University of Virginia Library

Dolts have affirm'd (what will not dolts declare?)
The laws of custom should be laws obey'd!
There are who combat such didactic ills,
And give the precept to the roving breeze:
Among that sapient herd of peery wights,
(When the bright day first stole upon the sense,
And lesser planets Phœbus had o'erlum'd)
Environ'd by his ladies and his young,
A Parent Cock thus eloquently moan'd:

Too surely my foreboding mind depicts
The big disasters of this fatal day,
That may give me and half my martial race,
Like Ilion's chief, to Desolation's gripe:
Ah! my poor wives, 'tis fit ye cease to cluck,
For fear and desperation are your own;
Salacious hussies, let the tides of woe
Flow down your party-color'd cheeks amain
In ample torrents, as in Anna's reign
Fleet-Ditch was disembogu'd into the Thames;
Or Niagara's raging cataract;
Or the rude Rhine, which rushes down the steep
And tumbles headlong foaming to the plain;
Or Montmorency's tribute to Saint Larry;
Or water-spout, when bursting on the bark;
For all my envied gallantries are o'er!
No more shall I select the ripen'd grain,
Or turning the reeking dunghill o'er and o'er,
To find tid-bits to gratify my spouse:
Half-metamorphos'd grubs, or palmer brown,
Muck-moisten'd crust, or adders yellow spawn,
The granam, Welchman's button or the orl,
Grey drake or dragon, cadis or blue gnat,
Which jolly anglers vigilant ensnare,
To gull the sinny tenants of the stream.
No more the Barcelona 'kerchief throw
To lure my mistress to the bed of glee;
Oh! bring me poison to arrest that thought,
Some searching aconite of potent tooth,
Helleborum, or the juice of laurus,
Or sapphire bane which fills the scorpion's jaw,
Keen ars'nick pulveris'd by Rancor's hand,
Hot slaver from the furrow'd virgin's tongue,
That Chinese drug yclep'd gunpowder tea,
Or that dread weed perturbed Tuscans give
To wound the organs of a faithless knight.
Shrove Tuesday! horrid sanguinary sound!
Had I the papal power apostolic,
Or wore the British mitre metropolitan,
No Christian hundred, bailiwick or burgh,
Should ever note an epoch so severe.

First of celestials, high imperial Don,
Or thou great Juno (if you love a Cock)
Oh! send me Gyges' ring but for a day!

Who will be jubilant when we're extinct?
Save the pale traitor and the shepherd's boy,
The lurking eyes-dropper and midnight thief,
Poppy fed handmaid or the fat-cas'd slave
Who honors Morpheus most among the gods.

Will not the Lord of Light refuse his beam
To solace the assassins in their toil?
Have we not all diurnally huzza'd
When he forsook his bagnio in the deep,
Drove by quick stages up the eastern heights,
Awaken'd Tithonus with vivid gleams,
And held his lantern 'bove the saline wave?

Can none remember? yes, I know all must,
When my gay Chanticleer was torn away,
The pin-basket of my sultana hen?
Pardon this imbecility, these throbs,
These gushing tears, that inundate the earth.
The eye's an honest agent to the heart;
Can I reflect and be not what I am?
Beauteous Gallina, biped most august?
She was more charmful than the Paphian queen
When first she blazon'd from the pregnant main,
Wrung her wet tresses and gave nature bliss,
Or fair Tecmessa or Minonian maid,
Or Agarista who bewitch'd the Greeks,
Or flippant Daphne or Miss Kitty Morse!
Oh! my dear wench, how frantic bill to bill,
Leagu'd have we trod this world beneath our feet,
Equall'd the mandate of supreme Desire,
And tun'd that nerve which elevates the soul!
I fed insatiate on her passive frame
'Till every sense was agonis'd by joy!
From that blest sod her ashes have sublim'd
Flow'rets with added perfume shall arise
As Venus' blood gave splendor to the rose.

