Poems by Hartley Coleridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Tis sad to think, of all the names that strive
For immortality, how few survive;
How many leave preferment's open ways,
Smit by the love of hard-earn'd, barren praise,
Defying poverty, and worldly blame,
And self-reproach, to win the puff of fame;
Unhappy breathe, and unregarded rot,
First starved to death, and soon as dead forgot.

328

Eternal laurels shall the bust entwine
Of Young at once a poet and divine.
And Gray, while Windsor's antique towers shall stand,
Or spring revisit Britain's favour'd strand;
While those old bards whose praise he sung so well
Shall keep their place in memory's haunted cell;
While the green churchyard and the hallow'd tower
Attract your steps at eve's soft, solemn hour;
As long as men can read, or boys recite,
As long as critics sneer, and bards endite,
And lavish lords shall print their jingling stuff,
'Mid ample margin, leaving verge enough;
So long shall Gray, and all he said and sung,
Tang the shrill accents of the school-girl's tongue;
So long his Ode, his Elegy, his Bard,
By lisping prodigies be drawl'd and marr'd.

For Littelton, he gain'd the name of poet;
But, made a lord, might easily forego it.

West tried to soar on Pindar's ample pinion,
And bring his strains beneath our king's dominion.
All praise to him for what he well intended;
Of his success least said the soonest mended.

329

Moore, Cawthorne, Cunningham, and Brown and Green,
Not much remember'd nor forgotten clean,
Of Britain's poets swell the lengthy list,
Scarce mark'd if present, nor if absent miss'd.

Boyce, sad example of the poet's lot,
His faults remember'd and his verse forgot,
From cold contempt a morsel doom'd to crave,
And owe to public charity a grave.
In want's worst miseries ran his woeful race,
And all his fame was but proclaim'd disgrace.
Peace to his dust, and may his ashes soar
Where mortal frailty shall beset no more;
Where want shall never tempt to deeds of shame,
And Heaven's pure light shall cleanse the tainted name!

Churchill, by want and rage impell'd to write,
Whose muse was anger, and whose genius spite,
With satire meant to stab, and not to heal,
The morbid, bloated, feverish commonweal;
Too proud to yield to humble virtue's rule,
Smote half the world with reckless ridicule.

330

Wit, honour, sense, to him did Heaven impart,
But not that last, best gift, a pious heart.
He blazed awhile in fortune, fame, and pride,
But unrespected lived, untimely died.

But gentler Goldsmith, whom no man could hate,
Beloved by Heaven, pursued by wayward fate,
Whose verse shall live in every British mind,
Though sweet, yet strong; though nervous, yet refined;—
A motley part he play'd in life's gay scene,
The dupe of vanity and wayward spleen;
Aping the world, a strange fantastic elf;
Great, generous, noble, when he was himself.

Grainger possess'd a true poetic vein,
But why waste numbers on a Sugar-cane?
Say, Doctor, why, since those who only need
Thy blank instructions, sure will never read?

Cooper essay'd a vein to England new,
To be the poet of refined virtù.
His muse, half French, half English, trips away,
A nymph presentable, though rather gay,
Brought up at Paris, and not half at ease
Where British morals hold their strict decrees.

331

But ill the gentleman supports his claim
To Gresset's wit or old Anacreon's name.

Smollett and Armstrong, both of Pæan's band,
Compatriot offspring of a thoughtful land,
A land severe, whose mettle yet unbroke.
Toils in the team, and yet disdains the yoke.
In mind Athenian, but in spirit still
The land of Wallace wight, and Christie's Will.
Such then was Scotland, nor could learning, art,
Or finest genius quite subdue that heart.
So neither keenest sense nor soundest morals
Could keep her brightest sons from needless quarrels.
And oft't would seem her literary men
Reluctant changed the claymore for the pen.
Scots were they both by temper as by birth,
And both were racy of their native earth;
But pensive Armstrong, though he heir'd a name
For bloody deeds of old bequeath'd to fame,
On Liddal's banks renown'd and sands of Drife,
Was yet almost too indolent for strife.
And little of the Scot was in him seen,
Save now and then a passing fit of spleen.

332

And sure the man of whom our Thomson sung
(Thomson a Scot in nothing but his tongue)
In such a gentle strain of kind reproof,
As could be dictated by nought but love,
Could not be other than a kindly soul,
Who oft forgot the doctor o'er a bowl;
And when he spied the humming, sparkling cream
Of bright champagne, or snuff'd of punch the steam,
Even as a poet would forget his theme.

Yet in his graver mood he lectured well
On ills which haply oft himself befell.
And with small practice, but with some small wealth,
He turn'd to stately verse the Art of Health;
And justly earn'd a lofty place among
The masters of the blank didactic song.
Correct his judgment, he knew where to stop,
And smells by no means often of the shop.
Yea, though a learn'd disciple of St. Luke,
He never once alludes to purge or puke;
Nor with hard words of most portentous omen
Describes the thorax, pelvis, or abdomen.

See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. III., p. 105. Second Edition.