The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

by Washington Allston

But words can ne'er reform produce,
In Ignorance and Pride obtuse.
Then know, ye rain and foolish Pair!
Your doom is fix'd a yoke to bear
Like beasts on Earth; and, thus in tether,
Five Centuries to paint together.
If, thus by mutual labours join'd,
Your jarring souls should be combin'd,
The faults of each the other mending,
The powers of both harmonious blending;
Great Jove, perhaps, in gracious vein,
May send your souls on Earth again;
Yet there One only Painter be;
For thus the eternal Fates decree:
One Leg alone shall never run,
Nor two Half-Painters make but One.

Eccentricity.

Projecere animas. Virg.

Alas, my friend! what hope have I of fame,
Who am, as Nature made me, still the same?
And thou, poor suitor to a bankrupt muse,
How mad thy toil, how arrogant thy views!
What though endued with Genius' power to move
The magick chords of sympathy and love,
The painter's eye, the poet's fervid heart,
The tongue of eloquence, the vital art
Of bold Prometheus, kindling at command
With breathing life the labours of his hand;
Yet shall the World thy daring high pretence
With scorn deride, for thou--hast common sense.

But dost thou, reckless of stern honour's laws,
Intemperate hunger for the World's applause?
Bid Nature hence; her fresh embow'ring woods,
Her lawns and fields, and rocks, and rushing floods,
And limpid lakes, and health-exhaling soil,
Elastick gales, and all the glorious toil
Of Heaven's own hand, with courtly shame discard,
And Fame shall triumph in her city bard.
Then, pent secure in some commodious lane,
Where stagnant Darkness holds her morbid reign.
Perchance snug-roosted o'er some brazier's den,
Or stall of nymphs, by courtesy not men,
Whose gentle trade to skin the living eel,
The while they curse it that it dares to feel[[7]];
Whilst ribbald jokes and repartees proclaim
Their happy triumph o'er the sense of shame:
Thy city Muse invoke, that imp of mind
By smoke engendered on an eastern wind;
Then, half-awake, thy patent-thinking pen
The paper give, and blot the souls of men.

The time has been when Nature's simple face
Perennial youth possessed and winning grace;
But who shall dare, in this refining age,
With Nature's praise to soil his snowy page?
What polish'd lover, unappall'd by sneers
Dare court a beldame of six thousand years,
When every clown with microscopick eyes
The gaping furrows on her forehead spies?--
'Good sir, your pardon: In her naked state,
Her wither'd form we cannot chuse but hate;
But fashion's art the waste of time repairs,
Each wrinkle fills, and dies her silver hairs;
Thus wrought anew, our gentle bosoms low;
We cannot chuse but love what's comme il faut.'
Thy city Muse invoke, that imp of mind
By smoke engender'd on an eastern wind;
Then, half-awake, thy patent-thinking pen
The paper give, and blot the souls of men.

The time has been when Nature's simple face
Perennial youth possessed and winning grace;
But who shall dare, in this refining age,
With Nature's praise to soil his snowy page?
What polish'd lover, unappall'd by sneers,
Dare court a beldame of six thousand years,
When every clown with microscopick eyes
The gaping furrows on her forehead spies?--
'Good sir, your pardon: In her naked state,
Her withered form we cannot chuse but hate;
But fashion's art the waste of time repairs,
Each wrinkle fills, and dies her silver hairs;
Thus wrought anew, our gentle bosoms low;
We cannot chuse but love what's comme il fauts.'

Alas, poor Cowper! could thy chasten'd eye,
(Awhile forgetful of thy joys on high)
Revisit earth, what indignation strange
Would sting thee to behold the courtly change!
Here "velvet" lawns, there "plushy" woods that lave
Their "silken" tresses in the "glassy" wave;
Here "'broider'd" meads, there flow'ry "carpets" spread,
And "downy" banks to "pillow" Nature's head;
How wouldst thou start to find thy native soil.
Like birth-day belle, by gross mechanick toil
Trick'd out to charm with meretricious air,
As though all France and Manchester were there!
But this were luxury, were bliss refin'd,
To view the alter'd region of the mind;
Where whim and mystery, like wizards, rule,
And conjure wisdom from the seeming fool;
Where learned heads, like old cremonas, boast
Their merit soundest that are cracked the most;
While Genius' self, infected with the joke,
His person decks with Folly's motley cloak.

Behold, loud-rattling like a thousand drums,
Eccentrick Hal, the child of Nature, comes!
Of Nature once--but now he acts a part,
And Hal is now the full grown boy of art.
In youth's pure spring his high impetuous soul
Nor custom own'd nor fashion's vile control.
By Truth impelled where beck'ning Nature led,
Through life he mov'd with firm elastic tread;
But soon the world, with wonder-teeming eyes,
His manners mark, and goggle with surprise.
"He's wond'rous strange!" exclaims each gaping clod,
"A wond'rous genius, for he's wond'rous odd!"
Where'er he goes, there goes before his fame,
And courts and taverns echo round his name;
'Till, fairly knocked by admiration down,
The petted monster cracks his wond'rous crown.
No longer now to simple Nature true,
He studies only to be oddly new;
Whate'er he does, whatever he deigns to say,
Must all be said and done the oddest way;
Nay, e'en in dress eccentrick as in thought,
His wardrobe seems by Lapland witches wrought,
Himself by goblins in a whirlwind drest
With rags of clouds from Hecla's stormy crest.

'Has Truth no charms?' When first beheld, I grant,
But, wanting novelty, has every want:
For pleasure's thrill the sickly palate flies,
Save haply pungent with a rare surprise.
The humble toad that leaps her nightly round,
The harmless tenant of the garden ground,
Is loath'd, abhor'd, nay, all the reptile race
Together join'd were never half so base;
Yet snugly find her in some quarry pent,
Through ages doom'd to one tremendous lent,
Surviving still, as if "in Nature's spite,"
Without or nourishment, or air, or light,
What raptures then th' astonish'd gazer seize!
What lovely creature like a toad can please!