My Chan, my boy, was massacred elate
By common oafs, to swell a bill of fare
At Cynthia's rendezvous, superb Vauxhall,
Where haberdashers riot once a year,
Encircled by their ruddy dames and fry
(Embrio cuckolds, yet indenture bound,
And dowdy damsels knit on Garlick hill)
The honest issue of their civic loins;
There, havoc-taught, they masticate and stare,
Greas'd o'er the mazzard up to either eye
On fowl, beef, ham, tarts, custards, cakes and ale,
And juice-sophisticate, which they call—wind.
Then pay the total with a sonorous growl
And give the page a tester and a curse!
Chan's matchless note, so dulcified, so shrill,
Would make Cecilia listen from a cloud,
'Twould rival Incledon's enslaving song.
But he is gone for ever and a day,
Hurl'd from his station, 'fore his acmé bloom'd,
And all his precious atoms zig-zag drove
Thro' the intestines of some coarse-wove cit,
Haply to pass (ere Liberation came)
Layers of substance made of fish and flesh,
Vast reservoirs of garbage, floods of filth,
A puzzling archipelago of fat,
Where, by a recubate and oblique duct,
They rumbling sunk to Nature's sally-port,
Thence dropt unchyl'd, to fertilise the land.
That thought unscrews the linch-pin of my mind,
Gives crude ideas liberty of wing,
Who bruise the pia mater as they scud,
And madden me with indignation!
Who could compete with my immortal boy?
Not young Antinous whom Adrian priz'd,
Or Ganymede who lick'd th'ambrosial dish,
Or scented fop Liriope had wove,
Or that Narcissus Claudius call'd his own,
Or—but th'attempt to equalize is vain:
Plumage more brilliant Snyders never drew,
Hondicooter, Gilles or, Tempesta,
Savery, Vincaboon or Giovanni,
Elmer, Pyreicus, or any he,
In Greece, or Italy, or Flanders school'd!
He bore his crest as proud as Edward's knights,
Who brain'd the Saracen in Salem's vale;
His intellects were of the first degree,
His language had the bright Horatian point,
His periods flow'd with dithyrambick force,
Keen as the argument of Rutland's eye,
And soft and polish'd as sweet Blandford's limb:
His thought was comprehensive, vast and just;
Or if, to aggrandize his mental gains,
Distrusting that perfection he possest,
(For Modesty and Genius breathe entwin'd)
He caught the opinion of another sage:
The gather'd axiom met the public ear,
Like simple streams, which journ'ying 'neath the mead,
Imbibe the virtues of the mineral pass,
Then re-appear to give the thirsty health.
Oh, that his pect'ral bellows yet could blow,
I'd make him chaunt a solemn drimmunduh,
Or jocund plangstee, pœan or quaint air,
Such as Lyæus, lusty, flush'd and blythe,
Reclining on his tygers, belching hail'd
When the nocturnal orgied muzz'd his brain.
Yet this you'll say's father's elocution,
But marvel not I laud such worth entomb'd;
I've read the Callipædia o'er and o'er,
And know the arts to procreate with grace.
Should I in Error's apron be inwrapt,
And overprize an object that's defunct,
Let not your sarcasm war with my delight,
Or cloud the sympathy 'twixt sire and son.
Not merchant's riders toil to hide their bags!
Or beau the stocking's darn above the shoe!
Or spinster fair the sullied worn chemise.
Or urchin wight his dirty hands at school!
Or titled knave the blot in his escutcheon!
Or silken barrister the page of truth!
Or Edgecumbe's mighty Earl his shins of beef!
Or lovers young their purpose from Discretion!
So much as I that image of myself:
But all could not avail; the blow is giv'n,
Atropos snapp'd her patent Sheffield sheers,
His hour was come, and Cocks and Kings must die.

Ah me, that Cocks should be annoy'd with stones!
Not holy Stephen, first amid the blest,
Or Aduram whom Rehoboam prais'd,
Or great Micipsa's ebon-tinted son,
Or Caledonian witch, or monster vile,
On pillory uprais'd at Charing Cross;
Or death-devoted cat, or cur insane,
Have been so stick or pebble smote as me!
Last year my cousin-german Ginger fell,
And then my uncle Shagbag hapless bled,
Who valued high and oft his antique blood,
As lineally descended from that bird,
That caution'd wayward Peter of his grief!
Oh he was (every inch) a cock of cocks!
My brother Bantam too, who dauntless stood,
Fetter'd, like old Caractacus, and scoff'd,
Was struck upon the pegs, and bit the dust:
Men hate all saucy losels but themselves!

When the huge flood wash'd baseness from the globe,
Pyrrha and Pyrrha's Co, by Themis taught,
Cast rocky remnants to renew mankind;
Yet tho' the flinty seedlings melted round
And amplified progressive to adults,
Some portion indurate remain'd unmov'd,
To constitute that lump they call—a heart!

