Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

SATAN CLAIMS, AT HEAVEN'S GATE, GEORGE THE THIRD.

(VISION OF JUDGMENT, Stanzas 42-49.)

"Look to the earth, I said, and say again:

When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm
Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign,
The world and he both wore a different form,
And much of earth and all the watery plain

Of ocean call'd him king: through many a storm
His isles had floated on the abyss of time;
For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.

"He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old:
Look to the state in which he found his realm,
And left it; and his annals too behold,

How to a minion first he gave the helm; How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold,

The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm
The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance
Thine eye along America and France.

"'T is true, he was a tool from first to last
(I have the workmen safe); but as a tool
So let him be consumed. From out the past
Of ages, since mankind have known the rule
Of monarchs from the bloody rolls amass'd

Of sin and slaughter - from the Cæsar's school,
Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign

More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the slain.

"He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they utter'd the word 'Liberty ! '

Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose History was ever stain'd as his will be

With national and individual woes?

I grant his household abstinence; I grant
His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want;

"I know he was a constant consort; own
He was a decent sire, and middling lord.
All this is much, and most upon a throne;
As temperance, if at Apicius' board,
Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.
I grant him all the kindest can accord;
And this was well for him, but not for those
Millions who found him what oppression chose.

"The New World shook him off: the Old yet groans
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not
Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones
To all his vices, without what begot

Compassion for him — his tame virtues; drones

[ocr errors]

Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake!

"Five millions of the primitive, who hold

The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored

A part of that vast all they held of old,

[ocr errors]

Freedom to worship—not alone your Lord,

Or if too classic for his vulgar brain,

He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,

Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

[ocr errors]

'Pedlars," ," and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?
That trash of such sort not alone evades

Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss
Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades
Of sense and song above your graves may hiss!
The "little boatman," and his "Peter Bell,"
Can sneer at him who drew "Achitophel!"

POETICAL COMMANDMENTS.

(DON JUAN, Canto i. Stanzas 204-206.)

If ever I should condescend to prose,
I'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those

That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I'll call the work " Longinus o'er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle."

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,

The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy:

With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,

And Campbell's Hipprocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit flirtation with the muse of Moore.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,

His Pegasus, nor any thing that 's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"

(There's one, at least, is very fond of this);
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
This is true criticism, and you may kiss
Exactly as you please, or not -the rod;
But if you don't I'll lay it on, by G―d!

BYRON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

(DON JUAN, Canto xi. Stanzas 53-60.)

JUAN knew several languages

as well

He might and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle,

Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell

His qualities (with them) into sublime:
Lady Fitz-Frisky and Miss Mævia Mannish,
Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all

The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,
At great assemblies or in parties small,

Michael! but you; and you, Saint Peter! Cold
Must be your souls, if you have not abhorr'd
The foe to Catholic participation

In all the license of a Christian nation.

"True! he allow'd them to pray God; but as
A consequence of prayer, refused the law
Which would have placed them upon the same base
With those who did not hold the saints in awe.'
But here Saint Peter started from his place,

And cried, You may the prisoner withdraw:
Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph,
While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself!"

[ocr errors]

THE SEX.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanza 34.)

NOT much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast,
Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs;,
What careth she for hearts when once possess'd?
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes,
But not too humbly, or she will despise
Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes:
Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise;
Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes;

Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes.

« AnteriorContinuar »