The self-same irony was fram'd to suit
The fawning biped, and the fawning brute.
While Pompey snores upon my lady's lap,
The infant lordling feeds or starves on pap.
Puppies well bred are Cæsar'd into fame,
And T****
takes great *
Still as the name grows soil'd and gathers dirt
They shift their title, as they change their shirt:
Some newer honour makes them white and fair;
***** y soaps Tom, and Jack is cleans'd by * *
But how can wash of Heraldry efface
The name of *****, and dignify disgrace?
Can peerage blazon o'er the pension'd page,
Or give a gloss to ignominious age?
Himself the prime corruptor of his laws,
Himself the grievance that incens'd' he draws;
Not to be blam'd, but in a tender tone,
Not to be prais'd but with a heart-felt groan;
He lives a lesson for all future time,
Pathetically great, and painfully sublime.
O why is genius curs'd with length of days!
The head still flourishing, the heart decays;
Protracted life makes virtue less secure,
The death of wits is seldom premature.
Quench'd too by years gigantic J* *•*** 's zeal,
Th' unwieldy Elephant was taught to kneel;
Bore his strong tow'r to please a servile court,
And wreath'd his lithe proboscis for their sport.
Of** * and
And if you seek the glory, dread the shame.
The much-prais'd press has made abortive men,
The hand herculean lifts the puny pen;
For clang of armour and for deeds sublime
Much pointed period, much syllabic chime.
Return to him from whom our satire springs,
Rich in the blood of concubines and kings:
With greatness rising from a grandsire's bone,
And bastard honour from a bastard throne.
Each turgid vein the true succession shows,
Th' imperial purple flames upon his nose.
"Avaunt," he cries, "ye vulgar, and ye base,
Learn the prerogatives of royal race;
From York and Lancaster conjoin'd I come,
Sink down, ye dregs! I float at top-the scum."
Live long, great Bye-blow of the royal line,
Long as the coals are tax'd, which make
Yet grant, that some, the lowest of the throng,
Have known the right, as well as felt the wrong;
That he who rul'd with iron rod the skies,
And at whose feet the broken sceptre lies;
He, too, whose daring democratic pen,
Gives common sense once more to common men,
Who smiles at genius in confusion hurl'd,
And with light lever elevates the world;
Grant, that such men, the Adams of their line,
Spring from the earth, but own a sire divine,
While you, with ancestry around you plac'd
In bronze, or marble, porcelain or paste,
May rise, at death, to alabaster fame,
And gain the smoke of Honor, not the flame,
Thus far for him the proud inflated lord,
With father concubin'd, and mother whor'd!
In all so high in rank, or man, or woman,
No sense so rare as what we call the common.
Scorning that level, they ascend the skies,
Like the puft bag whose lightness makes it rise.
Titles and arms the varnished silk may bear,
Within 'tis nought but pestilential air.
What's honor? virtue to its height refin'd,
The felt aroma of the unseen mind,
That chears the senses, tho' it cheats the sight,
And spreads abroad its elegant delight.
Turn from the past and bring thy honors home
Thyself the ancestor for times to come.
Not the low parasite, who prowls for bread,
So mean as he who lives upon the dead;
From some dry'd mummy draws his noble claim,
Snuffs up the fœtor and believes it fame.
Be just, be generous, self-dependant, brave;
Think nothing meaner than a titled slave;
Coolly resolve to act the patriot part,
Join Sidney's pulse, to Russel's zealous heart:
With proud complacence stand, like Palmer pure,
Or with mild dignity of honest Muir,
Before the brazen bulls of law, and hear
The savage sentence with a smile severe;
A smile that deems it mercy to be hurl'd
Where one may tread against the present world.
What is life here? its zest and spirit gone,
The flower faded and the essence flown!
What precious balm, what aromatic art,
Can cleanse pollution from the public heart?
Better to make the farthest earth our home,
With nature's commoners, at large to roam;
Than join this social war of clan to clan,
Where civil life has barbariz'd the man.
Behold yon isle, the glory of the West,
By nature's hand in lively verdure drest,
How to the world it spreads its harbour'd side,
And proudly swells above th' Atlantic tide,
Where to the Ocean Shannon yields his store
And scorns the channel of a subject shore;
Green meadows spread-resplendent rivers run-
A healthy climate and a temp'rate sun.
There Misery sits and eats her lazy root,
There, man is proud to dog his brother brute:
In sloth the Genius of the isle decays,
Lost in his own, reverts to former days;
Yet still, like Lear, would in his hovel rule,
Mock'd by the madman, jested by the fool-.
There, meet th' extremes of rank-there social art
Has levell❜d mankind by their selfish heart.
There, no contented middle rank we trace,
The sole ambition to be rich and base.
Some, o'er their native element elate
Like ice-form'd islands tower in frozen state;
Repel all nature with their gelid breath,
And what seems harbour is the jaw of death.
The wretched mass beat down the struggling mind,
Nor see, nor feel their country, or their kind,
But bow the back and bend the eye to earth,
And strangle feeling in its infant birth,
Through all, extends one sterile swamp of soul,
And fogs of apathy invest the whole.
Thrice blest in fate, had Strongbow never bore
His band of robbers to green Erin's shore!
In savage times the seat of learning known,
In times refin'd, itself the savage grown.
Left to herself, she of herself had join'd
Surrounding nations in the race of mind;
With them, work'd off the rough barbarian soul,
With them, progressive to a common goal.
Her petty chieftains conquer'd by the throne,
For common interest, while it meant its own;
By law, at length, the King to People chain'd,
His duties modell'd and their rights maintain'd;
From strong collision of internal strife
Had sprung an energy of public life;
(For pain and travail that precede the birth
Endear sweet Freedom to the mother earth)
Then man had rais'd his spacious forehead high,
Lord of himself, the sea, the soil, the sky,
Twin'd round his sword the wreath of civic art,
And prov'd the wisdom of a fearless heart;
No penal code had then impal'd the land;
No stranger Court-no King at second-hand.
TO MISS E. M. WITH SOME GUITAR MUSIC,
NoT in the trifling tinkling lyre
Is Music sought or found:
The voice must with the note conspire,
And mingle sense with sound.
Far, far beyond the finger's art
One thrilling weeping tone,
That makes the strings of ev'ry heart
Responsive to thy own.
Yet vain the voice and tinkling strings,
With all their arts combin'd,
But to their aid Eliza brings,
The music of the mind.
Still may that living lyre impart,
More bliss than meets the ear,
And gladden still a mother's heart,
And be to one-more dear.
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