Where we go and what we do advertises what we are.
Related quotes
A good thing sells it self a bad one advertises it self.
In my opinion FOX is known for being a network that just advertises, and that's pretty much how they get their viewers.
quote by Alia Shawkat
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
quote by David Ogilvy
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Technology has not only changed the way people are able to view movies, it has changed the way our industry produces and advertises movies.
quote by Dan Glickman
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Rehearsing To Ensure
Listen to that.
They can say anything they wish,
To dip other people's lives into gutters and ditches.
And for them that is okay.
But as soon as they are approached,
To clarify a misquoting of their spoken words...
They instantly become belligerent.
Accusing others of being against them.
And the media that advertises their paid campaigns,
They blame for the attention they get.
Although they insist upon rehearsing to ensure,
The cameras are set and they are looking their best.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Riddle: What
charges by the hour
works with impunity
guarantees no result
seduces with prospects
advertises on the subway
abets victimhood
always needs more time
always needs more money
stands at the crossroads
of every human transaction
with their palms outstretched
prefers to settle
requires another to control
and stuffs congress...?
You didn't have to answer so quickly.
poem by Morgan Michaels
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Mountain Lane
This lactic lane advertises the acts
Of my numbered men in talent;
Sales are made to the dozens of orders,
Frowning is the name of the story.
I have doubts on reality that exist,
To overwhelm the likes of you,
This speeding on the highway proclaims
A play to be written on death.
It is love and its agreement with loving,
That is the story of the most iron,
Irony detonates the bomb of hate,
Ironic questions are being asked.
Dying feelings can be a weight,
Tapping the head of the way we call,
At the top is the mountain of truth,
Wading upwards completes sin.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Disciplined Boys
Discipline and training advertises the boys of stone,
Falling and kicking from themselves like ants and bullies.
Their conversations desire or lust for brilliant insults
Captured by the cameras of their eyes, shaking the planet beneath.
What is the self-awareness of a few children?
Do they matter towards growth of human beings?
Or do they suddenly reply and enjoin goodness?
My old boys return to their father daily
And then the daughters translate the pages of my life.
What special hazard cancels the same tragedy
Befalling a woman or a lady in difference?
Captivated by light that spoke in a flash,
We dined together at the end of ropes
Fashioning our very lives.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Lady Of The Night
They call her the lady of the night
Shes a woman of the world
And easy-living girl with love for sale
Thats what they call her the lady of the night
No one seems to know her name
And even less about the place
From where she came
Every evening when the night is close at hand
Youll find the lady on the rue davignon
In a half lit hotel doorway the lady advertises warmly
Its just a job but shell do the best she can
Dont try to change this lady of the night
Shes a lot like you and me
And less than what she seems to be
(she is the lady of the night)
And easy-living girl
(she is the lady of the night)
Shes a woman of the world
(she is the lady of the night)
With lots of loving for sale
(she is the lady of the night)
Lady lady of the night
Round here they call her the lady of the night
In a perfume hotel room
Shadows dance upon the wall and fate at dawn
Shes no beginner this lady of the night
Never try that funny stuff
cause lady can be tough
Be warned!
(she is the lady of the night)
Shes a lot like you and me
(she is the lady of the night)
And never just what she seems
(she is the lady of the night)
No one seems to know her name
(she is the lady of the night)
Or the place from where she came
song performed by by Donna Summer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Milking Time
Across the fields, at close of day,
When mists fall low, and the skies are grey,
The cows with solemn slowness plod,
Homeward, through oozing, squelching sod,
And into gleaming cubicles across the road,
Await the release of their 'precious' load.
Of course, they cannot have realised,
That their'contents' end up being sterilised,
Sold in plastic bottles of varying sizes,
Or in cartons on which a firm advertises
The healthy benefits of natural milk.
Which slips down the throat, as smooth as silk.
