No More Learning

Or have _no_ movements followed traitorous soups?
Have Carbonaro[328] cooks not carbonadoed
Each course enough? or doctors dire dissuaded
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks 510
I read all France's treason in her cooks!
Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou say,
Desirable to be the "Desire? "
Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green abode,
Apician table, and Horatian ode,
To rule a people who will not be ruled,
And love much rather to be scourged than schooled?
Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste
For thrones; the table sees thee better placed:
A mild Epicurean, formed, at best, 520
To be a kind host and as good a guest,
To talk of Letters, and to know by heart
One _half_ the Poet's, _all_ the Gourmand's art;
A scholar always, now and then a wit,
And gentle when Digestion may permit;--
But not to govern lands enslaved or free;
The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.


XIII.

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase
From a bold Briton in her wonted praise?
"Arts--arms--and George--and glory--and the Isles, 530
And happy Britain, wealth, and Freedom's smiles,
White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof,
Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof,
Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curled,[eo]
That nose, the hook where he suspends the world! [329]
And Waterloo, and trade, and----(hush! not yet
A syllable of imposts or of debt)----
And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh,[330]
Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other day--[ep]
And, 'pilots who have weathered every storm'--[331] 540
(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name Reform).
"
These are the themes thus sung so oft before,
Methinks we need not sing them any more;
Found in so many volumes far and near,
There's no occasion you should find them here.
Yet something may remain perchance to chime
With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme. [eq]
Even this thy genius, Canning! [332] may permit,
Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a wit,
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame 550
To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame;
Our last, our best, our only orator,
Even I can praise thee--Tories do no more:
Nay, not so much;--they hate thee, man, because
Thy Spirit less upholds them than it awes.
The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo,
And where he leads the duteous pack will follow;
But not for love mistake their yelling cry;
Their yelp for game is not an eulogy;
Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, 560
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.
Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure;
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last
To stumble, kick--and now and then stick fast
With his great Self and Rider in the mud;
But what of that? the animal shows blood.


XIV.

Alas, the Country! how shall tongue or pen
Bewail her now _un_country gentlemen?
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, 570
The first to make a malady of peace.
For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt--and vote--and raise the price of corn?
But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,
Kings--Conquerors--and markets most of all.
And must ye fall with every ear of grain?
Why would you trouble Buonaparte's reign?