On every brow a dewdrop stood, They grew so scared and hot,-- "I' the name of all that's great and tall, Who are ye, sir, and what?" Loud laughed the Gogmagog, a laugh As loud as giant's roar-- "When first I came, my proper name Was Little--now I'm _Moore!_"[39] [Footnote 39: Thomas Moore is a forgotten poet, and it cannot therefore be impertinent to remind the reader that in his early days he published certain rather "vain and amatorious" poems under the pseudonym of "Thomas Little."] THE PROGRESS OF ART. Oh happy time!--Art's early days! When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise, Narcissus-like I hung! When great Rembrandt but little seemed, And such Old Masters all were deemed As nothing to the young! Some scratchy strokes--abrupt and few, So easily and swift I drew, Sufficed for my design; My sketchy, superficial hand Drew solids at a dash--and spanned A surface with a line. Not long my eye was thus content, But grew more critical--my bent Essayed a higher walk; I copied leaden eyes in lead-- Rheumatic hands in white and red, And gouty feet--in chalk. Anon my studious art for days Kept making faces--happy phrase, For faces such as mine! Accomplished in the details then, I left the minor parts of men, And drew the form divine. Old Gods and Heroes--Trojan--Greek, Figures--long after the antique, Great Ajax justly feared; Hectors, of whom at night I dreamt, And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt Bird-nesters to his beard. A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, A Pallas that out-stared her owl, A Vulcan--very lame; A Dian stuck about with stars, With my right hand I murdered Mars-- (One Williams did the same). But tired of this dry work at last, Crayon and chalk aside I cast, And gave my brush a drink! Dipping--"as when a painter dips In gloom of earthquake and eclipse,"-- That is--in Indian ink. Oh then, what black Mont Blancs arose, Crested with soot, and not with snows: What clouds of dingy hue! In spite of what the bard has penned, I fear the distance did not "lend Enchantment to the view." Not Radcliffe's brush did e'er design Black Forests half so black as mine, Or lakes so like a pall; The Chinese cake dispersed a ray Of darkness, like the light of Day And Martin over all. Yet urchin pride sustained me still, I gazed on all with right good will, And spread the dingy tint; "No holy Luke helped me to paint, The devil surely, not a Saint, Had any finger in't!" But colors came!--like morning light, With gorgeous hues, displacing night, Or Spring's enlivened scene: At once the sable shades withdrew; My skies got very, very blue; My trees extremely green. And washed by my cosmetic brush, How Beauty's cheek began to blush; With lock of auburn stain-- (Not Goldsmith's Auburn)--nut-brown hair, That made her loveliest of the fair; Not "loveliest of the plain!"