaintance with whose labours has afforded +the writer of this Epistle a reason for directing it to them in particular, +and, he presumes, will yield to others a just and sufficient plea for +the preference.<br/> +<br/> +Familiar with disappointment, he shall not be much surprised to find +he has mistaken his talent.<br/> +<br/> +However, if not egregiously the dupe of his vanity, he promises to his +readers some entertainment, and is assured that however little in the +ensuing Poem is worthy of applause, there is yet less that merits contempt.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +TO THE AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY REVIEW.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +The pious pilot, whom the gods provide,<br/> +Through the rough seas the shatter’d bark to guide,<br/> +Trusts not alone his knowledge of the deep,<br/> +Its rocks that threaten, and its sands that sleep;<br/> +But whilst with nicest skill he steers his way,<br/> +The guardian Tritons hear their favourite pray.<br/> +Hence borne his vows to Neptune’s coral dome,<br/> +The god relents, and shuts each gulfy tomb.<br/> + Thus as on fatal floods to fame I steer,<br/> +I dread the storm that ever rattles here,<br/> +Nor think enough, that long my yielding soul<br/> +Has felt the Muse’s soft but strong control,<br/> +Nor think enough, that manly strength and ease,<br/> +Such as have pleased a friend, will strangers please;<br/> +But, suppliant, to the critic’s throne I bow,<br/> +Here burn my incense, and here pay my vow;<br/> +That censure hush’d, may every blast give o’er,<br/> +And the lash’d coxcomb hiss contempt no more.<br/> +And ye, whom authors dread or dare in vain,<br/> +Affecting modest hopes, or poor disdain,<br/> +Receive a bard, who neither mad nor mean,<br/> +Despises each extreme, and sails between;<br/> +Who fears; but has, amid his fears confess’d,<br/> +The conscious virtue of a Muse oppress’d;<br/> +A muse in changing times and stations nursed,<br/> +By nature honour’d, and by fortune cursed.<br/> + No servile strain of abject hope she brings,<br/> +Nor soars presumptuous, with unwearied wings,<br/> +But, pruned for flight - the future all her care -<br/> +Would know her strength, and, if not strong, forbear.<br/> + The supple slave to regal pomp bows down,<br/> +Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown;<br/> +The bolder villain spurns a decent awe,<br/> +Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law;<br/> +But he whose soul on honest truth relies,<br/> +Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies.<br/> +Thus timid authors bear an abject mind,<br/> +And plead for mercy they but seldom find.<br/> +Some, as the desperate, to the halter run,<br/> +Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun;<br/> +But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop,<br/> +Yet hope for fame, and dare avow their hope,<br/> +Who neither brave the judges of their cause,<br/> +Nor beg in soothing strains a brief applause.<br/> +And such I’d be; - and ere my fate is past,<br/> +Ere clear’d with honour, or with culprits cast,<br/> +Humbly at Learning’s bar I’ll state my case,<br/> +And welcome then distinction or disgrace!<br/> + When in the man the flights of fancy reign,<br/> +Rule in the heart or revel in the brain,<br/> +As busy Thought her wild creation apes,<br/> +And hangs delighted o’er her varying shapes,<br/> +It asks a judgment, weighty and discreet,<br/> +To know where wisdom prompts, and where conceit.<br/> +Alike their draughts to every scribbler’s mind<br/> +(Blind to their faults as to their danger blind); -<br/> +We write enraptured, and we write in haste,<br/> +Dream idle dreams, and call them things of taste,<br/> +Improvement trace in every paltry line,<br/> +And see, transported, every dull design;<br/> +Are seldom cautious, all advice detest,<br/> +And ever think our own opinions best;<br/> +Nor shows my Muse a muse-like spirit here,<br/> +Who bids me pause, before I persevere.