Ballads of Books Part 18

With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:-- "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply; "These are the tombs of such as cannot die!

Crowned with eternal fame, they sit sublime, And laugh at all the little strife of time.

Hail, then, immortals! ye who shine above, Each, in his sphere, the literary Jove; And ye, the common people of these skies, A humbler crowd of nameless deities; Whether 't is yours to lead the willing mind Through History's mazes, and the turnings find; Or, whether led by Science, ye retire, Lost and bewildered in the vast desire, Whether the Muse invites you to her bowers, And crowns your placid brows with living flowers!

Or G.o.dlike Wisdom teaches you to show The n.o.blest road to happiness below; Or men and manners prompt the easy page To mark the flying follies of the age; Whatever good ye boast, that good impart; Inform the head and rectify the heart.

Lo, all in silence, all in order stand, And mighty folios, first a lordly band; Then quartos their well-ordered ranks maintain, And light octavos fill a s.p.a.cious plain: See yonder, ranged in more frequented rows, A humbler band of duodecimos; While undistinguish'd trifles swell the scene, The last new play and frittered magazine.

Thus 't is in life, where first the proud, the great, In leagued a.s.sembly keep their c.u.mbrous state: Heavy and huge, they fill the world with dread, Are much admired, and are but little read: The commons next, a middle rank, are found; Professions fruitful pour their offspring round; Reasoners and wits are next their place allowed, And last, of vulgar tribes a countless crowd.

First, let us view the form, the size, the dress: For these the manners, nay the mind, express: That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid; Those ample clasps of solid metal made; The close-pressed leaves, unclosed for many an age; The dull red edging of the well-filled page; On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, Where yet the t.i.tle stands in tarnished gold; These all a sage and labored work proclaim, A painful candidate for lasting fame: No idle wit, no trifling verse can lurk In the deep bosom of that weighty work; No playful thoughts degrade the solemn style, Nor one light sentence claims a transient smile.

Hence, in these times, untouched the pages lie, And slumber out their immortality: They _had_ their day, when, after all his toil, His morning study, and his midnight oil, At length an author's ONE great work appeared, By patient hope, and length of days endeared: Expecting nations haled it from the press; Poetic friends prefixed each kind address; Princes and kings received the pond'rous gift, And ladies read the work they could not lift.

Fashion, though Folly's child, and guide of fools, Rules e'en the wisest, and in learning rules; From crowds and courts to Wisdom's seat she goes, And reigns triumphant o'er her mother's foes.

For lo! these favorites of the ancient mode Lie all neglected like the Birthday Ode.

Ah! needless now this weight of ma.s.sy chain, Safe in themselves, the once-loved works remain; No readers now invade their still retreat, None try to steal them from their parent seat; Like ancient beauties, they may now discard Chains, bolts, and locks, and lie without a guard.

Our patient fathers trifling themes laid by, And rolled, o'er labored works, th' attentive eye: Page after page the much enduring men Explored the deeps and shallows of the pen: Till, every former note and comment known, They marked the s.p.a.cious margin with their own; Minute corrections proved their studious care; The little index, pointing, told us where; And many an emendation showed the age Looked far beyond the rubric t.i.tle-page.

Our nicer palates lighter labors seek, Cloyed with a folio-_Number_ once a week; Bibles, with cuts and comments, thus go down: E'en light Voltaire is _numbered_ through the town: Thus physic flies abroad, and thus the law, From men of study, and from men of straw; Abstracts, abridgments, please the fickle times, Pamphlets and plays, and politics and rhymes: But though to write be now a task of ease, The task is hard by manly arts to please, When all our weakness is exposed to view, And half our judges are our rivals too.

Amid these works, on which the eager eye Delights to fix, or glides reluctant by, When all combined, their decent pomp display, Where shall we first our early offering pay?-- To thee, DIVINITY! to thee, the light And guide of mortals, through their mental night; By whom we learn our hopes and fears to guide; To bear with pain, and to contend with pride; When grieved, to pray; when injured, to forgive; And with the world in charity to live.

