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| O WORLD, what have your poets while they live | |
| But sorrow and the finger of the scorner? | |
| And, dead, the highest honor you can give | |
| Is burial in a corner. | |
| |
| Not so, my poets of the popular school | 5 |
| Disprove that mean, yet prevalent conception. | |
| Once in an age that may be; but the rule | |
| Is proved by the exception. | |
| |
| And so, good World, the poet still remains | |
| To all your benefices a poor foreigner; | 10 |
| Considered well rewarded if he gains | |
| At last rest in a corner. | |
| |
| Here in Westminster’s sanctuary, where | |
| Some two-three kings usurp one half the Abbey, | |
| Whole generations of the poets share | 15 |
| This nook so dim and shabby. | |
| |
| So when we come to see Westminster’s lions, | |
| The needy vergers of the Abbey wait us; | |
| And while we pay to see the royal scions, | |
| We see the poets gratis. | 20 |
| |
| Some in corporeal presence crowd the nook, | |
| While others, who in body are not near it, | |
| Are here as in the pages of a book,— | |
| Present only in spirit. | |
| |
| White-bearded Chaucer’s here, an honored guest, | 25 |
| His sword of cutting humor in its scabbard; | |
| And, sooth, he did not find such quiet rest | |
| In Southwark at the Tabard! | |
| |
| Here ’s Michael Drayton in his laurelled tomb, | |
| And Shakespeare over all the host commanding; | 30 |
| And rare Ben Jonson, who got scanty room, | |
| And so was buried standing. | |
| |
| Spenser is here from faerie land, his eyne | |
| Filled with the glamour of some dreamy notion, | |
| Admired the more that half his “Faerie Queen” | 35 |
| Was lost in middle ocean. | |
| |
| Here ’s Prior, who was popular no doubt; | |
| And Guy, with face and cowl round as a saucer; | |
| And Dryden, who, some think, should be put out | |
| Because he murdered Chaucer. | 40 |
| |
| And Milton, after all his civil shocks, | |
| Is here with look of sweet, yet strong decision,— | |
| John Milton, with the soft poetic locks | |
| And supernatural vision. | |
| |
| Beaumont of the firm of B. and F. is here; | 45 |
| And Cowley, metaphysical and lyric; | |
| And Addison, the elegant and clear; | |
| And Butler, all satiric. | |
| |
| Gray, of the famous Elegy, who found | |
| His churchyard in the country rather lonely, | 50 |
| Lies with the rest in this more classic ground, | |
| Although in spirit only. | |
| |
| And Goldsmith at the Temple leaves his bones, | |
| Comes here with tender heart and rugged feature, | |
| And mingles through this wilderness of stones | 55 |
| His milky human nature. | |
| |
| And here is he that wrote the Seasons four; | |
| And so is Johnson, who discovered “Winter,” | |
| And Garrick, too, who had poetic lore | |
| Enough to bid him enter. | 60 |
| |
| And Southey, who for bread wrote many a tome,— | |
| Of prose and verse a progeny plethoric,— | |
| And he that sung the lays of ancient Rome,— | |
| Macaulay, the historic. | |
| |
| Campbell is here in body as in soul,— | 65 |
| He for a national song eclipsed by no land; | |
| And in whose grave the patriotic Pole | |
| Sprinkled the earth of Poland. | |
| |
| Of other famous names we find the trace, | |
| And think of many from their non-appearance; | 70 |
| Byron, for one, who was denied a place | |
| Through priestly interference. | |
| |
| Now most upon their own true genius stand; | |
| A few, perhaps, on little else than quackery; | |
| But all in all, they are a glorious band, | 75 |
| From Chaucer down to Thackeray. | |
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