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The stamm'ring sound, the tainted atmosphere,
The blank confusion, and the prospect drear,
So much repel the mind of decent grade,
That author's lost 'mid Chaos he hath made!
Mark now Mundanus, who with sordid mind
Dwells on our joys and ills of meaner kind.
For him no grassy slopes of Tempe wait,
Nor does his Muse Arcadian bliss relate:
Strephon and Chloe, all the shepherd train,
Excite his wrath, and summon his disdain.
Saturnian days no thought of his engage,
But all the world's to him an Iron Age.
His earthy fancy never mounts the sky,
But draws its source from kennel, barn, or sty.
No sylvan scenes, nor reed-fring'd brooks in June,
But mills, and mines, and shops inspire his tune.
Almighty Dullness! See the empire rise,
The pure to stain, the strong to paralyse:
Destructive Commerce! Thy all-blighting pow'rs
Pollute our lines, and crush Thought's fairest flow'rs.
Can Art survive in a degraded age
When none but boors and cynics hold the stage?
When verse ideal brings the vulgar smile,
And honest words are slighted for the vile?
He who would light again the poet's fire,
Must straight to some secluded spot retire;
Where, pond'ring on the happier days of yore,
His fancy may the ancient times restore;
Where, as of old, kind Nature's voice is heard,
To raise the mind, and prompt the written word.
There may we find the Golden Age anew,
Where thoughts are simple, and our dreamings true;
In such blest scenes we may rehearse again
The classic grandeur of Eliza's reign.
In Shakespeare's fashion move the anxious heart,
Or charm the woodland nymphs with Jonson's art.
But let me cease! No such expanding hope
Can stir my pencil from the style of Pope,
The sounding line, which neither breaks nor halts,
Is needful to conceal my graver faults!
The Allowable Rhyme.
By H.P.Lovecraft.
"Sed ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis".
--Horace.
The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious. One loud
