Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett Part 14

AN ELEGY TO AN OLD BEAUTY.

In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night, Your face with patches soil, with paint repair, Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair.

If truth in spite of manners must be told, Why, really, fifty-five is something old.

Once you were young; or one, whose life's so long, She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong.

And once, (since Envy's dead before you die) The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye, 10 Taught the light foot a modish little trip, And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.

To some new charmer are the roses fled, Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red; Youth calls the graces there to fix their reign, And airs by thousands fill their easy train.

So parting Summer bids her flowery prime Attend the Sun to dress some foreign clime, While withering seasons in succession, here, Strip the gay gardens, and deform the Year. 20

But thou (since Nature bids) the world resign, 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine.

With more address, (or such as pleases more) She runs her female exercises o'er, Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan, And smiles, or blushes at the creature Man.

With quicker life, as gilded coaches pa.s.s, In sideling courtesy she drops the gla.s.s.

With better strength, on visit-days she bears To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs. 30 Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes and tongue, Are sure to conquer--for the rogue is young; And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay, We call it only pretty f.a.n.n.y's way.

Let Time that makes you homely, make you sage, The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age.

'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire, And hears the flattering tongues of soft desire, If not from virtue, from its gravest ways The soul with pleasing avocation strays. 40 But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise; As harpers better by the loss of eyes.

Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs, Haunt less the plays, and more the public prayers, Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade, Go pray, in sober Norwich c.r.a.pe array'd.

Thy pendant diamonds let thy f.a.n.n.y take, Their trembling l.u.s.tre shows how much you shake; Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl, You'll find your f.a.n.n.y an obedient girl. 50 So, for the rest, with less inc.u.mbrance hung, You walk through life, unmingled with the young; And view the shade and substance as you pa.s.s With joint endeavour trifling at the gla.s.s, Or Folly dress'd, and rambling all her days, To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise: Yet still sedate yourself, and gravely plain, You neither fret, nor envy at the vain.

'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare, The wise Athenian cross'd a glittering fair; 60 Unmoved by tongues and sights, he walk'd the place, Through tape, toys, tinsel, gimp, perfume, and lace; Then bends from Mars's hill his awful eyes, And 'What a world I never want!' he cries; But cries unheard: for Folly will be free.

So parts the buzzing gaudy crowd, and he: As careless he for them, as they for him; He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim

THE BOOK-WORM.

Come hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day The book-worm, ravening beast of prey!

Produced by parent Earth, at odds (As Fame reports it) with the G.o.ds.

Him frantic Hunger wildly drives Against a thousand authors' lives: Through all the fields of Wit he flies; Dreadful his head with cl.u.s.tering eyes, With horns without, and tusks within, And scales to serve him for a skin. 10 Observe him nearly, lest he climb To wound the bards of ancient time, Or down the vale of Fancy go, To tear some modern wretch below: On every corner fix thine eye, Or, ten to one, he slips thee by.

See where his teeth a pa.s.sage eat: We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.

But who the shelter's forced to give?

'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live! 20 From leaf to leaf, from song to song, He draws the tadpole form along, He mounts the gilded edge before, He's up, he scuds the cover o'er, He turns, he doubles, there he pa.s.s'd, And here we have him, caught at last.

Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse The sweetest servants of the Muse!

--Nay, never offer to deny, I took thee in the act to fly-- 30 His roses nipp'd in every page, My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage.

By thee my Ovid wounded lies; By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies: Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd The work of love in Biddy Floyd; They rent Belinda's locks away, And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.

For all, for every single deed, Relentless Justice bids thee bleed. 40 Then fall a victim to the Nine, Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.

Bring Homer, Virgil, Ta.s.so near, To pile a sacred altar here; Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit, You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ; You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain; Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim,--there he lies, And here between his numerous eyes 50 This venerable dust I lay, From ma.n.u.scripts just swept away.

The goblet in my hand I take (For the libation's yet to make), A health to poets! all their days May they have bread, as well as praise; Sense may they seek, and less engage In papers fill'd with party rage.

But if their riches spoil their vein, Ye Muses! make them poor again. 60

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade, With which my tuneful pens are made.

I strike the scales that arm thee round, And twice and thrice I print the wound; The sacred altar floats with red; And now he dies, and now he's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand, This Hydra stretch'd beneath my hand!

Lay bare the monster's entrails here, To see what dangers threat the year: 70 Ye G.o.ds! what sonnets on a wench!

What lean translations out of French!

'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound, S-- prints before the months go round.

But hold, before I close the scene, The sacred altar should be clean.

Oh, had I Shadwell's[1] second bays, Or, Tate![2] thy pert and humble lays!

(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow I never miss'd your works till now) I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine, 80 (That only way you please the Nine) But since I chance to want these two, I'll make the songs of Durfey[3] do.

Rent from the corpse, on yonder pin I hang the scales that braced it in; I hang my studious morning gown, And write my own inscription down.

'This trophy from the Python won, This robe, in which the deed was done, 90 These, Parnell glorying in the feat, Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat.

Here Ignorance and Hunger found Large realms of wit to ravage round; Here Ignorance and Hunger fell-- Two foes in one I sent to h.e.l.l.

Ye poets, who my labours see, Come share the triumph all with me!

Ye critics, born to vex the Muse, Go mourn the grand ally you lose!' 100

[Footnote 1: 'Shadwell:' Dryden's rival.]

[Footnote 2: 'Tate:' Nahum. See Life of Dryden.]

[Footnote 3: 'Durfey:' the well-known wit of the time.]

AN ALLEGORY ON MAN.

A thoughtful being, long and spare, Our race of mortals call him Care; (Were Homer living, well he knew What name the G.o.ds have call'd him too) With fine mechanic genius wrought, And loved to work, though no one bought.

This being, by a model bred In Jove's eternal sable head, Contrived a shape, empower'd to breathe, And be the worldling here beneath. 10

The Man rose staring, like a stake, Wondering to see himself awake!

Then look'd so wise, before he knew The business he was made to do, That, pleased to see with what a grace He gravely show'd his forward face, Jove talk'd of breeding him on high, An under-something of the sky.

But e'er he gave the mighty nod, Which ever binds a poet's G.o.d, 20 (For which his curls ambrosial shake, And mother Earth's obliged to quake:) He saw old mother Earth arise, She stood confess'd before his eyes; But not with what we read she wore, A castle for a crown, before; Nor with long streets and longer roads Dangling behind her, like commodes: As yet with wreaths alone she dress'd, And trail'd a landscape-painted vest. 30 Then thrice she raised, (as Ovid said) And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honours made, Great Jove, she cried, This thing was fashion'd from my side; His hands, his heart, his head are mine; Then what hast thou to call him thine?

Nay, rather ask, the monarch said, What boots his hand, his heart, his head?

Were what I gave removed away, Thy parts an idle shape of clay. 40

Halves, more than halves! cried honest Care; Your pleas would make your t.i.tles fair, You claim the body, you the soul, But I who join'd them, claim the whole.