Satires And Biography :: :: University of Virginia Library

WHO but must weep when Worth decays,
And puny boys can tear the bays
From reverend brows like mine?
When Faction has no longer charms,
When Sophistry has lost her arms,
And Truth's yclep'd divine?

Sweet Peace array'd in all thy charms,
Descend to these unhallow'd arms,
And ward th'impending blow;
Curs'd be the hour I ever stray'd,
And left the roseate blooming maid
To wed a life of woe!

Ere from thy placid graces torn,
The beauties of the rising morn,
Could Gratitude inspire;
In the calm academic grove.
Attun'd by every social Love,
I swept the obedient lyre.

Why have I studied long and deep?
And like the Thane have murder'd sleep,
By midnight vigils wasted;
Why have I roam'd thro' classic glades?
And ravish'd the Piërian maids,
And all their beauties tasted?

Proud in their congress have I sate,
De Courcy like, ne'er doff'd my hat,
Tho' urg'd by Memory's knocks:
Taught little Clio periods fine,
Adust Melpomene to whine,
And wash'd their Sunday smocks.

Who the sublime has taught but me,
Or in the metaphysic sea,
Could more exulting lave?
Into the pools of doubt I've dash'd,
And flound'ring 'mid her muds, have splash'd
The feeble, wise, and brave!

Greater or less no Chief has been,—
More black or white no Chief has seen—
I've lick'd meek Portland's dishes,
I've self-sufficient Windham led,
Gave Reynolds fame and Johnson bread,
And realis'd their wishes.

If this is being, thus to be,
A Scroyle, less penitent than me,
Would scorn the gift and giver:
Shall every whipster chain me down,
(Promethean curse) to glad the town,
And feed upon my liver?

How have I twisted wrong and right,
Turn'd gleams to gloom, and dark to light,
To waste malignant hours:
Prov'd the strong, weak—the feeble, strong,
The longest, short—the shortest, long:
Yet who requites my powers?

Rather than hold a life like this,
Unknown to any tiny bliss,
Hang me on Dian's horns:
To taste the madd'ning beam she sheds—
Shall Grenville dance 'mid rosy beds,
While I must limp o'er thorns:

The Hebrew, craz'd by Rigour's rod,
Pierc'd thro' the wild, and knaw'd the sod;
And crouching fled the Sun!
E'en thus I'll scud from mortal sin,
And purify the man within,
And be another Mun.

Ah could I cram me like a bomb,
With Cloacina's rankest scum;
As full as Hawksb'ry's cup.
I'd steal by night 'mid Pleasure's throng,
Wait for the zenith of their song,
Then burst and blow them up.

I supplicate each month, each week,
In French, in Latin, Irish, Greek,
Yet none a good supplies:
Say must I die without a groat,
I sometimes think (but what a thought)
No classic's in the skies!

There's Priestley and his carping set,
Who o'er the penal statutes fret,
And kick down saints at Brummigum:
Hell sweat the whining, wriggling crew,
What would they have; they're not true blue:
Oh may the Devil rummage 'em!

The dice of life, like O---ns w's head,
Are loaded with destructive lead;
But Policy ne'er blabs:
Perish such luck!—I'll fire the town,
For drunk or sober, up or down,
I'm always throwing crabs.

Like Adam, Y---ke by tempting fell,
Yet G---y laughs; is fat; is well!
No more than this 'twas Cain meant:
Yet I who only bleed rank heirs,
(But do away the crime by prayers)
Have lenten entertainment.

Ox-cheek that's trebly boil'd I munch,
Old crusts and turkeys' drumsticks crunch,
With aged hens from Bucks;
'Tis true to mend such whoreson fare,
Spousy colcannon will prepare:
But then the merit's Chucks.

How my chaps water, when I view
Fish, flesh, fowl, venison; sallad too,
Arranged in cookshop larder:
There oft I stand and peep and pray,
And gaze and sigh my soul away:
Are poets' fortunes harder?

Big bellied varlets “capon lin'd,”
Parochial dolts, who've laugh'd and din'd,
For dues my door environ;
I'll rush and beg of all I meet,
Or watch the dawn in Oxford-street,
And grope for rags and iron.

My God! can these be Edmund's legs!
Pray Mrs. B--- are these my pegs?
This comes with being fretted:
I melt like butter near a flame;
The juices have forsook my frame,
And through the surface sweated!

“Meek angels ever bright and fair,”
Take me, Oh take me to your care:
But what am I imploring?
Angels can pay no bills at sight,
Would it were one eternal night,
And all our race were snoring.

I dream'd that as I slept profound,
Perturbed Boreas wrapt me round,
And fraught my frame to please me;
I feel the god from head to foot,
How the storm rolls from gut to gut!
Oh for a --- to ease me.

Charles F---x neglects his stubbled cheek,
St---m---t's no longer's fat and sleek,
And H---w---d's shirt's incrusted!
Moll Brooks, in misery, brandy drinks,
And peery looks through door-made chinks,
To scoff those blades she trusted.

That Beldam's scor'd me on her slate,
For jellies, drams, and bread and mate:
I see it as I walk:
I'll creep behind her bar-fix'd lad,
Swear that the heart-burn's made me mad,
And lick off all the chalk!

Th---l---e can curse his precious eyes,
And yet the savage ranks as wise:
Though steep'd in fornication:
If I but swear, how prelates bark;
Or get six pen'north in the dark,
'Tis told to all the nation!

