after l. 570:
Ah! lost, for ever lost, to me these charms, These lofty notions and divine alarms, Too dearly bought—maturer judgment calls My pensive soul from tales and madrigals— For who so blest or who so great as I, Wing’d round the globe with Rowland or Sir Guy? Alas! no more I see my queen repair To balmy bowers that blossom in the air, Where on their rosy beds the Graces rest, And not a care lies heavy on the breast. No more the hermit’s mossy cave I choose, Nor o’er the babbling brook delight to muse; My doughty giants all are slain or fled, And all my knights—blue, green, and yellow—dead! Magicians cease to charm me with their art, And not a griffin flies to glad my heart. No more the midnight fairy tribe I view, All in the merry moonshine tippling dew. The easy joys that charm’d my sportive youth, Fly Reason’s power, and shun the voice of Truth. Maturer thoughts severer taste prepares, And baffles every spell that charm’d my cares. Can Fiction, then, the noblest bliss supply, Or joy reside in inconsistency?
after l. 594:
But who are these, a tribe that soar above, And tell more tender tales of modern love? A Novel train! the brood of old Romance, Conceived by Folly on the coast of France, That now with lighter thought, and gentler fire, Usurp the honours of their drooping sire; And still fantastic, vain, and trifling, sing Of many a soft and inconsistent thing,— Of rakes repenting, clogg’d in Hymen’s chain— Of nymph reclined by unpresuming swain— Of captains, colonels, lords, and amorous knights, That find in humbler nymphs such chaste delights, Such heavenly charms, so gentle, yet so gay, That all their former follies fly away. Honour springs up, where’er their looks impart A moment’s sunshine to the harden’d heart— A virtue, just before the rover’s jest, Grows like a mushroom in his melting breast. Much, too, they tell of cottages and shades, Of balls, and routs, and midnight masquerades, Where dangerous men and dangerous mirth reside, And Virtue goes—on purpose to be tried. These are the tales that wake the soul to life, That charm the sprightly niece and forward wife, That form the manners of a polish’d age, And each pure easy moral of the Stage. Thus to her friend the ever-faithful she— The tender Delia—writes, securely free— Delia from school was lately bold to rove, Where yet Lucinda meditated love. “Oh thou, the partner of my pensive breast, And, but for one! its most delightful guest, But for that one of whom ’twas joy to talk, When the chaste moon gleam’d o’er our ev’ning walk, And cooing fondly in the neighbouring groves The pretty songsters all enjoy’d their loves; Receive! as witness all ye powers! I send, With melting heart, this token of thy friend. “Calm was the night! and every breeze was low; Swift ran the stream—but, ah! the moments slow! Fly swift, ye moments! slowly run, thou stream, And on thy margin let a maiden dream. “Methought he came, my Harry, young and gay, The very youth that stole my heart away. I wake. Surprise! yet guess how blest was I! With looks of love—the very youth was by. ‘Whose is that form my Delia’s bosom hides? What youth divinely blest within presides?’ He spoke and sigh’d. His sighs my fear supprest, He seized his angel form, and actions spoke the rest. “Oh, Virtue! brighter than the noon-tide ray! Still guide my steps, and guide them nature’s way; With sacred precepts fill the youthful mind, Soothe all its cares, and force it to be kind.” Thus, gentle passions warm the generous maid, No more reluctant, and no more afraid; Thus Virtue shines, and in her loveliest dress Not over nice, nor Virtue to excess. Near these I look, and lo! a reptile race, In goodly vests conceal the want of grace; The brood of Humour, Fancy, Frolic, Fun, The tale obscene, the miserable pun; The jest that Laughter loves, he knows not why, And Whim tells quaintly with distorted eye. Here Languor, yawning, pays his first devoirs, And skims sedately o’er his dear Memoirs; Here tries his tedious moments to employ, And, palsied by enjoyment, dreams of joy; From all the tribe his little knowledge steals, From dull “Torpedoes,” and “Electric Eels;” And every trifle of a trifling age, That shames the closet, or degrades the Stage.
after l. 602:
Here as I stand, of sovereign power possess’d, A vast ambition fires my swelling breast; I deal destruction round, and, all severe, Damn with a dash, and censure with a sneer; Or from the Critic wrest a sinking cause, Rejudge his justice, and repeal his laws; Now half by judgment guided, half by whim, I grasp disputed power, and tyrannise like him; Food for the mind I seek; but who shall find The food that satisfies the craving mind? Like fire it rages; and its fatal rage What pains can deaden, and what care assuage? Choked by its fuel, though it clouded lies, It soon eats through, and craves for new supplies; Now here, now there, with sudden fury breaks And to its substance turns whate’er it takes. To weighty themes I fly with eager haste, And skim their treasures like the man of taste; From a few pages learn the whole design,} And damn a book for one suspicious line,} Or steal its sentiments, and call them mine! }
THE BIRTH OF FLATTERY. ‘Original MS.’ readings given as footnotes in Life and Poems (1834).
Instead of ll. 1-9:
Muse of my Spenser, who so well could sing The Passions, and the sources whence they spring; Who taught the birth, the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Of these the Foes of Virtue and the Friends, With whom she rises and with whom descends— A Syren’s birth, a Syren’s power I trace, Aid me, oh! Herald of the Fairy-race; Say whence she sprang, to what strange fortune born, And why we love and hate, desire and scorn.
instead of ll. 29-40: