Classic Poem

Stretching round England's chief emporium far
(No rage for building quenched by raging war),
What would-be villas, ranged in dapper pride,
Usurp the fields and choke the highway side!

Thither the small-folk of two sorts repair;
The first, as constant dwellers stagnate there;
The second sojourn, wasting cash, to come
On visits to their vulgar Tusculum.

These folly lures to gape in broad retreat,
And lease a cake-house for a country seat;
Those prudence prompts to shrink from London rents,
In sprucer but less costly tenements.

Thither the secondary Cit, in haste
To show he thrives in trade and fails in taste,
From London jogs hebdomadally down,
And rusticates in London out of town.
Thither the scribe whom Government retains
(A self-important drudge with slender gains),
Vain of his furnished floor, genteelly cheap,
Six evenings out of seven plods home to sleep;
But all the Sabbath while his goose-quill lies
Inactive at the Customs or Excise,
He worships the suburban picturesque,
To ease his lungs with brick-kilns from the desk.

And there the haberdasher with his wife,
His ledger closed, sits down to close his life.
Ale and brown stout when Sunday friends drop in,
Wash down the joint; and for a cordial — gin;
A pipe and tiff of punch succeed; and then
He fights his counter battles o'er again;
Exhorts the young to bustle while they can;
And proves, upon his own industrious plan,
That they in time, like him, enough may save
To smoke, like him, and muddle to a grave.

Some too for gain establish their abode
In perking mansions on the shadeless road,
Exhibiting (right rural to behold!)
The word " Academy " in glittering gold;
Where ditches, damps, thick fog, and dense discerning,
Improve alike an infant's health and learning.

With all of these, on money-getting plans,
Mix rustic shopkeepers and publicans,
And manufacturers from London poked,
Indicted thence for having stunk and smoked.
Hail, regions of preparatory schools,
Of strict economists and squandering fools!
Hail ye, who there your various plans pursuing,
Court profit, rest, frugality, or ruin!
Ye tallow-chandlers, who retired to gaze
At Paul's near dome, still sigh for melting days ;
Ye demi-gentlemen, whose fingers ache
With posting duties for the nation's sake;

Or ye, as demi , driving pens, to live
On what the War Office and Treasury give;
Ye worn-out sea lieutenants on half-pay,
Who drop your anchors on the king's highway;
Ye careful widows who of mates bereft,
Have what ye call " a little something " left;
Ye sour old maids, with " somethings " much more small,
For never having had a mate at all;
Ye cockneys all, who pastorally shoot
Your brickwork scions from the City's root,
Which form but branches, branch what way they will,
From that old trunk the Standard in Cornhill;
Be ye old, young, or feminine, or male,
Or rich, or poor — whate'er ye be, all hail!

Peace to each swain who rural rapture owns
As soon as passed a toll, and off thestones!
Whose joy, if buildings solid bliss bestow,
Cannot for miles an interruption know;
Save when a gap of some half-dozen feet
Just breaks the continuity of street;
Where the prig architect with style in view,
Has doled his houses forth in two by two;
And reared a row upon the plan no doubt,
Of old men's jaws, with every third tooth out.
Or where, still greater lengths in taste to go,
He warps his tenements into a bow;
Nails a scant canvas, propped on slight deal sticks,
Nicknamed verandah , to the first floor bricks;
Before the whole in one snug segment drawn,
Claps half a rood of turf he calls a lawn;
Then chuckling at his lath-and-plaster bubble,
Dubs it " The Crescent, " and the rents are double.
Sometimes indeed an acre's breadth, half green
And half strewed o'er with rubbish, may be seen;
When lo! a board with quadrilateral grace,
Stands stiff in the phenomenon of space;
Proposing still the neighbourhood's increase,
By — " Ground to Let upon a Building Lease. "

And here and there thrown back a few yards deep,
Some staring coxcombry pretends to peep;
Low paled in front and shrubbed with laurels in,
That sometimes flourish higher than your chin.
Here modest ostentation sticks a plate,
Or daubs Egyptian letters on the gate,
Informing passengers 'tis " Cowslip Cot, "
Or " Woodbine Lodge, " or " Mr. Pummock's Grot. "
Oh! why not, Vanity! since dolts bestow
Such names on dog-holes squeezed out from a row,
The title of Horn Hermitage entail
Upon the habitation of a snail?
Why not inscribe ('twould answer quite as well)
" Marine Pavilion " on an oyster-shell?

See in these roads, scarce conscious of a field,
What uniform varieties they yield!
Row smirks at row, each bandbox has a brother,
And half the causeway just reflects the other.
To beautify each close-wedged neighbour's door,
A strip of garden aims at length before;
Gritty in sunshine; yet in showers 'twill do,
Between a coach and house to wet you through;
But soon the public path in envious sort
Crosses, and cuts it at right angles short;
Then up the jemmy rail, with tenters topped,
Like virtue from necessity, is popped;
Behind it pine, to decorate the grounds,
And mark with greater elegance their bounds,
Three thin aquatic poplars, parched with drought,
Vying with lines of lamp-posts, fixed without.

Still may the scene some rustic thoughts supply,
When sounds and objects strike the ear and eye;
For here the gardener bawls his greens and leeks,
And (jostling funerals) the wagon creaks;
Oxen, though pastureless, each hour appear,
And bellow, though with drovers in the rear;
While flocks of sheep enrich the turnpike trust,
And bleat their way to Smithfield through the dust.

Blest neighbourhood! but three times blest! thrice three!
When neighbours (as 'twill happen) disagree;
When grievances break forth and deadly spite,
'Twixt those whom fate and bricklayers would unite;
When sharp epistles like the following prove
A lack of style, of grammar, and of love.