The Harp of Erin :: :: University of Virginia Library

Puff'd with false hopes of fame and honour,
My muse (the Philistines upon her!),
Stiff in her own bold ipse dixit,
Erst sent me out a true don Quixote;
Despising wealth, content, and pleasure,
For authorship's enchanted treasure:
Nor could the great Eliza's kindness
Purge from my eye poetic blindness.
At last, well vers'd in cares and trouble,
I see my former folly double
(As Œdipus, with haggard eyes,
‘Saw double suns and worlds arise;’
So Virgil, prince of epic fellows,
Is pleas'd in his ninth book to tell us)!
And, startled at my faults and foibles,
Firm as if sworn on fifty Bibles,

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Declare eternal hate, and lasting,
To lagging rhymes and paper-wasting.
Not Brutus did so much determine
To hunt from Rome the royal vermin.
Thus then, in a most furious fashion,
I write (not read) my recantation.

Imprimis (pray your godship, mind me),
Phœbus, I cast thee far behind me;
And all thy books, facete or tragic,
I look upon as spells or magic.

In second place, I do combine
Body and blood against the Nine;
Ill-natur'd ballad-chanting slatterns;
That spoil'd my luck, and lost my patrons.

Lastly, cum vi, et coram rege,
I do, my reverend sir, engage ye,
To view a quill from goose or sparrow
As if it was a Parthian arrow,
Or William Tell's unerring dart,
Directly bouncing to my heart.
Neither shall ink or black or pallid,
(I swear, to make your trust more valid,)
For me in cup or bottle teem,
No more than Pluto's Stygian stream.

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For ink's, I find by disquisition,
The very essence of perdition;
The gall was made for man's undoing,
And signs the bond 'twixt him and ruin.
And if, sometime hence, sorely smit
By flashes of electric wit,
I should, in deep-designing malice,
Deal with the volume-vending tories ,
May scandal plant his blackest gallows,
And hang me in his attic stories;
Where the grim-phyz'd Reviews exhibit
(Fell vaticides!) their ruthless gibbet.
Moreover, may the prince of printing
(You well may guess him by my hinting)
Roll up each page in sulphur-pills;
When from his stately chariot's wheels,
In doctor's semblance, he bestows
Disease and death where'er he goes.

Now, having made this adjuration,
I find there is some slight occasion

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To seek some other method (knowing
The mouth must still be kept a-going)
By which, in lieu of rhymes unpleasant,
I may carouse with port and pheasant:
While at my door, with hat in hand,
Vile bards (once brothers) shivering stand;
And, cursing me (a proud Egyptian),
Requests his Honour's least subscription.
O friend, whose goodness plac'd me once
Above the sneer of every dunce,
Above the scorn of fools well-drest,
In Hastings' generous bounty blest!
Once more her pitying heart assail
With youthful indiscretion's tale;
And bid, above the viler throng,
A princely patron grace my song.

So ends recant: by marv'lous care,
I've clench'd it with a poet's pray'r;
A kind of anti-scribbling matin,
To scare the fiends of Greek and Latin:—

From notes unpaid, that make us mourn;
From Marshalsea's close-grated bourn,
From whence no debtor can return;

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From teasing countesses with letters,
And rash intrusion on our betters;
From Cambrian booksellers, who scrape or
Conceal all profits with a caper;
From shillings scant, that often send us
To tasteless lords; —good Lord, defend us!
But if it be thy will immortal,
Let Moira-house extend its portal;
Forgiving the ill-fated sinner,
And welcome Dermody to dinner:
And may he live at ease again,
Its bard for ever and—Amen.

“Facit indignatio versum.”

Horace.

Countess of Moira.

“Tories” is here used merely as a term of reproach, in which sense it was first given to the political party now bearing this appellation. In its origin it is appropriate to robbers or freebooters; being derived from the native Irish toree, or “give me.”