# The Poetical Works of William Cowper (Benham)/Table Talk

TABLE TALK.
Si te fortè meæ gravis uret sarcina chartæ,
Abjicito.—Hor. lib. i, ep. 13
A. You told me, I remember, glory, built On selfish principles, is shame and guilt; The deeds that men admire as half divine, Stark naught, because corrupt in their design. Strange doctrine this! that without scruple tears The laurel that the very lightning spares; Brings down the warrior's trophy to the dust, And eats into his bloody sword like rust. B. I grant that, men continuing what they are, Fierce, avaricious, proud, there must be war;10 And never meant the rule should be applied; To him that fights with justice on his side. Let laurels, drenched in pure Parnassian dews, Reward his memory, dear to every muse, Who, with a courage of unshaken root, In honour's field advancing his firm foot, Plants it upon the line that justice draws, And will prevail or perish in her cause. 'Tis to the virtues of such men, man owes His portion in the good that Heaven bestows;20 And when recording History displays Feats of renown, though wrought in ancient days, Tells of a few stout hearts that fought and died Where duty placed them, at their country's side, The man is not moved with what he reads, That takes not fire at their heroic deeds, Unworthy of the blessings of the brave, Is base in kind, and born to be a slave, But let eternal infamy pursue The wretch to nought but his ambition true,30 Who, for the sake of filling with one blast The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste. Think yourself stationed on a towering rock, To see a people scattered like a flock, Some royal mastiff panting at their heels, With all the savage thirst a tiger feels,
Then view him self-proclaimed in a gazette Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet! The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced, Those ensigns of dominion, how disgraced!40 The glass that bids man mark the fleeting hour, And Death's own scythe, would better speak his power, Then grace the bony phantom in their stead With the king's shoulder-knot and gay cockade; Clothe the twin brethren in each other's dress, The same their occupation and success. A. 'Tis your belief the world was made for man; Kings do but reason on the self-same plan: Maintaining yours, you cannot theirs condemn, Who think, or seem to think, man made for them.50 B. Seldom, alas! the power of logic reigns With much sufficiency in royal brains; Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone, Wanting its proper base to stand upon. Man made for kings! those optics are but dim That tell you so;—say, rather, they for him. That were indeed a king-ennobling thought, Could they, or would they, reason as they ought. The diadem with mighty projects lined, To catch renown by ruining mankind,60 Is worth, with all its gold and glittering store, Just what the toy will sell for and no more, Oh! bright occasions of dispensing good, How seldom used, how little understood| Te pour in Virtue's lap her just reward; Keep Vice restrained behind a double guard; To quell the faction that affronts the throne, By silent magnanimity alone; To nurse with tender care the thriving Arts, Watch every beam Philosophy imparts;70 To give Religion her unbridled scope, Nor judge by statute a believer's hope; With close fidelity and love unfeigned To keep the matrimonial bond unstained; Covetous only of a virtuous praise, His life a lesson to the land he sways; To touch the sword with conscientious awe, Nor draw it but when duty bids him draw; To sheath it in the peace-restoring close With joy beyond what victory bestows,—80 Blest country! where these kingly glories shine, Bilest England! if this happiness be thine. A. Guard what you say; the patriotic tribe Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe.—B. A bribe? The worth of his three kingdoms I defy To lure me to the baseness of a lie; And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast), The lie that Matters I abhor the most.
Those arts be theirs that hate his gentle reign, But he that loves him has no need to feign. 90 A. Your smooth eulogium, to one crown addressed, Seems to imply a censure on the rest.
B. Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale, Asked, when in hell, to see the royal jail, Approved their method in all other things, "But where, good Sir, do you confine your kings?"
"There," said his guide, "the group is full in view."
"Indeed?" replied the Don; "there are but few."
His black interpreter the charge disdained;— "Few, fellow? There are all that ever reigned."100 Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike The guilty and not guilty, both alike.
I grant the sarcasm is too severe, And we can readily refute it here, While Alfred's name, the father of his age, And the Sixth Edward's grace the historic page.
A. King's then at last have but the lot of all; By their own conduct they must stand or fall.
B. True. While they live, the courtly laureate pays His quit-rent ode, his pepper-corn of praise,110 And many a dunce whose fingers itch to write, Adds, as he can, his tributary mite; A subject's faults, a subject may proclaim, A monarch's errors are forbidden game.
Thus free from censure (overawed by fear,) And praised for virtues that they scorn to wear, The fleeting forms of majesty engage Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage, Then leave their crimes for history to scan, And ask with busy scorn, Was this the man? 120 I pity kings whom worship waits upon Obsequious, from the cradle to the throne, Before whose infant eyes the flatterer bows, And binds a wreath about their baby brows.