Had cocks a Tacitus to mark their deeds,
A Gibbon, Robertson, or Dan Defoe,
How would Rome's Cæsars shrink before our sons!
Did brown Mendoza, Xerxes, or Big Ben,
Prussia's late chief, Tom Johnson or Turen ne,
Paul Jones or perriwig-encumber'd Shovel,
Cornwallis or the city's bloodless bands,
Equal our feats in honorable arms?
When we assume the spatterdash and spur
Gaffled and clad in brightly burnish'd steel,
We rush like Maltese knights, to dare the foe,
And scorn to slumber but on Glory's bed:
Determine's the motto of our line.

The adust sprig of Loyola laments,
With gaudy metaphor and turgid phrase;
Flurried pulsation and swoln streaming eyes
“The golden days of chivalry are o'er!!!”
If the coin-hunter means that Valor's fled,
The wriggling, retrograde Narrator lies;
But if (as tattling Rumor gives the clue)
He weeps that no such craz'd advent'rers strut,
(Bedrubb'd, bemir'd, bephilter'd Picaroons)
As Belianis, Amadis de Gaul,
Orlando, Quixote, Godfrey of Bologne,
Or the more sturdy Giant-killing Jack,
Who hauberk-clad, or hid 'neath plates of brass,
Would doze a month 'mid Caucasus' deep snows;
Tear alligators livers from their ribs,
Feast upon furze and drink Averno's scum,
Grinning, defy the equinoctial blast,
Defile, at noon, the guard room of Berlin,
Stew a young lamplighter and swill the soup,
Bully a Behemoth or twist the Poles,
Hang on the verge of Thule by the chin,
Swim in hot lava down Vesuvius' side,
Bootless and barefoot ford the Stygian flood,
Run his thick head against the hill of Howth,
Tear up the tree of knowledge by the roots,
Steal Rhadamanthus' caxon while asleep,
Draw Neptune's plug and liberate the Main,
Throw pungent snuff in Polyphemus' eye,
Shave grizly Dis, and move the Pyrenees,
Slit Juno's tongue—untie th'imprison'd winds,
Put an extraneous spoke in Ixion's wheel,
Teach gruffy Cerberus to dance pas russe,
Digest that flambeau which the Furies oil'd,
Cool Etna's bowels—urine 'gainst the moon,
Leap into hell, and wrestle with Despair,
All to amuse some poignant, lewd, young minx,
Who'd pay her rascal with—half smother'd scorn,
I think the omission dignifies our age;
Such deeds make piteous both heaven and earth.

When shall I rest again the live-long day!
But cocks must never more a sabbath know:
Let me exist but where the halcyon flies,
I was not swaddled by a Lapland hag.
I'm no Backhuysen, amorous of storms.
Would my oviparous entre on this globe
Had happ'd upon the shelves of Nilus' stream,
Warm sands of Ganges or the Latian Po,
Th'Apulian torrent or the Danube fierce,
Median Hydaspes or the Adrian gulf,
The silver Tyber or Eurota's bank,
Infernal Acheron or Libya's plains,
Oblivion's dale that's cleans'd by Lethe's lake,
Or any soil but sick Britannia's land,
Where Liberty is mouth'd, but not rever'd.
O'er Pompey's head the lord of empires wept,
But here they laugh when Greatness gets a cuff,
And put the extinguisher on Merit's lamp.

Oh! what a beast is ruthless, wretched man!
Of worth regardless, of opprobrium proud,
The western nations mock the Indian tribes,
And from ideal heights look down and sneer;
Yet, like that Indian, do those haughty realms,
(By frauds more gross than Phsapos or the Turk)
Array a wooden, vile, repulsive Log,
With tissued vestments from the Persian loom
Or Lyons, Genoa, or Spital-fields;
Ascribe it attributes it cannot know,
Make it the source of dignity and peace,
Then kneel in myriads round it's tinsel fane,
To deprecate the vengeance of—a clod!
Their points of adoration differ thus—
This is a deity, and that—a king.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Say, shall the tatter'd million, Luna-led,
Tie us, like victims, to the stake of Death,
And we retain the dagger in its sheath?
Where Despots diadem'd and toga'd stride,
Humility becomes a social vice;
Ye peerless daughters of this sea-girt isle,
Who pant with ardor for the young and brave,
Why will ye suffer cocks to be destroy'd?
Shall I, who once was pitted 'gainst all Berks,
At rural tournament in ninety-one,
Be thus compell'd to pass great Nature's bourn
While yet my veins are fill'd with gen'rous blood,
And life's broad base by Pharmacy unstrung?
If mortals call this gusto, curse their taste;
This is a fete or festum, d---n their souls!
Oh! may their Lent be hard—their penance keen,
Their eggs all fœtid and their fish stale ling.
I'm mad as brute beneath the Syrian star!
My pulses boil with rage, I'm full of ire,
As George the Second when he kick'd his hat;
Or George the Third when meeting Billy Howe;
Or Lady Turner when they prate of caps;
Or Rolle when Reason spurns the pride of birth;
Or Taylor prick'd with a Whitechapel needle;
Or Bloxam when he finds his foolscap torn;
Or Milton's Woolwich-educated Gods,
Who drew their brazen-mouth'd artillery
And heavy baggage thro' condensing clouds,
To choak hell's Regent with salt-petre pills,
Making Omnipotence a mere Burgoyne
Sweating to stab the dragoons of the De'el!
Thus the blind bard burlesqu'd a lofty theme,
Laughably high, and most sublimely low.

