Classic Poem

AN HEROIC POEM .

O F warring senators, and battles dire,
Of quails uneaten, Muse, awake the lyre!
Where Campbell's chimneys overlook the square,
And Newton's future prospects hang in air;
Where counsellors dispute, and cockers match,
And Caledonian earls in concert scratch;
A group of heroes occupied the round,
Long in the rolls of infamy renown'd.
Circling the table all in silence sat,
Now tearing bloody lean, now champing fat;
Now picking ortolans and chicken slain
To form the whimsies of an a-la-reine;
Now storming castles of the newest taste,
And granting articles to forts of paste;
Now swallowing bitter draughts of Prussian beer;
Now sucking tallow of salubrious deer.
The god of cabinets and senates saw
His sons, like asses, to one centre draw.

Inflated Discord heard, and left her cell,
With all the horrors of her native hell;
She on the soaring wings of genius fled,
And waved the pen of Junius round her head.
Beneath the table, veiled from sight, she sprung,
And sat astride on noisy Twitcher's tongue:
Twitcher, superior to the venal pack
Of Bloomsbury's notorious monarch, Jack;
Twitcher, a rotten branch of mighty stock,
Whose interest winds his conscience as his clock;
Whose attributes detestable have long
Been evident and infamous in song.
A toast's demanded! Madoc swift arose,
Pactolian gravy trickling down his clothes:
His sanguine fork a murdered pigeon prest,
His knife with deep incision sought the breast,
Upon his lips the quivering accents hung,
And too much expedition chained his tongue.
When thus he sputtered: " All the glasses fill,
And toast the great Pendragon of the hill,
Mab-Uther Owein, a long train of kings,
From whom the royal blood of Madoe springs:
Madoc, undoubtedly of Arthur's race,
You see the mighty monarch in his face:
Madoc, in bagnios and in courts adored,
Demands this proper homage of the board. "

" Monarchs! " said Twitcher, setting down his beer,
His muscles wreathing a contemptuous sneer;
" Monarchs — of mole-hills, oyster-beds, a rock —
These are the grafters of your royal stock:
My pony Serub can sires more valiant trace — "
The mangled pigeon thunders on his face;
His opening mouth the melted butter fills,
And dropping from his nose and chin distils.
Furious he started, rage his bosom warms;
Loud as his lordship's morning dun he storms.
" Thou vulgar imitator of the great,
Grown wanton with the excrements of state,
This to thy head notorious Twitcher sends — "
His shadow body to the table bends,
His straining arm uprears a loin of veal,
In these degenerate days for three a meal;
In ancient times, as various writers say,
An alderman or priest eat three a day.
With godlike strength the grinning Twitcher plies
His stretching muscles, and the mountain flies!
Swift as a cloud that shadows o'er the plain,
It flew, and scatter'd drops of oily rain.
In opposition to extended knives,
On royal Madoc's spreading chest it drives;
Senseless he falls upon the sandy ground,
Pressed with the steamy load that oozed around.
And now Confusion spread her ghastly plume,
And Faction separates the noisy room.
Balluntun, exercised in every vice
That opens to a courtier's paradise,
With Dyson trammelled, scruples not to draw
Injustice up the rocky hill of law:
From whose humanity the laurels sprung,
Which will in George's-Fields be ever young —
The vile Balluntun, starting from his chair,
To Fortune thus addressed his private prayer:
" Goddess of Fate's rotundity, assist
With thought-winged victory my untried fist:
If I the grinning Twitcher overturn,
Six Russian frigates at thy shrine shall burn;
Nine rioters shall bleed beneath thy feet;
And hanging cutters decorate each street. "
The goddess smiled, or rather smoothed her frown,
And shook the triple feathers of her crown;
Instilled a private pension in his soul.
With rage inspired, he seized a Gallic roll;
His bursting arm the missive weapon threw,
High o'er his rival's head it whistling flew;
Curraras, for his Jewish soul renowned,
Received it on his ear, and kissed the ground —
Curraras, versed in every little art,
To play the minister's or felon's part,
Grown hoary in the villanies of state,
A title made him infamously great;
A slave to venal slaves, a tool to tools,
The representative to knaves and fools.
But see commercial Bristol's genius sit,
Her shield a turtle-shell, her lance a spit:
See, whilst her nodding aldermen are spread,
In all the branching honours of the head;
Curraras, ever faithful to the cause,
With beef and venison their attention draws:
They drink, they eat, then sign the mean address;
Say, could their humble gratitude do less?
By disappointment vexed, Balluntun flies,
Red lightnings flashing in his dancing eyes.
Firm as his virtue, mighty Twitcher stands,
And elevates for furious fight his hands:
One pointed fist his shadowed corps defends,
The other on Balluntun's eyes descends:
A darkling, shaking light his optics view,
Circled with livid tinges red and blue.
Now fired with anguish and inflamed by pride,
He thunders on his adversary's side:
With pattering blows prolongs the unequal fight;
Twitcher retreats before the man of might.
But Fortune, (or some higher power or god),
Oblique extended forth a sable rod:
As Twitcher retrograde maintained the fray,
The hardened serpent intercepts his way:
He fell, and falling with a lordly air,
Crushed into atoms the judicial chair.
Curraras, for his Jewish soul renowned,
Arose: but deafened with a singing sound.
A cloud of discontent o'erspread his brows;
Revenge in every bloody feature glows.
Around his head a roasted gander whirls,
Dropping Manilla sauces on his curls;
Swift to the vile Balluntun's face it flies,
The burning pepper sparkles in his eyes:
His India waistcoat, reeking with the oil,
Glows brighter red, the glory of the spoil.