Cows are the most beautiful creatures,
Have you, at any time, studied their features,
Their huge big eyes with lashes flattering,
And lusty tails, that are constantly battering
Their rear ends, keeping the flies at bay.
My admiration for them, I would like to convey.
We tend not to notice them behind their walls,
Chained securely to their milking stalls,
Each day, producing milk to fill our fridges,
While continually being pestered by scores of midges.
Poor souls! When next time you buy your milk by the quart,
Of these charming creatures, 'Please, Please give a thought! '.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Peace In The Mano River Union
River Mano Mano River
Love meanders along a river course
Gossip here will only seal the peace
A man of rivers will only rev a boat
To the other side to the other banks
To withdraw from bankruptcy
I am the Mano River
The collateral for true peace
The pact you signed will last
If you took me in as witness
I was born in peace that was not faked
Witnessing yours renders it fakeless
Write a song that begins with my name
Sing a song that ends with my name
Let the drummer boy talk with drums
With Mano River under the cover
Louder than street drumming and dancing
That advertises in fake tunes
The aged must learn from their young
The art of wriggling like snakes
This is the child that was born to a couple
Named Deception and Ignorance
And learn also from my doctors
How to inject morality therein
I too can dream and I got a dream
That one day my three girls will come together
And own a genuine business
From a Mother of Businesses
Headquartered in my heart
That a single coin might be tossed
And the tossing will give birth to a state
Whose greatness will be larger than the ‘You Ess’
Because it will bring many things on board
To families larger than large
That honour the grey heads
After lodging proverbs in my sentence
And that is my dream for PEACE
poem by Moses Kainwo
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Don't you wish your soul was larger? (Advt.)
You were born with a little pink soul.
That didn’t seem to matter for your first ten years or so.
Then you started to compare it with what
other boys had swinging for them…
and of course, how girls were different,
but managed in their own private way…
then you discovered girls, bigtime. Well, for you, smalltime...
They didn’t mind the modest size of your soul, at first;
then they started giggling together, and
favoured some other guy like crazy
since it got around that he had a huge swinging soul
and knew just how to use it.
Now you’ve got a partner, and she doesn’t say anything
because she knows you’re very sensitive about this
but secretly, she wishes you had a larger soul…
and there’s your very handsome neighbour
who advertises by the way he dresses, carries himself
that he’s well-endowed in that department…
watch out; she may feel that she deserves
spiritual satisfaction from that guy
who sure spreads it around, from what
her girlfriends tell her…
Now I’m here to tell you –
There’s a cure. Several cures in fact.
There's using weights for it.. that’s
sometimes called hatha-yoga in Indian circles.
There’s the vacuum system – empty
your mind; that’s called jnana-yoga.
There’s the traditional method –
play with it a lot, get the bloodstream on your side…
love it and all it stands for, that's
called bhakti-yoga.
Or there’s patches – like, say,
Church once a week…
A personal soul-massager can be expensive;
depends if you can keep up the urge to work;
But now, there’s tablets – easy, discreet,
available at any bookstore, or by post.
So which method would you prefer?
You surely can’t doubt your need by now – for
every boot-up brings reminders on the net
of just how tiny is your wee pink soul (how do they know...?)
Let’s give your soul a friendly name – say, Richard –
Ricky, Dicky, Rick, or Dick…
If you don’t believe this e-mail from a stranger,
ask your partner if she wouldn’t prefer
the deep and stirring, long and oh so frequent,
confident strutting you with your huge swinging soul..
or ask your soulmate: we’ve called him Dick:
wouldn’t he like to be a monster size?
be the talk of the neighbourhood,
get that special glance from all the hottest chicks?
And remember – in a few more years of this spamming,
and what is monster size now, will be standard issue then…
And by the way, we do a special junior version for your kids
but present law doesn’t allow us to advertise this…
(The Junior Patch comes in three styles: skin-colour; disguised
as Band-Aid; or with our bold and trendy logo - best ask Junior first...)
give your kids a bigger start in life…
it’s what all parents want…
Try our seven-day introductory course today –
you’ll be amazed, insatiable…and so will she…
We’d quote you at this point, the glowing testimonies
from satisfied and greater souls, hymning loud Our praise…
but I guess you know just how they’d read..