My brain is simmering and hot,
Like old Medea's iron pot;
By turns I'm mad or surly:
Ideas with ideas stew,
'Tis all hubbub and hubbaboo,
Chaotic hurly burly.

Ye Parcæ with your sooty wings,
Descend when Protean Edmund sings,
My honor's on the ebb:
Ye leathern hags come weave the woof,
No more I'll pad my blister'd hoof;
Come fold me in your web.

They say God sits upon the floods,
Breathes in the flame—the earth—the woods,
And rides upon the wind:
Tho' all the elements I know,
They but diversify my woe,
Who God nor good can find!

Ah! what is Fame, seductive sound,
A blast that thunders to confound;
But brings nor pence nor duds:
The knave's ally—the ideot's aid,
A bubble perishably made,
Of washerwomen's suds!

Have not bold caitiffs, erst admir'd,
Berogu'd, bewilder'd, and bemir'd,
By artifice been cheer'd:
Could I not pay the De'el his debt,
Yet by equivocation get
My character fineer'd?

Weak are those men, to interest blind,
Who narrowing the capacious mind,
In Princes put their trust;
Loyola's sons are bought and sold,
And Verney eats his mutton cold,
And Rockingham is dust.

But chiefs must moulder in the grave,
Or vicious, noble, mad, or brave,
Who fluttered thro' their day;
Cromwell and Cataline have fell,
Their ears have drank the fatal knell,
And Edmund must be—clay.

Hope, like a wayward northern light,
Cheers and deludes the aching sight.
And plays about the Faction;
She's now with Derby, now with Lee,
Then flits from Montague to me,
Beguiling by attraction!

Sometimes I've thought, like Piedmontese;
We all might stroll, and strolling please:
The trump shall be O Br---ns,
Fitzp---k on the gurdy strum,
Sherry shall chaunt, and Charley drum,
And Francis shew the lions.

The minor sprigs may scuffle thro',
Sk---nn---r should pledge his buff and blue,
And C---tn---y aid, who sickens,
Dick B---ck---d may mundungus vend,
T---lt---n great guns; prim Lough his friend,
And Taylor deal in chickens.

I'll Nightman turn and clean the sewers,
(For dirty work I'm his or yours,)
Or Quack and cure sore heads;
Or Mendicant and beg a pass,
Or manufacture plates of brass,
To cover blushing foreheads.

I've pawn'd my Saints to purchase beef,
(That's the fell cause of all my grief)
They could not bear my pain:
Bruno's in quod, Anne's melted down,
Poor Dominic's in Dublin town,
And Pat's in Leather Lane!

O Carlo, Declamation's boy!
Her favour'd darling, and her toy,
With cates thy mouth she cramm'd;
But why should I thus sing of him,
Who now is rotting limb by limb,
Politically damn'd?

Like a fell'd pine, his massy length,
Stately in death, tho' riv'd of strength,
Thro' half the land extends;
The faded leaves from James's street,
Are blown to Newgate and the Fleet,
And wither mid his friends.

—But now a nymph—'twas so decreed,
Descends the miscreant to lead,
Thro' Fortune's miry road;
Her vestment made of varying hue,
Both purple, scarlet, black and blue,
In many a curling flow'd.

Her silver car was studded o'er,
Which famish'd corm'rants eager bore,
Thro' regions vast to please her;
It's sides Enormity array'd,
On this were Herod's crimes pourtray'd,
On that the fall of Cæsar.

Expedience was the Harlot's name,
Equally dear to Fraud and Fame,
For myriads she entices;
Her disposition meek and kind,
It veers with every tyrant's mind,
To sanctify his vices.

She regulates the tides of trade,
And haply has acquaintance made,
'Twixt Noble's necks and axes;
By wily means she wounds her foes,
And oft a minister o'erthrows,
Suggesting tithes and taxes.

Then thus the nymph the wight address'd,
“For shame! no longer be depress'd,
Or sully Common Sense;
But like the Swiss to interest true,
For glory perish or subdue,
And gather in—the pence.

Be sad no more—assuage thy grief,
Behold an oriental Chief,
On him your thunders fling,
Reduce the splendor of his state,
And hurl him from Ambition's height,
As if he were—a King.

With murder, rapine, death and sin,
Maintain one clam'rous, endless din,
But hide foul Factions tooth;
And so direct the general eye,
That microscopes shall shew the lye,
A telescope the—truth.

'Tis yours to find my luckless son,
Not what he did—but left undone,
To fester to a crime;
For Weakness oft leaps Wisdom's fence,
And errors steal upon the sense
Creeping thro' chinks of time.

Nor heed that thro' a course of years,
He liv'd to dry the orphan's tears,
By Indostan caress'd;
Diffusing mercy o'er the soil,
As Albion hail'd the patriot toil,
And, blessing, he was bless'd.

Bid Grey and Maitland (peerless peers)
Catch pailfulls of the Begums tears,
And make a bath to swim in:
Let Adam calculate their sighs,
While Norfolk wipes their streaming eyes,
And rubs and scrubs their women.

Then Plutus shall be all your own;
Then Infamy shall mount the throne,
And Britain's ideots see 'em;
Then Vice shall riot in the isle,
The groves of B---d shall smile,
And Knav'ry sing TE-DEUM.”