Shall wish thee burnish'd! where the sprightly-fair Demand embellishment! e'en Delia's eye, As in a garden, roves, of hues alone Inquirent, curious? Fly the cursed domain; These are the realms of luxury and show, No classic soil; away! the blooming spring Attracts thee hence; the waning autumn warms; Fly to thy native shades, and dread e'en there, Lest busy fancy tempt thy narrow state Beyond its bounds. Observe Florelio's mien: Why treads my friend with melancholy step That beauteous lawn? why, pensive, strays his eye O'er statues, grottos, urns, by critic art Proportion'd fair? or from his lofty dome, Bright glittering through the grove, returns his eye Unpleased, disconsolate? And is it love, Disastrous love, that robs the finish'd scenes Of all their beauty? centering all in her His soul adores ? or from a blacker cause Springs this remorseful gloom ? is conscious guilt The latent source of more than love's despair? It cannot be within that polish'd breast,
Where science dwells, that guilt should harbour there. No; 'tis the sad survey of present want And past profusion! lost to him the sweets Of yon pavilion, fraught with ev'ry charm For other eyes; or if remaining, proofs Of criminal expense! sweet interchange Of river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains! How gladsome once he ranged your native turf, Your simple scenes, how raptured! ere expense Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught Convenience to perplex him, art to pall, Pomp to deject, and beauty to displease! Oh! for a soul to all the glare of wealth, To fortune's wide exhaustless treasury, Nobly superior! but let caution guide The coy disposal of the wealth we scorn, And prudence be our almoner. Alas! The pilgrim wandering o'er some distant clime, Sworn foe of avarice! not disdains to learn Its coin's imputed worth, the destined means To smooth his passage to the favour'd shrine. Ah! let not us, who tread this stranger world,
Let none who sojourn on the realms of life, Forget the land is mercenary, nor waste His fare ere landed on no venal shore.
Let never bard consult Palladio's rules; Let never bard, oh Burlington! survey Thy learned art, in Chiswick's dome display'd; Dangerous incentive! nor with lingering eye Survey the window Venice calls her own. Better for him with no ingrateful muse To sing a requiem to that gentle soul Who plann'd the skylight, which to lavish bards Conveys alone the pure ethereal ray;
For garrets him, and squalid walls, await, Unless, presageful, from his friendly strain He glean advice, and shun the scribbler's doom.
YET once again, and to thy doubtful fate The trembling muse consigns thee. Ere contempt, Or want's empoison'd arrow, ridicule,
Transfix thy weak unguarded breast, behold! The poet's roofs, the careless poet's, his Who scorns advice, shall close my serious lay.
When Gulliver, now great, now little deem'd, The plaything of comparison, arrived Where learned bosoms their aërial schemes Projected, studious of the public weal, 'Mid these one subtler artist he descried, Who cherish'd in his dusty tenement The spider's web, injurious, to supplant Fair Albion's fleeces! Never, never may Our monarch on such fatal purpose smile, And irritate Minerva's beggar'd sons,
The Melksham weavers! here in every nook Their wefts they spun, here revell'd uncontroll'd, And, like the flags from Westminster's high roof Dependent, here their fluttering textures waved. Such, so adorn'd the cell I mean to sing! Cell ever squalid! where the sneerful maid Will not fatigue her hand, broom never comes, That comes to all, o'er whose quiescent walls
Arachne's unmolested care has drawn
Curtains subfusk, and save the expense of art. Survey those walls, in fading texture clad, Where wandering snails in many a slimy path, Free, unrestrain'd, their various journeys crawl; Peregrinations strange, and labyrinths Confused, inextricable! such the clue Of certain Ariadne ne'er explain'd!
Hooks! angles! crooks! and involutions wild! Meantime, thus silver'd with meanders gay, In mimic pride the snail-wrought tissue shines, Perchance of tabby, or of harrateen,
Not ill expressive: such the power of snails! Behold his chair, whose fractured seat infirm An aged cushion hides! replete with dust The foliaged velvet, pleasing to the eye Of great Eliza's reign, but now the snare Of weary guest that on the specious bed Sits down confiding. Ah! disastrous wight! In evil hour and rashly dost thou trust The fraudful couch! for though in velvet cased, The fated thigh shall kiss the dusty floor. The traveller thus, that o'er Hibernian plains Hath shaped his way, on beds profuse of flowers, Cowslip, or primrose, or the circular eye Of daisy fair, decrees to bask supine. And see! delighted, down he drops, secure Of sweet refreshment, ease without annoy,
Or luscious noon-day nap. Ah! much deceived, Much suffering pilgrim! thou nor noon-day nap Nor sweet repose shalt find; the false morass In quivering undulations yields beneath Thy burden in the miry gulf enclosed!