The fight is general; fowl repulses fowl;
The victors thunder, and the vanquished howl.
Stars, garters, all the implements of show,
That decked the powers above, disgraced below.
Nor swords, nor mightier weapons did they draw,
For all were well acquainted with the law.
Let Drap — r to improve his diction fight;
Our heroes, like Lord George, could scold and write.
Gogmagog, early of the jockey club,
Empty as C — br — ke's oratorial tub,
A rusty link of ministerial chain,
A living glory of the present reign,
Versed in the arts of ammunition-bread,
He waved a red-wheat manchet round his head:
David-ap-Howel, furious, wild, and young,
From the same line as royal Madoc sprung,
Occurred, the object of his bursting ire,
And on his nose received the weapon dire:
A double river of congealing blood
O'erflows his garter with a purple flood.
Mad as a bull by daring mastiffs tore,
When ladies scream and greasy butchers roar;
Mad as B — rg — e when, groping through the park,
He kissed his own dear lady in the dark;
The lineal representative of kings
A carving weapon seized, and up he springs:
A weapon long in cruel murders stained,
For mangling captive carcases ordained.
But Fortune, Providence, or what you will,
To lay the rising scenes of horror still,
In Fero's person seized a shining pot,
Where bubbled scrips and contracts, flaming hot,
In the fierce Cambrian's breeches drains it dry:
The chapel totters with the shrieking cry,
Loud as the mob's reiterated yell,
When Sawny rose, and mighty Chatham fell.

Flaccus, the glory of a masquerade,
Whose every action is of trifles made,
At Grafton's well-stored table ever found;
Like Grafton too for every vice renowned:
Grafton, to whose immortal sense we owe
The blood which will from civil discord flow;
Who swells each grievance, lengthens every tax,
Blind to the ripening vengeance of the axe;
Flaccus, the youthful, degagee, and gay,
With eye of pity saw the dreary fray:
Amidst the greasy horrors of the fight,
He trembled for his suit of virgin white.
Fond of his eloquence and easy flow
Of talk verbose, whose meaning none can know:
He mounts the table, but through eager haste
His foot upon a smoking court-pie placed:
The burning liquid penetrates his shoe,
Swift from the rostrum the declaimer flew;
But, learnedly heroic, he disdains
To spoil his pretty countenance with strains.
Remounted on the table now he stands,
Waves his high-powdered head and ruffled hands.
" Friends! Let this clang of hostile fury cease,
Ill it becomes the plenipos of peace;
Shall olios, for internal battle drest,
Like bullets outward perforate the breast?
Shall javelin bottles blood ethereal spill?
Shall luscious turtle without surfeit kill? "
More had he said: when, from Doglostock flung,
A custard pudding trembled on his tongue:
And, ah! misfortunes seldom come alone,
Great Twitcher rising seized a polished bone;
Upon his breast the oily weapon clangs;
Headlong he falls, propelled by thickening bangs.
The prince of trimmers, for his magic famed,
Quarlendorgongos by infernals named,
By mortals Alavat in common styled —
Nursed in a furnace, Nox and Neptune's child —
Bursting with rage, a weighty bottle caught,
With crimson blood and weighty spirits fraught;
To Doxo's head the gurgling woe he sends,
Doxo, made mighty in his mighty friends.
Upon his front the stubborn vessel sounds,
Back from his harder front the bottle bounds:
He fell. The royal Madoc rising up,
Reposed him weary on his painful crup:
The head of Doxo, first projecting down,
Thunders upon the kingly Cambrian's crown:
The sanguine tumour swells; again he falls;
On his broad chest the bulky Doxo sprawls.
Tyro the sage, the sensible, the strong,
As yet unnoticed in the muse-taught song,
Tyro, for necromancy far renowned,
A greater adept than Agrippa found;
Oft as his phantom-reasons intervened,
De Vir is pensioned, the defaulter screened;
Another C[ar]t[ere]t remains in Clare;
In Fletcher, fifty Jefferies appear;
Tyro stood neuter, till the champions tired
In languid attitudes a truce desired.
Long was the bloody fight; confusion dire
Has hid some circumstances from the lyre:
Suffice it, that each hero kissed the ground,
Tyro excepted, for old laws renowned;
Who stretching his authoritative hand,
Loudly thus issued forth his dread command.
" Peace, wrangling senators, and placemen, peace,
In the King's name, let hostile vengeance cease! "
Aghast the champions hear the furious sound,
The fallen unmolested leave the ground.
" What fury, nobles, occupies your breast?
What, patriot spirits, has your minds possessed?
Nor honorary gifts nor pensions please,
Say, are you Covent-Garden patentees!
How? wist you not what ancient sages said,
" The council quarrels, and the poor have bread."
See this court-pie with twenty-thousand drest;
Be every thought of enmity at rest:
Divide it, and be friends again, " he said:
The council-god returned; and discord fled.