II.
“Which pie being open’d they
began to sing”
(This old song and new simile
holds good),
“A dainty dish to set before the
King”,
Or Regent, who admires such
kind of food—
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumber’d
with his hood—
Explaining metaphysics to the nation—
I wish he would explain his Explanation.
III.
You, Bob, are rather insolent, you know
At being disappointed in your
wish
To supersede all warblers here below,
And be the only blackbird
in the dish;
And then you overstrain yourself, or so,
And tumble downward like the
flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too
high, Bob,
And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry,
Bob!
IV.
And Wordsworth, in a rather long “Excursion”
(I think the quarto holds
five hundred pages),
Has given a sample from the vasty version
Of his new system to perplex
the sages;
’Tis poetry—at least
by his assertion,
And may appear so when the
dog-star rages—
And he who understands it would be able
To add a story to the Tower of Babel.
V.
You—Gentlemen! by dint of long
seclusion
From better company, have
kept your own
At Keswick, and, through still continued
fusion
Of one another’s minds,
at last have grown
To deem as a most logical conclusion,
That Poesy has wreaths for
you alone;
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you’d change
your lakes for ocean.
VI.
I would not imitate the petty thought,
Nor coin my self-love to so
base a vice,
For all the glory your conversion brought,
Since gold alone should not
have been its price,
You have your salary; was’t for
that you wrought?
And Wordsworth has his place
in the Excise!
You’re shabby fellows—true—but
poets still,
And duly seated on the immortal hill.
VII.
Your bays may hide the baldness of your
brows—
Perhaps some virtuous blushes,
let them go—
To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs,
And for the fame you would
engross below,
The field is universal, and allows
Scope to all such as feel
the inherent glow;
Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe,
will try
’Gainst you the question with posterity.
VIII.
For me, who, wandering with pedestrian
Muses,
Contend not with you on the
winged steed,
I wish your fate may yield ye, when she
chooses,
The fame you envy and the
skill you need;
And recollect a poet nothing loses
In giving to his brethren
their full meed
Of merit, and complaint of present days
Is not the certain path to future praise.
IX.