The Project Gutenberg eBook of Collected Poems, Vol. 2, by Austin Dobson.

Poet. I sing of Pope—

Friend. What, Pope, the Twitnam Bard,
Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!
Pope of the Dunciad! Pope who dar'd to woo,
And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu!
Pope of the Ham-walks story—

P. Scandals all!
Scandals that now I care not to recall.
Surely a little, in two hundred Years,
One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:—
Surely Allowance for the Man may make
That had all Grub-street yelping in his Wake!
And who (I ask you) has been never Mean,
When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?
No: I prefer to look on Pope as one
Not rightly happy till his Life was done;
Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,
Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:"
Think of his Lot,—his Pilgrimage of Pain,
His "crazy Carcass" and his restless Brain;
Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead,
His dreary Vigil and his aching Head;
Think of all this, and marvel then to find
The "crooked Body with a crooked Mind!"
Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite,
You find so much to solace and delight,—
So much of Courage, and of Purpose high
In that unequal Struggle not to die.
I grant you freely that Pope played his Part
Sometimes ignobly—but he lov'd his Art;
I grant you freely that he sought his Ends
Not always wisely—but he lov'd his Friends;
And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show—
Swift, St. John, Bathurst, Marchmont, Peterb'ro',
Arbuthnot—

Fr. Atticus?

P. Well (entre nous),
Most that he said of Addison was true.
Plain Truth, you know—

Fr. Is often not polite
(So Hamlet thought)—

P. And Hamlet (Sir) was right.
But leave Pope's Life. To-day, methinks, we touch
The Work too little and the Man too much.
Take up the Lock, the Satires, Eloise—
What Art supreme, what Elegance, what Ease!
How keen the Irony, the Wit how bright,
The Style how rapid, and the Verse how light!
Then read once more, and you shall wonder yet
At Skill, at Turn, at Point, at Epithet.
"True Wit is Nature to Advantage dress'd"—
Was ever Thought so pithily express'd?
"And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line"—
Ah, what a Homily on Yours ... and Mine!
Or take—to choose at Random—take but This—
"Ten censure wrong for one that writes amiss."

Fr. Pack'd and precise, no Doubt. Yet surely those
Are but the Qualities we ask of Prose,
Was he a Poet?

P. Yes: if that be what
Byron was certainly and Bowles was not;
Or say you grant him, to come nearer Date,
What Dryden had, that was denied to Tate—

Fr. Which means, you claim for him the Spark divine,
Yet scarce would place him on the highest Line—

P. True, there are Classes. Pope was most of all
Akin to Horace, Persius, Juvenal;
Pope was, like them, the Censor of his Age,
An Age more suited to Repose than Rage;
When Rhyming turn'd from Freedom to the Schools,
And shock'd with Licence, shudder'd into Rules;
When Phœbus touch'd the Poet's trembling Ear
With one supreme Commandment Be thou Clear;
When Thought meant less to reason than compile,
And the Muse labour'd ... chiefly with the File.
Beneath full Wigs no Lyric drew its Breath
As in the Days of great Elizabeth;
And to the Bards of Anna was denied
The Note that Wordsworth heard on Duddon-side.
But Pope took up his Parable, and knit
The Woof of Wisdom with the Warp of Wit;
He trimm'd the Measure on its equal Feet,
And smooth'd and fitted till the Line was neat;
He taught the Pause with due Effect to fall;
He taught the Epigram to come at Call;
He wrote——

Fr. His Iliad!

P. Well, suppose you own
You like your Iliad in the Prose of Bohn,—
Tho' if you'd learn in Prose how Homer sang,
'Twere best to learn of Butcher and of Lang,—
Suppose you say your Worst of Pope, declare
His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre,
His Art but Artifice—I ask once more
Where have you seen such Artifice before?
Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd,
Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste?
Where can you show, among your Names of Note,
So much to copy and so much to quote?
And where, in Fine, in all our English Verse,
A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse?

So I, that love the old Augustan Days
Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase;
That like along the finish'd Line to feel
The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel;
That like my Couplet as compact as clear;
That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe,
Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope,
I fling my Cap for Polish—and for Pope!

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE

Dear Cosmopolitan,—I know
I should address you a Rondeau,
Or else announce what I've to say
At least en Ballade fratrisée;
But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks,
And take to simple Hudibrasticks;
Why should I choose another Way,
When this was good enough for Gay?

