 | Poems |  |
Mr. DARLEY.
To hear Darley mouthing his tempestuous numbers,
Would burst the strong bandage of Morpheus's slumbers:
When he tears, without Mercy, poor Music to rags,
It resembles stern Boreas untying his bags;
As the hurricanes, foster'd by Wrath, issue round
Humanity's offspring, to scare and confound:
But this minstrel would certainly add to our joys,
Could the dolt be persuaded to chaunt with less noise;
And Phœbus to Harmony sure would consign him,
Could the animal think, or would Arnold refine him.
When he bellows in Hawthorn, or Sternhold, or Giles,
Sweet Poetry shudders, and Irony smiles;
Then all murd'rous he foams, like John Kemble in Lear,
Or a Goth hacking Wit with his Scythian spear.
Would burst the strong bandage of Morpheus's slumbers:
When he tears, without Mercy, poor Music to rags,
It resembles stern Boreas untying his bags;
As the hurricanes, foster'd by Wrath, issue round
Humanity's offspring, to scare and confound:
But this minstrel would certainly add to our joys,
Could the dolt be persuaded to chaunt with less noise;
And Phœbus to Harmony sure would consign him,
Could the animal think, or would Arnold refine him.
204
Sweet Poetry shudders, and Irony smiles;
Then all murd'rous he foams, like John Kemble in Lear,
Or a Goth hacking Wit with his Scythian spear.
By the Succubæ spawn'd, he was knit in an hour,
When some butcher was madden'd by Cynthia's power;
Who did the foul deed in a lunatic rage,
And jointed a monster to roar from the stage;
Who would freeze all the liberal functions of being,
By his iron-wrapt front, which appals while we're seeing:
But some tawny Egyptian was hurried to cure him,
Who touch'd him with spells, that the sense might endure him.
Behold! 'mid the harmonic Congress he stands,
Distress'd by the weight of two ox-knuckle hands;
And is mark'd from his peers, in an over-grown head,
Like the Israelite's food—by a symbol of lead.
But tho' Fate to his savage exterior's unkind,
He has blanch'd ev'ry ill by the worth of his mind;
Thus dainties and dirt mix like pigs in a litter,
And those nuts which are sweetest have husks the most bitter.
When some butcher was madden'd by Cynthia's power;
Who did the foul deed in a lunatic rage,
And jointed a monster to roar from the stage;
Who would freeze all the liberal functions of being,
By his iron-wrapt front, which appals while we're seeing:
But some tawny Egyptian was hurried to cure him,
Who touch'd him with spells, that the sense might endure him.
Behold! 'mid the harmonic Congress he stands,
Distress'd by the weight of two ox-knuckle hands;
And is mark'd from his peers, in an over-grown head,
Like the Israelite's food—by a symbol of lead.
But tho' Fate to his savage exterior's unkind,
He has blanch'd ev'ry ill by the worth of his mind;
Thus dainties and dirt mix like pigs in a litter,
And those nuts which are sweetest have husks the most bitter.
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