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Kids!
Kids!
Hundreds of 'em for the farmer! Kids of an imported brand;
Thousands of 'em for the country! Lo, the man upon the land
Bids
Loud for England's surplus youngster - five whole bob a week, 'tis said;
And their value to the nation stands at many pounds a head.
But the nation never riz 'em.
That 'would tend to Socialism';
So we have to fetch 'em over from the country where they're bred.
Kids!
Send us kids from good old Britain - sons of men who won't be slaves
From the land where countless paupers seek dishonorable graves
Quids!
We're prepared to offer for them. Ship them out across the deep,
From that dear old Freetrade country where the cost of labor's cheap.
While, of our unmarried workers
(Married men are costly shirkers)
We will take a meagre hundred at a pound a week and keep.
Kids?
We can't raise 'em in Australia, where employers by the score
For the bloke without a missus in the labor depôts roar
Bids.
Ship 'em out! The noble farmer yearns to mould their bright young lives.
Ship 'em young that for a dozen years they may not seek for wives.
When they think of getting married
Maybe they'll regret they tarried
Where the kid-encumbered worker vainly for a billet strives.
Kids?
We don't want 'em when they're babies, for their raisin' costs a heap.
We don't want 'em when they're married, with their own young broods to keep.
Skids
And brakes upon the wheels of progress are such futile folk. Just look
At the bob advertisement. You'll see their chance of work is 'crook.'
Ship 'em out in handy sizes
For the cove that advertises
For the unencumbered couple
' Man to milk and wife to cook.'
Kids?
Spare our days! Why should we raise 'em? We can get 'em ready-made
From a land where there's a surplus, thanks to good old BULL's Freetrade.
Quids
It will save the careful farmer. He can give his man the sack
Costly man who owns a missus and a child or two to whack.
Ship 'em out, he's yearnin' for 'em;
While they're young he'll just adore 'em
Then, when they grow up and marry, someone else can ship 'em back.
Ships
Pass in with cheap boy labor - 'badly needed farming hand';
Shps pass out with young Australians seeking work in other lands.
Hips
Hurrahs! are loudly sounded for the patriotic bloke
He who perpetrated this unseemly emigration joke.
Cheers for him who brings the kiddy
To a job that's sure and 'stiddy'!
It will balance the outgoing of our workless married folk.
Kids!!
Lo, we want them - want them badly! There is none denies the fact
Kids to populate the country. And behold, our noble act
Rids
England of her surplus toilers - we can do with quite a heap.
We can't breed them in the country - boys to plough and boys to reap.
And who says it is surprising
When we're daily advertising
For a hundred men - unmarried - at a pound a week and keep.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Woes of Bill
Once upon a recent even, as I lay in fitful slumber,
Weaving dreams and seeing visions vague and utterly absurd,
Suddenly I seemed to waken, somewhat scared and rather shaken,
For I thought my name was mentioned, coupled with - 'a certain word.'
'Twas the Adjective that roused me, sanguinary and familiar,
That embellishes the diction of my fellow countrymen,
When they do commune together in regard to crops or weather -
Such a word as never, never shall defile this pious pen.
Sitting, upright on my pillow, filled with weird, uncanny feelings,
Once again I heard, distinctly someone calling on my name.
And I gazed around me vainly as a voice exclaimed quite plainly:
'Strike me up a blessed wattle if it ain't a blessed shame!'
''Tis some idiotic joker, 't's some festive friend,' I muttered,
Gazing toward my chamber window where the moonlight faintly gleamed
Then, before my bedroom curtain, I beheld a shape uncertain,
Something vague and dim and doubtful, slowly taking form it seemed.
