A. Such lofty strains embellish what Mean you teach, you to prophesy, or but to preach? B. I know the mind, that feels indeed the fire A tender sympathy pervades the frame, Along the nerve of every feeling line. But if a deed not tamely to be borne Fire indignation and a sense of scorn, The strings are swept with such a power so loud, The storm of music shakes the astonished crowd. So, when remote futurity is brought Before the keen inquiry of her thought, A terrible sagacity informs The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms; Andarmed with strength surpassing human powers, Seizes events as yet unknown to man, And darts his soul into the dawning plan. Hence British poets too the priesthood shared, I play with syllables, and sport in song. A. At Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and five, Where discipline helps the opening buds of sense, And makes his pupils proud with silver-pence, I was a poet too: but modern taste Is so refined, and delicate, and chaste, That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms, Without a creamy smoothness has no charms. And thinking I might purchase it too dear, And truth cut short to make a period round, 1 I judged a man of sense could scarce do worse, B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit, And some wits flag through fear of losing it. When labour and when dulness, club in hand, Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand, Beating alternately, in measured time, The clock-work tintinabulum of rhime, Exact and regular the sounds will be; But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me. Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air, All birks and braes though he was never there; Or, having whelped a prologue with great pains, Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains; A prologue interdashed with many a stroke- So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words-but in the gap between: The substitute for genius, sense, and wit. To dally much with subjects mean and low Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so. Neglected talents rust into decay, And every effort ends in push pin play. The man, that means success, should soar above A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove; Else, summoning the muse to such a theme, As if an eagle flew aloft, and then Stooped from its highest pitch to pounce a wren. As if the poet, purposing to wed, Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread. Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose; years of gothic darkness passed, A. Is genius only found in epic lays? B. These were the chief: each interval of night Was graced with many an undulating light. In less illustrious bards his beauty shone A metcor, or a star; in these, the sun. The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below. |