<br/> + But she - who shrinks while meditating flight<br/> +In the wide way, whose bounds delude her sight,<br/> +Yet tired in her own mazes still to roam,<br/> +And cull poor banquets for the soul at home,<br/> +Would, ere she ventures, ponder on the way,<br/> +Lest dangers yet unthought of, flight betray;<br/> +Lest her Icarian wing, by wits unplumed,<br/> +Be robb’d of all the honours she assumed;<br/> +And Dulness swell, - a black and dismal sea,<br/> +Gaping her grave; while censures madden me.<br/> + Such was his fate, who flew too near the sun,<br/> +Shot far beyond his strength, and was undone;<br/> +Such is his fate, who creeping at the shore<br/> +The billow sweeps him, and he’s found no more.<br/> +Oh! for some god, to bear my fortunes fair<br/> +Midway betwixt presumption and despair!<br/> + “Has then some friendly critic’s former +blow<br/> +Taught thee a prudence authors seldom know?”<br/> + Not so! their anger and their love untried,<br/> +A woe-taught prudence deigns to tend my side:<br/> +Life’s hopes ill-sped, the Muse’s hopes grow poor,<br/> +And though they flatter, yet they charm no more;<br/> +Experience points where lurking dangers lay,<br/> +And as I run, throws caution in my way.<br/> + There was a night, when wintry winds did rage,<br/> +Hard by a ruin’d pile, I meet a sage;<br/> +Resembling him the time-struck place appear’d,<br/> +Hollow its voice, and moss its spreading beard;<br/> +Whose fate-lopp’d brow, the bat’s and beetle’s dome,<br/> +Shook, as the hunted owl flew hooting home.<br/> +His breast was bronzed by many an eastern blast,<br/> +And fourscore winters seem’d he to have past;<br/> +His thread-bare coat the supple osier bound,<br/> +And with slow feet he press’d the sodden ground,<br/> +Where, as he heard the wild-wing’d Eurus blow,<br/> +He shook, from locks as white, December’s snow;<br/> +Inured to storm, his soul ne’er bid it cease,<br/> +But lock’d within him meditated peace.<br/> + Father, I said - for silver hairs inspire,<br/> +And oft I call the bending peasant Sire -<br/> +Tell me, as here beneath this ivy bower,<br/> +That works fantastic round its trembling tower,<br/> +We hear Heaven’s guilt-alarming thunders roar,<br/> +Tell me the pains and pleasures of the poor;<br/> +For Hope, just spent, requires a sad adieu,<br/> +And Fear acquaints me I shall live with you.<br/> + There was a time when, by Delusion led,<br/> +A scene of sacred bliss around me spread,<br/> +On Hope’s, as Pisgah’s lofty top, I stood,<br/> +And saw my Canaan there, my promised good;<br/> +A thousand scenes of joy the clime bestow’d,<br/> +And wine and oil through vision’s valleys flow’d;<br/> +As Moses his, I call’d my prospect bless’d,<br/> +And gazed upon the good I ne’er possess’d:<br/> +On this side Jordan doom’d by fate to stand,<br/> +Whilst happier Joshuas win the promised land.<br/> +“Son,” said the Sage - “be this thy care suppress’d;<br/> +The state the gods shall chose thee is the best:<br/> +Rich if thou art, they ask thy praises more,<br/> +And would thy patience when they make thee poor;<br/> +But other thoughts within thy bosom reign,<br/> +And other subjects vex thy busy brain,<br/> +Poetic wreaths thy vainer dreams excite,<br/> +And thy sad stars have destined thee to write.<br/> +Then since that task the ruthless fates decree,<br/> +Take a few precepts from the gods and me!<br/> + “Be not too eager in the arduous chase;<br/> +Who pants for triumph seldom wins the race:<br/> +Venture not all, but wisely hoard thy worth,<br/> +And let thy labours one by one go forth:<br/> +Some happier scrap capricious wits may find<br/> +On a fair day, and be profusely kind;<br/> +Which, buried in the rubbish of a throng,<br/> +Had pleased as little as a new-year’s song,<br/> +Or lover’s verse, that cloy’d with nauseous sweet,<br/> +Or birth-day ode, that ran on ill-pair’d feet.