Then, all obvious before me stood a figure most familiar,
Clad in bushman's boots and breeches and a colored cotton shirt.
Said he: 'No, yer eyes don't fail yer: Here's yer cobber, BILL AUSTRALIER,
An' I've come to ask you plainly if this game ain't blessed dirt!'
'Pardon. BILL,' said I politely; 'but I hardly get your meaning.'
'Strewth!' said BILL. 'Dead crook, I call it!' But I stayed him with a smile.
'By your leave, my worthy bloke, we'll dropp these oaths and terms colloquial,
And just talk the matter over in a peaceful, friendly style.'
BILL choked back a warm expletive - for my smile was most engaging -
And, upon my invitation, sat beside me on the bed.
And, omitting decorations - fancy oaths and execrations
That his woeful story garnished, I shall tell you what he said.
'Now my name is BILL AUSTRALIER, just plain BILL without no trimmin's,
And you'll tumble that I'm ownin' quite a tidy bit o' land;
Land that needs a bit o' workin'; an' there ain't no time for shirkin',
An' there ain't no call for loafers on the job I got on hand.
'My selection is extensive; right from sea to sea it stretches;
An' I'm needin' willin' grafters for the toil there is to do:
So some blokes called politicians speaks for overseers' positions,
An' I hands 'em out the billets, thinkin' they would see things through.
''Strewth! They ain't signed on 10 minutes 'fore they downs their tools in anger,
An', without no word o' warnin', started fightin' tooth an' nail.
An' I yelled till I grew husky, an' me face with rage went dusky,
But me most expensive language wasn't of the least avail.
'Tell yeh, I was fair bewildered till a bloke gives me the office,
Puts me wise about them factions an' this Party Guv'ment lurk.
Seems, if one side takes to toilin', then the other aims at spoilin'
Ev'ry blessed job they tackle. An' the blighters calls it WORK!
'So I puts it to 'em plainly. Sez I: 'This here Party scrappin'
In the time for which I'm payin' ain't a fair thing, anyway!'
An, I calmly asks 'em whether they can't work in peace together,
An' consider me a trifle, seein' as I find the pay.
'But it weren't no use o' torkin', they just howls and fights the harder,
Leaves me pressin' jobs to languish while they plays their party games;
Till one push turns out the stronger; then I don't chip in no longer,
For they done a bit o' graftin' while the others calls 'em names.
'Now, this year their contracts finished, so I gives 'em all the bullet,
Sacks the lot an' advertises for fresh men; an' when they came,
With near even sides, by Heaven! 38 to 37.
They remarks: 'The job be jiggered! We're too close to play the Game.'
'Game! What game? Of all the blighters!' - (Here BILL'S language grew tremendous.
I have never heard a vision curse so much in all my life.)
'Five an' seventy I'm payin' for to work, an' here's them sayin'
That the sides is too near equal an' 'twould only lead to strife!
'Strike me - !' (BILL again, in anger, aired his vast vocabulary,
Using words against his 'workmen' stronger than the law allows;
And his ultimate expletive! - Fain would I remain secretive,
But I may not. In his anger. BILL described them as FAIR COWS!)
'Fair dashed Cows! That's wot I call 'em. An' I want your straight opinion.
Am I boss of this selection that extends from sea to sea?
Here's these blinded politicians hangin' on to them positions!
An' I want the dead, straight griffen: Are they workin' points on me?'
'BILL,' said I - and tears were streaming down my whiskers as I answered -
'Precedent, and rule, and custom cannot be ignored, you know.
This Great System was imported by our fathers' (Here BILL snorted)
'From the dear old Mother Country, and we cannot let it go.'
'Wot!' yelled BILL. 'Still more imported pests upon the job to plague me!
Like the rabbits an' the foxes, burrs an' thistles, an' the rest.
Must I ever curse in anguish? Must my Big Jobs ever languish?
Can't I clear me blamed selection of this Party Guv'ment pest?'
