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Itself, to show the sceptic scoffers
Who mock humanity’s weak sides
How subtly interest divides
The bands of hate; what vice exacts
Self-love or avarice counteracts;
How passions timely yield to reason’s
Mild influence or the change of seasons;
How nature’s nail now this whim stopping,
Now that, keeps all the cat-gut hopping,
Expectant lifted high, now sinking
Despairing, swearing, hoodwinking, drinking,
Protesting, resting, declaiming, blaming,
Now cutting short its own existence,
Its neighbour’s now, with the assistance
Of slugs and seconds, swords and scandals;
How past and present turn the handles
Of Time’s harmonious organetta,
Prelude to eternity’s bright operetta;
Brief, how all’s ordered for the best,
And heaven this world’s hid palimpsest.
But hold, rash pen, that hast invaded,
By too prolific fancy aided,
Epic’s untrod and sacred province!
Have I not shewn me lavish of hints
Thou art no goose-quill, nibbling mine,
To soar, Lord bless us! high o’er Parnassus?
No province thine sublime, divine,
Thy sphere’s provincial, wretched quillet
Of wingless brass; then sink—and fill it!
Off with thee, to the land of Yankees,
Lynching and long-bows, Mood’ and Sankies;
All civilisation’s latest hits
