 | English Roses |  |
PIOUS OPINIONS.
I have plenty of notebooks and pious opinions
Which cost nothing to you or to me,
About all men and things in our country's dominions—
Pray, accept them for what they may be!
Here they are, as they are! Valeant quantum valent!
Just my personal views of the taste and the talent
And the sinners and saints of our time,
With too many a poet but merely one Jowett,
And complacency worse than a crime!
I pretend not, like critics, to know
Quite de omnibus rebus—Diana and Phœbus—
For I live very much down below.
Which cost nothing to you or to me,
About all men and things in our country's dominions—
Pray, accept them for what they may be!
Here they are, as they are! Valeant quantum valent!
Just my personal views of the taste and the talent
And the sinners and saints of our time,
With too many a poet but merely one Jowett,
And complacency worse than a crime!
I pretend not, like critics, to know
Quite de omnibus rebus—Diana and Phœbus—
For I live very much down below.
Well, the fact that first strikes an impartial spectator
Who is ready to listen and looks,
Is a sight that might puzzle the very Creator
With its million of papers and books.
Every day, every hour, they are spawned by our presses
And come forth with most marvellous doctrines and dresses,
To regenerate Nature and earth;
But in spite of their poses and myths upon Moses,
In their husks is a pitiful dearth.
We have prating from morning to night,
And a terrible clatter though it settles no matter—
But what ray of the glorious Light?
299
Is a sight that might puzzle the very Creator
With its million of papers and books.
Every day, every hour, they are spawned by our presses
And come forth with most marvellous doctrines and dresses,
To regenerate Nature and earth;
But in spite of their poses and myths upon Moses,
In their husks is a pitiful dearth.
We have prating from morning to night,
And a terrible clatter though it settles no matter—
But what ray of the glorious Light?
And each emptiest babbler has still his own journal
To protect him and puff all he writes,
And to call his last rapture and rubbish eternal—
Though he crawls as the meanest of mites.
Not a Milton or Shakspeare receives half the praises
Or the monuments which any moment upraises,
To the poorest ephemeral now;
For the crowns of our greatest are nought to the latest,
And the Laurels they pile on his brow.
Ah, in lexicons vainly men seek,
While they ransack their portals to deck the immortals
Of at utmost a day or a week.
To protect him and puff all he writes,
And to call his last rapture and rubbish eternal—
Though he crawls as the meanest of mites.
Not a Milton or Shakspeare receives half the praises
Or the monuments which any moment upraises,
To the poorest ephemeral now;
For the crowns of our greatest are nought to the latest,
And the Laurels they pile on his brow.
Ah, in lexicons vainly men seek,
While they ransack their portals to deck the immortals
Of at utmost a day or a week.
O we have a young school with a yellow complexion
Of the pert Bumble-Puppy fresh kind,
But devoted to writing before the reflexion,
Which goes in for a manner not mind.
It upsets the old models, and gay and elastic
Shuts the door upon splendid ideals monastic
In its picturesque jargon and gowns,
And with swashbuckler swagger and pasteboard-made dagger
Gives the harlot and highwayman crowns;
While it damns the great classical codes,
It takes morals and fables from stews and the stables
And from gutters its methods and modes.
Of the pert Bumble-Puppy fresh kind,
But devoted to writing before the reflexion,
Which goes in for a manner not mind.
It upsets the old models, and gay and elastic
Shuts the door upon splendid ideals monastic
In its picturesque jargon and gowns,
And with swashbuckler swagger and pasteboard-made dagger
Gives the harlot and highwayman crowns;
While it damns the great classical codes,
It takes morals and fables from stews and the stables
And from gutters its methods and modes.
300
And our day has discovered a wonderful merit,
A new virtue that used to be vice,
In unchastity which the next age will inherit
With our shoes at a terrible price;
It's all sexiness now, with the fig leaves discarded
For a prurient wisdom, and woman unguarded
In a riotous privilege romps,
While the maidens are boldest in licence and oldest
At their lewd Saturnalian pomps;
And the modesty once as a glass
For most delicate graces is gone with no traces,
And the gold has been bartered for brass.
A new virtue that used to be vice,
In unchastity which the next age will inherit
With our shoes at a terrible price;
It's all sexiness now, with the fig leaves discarded
For a prurient wisdom, and woman unguarded
In a riotous privilege romps,
While the maidens are boldest in licence and oldest
At their lewd Saturnalian pomps;
And the modesty once as a glass
For most delicate graces is gone with no traces,
And the gold has been bartered for brass.
But from morning to night it's a pestilent hurry
From this horrible orgy to that,
And we live in a purposeless fever and worry
Quite in ignorance what we are at;
And the leper is whitewashed and scrubbed till be pleases
The fastidious nostril, and plagues and diseases
Offer play for unnatural parts,
And the vilest dissections that claim the affections
Now are practised as beautiful arts;
We have cancerous cases and skill
Is more ardently lavished on innocence ravished,
While we leave poor descendants the bill.
From this horrible orgy to that,
And we live in a purposeless fever and worry
Quite in ignorance what we are at;
And the leper is whitewashed and scrubbed till be pleases
The fastidious nostril, and plagues and diseases
Offer play for unnatural parts,
And the vilest dissections that claim the affections
Now are practised as beautiful arts;
We have cancerous cases and skill
Is more ardently lavished on innocence ravished,
While we leave poor descendants the bill.
If our prophets could see half as well as they chatter,
They would find overfact a pure curse,
Out of season as dirt (though a truth) is but matter
Out of place in the trencher or purse.
It's not facts but the fictions that clothe with a sweetness
And a bliss beyond words our lean starved incompleteness,
While they hide what is ugly and hard;
And it makes no lot better to gloat on its fetter
Or show where it is cruelly scarred.
As the members we decently drape
Were not meant for disclosing, we sin by exposing
All the lusts of the tiger and ape.
They would find overfact a pure curse,
Out of season as dirt (though a truth) is but matter
Out of place in the trencher or purse.
It's not facts but the fictions that clothe with a sweetness
And a bliss beyond words our lean starved incompleteness,
While they hide what is ugly and hard;
And it makes no lot better to gloat on its fetter
Or show where it is cruelly scarred.
As the members we decently drape
Were not meant for disclosing, we sin by exposing
301
I for one will complain of the dignity dying
If not dead and quite buried in shame,
And the gods of our glory departed and crying
For the honour that knows not their name.
O the quiet and ease are dethroned by a scramble
For the pleasure or gain, and we helplessly shamble
Through our duties as quick as we may;
For the sake of just doing without the old wooing,
All we can in a businesslike day.
Not a margin for beauty or thought,
But a rush and a wriggling and hatred and higgling
Of the souls as mere merchandise bought.
If not dead and quite buried in shame,
And the gods of our glory departed and crying
For the honour that knows not their name.
O the quiet and ease are dethroned by a scramble
For the pleasure or gain, and we helplessly shamble
Through our duties as quick as we may;
For the sake of just doing without the old wooing,
All we can in a businesslike day.
Not a margin for beauty or thought,
But a rush and a wriggling and hatred and higgling
Of the souls as mere merchandise bought.
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