Classic Poem

RHAPSODY

Numeris fertur lege solutis

Old Boece, in jail, did with a certain pathos
Write on Consolation ; the scribendi cacoethes
Serv'd his turn: so shall it mine this rainy day,
Be it neither man nor woman heed my lay.
Praise to Cadmus! that from those same old Phenicians
He brought alphabetic Letters fro his Theban Grecians;
And from Grecian to the Scottish! The most sovereign thing
For all Sciences, and sedentary men that preach or sing!
Hereby Time and Space, our foes, if not annihilated
Are laid on their beam-ends, lam'd, and quite prostrated:
Art thou lonely, idle; friendless, toolless, nigh distract;
Hand in bosom; jaw, except for chewing, ceased to act?
Matters not, so thou have ink, and see the Why and How;
Drops of Copperas dye make There a Here, and Then a Now
Must the brain lie fallow, simply since it is alone?
And the heart, in heaths and splashy weather, turn to stone?
Shall a living Man be mute as twice-sold mackerel?
If not speaking, if not acting, I can write — in doggerel
For a subject? Earth is wonder-fill'd; for instance, Peter Nimmo:
Think of Peter's " being's myst'ry " : I will sing of him O!
Universe (so thou have time) attend my rhyming,
Sense with sound, on meekest theme, correctly chiming!