Blades thickly sown want nutriment and droop,
Although the seed be sound, and rich the soil;
Thus healthy-born ideas, bedded close,
By dreaming fondness perish overlain.
A rose or sprig of myrtle in the hair
Pleases me better than a far-sought gem.

I chide the flounce that checks the nimble feet,
Abhor the cruel piercer of the ear,

And would strike down the chain that cuts in two
The beauteous column of the marble neck.
Barbarous and false are all such ornaments,
Yet such hath poesy in whim put on.

Classical hath been deem'd each Roman name
Writ on the roll-call of each pedagogue

In the same hand, in the same tone pronounced;
Yet might five scanty pages well contain
All that the Muses in fresh youth would own
Between the grave at Tomos, wet with tears
Rolling amain down Getick beard unshorn,
And that grand priest whose purple shone afar
From his own Venice o'er the Adrian sea.
We talk of schools. . unscholarly; if schools
Part the romantick from the classical.
The classical like the heroick age

Is past; but Poetry may reassume

That glorious name with Tartar and with Turk,
With Goth or Arab, Sheik or Paladin,
And not with Roman and with Greek alone.
The name is graven on the workmanship.
The trumpet-blast of Marmion never shook
The God-built walls of Ilion; yet what shout
Of the Achaians swells the heart so high?
Nor fainter is the artillery-roar that booms.
From Hohenlinden to the Baltick strand.
Shakespeare with majesty benign call'd up
The obedient classicks from their marble seat,
And led them thro' dim glen and sheeny glade,
And over precipices, over seas

Unknown by mariner, to palaces

High-archt, to festival, to dance, to joust,
And gave them golden spur and vizor barred,

And steeds that Pheidias had turn'd pale to see.

The mighty man who open'd Paradise,
Harmonious far above Homerick song,
Or any song that human ears shall hear,
Sometimes was classical and sometimes not:

Rome chain'd him down; the younger Italy
Dissolved (not fatally) his Samson strength.

I leave behind me those who stood around
The throne of Shakespeare, sturdy, but unclean,
To hurry past the opprobrious courts and lanes.
Of the loose pipers at the Belial feast,
Past mime obscene and grinder of lampoon.
Away the petty wheel, the callous hand!
Goldsmith was classical, and Gray almost;
So was poor Collins, heart-bound to Romance:
Shelley and Keats, those southern stars, shone higher.
Cowper had more variety, more strength,

Gentlest of bards! still pitied, still beloved!

Shrewder in epigram than polity

Was Canning; Frere more graceful; Smith more grand;

A genuine poet was the last alone.

Romantick, classical, the female hand

That chain'd the cruel Ivan down for ever,
And follow'd up, rapt in his fiery car,
The boy of Casabianca to the skies.
Other fair forms breathe round us, which exert
With Paphian softness Amazonian power,
And sweep in bright array the Attick field.

To men turn now, who stand or lately stood
With more than Royalty's gilt bays adorn'd.
Wordsworth, in sonnet, is a classick too,
And on that grass-plot sits at Milton's side;
In the long walk he soon is out of breath
And wheezes heavier than his friends could wish.
Follow his pedlar up the devious rill,

And, if you faint not, you are well repaid.
Large lumps of precious metal lie engulpht

In gravely beds, whence you must delve them out
And thirst sometimes and hunger; shudder not
To wield the pickaxe and to shake the sieve,
Well shall the labour be (though hard) repaid.
Too weak for ode and epick, and his gait
Somewhat too rural for the tragick pall,
Which never was cut out of duffel grey,
He fell entangled, "on the grunsel-edge
Flat on his face, and shamed his worshippers."
Classick in every feature was my friend
The genial Southey: none who ruled around
Held in such order such a wide domain . .
But often too indulgent, too profuse.

Bobus Smith.

*

The ancients see us under them, and grieve
That we are parted by a rank morass,
Wishing its flowers more delicate and fewer.
Abstemious were the Greeks; they never strove
To look so fierce their Muses were sedate,
Never obstreperous: you heard no breath
Outside the flute; each sound ran clear within.

The Fauns might dance, might clap their hands, might shout,
Might revel and run riotous; the Nymphs
Furtively glanced, and fear'd, or seem'd to fear;
Descended on the lightest of light wings,

The graceful son of Maia mused apart,
Graceful, but strong; he listen'd; he drew nigh;
And now with his own lyre and now with voice
Temper'd the strain; Apollo calmly smiled.

