Satires And Biography :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now open every chink, or great or small,
That to the bright sensorium claims a kin:
And with the greediness of ductile Faith,
Take this commandment oral and supreme:
In courts or camps or maladis'd or sound,
Dormant or vigilant, morn, noon, and night:
By fen, by fire, by streamlet or by Loch:
On the brown mountain or the shaven heath:
By brake or bourn, be-labyrinth'd, be-cav'd:
Stretch'd 'neath the sun-beam or the beechen bough:
Luskish or fleet, lugubrious or glad:
'Mid Stygian rushes or cold Cydnus flags:
In Jove's own glitter or Tartarean fog:
My pretty Poults avoid—the Man of Law.

I've now fulfill'd the high, parental points,
And plac'd the social compass 'fore your eyes;
'Tis yours to navigate and mine to die.
Had Homer sung thus how'd Longinus prais'd,
Quintilian wrote, and Philology bow'd!
But who'll regard a Cock's philosophy?
Mortal esteem's seduc'd by see-saw arts,
And seldom by the merits of the man:
A modern Phœbus Moderns will despise,
Poems, like coins, are valued for their rust,

As the Athletæ who contemptuous look'd
On human prowess at th'Olympian goal,
I am bent down by Superstition's thumb,
And dread my doom because that doom's foretold!
Like Leyden's Lucas wasting with conceit.

Approximate to that renown'd barrier
Whose mud-deck'd base is whimsically patch'd
With varied notings for the Gazer's eye:
Of flying waggons and erudite Swine!
Hygeia's offerings, and the Drama's feast:
The strayed and stolen—Giant and the Dwarf,
Champanze humanis'd, and monkey'd man!
Nor Ionic, Dorick or Corinthian,
Tuscan or Composite are its gross parts:
But, like old Lud's queer bairns on whom It frowns,
Defies all order, and upholds Disgrace.
And on whose Baker-mounted, leaden top,
Rebellion fangless grinn'd on Brunswick's pride.
Tho' now it stands, like states, without a head.
Remains a Dismal Den, whose complex caves,
Hold Beasts of prey more dire than Daniel knew!
Who ever and anon like Tygers spring
From forth their haunts, and arm'd with band and brief
Appall the innocent, and wound the wise.
Who leagu'd (triennially) resistless seize
The aggregated riches of the land!
Before whose mightiness e'en Prelates bow!
Misanthropes supplicate and Chieftains shrink!
The virus of their rage no lenient heals
Or blessed herb Salubrity has cull'd:
'Tis a rank Scrophula which gnaws the mind,
And goads, like Israel's curse, the wretched race.
As moody Elders, pass their gaping gate,
They tremble, reconnoitre, fear and pray

Like scar-torn soldiers near a Foe made mine.
O'er its proud central mouth by Falshood hewn,
The Agnus Dei mocks their wary sense,
Who've felt that Templars are not—what they seem.