<br/> +Merit not always - Fortune feeds the bard,<br/> +And as the whim inclines bestows reward:<br/> +None without wit, nor with it numbers gain;<br/> +To please is hard, but none shall please in vain:<br/> +As a coy mistress is the humour’d town,<br/> +Loth every lover with success to crown;<br/> +He who would win must every effort try,<br/> +Sail in the mode, and to the fashion fly;<br/> +Must gay or grave to every humour dress,<br/> +And watch the lucky Moment of Success;<br/> +That caught, no more his eager hopes are crost;<br/> +But vain are Wit and Love, when that is lost.”<br/> + Thus said the god; for now a god he grew<br/> +His white locks changing to a golden hue,<br/> +And from his shoulders hung a mantle azure-blue.<br/> +His softening eyes the winning charm disclosed<br/> +Of dove-like Delia when her doubts reposed;<br/> +Mira’s alone a softer lustre bear,<br/> +When woe beguiles them of an angel’s tear;<br/> +Beauteous and young the smiling phantom stood,<br/> +Then sought on airy wing his blest abode.<br/> + Ah! truth, distasteful in poetic theme,<br/> +Why is the Muse compell’d to own her dream?<br/> +Whilst forward wits had sworn to every line,<br/> +I only wish to make its moral mine.<br/> + Say then, O ye who tell how authors speed,<br/> +May Hope indulge her flight, and I succeed?<br/> +Say, shall my name, to future song prefixed,<br/> +Be with the meanest of the tuneful mix’d?<br/> +Shall my soft strains the modest maid engage,<br/> +My graver numbers move the silver “d sage,<br/> +My tender themes delight the lover’s heart,<br/> +And comfort to the poor my solemn songs impart?<br/> + For Oh! thou Hope’s, thou Thought’s eternal +King,<br/> +Who gav’st them power to charm, and me to sing -<br/> +Chief to thy praise my willing numbers soar,<br/> +And in my happier transports I adore;<br/> +Mercy! thy softest attribute proclaim,<br/> +Thyself in abstract, thy more lovely name;<br/> +That flings o’er all my grief a cheering ray,<br/> +As the full moon-beam gilds the watery way.<br/> +And then too, Love, my soul’s resistless lord,<br/> +Shall many a gentle, generous strain afford,<br/> +To all the soil of sooty passion blind,<br/> +Pure as embracing angels and as kind;<br/> +Our Mira’s name in future times shall shine,<br/> +And - though the harshest - Shepherds envy mine.<br/> + Then let me (pleasing task!) however hard,<br/> +Join, as of old, the prophet and the bard;<br/> +If not, ah! shield me from the dire disgrace,<br/> +That haunts our wild and visionary race;<br/> +Let me not draw my lengthen’d lines along,<br/> +And tire in untamed infamy of song,<br/> +Lest, in some dismal Dunciad’s future page,<br/> +I stand the CIBBER of this tuneless age;<br/> +Lest, in another POPE th’ indulgent skies<br/> +Should give inspired by all their deities,<br/> +My luckless name, in his immortal strain,<br/> +Should, blasted, brand me as a second Cain;<br/> +Doom’d in that song to live against my will,<br/> +Whom all must scorn, and yet whom none could kill.<br/> + The youth, resisted by the maiden’s art,<br/> +Persists, and time subdues her kindling heart;<br/> +To strong entreaty yields the widow’s vow,<br/> +As mighty walls to bold beseigers bow;<br/> +Repeated prayers draw bounty from the sky,<br/> +And heaven is won by importunity;<br/> +Ours, a projecting tribe, pursue in vain,<br/> +In tedious trials, an uncertain gain;<br/> +Madly plunge on through every hope’s defeat,<br/> +And with our ruin only find the cheat.<br/> + “And why then seek that luckless doom to share?”<br/> +Who, I? - To shun it is my only care.<br/> + I grant it true, that others better tell<br/> +Of mighty WOLFE, who conquer’d as he fell;<br/> +Of heroes born, their threaten’d realms to save,<br/> +Whom Fame anoints, and Envy tends whose grave;<br/> +Of crimson’d fields, where Fate, in dire array,<br/> +Gives to the breathless the short-breathing clay;<br/> +Ours, a young train, by humbler fountains dream,<br/> +Nor taste presumptuous the Pierian stream;<br/> +When Rodney’s triumph comes on eagle-wing,<br/> +We hail the victor whom we fear to sing;<br/> +Nor tell we how each hostile chief goes on,<br/> +The luckless Lee, or wary Washington;<br/> +How Spanish bombast blusters - they were beat,<br/> +And French politeness dulcifies - defeat.