Poems (1828) by Thomas Gent Part 16

To no cold ear was that appeal prefer'd; With glowing bosom grateful England heard; With liberal hand she pours the prompt relief, Soothes the sick head, and wipes the tear of grief.

Our humble efforts consecrate, to-night, To this great cause, our small but willing mite.

Bright are the wreaths the warrior's urn which grace, And bless'd the bounty that protects his race!

Thus warm'd, thus waken'd, with congenial fire, Each hero's son shall emulate his sire; From age to age prolong the glorious line, And guard their country with a s.h.i.+eld divine!

THE NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS.

Can it be true, so fragrant and so fair, To give thy perfumes to the dews of night?

Can aught so beautiful, despise the glare, And fade, and sicken in the morning light?

Yes! peerless flower, the Heavens alone exhale Thy fragrance, while the glittering stars attest, And incense wafted by the midnight gale, Untainted rises from thy spotless breast.

How like that Faith whose nature is apart From human gaze, to love and work unseen, Which gives to G.o.d an undivided heart, In sorrow steadfast, and in joy serene; That night-flower of the soul, whose fragrant power Breathes on the darkness of the closing hour!

1827;

OR, THE POET'S LAST POEM.

Ye Bards in all your thousand dens, Great souls with fewer pence than pens, Sublime adorers of Apollo, With folios full, and purses hollow; Whose very souls with rapture glisten, When you can find a fool to listen; Who, if a debt were paid by pun, Would never be completely _done_.

Ye bright inhabitants of garrets, Whose dreams are rich in ports and clarets, Who, in your lofty paradise, See aldermanic banquets rise-- And though the duns around you troop, Still float in seas of turtle soup.

I here forsake the tuneful trade, Where none but lordlings now are paid, Or where some northern rogue sits puling, (The curse of universal schooling)-- A ploughman to his country lost, An author to his printer's cost-- A slave to every man who'll buy him, A knave to every man who'll try him-- Yet let him take the pen, at once The laurel gathers round his sconce!

On every subject superseded, My favorite topics all invaded, I scarcely dip my pen in praise, When fifty bardlings grasp my bays; Or let me touch a drop of satire, (I once knew something of the matter), Just fifty bardlings take the trouble, To be my tuneful wors.h.i.+p's double.

Fine similies that nothing fit, Joe Miller's, that _must_ pa.s.s for wit; The dull, dry, brain-besieging jokes, The humour that no laugh provokes-- The nameless, worthless, witless rancours, The rage that souls of scribblers cankers-- (Administer'd in gall go thick, It makes even Sunday critic's sick!) Disgust my pa.s.sion, fill my place, And s.n.a.t.c.h my prize before my face.

If then I take the "brilliant" pen.

And "scorning measures" talk of men-- There Luttrel steps 'twixt me and fame-- So like, egad, we're just the same; I never half squeeze out a thought, But jumps its fellow on the spot-- My tenderest dreams, my fondest touch, Are victims to his ready clutch; The whirling waltz, the gay costume, The porcelain tooth, the gallic bloom; The vapid smiles, the lisping loves Of turtles (never meant for doves)-- The dreary stuff that fills the ears, Where _all_ the orators are peers-- The hides reveal'd through ball-room dresses, Where all the parties are peer-esses; The dulness of the _toujours gai_, The yawning night, the sleepy day, The visages of cheese and chalk, The drowsy, dreamy, languid talk; The fifty other horrid things, That strip old Time of both his wings!

There's not a topic of them all But comes, hey presto! at _his_ call.

Or when I turn my pen to love, A theme that fits me like my glove, A pang I've borne these twenty years With ten-times twenty several dears, Each glance a dart, each smile a quiver, Stinging their bard from lungs to liver-- To work my ruin, or my cure, Up starts thy pen, Anacreon Moore!

