'Tis hard to say if greater waste of time Is seen in writing or in reading rhyme; But, of the two, less dangerous it appears To tire our own than poison others' ears. Time was, the owner of a peevish tongue, The pebble of his wrath unheeding flung, Saw the faint ripples touch the shore and cease, And in the duckpond all again was peace. But since that Science on our eyes hath laid The wondrous clay from her own spittle made, We see the widening ripples pass beyond, The pond becomes the world, the world a pond, All ether trembles when the pebble falls, And a light word may ring in starry halls. When first on earth the swift iambic ran Men here and there were found but nowhere Man. From whencesoe'er their origin they drew, Each on its separate soil the species grew, And by selection, natural or not, Evolved a fond belief in one small spot. The Greek himself, with all his wisdom, took For the wide world his bright Aegean nook, { 221}
For fatherland, a town, for public, all Who at one time could hear the herald bawl: For him barbarians beyond his gate Were lower beings, of a different date; He never thought on such to spend his rhymes, And if he did, they never read the _Times_. Now all is changed, on this side and on that, The Herald's learned to print and pass the hat; His tone is so much raised that, far or near, All with a sou to spend his news may hear,-- And who but, far or near, the sou affords To learn the worst of foreigners and lords! So comes the Pressman's heaven on earth, wherein One touch of hatred proves the whole world kin-- "Our rulers are the best, and theirs the worst, Our cause is always just and theirs accurst, Our troops are heroes, hirelings theirs or slaves, Our diplomats but children, theirs but knaves, Our Press for independence justly prized, Theirs bought or blind, inspired or subsidized. For the world's progress what was ever made Like to our tongue, our Empire and our trade?" So chant the nations, till at last you'd think Men could no nearer howl to folly's brink; Yet some in England lately won renown By howling word for word, but upside down.
But where, you cry, could poets find a place (If poets we possessed) in this disgrace? { 222}
Mails will be mails, Reviews must be reviews, But why the Critic with the Bard confuse? Alas! Apollo, it must be confessed Has lately gone the way of all the rest. No more alone upon the far-off hills With song serene the wilderness he fills, But in the forum now his art employs And what he lacks in knowledge gives in noise. At first, ere he began to feel his feet, He begged a corner in the hindmost sheet, Concealed with Answers and Acrostics lay, And held aloof from Questions of the Day. But now, grown bold, he dashes to the front, Among the leaders bears the battle's brunt, Takes steel in hand, and cheaply unafraid Spurs a lame Pegasus on Jameson's Raid, Or pipes the fleet in melodrama's tones To ram the Damned on their Infernal Thrones.