The Pity of it!  And the changing Taste
Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste! 
My Childhood fled your couplet’s clarion tone,
And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn. 
Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears
The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears;
Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel,
And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel! 
But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence,
Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence,
And great Achilles’ Eloquence doth show
As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau! 
Again, your Verse is orderly,—­and more,—­
‘The Waves behind impel the Waves before;’
Monotonously musical they glide,
Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. 
But turn to Homer!  How his Verses sweep! 
Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep;
This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth,
Spurred by the West or smitten by the North,
Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all
Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall,
The next with silver Murmur dies away,
Like Tides that falter to Calypso’s Bay!

Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread,
Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead;
Thus Time,—­at Ronsard’s wreath that vainly bit,—­
Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit,
Who almost left on Addison a stain,
Whose knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain,—­
Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine!)
When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine. 
In Poetry thy Dunciad expires,
When Wit has shot ‘her momentary Fires.’ 
’T is Tragedy that watches by the Bed
‘Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red,’
And men, remembering all, can scarce deny
To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes lie!

VI.

To Lucian of Samosata.

In what bower, oh Lucian, of your rediscovered Islands Fortunate are you now reclining; the delight of the fair, the learned, the witty, and the brave?  In that clear and tranquil climate, whose air breathes of ’violet and lily, myrtle, and the flower of the vine,’

 Where the daisies are rose-scented,
 And the Rose herself has got
 Perfume which on earth is not,

among the music of all birds, and the wind-blown notes of flutes hanging on the trees, methinks that your laughter sounds most silvery sweet, and that Helen and fair Charmides are still of your company.  Master of mirth, and Soul the best contented of all that have seen the world’s ways clearly, most clear-sighted of all that have made tranquillity their bride, what other laughers dwell with you, where the crystal and fragrant waters wander round the shining palaces and the temples of amethyst?

Heine surely is with you; if, indeed, it was not one Syrian soul that dwelt among alien men, Germans and Romans, in the bodily tabernacles of Heine and of Lucian.  But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues; while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned in no ‘mattress-grave.’  Without Rabelais, without Voltaire, without Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands lacking in zest; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients could meet you in the lists of sportive dialogue.