Not truths like these inspired that numerous race, Whose pious labors fill this ample s.p.a.ce; But questions nice, where doubt on doubt arose, Awaked to war the long-contending foes.

For dubious meanings, learned polemics strove, And wars on faith prevented works of love; The brands of discord far around were hurled, And holy wrath inflamed a sinful world:-- Dull though impatient, peevish though devout, With wit, disgusting and despised without; Saints in design, in execution men, Peace in their looks, and vengeance in their pen.

Methinks I see, and sicken at the sight, Spirits of spleen from yonder pile alight; Spirits who prompted every d.a.m.ning page, With pontiff pride, and still increasing rage: Lo! how they stretch their gloomy wings around, And lash with furious strokes the trembling ground!

They pray, they fight, they murder, and they weep, Wolves in their vengeance, in their manners sheep; Too well they act the prophet's fatal part, Denouncing evil with a zealous heart; And each, like Jonah, is displeased if G.o.d Repent his anger, or withold his rod.

But here the dormant fury rests unsought, And Zeal sleeps soundly by the foes she fought; Here all the rage of controversy ends, And rival zealots rest like bosom friends: An Athanasian here, in deep repose, Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes; Socinians here with Calvinists abide, And thin part.i.tions angry chiefs divide; Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet, And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.

Great authors, for the church's glory fired, Are for the church's peace to rest retired; And close beside, a mystic, maudlin race, Lie "Crumbs of Comfort for the Babes of Grace."

Against her foes Religion well defends Her sacred truths, but often fears her friends; If learned, their pride, if weak, their zeal she dreads, And their hearts' weakness, who have soundest heads.

But most she fears the controversial pen, The holy strife of disputatious men; Who the blest Gospel's peaceful page explore, Only to fight against its precepts more.

Near to these seats behold yon slender frames, All closely filled and marked with modern names; Where no fair science ever shows her face, Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace; There sceptics rest, a still increasing throng, And stretch their widening wings ten thousand strong; Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain; Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again; Coldly profane, and impiously gay, Their end the same, though various in their way.

When first Religion came to bless the land, Her friends were then a firm believing band; To doubt was then to plunge in guilt extreme, And all was gospel that a monk could dream; Insulted Reason fled the grov'lling soul, For Fear to guide and visions to control: But now, when Reason has a.s.sumed her throne, She, in her turn demands to reign alone; Rejecting all that lies beyond her view, And, being judge, will be a witness too: Insulted Faith then leaves the doubtful mind, To seek for truth, without a power to find: Ah! when will both in friendly beams unite, And pour on erring man resistless light!

Next to the seats, well stored with works divine, An ample s.p.a.ce, PHILOSOPHY! is thine; Our reason's guide, by whose a.s.sisting light We trace the moral bounds of wrong and right; Our guide through nature, from the sterile clay, To the bright orbs of yon celestial way!

'T is thine, the great, the golden chain to trace, Which runs through all, connecting race with race Save where those puzzling, stubborn links remain, Which thy inferior light pursues in vain:-- How vice and virtue in the soul contend; How widely differ, yet how nearly blend; What various pa.s.sions war on either part, And now confirm, now melt the yielding heart: How Fancy loves around the world to stray, While Judgment slowly picks his sober way; The stores of memory and the flights sublime Of genius, bound by neither s.p.a.ce nor time;-- All these divine Philosophy explores, Till, lost in awe, she wonders and adores.

From these, descending to the earth, she turns, And matter, in its various forms, discerns; She parts the beamy light with skill profound, Metes the thin air, and weighs the flying sound; 'T is hers the lightning from the clouds to call, And teach the fiery mischief where to fall.

Yet more her volumes teach--on these we look Abstracts drawn from Nature's larger book; Here, first described, the torpid earth appears, And next, the vegetable robe it wears; Where flowery tribes in valleys, fields, and groves, Nurse the still flame, and feed the silent loves; Loves where no grief, nor joy, nor bliss, nor pain, Warm the glad heart or vex the laboring brain; But as the green blood moves along the blade, The bed of Flora on the branch is made; Where, without pa.s.sion, love instinctive lives, And gives new life, unconscious that it gives.

