ODE XXII. THE BAILIFF.
Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus.
The pauper poet, pure in zeal,
Who aims the Muse's crown to steal,
Need steal no crown of baser sort,
To buy a goose, or pay for port.
He needs not Fortune's poison'd source,
Nor guard the House of Commons yields,
Whether by Newgate lie his course,
The Fleet, King's Bench, or Cold Bath Fields.
For I, whom late, impransus, walking,
The Muse beyond the verge had led;
Beheld a huge bumbailiff stalking,
Who star'd, but touch'd me not, and fled!
A bailiff, black and big like him,
So scowling, desperate, and grim,
No lock-up house, the gloomy den
Of all the tribe shall breed again.
Place me beyond the verge afar,
Where alleys blind the light debar,
Or bid me fascinated lie
Beneath the creeping catchpole's eye;
Place me where spunging houses round
Attest that bail is never found;
Where poets starve who write for bread,
And writs are more than poems read;
Still will I quaff the Muse's spring,
In reason's spite a rhyming sinner,
I'll sometimes for a supper sing,
And sometimes whistle for a dinner.
