The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose Now First Collected with a Prefatory Memoir by his Nephews W. E. and Sir Bartle Frere |
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 | The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose |  |
398
CI.
O Plutus! justly, to your gifts and you,
Mankind attribute praise and honor due.
With your assistance, we securely face
Defeat and disappointment and disgrace.
Thus to reward the virtuous, and to slight
Wicked and dirty knaves, is surely right;
For with the world at large, no merit tells,
But Plutus and his bounty,—nothing else!
No! not the sense of Rhadamanthus old,
Nor all the shrewd devices manifold,
Which Sisyphus, the keen Corinthian, knew;
That wily chief, that, if old tales are true,
Made a most strange escape, so poets tell,—
By dint of rhetoric, he return'd from hell!
For she (that kind oblivion can dispense,
But takes away the judgement and the sense)
The Goddess Proserpine, by strong persuasion,
Consented to connive at his evasion—
A thing unheard of, and unknown before;
That, having pass'd the dark infernal door,
And visited those dreary realms below,
From that disastrous prison-house of woe,
A man by policy should work his way,
Emerging into light and upper day!
Mankind attribute praise and honor due.
With your assistance, we securely face
Defeat and disappointment and disgrace.
Thus to reward the virtuous, and to slight
Wicked and dirty knaves, is surely right;
For with the world at large, no merit tells,
But Plutus and his bounty,—nothing else!
No! not the sense of Rhadamanthus old,
Nor all the shrewd devices manifold,
Which Sisyphus, the keen Corinthian, knew;
That wily chief, that, if old tales are true,
Made a most strange escape, so poets tell,—
By dint of rhetoric, he return'd from hell!
For she (that kind oblivion can dispense,
But takes away the judgement and the sense)
The Goddess Proserpine, by strong persuasion,
Consented to connive at his evasion—
A thing unheard of, and unknown before;
That, having pass'd the dark infernal door,
And visited those dreary realms below,
From that disastrous prison-house of woe,
399
Emerging into light and upper day!
Sisyphus gain'd a point which none beside
(Of all that ever liv'd or ever died)
Could have achiev'd—yet Sisyphus would fail:
Nor would Ulysses with his arts prevail:
Nor aged Nestor with his eloquence—
No merit would avail you, no pretence,
Though you possess'd the vigour and the speed
Of the swift Harpies, or the winged breed
Of Boreas—in the proud Olympic game
A conqueror! your native place and name
Recorded and announc'd with loud acclaim;
Still, would you find the common saying hold,
“Fame is a jest: favour is bought and sold:
“No power on earth is like the power of gold.”
(Of all that ever liv'd or ever died)
Could have achiev'd—yet Sisyphus would fail:
Nor would Ulysses with his arts prevail:
Nor aged Nestor with his eloquence—
No merit would avail you, no pretence,
Though you possess'd the vigour and the speed
Of the swift Harpies, or the winged breed
Of Boreas—in the proud Olympic game
A conqueror! your native place and name
Recorded and announc'd with loud acclaim;
Still, would you find the common saying hold,
“Fame is a jest: favour is bought and sold:
“No power on earth is like the power of gold.”
| The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose | |