Euphrenia or the Test of Love A poem by William Sharp |
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SPIRIT OF SATIRE. |
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 | Euphrenia or the Test of Love |  |
SPIRIT OF SATIRE.
“An author's troubles end with his success,
The constant soul can soar above distress;
But slights and scorn let those forget who will,
I felt them once, nay, more, they rankle still.
Heaven protect me from my friends, say I,
And let me wrestle with mine enemy.
I with your lordship heartily agree
In all you've said of young nobility,
Though I much doubt if lordly virtue's praise
Had so inspired you in your curate days;
Or if, as tutor, your admiring eyes
Followed some lordling lout's absurdities.
Forget the bench, be tutor yet once more,
Think of the petty insults which of yore
Your poverty provoked. Enter the gate
Where powdered minions of the ‘lordly great’
Ape the insulting airs that are displayed
Before their dazzled sight, and, I'm afraid,
When your mind's eye, in retrospective scan,
Reviews the insults heaped upon the man,
You'll blush to think that you have stooped to sound
The trump of praise upon such hollow ground.
The constant soul can soar above distress;
But slights and scorn let those forget who will,
I felt them once, nay, more, they rankle still.
Heaven protect me from my friends, say I,
And let me wrestle with mine enemy.
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In all you've said of young nobility,
Though I much doubt if lordly virtue's praise
Had so inspired you in your curate days;
Or if, as tutor, your admiring eyes
Followed some lordling lout's absurdities.
Forget the bench, be tutor yet once more,
Think of the petty insults which of yore
Your poverty provoked. Enter the gate
Where powdered minions of the ‘lordly great’
Ape the insulting airs that are displayed
Before their dazzled sight, and, I'm afraid,
When your mind's eye, in retrospective scan,
Reviews the insults heaped upon the man,
You'll blush to think that you have stooped to sound
The trump of praise upon such hollow ground.
You say that every charity affords
A list of names preceded by a lord's.
Oh, my dear Bishop, surely you intend
To laugh to scorn some charitable friend!
What lurking pride beneath a vain pretence;
What needless insult this to common sense;
My lord, kind soul, presides at weekly board;
Amazing condescension in a Lord!
So deem the vulgar; but he takes good care,
In patronage, to have the lion's share;
Contrives to find a matron who will deign
O'er fallen Magdalens to blandly reign.
Thrusts in some pampered menial, who could
Clear up some mystery little understood.
This, aye, and more than this; yet you pretend
A lord is charity's most earnest friend;
Cant, cant, my lord, pure cant, or, what is worse,
A mean device to save his lordship's purse.
Many a man who'd almost skin a flint,
Will spare a guinea to appear in print;
And he who first made public the long roll
Of patrons' names, be sure was not a fool.
Why hide the candle 'neath a bushel's shade?
Thus pride and charity each other aid:
Good springs from evil; and a noxious root
Yields, in the end, a good and wholesome fruit.
A list of names preceded by a lord's.
Oh, my dear Bishop, surely you intend
To laugh to scorn some charitable friend!
What lurking pride beneath a vain pretence;
What needless insult this to common sense;
My lord, kind soul, presides at weekly board;
Amazing condescension in a Lord!
So deem the vulgar; but he takes good care,
In patronage, to have the lion's share;
Contrives to find a matron who will deign
O'er fallen Magdalens to blandly reign.
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Clear up some mystery little understood.
This, aye, and more than this; yet you pretend
A lord is charity's most earnest friend;
Cant, cant, my lord, pure cant, or, what is worse,
A mean device to save his lordship's purse.
Many a man who'd almost skin a flint,
Will spare a guinea to appear in print;
And he who first made public the long roll
Of patrons' names, be sure was not a fool.
Why hide the candle 'neath a bushel's shade?
Thus pride and charity each other aid:
Good springs from evil; and a noxious root
Yields, in the end, a good and wholesome fruit.
I know no piece of trickery which surpasses
The sops you've thrown out to ‘the dangerous classes’;
You've kept the grain, and charitably sent
The chaff to those for whom the whole was meant.
Your emigration schemes might well be christened,
‘A plan by which the poor rates may be lessened.’
The sops you've thrown out to ‘the dangerous classes’;
You've kept the grain, and charitably sent
The chaff to those for whom the whole was meant.
Your emigration schemes might well be christened,
‘A plan by which the poor rates may be lessened.’
Your ‘Scripture readers’ and your ‘ragged schools’
Hoodwink the eyes of surface-scanning fools,
But not the victims of your pious cares.
At their right price they rate your paltry wares;
Dost think that ‘Scripture readers’ will suffice
To banish from its haunts deep-seated vice?
Sickness and sin, in one thing, are alike;
The leech's remedy must boldly strike
The root of all the evil; this once known,
Vice, like disease, perchance, may be o'erthrown.
Deem you the poor will waste respect or thanks
On some smug ‘mister’ raised from their own ranks,
Or bear the intrusion of a lynx-eyed spy,
Cloaked in the garb of hireling piety?
Never! though on his glib and oily tongue
A rector's, nay a bishop's accents, hung.
Useless with them is this well-meant deceit;
The ‘priest’ they'll honour, but they'll mob the cheat.
And though disease and ghastly fever lie
Straight in the channel of his ministry,
The priest who wishes to reclaim the poor
Must hold his path, though Death were at the door.
Hoodwink the eyes of surface-scanning fools,
But not the victims of your pious cares.
At their right price they rate your paltry wares;
Dost think that ‘Scripture readers’ will suffice
To banish from its haunts deep-seated vice?
