'DESULTORY READING.'
F. M. P. From the London 'Spectator' of
January 16, 1886.
O finest essence of delicious rest!
To bid for some short space the busy mill
Of anxious, ever-grinding thought be still;
And let the weary brain and throbbing breast
Be by another's cooling hand caressed.
This volume in my hand, I hold a charm
Which lifts me out of reach of wrong or harm.
I sail away from trouble; and most blessed
Of every blessing, can myself forget:
Can rise above the instance low and poor
Into the mighty law that governs yet.
This hingèd cover, like a well hung door,
Shuts out the noises of the jangling day,
These fair leaves fan unwelcome thoughts away.
THE BOOKWORM.
Thomas Parnell. Translated from the Latin of
Theodore Beza.
Come hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The bookworm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from his deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from song to song
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse—
Nay, never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.
His rose nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd;
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless justice bids thee bleed:
Then fall a victim to the Nine
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.