第34章

When he and Southey, following the same path, Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).

Such names at present cut a convict figure, The very Botany Bay in moral geography;

Their loyal treason, renegado rigour, Are good manure for their more bare biography.

Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger Than any since the birthday of typography;

A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the 'Excursion.'

Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

He there builds up a formidable dyke Between his own and others' intellect;

But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like Joanna Southcote's Shiloh, and her sect, Are things which in this century don't strike The public mind,- so few are the elect;

And the new births of both their stale virginities Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities.

But let me to my story: I must own, If I have any fault, it is digression-Leaving my people to proceed alone, While I soliloquize beyond expression;

But these are my addresses from the throne, Which put off business to the ensuing session:

Forgetting each omission is a loss to The world, not quite so great as Ariosto.

I know that what our neighbours call 'longueurs'

(We 've not so good a word, but have the thing In that complete perfection which ensures An epic from Bob Southey every spring), Form not the true temptation which allures The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring Some fine examples of the epopee, To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.

We learn from Horace, 'Homer sometimes sleeps;'

We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes,-To show with what complacency he creeps, With his dear 'Waggoners,' around his lakes.

He wishes for 'a boat' to sail the deeps-Of ocean?- No, of air; and then he makes Another outcry for 'a little boat,'

And drivels seas to set it well afloat.

If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain, And Pegasus runs restive in his 'Waggon,'

Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain?

Or pray Medea for a single dragon?

Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain, He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

'Pedlars,' and 'Boats,' and 'Waggons!' Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

That trash of such sort not alone evades Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades Of sense and song above your graves may hiss-The 'little boatman' and his 'Peter Bell'

Can sneer at him who drew 'Achitophel'!

T' our tale.- The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;

The Arab lore and poet's song were done, And every sound of revelry expired;

The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired;-Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!