<br/> +My modest Muse forbears to speak of kings,<br/> +Lest fainting stanzas blast the name she sings;<br/> +For who - the tenant of the beechen shade,<br/> +Dares the big thought in regal breasts pervade?<br/> +Or search his soul, whom each too-favouring god<br/> +Gives to delight in plunder, pomp, and blood?<br/> +No; let me free from Cupid’s frolic round,<br/> +Rejoice, or more rejoice by Cupid bound;<br/> +Of laughing girls in smiling couplets tell,<br/> +And paint the dark-brow’d grove, where wood-nymphs dwell;<br/> +Who bid invading youths their vengeance feel,<br/> +And pierce the votive hearts they mean to heal.<br/> +Such were the themes I knew in school-day ease,<br/> +When first the moral magic learn’d to please,<br/> +Ere Judgment told how transports warm’d the breast,<br/> +Transported Fancy there her stores imprest;<br/> +The soul in varied raptures learn’d to fly,<br/> +Felt all their force, and never question’d why;<br/> +No idle doubts could then her peace molest,<br/> +She found delight, and left to heaven the rest;<br/> +Soft joys in Evening’s placid shades were born;<br/> +And where sweet fragrance wing’d the balmy morn,<br/> +When the wild thought roved vision’s circuit o’er,<br/> +And caught the raptures, caught, alas! no more:<br/> +No care did then a dull attention ask,<br/> +For study pleased, and that was every task;<br/> +No guilty dreams stalk’d that heaven-favour’d round,<br/> +Heaven-guarded, too, no Envy entrance found;<br/> +Nor numerous wants, that vex advancing age,<br/> +Nor Flattery’s silver tale, nor Sorrow’s sage;<br/> +Frugal Affliction kept each growing dart,<br/> +To o’erwhelm in future days the bleeding heart.<br/> +No sceptic art veil’d Pride in Truth’s disguise,<br/> +But prayer unsoil’d of doubt besieged the skies;<br/> +Ambition, avarice, care, to man retired,<br/> +Nor came desires more quick than joys desired.<br/> + A summer morn there was, and passing fair,<br/> +Still was the breeze, and health perfumed the air;<br/> +The glowing east in crimson’d splendour shone,<br/> +What time the eye just marks the pallid moon,<br/> +Vi’let-wing’d Zephyr fann’d each opening flower,<br/> +And brush’d from fragrant cups the limpid shower;<br/> +A distant huntsman fill’d his cheerful horn,<br/> +The vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn,<br/> +And mists, like creeping rocks, arose to meet the morn.<br/> +Huge giant shadows spread along the plain,<br/> +Or shot from towering rocks o’er half the main,<br/> +There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide<br/> +Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side;<br/> +Such is that sound, which fond designs convey,<br/> +When, true to love, the damsel speeds away;<br/> +The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl’d,<br/> +And simpering nigh, the languid current curl’d;<br/> +A crumbling ruin, once a city’s pride,<br/> +The well-pleased eye through withering oaks descried,<br/> +Where Sadness, gazing on time’s ravage, hung,<br/> +And Silence to Destruction’s trophy clung -<br/> +Save that as morning songsters swell’d their lays,<br/> +Awaken’d Echo humm’d repeated praise:<br/> +The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day,<br/> +Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray,<br/> +And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray.<br/> +Here at a pine-press’d hill’s embroider’d base<br/> +I stood, and hail’d the Genius of the place.<br/> + Then was it doom’d by fate, my idle heart,<br/> +Soften’d by Nature, gave access to Art;<br/> +The Muse approach’d, her syren-song I heard,<br/> +Her magic felt, and all her charms revered:<br/> +E’er since she rules in absolute control,<br/> +And Mira only dearer to my soul.<br/> +Ah! tell me not these empty joys to fly,<br/> +If they deceive, I would deluded die;<br/> +To the fond themes my heart so early wed,<br/> +So soon in life to blooming visions led,<br/> +So prone to run the vague uncertain course,<br/> +’Tis more than death to think of a divorce.