The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poor imps, we all are born, at times to groan!
Misfortune won't let Happiness alone;
Sharp as a cat for ever pleas'd to watch her,
And trying with a thousand traps to catch her.

Still must we all submit—it is our fate
To mourn at home amid this mortal state!
Yet by our folly often worse we make it.—
At disappointment frequent have I sigh'd:
‘P-x take the world!’ indignant I have cry'd—
Life is not worth the terms on which we take it.’

Then on the lot of mortals did I scowl;
And angry thus, one night, address'd an owl.

ADDRESS TO AN OWL.

‘Thou solemn bird on yonder ivy'd tow'r,
Wilt thou exchange thy nature owl with me?
Happy to take possession of thy bow'r,
I here protest I would exchange with thee.

‘When to his western bed the sun retires,
Obeys the curfew, and puts out his fires;

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When Evening, blushful harbinger of night,
Gems with the dews of health the drooping flow'r;
With cooling zephyrs fans the sober hour,
And wakes the myriads to the fading light;

‘Forth, with what happiness I pass
Amid the moist reviving grass,
To meet the tribes by Nature made,
To crawl and wing the world of shade!

‘Daughters and sons of night that creep the ground,
Blest must ye live, with such a calm around,
So unmolested, to enjoy your loves!
And lighter people, ye who spread the wing,
Now mid the moon's pale lustre sport and sing,
Now playful pierce the shadows of the groves.

‘Ye harmless nations, with averted eyes,
The sons of men your silent world despise,
Because their eyes no punch houses behold;
Because no mobs, nor fires, nor thieves appear;
Because no riots with their yells they hear;
No brothels, scenes of sallow fate unfold.
Sweet owl, this short apostrophe excuse;
And willing now to thee returns the muse.

‘O bird of wisdom, 'mid the twilight scene
Dimly I mark thy philosophic mien—
And now I see expand thy snowy wings:
To yonder elm, O happy happy fowl,
Thou rushest forth to call upon Miss Owl,
Expectant of her beau, who darkling sings.

‘Together now ye sail the dusky vale,
Now dart on prey, now mount agen the gale;
Now on the moon-clad barn or silent grove,
Your four hands fill'd with various game, ye go
(For hunger must be satisfied I trow);
And, after feasting, kiss and sing of love.

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‘To-morrow sullen must I move to town,
Shook in a wooden engine up and down,
For want, O owl, of thy soft gliding wing—
Stow'd with a gang of thieves perchance, and trulls;
Too noisy for the thickest human skulls—
Who smoke, and laugh, and roar, and swill, and sing.

‘Gladly at length I quit my wooden hive;
Fatigu'd at busy London I arrive,
Parent of sin, and nastiness, and noise:
By coach and cart, and wheelbarrow and dray,
Through motley mob I force my sighing way;
Pimps, porters, chairmen, chimney-sweepers' boys:

‘Saluted, as I pass along,
By all the various imps of song,
This crying rabbits, rabbits, wild fowl that,
Another mack'rel, salmon, oyster, sprat!

‘With such a howling ear-distracting note,
And mouth extended as a barn-door wide,
That fish and flesh forsooth may be well cried,
A man might leap into each cavern throat.

‘In Covent-Garden, at the Hummums, now
I sit, but after many a curse and vow
Never to see the madding city more;
Where barrows truckling o'er the pavements roll,
And, what is horror to a tuneful soul,
Where asses asses greeting, love-songs roar;

‘Which asses, that the Garden square adorn,
Must lark-like be the heralds of my morn.
Let others talk with wild affright
Of horrors and the shades of night;
You want not Sol's refulgent painful ray;
Night to your eyes is but a milder day.

‘Let others mock your airs that simply flow—
Teeho, teewhit, teewhit, teeho—

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But then, dear owl, 'tis sweetly simple, mind:
Avaunt the scientific squall—
I hate it—nature hates it all—
But lo! 'tis science and the ton, I find.

‘The ear with harsh chromatics must be teas'd,
Grown much too fashionable to be pleas'd.
Here could I wander 'mid the dewy glade,
On sacred silence feast, and shade:
But ah! farewell—rest calls me—'tis night's noon;
On wings of freedom as thou sweep'st the sky,
Sweet child of shadows, o'er my hamlet fly,
And kindly sooth my slumber with a tune.’

Thus out of humour I address'd the bird,
Wishing to change conditions with the fowl;
But at the cheerful morn, upon my word,
I lik'd the man-state better than the owl.

Thus anger'd at the wayward tricks of fate,
Pettish you wish your grandeur at the devil;
Yet, after cursing high and mighty state,
You wisely deem it not so huge an evil:
Contented to be men of worship still,
Pleas'd with the gifts that kings, not Heav'n, bestow;
Proud, from the height of title's star-clad hill,
To mock us poor unhonour'd grubs below.