V.

  Thou, too, couldst sing about her sweet salt sea,
  And trumpet paeans loud to Liberty,
  With clamour of all applausive throats.  Thy feet,
  Not wine-press red, yet left the flowers more sweet,
  From the pure passage of the god to be;
  And then couldst thunder praises of England’s Fleet.

VI.

  I did not think to glorify gods and kings,
  Who scourged them ever with hate’s sanguineous rods;
  But who with hope and faith may live at odds? 
  And then these jingling jays with plume-plucked wings,
  Compete, and laureate laurels are lovely things,
  Though crowing lyric lauders of kings and gods!

  Beshrew the blatant bleating of sheep-voiced mimes! 
  True thunder shall strike dumb their chirping chimes. 
  If there be laureate laurels, or bays, or palms,
  In these red, Radical, revelling, riotous times,
  They should be the true bard’s, though mid-age calms
  His revolutionary fierce rolling rhymes,
  Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storm of—­psalms

  That great lyre’s golden echoes rolled away! 
  Forth tripped another claimant of the bay. 
  Trim, tittivated, tintinnabulant,
  His bosom aped the true Parnassian pant,
  As may a housemaid’s leathern bellows mock
  The rock—­whelmed Titan’s breathings.  He no shock
  Of bard-like shagginess shook to the breeze. 
  A modern Cambrian Minstrel hopes to please
  By undishevelled dandy-daintiness,
  Whether of lays or locks, of rhymes or dress. 
  Some bards pipe from Parnassus, some from Hermon;
  Room for the singer of the Sunday Sermon! 
  His stimulant tepid tea, his theme a text,
  Carmarthen’s cultured caroller comes next!

THE WORTH OF VERSE.

AIR—­“The Birth of Verse.”

  Wild thoughts which occupy the brain,
    Vague prophecies which fill the ear,
  Dim perturbation, precious pain,
    A gleam of hope, a chill of fear,—­
  These vex the poet’s spirit.  Moral:—­
  Have a shy at the Laureate Laurel!

  Some say no definite thought there is
    In my full flatulence of sound. 
  Let National Observers quiz
    (H-NL-Y won’t have it.  I’ll be bound!)
  Envy! O trumpery, O MORRIS!
  Could JUVENAL jealous be of HORACE?

  I know the chambers of my soul
    Are filled with laudatory airs,
  Such as the salaried bard should troll
    When he the Laureate laurels wears. 
  And I am he who opened Hades,
  To harmless parsons and to ladies!

  For I can “moralise my song”
    More palpably than Mr. POPE;
  And I can touch the toiling throng: 
    There is small doubt of that, I hope. 
  I’ve piped for him who ploughs the furrows,
  And stood for the Carmarthen Boroughs.