No More Learning

Who there his Muse, or self, or soul attends,
In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and friends?
My counsel sends to execute a deed;
A poet begs me I will hear him read;
'In Palace Yard at nine you'll find me there--'
'At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square--'
'Before the Lords at twelve my cause comes on--'
'There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one. --'
"Oh, but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets. "
Not quite so well, however, as one ought;
A hackney coach may chance to spoil a thought;
And then a nodding beam or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are,
Even to their own s-r-v-ance in a car?
Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd,
Sing thy sonorous verse--but not aloud.
Alas! to grottoes and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every Muse's son:
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,
Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's Court.
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?
How match the bards whom none e'er matched before?
The man, who, stretched in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives seven years complete,
See! strewed with learned dust, his night-cap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the sun!
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.