Whom education stiffens into state, And death awakens from that dream too late.
Oh! if servility with supple knees, Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please;— If smooth dissimulation, skilled to grace A devil's purpose with an angel's face,—130 Is smiling peeresses and simpering peers, Encompassing his throne a few short years,— If the gilt carriage and the pampered steed, That wants no driving and disdains the lead,— If guards, mechanically form'd in ranks, Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks; Should'ring and standing as if struck to stone, While condescending majesty looks on; If monarchy consist in such base things, Sighing, I say again, I pity kings! 140
To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, Even when he labours for his country's good,— To see a band called patriot for no cause, But that they catch at popular applause, Careless of all the anxiety he feels, Hook disappointment on the public wheels, With all their flippant fluency of tongue, Most confident, when palpably most wrong,— If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship, and may I be poor and free!150
To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs, To which the unwashed artificer repairs, To indulge his genius after long fatigue, By diving into cabinet intrigue, (For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play;)— To win no praise when well-wrought plans prevail, But to be rudely censured when they fail,— To doubt the love his favourites may pretend, And in reality to find no friend,—160 If he indulge a cultivated taste, His galleries with the works of art well graced, To hear it called extravagance and waste, If these attendants, and if such as these, Must follow royalty, then welcome ease! However humble and confined the sphere, Happy the state that has not these to fear.
A. Thus men whose thoughts contemplative have dwelt On situations that they never felt, Start up sagacious, covered with the dust170 Of dreaming study and pedantic rust, And prate and preach about what others prove, As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares, They have their weight to carry, subjects theirs; Poets, of all men, ever least regret Increasing taxes and the nation's debt.
Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse The mighty plan, oracular, in verse, No bard, howe'er majestic, old or new,180 Should claim my fixt attention more than you.
B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay To turn the course of Helicon that way; Nor would the Nine consent, the sacred tide Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside, Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse The leathern ears of stock-jobbers and Jews.
A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme To themes more pertinent, if less sublime.
When ministers and ministerial arts,—190 Patriots who love good places at their hearts,—
When Admirals extolled for standing still, Or doing nothing with a deal of skill, Generals who will not conquer when they may, Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay,— When freedom wounded almost to despair, Though discontent alone can find out where,— When themes like these employ the poet's tongue. I hear,—as mute as if a syren sung. Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains200 A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains? That were a theme might animate the dead, And move the lips of poets cast in lead. B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet elude Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim, Who seek it in his climate and his frame. Liberal in all things else, yet Nature here With stern severity deals out the year. Winter invades the spring, and often pours210 A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers; Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams, Ungenial blasts attending, curl the streams; The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork With double toil, and shiver at their work. Thus with a rigour, for his good designed, She rears her favourite man of all mankind. His form robust and of elastic tone, Proportioned well, half muscle and half bone, Supplies with warm activity and force 220 A mind well lodged, and masculine of course. Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty, inspires, And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires. Patient of constitutional control, He bears it with meek manliness of soul; But if authority grow wanton, woe To him that treads upon his free-born toe! One step beyond the boundary of the laws Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause. Thus proud Prerogative, not much revered, 230 Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard; And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay, Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away. Born in a climate softer far than ours, Not formed like us, with such Herculean powers, The Frenchman, easy, debonair and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of misery far away. He drinks his simple beverage with a gust,240 And feasting on an onion and a crust, We never feel the alacrity and joy With which he shouts and carols, "Vive le Roy!"
Filled with as much true merriment and glee, As if he heard his king say — Slave be free.
Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Vigilant over all that he has made, Kind Providence attends with gracious aid, Bids equity throughout his works prevail,250 And weighs the nations in an even scale; He can encourage slavery to a smile, And fill with discontent a British isle.
A. Freeman and slave then, if the case be such, Stand on a level, and you prove too much.
If all men indiscriminately share, His fostering power and tutelary care, As well be yoked by despotism's hand, As dwell at large in Britain's chartered land.
B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to show,260 That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The mind attains beneath her happy reign, The growth that nature meant she should attain.
The varied fields of science, ever new, Opening and wider opening on her view, She ventures onward with a prosperous force, While no base fear impedes her in her course.
Religion, richest favour of the skies, Stands most revealed before the freeman's eyes; No shades of superstition blot the day,270 Liberty chases all that gloom away; The soul, emancipated, unoppressed, Free to prove all things and hold fast the best, Learns much, and to a thousand listening minds, Communicates with joy the good she finds.