Advancing still in Nature's maze, we trace, In dens and burning plains, her savage race With those tame tribes who on their lord attend, And find in man a master and a friend; Man crowns the scene, a world of wonders new, A moral world, that well demands our view.

This world is here; for, of more lofty kind, These neighboring volumes reason on the mind; They paint the state of man ere yet endued With knowledge;--man, poor, ignorant, and rude; Then, as his state improves, their pages swell, And all its cares, and all its comforts tell: Here we behold how inexperience buys, At little price, the wisdom of the wise; Without the troubles of an active state, Without the cares and dangers of the great, Without the miseries of the poor, we know What wisdom, wealth, and poverty bestow; We see how reason calms the raging mind, And how contending pa.s.sions urge mankind: Some, won by virtue, glow with sacred fire; Some, lured by vice, indulge the low desire; Whilst others, won by either, now pursue The guilty chase, now keep the good in view; Forever wretched, with themselves at strife, They lead a puzzled, vexed, uncertain life; For transient vice bequeaths a lingering pain, Which transient virtue seeks to cure in vain.

Whilst thus engaged, high views enlarge the soul, New interest draws, new principles control: Nor thus the soul alone resigns her grief, But here the tortured body finds relief; For see where yonder sage Arachne shapes Her subtle gin, that not a fly escapes!

There PHYSIC fills the s.p.a.ce, and far around, Pile above pile her learned works abound: Glorious their aim--to ease the laboring heart; To war with death, and stop his flying dart; To trace the source whence the fierce contest grew; And life's short lease on easier terms renew; To calm the frenzy of the burning brain; To heal the tortures of imploring pain; Or, when more powerful ills all efforts brave, To ease the victim no device can save, And smooth the stormy pa.s.sage to the grave.

But man, who knows no good unmixed and pure, Oft finds a poison where he sought a cure; For grave deceivers lodge their labors here, And cloud the science they pretend to clear; Scourges for sin, the solemn tribe are sent; Like fire and storms, they call us to repent; But storms subside, and fires forget to rage.

_These_ are eternal scourges of the age: 'T is not enough that each terrific hand Spreads desolation round a guilty land; But trained to ill, and hardened by its crimes, Their pen relentless kills through future times, Say, ye, who search these records of the dead-- Who read huge works, to boast what ye have read, Can all the real knowledge ye possess, Or those--if such there are--who more than guess, Atone for each impostor's wild mistakes, And mend the blunders pride or folly makes?

What thought so wild, what airy dream so light, That will not prompt a theorist to write?

What art so prevalent, what proofs so strong, That will convince him his attempt is wrong?

One in the solids finds each lurking ill, Nor grants the pa.s.sive fluids power to kill; A learned friend some subtler reason brings, Absolves the channels, but condemns their spring; The subtile nerves, that shun the doctor's eye, Escape no more his subtler theory; The vital heat, that warms the laboring heart, Lends a fair system to these sons of art; The vital air, a pure and subtile stream, Serves a foundation for an airy scheme, a.s.sists the doctor and supports his dream.

Some have their favorite ills, and each disease Is but a younger branch that kills from these; One to the gout contracts all human pain; He views it raging in the frantic brain; Finds it in fevers all his efforts mar, And sees it lurking in the cold catarrh; Bilious by some, by others nervous seen, Rage the fantastic demons of the spleen; And every symptom of the strange disease With every system of the sage agrees.

Ye frigid tribe, on whom I wasted long The tedious hours, and ne'er indulged in song; Ye first seducers of my easy heart, Who promised knowledge ye could not impart; Ye dull deluders, truth's destructive foes; Ye sons of fiction, clad in stupid prose; Ye treacherous leaders, who, yourselves in doubt, Light up false fires, and send us far about;-- Still may yon spider round your pages spin, Subtile and slow, her emblematic gin!

Buried in dust and lost in silence, dwell, Most potent, grave, and reverend friends--farewell!

Near these, and where the setting sun displays, Through the dim window, his departing rays, And gilds yon columns, there, on either side, The huge Abridgments of the LAW abide; Fruitful as vice, the dread correctors stand, And spread their guardian terrors round the land; Yet, as the best that human care can do Is mixed with error, oft with evil too, Skilled in deceit, and practised to evade, Knaves stand secure, for whom these laws were made, And justice vainly each expedient tries, While art eludes it, or while power defies.

"Ah! happy age," the youthful poet sings, "When the free nations knew not laws nor kings, When all were blest to share a common store, And none were proud of wealth, for none were poor, No wars nor tumults vexed each still domain, No thirst of empire, no desire of gain; No proud great man, nor one who would be great, Drove modest merit from its proper state; Nor into distant climes would Avarice roam, To fetch delights for Luxury at home: Bound by no ties which kept the soul in awe, They dwelt at liberty, and love was law!"

"Mistaken youth! each nation first was rude, Each man a cheerless son of solitude, To whom no joys of social life were known, None felt a care that was not all his own; Or in some languid clime his abject soul Bowed to a little tyrant's stern control; A slave, with slaves his monarch's throne he raised, And in rude song his ruder idol praised; The meaner cares of life were all he knew; Bounded his pleasures, and his wishes few; But when by slow degrees the Arts arose, And Science wakened from her long repose; When Commerce, rising from the bed of ease, Ran round the land, and pointed to the seas; When Emulation, born with jealous eye, And Avarice, lent their spurs to industry; Then one by one the numerous laws were made, Those to control, and these to succor trade; To curb the insolence of rude command, To s.n.a.t.c.h the victim from the usurer's hand; To awe the bold, to yield the wronged redress, And feed the poor with Luxury's excess."

Like some vast flood, unbounded, fierce, and strong, His nature leads ungoverned man along; Like mighty bulwarks made to stem that tide, The laws are formed and placed on every side; Whene'er it breaks the bounds by these decreed, New statutes rise, and stronger laws succeed; More and more gentle grows the dying stream, More and more strong the rising bulwarks seem; Till, like a miner working sure and slow, Luxury creeps on, and ruins all below; The basis sinks, the ample piles decay; The stately fabric shakes and falls away; Primeval want and ignorance come on, But Freedom, that exalts the savage state, is gone.

Next HISTORY ranks;--there full in front she lies, And every nation her dread tale supplies; Yet History has her doubts, and every age With sceptic queries marks the pa.s.sing page; Records of old nor later date are clear, Too distant those, and these are placed too near; There time conceals the objects from our view, Here our own pa.s.sions and a writer's too: Yet, in these volumes, see how states arose!

Guarded by virtue from surrounding foes; Their virtue lost, and of their triumphs vain, Lo! how they sunk to slavery again!

Satiate with power, of fame and wealth possessed, A nation grows too glorious to be blest; Conspicuous made, she stands the mark of all, And foes join foes to triumph in her fall.

Thus speaks the page that paints ambition's race, The monarch's pride, his glory, his disgrace; The headlong course that maddening heroes run, How soon triumphant, and how soon undone; How slaves, turned tyrants, offer crowns to sale, And each fallen nation's melancholy tale.

Lo! where of late the Book of Martyrs stood, Old pious tracts, and Bibles bound in wood; There, such the taste of our degenerate age, Stand the profane delusions of the STAGE: Yet virtue owns the TRAGIC MUSE a friend, Fable her means, morality her end; For this she rules all pa.s.sions in their turns, And now the bosom bleeds, and now it burns; Pity with weeping eye surveys her bowl, Her anger swells, her terror chills the soul; She makes the vile to virtue yield applause, And own her sceptre while they break her laws; For vice in others is abhorred of all, And villains triumph when the worthless fall.

Not thus her sister COMEDY prevails, Who shoots at Folly, for her arrow fails; Folly, by Dulness armed, eludes the wound, And harmless sees the feathered shafts rebound; Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill, Laughs at her malice, and is Folly still.

Yet well the Muse portrays, in fancied scenes, What pride will stoop to, what profession means; How formal fools the farce of state applaud; How caution watches at the lips of fraud; The wordy variance of domestic life; The tyrant husband, the retorting wife; The snares for innocence, the lie of trade, And the smooth tongue's habitual masquerade.

With her the Virtues to obtain a place, Each gentle pa.s.sion, each becoming grace; The social joy in life's securer road, Its easy pleasure, its substantial good; The happy thought that conscious virtue gives, And all that ought to live, and all that lives.

But who are these? Methinks a n.o.ble mien And awful grandeur in their form are seen, Now in disgrace: what though by time is spread Polluting dust o'er every reverend head; What though beneath yon gilded tribe they lie, And dull observers pa.s.s insulting by: Forbid it shame, forbid it decent awe, What seems so grave, should no attention draw!

Come, let us then with reverend step advance, And greet--the ancient worthies of ROMANCE.

Hence, ye profane! I feel a former dread, A thousand visions float around my head: Hark! hollow blasts through empty courts resound, And shadowy forms with staring eyes stalk round; See! moats and bridges, walls and castles rise, Ghosts, fairies, demons, dance before our eyes; Lo! magic verse inscribed on golden gate; And b.l.o.o.d.y hand that beckons on to fate:-- "And who art thou, thou little page, unfold?

Say, doth thy lord my Claribel withhold?

Go tell him straight, Sir Knight, thou must resign The captive queen;--for Claribel is mine."

Away he flies; and now for b.l.o.o.d.y deeds, Black suits of armor, masks, and foaming steeds; The giant falls; his recreant throat I seize, And from his corselet take the ma.s.sy keys:-- Dukes, lords, and knights in long procession move, Released from bondage with my virgin love:-- She comes! she comes! in all the charms of youth, Unequalled love, and unsuspected truth!

Ah! happy he who thus, in magic themes, O'er worlds bewitched, in early rapture dreams, Where wild Enchantment waves her potent wand, And Fancy's beauties fill her fairy land; Where doubtful objects strange desires excite, And Fear and Ignorance afford delight.

But lost, for ever lost, to me these joys, Which Reason scatters, and which Time destroys; Too dearly bought: maturer judgment calls My busied mind from tales and madrigals; My doughty giants all are slain or fled And all my knights--blue, green, and yellow--dead!

No more the midnight fairy tribe I view, All in the merry moonshine tippling dew; E'en the last lingering fiction of the brain, The churchyard ghost is now at rest again; And all these wayward wanderings of my youth Fly Reason's power, and shun the light of Truth.

With Fiction then does real joy reside, And is our reason the delusive guide?

Is it then right to dream the sirens sing?

Or mount enraptured on the dragon's wing?

No; 't is the infant mind, to care unknown, That makes th' imagined paradise its own; Soon as reflections in the bosom rise, Light slumbers vanish from the clouded eyes: The tear and smile, that once together rose, Are then divorced; the head and heart are foes: Enchantment bows to Wisdom's serious plan, And Pain and Prudence make and mar the man.

While thus, of power and fancied empire vain, With various thoughts my mind I entertain; While books, my slaves, with tyrant hand I seize, Pleased with the pride that will not let them please, Sudden I find terrific thoughts arise, And sympathetic sorrow fills my eyes; For, lo! while yet my heart admits the wound, I see the CRITIC army ranged around.

Foes to our race! if ever ye have known A father's fears for offspring of your own; If ever, smiling o'er a lucky line, Ye thought the sudden sentiment divine, Then paused and doubted, and then, tired of doubt, With rage as sudden dashed the stanza out;-- If, after fearing much and pausing long, Ye ventured on the world your labored song, And from the crusty critics of those days Implored the feeble tribute of their praise; Remember now the fears that moved you then, And, spite of truth, let mercy guide your pen.

