If he must fain sweep o'er the etherial plain, And Pegasus runs restive in his "Waggon," Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain? Or pray Medea for a single dragon? 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? "Pedlars, and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss POETICAL COMMANDMENTS. (DON JUAN, Canto i. Stanzas 204-206.) IF ever I should condescend to prose, I'll write poetical commandments, which That went before; in these I shall enrich 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, Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues". 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 In twice five years the "greatest living poet," Even I-albeit I'm sure I did not know it, Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king, Was reckon'd a considerable time, The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme. T But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain : "La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again : Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Then there's my gentle Euphues; who, they say, To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three ; And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor" Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander. John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Contrived to talk about the gods of late 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article. The list grows long of live and dead pretenders His last award, will have the long grass grow Their chances ;-they're too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty. POETICAL PRODUCTION. (DON JUAN, Canto xiv. Stanzas IO, II.) I HAVE brought this world about my ears, and eke And yet I can't help scribbling once a week, But "why then publish?"-There are no rewards I ask in turn,-Why do you play at cards? Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery; And what I write I cast upon the stream, To swim or sink-I have had at least my dream. |