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show His manly forehead to the fiercest foe; Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace, His spirits rising as his toils increase, Guards well what arts and industry have won,280 And Freedom claims him for her first-born son.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away, The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway, But they that fight for freedom, undertake The noblest cause mankind can have at stake, Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call A blessing, freedom is the pledge of all.
Oh Liberty! the prisoners pleasing dream, The poet's muse, his passion and his theme, Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse,290 Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse, Heroic song from thy free touch acquires Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires; Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, And I will sing if Liberty be there;
And I will sing at liberty's dear feet,  In Afric's torrid clime or India's fiercest heat.
A.
Sing where you please, in such a cause I grant  An English Poet's privilege to rant,  But is not freedom, at least is not our's  Too apt to play the wanton with her pow'rs,  Grow freakish, and o'er leaping ev'ry mound  Spread anarchy and terror all around?
B.
Agreed. But would you sell or slay your horse  For bounding and curvetting in his course;  Or if, when ridden with a careless rein,  He break away, and seek the distant plain?
No. His high mettle under good controul,  Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the goal.
Let discipline employ her wholesome arts,  Let magistrates alert perform their parts,  Not skulk or put on a prudential mask,  As if their duty were a desp'rate task;  Let active laws apply the needful curb  To guard the peace that riot would disturb,  And liberty preserved from wild excess,  Shall raise no feuds for armies to suppress.
When tumult lately burst his prison door,  And set Plebeian thousands in a roar,  When he usurped authority's just place,  And dared to look his master in the face,  When the rude rabbles watch-word was, destroy,  And blazing London seemed a second Troy,  Liberty blushed and hung her drooping head,  Beheld their progress with the deepest dread,  Blushed that effects like these she should produce,  Worse than the deeds of galley-slaves broke loose.
She loses in such storms her very name,  And fierce licentiousness should bear the blame.
Incomparable gem! thy worth untold,  Cheap, though blood-bought, and thrown away when sold;  May no foes ravish thee, and no false friend  Betray thee, while professing to defend;  Prize it ye ministers, ye monarchs spare,  Ye patriots guard it with a miser's care.
A.
Patriots, alas! the few that have been found  Where most they flourish, upon English ground,  The country's need have scantily supplied,  And the last left the scene, when Chatham died.
B.
Not so — the virtue still adorns our age,  Though the chief actor died upon the stage.
In him, Demosthenes was heard again,  Liberty taught him her Athenian strain;  She cloathed him with authority and awe,  Spoke from his lips, and in his looks, gave law.
His speech, his form, his action, full of grace,  And all his country beaming in his face,
He stood, as some inimitable hand  Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand.
No sycophant or slave that dared oppose  Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose,  And every venal stickler for the yoke,  Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke.
Such men are raised to station and command,  When providence means mercy to a land.
He speaks, and they appear; to him they owe  Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow,  To manage with address, to seize with pow'r  The crisis of a dark decisive hour.
So Gideon earned a vict'ry not his own,  Subserviency his praise, and that alone.
Poor England! thou art a devoted deer,  Beset with ev'ry ill but that of fear.
The nations hunt; all mark thee for a prey,  They swarm around thee, and thou standst at bay.
Undaunted still, though wearied and perplexed,  Once Chatham saved thee, but who saves thee next?
Alas! the tide of pleasure sweeps along  All that should be the boast of British song.
'Tis not the wreath that once adorned thy brow,  The prize of happier times will serve thee now.
Our ancestry, a gallant christian race,  Patterns of ev'ry virtue, ev'ry grace,  Confessed a God, they kneeled before they fought,  And praised him in the victories he wrought.
Now from the dust of antient days bring forth  Their sober zeal, integrity and worth,  Courage, ungraced by these, affronts the skies,  Is but the fire without the sacrifice.
The stream that feeds the well-spring of the heart  Not more invigorates life's noblest part,  Than virtue quickens with a warmth divine,  The pow'rs that sin has brought to a decline.
A.
Th' inestimable estimate of Brown,  Rose like a paper-kite, and charmed the town;  But measures planned and executed well,  Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell.
He trod the very self-same ground you tread,  And victory refuted all he said.
B.
And yet his judgment was not framed amiss,  Its error, if it erred, was merely this —  He thought the dying hour already come,  And a complete recov'ry struck him dumb.
But that effeminacy, folly, lust,  Enervate and enfeeble, and needs must,  And that a nation shamefully debased,  Will be despised and trampled on at last,  Unless sweet penitence her pow'rs renew,  Is truth, if history itself be true.
