| |
| LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg, | |
| About to beg a pass for leave to beg; | |
| Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest | |
| (Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest); | |
| Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail? | 5 |
| (It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale) | |
| And hear him curse the light he first survey’d, | |
| And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade? | |
| |
| Thou, Nature! partial Nature, I arraign; | |
| Of thy caprice maternal I complain; | 10 |
| The lion and the bull thy care have found, | |
| One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground; | |
| Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell; | |
| Th’ envenom’d wasp, victorious, guards his cell; | |
| Thy minions kings defend, control, devour, | 15 |
| In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power; | |
| Foxes and statesmen subtile wiles ensure; | |
| The cit and polecat stink, and are secure; | |
| Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, | |
| The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug; | 20 |
| Ev’n silly woman has her warlike arts, | |
| Her tongue and eyes—her dreaded spear and darts. | |
| |
| But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard, | |
| To thy poor, fenceless, naked child—the Bard! | |
| A thing unteachable in world’s skill, | 25 |
| And half an idiot too, more helpless still: | |
| No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun; | |
| No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun; | |
| No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, | |
| And those, alas! not, Amalthea’s horn: | 30 |
| No nerves olfact’ry, Mammon’s trusty cur, | |
| Clad in rich Dulness’ comfortable fur; | |
| In naked feeling, and in aching pride, | |
| He bears th’ unbroken blast from ev’ry side: | |
| Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, | 35 |
| And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. | |
| |
| Critics—appall’d, I venture on the name; | |
| Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame: | |
| Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes; | |
| He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose: | 40 |
| |
| His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung, | |
| By blockheads’ daring into madness stung; | |
| His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, | |
| By miscreants torn, who ne’er one sprig must wear; | |
| Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife, | 45 |
| The hapless Poet flounders on thro’ life: | |
| Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir’d, | |
| And fled each muse that glorious once inspir’d, | |
| Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, | |
| Dead even resentment for his injur’d page, | 50 |
| He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic’s rage! | |
| So, by some hedge, the gen’rous steed deceas’d, | |
| For half-starv’d snarling curs a dainty feast; | |
| By toil and famine wore to skin and bone, | |
| Lies, senseless of each tugging bitch’s son. | 55 |
| |
| O Dulness! portion of the truly blest! | |
| Calm shelter’d haven of eternal rest! | |
| Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes | |
| Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams. | |
| If mantling high she fills the golden cup, | 60 |
| With sober selfish ease they sip it up; | |
| Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve, | |
| They only wonder “some folks” do not starve. | |
| The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog, | |
| And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. | 65 |
| When disappointments snaps the clue of hope, | |
| And thro’ disastrous night they darkling grope, | |
| With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, | |
| And just conclude that “fools are fortune’s care.” | |
| So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks, | 70 |
| Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. | |
| |
| Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train, | |
| Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain; | |
| In equanimity they never dwell, | |
| By turns in soaring heav’n, or vaulted hell. | 75 |
| |
| I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe, | |
| With all a poet’s, husband’s, father’s fear! | |
| Already one strong hold of hope is lost— | |
| Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust | |
| (Fled, like the sun eclips’d as noon appears, | 80 |
| And left us darkling in a world of tears); | |
| O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray’r! | |
| Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare! | |
| Thro’ a long life his hopes and wishes crown, | |
| And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down! | 85 |
| May bliss domestic smooth his private path; | |
| Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath, | |
| With many a filial tear circling the bed of death! | |
| |
