I WOULD to Heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling-- Because at least the past were passed away, And for the future--(but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly to-day, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say--the future is a serious matter-- And so--for God's sake--hock and soda-water! DEDICATION.[1] I. BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 't is true that you turned out a Tory at Last,--yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye; II. "Which pye being opened they began to sing," (This old song and new simile holds good), "A dainty dish to set before the King," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;-- And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,-- Explaining Metaphysics to the nation-- I wish he would explain his Explanation.[2] III. You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob![3] IV. And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion," (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system[4] to perplex the sages; 'T is poetry-at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the dog-star rages-- And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel. V. You--Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your own At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion Of one another's minds, at last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That Poesy has wreaths for you alone: There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean. VI. I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.[5] You're shabby fellows--true--but poets still, And duly seated on the Immortal Hill. VII.