No More Learning

And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land
Of _ne plus ultra_ ultras and their band
Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers
And tribune, which each orator first clambers
Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found,
Hears "the lie" echo for his answer round?
Our British Commons sometimes deign to "hear! " 490
A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear;
Even Constant,[326] their sole master of debate,
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate.
But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather
Combat than listen, were it to their father.
What is the simple standing of a shot,
To listening long, and interrupting not?
Though this was not the method of old Rome,
When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome,
Demosthenes has sanctioned the transaction, 500
In saying eloquence meant "Action, action! "


XII.

But where's the monarch? [327] hath he dined? or yet
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt?
Have revolutionary pates risen,
And turned the royal entrails to a prison?
Have discontented movements stirred the troops?
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!