145 THE NEW MINSTREL; OR, THE PROGRESS OF GENIUS. PART II. I. AND now behold our youthful Bard, a dweller And bound by hateful parchment to a seller From high Parnassus, to become a teller Of tomes and quires; and half compelled to stop II. For one whole week he never link'd a rhyme! As if he meant not to commit the crime Of Poetry, but bend him to his station: III. And in the midst of all that learned lore And toiled like copying-clerk upon the same! L IV. Sometimes he grew enamoured of the wild, To Harry's heroes, who were full of wonder! Each verse was full of lightning, wrath, and thunder ? He scorn'd a touch of beauty or of pleasure; But all was fear and horror without measure. V. Anon he'd grow delighted with the sweet, Melodious, melting strain; soft as the stream That trickles through its silent, still retreat; Where e'eu one hard-tongued consonant would seem An interloper,-all his tuneful feet Were liquids, pour'd as softly as the beam Of moonlight on the waters,-mild as flowers, And noiseless as the hum of noontide bowers. VI. E'en in the midst of casting up a page, He would stop short to note some sudden thought; His fancy seemed eternal war to wage With figures, it was so sublimely wrought : Nothing his mental fever could assuage But writing all beside to him was nought; And, had not others to the trade attended, The trade itself had quickly have been ended. VII. Within doors or without, 'twas all the same; He was so bent upon poetic fame, He would have braved the Spanish Inquisition; Ev'n in the crowded streets the verses came, And he would stop as though he saw a vision; He might have pass'd his father, and not known him, Unless his flapper* had been by and shown him. VIII. Oh, Meditation! source of sweet delight! Inspire thy dreams, with purse and mind at ease: IX.. One thing, at times, a little damped his spirit, The fire that he did, who was never cold; X. If any thing can cure a lad of rhyming, And all the fire and spirit beaming through it; His master very soon began to find That a young poet was not good for much In business; all his orders were behind; He wished he had been bred among the Dutch, Who to the charms of poesy are so blind, They scarce know how the rhyming chord to touch: He said he'd have him up before the Mayor, Had he the youth had spouted verses there! XII. Vain man! to think a Mayor would quench the fire Within his breast, whom nature form'd a poet; When opposition makes it burn the higher, And him the more resolved the world shall know it By striving to put out, he fed the ire, And Harry oft was bold enough to show it; His wayward course at last he let him run, And only wished that he were twenty-one. XIII. In truth, there is no mania more incurable Will look on every remedy with scorn. To cure most ills by which the heart is torn, This still defies the pharmacy of London, Although it has so many licges undone? XIV. We know full well that you prescribe for many, (So they can pay,) for real or fancied woes; But, as for him who ventures his last penny In printing poems to make readers dose, You won't give ev'n a pill to cool his blood, To do both him and all the public good. XV. Perhaps it was that Harry was mistaking During his whole apprenticeship, and thought That he was bound to learn the art of making Verses; which, though his master never taught, He vowed to learn; nor dreamt that he was breaking His parchment bond, with many a caution fraught; Those genius-quenching writings called indentures, That spoil so many juvenile adventures. XVI. He knew what they contained, ev'n to the letter,- For all these joys he was content to tarry; XVII. Who would might serve the customers, for aught And thought a genius scarcely worth his victual : One Christmas, at a noble peer's abode, XVIII. And once, when he was sent to Russel-square, There came upon him the poetic flame, XIX. But poets' days roll on as swift as others,→ The hopes they felt in many a by-gone year: But when his one-and-twentieth spring drew near, XX. And then he launched upon the world, a bark His way across the wild and wayward tide, XXI. He had long scribbled for the magazines; He gave them verses, and they gave him-space; And many reading misses in their teens, Found H-H- always in his monthly place: But now he burned for more auspicious scenes, And larger, longer, loftier works to trace,Thus builders, who begin with fourth-rate houses, Grow proud-build squares-and ruin selves and spouses. XXII. But now he thought, as he had rhymed so long, 'Twas time he should be known,-he therefore made A small collection from his heaps of song,- But none of all the craft could he persuade On one proud epic now his hopes he placed,- His hero, Gallia's great, though fallen, chief: |