And why should'st thou be scouted, as an imp
Of Satan, and condemned to infamy,
As though thou wert, not less, accessory
To man's depravity, than to his grief?
Thou hast been charged, of old time, as the blightThe mildew of man's brightest, earthly hopes,
And spoiler of his noblest enterprise;
The stifler of his out-side piety,
(The sine qua non of its growth within)
Nor yet, wert named in Eden's catalogue
Of condemnations and delinquences!
Thy biography, were it written out,
And with a Peacock's feather, would almost
Match the Pilgrim's Progress; and, quite excel
The twisticals, of Boz's Oliver,
Which seem too heavy, to have been written,
Entirely, with the plucking of a wing:
And yet, it is no literary trash,
Would find a place in Littell's Museum!
No book produced by mortal intellect,
Save Gulliver's, (for Moses was inspired)
Is so corpulent, with the marvelous,
And yet, those marvels true, as thine would be!
And could'st thou realize the ample fund,
but Biddle's rags,
And those, above the fraction of a dime,
Or, even, half the copyright should fetch,
And would, if offered to the Harpers, first,
Thou would'st, as suddenly, unknow thyself,
As did the Royal-little-Gentleman,
When knighted, for deflouring Caroline ;*
Which is the punishment, John Bull inflicts,
On knaves, for trespassing on foreigners!
Dids't thou make thy first debut in Eden,
With grandsire Adam, and our grandam Eve,
And other gentry, quite too amorous,
To trust a youthful married woman with;
And yet, escape, withal, the fearful curse,
That fell on other luckless' spirits, there;
And, in the artless texture of a leaf,
Become the small clothes of the needy pair?
Nor, wert thou, erewhile thus incorporate,
In those primeval, undegenerate times,
Less honored, than thine after substitutes,
Mentioned, only, as unmentionables!
If these remarks are consonant with truth,
Thou could'st not then have had the threatening scowl,
That makes folks, now, detest thee so:
For, such a look would have monopolized,
Exclusively, the stock of curses there;
At least, if they had been dispensed by us:
For we were, never, half, so much annoyed,
By any other devil, as by thee!
And strange we deem it, that Omnipotence,
Who did foresee thy filthiness and rags,
Nor less forehear thy murmurings of fate,
And reprehensions of a Providence,
That fails to gratify thy selfishness,
Did not doom thee, in mercy to mankind,
To stop and curse the fiends of Tartarus!
If thou wert promised, in thine infancy,
A day of cloudless sunshine, it was vain:
For, almost ere that luminary rose,
The flame-lit clouds gave counter evidence,
That a storm was rising, to o'erwhelm thee!
The pride of Wealth and its magnificence,
Which oft-times, steals out human hearts and brains,
Looked, scornfully, on thy humble bearing,
And marked thee, as the prey of Opulence,
Together with thy numerous progeny!
And, in spite of Equity and Heaven,
Thou and they and after generations,
Were doomed to infamy and servitude,
As an Inheritance, forevermore!
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