The list grows long of live and dead pretenders To that which none will gain—or none will know The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders His last award, will have the long grass grow Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. If I might augur, I should rate but low Their chances; they’re too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome’s annals wax’d but dirty. This is the literary lower empire, Where the praetorian bands take up the matter;— A ‘dreadful trade,’ like his who ‘gathers samphire,’ The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, With the same feelings as you’d coax a vampire. Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, I’d try conclusions with those Janizaries, And show them what an intellectual war is. I think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while With such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I’ve not the necessary bile; My natural temper ’s really aught but stern, And even my Muse’s worst reproof ’s a smile; And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assured she never hurts ye. My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past With some small profit through that field so sterile, Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last, Left it before he had been treated very ill; And henceforth found himself more gaily class’d Amongst the higher spirits of the day, The sun’s true son, no vapour, but a ray. His morns he pass’d in business—which, dissected, Was like all business a laborious nothing That leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing, And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathing All kinds of toil, save for our country’s good— Which grows no better, though ’tis time it should. His afternoons he pass’d in visits, luncheons, Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour In riding round those vegetable puncheons Call’d ‘Parks,’ where there is neither fruit nor flower Enough to gratify a bee’s slight munchings; But after all it is the only ‘bower’ (In Moore’s phrase), where the fashionable fair Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air. Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world! Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl’d Like harness’d meteors; then along the floor Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl’d; Then roll the brazen thunders of the door, Which opens to the thousand happy few An earthly paradise of ‘Or Molu.’