Were I ignivomous, I'd watch the Lown,
Blow at his breech, and burn his galligaskins;
I cannot now resist the rage of Chance,
With correspondent fortitude and faith!
(Save the domestic lovliness around)
Bankrupt in zeal, in fortune, and in friends;
Tho' I am unemaciate and erect,
The mind has been too mighty for the man:
Each nerve's been woe-tugg'd till it even crack'd;
Hope's animating lamp, which late illum'd
Th'interior of this tenement of clay,
Now thirsting for the philosophic oil.
Scarce feeds a flame that hesitates to live.
When red Malevolence assails the life,
Relative horrors half excuse the blow:
Tho' Nature her creative pencil dipt
In all those fascinating gaudy hues,
Which deck the luminous gay arch of Heav'n,
Bright rosy fillets and purpureal glow,
Silv'ry semicircles wove in gold!
Sapphire-ting'd ether and rich crimson dye!
To beautify Lucina's pageant bird;
Yet will the stern Helvetii extirpate
Th'embellish'd inmate from their rugged hills,
Because a vestige of its train o'ertops
Th'armorial bearings of their antient foe.

When injuries have gor'd a well-wrought soul,
'Tis urg'd we should forgive and then forget!
When Priestley fats in Diocesan chair,
When Genius, Wit and Virtue are ador'd,
When Pitt shall kiss the Muses on their hill,
When Lady Grosv'nor curtsies to the creed,
When Gunning's sportive, who is all for-Lorn,
When Strathmore's Countess martyrs all her cats,
When Banks prefers Philosophers to flies,
When Tippoo makes the decalogue his law,
When Providence gives Q. his second sight,
When Gloster's Duchess names her Grandmama,
When regal finger purifies the blood,
When Sandwich writhes at tales of defloration,
When Cambria's Prince and meanness are allied,
When Israel's dingy produce hallow pigs,
When Lonsdale's lord becomes a man of wax,
When Dysart gives his mutton to the poor,
When Drapers' yards exceed the scale an inch,
When Burke and Freedom eat with the same spoon,
Then from the iron tablet of my mind,
Will I efface my catalogue of wrongs.

Oh! my big torments shake my fragile state,
Thought wars with thought, and all my soul's in arms:
Bear me ye Deities from mortal ken,
Hide me in old Medea's brazen pot,
Or plunge me smoaking in the Carian font;
That I may lose virility and dread.

Pitiless man—illustrious reptile go,
Immolate Purity and glad the fiend:
Glut Hecate with the ashes of Desert,
Glory in guilt—be recogniz'd by Shame:
Range in battalia, flank'd with hounds and horn,
Obedient Infamy and gladd'ning slaves;
To chace a timid, weak, innoxious hare,
And if you murder not, moan we've no sport!
When our first Harries rul'd this daring realm,
Your fathers slew the savage in his den,
Ye have the appetite but not the heart.
Of all th'incumbrances this planet feels,
Man's the worst animal that breathes the air:
The Sauromatæ gorge not more in blood,
Or tawny Lions when they crunch a fawn.