'BILL!' I sobbed, choked with emotion - then in wonder gazed about me;
Marked the moonlight, white and ghostly, faintly gleaming through the pane:
Saw mine old familiar trousers - (Pardon this allusion, Wowsers) -
Hanging on the bedpost sadly. But I searched for BILL - in vain.
Gone had he from out my chamber. Yet I sat and pondered deeply
Through that chilly winter even; and I ponder deeply still.
Evidence I've none to show men; but, I ask, was it an omen?
Did it presage good or evil, that strange vanishing of BILL?
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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At The Bar-Code Ranch
A stellar job in the bullpen
C.B.S. Baseball
I lie in a converted garage, sun coming up
and the chuck-chuck of unfamiliar birds
from Lake Mizell.
The lamp grows ineffectual
under a skylight; the great world
washes in, humid, composed of small numbered parts.
Sometime after nine, the classical music station stops
for the landing of a space shuttle
a sonic boom
shakes the bungalow
and Vladomir Horowitz
is abruptly terminated.
Yesterday, at New Smyrna, north of Canaveral:
knotted shoreline
looking out from a timbered interior
on the Atlantic;
driving inland on Local 40,
a two-lane, the Beach Boys on air,
to Winter Park, inches above the water table.
Today, flying north, from Florida’s eighty degrees
to Washington’s forty-something
a river far below
in South Carolina.
Salt-pork and black-eyed beans
“soul food” – and cheap – in D.C’s low
where U.S. presidents
fall like leaves . . .
Consume and Die!
Wednesday
under the pines
looking out over the waters of Potomac
a torn Bush-Quayle poster in the grass
the morning after the election,
and down on Canal St
a bag of crushed Busch beer cans
reminds me that poetry exists.
Up at 3040 R St N.W.
where the leaf vacuum cleaners roam,
three cards from New York!
The sun descends
through Mt Pinatubo clouds,
its weird rays on Georgetown,
glass to the south,
Arlington’s tower blocks
Confederate and Republican (still).
Meanwhile there is art to look at (Hirschorn Museum):
the hand, thrust forward,
of Ernst Barlach’s
streamlined (and sentimental)
“Begging Woman”
in which someone has placed a dime
– all it takes
to stitch up expressionism.
I liked better
the pieces by Balla
‘Boccioni’s Fist’
and the nice little things
by Henri Laurens
their mild
three-dimensional cubism.
A postcard from Sarah
features a moose, lettered CANADA,
though it’s from Australia
and the New York letters
(a room to stay in in Brooklyn!
drinks with some people.
The world, its streets, places, people
(a title
from Edwin Denby?
No, that was
‘Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Street’.
Maybe it was Larry Eigner?
I’ve no way of checking.
The Dewars and Gordon’s Gin bottles
sitting on a shelf in this basement
are huge, flagons almost, so very American:
The World and its Drinks
(the comment August made
in England, up in the Peak District,
confronted with folk rituals:
“Where’s
the bar?”
a ritual enough.
Auden’s clock ticked towards martini time.
My friends in their various places
bear with me
stretched out in a bedroom
which a door, cunningly concealed, separates
from the condo laundromat.
Our yuppie neighbours upstairs
dropp dumbells – I think – on the floorboards.
In this suburb, they say,
the Clinton/Gore voters are basement dwellers
like us,
light off to the south
through the claret ash
brighter as we tilt
away from the sun and the leaves fall
– that line about the world and its streets,
was it William Bronk?
the catalogue of American poets
not yet on autoshred
though who’ll be laureate
in the new administration?
(Ed Dorn once suggested
Robert Bly for Hubert Humphrey
as if poetry
were a parody of presidential style
(and now
somebody has put together an anthology
of “poems for men” . . .
(in Australia
we did that long ago: it was called
‘Poems of Spirit and Action’
– John Forbes
had it at school, still prefers it
to the ones with close-ups of flower stamens
opposite poems by William Carlos Williams.
