No More Learning

The boys flock round him, and the people stare: }
So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, }
Stepped from its pedestal to take the air! }
And here, while town, and court, and city roars,
With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors;
Shall I, in London, act this idle part?
Composing songs for fools to get by heart?
The Temple late two brother sergeants saw,
Who deemed each other oracles of law;
With equal talents these congenial souls,
One lulled th' Exchequer, and one stunned the Rolls;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at Murray as a wit.
"'Twas, sir, your law"--and "Sir, your eloquence--"
"Yours, Cowper's manner"--and "yours, Talbot's sense. "
Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit.
Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he'll swear the nine,
Dear Cibber! never matched one ode of thine.
Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see
No poets there, but Stephen, you, and me.
Walk with respect behind, while we at ease
Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please.
"My dear Tibullus! " if that will not do,
"Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you:
Or, I'm content, allow me Dryden's strains,
And you shall rise up Otway for your pains. "
Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace
This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;
And much must flatter, if the whim should bite
To court applause by printing what I write:
But let the fit pass o'er, I'm wise enough,
To stop my ears to their confounded stuff.
In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject,
They treat themselves with most profound respect;
'Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue:
Each praised within, is happy all day long;
But how severely with themselves proceed
The men, who write such verse as we can read?
Their own strict judges, not a word they spare
That wants, or force, or light, or weight, or care,
Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place,
Nay though at Court, perhaps, it may find grace:
Such they'll degrade; and sometimes, in its stead,
In downright charity revive the dead;
Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command old words that long have slept, to wake,
Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake;
Or bid the new be English, ages hence,
(For use will farther what's begot by sense)
Pour the full tide of eloquence along, }
Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, }
Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue; }
Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine,
But show no mercy to an empty line:
Then polish all, with so much life and ease,
You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please:
"But ease in writing flows from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learned to dance. "
If such the plague and pains to write by rule,
Better, say I, be pleased and play the fool;
Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,
It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
There lived in primo Georgii, they record,
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;
Who, though the House was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answered, as in full debate:
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.
Him, the damned doctors and his friends immured,
They bled, they cupped, they purged; in short, they cured.
Whereat the gentleman began to stare--
"My friends! " he cried, "plague take you for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguished note,
Have bled and purged me to a simple vote. "
Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:
Wisdom (curse on it) will come soon or late.
There is a time when poets will grow dull:
I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school:
To rules of poetry no more confined,
I learn to smooth and harmonise my mind,
Teach every thought within its bounds to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the soul.
Soon as I enter at my country door
My mind resumes the thread it dropt before;
Thoughts, which at Hyde Park Corner I forgot,
Meet and rejoin me, in the pensive grot.
There all alone, and compliments apart,
I ask these sober questions of my heart.
If, when the more you drink, the more you crave,
You tell the doctor; when the more you have,
The more you want; why not with equal ease
Confess as well your folly, as disease?
The heart resolves this matter in a thrice,
"Men only feel the smart but not the vice. "
When golden angels cease to cure the evil,
You give all royal witchcraft to the devil;
When servile chaplains cry, that birth and place
Endure a peer with honour, truth, and grace,
Look in that breast, most dirty D----! be fair,
Say, can you find out one such lodger there?