The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 248

LINES ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN.

_principibus placuisse viris_!

--HORAT.

Yes, grief will have way--but the fast falling tear Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those Who could bask in that Spirit's meridian career.

And yet leave it thus lonely and dark at its close:--

Whose vanity flew round him, only while fed By the odor his fame in its summer-time gave;-- Whose vanity now, with quick scent for the dead, Like the Ghoul of the East, comes to feed at his grave.

Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow, And spirits so mean in the great and high-born; To think what a long line of t.i.tles may follow The relics of him who died--friendless and lorn!

How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow:-- How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose palls shall be held up by n.o.bles to-morrow!

And Thou too whose life, a sick epicure's dream, Incoherent and gross, even grosser had past, Were it not for that cordial and soul-giving beam Which his friends.h.i.+p and wit o'er thy nothingness cast:--

No! not for the wealth of the land that supplies thee With millions to heap upon Foppery's shrine;-- No! not for the riches of all who despise thee, Tho' this would make Europe's whole opulence mine;--

Would I suffer what--even in the heart that thou hast-- All mean as it is--must have consciously burned.

When the pittance, which shame had wrung from thee at last, And which found all his wants at an end, was returned![1]

"Was this then the fate,"--future ages will say, When _some_ names shall live but in history's curse; When Truth will be heard, and these Lords of a day Be forgotten as fools or remembered as worse;--

"Was this then the fate of that high-gifted man, "The pride of the palace, the bower and the hall, "The orator,--dramatist,--minstrel,--who ran "Thro' each mode of the lyre and was master of all;--

"Whose mind was an essence compounded with art "From the finest and best of all other men's powers;- "Who ruled, like a wizard, the world of the heart, "And could call up its suns.h.i.+ne or bring down its showers;--

"Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light, "Played round every subject and shone as it played;-- "Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, "Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade;--

"Whose eloquence--brightening whatever it tried, "Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave,-- "Was as rapid, as deep and as brilliant a tide, "As ever bore Freedom aloft on its wave!"

Yes--such was the man and so wretched his fate;-- And thus, sooner or later, shall all have to grieve, Who waste their morn's dew in the beams of the Great, And expect 'twill return to refresh them at eve.

In the woods of the North there are insects that prey On the brain of the elk till his very last sigh;[2]

Oh, Genius! thy patrons, more cruel than they, First feed on thy brains and then leave thee to die!

[1] The sum was two hundred pounds--offered when Sheridan could no longer take any sustenance, and declined, for him, by his friends.

[2] Naturalists have observed that, upon dissecting an elk, there was found in its head some large flies, with its brain almost eaten away by them,--_History of Poland_.

EPISTLE FROM TOM CRIB TO BIG BEN.[1]

CONCERNING SOME FOUL PLAY IN A LATE TRANSACTION.[2]

_"Ahi, mio Ben!"_ --METASTASIO.[3]

What! BEN, my old hero, is this your renown?

Is _this_ the new _go_?--kick a man when he's down!

When the foe has knockt under, to tread on him then-- By the fist of my father, I blush for thee, BEN!

"Foul! foul!" all the lads of the Fancy exclaim-- CHARLEY SHOCK is electrified--BELCHER spits flame-- And MOLYNEUX--ay, even BLACKY[4] cries "shame!"

Time was, when JOHN BULL little difference spied 'Twixt the foe at his feet and the friend at his side: When he found (such his humor in fighting and eating) His foe, like his beef-steak, the sweeter for beating.

But this comes, Master BEN, of your curst foreign notions, Your trinkets, wigs, thingumbobs, gold lace and lotions; Your Noyaus, Curacoas, and the devil knows what-- (One swig of _Blue Ruin_[5] is worth the whole lot!)

Your great and small _crosses_--my eyes, what a brood!

(A _cross_-b.u.t.tock from _me_ would do some of them good!) Which have spoilt you, till hardly a drop, my old porpoise, Of pure English _claret_ is left in your _corpus_; And (as JIM says) the only one trick, good or bad, Of the Fancy you're up to, is _fibbing_, my lad.

Hence it comes,--BOXIANA, disgrace to thy page!-- Having floored, by good luck, the first _swell_ of the age, Having conquered the _prime one_, that _milled_ us all round, You kickt him, old BEN, as he gaspt on the ground!

Ay--just at the time to show s.p.u.n.k, if you'd got any-- Kickt him and jawed him and _lagged_[6] him to Botany!

Oh, shade of the _Cheesemonger_![7] you, who, alas!

_Doubled up_ by the dozen those Moun-seers in bra.s.s, On that great day of _milling_, when blood lay in lakes, When Kings held the bottle, and Europe the stakes, Look down upon BEN--see him, _dung-hill_ all o'er, Insult the fallen foe that can harm him no more!

Out, cowardly _spooney_!--again and again, By the fist of my father, I blush for thee, BEN.

To _show the white feather_ is many men's doom, But, what of _one_ feather?--BEN shows a _whole Plume_.

[1] A nickname given, at this time, to the Prince Regent.

[2] Written soon after Bonaparte's transportation to St. Helena.

[3] Tom, I suppose, was "a.s.sisted" to this Motto by Mr. Jackson, who, it is well known, keeps the most learned company going.

[4] Names and nicknames of celebrated pugilists at that time.

[5] Gin.

[6] Transported.

[7] A Life-Guardsman, one of _the Fancy_ who distinguished himself and was killed in the memorable _set-to_ at Waterloo.

FABLES FOR THE HOLY ALLIANCE.