Classic Poem

I. [Sonnet XXXV]

No: none are happy in this best of spheres.
Lo! when a child, we tremble at a look;
Our freshest age is withered o'er a book;
Then fine arts bite us, and great characters.
Then we go boiling with our youthful peers,
In love and hate, in riot and rebuke;
By hook misfortune has us, or by crook,
And griefs and gouts come thickening with one's years.
In fine, we've debts: — and when we've debts, no ray
Of hope remains to warm us to repose.
Thus has my own life passed from day to day;
And now, by way of climax, though not close,
The fatal debit of the Giuli Tre
Fills up the solemn measure of my woes.

II. [Sonnet XCVIII]

Often and often have I understood
From Galen's readers and Hippocrates's
That there are certain seasons in diseases
In which the patient oughtn't to lose blood.
Whether the reason that they give be good,
Or doctors square their practice to the thesis,
I know not; nor is this the best of places
For arguing that matter, as I could.
All that I know is this, — that Giuli Tre
Has no such scruple or regard with me,
Nor holds the rule himself: for every day
He does his best, and that most horribly,
To make me lose my cash; which, I must say,
Has with one's blood some strange affinity.

III. [Sonnet XV]

Never did beetle hum so teasingly
About one's ears, in walking, when it's hot
Never did fly return so to one spot,
As comes my teasing Creditor on me.
Let it but rain, for instance, and you'll see
The flies and beetles vanish like a shot;
But never comes the time, — the day is not, —
In which this vermin here will let me be.

Perhaps as bodies tend invariably
Tow'rds other bodies by some force divine, —
Attraction, gravity, or centripathy,
(God knows; I'm little versed in your right line,)
So by some natural horrid property
This pretty satellite tends tow'rds me and mine.

IV. [Sonnet X]

I've said forever, and again I say,
And it 's a truth as plain as truth can be,
That from a certain period to this day,
Pence are a family quite extinct with me.
And yet you still pursue me, and waylay,
With your insufferable importunity,
And for those d — — d infernal Giuli Tre
Haunt me without remorse or decency.

Perhaps you think that you'll torment me so
You'll make me hang myself? You wish to say
You saw me sus. per coll. — No, Giuli , no.
The fact is, I'll determine not to pay;
And drive you, Giuli , to a state so low,
That you shall hang yourself, and I be gay.

V. [Sonnet CXXII]

Oh with what folly did they toil in vain,
Who thought old Arnold, Sully, or Gabor wise,
And night and day laboured with earnest eyes
To turn their metals into Golden grain!
How did their pots and they perspire again
Over their sulphurs, salts, and mercuries,
And never, after all, could see their prize,
Or do what Nature does, and with no pain:

And yet, ah me! why, why, dear Nature say,
This lovely art — why must it be despised?
Why mayn't we follow this thy noblest way?
I'd work myself; and having realized,
Great Heavens! a capital of Giuli Tre ,
Break up my tools, content and aggrandized.

VI. [Sonnet CXIII]

My Creditor seems often in a way
Extremely pleasant with me, and polite;
Just like a friend. — You'd fancy, at first sight,
He thought no longer of the Giuli Tre .
All that he wants to know is, what they say
Of Frederick now; whether his guess was right
About the sailing of the French that night;
Or, what 's the news of Hanover and D'Estree.

But start from whence he may, he comes as truly,
By little and little, to his ancient pass,
And says, " Well — when am I to have the Giuli ?"
'Tis the cat's way. She takes her mouse, alas!
And having purred, and eyed, and tapped him duly,
Gives him at length the fatal coup de grâce .

VII. [Sonnet CXL]

My Creditor has no such arms, as he
Whom Homer trumpets, or whom Virgil sings,
Arms which dismissed so many souls in strings,
From warlike Ilium and from Italy;
Nor has he those of later memory,
With which Orlando did such loads of things;
But with hard hints, and horrid botherings,
And such rough ways, — with these he warreth me.

And suddenly he launcheth at me, lo!
His terrible demand the Giuli Tre ;
I draw me back, and thrust him with a No!
Then glows the fierce resentment of the fray,
Till turning round, I scamper from the foe;
The only way, I find, to gain the day.