A Probationary Ode for the Laureatship By George Keate ... Written in 1785. With Notes Critical and Explanatory, By The Editor |
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 | A Probationary Ode for the Laureatship |  |
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PROBATIONARY ODE.
I
Son of my Mother, here I am!Born of a spanking Polish Dam,
Begot by God knows who:
Anxious to reach immortal Fame,
I ask the Laureat's envied Name,
And claim the Honours due.
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II
Is there a Bard who dares aspireTo equal my poetic Fire,
My sweet harmonious strains?
Hayley be damn'd!—damn Warton too!—
Damn all the living rhyming Crew!
They have not half my Brains!
III
What!—shall these base-born Brats compareWith great Cowalsky's greater Heir,
Of Birth almost divine?
Ravens and Screech-Owls might as well
Vie with melodious Philomel,
As their dull Notes with mine.
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IV
By FAME, that “glorious mad Dog,” bit,(To borrow Brother Peter's Wit),
I've strove in various ways;
In Prose and Verse, and Verse and Prose,
And sometimes neither, Phœbus knows,
To win the Meed of Praise.
V
With Ferney's Lord my Verse hath rung—Have I not Netley's Abbey sung
In lofty Verse sublime?
Did I not Kauffman's Fame extend,
When I my soft Epistle penn'd
In many a tuneful Rhime?
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VI
Don't I in annual Prologue shine?Is not the flippant Ep'logue mine,
Which Garrick's own surpasses?
Without me vain were Newcombe's Plays;
'Tis I alone confer the Bays
On these theatric Asses.
VII
What tho' the Critics pedant corpsWith Satire's Whip-Cord lash me sore,
And strive to blast my Name?
The half-starv'd Witlings I despise:—
By Heav'n! my Works shall reach the Skies—
I'll have eternal Fame!—
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VIII
For this, Arcadia's Scenes I plann'd—For this, with sacrilegious Hand,
I pillag'd Yorick's Urn;
And, viewing “Nature's Sketches,” cry'd,
With more than fam'd Correggio's Pride,
“I also am a Sterne.”
IX
Th' Etruscan Dome's superb Design,O'er Cloacina's sacred Shrine,
For this majestic rose:—
For this, at Pride or Folly's call,
Each Year in Academic Hall
My Drawings I expose.
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X
For this my Angel Form and Face,Enwrapp'd in Robes of furry Grace,
Before my Poems stare:
Though once a wicked Wit declar'd,
The Frontispiece to him appear'd
An old starv'd Russian Bear.
XI
Then bring the Laurel—bind my Brows—My Soul with conscious Genius glows,
Disdaining abject Pray'r:
Give me the Sal'ry, Sack, and Praise,
O give to KEATE's triumphant lays
The LAUREAT's vacant Chair!—
| A Probationary Ode for the Laureatship | |