XXXVI
SMALL POETS AND GREAT PESSIMISTS
Fleas are not Lobsters.
—Peter Pindar.
“Oysters and whelks avaunt! and all sea-fry
Of ignominious brood unapt to smell
The sulphur of a lobster-spirit's hell,
Viewing the kitchen with prophetic eye!
There what avail my sable panoply?
Or giant claw whose grinding gripe might well
Enforce the Lord of Myrmidons to yell,
Till silver Thetis to his succour fly?”
“If, brother, thou dost rightly diagnose
Thy rank in Nature's scheme, so must it be:
Even now the light flame leaps, the furnace glows,
The cauldron hisses on the hob for thee:
But can the Power like tragedy propose,
That made thee not a lobster, but a Flea?”
