Epistle From Esopus To Maria（2 / 3）
and call each coxcomb to the wordy war:
i see her face the first of ireland's sons,
and even out-irish his hibernian bronze;
the crafty colonel leaves the tartan'd lines,
for other wars, where he a hero shines:
the hopeful youth, in scottish senate bred,
who owns a bushby's heart without the head,
comes 'mid a string of coxcombs, to display
that veni, vidi, vici, is his way:
the shrinking bard adown the alley skulks,
and dreads a meeting worse than woolwich hulks:
though there, his heresies in church and state
might well award him muir and palmer's fate:
still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
and dares the public like a noontide sun.
what scandal called maria's jaunty stagger
the ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?
whose spleen (e'en worse than burns' venom, when
he dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,
and pours his vengeance in the burning line,)—
who christen'd thus maria's lyre-divine
the idiot strum of vanity bemus'd,
and even the abuse of poesy abus'd?—
who called her verse a parish workhouse, made
for motley foundling fancies, stolen or strayed?
a workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
and pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!
in durance vile here must i wake and weep,
and all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;
that straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, ↑返回顶部↑
i see her face the first of ireland's sons,
and even out-irish his hibernian bronze;
the crafty colonel leaves the tartan'd lines,
for other wars, where he a hero shines:
the hopeful youth, in scottish senate bred,
who owns a bushby's heart without the head,
comes 'mid a string of coxcombs, to display
that veni, vidi, vici, is his way:
the shrinking bard adown the alley skulks,
and dreads a meeting worse than woolwich hulks:
though there, his heresies in church and state
might well award him muir and palmer's fate:
still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
and dares the public like a noontide sun.
what scandal called maria's jaunty stagger
the ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?
whose spleen (e'en worse than burns' venom, when
he dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,
and pours his vengeance in the burning line,)—
who christen'd thus maria's lyre-divine
the idiot strum of vanity bemus'd,
and even the abuse of poesy abus'd?—
who called her verse a parish workhouse, made
for motley foundling fancies, stolen or strayed?
a workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
and pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!
in durance vile here must i wake and weep,
and all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;
that straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, ↑返回顶部↑