In vain I pour my shower of roses, On which the matchless fair one dozes, And plant around her conch the graces, While jealous Venus breaks her laces, To see a younger face promoted, To see her own old face out-voted; And myrtle branches twisting o'er her, Bow down, each turn'd a true adorer.

Up starts the Irish Bard--in vain I write, 'tis all against the grain: In vain I talk of smiles or sighs, The girls all have him in their eyes; And not a soul--mamma, or miss-- But vows he's the sole Bard of Bliss!

Since first I dipp'd in the romantic, A hundred thousand have run frantic-- There's not a hideous highland spot, (Long fallowed to the core by Scott)-- No rill, through rack and thistle dribbling, But has its deadlier crop of scribbling.

Each fen, and flat, and flood, and fell, Gives birth to verses by the ell-- There Wordsworth, for his muse's sallies, Claims all the ponds, the lanes, and alleys-- There Coleridge swears none else shall tune A bag-pipe to the list'ning moon; On come in clouds the scribbling columns, Each prowling for his next three volumes.

I scorn the rascal tribe, and spurn all The yearly, monthly, and diurnal.

I write the finest things that ever Made d.u.c.h.ess fond, or marquiss clever-- (Although I'd rather half turn Turk, The thing's such monstrous up-hill work).

My _ton's_ the very cream of fas.h.i.+on, My pa.s.sion the sublimest pa.s.sion, My rage _satanic_, love the same, Of all blue flames, the bluest flame-- My piety perpetual matins, A quaker propp'd on double pattens; My lovely girls the most precocious, My beaus delightfully atrocious!

Yet scarcely have I play'd my card, When up comes politician Ward, Before my face he trumps my trump, Sweeps off my honours in the lump, And never asking my permission, Talks sermons to the third edition.

Or Boulogne, Highway Byeway, Grattan, (The Pyrenees begin to flatten, A feast denied to storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses,"

Carves history out in modern messes:-- Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, how paid his trollops-- How pledged his soul, and p.a.w.n'd his oath, 'Till none would give a straw for both; And touching paupers for the Evil, Touch'd England half way to the devil Or Hook, picks up my favorite hits, For when was friends.h.i.+p between wits?

Or Lyster, doubly dandyfied, Fidgets his donkey by my side; Or Bulwer rambles back from Greece, Woolgathering from the Golden fleece-- Or forty volumes, piping hot, Come blazing from volcano Scott; When pens like their's play all my game.

The tasteless world must bear the blame.

I had a budget, full of fan, But here again, I'm lost, undone!

I'm so forestall'd--that faith, I could Half quarrel with--my _lively Hood_: For _odd it is_, my "Oddities,"

Are _even_ all the same with his; Would _Sherwood_ (him of Paternoster), a.s.sist my pilferings to foster, I'd turn free-booter--nay, I would E'en play the part of _robbing Hood_-- But brother Wits should never quarrel, Nor try to "pluck each other's laurel,"

And tho' my income's scarce enough To find friend Petersham with snuff, Here's peace to all! and kind regards!

And _Brother Hood_ among the Bards.

So all, friends, countrymen, and lovers, With one, or one and twenty covers, Farewell to all;--my glories past, I pen my lay, my sweetest, last!

Another Phoenix, build my nest Of spices, Phoebus' very best, Concentrating in these gay pages, Wit, worth the wit of all the stages; Love, tender as the midnight talk, In softest summer's midnight walk, With leave to all earth's fools to spurn 'em, Nay (if they first will _buy_) to burn 'em.

TO THE REVIEWERS.

Oh! ye, enthroned in presidential awe, To give the song-smit generation law; Who wield Apollo's delegated rod, And shake Parna.s.sus with your sovereign nod; A pensive Pilgrim, worn with base turmoils, Plebeian cares, and mercenary toils, Implores your pity, while with footsteps rude, He dares within the mountain's pale intrude; For, oh! enchantment through its empire dwells.