You love, my Friend, with me, I think,
That Age of Lustre and of Link;
Of Chelsea China and long "s"es,
Of Bag-wigs and of flowered Dresses;
That Age of Folly and of Cards,
Of Hackney Chairs and Hackney Bards;
—No H—lts, no K—g—n P—ls were then
Dispensing Competence to Men;
The gentle Trade was left to Churls,
Your frowsy Tonsons and your Curlls;
Mere Wolves in Ambush to attack
The Author in a Sheep-skin Back;
Then Savage and his Brother-Sinners
In Porridge-Island div'd for Dinners;
Or doz'd on Covent Garden Bulks,
And liken'd Letters to the Hulks;—
You know that by-gone Time, I say,
That aimless easy-moral'd Day,
When rosy Morn found Madam still
Wrangling at Ombre or Quadrille,
When good Sir John reel'd Home to Bed,
From Pontack's or the Shakespear's Head;
When Trip convey'd his Master's Cloaths,
And took his Titles and his Oaths;
While Betty, in a cast Brocade,
Ogled My Lord at Masquerade;
When Garrick play'd the guilty Richard,
Or mouth'd Macbeth with Mrs. Pritchard;
When Foote grimac'd his snarling Wit;
When Churchill bullied in the Pit;
When the Cuzzoni sang—
But there!
The further Catalogue I spare,
Having no Purpose to eclipse
That tedious Tale of Homer's Ships;—
This is the Man that drew it all
From Pannier Alley to the Mall,
Then turn'd and drew it once again
From Bird-Cage Walk to Lewknor's Lane;—
Its Rakes and Fools, its Rogues and Sots;
Its brawling Quacks, its starveling Scots;
Its Ups and Downs, its Rags and Garters,
Its Henleys, Lovats, Malcolms, Chartres;
Its Splendour, Squalor, Shame, Disease;
Its quicquid agunt Homines;—
Nor yet omitted to pourtray
Furens quid possit Foemina;—
In short, held up to ev'ry Class
Nature's unflatt'ring looking-Glass;
And, from his Canvass, spoke to All
The Message of a Juvenal.

Take Him. His Merits most aver:
His weak Point is—his Chronicler!

HENRY FIELDING.

Not from the ranks of those we call
Philosopher or Admiral,—
Neither as Locke was, nor as Blake,
Is that Great Genius for whose sake
We keep this Autumn festival.

And yet in one sense, too, was he
A soldier—of humanity;
And, surely, philosophic mind
Belonged to him whose brain designed
That teeming Comic Epos where,
As in Cervantes and Molière,
Jostles the medley of Mankind.

Our English Novel's pioneer!
His was the eye that first saw clear
How, not in natures half-effaced
By cant of Fashion and of Taste,—
Not in the circles of the Great,
Faint-blooded and exanimate,—
Lay the true field of Jest and Whim,
Which we to-day reap after him.
No:—he stepped lower down and took
The piebald People for his Book!

Ah, what a wealth of Life there is
In that large-laughing page of his!
What store and stock of Common-Sense,
Wit, Wisdom, Books, Experience!
How his keen Satire flashes through,
And cuts a sophistry in two!
How his ironic lightning plays
Around a rogue and all his ways!
Ah, how he knots his lash to see
That ancient cloak, Hypocrisy!

Whose are the characters that give
Such round reality?—that live
With such full pulse? Fair Sophy yet
Sings Bobbing Joan at the spinet;
We see Amelia cooking still
That supper for the recreant Will;
We hear Squire Western's headlong tones
Bawling "Wut ha?—wut ha?" to Jones.
Are they not present now to us,—
The Parson with his Æschylus?
Slipslop the frail, and Northerton,
Partridge, and Bath, and Harrison?—
Are they not breathing, moving,—all
The motley, merry carnival
That Fielding kept, in days agone?

He was the first who dared to draw
Mankind the mixture that he saw;
Not wholly good nor ill, but both,
With fine intricacies of growth.
He pulled the wraps of flesh apart,
And showed the working human heart;
He scorned to drape the truthful nude
With smooth, decorous platitude!

He was too frank, may be; and dared
Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared,
Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought
Into the light their secret thought.
Therefore the Tartuffe-throng who say
"Couvrez ce sein," and look that way,—
Therefore the Priests of Sentiment
Rose on him with their garments rent.
Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting
Plies ever round some generous thing,
Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores,
Old "might-have-beens" and "heretofores";—
Then, from that garbled record-list,
Made him his own Apologist.

