Classic Poem

How shall a Writer change his ways?
Read his Reviewers' blame, not praise.
In blame, as Boileau said of old,
The truth is shadowed, if not told.

*****

There! Let that row of stars extend
To hide the faults I mean to mend.
Why should the Public need to know
The standard that I fall below?
Or learn to search for that defect
My Critic bids me to correct?
No: in this case the Worldly-Wise
Keep their own counsel — and revise.

Yet something of my Point of View
I may confide, my Friend, to You.
I don't pretend to paint the vast
And complex picture of the Past:
Not mine the wars of humankind,
" The furious troops in battle joined";
Not mine the march, the counter-march,
The trumpets, the triumphal arch.
For detail, detail, most I care
( Ce superflu, si necessaire! );
I cultivate a private bent
For episode, for incident;
I take a page of Some One's life,
His quarrel with his friend, his wife,
His good or evil hap at Court,
" His habit as he lived," his sport,
The books he read, the trees he planted,
The dinners that he ate — or wanted:
As much, in short, as one may hope
To cover with a microscope.

I don't taboo a touch of scandal,
If Gray or Walpole hold the candle;
Nor do I use a lofty tone
Where faults are weaknesses alone.

In studies of Life's seamy side
I own I feel no special pride;
The Fleet, the round-house, and the gibbets
Are not among my prize exhibits;
Nor could I, if I would, outdo
What Fielding wrote, or Hogarth drew.

Yet much I love to arabesque
What Gautier christened a " Grotesque";

To take his oddities and " lunes,"
And drape them neatly with festoons,
Until, at length, I chance to get
The thing I designate " Vignette."

To sum the matter then: — My aim
Is modest. This is all I claim:
To paint a part and not the whole,
The trappings rather than the soul.

The Evolution of the Time,
The silent Forces fighting Crime,
The Fetishes that fail, and pass,
The struggle between Class and Class,
The Wealth still adding land to lands,
The Crown that falls, the Faith that stands ...
All this I leave to abler hands.