Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems онлайн

48 страница из 52

Or tune Apollo’s fiddle higher,

I’ll steal (although it cost a halter)

A brand from Della Crusca’s altar.

“O thou!” who soar’dst to heights sublimer

Than e’er before attain’d by rhymer,

Till even my good friend Apollo

At distance gazed, but dared not follow,

“Genius or MUSE,” who had’st propensity

To seem to strive to stretch immensity,

Whose “airy lays,” quoth Bell’s fraternity,

Would last through more than one eternity,

(Although it seems, the deuce is in ’t,

Those very lays are out of print,

A proof this age does not inherit

One ounce of true poetic spirit)

O come, and bring (delightful things)

A pair of Della Cruscan wings,

That we, by sublimated flight,

May “STEM THE CATARACT OF LIGHT.”

Then condescend to be my crony,

And guide my wild Parnassian pony,

Till our aerial cutter runs[68]

Athwart “A WILDERNESS OF SUNS!”[69]

But Gifford comes, with why and wherefore;ssss1

And what the devil are you there for?

Then tells a tale about the town,

Contrived to lessen our renown.

Says, if we rise but one inch higher,