Pallid Antipathy (gaunt Envy's cub)
Has pierc'd my scull with her unnumber'd darts:
'Tis said I'am arrogant, should that amaze,
Who've revell'd thro' the Cytherean grove?
The youth of Lesbos or Diana's hind,
The son of Myrrha or the Trojan boy
Have not been more uprais'd by Beauty's sigh!
But love's the regal business of our voyage,
It fills up all those crannies of the mind
Where minor Passions could not build a home:
Seraphic, necromantic woman, hail!
Origin, sustenance, and end of joy!
Tell me, sweet Featherinda, darling girl,
Has from your sieve-like recollection fled
That circumstance, when first I woo'd and won
Your will to conjugate in Ceres' cot,
And tempted Virtue with Siberian corn?
While touch'd by Extacy we madd'ning lay,
With raging, rav'nous energy fatigu'd,
Th'Idalian urchin and his fubby crew,
Guarded the passes of the blest retreat,
Circling its precincts; odoriferous bloom'd
The modest Violet and Cowslip sweet,
Dew-wash'd Primroses and Carnations gay,
And round a Cedar's fragrant trunk uprear'd,
Plants of high import or in scent or taste!
Mango, Banana, Jaca and Batan,
Cocoa, Mangostan, Calamus and Clove;
And as I led you from th'indented couch,
(With eyes contemplative and head reclin'd)
The gay, voluptuous, tittering infants ran
To pluck obtruding briars from our path;
(For even Love's recess is briar-fraught)
Lest some keen thorn should wound your tender feet!
But since, how you've transfix'd me with caprice,
You wou'd, you woud'nt—yes, then no; and thus,
Goading me hapless to the arms of Hare!
Ah me! ye Ladies, know your power too well,
To hold your vot'ries in Coercion's net;
Lead them thro' Ruin's foul morass elate,
And laugh triumphant at their ups and downs,
As filthified they flounder to Remorse;
There live, who will assert with blushless front,
Ye seek Hypocrisy from Morn 'till Eve,
Have Lamb-like lineaments with wolfish aims,
Hail blushing youth, yet those ye hail despise,
Affect (delusive Shame when most you're pleas'd)
To know what's not, yet what you know deny:
Giggle at Jove, his bolt and red right arm,
Then cast your fortunes at—an ideot's feet!
But such no more can marshall my belief,
Than wild Cassandra or the Sybils' hymn.

Would ye, my boys, be favor'd by the fair,
Be gentle in your argument and deed:
When Puberty had strung the leading nerve,
I twin'd the sacred Myrtle round my brow:
Studied th'Ovidian irresistless wile,
Sued, like Propertius, to the haughty nymph.
Gradual sapp'd her firmest, best resolves,
And made success the consequence of toil!
I would not grasp the Spartan Belle by force,
I loath th'anatomy without the mind.
Women, like Caryatides, are chiefly form'd,
As adjectives, to please the sight and bear.—

Has any sign of ominous portent
Redden'd the skies, or scar'd the sons of men?
Have vultures scream'd or cemeteries yawn'd,
The Earth been palsied or old Ocean mad,
Have comets with immeasurable tails
Hurried thro' space, and scorch'd the arctick pole?
For I am tremulous and ill at ease!
Before the dread of dissolution came,
Hope's roseate Minions play'd about my heart:
Content I drew on Imagery's bank,
And even seiz'd felicities unborn!
My expectation then was as immense
As Charlotte Bertie's hymeneal thought,
The widow's wish, or Hood the Baron's nose,
The Allegany mount or Love's domain,
The Zephyr's circuit or th'Atlantic wave;
But now, by Apprehension squeez'd and crampt,
I steal, like sots, inglorious to the tomb!
Ere cold dismay usurp'd my better part,
I felt as pleas'd as Wedgwood in—his cups!
Or noble Osborne when he'd wedded—Anguish!
Or gallant Clarence when he got—a Jordan?
Or Yankee when he saw his nation—striped!
Or Barbauld when he boasts his rib was—Aikin!
Or Hurd when Presbyters had lost—their Price!
Or Rymer when his father breath'd—his last!
Or Godfrey Webster when he'd got—a vassal!
Or Brown when he turn'd water into—sheets!
Or Baddeley when cramm'd with—sour crout!
Or Bearcroft when he brings—his reasons home!
Or Johnny Wilkes perusing—Aretine!
Or Courtney when Nat Wraxall lost—his speech!
Or demi-Prelates when they say—I wont!
Or Albion's Nettle when he'd sav'd—three crowns!
Or Philip Hayes when he is—beating Time!
Or sombrous Greville when he kills—an hour!
Or Montague when—feathering her nest!
Or eager Ducie when he got—A Child!

