 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
315
CHAUCER.
How wayward oft appears the poet's fate,
Who still is born too early or too late.
If a bold, fond, imaginative age,
Instinct with amorous, or with martial rage,
Enact more wonders than the mind conceives,
And all that fancy can devise believes,—
If such an age behold a bard, whose sight
Looks on earth's objects by a heaven-born light,
Skill'd to pourtray each lineament of nature,
And shed purpureal grace on every feature,
The fleeting language, to its trust untrue,
Vext by the jarring claims of old and new,
Defeats his beauty, makes his sense the fee
Of a blind, guessing, blundering glossary.
Thus Chaucer, quaintly clad in antique guise,
With unfamiliar mien scares modern eyes.
No doubt he well invented—nobly felt—
But then, O Lord! how monstrously he spelt.
His syllables perplex our critic men,
Who try in vain to find exactly ten;
And waste much learning to reduce his songs
To modish measurement of shorts and longs.
His language, too, unpolish'd and unfixt,
Of Norman, Saxon, Latin, oddly mixt—
Such words might please th' uneducated ears
That hail'd the blaring trumpets of Poictiers.
They shared the sable Edward's glee and glory,
And, like his conquests, they were transitory.
Then how shall such unpolish'd lingo cope
With polish'd elegance and Mister Pope?
Who still is born too early or too late.
If a bold, fond, imaginative age,
Instinct with amorous, or with martial rage,
Enact more wonders than the mind conceives,
And all that fancy can devise believes,—
If such an age behold a bard, whose sight
Looks on earth's objects by a heaven-born light,
Skill'd to pourtray each lineament of nature,
And shed purpureal grace on every feature,
The fleeting language, to its trust untrue,
Vext by the jarring claims of old and new,
Defeats his beauty, makes his sense the fee
Of a blind, guessing, blundering glossary.
Thus Chaucer, quaintly clad in antique guise,
With unfamiliar mien scares modern eyes.
No doubt he well invented—nobly felt—
But then, O Lord! how monstrously he spelt.
316
Who try in vain to find exactly ten;
And waste much learning to reduce his songs
To modish measurement of shorts and longs.
His language, too, unpolish'd and unfixt,
Of Norman, Saxon, Latin, oddly mixt—
Such words might please th' uneducated ears
That hail'd the blaring trumpets of Poictiers.
They shared the sable Edward's glee and glory,
And, like his conquests, they were transitory.
Then how shall such unpolish'd lingo cope
With polish'd elegance and Mister Pope?
Yet, ancient Bard! let not our judgment wrong
Thy rich, spontaneous, many-colour'd song;
True mirror of a bold, ambitious age,
In passion furious, in reflection sage!—
An age of gorgeous sights and famous deeds,
And virtue more than peace admits or needs;
When shiver'd lances were our ladies' sport,
And love itself assumed a lofty port;
When every beast, and bird, and flower, and tree,
Convey'd a meaning and a mystery;
And men in all degrees, sorts, ranks, and trades,
Knights, Palmers, Scholars, Wives, devoted Maids,
In garb, and speech, and manners, stood confest
To outward view, by hues and signs exprest,
And told their state and calling by their vest.
Thy rich, spontaneous, many-colour'd song;
True mirror of a bold, ambitious age,
In passion furious, in reflection sage!—
An age of gorgeous sights and famous deeds,
And virtue more than peace admits or needs;
When shiver'd lances were our ladies' sport,
And love itself assumed a lofty port;
When every beast, and bird, and flower, and tree,
Convey'd a meaning and a mystery;
And men in all degrees, sorts, ranks, and trades,
Knights, Palmers, Scholars, Wives, devoted Maids,
317
To outward view, by hues and signs exprest,
And told their state and calling by their vest.
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |