ODE TO THE LION SHIP OF WAR.
On her Return with the Embassy from China.
Dear Lion, welcome from thy monkey trip;
Glad is the bard to see thee, thou good ship;
Thy mournful ensign, half way down the staff,
Provokes (I fear me much) a general laugh!
What sad long phizzes thou hast now on board!
A high and mighty disappointed lord!
And lo, a disappointed doughty knight,
Whose buds of hope have felt a horrid blight.
Say, wert thou not asham'd to put thy prow
Where Britons, dog-like, learnt to crawl and bow?
Where eastern majesty, as hist'ry sings,
Looks down with smiles of scorn on western kings?
Ah me! 'tis universally allow'd
That eastern monarchs are prodigious proud;
Unlike the humble monarchs of the west—
Such kind and pliable and gentle creatures!
So placid, of their souls, and sweet, the features;
Where nought but Virtue is a welcome guest.
Your eastern despots, in their lofty station,
Expect the censer of rich adulation
To burn for ever underneath their noses:
This incense boasts a certain opiate pow'r;
Whose pleasant, stupefying, plenteous show'r,
The optics of the understanding closes;
Producing, too, a charming gaudy dream,
In which kings think they hold the world's esteem
Think, too, the conscience sound, tho' full of holes,
And virtues, thick as herrings, in their souls.
O Flatt'ry, thou attendant on Inanity,
Thou meat, drink, clothes, and furniture of Vanity,
'Tis cruel to attack a feeble head;
Yes, cruel—likewise let me add, a shame—
Who never makest mention of its name,
Poor, easy, gaping cuckoo, when 'tis dead.
Once more to thee, O Lion, to return—
A subject form'd to bid all England mourn!
O think upon thy Britons, how disgrac'd,
As to the palace of Jehól they rac'd,
So shabbily, so tawdrily array'd
!
The natives, with horse-laughs, the tribe remarking
;
While, grunting, kicking, braying, howling, barking
,
Hogs, dogs, and asses, join'd the cavalcade!
Not Staunton, with his doctor's gown and cap,
Could from the populace obtain one clap;
Nor poor Macartney, with his star and ribbon!—
Child-like, he might as well have had a bib on!
Ah me! before ye sail'd, a friend,
I told ye all how things would end
.
Tell me, who plann'd this silly expedition?
That brain was surely in a mad condition:
Say, was it Avarice, the lean old jade,
Who, though half Asia's gems her corpse illume
(Sol's radiance on a melancholy tomb),
Can join with Meanness in her dirtiest trade?
Who told our king, the embassy would thrive,
Must be the most egregious fool alive—
God mend that courtier's head, or rather trash-pot!—
Perhaps he cry'd, ‘Upon the rich Hindoo
Your glorious majesty has cast its shoe,
And China next, my liege, must be your wash-pot.’
