How sweet!—as Byron of his infant said,—
“Knowledge of objects” in thine eye to trace;
To see the mild no-meanings of thy head,
Taking a quiet nap upon thy face!
How dear through thy Obituary to roam,
And not a name of any name to catch!
To meet thy Criticism walking home
Averse from rows, and never calling “Watch!”
Rich is thy page in soporific things,—
Composing compositions,—lulling men,—
Faded old posies of unburied rings,—
Confessions dozing from an opiate pen:—
Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived,—
Deaths of good people that have really died,—
Parishioners,—hatched,—husbanded,—and wived,—
Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side!
The sacred query,—the remote response,—
The march of serious mind, extremely slow,—
The graver’s cut at some right agèd sconce,
Famous for nothing many years ago!
B. asks of C. if Milton e’er did write
“Comus,” obscured beneath some Ludlow lid;—
And C., next month, an answer doth indite,
Informing B. that Mr. Milton did!
X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea,
Caught upon Martin Luther years agone;—
And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee,
Long dead, that gathered honey for King John.
There is no end of thee,—there is no end,
Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits!
Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend,
And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets.
Go on, Sylvanus!—Bear a wary eye,
The churches cannot yet be quite run out!
Some parishes must yet have been passed by,—
There’s Bullock-Smithy has a church no doubt!
Go on—and close the eyes of distant ages!
Nourish the names of the undoubted dead!
So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages,
Heavy and lively, though but seldom red.