And who would trust appearance ? cast thine eye Where mid machines of heterogeneous form His coat depends, alas! his only coat, Eldest of things! and napless, as an heath Of small extent by fleecy myriads grazed. Not different have I seen in dreary vault Display'd a coffin; on each sable side The texture unmolested seems entire; Fraudful, when touch'd it glides to dust away, And leaves the wondering swain to gape, to stare, And with expressive shrug and piteous sigh
Declare the fatal force of rolling years, Or dire extent of frail mortality.
This aged vesture, scorn of gazing beaus And formal cits, (themselves too haply scorn'd,) Both on its sleeve and on its skirt retains Full many a pin wide sparkling for if e'er Their well-known crest met his delighted eye, Though wrapt in thought, commercing with the sky, He, gently stooping, scorn'd not to upraise, And on each sleeve, as conscious of their use, Indenting fix them; nor, when arm'd with these The cure of rents and separation dire,
And charms enormous did he view dismay'd Hedge, bramble, thicket, bush, portending fate To breeches, coat, and hose! had any wight Of vulgar skill the tender texture own'd; But gave his mind to form a sonnet quaint Of Silvia's shoe-string, or of Chloe's fan, Or sweetly-fashion'd tip of Celia's ear. Alas! by frequent use decays the force Of mortal art! the refractory robe Eludes the tailor's art, eludes his own; How potent once, in union quaint conjoin'd! See near his bed (his bed, too falsely call'd The place of rest, while it a bard sustains, Pale, meagre, muse-rid wight! who reads in vain Narcotic volumes o'er) his candlestick, Radiant machine! when from the plastic hand Of Mulciber, the mayor of Birmingham, The engine issued; now, alas! disguised By many an unctuous tide, that wandering down Its sides congeal; what he, perhaps, essays, With humour forced, and ill-dissembled smile, Idly to liken to the poplar's trunk, When o'er its bark the lucid amber, wound In many a pleasing fold, incrusts the tree;
Or suits him more the winter's candied thorn, When from each branch, anneal'd, the works of frost Pervasive, radiant icicles depend?
How shall I sing the various ills that wait The careful sonnetteer? or who can paint The shifts enormous that in vain he forms To patch his paneless window; to cement His batter'd tea-pot, ill-retentive vase!
To war with ruin ? anxious to conceal Want's fell appearance, of the real ill Nor foe nor fearful. Ruin unforeseen Invades his chattels; ruin will invade, Will claim his whole invention to repair, Nor of the gift, for tuneful ends design'd, Allow one part to decorate his song; While ridicule, with ever-pointing hand, Conscious of every shift, of every shift Indicative, his inmost plot betrays, Points to the nook, which he his study calls, Pompous and vain! for thus he might esteem His chest a wardrobe, purse a treasury; And shows, to crown her full display, himseit; One whom the pow'rs above, in place of health And wonted vigour, of paternal cot
Or little farm; of bag, or scrip, or staff, Cup, dish, spoon, plate, or worldly utensil, A poet framed, yet framed not to repine, And wish the cobbler's loftiest site his own; Nor, partial as they seem, upbraid the Fates, Who to the humbler mechanism join'd Goods so superior, such exalted bliss!
See with what seeming ease, what labour'd peace, He, hapless hypocrite! refines his nail,
His chief amusement! then how feign'd, how forced, That care-defying sonnet which implies His debts discharged, and he of half-a-crown In full possession, uncontested right And property! Yet, ah! whoe'er this wight Admiring view, if such there be, distrust
The vain pretence; the smiles that harbour grief, As lurks the serpent deep in flowers enwreath'd. Forewarn'd, be frugal, or with prudent rage Thy pen demolish; choose the trustier flail,
And bless those labours which the choice inspired. But if thou view'st a vulgar mind, a wight Of common sense, who seeks no brighter name, Him envy, him admire, him, from thy breast, Prescient of future dignities, salute
Sheriff, or mayor, in comfortable furs Enwrapp'd, secure; nor yet the laureat's crown In thought exclude him! he perchance shall rise To nobler heights than foresight can decree.
« ElőzőTovább » |