It was raining in the capital
and radio heartbreak was on,
Respighi
“laugh or cry music”
as Terry McGrath
would have it.
I have ruined our landlord’s floor with oven cleaner
(photo: close-up: a container of oven cleaner)
Tonight I eat with the lawyers
on Capitol Hill
while the President packs his clothes.
Actually, the Respighi
is developing more into laughter mode,
its overblown pictorialism.
What’s this bit?
A conga chain of
ex-presidents in bathrobes
enter a steaming sauna
flanked by unsmiling CIA types.
Cut to close-up of incumbent
(played by Frankie Howerd).
T-shirted in this basement
(photo: T-shirt)
I feel no need to go out. It’s 46 degrees.
But I do (go out)
across mean streets to the Law Center
and thence, a restaurant,
where a loud tool of the employers
down one end of the table
seems suddenly like a kid
arguing over a football.
Autumn so vivid
the stars and stripes washed out
against the yellow.
I cross Dumbarton Bridge
toward Dupont Circle,
Rock Creek Parkway below
only weeks from icing up,
black branches over the creek.
At Dupont, leave exposed film,
walk down Massachusetts and K
to the Greyhound terminal
and further, to Union Station
taking in the character some guy said
this city lacks.
K St past Thomas Circle grows funky,
urban wreckage round the bus terminal.
Subway to Farragut North, and on
up Connecticut to pick up photos
(photo: photos)
In the afternoon, sweep leaves
off the back porch (a screen door
slams!).
The sky darkens,
branches, parts of buildings
picked out by light.
The photographs, taken months back
seem ancient:
Manchester late summer,
Dentdale, Durham,
faces of
Jonathan, Tom, Roy,
Joyce, Tony and Ric
(Hadrian’s Wall, its hill forts built to
prefabricated plans,
gates opening onto nowhere;
moss on the rocks at Godrevy;
outcrops on the gritstone edge, Winster . . .
One summer displaced since
by the tail of another.
When things go wrong
the Ginsberg line (in Philip Whalen)
about “severance pay”
i.e. “there wasn’t much
severance pay in that”
seems to apply
in instalments, to life here
in this capital
where everything has its hidden cost
(Rosemary’s clothes
dry-cleaned and dismembered;
upstairs
a pre-adolescent party:
10 year olds
with their own fax machines
and probably more than a notion of litigation.
At 4 a.m. there is peace to read
about the Wobbly strikes in Paterson N.J.
but later the yuppies stomp above our heads again
so that I feel like shouting
“stop drinking coffee”
Hal Roach is dead
– the man who put
Laurel and Hardy together, incredibly still alive
till just now.
He lived to see movies become boring.
And my father
dressed for Shakespeare, circa 1920,
on the cover of my first book;
the backdrop: dry grass,
weathered grey trunks up the hill;
an impossible country I try to picture segments of
in detail
lose them soon enough.
There is no plot
unlike Coronation Street
“better than real life and only
ninety minutes a week” (Jonathan Williams)
The morning cold and clear
after rumoured flurries.
I remember some 19th century painting
of Washington under snow (by Eastman Johnson?)
sentimental in ‘de ole plantation’ mode
– cold air that makes the head to hurt
though the sky is bright over Oak Hill Cemetery,
the beggars more assertive on the lips of escalators.
Fifty-one auto license plates spell out
the preamble to the constitution of the United States
at the Smithsonian,
and Frank O’Hara looks out
from a Larry Rivers painting, very present
here amid the art he loved
a memorial to him
by Grace Hartigan
“Grace to be born
and live as variously as possible . . .”
– words which could be attributed
to (the Rev.) Howard Finster
his fountains issuing from faucets,
a river of blood just that
though the source
may be a cut finger
and plenty more “just folks”
whom circumstance and vision worked through
so that they figured how art could be done
(as I write now on Rosemary’s sleeping shoulder
arranging a table to jot in haste though not to disturb)
– something happens
that you walk away from
as you walk away from your own history
my father: the cover of a book
my mother: a gold ring
enigmatic, unsequenced
for plot or rhetoric,
more interesting
when decontextualized than as ‘psychology’
(the t.v. character last night
who went to analysis because
her mother and father hadn’t given her a hard time).