And rules the spirit with Lethean spells; By hands unseen aerial harps are hung, And Spring, like Hebe, ever fair and young, On her broad bosom rears the laughing Loves, And breathes bland incense through the warbling groves; Spontaneous, bids unfading blossoms blow, And nectar'd streams mellifluously flow.

There, while the Muses wanton unconfined, And wreaths resplendent round their temples bind, 'Tis yours to strew their steps with votive flowers; To watch them slumbering 'midst the blissful bowers; To guard the shades that hide their sacred charms; And s.h.i.+eld their beauties from unhallow'd arms!

Oh! may their suppliant steal a pa.s.sing kiss?

Alas! he pants not for superior bliss; Thrice-bless'd his virgin modesty shall be To s.n.a.t.c.h an evanescent ecstacy!

The fierce extremes of superhuman love, For his frail sense too exquisite might prove; He turns, all blus.h.i.+ng, from th' Aonian shade, To humbler raptures with a mortal maid.

I know 'tis yours, when unscholastic wights Unloose their fancies in presumptuous flights, Awaked to vengeance, on such flights to frown, Clip the wing'd horse, and roll his rider down.

But, if empower'd to strike th' immortal lyre, The ardent vot'ry glows with genuine fire, 'Tis yours, while care recoils, and envy flies, Subdued by his resistless energies, 'Tis yours to bid Pierian fountains flow, And toast his name in Wit's seraglio; To bind his brows with amaranthine bays, And bless, with beef and beer, his mundane days!

Alas! nor beef, nor beer, nor bays, are mine, If by your looks my doom I may divine, Ye frown so dreadful, and ye swell so big, Your fateful arms, the goose-quill, and the wig: The wig, with wisdom's somb'rous seal impress'd, Mysterious terrors, grim portents, invest; And shame and honour on the goose-quill perch, Like doves and ravens on a country church.

As some raw 'Squire, by rustic nymphs admired, Of vulgar charms, and easy conquests tired, Resolves new scenes and n.o.bler flights to dare, Nor "waste his sweetness in the desert air,"

To town repairs, some famed a.s.sembly seeks, With red importance bl.u.s.t'ring in his cheeks; But when, electric on th' astonish'd wight Burst the full floods of music and of light, While levell'd mirrors multiply the rows Of radiant beauties, and accomplish'd beaus, At once confounded into sober sense, He feels his pristine insignificance: And blinking, blund'ring, from the general _quiz_ Retreats, "to ponder on the thing he is."

By pride inflated, and by praise allured, Small Authors thus strut forth, and thus get cured; But, Critics, hear I an angel pleads for _me_, That tongueless, ten-tongued cherub, _Modesty_.

Sirs! if you d.a.m.n me, you'll resemble those That flay'd the Traveller who had lost his clothes; Are there not foes enough to _do_ my books?

Relentless trunk-makers and pastry-cooks?

Acknowledge not those barbarous allies, The wooden box-men, and the men of pies: For Heav'n's sake, let it ne'er be understood That you, great Censors! coalesce with _wood;_ Nor let your actions contradict your looks, That tell the world you ne'er colleague with _cooks._

But, if the blithe Muse will indulge a smile, Why scowls thy brow, O Bookseller! the while?

Thy sunk eyes glisten through eclipsing fears, Fill'd, like Ca.s.sandra's, with prophetic tears: With such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the d.a.m.ning dun.

Come, let us teach each other's tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellows.h.i.+p of woe, When the coy Muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers!

Thy spirit, groaning like th' enc.u.mber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them as _dead stock._ Doom'd by these undiscriminating times To endless sleep, with Delia Cruscan rhymes; Yes, Critics whisper thee, litigious wretches!

Oblivion's hand shall _finish_ all my _sketches._ But see, _my_ soul, such bug-bears has repell'd With magnanimity unparallel'd!

Take up the volume, every care dismiss, And smile, gruff Gorgon! while I tell thee this: Not one shall lie neglected on the shelf, All shall be sold--I'll buy them in myself!