The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 106

Launched into life, extinct his early fire, He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire; Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir; Sends him to Harrow--for himself was there.

Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer, His son's so sharp--he'll see the dog a Peer! 250

Manhood declines--Age palsies every limb; He quits the scene--or else the scene quits him; Sc.r.a.pes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, [xli]

And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets, O'er h.o.a.rds diminished by young Hopeful's debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons--but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; 260 Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept--is buried--Let him rot!

But from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less. [xlii]

Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred, [xliii]

When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in History's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye, And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy, 270 True Briton all beside, I here am French-- Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench: The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show; We hate the carnage while we see the trick, And find small sympathy in being sick.

Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth Appals an audience with a Monarch's death; [xliv]

To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear Young Arthur's eyes, can _ours_ or _Nature_ bear? 280 A haltered heroine [21] Johnson sought to slay-- We saved Irene, but half d.a.m.ned the play, And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes; And Lewis' [22] self, with all his sprites, would quake To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake!

Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, We loathe the action which exceeds belief: And yet, G.o.d knows! what may not authors do, Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue"? [23] 290

Above all things, _Dan_ Poet, if you can, Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man, Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed sc.r.a.pe [xlv]

Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.

Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid, I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did; [24]

Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, Rage, love, and aught but moralise--in song.

Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends, [xlvi]

Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends! 300 Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay On wh.o.r.es--spies--singers--wisely s.h.i.+pped away.

Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread [xlvii]

Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread, In all iniquity is grown so nice, It scorns amus.e.m.e.nts which are not of price.

Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, [xlviii]

Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubling by his own "encore;" [xlix] 310 Squeezed in "Fop's Alley," [25] jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes; Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease, Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release: Why this, and more, he suffers--can ye guess?-- Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress! [26]

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools!

Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk, [l] [27]

(What harm, if David danced before the ark?) [li] 320 In Christmas revels, simple country folks Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry and coa.r.s.e jokes.

Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, [lii]

'Tis strange Benvolio [28] suffers such a show; Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, [liii]

Oaths, boxing, begging--all, save rout and race.

Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time: [29] 330 Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best, And turned some very serious things to jest.

Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the Gown--Priests--Lawyers--Volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute!

Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens, When "Crononhotonthologos must die," [30]

And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. 340

Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit, [liv]

And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, Friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la bagatelle!"

Which charmed our days in each aegean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.

Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy Life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last; But find in thine--like pagan Plato's bed, [lv] [31]

Some merry Ma.n.u.script of Mimes, when dead. 350

Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes, Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies; [32]

Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance; Decorum left her for an Opera dance!

Yet Chesterfield, [33] whose polished pen inveighs 'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays; Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains, And d.a.m.ning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains.

Repeal that act! again let Humour roam Wild o'er the stage--we've time for tears at home; 360 Let Archer [34] plant the horns on Sullen's brows, And Estifania gull her "Copper" [35] spouse; The moral's scant--but that may be excused, Men go not to be lectured, but amused.

He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill; [36]

Aye, but Macheath's example--psha!--no more!

It formed no thieves--the thief was formed before; [37]

And spite of puritans and Collier's curse, [lvi]

Plays make mankind no better, and no worse. [38] 370 Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men!

Nor burn d.a.m.ned Drury if it rise again. [39]

But why to brain-scorched bigots thus appeal?

Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly Zeal?

For times of fire and f.a.ggot let them hope!

Times dear alike to puritan or Pope.

As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, So would new sects on newer victims gaze.

E'en now the songs of Solyma begin; Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin! 380 While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves, And Simeon kicks, [40] where Baxter only "shoves."[41]

Whom Nature guides, so writes, that every dunce [lvii], Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once; But after inky thumbs and bitten nails [lviii], And twenty scattered quires, the c.o.xcomb fails.

Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope?

Yet his and Philips' [42] faults, of different kind, For Art too rude, for Nature too refined, [lix] 390 Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit 'Twixt too much polish and too coa.r.s.e a wit.

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced In this nice age, when all aspire to taste; The dirty language, and the noisome jest, Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest; Proscribed not only in the world polite [lx], But even too nasty for a City Knight!

Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them pa.s.s, Unmatched by all, save matchless Hudibras! 400 Whose author is perhaps the first we meet, Who from our couplet lopped two final feet; Nor less in merit than the longer line, This measure moves a favourite of the Nine.

Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain Formed, save in Ode, to bear a serious strain [lxi], Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late This measure shrinks not from a theme of weight, And, varied skilfully, surpa.s.ses far Heroic rhyme, but most in Love and War, 410 Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, Are curbed too much by long-recurring rhyme.

But many a skilful judge abhors to see, What few admire--irregularity.

This some vouchsafe to pardon; but 'tis hard When such a word contents a British Bard.

And must the Bard his glowing thoughts confine, [lxii]

Lest Censure hover o'er some faulty line?

Remove whate'er a critic may suspect, To gain the paltry suffrage of "Correct"? 420 Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, To fly from Error, not to merit Praise?

Ye, who seek finished models, never cease [lxiii], By day and night, to read the works of Greece.

But our good Fathers never bent their brains To heathen Greek, content with native strains.

The few who read a page, or used a pen, Were satisfied with Chaucer and old Ben; The jokes and numbers suited to their taste Were quaint and careless, anything but chaste; 430 Yet, whether right or wrong the ancient rules, It will not do to call our Fathers fools!

Though you and I, who eruditely know To separate the elegant and low, Can also, when a hobbling line appears, Detect with fingers--in default of ears.

In sooth I do not know, or greatly care To learn, who our first English strollers were; Or if, till roofs received the vagrant art, Our Muse, like that of Thespis, kept a cart; 440 But this is certain, since our Shakespeare's days, There's pomp enough--if little else--in plays; Nor will Melpomene ascend her Throne [lxiv]

Without high heels, white plume, and Bristol stone.

Old Comedies still meet with much applause, Though too licentious for dramatic laws; At least, we moderns, wisely, 'tis confest, Curtail, or silence, the lascivious jest [lxv].

Whate'er their follies, and their faults beside, Our enterprising Bards pa.s.s nought untried; 450 Nor do they merit slight applause who choose An English subject for an English Muse, And leave to minds which never dare invent French flippancy and German sentiment.

Where is that living language which could claim Poetic more, as philosophic, fame, If all our Bards, more patient of delay, Would stop, like Pope, to polish by the way? [43]

Lords of the quill, whose critical a.s.saults O'erthrow whole quartos with their quires of faults [lxvi], 460 Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail, And prove our marble with too nice a nail!

Democritus himself was not so bad; He only 'thought'--but 'you' would make us--mad!

But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard Against that ridicule they deem so hard; In person negligent, they wear, from sloth, Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth; Reside in garrets, fly from those they meet, And walk in alleys rather than the street. 470

With little rhyme, less reason, if you please, The name of Poet may be got with ease, So that not tuns of h.e.l.leboric juice [lxvii]

Shall ever turn your head to any use; Write but like Wordsworth--live beside a lake, And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake; [44]

Then print your book, once more return to town, And boys shall hunt your Bards.h.i.+p up and down. [45]

Am I not wise, if such some poets' plight, To purge in spring--like Bayes [46]--before I write? 480 If this precaution softened not my bile, I know no scribbler with a madder style; But since (perhaps my feelings are too nice) I cannot purchase Fame at such a price, I'll labour gratis as a grinders' wheel, [lxviii]