Chapter V: Part II: 133 (4)

In one great man we view with odds
A parallel to all the gods.
Great Jove, that shook heaven with his brow,
Could never match his princely bow.
In him a Bacchus we behold:
Like Bacchus, too, he ne'er grows old.
Like Phoebus next, a flaming lover;
And then he's Mercury--all over.
A Vulcan, for domestic strife,
He lamely lives without his wife.
And sure--unless our wits be dull--
Minerva-like, when moon was full,
He issued from paternal skull.

THE THREE GRAVES

(1820)

Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds
Where Bedloe, Oates and Judas, hide their heads,
I saw great Satan like a Sexton stand
With his intolerable spade in hand,
Digging three graves. Of coffin shape they were,
For those who, coffinless, must enter there
With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth
Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath:
The dismal tinct oppress'd the eye, that dwelt
Upon it long, like darkness to be felt.
The pillows to these baleful beds were toads,
Large, living, livid, melancholy loads,
Whose softness shock'd. Worms of all monstrous size
Crawl'd round; and one, upcoil'd, which never dies.
A doleful bell, inculcating despair,
Was always ringing in the heavy air.
And all about the detestable pit
Strange headless ghosts, and quarter'd forms, did flit;
Rivers of blood, from living traitors spilt,
By treachery stung from poverty to guilt.
I ask'd the fiend, for whom these rites were meant?
"These graves," quoth he, "when life's brief oil is spent,
When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards,
--I mean for Castles, Oliver, and Edwards."

SONNET TO MATHEW WOOD, ESQ.

_Alderman and M.P._

(1820)

Hold on thy course uncheck'd, heroic WOOD!
Regardless what the player's son may prate,
Saint Stephens' fool, the Zany of Debate--
Who nothing generous ever understood.
London's twice Praetor! scorn the fool-born jest--
The stage's scum, and refuse of the players--
Stale topics against Magistrates and Mayors--
City and Country both thy worth attest.
Bid him leave off his shallow Eton wit,
More fit to sooth the superficial ear
Of drunken PITT, and that pickpocket Peer,
When at their sottish orgies they did sit,
Hatching mad counsels from inflated vein,
Till England, and the nations, reeled with pain.

ON A PROJECTED JOURNEY

(1820)

To gratify his people's wish
See G[eorg]e at length prepare--
He's setting out for Hanover--
We've often wished him there.

SONG FOR THE C[ORONATIO]N

_Tune, "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch"_

(1820)

_Roi's_ wife of Brunswick Oëls!
_Roi's_ wife of Brunswick Oëls!
Wot you how she came to him,
While he supinely dreamt of no ills?
Vow! but she is a canty Queen,
And well can she scare each royal orgie.--
To us she ever must be dear,
Though she's for ever cut by Georgie.--
_Roi's_ wife, etc. _Da capo._

THE UNBELOVED

(1820)

Not a woman, child, or man in
All this isle, that loves thee, C[anni]ng.
Fools, whom gentle manners sway,
May incline to C[astlerea]gh,
Princes, who old ladies love,
Of the Doctor may approve,
Chancery lads do not abhor
Their chatty, childish Chancellor.
In Liverpool some virtues strike,
And little Van's beneath dislike.
Tho, if I were to be dead for't,
I could never love thee, H[eadfor]t:
(Every man must have his way)
Other grey adulterers may.
But thou unamiable object,--
Dear to neither prince, nor subject;--
Veriest, meanest scab, for pelf
Fastning on the skin of Guelph,
Thou, thou must, surely, _loathe thyself._

ON THE ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND OF LORD BYRON'S REMAINS

(1824)

Manners, they say, by climate alter not:
Who goes a drunkard will return a sot.
So lordly Juan, damn'd to lasting fame,
Went out a pickle, and came back the same.

LINES

_Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross_

(1827)

Time-mouldering CROSSES, gemm'd with imagery
Of costliest work, and Gothic tracery,
Point still the spots, to hallow'd wedlock dear,
Where rested on its solemn way the bier,
That bore the bones of Edward's Elinor
To mix with Royal dust at Westminster.--
Far different rites did thee to dust consign,
Duke Brunswick's daughter, Princely Caroline.
A hurrying funeral, and a banish'd grave,
High-minded Wife! were all that thou could'st have.
Grieve not, great Ghost, nor count in death thy losses;
Thou in thy life-time had'st thy share of _crosses._

FOR THE "TABLE BOOK"

(1827)

Laura, too partial to her friends' enditing,
Requires from each a pattern of their _writing._
A weightier trifle Laura might command;
For who to Laura would refuse his--_hand?_

THE ROYAL WONDERS

(1830)

Two miracles at once! Compell'd by fate,
His tarnish'd throne the Bourbon doth vacate;
While English William,--a diviner thing,--
Of his free pleasure hath put off _the king._
The forms of distant old respect lets pass,
And melts his crown into the common mass.
Health to fair France, and fine regeneration!
But England's is the nobler abdication.

"BREVIS ESSE LABORO"

"ONE DIP"

(1830)

Much speech obscures the sense; the soul of wit
Is brevity: our tale one proof of it.
Poor Balbulus, a stammering invalid,
Consults the doctors, and by them is bid
To try sea-bathing, with this special heed,
"One Dip was all his malady did need;
More than that one his certain death would be."
Now who so nervous or so shook as he,
For Balbulus had never dipped before?
Two well-known dippers at the Broadstairs' shore,
Stout, sturdy churls, have stript him to the skin,
And naked, cold, and shivering plunge him in.
Soon he emerges, with scarce breath to say,
"I'm to be dip--dip--dipt--." "We know it," they
Reply; expostulation seemed in vain,
And over ears they souse him in again,
And up again he rises, his words trip,
And falter as before. Still "dip--dip--dip"--
And in again he goes with furious plunge,
Once more to rise; when, with a desperate lunge,
At length he bolts these words out, "Only once!"
The villains crave his pardon. Had the dunce
But aimed at these bare words the rogues had found him,
But striving to be prolix, they half drowned him.

