Classic Poem

This is the fault of all the quire,
They will not sing at your desire,
But, if you never beg a song
They'll keep a-quav'ring all day long.
Tigellius, that Sardinian spark,
Was a great proof of this remark.
Had Caesar, whose undoubted sway
Might have compell'd him to obey,
Pleaded, to make him shew his tone,
His father's friendship and his own,
He wou'd not yet with all have sped —
But did he take it in his head,
A bacchanalian catch he'd grace,
From highest pitch to lowest bass;
Or every note to every string,
From egg to apple wou'd he ring.
This man had not the least degree
Of stedfast uniformity.
Now wou'd he run as from a foe,
And now with solemn pace and slow,
As Juno's sacrifice he bore —
Now with two hundred slaves or more
He liv'd, and now with hardly ten —
One while of kings and mighty men
Was all his talk — another while
Submissive in this humble stile —
" A three-leg'd stool let me procure,
A little salt that's clean and pure,
A gown too, which tho' coarse and old,
May serve to keep me from the cold;"
A million had you giv'n outright
To this same philosophic wight,
So full of thrift and of content,
In five days every sesterce went.
Each night he sat up, till 'twas day,
And snored the sunshine all the way,
Never was heard of such an elf,
So much at variance with himself.
But here a friend his voice exalts,
And asks me if I have no faults —
" Why yes I have, and if you please,
At least about as bad as these" —
At absent Novius Maenius rail'd,
When thus a chap his ear assail'd,
To your own failings are you blind,
Or wou'd you cozen all mankind!
Cries Maenius, I can soon excuse
Myself for all my selfish views —
This is a foolish vicious love,
Whost partial way we should reprove.
Since you wou'd wink with both your eyes
On all your own impurities,
Why when your neighbours mis-demean,
As eagle or as dragon keen
Do you inspect. — You may depend
That in his turn each injur'd friend
Will like to do the same by you,
As sharp and as censorious too.
A certain man's too prone to rage,
Not well adapted to engage
With the shrewd witlings of the town,
And may be laugh'd at, that his gown
On his rough person loosely flows,
With shoes scarce cleaving to his toes.
But he is good to that degree,
There is no better man than he,
Your friend, and under this disguise
A most stupendous genius lies.
Then sift yourself, and make essay,
If nature, or an evil way ,
Have sown no undiscover'd seeds
Of vice, for 'mongst the other weeds,
The fern, that shou'd be burnt, will yield
His crop, in each uncultur'd field.
But to forearm in some respects —
E'en as a mistress's defects
Deceive at least, if not delight
The lover — or (a case to cite)
Balbinus doats upon the wen
Of his dear Agna — O that men
Wou'd thus in friendship be to blame,
Till Virtue found an honest name
For such a fault — let us be mild
To friends, as parents to a child;
And not for blemishes annoy —
The father calls his squinting boy
A leering archer full of fun,
And if a man has got a son,
Like Sisyphus, but two-feet tall,
Why him his bantam will he call.
One crooked leg'd, with fondling whine,
He ranks as of the Vari-line;
And if club-footed, then he smiles,
And of the house of Scaurus stiles.
One lives too thrifty, let him be
Your fav'rite for frugality:
Another's light and apt to boast,
He of his humour makes the most
To entertain — another's rude
To take large freedom, and intrude,
Let him be call'd sincere and brave —
Another's hot and giv'n to rave,
But he's a man of spirit still —
For such ways gain and keep good-will —
But we the virtues ev'n invert,
On purest vessels throwing dirt.
A man of probity we find
As guilty of an abject mind;
If one amongst us too is slow,
On him the blockhead we bestow.
Another's cautious of a snare,
Nor ever lays his bosom bare
To bad men (as he lives in times
With envy fraught and thriving crimes)
Him stead of prudent and discrete
We term a man of dark deceit.
If one is unreserv'd and free
To such familiarity,
As I with you, Maecenas, use,
And interrupt you, when you muse,
Or read — with any kind of prate
Intrusive or importunate —
At such a guest they take offence
And swear the man wants common sense.
How injudiciously, alas!
A law against ourselves we pass;
For no one without faults is bred,
Who has the fewest, is the head.
When my dear friend (as justice pleads)
Weighs 'gainst my bad my better deeds,
Let him, if he wou'd win my heart,
Incline unto the major part,
If such indeed my virtues prove,
Then in requital of his love,
The self-same scale shall be applied,
Whene'er he's summon'd to be tried.
