VI.
I did not think to glorify gods and kings,
Who scourged them ever with hate's sanguineous rods;
But who with hope and faith may live at odds?
And then these jingling jays with plume-plucked wings,
Compete, and laureate laurels _are_ lovely things,
Though crowing lyric lauders of kings and gods!
Beshrew the blatant bleating of sheep-voiced mimes!
True thunder shall strike dumb their chirping chimes.
If there _be_ laureate laurels, or bays, or palms,
In these red, Radical, revelling, riotous times,
They should be the true bard's, though mid-age calms
His revolutionary fierce rolling rhymes,
Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storm of--psalms
That great lyre's golden echoes rolled away!
Forth tripped another claimant of the bay.
Trim, tittivated, tintinnabulant,
His bosom aped the true Parnassian pant,
As may a housemaid's leathern bellows mock
The rock--whelmed Titan's breathings. He no shock
Of bard-like shagginess shook to the breeze.
A modern Cambrian Minstrel hopes to please
By undishevelled dandy-daintiness,
Whether of lays or locks, of rhymes or dress.
Some bards pipe from Parnassus, some from Hermon;
Room for the singer of the Sunday Sermon!
His stimulant tepid tea, his theme a text,
Carmarthen's cultured caroller comes next!
THE WORTH OF VERSE.
AIR--"_The Birth of Verse_."
Wild thoughts which occupy the brain,
Vague prophecies which fill the ear,
Dim perturbation, precious pain,
A gleam of hope, a chill of fear,--
These vex the poet's spirit.
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