There is a time, and justice marks the date, For long-forbearing clemency to wait, That hour elapsed, the incurable revolt Is punished, and down comes the thunder-bolt.
If Mercy then put by the threatening blow, Must she perform the same kind office now?
May she, and if offended Heaven be still Accessible and prayer prevail, she will.
'Tis not however insolence and noise, The tempest of tumultuary joys, Nor is it yet despondence and dismay, Will win her visits, or engage her stay, Prayer only, and the penitential tear, Can call her smiling down, and fix her here.
But when a country, (one that I could name) In prostitution sinks the sense of shame, When infamous venality grown bold, Writes on his bosom, to be lett or sold; When perjury, that Heaven defying vice, Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price, Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade; When av'rice starves, and never hides his face, Two or three millions of the human race, And not a tongue enquires, how, where, or when, Though conscience will have twinges now and then; When profanation of the sacred cause In all its parts, times, ministry and laws, Bespeaks a land once Christian, fallen and lost In all that wars against that title most, What follows next let cities of great name, And regions long since desolate proclaim, Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome, Speak to the present times and times to come, They cry aloud in every careless ear, Stop, while ye may, suspend your mad career; O learn from our example and our fate, Learn wisdom and repentance e'er too late.
Not only vice disposes and prepares The mind that slumbers sweetly in her snares, To stoop to tyranny's usurped command, And bend her polished neck beneath his hand, (A dire effect, by one of nature's laws Unchangeably connected with its cause) But providence himself will intervene To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene.
All are his instruments; each form of war, What burns at home, or threatens from afar, Nature in arms, her elements at strife, The storms that overset the joys of life, Are but His rods to scourge a guilty land, And waste it at the bidding of His hand.
He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores, The standards of all nations are unfurled, She has one foe, and that one foe, the world.
And if he doom that people with a frown, And mark them with the seal of wrath, pressed down, Obduracy takes place; callous and tough The reprobated race grows judgment proof: Earth shakes beneath them, and Heaven roars above, But nothing scares them from the course they love; To the lascivious pipe and wanton song That charm down fear, they frolic it along, With mad rapidity and unconcern, Down to the gulph from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail, God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail; They trust in armies, and their courage dies, In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies; But all they trust in, withers, as it must, When he commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast, A long despised, but now victorious host, Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge The noble sweep of all their privilege, Gives liberty the last, the mortal shock, Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.
A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach, Mean you to prophecy, or but to preach?
B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire The muse imparts, and can command the lyre, Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal, Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim, A tender sympathy pervades the frame, She pours a sensibility divine 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 enquiry of her thought, A terrible sagacity informs The poet's heart, he looks to distant storms, He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers, And armed with strength surpassing human powers, Seizes events as yet unknown to man, And darts his soul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name Of prophet and of poet was the same, Hence British poets too the priesthood shared, And every hallowed Druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong, 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 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. Thus, all success depending on an ear, And thinking I might purchase it too dear, If sentiment were sacrificed to sound, And truth cut short to make a period round, I judged a man of sense could scarce do worse, Than caper in the morris-dance of verse. B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit, And some wits flag through fear of losing it. Give me the line, that ploughs its stately course Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force. That like some cottage beauty strikes the heart, Quite unindebted to the tricks of art. When labour and when dullness, club in hand, Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand, Beating alternately, in measured time, The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme, Exact and regular the sounds will be, But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me. From him who rears a poem lank and long, To him who strains his all into a song, 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, An art contrived to advertise a joke, So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words—but in the gap between, Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, 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, The fruit of all her labour is whipt-cream. As if an eagle flew aloft, and then— Stooped from his 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 e'er the Mantuan swan was heard, To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.
Thus genius rose and set at ordered times, And shot a day-spring into distant climes, Ennobling ev'ry region that he chose, He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose, And tedious years of Gothic darkness passed, Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.
Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main, Then show far off their shining plumes again.
A. Is genius only found in epic lays?
Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise.
Make their heroic powers your own at once, Or candidly confess yourself a dunce.
B. These were the chief, each interval of night Was graced with many an undulating light; In less illustrious bards his beauty shone A meteor or a star, in these, the sun.
The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below.
Like him unnoticed, I, and such as I, Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly, Perched on the meagre produce of the land, An ell or two of prospect we command, But never peep beyond the thorny bound Or oaken fence that hems the paddoc round.
In Eden e'er yet innocence of heart Had faded, poetry was not an art; Language above all teaching, or if taught, Only by gratitude and glowing thought, Elegant as simplicity, and warm As exstasy, unmanacled by form, Not prompted as in our degen'rate days, By low ambition and the thirst of praise, Was natural as is the flowing stream, And yet magnificent, a God the theme.