SUUM CUIQUE

(1830)

Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas
Fur, rapiens, spolians quod mihi, quodque tibi
Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, Meumque Tuumque;
Omne Suum est. Tandem cuique suum tribuit.
Dat laqueo collum: vestes, vah! carnifici dat:
Sese Diabolo; sic bene, Cuique Suum.

[ON THE _LITERARY GAZETTE_]

(1830)

In merry England I computed once
The number of the dunces--dunce for dunce;
There were _four hundred_, if I don't forget,
_All readers of the L------y G-----e;_
But if the author to himself keep true,
In some short months they'll be reduced to _two_.

ON THE FAST-DAY

To name a Day for general prayer and fast
Is surely worse than of no sort of use;
For you may see with grief, from first to last
On _fast_-days people of all ranks are _loose_.

NONSENSE VERSES

Lazy-bones, lazy-bones, wake up, and peep!
The cat's in the cupboard, your mother's asleep.
There you sit snoring, forgetting her ills;
Who is to give her her Bolus and Pills?
Twenty fine Angels must come into town,
All for to help you to make your new gown:
Dainty AERIAL Spinsters, and Singers;
Aren't you ashamed to employ such white fingers?
Delicate hands, unaccustom'd to reels,
To set 'em a working a poor body's wheels?
Why they came down is to me all a riddle,
And left HALLELUJAH broke off in the middle:
Jove's Court, and the Presence angelical, cut--
To eke out the work of a lazy young slut.
Angel-duck, Angel-duck, winged, and silly,
Pouring a watering-pot over a lily,
Gardener gratuitous, careless of pelf,
Leave her to water her lily herself,
Or to neglect it to death if she chuse it:
Remember the loss is her own, if she lose it.

ON WAWD

_(Of the East India House)_

What Wawd knows, God knows;
But God knows _what_ Wawd knows.

* * * * *

SIX EPITAPHS ON ENSIGN PEACOCK

(1799)

MARMOR LOQUITUR

He lies a Volunteer so fine,
Who died of a decline,
As you or I, may do one day;
Reader, think of this, I pray;
And I humbly hope you'll drop a tear
For my poor Royal Volunteer.
He was as brave as brave could be,
Nobody was so brave as he;
He would have died in Honor's bed,
Only he died at home instead.
Well may the Royal Regiment swear,
They never had such a Volunteer.
But whatsoever they may say,
Death is a man that will have his way:
Tho' he was but an ensign in this world of pain;
In the next we hope he'll be a captain.
And without meaning to make any reflection on his mentals,
He begg'd to be buried in regimentals.

ON TIMOTHY WAGSTAFF

Here lies the body of Timothy Wagstaff,
Who was once as tall and as straight as a flagstaff;
But now that he's gone to another world,
His staff is broken and his flag is furled.

ON CAPTAIN STURMS

Here lieth the body of Captain Sturms,
Once "food for powder," now for worms,
At the battle of Meida he lost his legs,
And stumped about on wooden pegs.
Naught cares he now for such worthless things,
He was borne to Heaven on angels' wings.

ON MARGARET DIX

_(Born on February 29)_

_Ci git_ the remains of Margaret Dix,
Who was young in old age I ween,
Though Envy with Malice cried "seventy-six,"
The Graces declared her "nineteen."

ON ONESIMUS DRAKE

To the memory of Dr. Onesimus Drake,
Who forced good people his drugs to take--
No wonder his patients were oft on the rack
For this "duck of a man" was a terrible quack.

ON MATTHEW DAY

Beneath this slab lies Matthew Day,
If his body had not been snatched away
To be by Science dissected;
Should it have gone, one thing is clear:
His soul the last trump is sure to hear,
And thus be resurrected.

* * * * *

TIME AND ETERNITY

Where the soul drinks of misery's power,
Each moment seems a lengthened hour;
But when bright joy illumes the mind,
Time passes as the fleetest wind.--
How to a wicked soul must be
Whole ages of eternity?

FROM THE LATIN

As swallows shrink before the wintry blast,
And gladly seek a more congenial soil,
So flatterers halt when fortune's lure is past,
And basely court some richer lordling's smile.

SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE

_With the Whole Process of his Courtship
and Marriage, and who Danced at the Wedding

By an Eye Witness_

(1831)

DEDICATION

To delicate bosoms, that have sighed over the _Loves of the Angels_,
this Poem is with tenderest regard consecrated. It can be no offence
to you, dear Ladies, that the author has endeavoured to extend the
dominion of your darling passion; to shew Love triumphant in places,
to which his advent has been never yet suspected. If one Cecilia
drew an Angel down, another may have leave to attract a Spirit
upwards; which, I am sure, was the most desperate adventure of the
two. Wonder not at the inferior condition of the agent; for, if King
Cophetua wooed a Beggar Maid, a greater king need not scorn to
confess the attractions of a fair Tailor's daughter. The more
disproportionate the rank, the more signal is the glory of your sex.
Like that of Hecate, a triple empire is now confessed your own. Nor
Heaven, nor Earth, nor deepest tracts of Erebus, as Milton hath it,
have power to resist your sway. I congratulate your last victory.
You have fairly made an Honest Man of the Old One; and, if your
conquest is late, the success must be salutary. The new Benedict has
employment enough on his hands to desist from dabbling with the
affairs of poor mortals; he may fairly leave human nature to
herself; and we may sleep for one while at least secure from the
attacks of this hitherto restless Old Bachelor. It remains to be
seen, whether the world will be much benefited by the change in his
condition.