And was he? Nay,—let who has known
Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone!
If to have sense of Joy and Pain
Too keen,—to rise, to fall again,
To live too much,—be sin, why then,
This was no pattern among men.
But those who turn that later page,
The Journal of his middle-age,
Watch him serene in either fate,—
Philanthropist and Magistrate;
Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend,
Faithful, and patient to the end;
Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve,
But for the loved ones he must leave:
These will admit—if any can—
That 'neath the green Estrella trees,
No Artist merely, but a Man,
Wrought on our noblest island-plan,
Sleeps with the alien Portuguese.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

"Nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithara carentem."
—Hor. i. 31.

"Not to be tuneless in old age!"
Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage,
Who, in his Winter's snow,
Still sings with note as sweet and clear
As in the morning of the year
When the first violets blow!

Blest!—but more blest, whom Summer's heat,
Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat,
Have taught no feverish lure;
Whose Muse, benignant and serene,
Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green
Because his verse is pure!

Lie calm, O white and laureate head!
Lie calm, O Dead, that art not dead,
Since from the voiceless grave,
Thy voice shall speak to old and young
While song yet speaks an English tongue
By Charles' or Thamis' wave!

CHARLES GEORGE GORDON.

"Rather be dead than praised," he said,
That hero, like a hero dead,
In this slack-sinewed age endued
With more than antique fortitude!

"Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we,
Who loved thee, now that Death sets free
Thine eager soul, with word and line
Profane that empty house of thine?

Nay,—let us hold, be mute. Our pain
Will not be less that we refrain;
And this our silence shall but be
A larger monument to thee.

VICTOR HUGO.

He set the trumpet to his lips, and lo!
The clash of waves, the roar of winds that blow,
The strife and stress of Nature's warring things,
Rose like a storm-cloud, upon angry wings.

He set the reed-pipe to his lips, and lo!
The wreck of landscape took a rosy glow,
And Life, and Love, and gladness that Love brings
Laughed in the music, like a child that sings.

Master of each, Arch-Master! We that still
Wait in the verge and outskirt of the Hill
Look upward lonely—lonely to the height
Where thou has climbed, for ever, out of sight!

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

Grief there will be, and may,
When King Apollo's bay
Is cut midwise;
Grief that a song is stilled,
Grief for the unfulfilled
Singer that dies.

Not so we mourn thee now,
Not so we grieve that thou,
Master, art passed,
Since thou thy song didst raise,
Through the full round of days,
E'en to the last.

Grief there may be, and will,
When that the Singer still
Sinks in the song;
When that the wingéd rhyme
Fails of the promised prime,
Ruined and wrong.

Not thus we mourn thee—we—
Not thus we grieve for thee,
Master and Friend;
Since, like a clearing flame,
Clearer thy pure song came
E'en to the end.

Nay—nor for thee we grieve
E'en as for those that leave
Life without name;
Lost as the stars that set,
Empty of men's regret,
Empty of fame.

Rather we count thee one
Who, when his race is run,
Layeth him down,
Calm—through all coming days,
Filled with a nation's praise,
Filled with renown.

FABLES OF LITERATURE AND ART.

THE POET AND THE CRITICS.

If those who wield the Rod forget,
'Tis truly—Quis custodiet?

A certain Bard (as Bards will do)
Dressed up his Poems for Review.
His Type was plain, his Title clear;
His Frontispiece by Fourdrinier.
Moreover, he had on the Back
A sort of sheepskin Zodiac;—
A Mask, a Harp, an Owl,—in fine,
A neat and "classical" Design.
But the in-Side?—Well, good or bad,
The Inside was the best he had:
Much Memory,—more Imitation;—
Some Accidents of Inspiration;—
Some Essays in that finer Fashion
Where Fancy takes the place of Passion;—
And some (of course) more roughly wrought
To catch the Advocates of Thought.

In the less-crowded Age of Anne,
Our Bard had been a favoured Man;
Fortune, more chary with the Sickle,
Had ranked him next to Garth or Tickell;—
He might have even dared to hope
A Line's Malignity from Pope!
But now, when Folks are hard to please,
And Poets are as thick as—Peas,
The Fates are not so prone to flatter,
Unless, indeed, a Friend ... No Matter.