Anything can be fixed here (even poetry)
though nobody wants to do it anymore
(fix things that is, not write poetry,
everybody wants to do that).
We work our way (walk away) through breakfast cereals
(freedom of choice!)
and I like the ad
where a guy in surgical outfit
on an emergency ward set, says
“I’m not really a doctor, but . . .”
(days after the election
the new president appears in a soap opera
as a plot device.
I pour myself a gin,
listen to Earl Bostic – Coltrane’s mentor –
thinking I have patched the drafty cracks
so that Washington’s night will be kept out of this condo
and wondering how to duplicate
the American ‘r’ and ‘a’
so that cab drivers will get our address right
and my name will be spelled correctly
by petty officials.
Earl Bostic and Bill Doggett:
sounds that would ‘invoke’ (if I were Robert Duncan)
instead ‘remind’ me of Ken Bolton,
now probably waking up in Adelaide,
even this moment cleaning his teeth,
a thought balloon above his head
(‘thot balloon’ Duncan would say,
the figure of Ken rising through the poem
like the Corn God . . .
As in ‘One Night in Washington’,
the record where Charlie Parker
played the wrong tune over an unaccustomed backup
and they had to figure out what he was doing
– the pianist slightly haywire, feeling for tempo and key
as Parker doubles up, oblivious,
knowing where he’s going
so ‘The Poem’
leaves behind
any notion of what its Arnoldian simile
is about
– just one manner of
jumpin in the Capital
(better than jogging in the capital
though less characteristic I guess –
and waves to its friends on another shore,
dancers, buildings and drinks in the street.
Down on Rock Creek’s tributary
a maze of branches, leaves, undergrowth;
advanced puzzle in which I make out
the figure of a young woman sketching,
and further, a man, stripped to the waist,
washing shirts in the rivulet.
Halfway up the slope to Safeways
a concrete divan, shaped for Mme Recamier;
the human figures, characters escaped from paintings
like the ones in the background of ‘Dejuner sur l’herbe’
which seem to occupy a different dimension
– even these rustic details of L’Enfant’s city
suggest French analogues
though up the hill
Washington Cathedral – twentieth century gothic
with elevators and climate control
suggests a big nothing
at least that
only a nation of fundamentalists and show-biz types
could put a gothic cathedral on a hill top.
I move about through these environs
grasping colour and light
as the capital slides into winter,
warm air chilling after three,
darkness by five
ham hocks over gas
simmering
a gold ring
the cover of a book
It’s time for drinks and music
(no photos)
‘Autumn in New York’ or
‘Moonlight in Vermont’?
‘Dumbarton Oaks’!
– where Igor Stravinsky stayed,
only a block away,
gardens laid out
for pleasure, all seasons.
Veterans’ Day:
Glover Park
a leaf impasto underfoot for miles;
the grey tree trunks producing an effect of haze.
From The Palisades an old railroad bridge, boarded up,
cuts over Canal Street to the towpath,
pairs of mallards on the waterway.
A man (veteran?)
with bedroll and sixpack
asks if I’m a local.
Sorry, you’re 12,000 miles off.
Return from the drizzle to a call from Vermont
for Rosemary.
Take a message
or try to
– our landlord
collects pens that don’t work
and places them all in jars near the telephone.
(according to John Tranter it was Martin Johnston who said
‘If you want to communicate, use the telephone’,
but Martin probably got the line from John Forbes
– and he was quoting Frank O’Hara at the time.
I’m a spook on the bus through Shaw,
wreckage still from 1968,
gentility bordering the ghetto
with window boxes and fresh paint
up on Le Droit Park.
