Satire I (Gifford)

Alas, for man! how vain are all his cares!
And oh! what bubbles, his most grave affairs!
Tush! who will read such trite--Heavens! this to me?
Not one, by Jove. Not one? Well, two, or three;
Or rather--none: a piteous case, in truth!
Why piteous? lest Polydamas, forsooth,
And Troy's proud dames, pronounce my merits fall
Beneath their Labeo's! I can bear it all.
Nor should my friend, though still, as fashion sways,
The purblind town conspire to sink or raise,
Determine, as her wavering beam prevails,
And trust his judgment to her coarser scales.
O not abroad for vague opinion roam;
The wise man's bosom is his proper home:
And Rome is--What? Ah, might the truth be told!--
And, sure it may, it must.--When I behold
What fond pursuits have formed our prime employ,
Since first we dropped the playthings of the boy,
To gray maturity, to this late hour,
When every brow frowns with censorial power,
Then, then--O yet suppress this carping mood.
Impossible! I could not if I would;
For nature framed me of satiric mould,
And spleen, too petulant to be controlled.
Immured within our studies, we compose;
Some, shackled metre; some, free-footed prose;
But all, bombast; stuff, which the breast may strain,
And the huge lungs puff forth with awkward pain.
'Tis done! and now the bard, elate and proud,
Prepares a grand rehearsal for the crowd.
Lo! he steps forth in birthday splendor bright,
Combed and perfumed, and robed in dazzling white;
And mounts the desk; his pliant throat he clears,
And deals, insidious, round his wanton leers;
While Rome's first nobles, by the prelude wrought,
Watch, with indecent glee, each prurient thought,
And squeal with rapture, as the luscious line
Thrills through the marrow, and inflames the chine.
Vile dotard! Canst thou thus consent to please!
To pander for such itching fools as these!
Fools--whose applause must shoot beyond thy aim,
And tinge thy cheek, bronzed as it is, with shame!
But wherefore have I learned, if, thus represt,
The leaven still must swell within my breast?
If the wild fig-tree, deeply rooted there,
Must never burst its bounds, and shoot in air?
Are these the fruits of study! these of age!
O times, O manners--Thou misjudging sage,
Is science only useful as 'tis shown,
And is thy knowledge nothing, if not known?
"But, sure, 'tis pleasant, as we walk, to see
The pointed finger, hear the loud That's he,
On every side:--and seems it, in your sight,
So poor a trifle, that whate'er we write
Is introduced to every school of note,
And taught the youth of quality by rote?
--Nay, more! Our nobles, gorged, and swilled with wine,
Call, o'er the banquet, for a lay divine.
Here one, on whom the princely purple glows,
Snuffles some musty legend through his nose;
Slowly distills Hypsipyle's sad fate,
And love-lorn Phillis, dying for her mate,
With what of woeful else is said or sung;
And trips up every word, with lisping tongue.
The maudlin audience, from the couches round,
Hum their assent, responsive to the sound.--
And are not now the poet's ashes blest!
Now lies the turf not lightly on his breast!
They pause a moment--and again, the room
Rings with his praise: now will not roses bloom,
Now, from his relics, will not violets spring,
And o'er his hallowed urn their fragrance fling!
"You laugh ('tis answered), and too freely here
Indulge that vile propensity to sneer.
Lives there, who would not at applause rejoice,
And merit, if he could, the public voice?
Who would not leave posterity such rhymes,
As cedar oil might keep to latest times;
Rhymes, which should fear no desperate grocer's hand,
Nor fly with fish and spices through the land!
Thou, my kind monitor, whoe'er thou art,
Whom I suppose to play the opponent's part,
Know--when I write, if chance some happier strain
(And chance it needs must be) rewards my pain,
Know, I can relish praise with genuine zest;
Not mine the torpid, mine the unfeeling breast:
But that I merely toil for this acclaim,
And make these eulogies my end and aim,
I must not, can not grant: for--sift them all,
Mark well their value, and on what they fall:
Are they not showered (to pass these trifles o'er)
On Labeo's Iliad, drunk with hellebore?
On princely love-lays driveled without thought,
And the crude trash on citron couches wrought?
You spread the table--'tis a master-stroke,
And give the shivering guest a threadbare cloak,
Then, while his heart with gratitude dilates
At the glad vest and the delicious cates,
Tell me, you cry--for truth is my delight,
What says the Town of me, and what I write?
He can not:--he has neither ears nor eyes.
But shall I tell you, who your bribes despise?
--Bald trifler! cease at once your thriftless trade;
That mountain paunch for verse was never made.
O Janus, happiest of thy happy kind!--
No waggish stork can peck at thee behind:
No tongue thrust forth, expose to passing jeers;
No twinkling fingers, perked like ass's ears,
Point to the vulgar mirth:--but you, ye Great,
To a blind occiput condemned by fate,
Prevent, while yet you may, the rabble's glee,
And tremble at the scoff you can not see!--
"What says the Town"--precisely what it ought:
All you produce, sir, with such skill is wrought,
That o'er the polished surface, far and wide,
The critic nail without a jar must glide;
Since every verse is drawn as straight and fine
As if one eye had fixed the ruddled line.
--Whate'er the subject of his varied rhymes,
The humors, passions, vices of the times;
The pomp of nobles, barbarous pride of kings,
All, all is great, and all inspired he sings!
Lo! striplings, scarcely from the ferule freed,
And smarting yet from Greek, with headlong speed
Rush on heroics; though devoid of skill
To paint the rustling grove, or purling rill;
Or praise the country, robed in cheerful green,
Where hogs, and hearths, and osier frails are seen,
And happy hinds, who leap o'er smouldering hay,
In honor, Pales, of thy sacred day.