Your Sophs and Seers, and Magi of the land,
Who oft unclasp the pocket-book of Fate,
And calculate the bliss and bane of men:
Depict the scite of each celestial house,
Know when Favonius will kindly breathe,
Or snarling Eurus from his shrivell'd wing,
Shake a black, morbid mildew o'er the grain;
Or when the Siroc gale will parch the bud,
And cinder-burn the tendril on the stalk:
Or dreary Wizards issue in a steam
(Drawn from pestiferous and aguing bogs)
To hold their congress in a pitchy mist,
Suck roaring Whirlwinds from th'Eolian bag
To crush a navy 'neath the billow's foam.
Such weigh events as Grocers weigh their figs,
And swear we're all predestin'd or predamn'd:
Maintain we're born beneath impelling stars,
Or splendid belt that girds the milky way!
For instance, 'tis on record in their scroll,
The upright Host of Hatfield saw the light
Beneath the influence of Sagittarius!
Mun Burke the crab!—Ned Thurlowe the great Bear!
Francis the scorpion!—Kenyon the scales!
Doctor Cadogan sub Aquarius!
Horne Tooke, Orion!—Rose and Steele the Twins!
Henry Dundas the twinkler of the North!
Mellifluous Pitt beneath the milky way!
And docile Hawksb'ry the Georgium sidus!
Great Richmond, Pisces! there the wi'e mistake,
He's an odd fish, and that could never be.
Derby the Ram! and Queensbury the Goat!
Rawdon the Lion! and Charles Fox the Virgin!
But that must be a sib, as Fate nor Force
Could never keep black Charles beneath a maid.
For my part, no bright Star can govern me,
But the rich lustre of a Lady's eye:

Hither ye Bacchants from your sylvan dells,
(If ye condole with spirits in distress)
Laden with clusters of th'Iberian vine;
I'll fill the ample goblet to the brim,
Incontinently gulph th'extatic draught,
Then stain me with the glossy, gushing grape.
T'exorcise with the livery of joy:
But India's victor'll satarise my throbs,
I'm woe-begone, and he loves jolly Cocks!

Tho' Death's bald frontispiece to me's so grim,
As chills my vital juice, like melted snow,
There are, that lynx Calamity has smote,
Would rush immediate on his ebon spear.
Then who'll presume to fix th'unerring point
While animated Nature seek extremes?
Virtue and Vice change state at either Ind,
And what egregious here, there Sapience hugs;
Here Widows ogle while their fool's inurn'd,
At Malabar the relict sobs and burns!
The gem-eyed Eagle quits his natal rock;
Ascending perpendicular and fierce
He cleaves the hostile currents of the air;
Darts 'bove the subtle atmospheric bourn,
Beating each feeble Breeze to bear him up
Beyond the vast dominion of their Lord,
Where Rarefaction starves the gasping Lungs,
To meet the Sun in his meridian pride:
And pinion sing'd disport amid the blaze!
As the lone Owl retreating from the glare,
Nestles within the battlement's recess,
Where Horror triumphs in th'impervious gloom;
There couchant pants behind the ivy fence,
(Whose texture's thicken'd by the reptiles web)
And winks and dreads th'intolerance of day.
Oh Meditation cease—cold nymph avaunt;
Suggest no more to burst my lab'ring brain;
Lest Frenzy tread upon the heel of Thought!
Go wander to the Academic grove
And give the moral to Athenian lugs.

What unappropriate note is that I hear?
The voice of Gladness mocks a peoples pain!
Thrice blest Inanity—Folly all hail!
That thus upon the threshold of the damn'd.
Can make a jig the overture to Death!
Tell the young Squire, proud perch'd upon the rails
Of yonder straw-yard, to be less superb;
He crows in alt his cock-a-doodle-doo.
Blythe as the heir apparent to that sheaf,
Which erst was bruis'd to make a Monarch's eate;
With less fierté does the great Mogul
Inform the distant climes he's ate his broth!
Oh shun, my boy, the beacon of Excess,
Nor everstep in aught, the golden mean,
As where that bloated Sorceress presides,
High Magnanimity will never dwell!
Perception wounds her with an icy smile,
That cuts ineffably from stem to stern;
The fang of Ridicule's more keen than Scorn.
Thou callow Babbler know, this gusty day,
Destruction arm'd with pebbles rough and round
And eke with varied bludgeons short and long,
Will range at large to flagellate our kind!
I saw the caitiff in an irksome dream,
(Dreams are interpreters 'tween God and us)
And trembled when he met my mental eye,
Like fraudful Hucksters when their weights are tried!
Or Harriet Vernon when she sees a man!
Or Spaniels when they're screwing out a jakes!
Or aspin leaves when rude tornadoes rage!
Or Miller pumping up his maiden speech;
Or common-council men before the King.
Or Mawbey when he reads the Hebrew laws;
Or Cardigan upon his marriage morn!
Or—but comparisons are odious deem'd,
The well bred such vulgarities forego.