Poems to Thespia :: :: University of Virginia Library

In days of yore, in classic days,
Which every school-boy knows to praise,
Which puppies oft affect to flout,
Whose worth no pedant e'er will doubt,
Which e'en the sage, intent on truth,
From strong ideas form'd in youth,
Can never totally neglect,
Or think of but with some respect:
In those same days of antient date,
Such were the partial laws of fate,
An easy trade the Bard possess'd,
And fix'd cheap laurels on his crest;
For birth-day ode, or nuptial metre,
For pastoral sweet, or love-song sweeter,
The ingredients aptly cut and dried
Were by the reigning taste supplied,
And poems, finisht on a sudden,
Rose plump and round, like huswife's pudding.

127

Whate'er the theme, or wild, or steady,
The golden legend aye was ready.
Some God bestrid each hill and mountain,
Some Naiad bathed in every fountain,
Satyrs and Fauns each wood could boast,
And Nereids danced on every coast.
The jews-harp or the lyre, had power
To raise up walls, or build a tower.
Dolphins and pards had ears for melody,
Rocks could applaud, or trees cry—well a day!

His charmer who could fail to embellish,
What charmer fail the verse to relish,
When now majestic Juno came,
Now Semele array'd in flame,
Struck his warm noddle, seized upon it,
And shaped his epigram, or sonnet?
When Venus, and her car, and doves,
And Cupid, and the little Loves
Popp'd ever in at time of need,
And form'd a portion of his creed?

128

When Delia's lips, or cheeks to paint,
Should flattery, and his verse be faint,
The bloom of Hebe still was near,
Bloom, not a pin the worse for wear.
If chaste, and cruel, Dian she,
If wanton, blithe Euphrosyne.
If brown, the colour was divine,
A gentler shade of Proserpine.
If not a chicken, Ops, or Tethys
She shone; so blind a buzzard Faith is.
Was she a stroller? so roved Iö.
An opera-girl? so quaver'd Clio.
O nymphs! swains! songs! how passing fine-a,
When every midwife was Lucina!
Floras, the sisterhood proterva,
And every tambour-wench—Minerva!

No wonder poetry ran riot,
That the Bard's hum-strum ne'er was quiet,
Or his gay lute forever strung;
Then Sapphos, and Anacreons sung,

129

And by such imagery inspired,
The scribbling race was never tired.
Hence Ovid spun his cobweb strain,
Hence flow'd Tibullus' tender vein,
Propertius hence, to mix was able
One third of nature, two of fable.
And had they lived, the whole fraternity
Might thus have piped to all eternity.
Such was the potent aid they found,
Such help-mates throng'd the enchanted ground.

Oh! what a change hath now ensued!
How dull, inanimate, and rude!
With us, no Fauns, or Satyrs dance,
No Gods upon our hills advance.
No Nereids on our coasts appear,
But cockle-scrapers dabble there.
Our cattle press the fountain brim,
But not a Naiad moves a limb.
Tho Handel's music may surprise,
The devil a single barn will rise.

130

Our rocks are fixt, our trees are local,
And Mara cannot make them vocal.
To adorn our mistress, we presume
Haply to borrow Hebe's bloom;
But Venus, and her son squire Cupid
Are either dead, or desperate stupid.
Our Dians are no longer chaste,
Nay, oft are tumid in the waiste.
Euphrosyne is turn'd to stone,
Or lives in Milton's verse alone.
Flora and Ops, and Proserpine
Are banisht with the Sisters Nine.
While Pallas is removed as far
As Saturn's ring, or Herschel's star.

What then, my Thespia, now remains?
Can you expect enthusiast strains?
That the poetic mill shall grind,
When nought but husks are left behind?
That I should run a wild-goose chace,
Deprived of every Love and Grace?

131

When I may rave, and puff, and hollo,
And can't be answer'd by Apollo?

Take then the world as now it goes;
For truth is truth, in verse or prose.

While I this faithful hand might hold,
The radiant gem, or figured gold,
Should not the sacred grasp untwine,
Nor all the bullion of the mine.
Compared with thee, each Nymph and Goddess
Are mortal drabs, and fit for noddies.
Thy solid merits their's transcend;
So thinks the Husband and the Friend;
Who not a grain would give of thee,
Should e'en Olympus be the fee.