 | BANK MELODY—No. VII. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
AN ODE TO YOUNG NICK.
“Quo, inter syngrapha,
Premis, insoluta—”
Cyp. Torrent. Carm. XXII.[2]
And unpaid notes of Webster, Sprague, and Clay,
Far, through thy subject states, dost thou pursue
Thy autocratic way?
Vainly, the pauper's prayers
Borne on the winds unsavory arise;
What matter is it how the rascal fares?
No; laugh, and d—n his eyes.
See'st thou the palace proud,
And princely towers frowning on the lea,
And Mammon throned, with serfs, a lowly crowd,
Bending the trembling knee?
There is a power, whose care,
Blood-bought, upholds thee tyrant of the land,
And he has tamed, O Nick! the prince of air—
Behemoth, to thy hand.
The meagre fortunes of the rabble rout,
And still thy ingrate enemies are fooled,
Although thy lease is out.
But soon that reign shall cease;
Soon shall thy paper sceptre pass away,
Soon shalt thou hear the cry, “I'll have my lease,
And bond,” and curse the day.
Cyprianus Torrentius, was a lyric poet of great merit, though little
noticed, who flourished about 200, A. C. His works are all lost except the
Ode, of which the above is a literal translation. This is fortunately preserved
in the treatise of Tertullianus “de Lyricis,” written shortly after
his conversion to christiany. The commencement of it may be found in
St. Jerome's famous letter to Tertullian, where it is quoted with ecomiastic
comment. Bryant has transferred the thought and style of the poem
to his “Ode to a Water Fowl,” without giving credit to the original.
This was, no doubt, an accidental omission, or else, perhaps, it is another
proof of the truth of the old maxim, that “good poets hire out their souls
to the same sort of tenants.”
| BANK MELODY—No. VII. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |