The fatal period hastens on apace. Nor will thy verse the obscene event disgrace; Thy flowers of poetry, that smell so strong, The keenest appetites have loathed the song, Condemn'd by Clark, Banks, Barrowby, and Chitty, And all the crop-ear'd critics of the city: While sagely neutral sits thy silent friend, Alike averse to censure or commend.
Peace to the gentle soul that could deny His invocated voice to fill the cry! 200 And let me still the sentiment disdain Of him who never speaks but to arraign, The sneering son of Calumny and Scorn, Whom neither arts, nor sense, nor soul adorn; Or his, who, to maintain a critic's rank, Though conscious of his own internal blank, His want of taste unwilling to betray, 'Twixt sense and nonsense hesitates all day, With brow contracted hears each passage read, And often hums, and shakes his empty head, 210 Until some oracle adored pronounce The passive bard a poet or a dunce; Then in loud clamour echoes back the word, 'Tis bold, insipid--soaring, or absurd. These, and the unnumber'd shoals of smaller fry, That nibble round, I pity and defy.
[Footnote 1: 'Williamson:' governor of the Tower.]
[Footnote 2: 'Vanquished knight:' Sir John Cope.]
[Footnote 3: 'Stanhope:' the Earl of Chesterfield.]
[Footnote 4; 'Scot, Gideon,' &c.: forgotten contractors, money-lenders, &c.]
[Footnote 5: 'Peter's obsequies:' Peter Waters, Esq.]
[Footnote 6: 'Hawley:' discomfited at Falkirk in 1746.]
1 Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn! Thy sons, for valour long renown'd, Lie slaughter'd on their native ground; Thy hospitable roofs no more Invite the stranger to the door; In smoky ruins sunk they lie, The monuments of cruelty.
2 The wretched owner sees afar His all become the prey of war; Bethinks him of his babes and wife, Then smites his breast, and curses life. Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks, Where once they fed their wanton flocks: Thy ravish'd virgins shriek in vain; Thy infants perish on the plain.
3 What boots it, then, in every clime, Through the wide-spreading waste of Time, Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise, Still shone with undiminish'd blaze? Thy towering spirit now is broke, Thy neck is bended to the yoke. What foreign arms could never quell, By civil rage and rancour fell.