--Scenes of delight!--there Remus lived, and there,
In grassy furrows Quinctius tired his share;
Quinctius, on whom his wife, with trembling haste,
The dictatorial robes, exulting, placed,
Before his team; while homeward, with his plow,
The lictors hurried--Good! a Homer, thou!
There are, who hunt out antiquated lore;
And never, but on musty authors, pore;
These, Accius' jagged and knotty lines engage,
And those, Pacuvius' hard and horny page;
Where, in quaint tropes, Antiopa is seen
To--prop her dolorific heart with teen!
O, when you mark the sire, to judgment blind,
Commend such models to the infant mind,
Forbear to wonder whence this olio sprung,
This sputtering jargon which infests our tongue;
This scandal of the times, which shocks my ear,
And which our knights bound from their seats to hear!
How monstrous seems it, that we can not plead,
When called to answer for some felon deed,
Nor danger from the trembling head repel,
Without a wish for--Bravo! Vastly well!
This Pedius is a thief, the accusers cry.
You hear them, Pedius; now, for your reply?
In terse antitheses he weighs the crime,
Equals the pause, and balances the chime;
And with such skill his flowery tropes employs,
That the rapt audience scarce contain their joys.
O charming! charming! he must sure prevail.
THIS, charming! Can a Roman wag the tail?
Were the wrecked mariner to chant his woe,
Should I or sympathy or alms bestow?
Sing you, when, in that tablet on your breast,
I see your story to the life exprest;
A shattered bark, dashed madly on the shore,
And you, scarce floating, on a broken oar!--
No, he must feel that would my pity share,
And drop a natural, not a studied tear.
But yet our numbers boast a grace unknown
To our rough sires, a smoothness all our own.
True: the spruce metre in sweet cadence flows,
And answering sounds a tuneful chime compose:
Blue Nereus here, the Dolphin swift divides;
And Idè there, sees Attin climb her sides:
Nor this alone--for, in some happier line,
We win the chine of the long Apennine!
Arms and the man--Here, too, perhaps, you find
A pithless branch beneath a fungous rind?
Not so;--a seasoned trunk of many a day,
Whose gross and watery parts are drawn away.
But what, in fine (for still you jeer me), call
For the moist eye, bowed head, and lengthened drawl,
What strains of genuine pathos?--O'er the hill
The dismal slug-horn sounded, loud and shrill,
A Mimallonian blast: fired at the sound,
In maddening groups the Bacchants pour around,
Mangle the haughty calf with gory hands,
And scourge the indocile lynx with ivy wands;
While Echo lengthens out the barbarous yell,
And propagates the din from cell to cell!
O were not every spark of manly sense,
Of pristine vigor quenched, or banished hence,
Could this be borne! this cuckoo-spit of Rome,
Which gathers round the lips in froth and foam!
--The haughty calf, and Attin's jangling strain,
Dropped, without effort, from the rheumy brain;
No savor they of bleeding nails afford,
Or desk, oft smitten for the happy word.
But why must you, alone, displeased appear,
And with harsh truths thus grate the tender ear?
O yet beware! think of the closing gate!
And dread the cold reception of the great:
This currish humor you extend too far,
While every word growls with that hateful gnar!
Right! From this hour (for now my fault I see)
All shall be charming--charming all, for me:
What late seemed base, already looks divine,
And wonders start to view in every line!
Tis well, you cry: this spot let none defile,
Or turn to purposes obscene and vile.
Paint, then, two snakes entwined; and write around,
URINE NOT, CHILDREN, HERE; 'TIS HOLY GROUND.
Awed, I retire: and yet--when vice appeared,
Lucilius o'er the town his falchion reared;
On Lupus, Mutius, poured his rage by name,
And broke his grinders on their bleeding fame.
And yet--arch Horace, while he strove to mend,
Probed all the foibles of his smiling friend;
Played lightly round and round the peccant part,
And won, unfelt, an entrance to his heart.
Well skilled the follies of the crowd to trace,
And sneer, with gay good humor in his face.
And I!--I must not mutter? No; nor dare--
Not to myself? No. To a ditch? Nowhere.
Yes, here I'll dig--here, to sure trust confide
The secret which I would, but can not, hide.
My darling book, a word;--"King Midas wears
(These eyes beheld them, these!) such ass's ears!"--
This quip of mine, which none must hear, or know,
This fond conceit, which takes my fancy so,
This nothing, if you will; you should not buy
With all those Iliads that you prize so high.
But thou, whom Eupolis' impassioned page,
Hostile to vice, inflames with kindred rage,
Whom bold Cratinus, and that awful sire,
Force, as thou readest, to tremble and admire;
O, view my humbler labors:--there, if aught
More highly finished, more maturely wrought,
Detain thy ear, and give thy breast to glow
With warmth, responsive to the inspiring flow--
I seek no farther:--Far from me the rest,
Yes, far the wretch, who, with a low-born jest,
Can mock the blind for blindness, and pursue
With vulgar ribaldry the Grecian shoe:
Bursting with self-conceit, with pride elate,
Because, forsooth, in magisterial state,
His worship (ædile of some paltry town)
Broke scanty weights, and put false measures down.
Far too be he--the monstrous witty fool,
Who turns the numeral scale to ridicule;
Derides the problems traced in dust or sand,
And treads out all Geometry has planned--
Who roars outright to see Nonaria seize,
And tug the cynic's beard--To such as these
I recommend, at morn, the Prætor's bill,
At eve, Calirrhoë, or--what they will.