The Book, then, had a minor Credit:
The Critics took, and doubtless read it.
Said A.—These little Songs display
No lyric Gift; but still a Ray,—
A Promise. They will do no Harm.
'Twas kindly, if not very warm.
Said B.—The Author may, in Time,
Acquire the Rudiments of Rhyme:
His Efforts now are scarcely Verse.
This, certainly, could not be worse.

Sorely discomfited, our Bard
Worked for another ten Years—hard.
Meanwhile the World, unmoved, went on;
New Stars shot up, shone out, were gone;
Before his second Volume came
His Critics had forgot his Name:

And who, forsooth, is bound to know
Each Laureate in embryo!
They tried and tested him, no less,-
The sworn Assayers of the Press.
Said A.—The Author may, in Time....
Or much what B. had said of Rhyme.
Then B.—These little Songs display....
And so forth, in the sense of A.
Over the Bard I throw a Veil.

There is no Moral to this Tale.

THE TOYMAN.

With Verse, is Form the first, or Sense?
Hereon men waste their Eloquence.

"Sense (cry the one Side), Sense, of course.
How can you lend your Theme its Force?
How can you be direct and clear,
Concise, and (best of all) sincere,
If you must pen your Strain sublime
In Bonds of Measure and of Rhyme?
Who ever heard true Grief relate
Its heartfelt Woes in 'six' and 'eight'?
Or felt his manly Bosom swell
Beneath a French-made Villanelle?
How can your Mens divinior sing
Within the Sonnet's scanty Ring,
Where she must chant her Orphic Tale
In just so many Lines, or fail?..."

"Form is the first (the Others bawl);
If not, why write in Verse at all?
Why not your throbbing Thoughts expose
(If verse be such Restraint) in Prose?
For surely if you speak your Soul
Most freely where there's least Control,
It follows you must speak it best
By Rhyme (or Reason) unreprest.
Blest Hour! be not delayed too long,
When Britain frees her Slaves of Song;
And barred no more by Lack of Skill,
The Mob may crowd Parnassus Hill!..."

Just at this Point—for you must know,
All this was but the To-and-fro
Of Matt and Dick who played with Thought,
And lingered longer than they ought
(So pleasant 'tis to tap one's Box
And trifle round a Paradox!)—
There came—but I forgot to say,
'Twas in the Mall, the Month was May—
There came a Fellow where they sat,
His Elf-locks peeping through his Hat,
Who bore a Basket. Straight his Load
He set upon the Ground, and showed
His newest Toy—a Card with Strings.
On this side was a Bird with Wings,
On that, a Cage. You twirled, and lo!
The Twain were one.
Said Matt, "E'en so.
Here's the Solution in a Word:—
Form is the Cage and Sense the Bird.
The Poet twirls them in his Mind,
And wins the Trick with both combined."

THE SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR.

When Fate presents us with the Bays,
We prize the Praiser, not the Praise.
We scarcely think our Fame eternal
If vouched for by the Farthing Journal;
But when the Craftsman's self has spoken,
We take it for a certain Token.
This an Example best will show,
Derived from Dennis Diderot.

A hackney Author, who'd essayed
All Hazards of the scribbling Trade;
And failed to live by every Mode,
From Persian Tale to Birthday Ode;
Embarked at last, thro' pure Starvation,
In Theologic Speculation.
'Tis commonly affirmed his Pen
Had been most orthodox till then;
But oft, as Socrates has said,
The Stomach's stronger than the Head;
And, for a sudden Change of Creed,
There is no Jesuit like Need.
Then, too, 'twas cheap; he took it all,
By force of Habit, from the Gaul.
He showed (the Trick is nowise new)
That Nothing we believe is true;
But chiefly that Mistake is rife
Touching the point of After-Life;
Here all were wrong from Plato down:
His Price (in Boards) was Half-a-Crown.
The Thing created quite a Scare:—
He got a Letter from Voltaire,
Naming him Ami and Confrère;
Besides two most attractive Offers
Of Chaplaincies from noted Scoffers.
He fell forthwith his Head to lift,
To talk of "I and Dr. Sw—ft;"
And brag, at Clubs, as one who spoke,
On equal Terms, with Bolingbroke.
But, at the last, a Missive came
That put the Copestone to his Fame.
The Boy who brought it would not wait:
It bore a Covent-Garden Date;—
A woful Sheet with doubtful Ink.
And Air of Bridewell or the Clink,
It ran in this wise:—Learned Sir!
We, whose Subscriptions follow here,
Desire to state our Fellow-feeling
In this Religion you're revealing.
You make it plain that if so be
We 'scape on Earth from Tyburn Tree,
There's nothing left for us to fear
In this—or any other Sphere.
We offer you our Thanks; and hope
Your Honor, too, may cheat the Rope!
With that came all the Names beneath,
As Blueskin, Jerry Clinch, Macheath,
Bet Careless, and the Rest—a Score
Of Rogues and Bona Robas more.