II.

TO FRIEND JONATHAN.

Friend Jonathan! for friend thou art,
Do prythee take now in good part

Lines the first steamer shall waft o'er.
Sorry am I to hear the Blacks
Still bear your ensign on their backs;
The stripes they suffer make me sore.

So they must all be given up
To drain again the bitter cup.

Better, far better, gold should come
From Pennsylvanian wide-awakes,
Ubiquitarian rattlesnakes,

Or, pet of royalty, Tom Thumb.

Another region rolls it down,

Where soon will rise its hundredth town:
The wide Pacifick now is thine.

With power and riches be content;
More, more than either, God hath sent . .
A man is better than a mine.

Scarce half a century hath past
Ere closed the tomb upon your last,

The man that built the western world:
When gamblers, drunkards, madmen rose,
He wrencht the sword from all such foes

And crusht them with the iron they hurl'd.

Beware of wrong. The brave are true :
The tree of Freedom never grew

Where Fraud and Falsehood sow'd their salt.
Hast thou not seen it stuck one day

In the loose soil, and swept away

The next, amid the blind and halt,

Who danced like maniacs round about?
The noisiest, foulest, rabble-rout!

Earth spurns them from her, half-afraid.
Slaves they will ever be, and shou'd,
Drunken with every neighbour's blood,
By every chief they arm betray'd.

III.

TO CHARLES DICKENS.

Call we for harp or song?

Accordant numbers, measured out, belong
Alone, we hear, to bard.

Let him this badge, for ages worn, discard;

Richer and nobler now

Than when the close-trim'd laurel markt his brow.

And from one fount his thirst

Was slaked, and from none other proudly burst
Neighing, the winged steed.

Gloriously fresh were those young days indeed!·
Clear, tho' confined, the view;

The feet of giants swept that early dew;

More graceful came behind,

And golden tresses waved upon the wind.

Pity and Love were seen

In earnest converse on the humble green;

Grief too was there, but Grief

Sat down with them, nor struggled from relief.
Strong Pity was, strong he,

But little Love was bravest of the three.

At what the sad one said

Often he smiled, tho' Pity shook her head.

Descending from their clouds,

The Muses mingled with admiring crowds:

Each had her ear inclined,

Each caught and spoke the language of mankind
From choral thraldom free . .

Dickens! didst thou teach them or they teach thee?

'Αλλ' ούδε ταυταγε νουν καινει φθονερων. PINDAR.

Rare, since the sons of Leda, rare a twain,
Born of one mother, which hath reacht the goal
Of Immortality: the stem is rare

Which ripens close together two rich fruits.
Two Scipios were "the thunderbolts of war,"
And blasted what they fell upon the arm
Of Napier, far more glorious, bent each horn
Of Indus to his yokemate Ganges, hail'd
For higher victory, hail'd for rescuing
A hundred nations from barbaric sway.
The light of Scipio was outshone by him
He vanquisht, by the Julian star eclipst,
And Scipio had no brother who could lift
The scroll of Mars above the reach of Time.
We too, alike in studies, we have toil'd,
In calmer fields and healthier exercise,
Not without Honour: Honour may defer
His hour of audience, but he comes at last.
Behold! there issue from one house two chiefs*
Beyond all contest; one in shafts of wit

Hurl'd o'er the minster to the Atlantic strand,
The other proudly unapproachable

Striking a rock whence gush the founts of song;
Dull sands lie flat and dwarf shrubs writhe around.
Twice nine the centuries since the Latian Muse
Wail'd on the frozen Danube for her son
Exiled, her glory to revive no more
Until that destined period was fulfil'd.
Scaring the wrens at Cam's recumbent side,
Never by Tiber's one of statelier step
Or loftier mien or deeper tone than he
Whom, bold in youth, I dared to emulate,
Nor stoopt my crest to peck light grain among
The cackling poultry of the homestead yard.

Thine is the care to keep our native springs
Pure of pollution, clear of weeds; but thine
Are also graver cares, with fortune blest
Not above competence, with duties charged
Which with more zeal and prudence none perform.

Sydney and Bobus Smith.