Proudly he shows, with many a smile elate The scrambling subjects of the _private plate_; While Time their actions and their names bereaves, They grin for ever in the guarded leaves. Like poets, born, in vain collectors strive To cross their Fate, and learn the art to thrive. Like Cacus, bent to tame their struggling will, The Tyrant-passion drags them backward still: Even I, debarred of ease, and studious hours, Confess, 'mid anxious toil, its lurking powers. How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold! The eye skims restless, like the roving bee, O'er flowers of wit, or song, or repartee, While sweet as springs, new-bubbling from the stone, Glides through the breast some pleasing theme unknown. Now dipped in Rossi's terse and classic style, His harmless tales awake a transient smile. Now Bouchet's motley stores my thoughts arrest, With wondrous reading, and with learnèd jest. Bouchet whose tomes a grateful line demand, The valued gift of Stanley's liberal hand. Now sadly pleased, through faded Rome I stray, And mix regrets with gentle Du Bellay; Or turn, with keen delight, the curious page, Where hardly Pasquin braves the Pontiff's rage.
But D----n's strains should tell the sad reverse, When Business calls, inveterate foe to verse! Tell how 'the Demon claps his iron hands', 'Waves his lank locks, and scours along the lands.' Through wintry blasts, or summer's fire I go, To scenes of danger, and to sights of woe. Even when to Margate every Cockney roves, And brainsick-poets long for sheltering groves, Whose lofty shades exclude the noontide glow, While Zephyrs breathe, and waters trill below, The rigid Fate averts, by tasks like these, From heavenly musings, and from lettered ease. Such wholesome checks the better genius sends, From dire rehearsals to protect our friends: Else when the social rites our joys renew, The stuffed portfolio would alarm your view, Whence volleying rhymes your patience would o'ercome, And, spite of kindness, drive you early home. So when the traveller's hasty footsteps glide Near smoking lava on Vesuvio's side, Hoarse-muttering thunders from the depths proceed, And spouting fires incite his eager speed. Appalled he flies, while rattling showers invade, Invoking every saint for instant aid: Breathless, amazed, he seeks the distant shore, And vows to tempt the dangerous gulf no more.