That theme on earth exhausted, though above 'Tis found as everlasting as his love, Man lavished all his thoughts on human things, The feats of heroes and the wrath of kings, But still while virtue kindled his delight, The song was moral, and so far was right.
'Twas thus till luxury seduced the mind, To joys less innocent, as less refined, Then genius danced a bacchanal, he crowned The brimming goblet, seized the thyrsus, bound His brows with ivy, rushed into the field Of wild imagination, and there reeled The victim of his own lascivious fires, And dizzy with delight, profaned the sacred wires.
That constellation set, the world in vain  Must hope to look upon their like again.
A. Are we then left B.
Not wholly in the dark,  Wit now and then, struck smartly, shows a spark,  Sufficient to redeem the modern race  From total night and absolute disgrace.
While servile trick and imitative knack  Confine the million in the beaten track,  Perhaps some courser who disdains the road,  Snuffs up the wind and flings himself abroad.
Contemporaries all surpassed, see one,  Short his career, indeed, but ably run.
Churchill, himself unconscious of his powers,  In penury consumed his idle hours,  And like a scattered seed at random sown,  Was left to spring by vigor of his own.
Lifted at length by dignity of thought,  And dint of genius to an affluent lot,  He laid his head in luxury's soft lap,  And took too often there his easy nap.
If brighter beams than all he threw not forth,  'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth.
Surly and slovenly and bold and coarse,  Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force,  Spendthrift alike of money and of wit,  Always at speed and never drawing bit,  He struck the lyre in such a careless mood,  And so disdained the rules he understood,  The laurel seemed to wait on his command,  He snatched it rudely from the muses hand.
Nature exerting an unwearied power,  Forms, opens and gives scent to every flower,  Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads  The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads,  She fills profuse ten thousand little throats  With music, modulating all their notes,  And charms the woodland scenes and wilds unknown,  With artless airs and concerts of her own;  But seldom (as if fearful of expense)  Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence.
Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought, Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought, Fancy that from the bow that spans the sky, Brings colours dipt in Heaven that never die, A soul exalted above earth, a mind Skilled in the characters that form mankind, And as the sun in rising beauty dressed, Looks to the westward from the dappled east, And marks, whatever clouds may interpose, Ere yet his race begins, its glorious close, An eye like his to catch the distant goal, Or ere the wheels of verse begin to roll,
Like his to shed illuminating rays  On ev'ry scene and subject it surveys,  Thus graced the man asserts a poet's name,  And the world chearfully admits the claim.
Pity! Religion has so seldom found  A skilful guide into poetic ground,  The flow'rs would spring where'er she deigned to stray,  And ev'ry muse attend her in her way.
Virtue indeed meets many a rhiming friend,  And many a compliment politely penned,  But unattired in that becoming vest  Religion weaves for her, and half undressed,  Stands in the desart shiv'ring and forlorn,  A wint'ry figure, like a withered thorn.
The shelves are full, all other themes are sped,  Hackneyed and worn to the last flimsy thread,  Satyr has long since done his best, and curst  And loathsome ribaldry has done his worst,  Fancy has sported all her powers away  In tales, in trifles, and in children's play,  And 'tis the sad complaint, and almost true,  Whate'er we write, we bring forth nothing new.
'Twere new indeed, to see a bard all fire,  Touched with a coal from Heaven assume the lyre,  And tell the world, still kindling as he sung,  With more than mortal music on his tongue,  That he who died below, and reigns above  Inspires the song, and that his name is love.
For after all, if merely to beguile  By flowing numbers and a flowery stile,  The taedium that the lazy rich endure,  Which now and then sweet poetry may cure,  Or if to see the name of idol self  Stamped on the well-bound quarto, grace the shelf,  To float a bubble on the breath of fame,  Prompt his endeavour, and engage his aim,  Debased to servile purposes of pride,  How are the powers of genius misapplied?
The gift whose office is the giver's praise,  To trace him in his word, his works, his ways,  Then spread the rich discov'ry, and invite  Mankind to share in the divine delight,  Distorted from its use and just design,  To make the pitiful possessor shine,  To purchase at the fool-frequented fair  Of vanity, a wreath for self to wear,  Is profanation of the basest kind,  Proof of a trifling and a worthless mind.
A. Hail Sternhold then and Hopkins hail!B. Amen.
If flatt'ry, folly, lust employ the pen, If acrimony, slander and abuse, Give it a charge to blacken and traduce;