What vent'rous race are ours! what mighty foes Lie waiting all around them to oppose!

What treacherous friends betray them to the fight!

What dangers threaten them:--yet still they write: A hapless tribe! to every evil born, Whom villains hate, and fools affect to scorn: Strangers they come, amid a world of woe, And taste the largest portion ere they go.

Pensive I spoke, and cast mine eyes around; The roof, methought, returned a solemn sound; Each column seemed to shake, and clouds, like smoke, From dusty piles and ancient volumes broke; Gathering above, like mists condensed they seem, Exhaled in summer from the rushy stream; Like flowing robes they now appear, and twine Round the large members of a form divine; His silver beard, that swept his aged breast, His piercing eye, that inward light expressed, Were seen--but clouds and darkness veiled the rest.

Fear chilled my heart: to one of mortal race, How awful seemed the Genius of the place!

So in Cimmerian sh.o.r.es, Ulysses saw His parent-shade, and shrunk in pious awe; Like him I stood, and wrapped in thought profound, When from the pitying power broke forth a solemn sound:-- "Care lives with all; no rules, no precepts save The wise from woe, no fort.i.tude the brave; Grief is to man as certain as the grave: Tempests and storms in life's whole progress rise, And hope shines dimly through o'erclouded skies.

Some drops of comfort on the favored fall, But showers of sorrow are the lot of _all_: Partial to talents, then, shall Heaven withdraw Th' afflicting rod, or break the general law?

Shall he who soars, inspired by loftier views, Life's little cares and little pains refuse?

Shall he not rather feel a double share Of mortal woe, when doubly armed to bear?

"Hard is his fate who builds his peace of mind On the precarious mercy of mankind; Who hopes for wild and visionary things, And mounts o'er unknown seas with vent'rous wings; But as, of various evils that befall The human race, some portion goes to all; To him perhaps the milder lot's a.s.signed Who feels his consolation in his mind.

And, locked within his bosom, bears about A mental charm for every care without.

E'en in the pangs of each domestic grief, Or health or vigorous hope affords relief; And every wound the tortured bosom feels, Or virtue bears, or some preserver heals; Some generous friend of ample power possessed; Some feeling heart, that bleeds for the distressed; Some breast that glows with virtues all divine; Some n.o.ble RUTLAND, misery's friend and thine.

"Nor say, the Muse's song, the Poet's pen, Merit the scorn they meet from little men.

With cautious freedom if the numbers flow, Not wildly high, nor pitifully low; If vice alone their honest aims oppose, Why so ashamed their friends, so loud their foes?

Happy for men in every age and clime, If all the sons of vision dealt in rhyme.

Go on, then, Son of Vision! still pursue Thy airy dreams; the world is dreaming too.

Ambition's lofty views, the pomp of state, The pride of wealth, the splendor of the great, Stripped of their mask, their cares and troubles known, Are visions far less happy than thy own: Go on! and, while the sons of care complain, Be wisely gay and innocently vain; While serious souls are by their fears undone, Blow sportive bladders in the beamy sun, And call them worlds! and bid the greatest show More radiant colors in their worlds below: Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove, And tell them, Such are all the toys they love.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

=A Final Word.=

_THE COLLECTOR TO HIS LIBRARY._

_Brown Books of mine, who never yet Have caused me anguish or regret,-- Save when some fiend in human shape Has set your tender sides agape, Or soiled with some unmanly smear The whiteness of your page sincere, Or scored you with some phrase inane, The bantling of his idle brain,-- I love you: and because must end This commerce between friend and friend, I do beseech each kindly fate-- To each and all I supplicate-- That you whom I have loved so long May not be vended "for a song,"-- That you, my dear desire and care, May 'scape the common thoroughfare, The dust, the eating rain, and all The shame and squalor of the stall.

Rather I trust your lot may touch Some Croesus--if there should be such-- To buy you, and that you may so From Croesus unto Croesus go Till that inevitable day When comes your moment of decay._

_This, more than other good, I pray._