Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets, That no rude savour maritime invade The nose of nice nobility. Breathe soft, Ye clarionets, and softer still, ye flutes, That winds and waters lulled by magic sounds May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore. True, we have lost an empire—let it pass. True, we may thank the perfidy of France That picked the jewel out of England’s crown, With all the cunning of an envious shrew. And let that pass—’twas but a trick of state. A brave man knows no malice, but at once Forgets in peace the injuries of war, And gives his direst foe a friend’s embrace. And shamed as we have been, to the very beard Braved and defied, and in our own sea proved Too weak for those decisive blows that once Insured us mastery there, we yet retain Some small pre-eminence, we justly boast At least superior jockeyship, and claim The honours of the turf as all our own. Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek, And show the shame ye might conceal at home, In foreign eyes!—be grooms, and win the plate, Where once your nobler fathers won a crown!— ’Tis generous to communicate your skill To those that need it. Folly is soon learned, And, under such preceptors, who can fail? There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, The expedients and inventions multiform To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win— To arrest the fleeting images that fill The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, And force them sit, till he has pencilled off A faithful likeness of the forms he views; Then to dispose his copies with such art That each may find its most propitious light, And shine by situation, hardly less Than by the labour and the skill it cost, Are occupations of the poet’s mind So pleasing, and that steal away the thought With such address from themes of sad import, That, lost in his own musings, happy man! He feels the anxieties of life, denied Their wonted entertainment, all retire. Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such, Or seldom such, the hearers of his song. Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps Aware of nothing arduous in a task They never undertook, they little note His dangers or escapes, and haply find There least amusement where he found the most. But is amusement all? studious of song And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, I would not trifle merely, though the world Be loudest in their praise who do no more. Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? It may correct a foible, may chastise The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch; But where are its sublimer trophies found?