Classic Poem

Thou poisonous rascal, running at this rate
O'er the perplexing desert of a mat,
Scrambling and scuttling on thy scratchy legs,
Like a scared miser with his money-bags;
Thou thief — thou scamp — thou hideous much in little,
Bearing away the plunder of a spital, —
Caitiff of corners, — doer of dark deeds,
Mere lump of poison lifted on starved threads,
That while they run, go shuddering here and there,
As if abhorring what they're forced to bear,
Like an old bloated tyrant, whom his slaves
Bear from the gaping of a thousand graves,
And take to some vile corner of a court,
Where felons of his filthy race resort, —
I have thee now; — I have thee here, full blown,
Thou lost old wretch, benighted by the noon!
What dost thou say? What dost thou think? Dost see
Providence hanging o'er thee, to wit, me?
Dost fear? Dost shrink with all thine eyes to view
The shadowing threat of mine avenging shoe?
Now, now it comes; — one pang, — and thou wilt lie
Flat as the sole that treads thy gorged impurity.
Yet hold: — why should I do it? why should I,
Who in my infidel fidelity,
Believer in the love, though not the wrath,
Have spared so many crawlers o'er my path, —
Why should I trample here, and like a beast,
Settle this humblest of them all and least?
The vagrant never injured me or mine,
Wrote no critiques, stabbed at no heart divine,
And as to flies, Collyer himself must dine.
Flies may be killed as speedily as mutton,
And your black spider's not your blackest glutton
The vermin's a frank vermin, after all;
Makes no pretence to a benignant call;
Does not hold up a hideous white hand,
To tickle grandams to his promised land;
Nor pulls white handkerchiefs from out his blackness,
To wipe the tears, — that gave a surfeit slackness.
He 's not the Laureat, not my turned old Bob;
Not Bull the brute, nor Gazetteer the grub:
He does not " profess Poetry", like Mill;
Music, like Buzby; nor, what's higher still,
" Moral Philosophy", like wicked Will.
He swells, I grant, and 'tis with poison too;
But not, toad-eating Muddyford, like you:
He plunders, and runs off, but not like Theod.,
To make amends by slandering for King Ehud:
He skulks; but 'tis not as " dear Ally" does,
To pry and pounce on females, and keep close
At fingers only that can pull a nose.
Honest the rogue is, in his way, — hey, Groly? —
And does not call his snares and slaughters " Holy";
Nor like the Russian that insulted Spain,
Cry " Manners", and affect the gentleman.
He holds to what he is, like her that bore him,
A spider, as his father was before him.
'Twas Cowl, not he, that by old Gizzard's fire,
Born of a man, turned reptile and mere liar,
And changed his shape with his own fright, as mothers,
Their tender burthen incomplete, change others.
And have I spared the very worst of these
A thousand times, and all for their own ease, —
Let them crawl on, and winked at Gizzard's self,
To tread out thee, poor emblematic elf?
Thee, whose worst vice is, that thy hang-dog looks
Remind us of his face, not of his books,
For all the poison, clubbed from all thy race,
Could not do that: you're safe from that disgrace.
Have I, these five years, spared the dog a stick,
Cut for his special use, and reasonably thick,
Now, because prose had felled him just before;
Then, to oblige the very heart he tore;
Then, from conniving to suppose him human,
Two-legged, and one that had a serving-woman;
Then, because some one saw him in a shiver,
Which shewed, if not a heart, he had a liver;
And then, because they said the dog was dying,
His very symptoms being given to lying?
Have I done this? Have I endured e'en Murrain,
Whom even his own face finds past enduring,
Trying to slip aside from him, and cut him,
When honest men ask questions that don't suit him?
Have I let strut, behind their dunghill screens,
All the brisk crowers in Scotch magazines,
Who take for day their crackling Northern Lights,
And scream, and scratch, and keep it up o' nights,
Braggarts with beaten plumes, and sensual hypocrites?
Him too who feeds them, and in whom there run
All Curll's and Osborne's melted brass in one,
(Blackguard, thought wrong by the young trade, but wronger
By those whose consciences have eaten longer,) —
Have I spared him, when, with a true rogue's awe
Not of the truth or justice, but the law,
He lay before my feet, and proffered me
His rascal money for indemnity?
In scorn I let him go, just taught, it seems,
How to call people more ingenious names;
For which, I own, I merit the reproofs
Of all the world, but those who read his huffs.

Go, you poor wretch, — I mean the spider; go,
And take care how you bite Sir Hudson Lowe.