Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1833-04-24
GAZET T E
LITERARY.

feelings of others land possibly in some instan.
cea for the cause of public morals-had hereto
lore caused to besuppressed. To the volumes
Don Juan, the original dedication to
Southey, not before published with the poem, is
prefxed. We copy it from the London Literary
together with some other extracts.
DEDICATION.
Bob Southey! you're poet-poet laureate,
And representative of all the race,
Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory
at
Last-yours has lately been a common case,
Aud now my epic renegade! what are ye at!
With all the lakers, in and DOT Of placer
A nest Of tuneful persons TO my eye
Like four-and twenty black birds in apie.
(which pie being open'd they began to sing
This old sony Ind new sime holds good,)
a dainty dish TO set before the king
Or regent, who admires such kind of food;
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing.
But like hawk encumber'd with his hood
Explaining metaphysics to the nation
wish he would explain his Explanation.
You, Bob! are rather insOlent, you knOw,
At being disappointed in your wish
10 supersede ali ~arblers here below,
And be the only blackbird in the dish;
And then you overstran yourself, or so,
And tumble downward like the flying fish,
Gasping on deck, because you soar too, high,
Bob,
And fall, for lack Of moisture, quite a-dry,
Bob.
And Wordsworth, in rather long 'Excur.
sion,'
n think the quarto holds five hundred pages)
Has given a sample from the vastly version
OF his new system to perplex the sages;
IT'S poetry-at least by his assertion.
And may appear so when the dog tar RACES,
And he who understands it would be able
To add story to the Tower Of Babel.
You-Geutlemen BY dint Of long seclusion
From better company, have kept your own
AT Keswick, and through still continued fusion
OF one another's minds, at last have grown
tn deem, as q most logical conclusion,
That poesy has wreaths for you alone.
There il narrow mess in such notion,
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes
for ocean.
would not initiate the petty thought,
Nor coin nv sef.loye 20 80 base vice,
For all the glorv your conversion brought,
Since cold alone should not have been its
price.
You have your salary; vast for that you
wrought?
And Wordsworth has his place in the excise.
You're shabby fellows; uue-but poets still,
And duly seated on the immortal hill.
Your bays may hide the badness Of your
brOws--
Perhaps some virtuous bushes; let them 60;
To YOU envy neither fruit nor boughs:
And for the fame you would engross below,
The field is universal, aud allows
ScoDe TO all such as feel the inherent glow;
Scott. Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe
will try
,Gains, you the question with posterity
For me who wandering with pedestrian muses.,
Contend not with you on the winged steed;
wish your fate may yield ye, when she choo
Ses,
The fame you envy, and the skill you need;
And recollect poet nothing loses
IN giving to his brethren their full need
OF merit. and complaint Of present days
Is not the certain path to future praise.
He that reserves his Iaurels for PROSPERITY
WHO does not often claim the bright rever-
stony
Has generally no great crop to spare it, he
Being only injured by his own assertion:
And although here and there some glorious
rarity
Arise like Titan from the seas immersion,
The major part Of such appellants go
To-God knows where-for no one else can
know.
If fallen in evil days on evil tongues,
Milton appealed to the avenser, Time,
IF Time, the avenger, execrates his wrongs
Aud makes the word Miltonic' mean sub
Ene,'
He deisn'd not to belle his soul in songs,
Nor turn his very talent toa crime;
He did not lothe the sire to taud the son,
But closed the tyrant-hater he began.
Thiuk'st thou, could he-the blind old man
arise