He that requires his humpt-back shape
Shou'd his friends ridicule escape,
May certainly himself exhort
To wink upon his neighbour's wart,
'Tis equal, who for pardon sues
Shou'd not in turn, that grace refuse.
In fine, since wrath amongst the rest
Of crimes, that foolish men infest,
Cannot be totally suppress'd;
Why does not human reason rate
Things by its measure and its weight,
And only punish faults, as far
As guilt or provocation are.
If any one his slave shou'd slay,
Who when he's bid to take away,
Sequesters one half-eaten fish,
Or licks warm broth from out the dish,
His madness wou'd give more offence,
Than Labeo, with all men of sense.
But greater still 'gainst reason's laws
Are follies play'd without a cause.
Your friend has done some slight affair,
Which if you don't forgive and spare,
You shou'd be call'd severe and sour,
And yet you from his presence scow'r,
With equal hatred and dismay
As Druso's debtor on the day ,
Who when the cruel Calends come,
If neither int'rest nor the sum
He can procure, by hook or crook,
Must hear him read his doom's-day-book ,
His servile throat in posture put,
As if preferring to be cut.
Suppose my friend has by his ale
Been forc'd upon my couch to stale,
Or at my board a dish has broke
Which for Evander was bespoke.
For this — or when the servants bring
A chicken, shou'd devour a wing,
Which to my seat was rather near,
Shall he for this be held less dear?
What can I do, if he should steal,
Or things of secrecy reveal,
Or break his word? — They who decry
All crimes as of an equal die,
Are gravel'd, when you come to facts —
For other laws good sense enacts,
Sound morals, and convenience too,
Source of all justice, that we do.
When first upon the new-form'd earth
Poor mortals crawl'd out from their birth,
A race but just remov'd from brutes,
For caves and caverns their disputes
They did with nails and fists decide,
But by degrees their clubs they plied,
And at the last with arms they fought,
Which long experience forg'd and taught,
Till words at length, and names they found,
To ascertain their thoughts by sound.
Hence they began from war to pause,
To wall in towns, and 'stablish laws,
That theft should not unpunish'd be,
Nor rapine, nor adultery.
For long before fair Helen's charms
Had woman set the world in arms;
But all those savages are fled,
And all without memorial dead,
Who, like the tenants of the wild,
With vagrant lust themselves defil'd,
As still the strong the weaker slew,
And did as bulls for heifers do.
Now laws were a preventive aid
For fears of man's injustice made,
This all must evidence, who mind
Each age, and hist'ry of mankind:
Nor can mere nature sep'rate right
From wrong, by as distinct a light,
As she can sever good from ill,
Or what shou'd check, or tempt the will:
Nor e'er can reason make it plain,
That he's as much a rogue in grain,
Who breaks for sprouts his neighbour's hedge,
As he that does a sacrilege.
Some certain rule then let us state
To make chastisement adequate,
Lest him you scourge severe and rash,
Who scarce deserves a single lash,
For I do not the least surmise,
That you will with the rod chastise
Him that deserves more dreadful doom,
Since your assertions so presume,
That theft is of as great a die
In guilt, as high-way robbery,
And threaten you wou'd cut off all
Defaults alike, both great and small,
If man wou'd give you sov'reign sway —
So much for what the Stoicks say.
If he is rich who's wise withall,
Tho' but a cobler in his stall,
The beauty of the world alone,
And king upon an endless throne,
Why pray for what is in your hand?
" You do not, surely, understand,
What he, the sire of all our sect,
Crysippus says in this respect,
" The wise-man makes himself no sole,
Yet is a cobler on the whole. " "
How's this? — " Hermogenes, tho' dumb,
His voice can raise and harp can thrum,
Alfenus thus, in lawyer's gown,
His awl, and implements laid down,
Himself a cobler still affirms —
The stoick on no other terms
Is jack-of-all-trades and a king" —
The boys that round you form a ring,
Will pluck your beard, and by the press
You shall be brought to last distress,
And snarl and burst your lungs in vain
Unless your staff the mob restrain,
Supreme of monarchs — but to wave
Prolixity — while you shall lave
Your body in the farthing bath,
Crispinus following your path,
And my dear friends shall set aside
The things, in which my feet shall slide,
Why in return I shall enlarge
My heart, to give them their discharge:
In private life far more THE THING ,
Than your imaginary king.