I would not have thee come to sing
Long odes to that eternal spring
On which young bards their changes ring,
With buds and flowers:
I look for many a better thing
Than brooks and bowers.
'T is true thou paintest to the eye
The straw-thatched roof with elm trees high,
But thou hast wisdom to descry
What lurks below—
The springing tear, the melting sigh,
The cheek's heart-glow.
The poets all, alive and dead,
Up, Clare, and drive them from thy head!
Forget whatever thou hast read
Of phrase or rhyme,
For he must lead and not be led
Who lives through time.
What thou hast been the world may see,
But guess not what thou still may'st be:
Some in thy lines a Goldsmith see,
Or Dyer's tone:
They praise thy worst; the best of thee
Is still unknown.
Some grievously suspect thee, Clare:
They want to know thy form of prayer:
Thou dost not cant, and so they stare,
And hint free-thinking:
They bid thee of the devil beware,
And vote thee sinking.
With smile sedate and patient eye,
Thou mark'st the zealots pass thee by
To rave and raise a hue and cry
Against each other:
Thou see'st a Father up on high;
In man a brother.
I would not have a mind like thine
Its artless childhood tastes resign,
Jostle in mobs, or sup and dine
Its powers away,
And after noisy pleasures pine
Some distant day.
And, John, though you may mildly scoff,
That hard, afflicting churchyard cough
Gives pretty plain advice, "Be off,
While yet you can."
It is not time yet, John, to doff
Your outward man.
Drugs! can the balm of Gilead yield
Health like the cowslip-yellow'd field?
Come, sail down Avon and be heal'd,
Thou Cockney Clare.
My recipe is soon reveal'd—
Sun, sea, and air.
What glue has fastened thus thy brains
To kennel odours and brick lanes?
Or is it intellect detains?
For, faith, I'll own
The provinces must take some pains
To match the town.