Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series
Page 47
Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at once a slipper and a song;
So shall the fair your handywork peruse,
Your sonnets sure shall please — perhaps your shoes.
May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors’ lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems — when they pay for coats.
To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,
Neglected Genius! let me turn to you. 800
Come forth, oh CAMPBELL! give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious ROGERS! rise at last,
Recall the pleasing memory of the past;
Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed lyre;
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country’s honour and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious COWPER sleep? 810
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, BURNS!
No! though contempt hath marked the spurious brood,
The race who rhyme from folly, or for food,
Yet still some genuine sons ‘tis hers to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most:
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel —
Bear witness GIFFORD, SOTHEBY, MACNEIL.
”Why slumbers GIFFORD?” once was asked in vain;
Why slumbers GIFFORD? let us ask again. 820
Are there no follies for his pen to purge?
Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge?
Are there no sins for Satire’s Bard to greet?
Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street?
Shall Peers or Princes tread pollution’s path,
And ‘scape alike the Laws and Muse’s wrath?
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,
Eternal beacons of consummate crime?
Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claimed,
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 830
Unhappy WHITE! while life was in its spring,
And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing,
The Spoiler swept that soaring Lyre away,
Which else had sounded an immortal lay.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science’ self destroyed her favourite son!
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sowed the seeds, but Death has reaped the fruit.
’Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow,
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low: 840
So the struck Eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart;
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel;
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.
There be who say, in these enlightened days,
That splendid lies are all the poet’s praise; 850
That strained Invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern Bard to sing:
Tis true, that all who rhyme — nay, all who write,
Shrink from that fatal word to Genius — Trite;
Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in Virtue’s name let CRABBE attest;
Though Nature’s sternest Painter, yet the best.
And here let SHEE and Genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace; 860
To guide whose hand the sister Arts combine,
And trace the Poet’s or the Painter’s line;
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme’s harmonious flow;
While honours, doubly merited, attend
The Poet’s rival, but the Painter’s friend.
Blest is the man who dares approach the bower
Where dwelt the Muses at their natal hour;
Whose steps have pressed, whose eye has marked afar,
The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, 870
The scenes which Glory still must hover o’er,
Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore.
But doubly blest is he whose heart expands
With hallowed feelings for those classic lands;
Who rends the veil of ages long gone by,
And views their remnants with a poet’s eye!
WRIGHT! ‘twas thy happy lot at once to view
Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;
And sure no common Muse inspired thy pen
To hail the land of Gods and Godlike men. 880
And you, associate Bards! who snatched to light
Those gems too long withheld from modern sight;
Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath
While Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe,
And all their renovated fragrance flung,
To grace the beauties of your native tongue;
Now let those minds, that nobly could transfuse
The glorious Spirit of the Grecian Muse,
Though soft the echo, scorn a borrowed tone:
Resign Achaia’s lyre, and strike your own. 890
Let these, or such as these, with just applause,
Restore the Muse’s violated laws;
But not in flimsy DARWIN’S pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme,
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorned than clear,
The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear,
In show the simple lyre could once surpass,
But now, worn down, appear in native brass;
While all his train of hovering sylphs around
Evaporate in similes and sound: 900
Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die:
False glare attracts, but more offends the eye.
Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH stoop,
The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void,
Seems blessed harmony to LAMB and LLOYD:
Let them — but hold, my Muse, nor dare to teach
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach:
The native genius with their being given
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven. 910
And thou, too, SCOTT! resign to minstrels rude
The wilder Slogan of a Border feud:
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire;
Enough for Genius, if itself inspire!
Let SOUTHEY sing, altho’ his teeming muse,
Prolific every spring, be too profuse;
Let simple WORDSWORTH chime his childish verse,
And brother COLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse
Let Spectre-mongering LEWIS aim, at most,
To rouse the Galleries, or to raise a ghost; 920
Let MOORE still sigh; let STRANGFORD steal from MOORE,
And swear that CAMOËNS sang such notes of yore;
Let HAYLEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave,
And godly GRAHAME chant a stupid stave;
Let sonneteering BOWLES his strains refine,
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line;
Let STOTT, CARLISLE, MATILDA, and the rest
Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place the best,
Scrawl on, ‘till death release us from the strain,
Or Common Sense assert her rights again; 930
But Thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise,
Should’st leave to humbler Bards ignoble lays:
Thy country’s voice, the voice of all the Nine,
Demand a hallowed harp — that harp is thine.
Say! will not Caledonia’s annals yield
The glorious record of some nobler field,
Than the vile foray of a plundering clan,
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?
Or Marmion’s acts of darkness, fitter food
For SHERWOOD’S outlaw tales of ROBIN HOOD? 940
Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Bard,
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more,
And tell the tale of what she was before;
To future times her faded fame recall,
And save her glory, though his country fall.
Yet what avails the sanguine Poet’s hope,
To conquer ages, and with time to cope? 950
New eras spread their wings, new nations rise,
And other Victors fill th’ applauding skies;
A few brief generations fleet along,
Whose sons forget the Poet and his song:
E’en now, what once-loved Minstrels scarce may claim
The transient mention of a dubious name!
When Fame’s loud trump hath blown its noblest blast,
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last;
And glory, like the Phoenix midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. 960
Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons,
Expert in science, more expert at puns?
Shall these approach the Muse? ah, no! she flies,
Even from the tempting ore of Seaton’s prize;
Though Printers condescend the press to soil
With rhyme by HOARE, and epic blank by HOYLE:
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.
Ye! who in Granta’s honours would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass; 970
A foal well worthy of her ancient Dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.
There CLARKE, still striving piteously “to please,”
Forgetting doggerel leads not to degrees,
A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon,
Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind;
Himself a living libel on mankind. 980
Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race!
At once the boast of learning, and disgrace!
So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson’s verse
Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson’s worse.
But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial Muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath she wove,
To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove;
Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet’s fires,
And modern Britons glory in their Sires. 990
For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell
My country, what her sons should know too well,
Zeal for her honour bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age;
No just applause her honoured name shall lose,
As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse.
Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name!
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour, 1000
’Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been —
Earth’s chief Dictatress, Ocean’s lovely Queen:
But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain,
And Tyre’s proud piers lie shattered in the main;
Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurled,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra’s fate,
With warning ever scoffed at, till too late;
To themes less lofty still my lay confine,
And urge thy Bards to gain a name like thine. 1010
Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest,
The senate’s oracles, the people’s jest!
Still hear thy motley orators dispense
The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense,
While CANNING’S colleagues hate him for his wit,
And old dame PORTLAND fills the place of PITT.
Yet once again, adieu! ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale;
And Afric’s coast and Calpe’s adverse height,
And Stamboul’s minarets must greet my sight: 1020
Thence shall I stray through Beauty’s native clime,
Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crowned with snows sublime.
But should I back return, no tempting press
Shall drag my Journal from the desk’s recess;
Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far,
Snatch his own wreath of Ridicule from Carr;
Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of Virtù;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Misshapen monuments and maimed antiques; 1030
And make their grand saloons a general mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art:
Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell,
I leave topography to rapid GELL;
And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun the public ear — at least with Prose.
Thus far I’ve held my undisturbed career,
Prepared for rancour, steeled ‘gainst selfish fear;
This thing of rhyme I ne’er disdained to own —
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown: 1040
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavowed;
And now at once I tear the veil away: —
Cheer on the pack! the Quarry stands at bay,
Unscared by all the din of MELBOURNE house,
By LAMB’S resentment, or by HOLLAND’S spouse,
By JEFFREY’S harmless pistol, HALLAM’S rage,
Edina’s brawny sons and brimstone page.
Our men in buckram shall have blows enough,
And feel they too are “penetrable stuff:” 1050
And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,
Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe.
The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall;
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise
The meanest thing that crawled beneath my eyes:
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I’ve learned to think, and sternly speak the truth;
Learned to deride the critic’s starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me; 1060
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss:
Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown,
I too can hunt a Poetaster down;
And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marau
der, and to Southern dunce.
Thus much I’ve dared; if my incondite lay
Hath wronged these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. 1070
HINTS FROM HORACE
BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE “AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETIC,” AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO “ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.”
— — ”Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi.”
HOR. ‘De Arte Poet’., II. 304 and 305.
“Rhymes are difficult things — they are stubborn things, Sir.”
FIELDING’S ‘Amelia’, Vol. iii. Book; and Chap. v.
[Footnote i:
Hints from Horace (Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1811); being an
Imitation in English Verse from the Epistle, etc.
[MS, M.]
Hints from Horace: being a Partial Imitation, in English Verse, of the
Epistle ‘Ad Pisones, De Arte Poeticâ’; and intended as a sequel to
’English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers’.
Athens, Franciscan Convent, March 12, 1811.
[‘Proof b’.]]
INTRODUCTION
Three MSS. of ‘Hints from Horace’ are extant, two in the possession of
Lord Lovelace (MSS. L. a and b), and a third in the possession of Mr.
Murray (‘MS. M’.).
Proofs of lines 173-272 and 1-272 (‘Proofs a, b’), are among the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum. They were purchased from the Rev. Alexander Dallas, January 12, 1867, and are, doubtless, fragments of the proofs set up in type for Cawthorn in 1811. They are in “book-form,” and show that the volume was intended to be uniform with the Fifth Edition of ‘English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers’, of 1811. The text corresponds closely but not exactly with that adopted by Murray in 1831, and does not embody the variants of the several MSS. It is probable that complete proofs were in Moore’s possession at the time when he included the selections from the ‘Hints’ in his ‘Letters and Journals’, pp. 263-269, and that the text of the entire poem as published in 1831 was derived from this source. Selections, numbering in all 156 lines, had already appeared in ‘Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron’, by R. C. Dallas, 1824, pp. 104-113. Byron, estimating the merit by the difficulty of the performance, rated the ‘Hints from Horace’ extravagantly high. He only forbore to publish them after the success of ‘Childe Harold’, because he felt, as he states, that he should be “heaping coals of fire upon his head” if he were in his hour of triumph to put forth a sequel to a lampoon provoked by failure. Nine years afterwards, when he resolved to print the work with some omissions, he gravely maintained that it excelled the productions of his mature genius. “As far,” he said, “as versification goes, it is good; and on looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times” [September 23, 1820]. The opinion of J. C. Hobhouse that the ‘Hints’ would require “a good deal of slashing” to adapt them to the passing hour, and other considerations, again led Byron to suspend the publication. Authors are frequently bad judges of their own works, but of all the literary hallucinations upon record there are none which exceed the mistaken preferences of Lord Byron. Shortly after the appearance of ‘The Corsair’ he fancied that ‘English Bards’ was still his masterpiece; when all his greatest works had been produced, he contended that his translation from Pulci was his “grand performance, — the best thing he ever did in his life;” and throughout the whole of his literary career he regarded these ‘Hints from Horace’ with a special and unchanging fondness.