<br/> + What wills the poet of the favouring gods,<br/> +Led to their shrine, and blest in their abodes?<br/> +What when he fills the glass, and to each youth<br/> +Names his loved maid, and glories in his truth?<br/> +Not India’s spoils, the splended nabob’s pride,<br/> +Not the full trade of Hermes’ own Cheapside,<br/> +Nor gold itself, nor all the Ganges laves,<br/> +Or shrouds, well shrouded in his sacred waves;<br/> +Nor gorgeous vessels deck’d in trim array,<br/> +Which the more noble Thames bears far away;<br/> +Let those whose nod makes sooty subjects flee?<br/> +Hack with blunt steel the savory callipee;<br/> +Let those whose ill-used wealth their country fly,<br/> +Virtue-scorn’d wines from hostile France to buy;<br/> +Favour’d by Fate, let such in joy appear,<br/> +Their smuggled cargoes landed thrice a year;<br/> +Disdaining these, for simpler food I’ll look,<br/> +And crop my beverage at the mantled brook.<br/> + O Virtue! brighter than the noon-tide ray,<br/> +My humble prayers with sacred joys repay!<br/> +Health to my limbs may the kind gods impart,<br/> +And thy fair form delight my yielding heart!<br/> +Grant me to shun each vile inglorious road,<br/> +To see thy way, and trace each moral good:<br/> +If more - let Wisdom’s sons my page peruse,<br/> +And decent credit deck my modest Muse.<br/> + Nor deem it pride that prophesies my song<br/> +Shall please the sons of taste, and please them long.<br/> +Say ye! to whom my Muse submissive brings<br/> +Her first-fruit offering, and on trembling wings,<br/> +May she not hope in future days to soar,<br/> +Where fancy’s sons have led the way before?<br/> +Where genius strives in each ambrosial bower<br/> +To snatch with agile hand the opening flower?<br/> +To cull what sweets adorn the mountain’s brow,<br/> +What humbler blossoms crown the vales below?<br/> +To blend with these the stores by art refined,<br/> +And give the moral Flora to the mind?<br/> + Far other scenes my timid hour admits,<br/> +Relentless critics and avenging wits;<br/> +E’en coxcombs take a licence from their pen,<br/> +And to each “Let him perish,” cry Amen!<br/> +And thus, with wits or fools my heart shall cry,<br/> +For if they please not, let the trifles die:<br/> +Die, and be lost in dark oblivion’s shore,<br/> +And never rise to vex their author more.<br/> + I would not dream o’er some soft liquid line,<br/> +Amid a thousand blunders form’d to shine;<br/> +Yet rather this, than that dull scribbler be,<br/> +From every fault and every beauty free,<br/> +Curst with tame thoughts and mediocrity.<br/> +Some have I found so thick beset with spots,<br/> +’Twas hard to trace their beauties through their blots;<br/> +And these, as tapers round a sick man’s room<br/> +Or passing chimes, but warn’d me of the tomb!<br/> + O! if you blast, at once consume my bays,<br/> +And damn me not with mutilated praise.<br/> +With candour judge; and, a young bard in view,<br/> +Allow for that, and judge with kindness too;<br/> +Faults he must own, though hard for him to find,<br/> +Not to some happier merits quite so blind;<br/> +These if mistaken Fancy only sees,<br/> +Or Hope, that takes Deformity for these:<br/> +If Dunce, the crowd-befitting title falls<br/> +His lot, and Dulness her new subject calls,<br/> +To the poor bard alone your censures give -<br/> +Let his fame die, but let his honour live;<br/> +Laugh if you must - be candid as you can,<br/> +And when you lash the Poet, spare the Man.<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +<br/> +Footnotes:<br/> +<br/> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> First published +in Ipswich, 1775.<br/> +<br/> +<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> First published +1780. +</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5181 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..063900a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #5181 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5181) |