What say you, critic, now you have become An author and maternal?--in this trap (To quote you) of poor hollow folk who rap On instruments as like as drum to drum. You snarled tut-tut for welcome to tum-tum, So like the nose fly-teased in its noon’s nap. You scratched an insect-slaughtering thunder-clap With that between the fingers and the thumb. It seemeth mad to quit the Olympian couch, Which bade our public gobble or reject. O spectacle of Peter, shrewdly pecked, Piper, by his own pepper from his pouch! What of the sneer, the jeer, the voice austere, You dealt?--the voice austere, the jeer, the sneer. CAMELUS SALTAT: CONTINUED. Oracle of the market! thence you drew The taste which stamped you guide of the inept.-- A north-sea pilot, Hildebrand yclept, A sturdy and a briny, once men knew. He loved small beer, and for that copious brew, To roll ingurgitation till he slept, Rations exchanged with flavour for the adept: And merrily plied him captain, mate and crew. At last this dancer to the Polar star Sank, washed out within, and overboard was pitched, To drink the sea and pilot him to land. O captain-critic! printed, neatly stitched, Know, while the pillory-eggs fly fast, they are Not eggs, but the drowned soul of Hildebrand. TO J. M. Let Fate or Insufficiency provide Mean ends for men who what they are would be: Penned in their narrow day no change they see Save one which strikes the blow to brutes and pride. Our faith is ours and comes not on a tide: And whether Earth’s great offspring, by decree, Must rot if they abjure rapacity, Not argument but effort shall decide. They number many heads in that hard flock; Trim swordsmen they push forth; yet try thy steel. Thou fighting for poor humankind wilt feel The strength of Roland in thy wrist to hew A chasm sheer into the barrier rock, And bring the army of the faithful through. TO A FRIEND LOST. (T. T.) When I remember, friend, whom lost I call, Because a man beloved is taken hence, The tender humour and the fire of sense In your good eyes; how full of heart for all, And chiefly for the weaker by the wall, You bore that lamp of sane benevolence; Then see I round you Death his shadows dense Divide, and at your feet his emblems fall. For surely are you one with the white host, Spirits, whose memory in our vital air Through the great love of Earth they had: lo, these, Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas, Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost, Partakers of a strife they joyed to share. MY THEME.