University of Virginia Library

Reply to an Epistle from Mr. Gourley.

Dear sir,

Your favour reached me duly,
For which, of course, I thank you truly,
And now address me to the task
Of answering all you kindly ask.
“How are you?” Well. “And how your wife?”
Never was better in her life.
“Thank God! But for another query,
Your childern how?” Alive and merry.
“Prolonged be every pure enjoyment!
And now, what is the Bard's employment?
Spends he his time, as usual, gaily?
Or, settled to a plodder daily,
Centres his every scheme in self,
His only object grasping pelf?
Is Poesy his loved pursuit?
And if so, when will come the Fruit?
The Blossoms lived a single day
Then passed—like other flowers—away.
Say, will the Fruit, when gathered, cheer
Our banquets for at least a year?
How stand your politics? I know it,
The politics of genuine poet
May with propriety be ta'en
Rather as light whims of the brain,
Than principles by labour wrought
From the deep mine of solid Thought.
But do you stand a red-hot tory?
Or, floating with the tide, will Story
Seek (to adopt the day's expression)
The calmer harbour of concession?
Your thoughts, opinions, freely state 'em.
Then, here they follow seriatim.
First, of employment I've enough,
Of avocations quantum suff.
Like Goldsmith's juggler, when one trick
Begins to make the public sick,
I'm able from my treasured store,
To try them with a hundred more.
And sooth to tell without dissembling,
I sometimes see with fear and trembling
The likelihood, in spite of all
My hundred tricks, of sudden fall;
And envy, in my dread of failure,
The destiny of common Tailor!
You long have known me “skilled to rule,”
As master of a village school.
A useful post, but thankless still—
Of which the ancients thought so ill,
They held the man to whom 'twas given,
An object of the wrath of heaven.
—By fools beset, by idiots judged,
His pains despised, his payments grudged,
Rivalled by things whom juster doom
Had placed in farm-yard or at loom,
(For 'tis as true as parsons preach
That men who ne'er were taught, can teach!)
Hard is his lot, to own the truth,
Condemned to train our rising youth.
Yet even in this picture dark
The eye some streaks of light may mark—
The common mob, whose grovelling nature
Would for Hyperion choose a Satyr,
By loftier mind or station awed,
Will sometimes properly applaud,
Following, like sheep, the judging few—
And lucky Merit gets his due.
Learn, next, that I am Parish Clerk—
A noble office, by St. Mark!
It brings me in six guineas clear,
Besides et ceteras, every year.
I waive my Sunday duty, when
I give the solemn, deep Amen,
Exalted there to breathe aloud
The heart-devotion of the crowd.
But O the fun! when Christmas-chimes
Have ushered in the festal times,
And sent the Clerk and Sexton round
To pledge their friends in draughts profound,
And keep on foot the good old plan,
As only Clerk and Sexton can!
Nor less the sport, when Easter sees;
The daisy spring to deck the leas;
Then, claimed as dues by Mother Church,
I pluck the cackler from the perch;
Or, in its place, the shilling clasp
From grumbling Dame's slow-opening grasp.
But, Visitation-day! 'tis thine
Best to deserve my votive line—
Great Day! the purest, brightest gem
That decks the Year's fair diadem!
Grand Day! that sees me costless dine,
And costless quaff the rosy wine,
Till seven Church wardens doubled seem,
And doubled every candle's gleam,
And I—triumphant over time,
And over tune, and over rhyme—
Called by the gay, convivial throng,
Lead, in full glee, the choral song!
—I love thee, brandy, on my soul;
And, rum, thou'rt precious in the bowl;
Whisky is dear, because it tells
Of the bright dew of Scottish fells;
But nought commands the poet's praise
Like wine—for which the Parish pays!
For Song—'tis still my loved pursuit,
And you shall soon possess the Fruit.
But whether it will keep, to cheer
Your banquets for a month, or year,
Let time decide—or sages pure
That sentence give on literature.
—Critics in every age have tried
The endless question to decide
Of “What is Poetry?” and still
It busies many a learnèd quill.
Poets themselves, seduced to quit
Their high and native walks of wit,
Have stooped to cramp and to confine,
In school-taught terms, their Art Divine,—
When they had best performed their part,
And honoured most their glorious art,
By pointing out some passage, fraught
With Taste, with Genuis, and with Thought,
Where heart, and soul, and fancy give
Their mingling hues to glow and live—
And saying: “Find who will the why,
But this, we feel, is Poetry.”
Thus I, who little heed the rules
By critics made for rhyming fools,
Have formed, though o'er my second bottle,
As sure a test as Aristotle—
Read Shakspeare's glowing page to see
What is undoubted poetry;
And then this paragraph, God wot,
If you would see—what it is not.
My Harp was made from stunted tree,
The growth of Glendale's barest lea;
Yet fresh as prouder stems it grew,
And drank, with leaf as green, the dew;
Bright showers, from Till or Beaumont shed,
Its roots with needful moisture fed;
Gay birds, Northumbrian skies that wing,
Amid its branches loved to sing;
And purple Cheviot's breezy air
Kept up a life-like quivering there.
From Harp thence framed, and rudely strung,
Can aught but lowly strain be flung?
No! if, ambition-led, I dream
Of striking it to lofty theme,
All harshly jar its tortured chords
As plaining such should be its lord's;
But all its sweetness waketh still
To lay of Border stream or hill!
To Craven's emerald dales transferred,
That simple Harp with praise is heard.
The manliest sons, the loveliest daughters
That flourish by the Aire's young waters,
By hurrying Ribble's verdant side,
And by the Wharf's impetuous tide,
Laud its wild strains. And, for this cause,
While throbs my breast to kind applause—
Nay, when, beneath the turf laid low,
No kind applause my breast can know,
The Poet's blessing, heart-bequeathed,
O'er thy domains, green Craven! breathed,
Shall be to every hill and plain
Like vernal dew, or summer rain,
And stay with thee, while bud or bell
Decks lowland mead or upland fell!