The Poems of John Byrom :: :: University of Virginia Library

What a deal of impertinent Stuff at this Time
Comes out about Verses in Blank or in Rime,
To determine their Merits by critical Prose,
And treat the two Parties, as if they were Foes!—
Its allotting so gravely, to settle their Rank,
All the Bondage to Rime, all the Freedom to Blank,
Has provok'd a few Rimes to step forth, and repress
The pedantical Whim, grown to such an excess;—

II

Not to hinder the Dupes of this fanciful Wit
From retailing its Maxims, whene'er they think fit;

389

But to caution young Bards, if in danger to waste
Any Genius for Verse on so partial a Taste,
That, allowing to Blank all the real Pretence
To what Freedom it has, if supported by Sense,
For Words without any, they may not neglect
Of as free flowing Rime the delightful Effect.

III

Here are two special Terms which the Sophisters mingle,
To be Sauce for the rest,—to wit, Fetters, and Jingle;
And, because a weak Writer may chance to expose
Very ill-chosen Words to such Phrases as those,
The unthinking Reflecters sit down to their Rote,
And pronounce against Rime th' undistinguishing Vote.
Sole Original this, in the petulant School,
Of its idle Objections to Metre and Rule!

IV

For to what other Fetters are Verses confin'd,
Whether made up of blank or of metrical Kind?

390

If a Man has not Taste for poetical Lines,
Can't he let them alone, and say what he designs
Upon some other Points in his unfetter'd Way,
And contemn, if he will, all numerical Lay?
But the Fashion, forsooth, must affect the Sublime,
The Grand, the Pathetic, and rail against Rime.

V

Blank Verse is the Thing;—tho', whoever tries both,
Will find of its Fetters a plentiful Growth;
Many Chains to be needful to measure his Ground
And keep the Sublime within requisite Bound.
If a laudable Product in Rime should, perhaps,
Extort an Applause from these exquisite Chaps,
They express it so shyly, for fear of a Fetter:
“Had the Rime been neglected, it would have been better.”

VI

And so they begin with their Jingle or Rattle
(As some of them call it) the delicate Battle;
“The Sense must be cramp'd,” they cry out, “to be sure,
By the Nature of Rime, and be render'd obscure.”
As if Blank, by its Grandeur and magnified Pause,
Was secure in its Freedom from any such Flaws;
Tho' so apt in bad Hands to give Readers Offence,
By the rattling of Sound and the darkness of Sense!

391

VII

All the Arguments form'd, as they prose it along,
And twist them and twine against metrical Song,
Presuppose the poor Maker to be but a Dunce;
For, if that be not true, they all vanish at once.
If it be, what Advantage has Blank in the Case
From counting bad Verses by Unit or Brace?
Nothing else can result from the critical Rout,
But “A Blockhead's a Blockhead, with Rime or without.”

VIII

It came, as they tell us, from ignorant Moors,
And by Growth of fine Taste will be turn'd out o'Doors;—
Two insipid Conceits, at a Venture entwin'd,
And void of all Proof both before and behind!
Too old its Reception to tell of its Age;
Its Downfall, if Taste could but fairly presage,
When the Bees of the Country make Honey no more,
Will then certainly come,—not a Moment before.

392

IX

Till then it will reign;—and while, here and there spread,
Blank Verse, like an Aloë, rears up its Head,
And, fresh from the Hot-house, successfully tow'rs
To make People stare at the Height of its Flow'rs,
The Variety, Sweetness, and Smoothness of Rime
Will flourish, bedeck'd by its natural Clime
With numberless Beauties, and frequently shoot,
If cherish'd aright, into Blossom and Fruit.

X

But stuffing their Heads, in these classical Days,
Full of Homer, and Virgil, and Horace, and Plays,
And finding that Rime is in none of the four,
'Tis enough; the Fine-tasters have gotten their Lore.
And away they run on with their Words in a String,
Which they throw up at Rime with a finical Fling;
But to reach its full Sweetness nor willing, nor able,
They talk about Taste like the Fox in the Fable.

XI

To the Praise of old Metre, it quitted the Stage,
In Abhorrence of tragical Ranting and Rage,
Which, with Heights and with Depths of Distresses enrich'd,
Verse and Prose, Art and Nature, and Morals bewitch'd;

393

All the native Agreements of Language disgrac'd,
That theatrical Pomp might intoxicate Taste;
Still retaining poor Blank, in its Fetters held fast,
To bemoan its hard Fate in romantic Bombast.

XII

'Tis the Subject, in fine, in the Matter of Song,
That makes a blank Verse or a Rime to be wrong.
If unjust or improper, unchaste or profane,
It disgraces alike all poetical Strain;
If not, the Possessor of tunable Skill
Unfetter'd, unjingled, may take which he will,—
Any Plan, to which Freedom and Judgment impel,—
All the Bus'ness he knows, is to execute well.