Sickness and sin, in one thing, are alike;
The leech's remedy must boldly strike
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Vice, like disease, perchance, may be o'erthrown.
Deem you the poor will waste respect or thanks
On some smug ‘mister’ raised from their own ranks,
Or bear the intrusion of a lynx-eyed spy,
Cloaked in the garb of hireling piety?
Never! though on his glib and oily tongue
A rector's, nay a bishop's accents, hung.
Useless with them is this well-meant deceit;
The ‘priest’ they'll honour, but they'll mob the cheat.
And though disease and ghastly fever lie
Straight in the channel of his ministry,
The priest who wishes to reclaim the poor
Must hold his path, though Death were at the door.
Upon my word, my lord, on emigration
Your eloquence commands my admiration.
Truly the poor man's prospect is but small,
Bounded all ways by some huge ‘union’ wall;
And doubtless he is wise to cross the sea,
If, by so doing, he finds a remedy
'Gainst Poverty's hard grasp, or what is worse,
The fears attendant on an empty purse.
But recollect that all this pith and sinew
Is so much loss of the best stuff that's in you;
And I suspect the day is not far distant
When England's attitude must be resistent.
Britain will yet with tears of shame deplore
Her rich so rich, her poor so very poor!
When by some spurious Attila o'errun,
She learns the value of each sturdy son;
In vain will she regret the hardy race
Who the lone terrors of the desert face,
Sooner than stoop to share the paltry dole,
Which feeds the body while it starves the soul.
England is viewed abroad with jaundiced eyes,
And little loved in her own colonies.
Your eloquence commands my admiration.
Truly the poor man's prospect is but small,
Bounded all ways by some huge ‘union’ wall;
And doubtless he is wise to cross the sea,
If, by so doing, he finds a remedy
'Gainst Poverty's hard grasp, or what is worse,
The fears attendant on an empty purse.
But recollect that all this pith and sinew
Is so much loss of the best stuff that's in you;
And I suspect the day is not far distant
When England's attitude must be resistent.
Britain will yet with tears of shame deplore
Her rich so rich, her poor so very poor!
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She learns the value of each sturdy son;
In vain will she regret the hardy race
Who the lone terrors of the desert face,
Sooner than stoop to share the paltry dole,
Which feeds the body while it starves the soul.
England is viewed abroad with jaundiced eyes,
And little loved in her own colonies.
What peers with science have to do, I own,
In all humility, is to me unknown.
True Worcester's marquis gave the world a scheme,
Since brought to bear by others, upon steam.
But the exception only serves to show
That science is considered somewhat low.
Sculpture and painting will not wholly die,
E'en if neglected by nobility;
Some ‘cunning Isaac,’ doubtless, will be found
Who, scouting all ideas of classic ground,
Will add to our collection, when he hears
How well a noble sold his pilfered wares;
And, far from any fear of Painting's wane,
To me this fact is tolerably plain;
Though the old masters bear away the prize,
And are, by judges, lauded to the skies,
The modern men may hope to have their turn
When future ages shall their merits learn.
In all humility, is to me unknown.
True Worcester's marquis gave the world a scheme,
Since brought to bear by others, upon steam.
But the exception only serves to show
That science is considered somewhat low.
Sculpture and painting will not wholly die,
E'en if neglected by nobility;
Some ‘cunning Isaac,’ doubtless, will be found
Who, scouting all ideas of classic ground,
Will add to our collection, when he hears
How well a noble sold his pilfered wares;
And, far from any fear of Painting's wane,
To me this fact is tolerably plain;
Though the old masters bear away the prize,
And are, by judges, lauded to the skies,
The modern men may hope to have their turn
When future ages shall their merits learn.
Music's decline your lordship seems to dread;
Music in England is already dead,
Dead of starvation, and her place supplied
With music by our neighbours duly tried;
Then, with its artistes, opera, ballet, all,
Sent secondhand to charm our capital.
Music in England is already dead,
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With music by our neighbours duly tried;
Then, with its artistes, opera, ballet, all,
Sent secondhand to charm our capital.
The ancestral hall, at which your lordship glances,
Is surely gleaned from some old world romances:
A dream of condescension well enough
For churchmen's arguments, but wretched stuff
In eyes of worldlings. Doubtless, now and then,
A lord does deign to herd with meaner men;
Nay, e'en her ladyship can condescend
To drop her dignity and play the friend.
But when such great humility you find,
You may be sure that something lurks behind:
Perhaps a new election is at hand—
At such times peers are wonderfully bland,—
And my lord owes it to his name and station
To put his second son in nomination.
The family borough is, of course, the heir's,
To start in opposition no one dares;
And, if the younger can achieve the county,
He may hope something from the Premier's bounty.
The ‘commons house’ sounds odd upon the ears
Crammed, as we know it is, with sucking peers.
Is surely gleaned from some old world romances:
A dream of condescension well enough
For churchmen's arguments, but wretched stuff
In eyes of worldlings. Doubtless, now and then,
A lord does deign to herd with meaner men;
Nay, e'en her ladyship can condescend
To drop her dignity and play the friend.
But when such great humility you find,
You may be sure that something lurks behind:
Perhaps a new election is at hand—
At such times peers are wonderfully bland,—
And my lord owes it to his name and station
To put his second son in nomination.
The family borough is, of course, the heir's,
To start in opposition no one dares;
And, if the younger can achieve the county,
He may hope something from the Premier's bounty.
The ‘commons house’ sounds odd upon the ears
Crammed, as we know it is, with sucking peers.
| Euphrenia or the Test of Love | |