This Newgate Calendar he read:
'Tis not recorded what he said.

THE DILETTANT.

The most oppressive Form of Cant
Is that of your Art-Dilettant:—
Or rather "was." The Race, I own,
To-day is, happily, unknown.

A Painter, now by Fame forgot,
Had painted—'tis no matter what;
Enough that he resolved to try
The Verdict of a critic Eye.
The Friend he sought made no Pretence
To more than candid Common-sense,
Nor held himself from Fault exempt.
He praised, it seems, the whole Attempt.
Then, pausing long, showed here and there
That Parts required a nicer Care,—
A closer Thought. The Artist heard,
Expostulated, chafed, demurred.

Just then popped in a passing Beau,
Half Pertness, half Pulvilio;—
One of those Mushroom Growths that spring
From Grand Tours and from Tailoring;—
And dealing much in terms of Art
Picked up at Sale and auction Mart.
Straight to the Masterpiece he ran
With lifted Glass, and thus began,
Mumbling as fast as he could speak:—
"Sublime!—prodigious!—truly Greek!
That 'Air of Head' is just divine;
That contour Guido, every line;
That Forearm, too, has quite the Gusto
Of the third Manner of Robusto...."
Then, with a Simper and a Cough,
He skipped a little farther off:—
"The middle Distance, too, is placed
Quite in the best Italian Taste;
And Nothing could be more effective
Than the Ordonnance and Perspective....
You've sold it?—No?—Then take my word,
I shall speak of it to My Lord.
What!—I insist. Don't stir, I beg.
Adieu!" With that he made a Leg,
Offered on either Side his Box,—
So took his Virtú off to Cock's.

The Critic, with a Shrug, once more
Turned to the Canvas as before.
"Nay,"—said the Painter—"I allow
The Worst that you can tell me now.
'Tis plain my Art must go to School,
To win such Praises—from a Fool!"

THE TWO PAINTERS.

In Art some hold Themselves content
If they but compass what they meant;
Others prefer, their Purpose gained,
Still to find Something unattained—
Something whereto they vaguely grope
With no more Aid than that of Hope.
Which are the Wiser? Who shall say!
The prudent Follower of Gay
Declines to speak for either View,
But sets his Fable 'twixt the two.

Once—'twas in good Queen Anna's Time—
While yet in this benighted Clime
The Genius of the Arts (now known
On mouldy Pediments alone)
Protected all the Men of Mark,
Two Painters met Her in the Park.
Whether She wore the Robe of Air
Portrayed by Verrio and Laguerre;
Or, like Belinda, trod this Earth,
Equipped with Hoop of monstrous Girth,
And armed at every Point for Slaughter
With Essences and Orange-water,
I know not: but it seems that then,
After some talk of Brush and Pen,—
Some chat of Art both High and Low,
Of Van's "Goose-Pie" and Kneller's "Mot,"—
The Lady, as a Goddess should,
Bade Them ask of Her what They would.
"Then, Madam, my request," says Brisk,
Giving his Ramillie a whisk,
"Is that your Majesty will crown
My humble Efforts with Renown.
Let me, I beg it—Thanks to You—
Be praised for Everything I do,
Whether I paint a Man of Note,
Or only plan a Petticoat."
"Nay," quoth the other, "I confess"
(This One was plainer in his Dress,
And even poorly clad), "for me,
I scorn Your Popularity.
Why should I care to catch at once
The Point of View of every Dunce?
Let me do well, indeed, but find
The Fancy first, the Work behind;
Nor wholly touch the thing I wanted...."
The Goddess both Petitions granted.

Each in his Way, achieved Success;
But One grew Great. And which One? Guess.

MEMORIAL VERSES.

A DIALOGUE