In Howard University’s
African collection, a small gold chameleon
illustrates the limits of personal power,
‘changing its colour to suit what it sees,
not what is hidden in the box’;
an Akan ceremonial vessel
shows Picasso even stole his doves from Ghana.
But Africa has come back
I think, to reclaim its own images
as Romaire Bearden, his art
at the American Museum.
Africa! Lorca
and Vachel Lindsay loved you
but you go further,
a chameleon
in the box,
not my personification of a continent.
I walk back on Columbia, a break in the drizzle,
to the border at 14th St
where signs become Spanish.
Turbulences cross the map,
snow falls in the panhandle of Texas.
This morning Classical 104FM
advertises a book (illustrated)
of poems by Robert Frost
that
“makes profound truths
really accessible
in a language
everybody can understand”
Out on the street
Latinos with air compressors on their backs
blow the dead leaves away.
Poet's Note: Washington D.C. November 1992
poem by Laurence James Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Tale XXI
The Learned Boy
An honest man was Farmer Jones, and true;
He did by all as all by him should do;
Grave, cautious, careful, fond of gain was he,
Yet famed for rustic hospitality:
Left with his children in a widow'd state,
The quiet man submitted to his fate;
Though prudent matrons waited for his call,
With cool forbearance he avoided all;
Though each profess'd a pure maternal joy,
By kind attention to his feeble boy;
And though a friendly Widow knew no rest,
Whilst neighbour Jones was lonely and distress'd;
Nay, though the maidens spoke in tender tone
Their hearts' concern to see him left alone,
Jones still persisted in that cheerless life,
As if 'twere sin to take a second wife.
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead;
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own;
Left the departed infants--then their joy
Is to sustain each lovely girl and boy:
Whatever calling his, whatever trade,
To that their chief attention has been paid;
His happy taste in all things they approve,
His friends they honour, and his food they love;
His wish for order, prudence in affairs,
An equal temper (thank their stars!), are theirs;
In fact, it seem'd to be a thing decreed,
And fix'd as fate, that marriage must succeed:
Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and
hard,
Can hear such claims and show them no regard.
Soon as our Farmer, like a general, found
By what strong foes he was encompass'd round,
Engage he dared not, and he could not fly,
But saw his hope in gentle parley lie;
With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart,
He met the foe, and art opposed to art.
Now spoke that foe insidious--gentle tones,
And gentle looks, assumed for Farmer Jones:
'Three girls,' the Widow cried, 'a lively three
To govern well--indeed it cannot be.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'it calls for pains and care:
But I must bear it.'--'Sir, you cannot bear;
Your son is weak, and asks a mother's eye:'
'That, my kind friend, a father's may supply.'
'Such growing griefs your very soul will tease;'
'To grieve another would not give me ease -
I have a mother,'--'She, poor ancient soul!
Can she the spirits of the young control?
Can she thy peace promote, partake thy care,
Procure thy comforts, and thy sorrows share?
Age is itself impatient, uncontroll'd:'
But wives like mothers must at length be old.'
Thou hast shrewd servants--they are evils sore?'
Yet a shrewd mistress might afflict me more.'
Wilt thou not be a weary, wailing man?'
Alas! and I must bear it as I can.'
Resisted thus, the Widow soon withdrew,
That in his pride the Hero might pursue;
And off his wonted guard, in some retreat
Find from a foe prepared entire defeat:
But he was prudent; for he knew in flight
These Parthian warriors turn again and fight;
He but at freedom, not at glory aim'd,
And only safety by his caution claim'd.
Thus, when a great and powerful state decrees
Upon a small one, in its love, to seize -
It vows in kindness, to protect, defend,
And be the fond ally, the faithful friend;
It therefore wills that humbler state to place
Its hopes of safety in a fond embrace;
Then must that humbler state its wisdom prove
By kind rejection of such pressing love;
Must dread such dangerous friendship to commence,
And stand collected in its own defence:
Our Farmer thus the proffer'd kindness fled,
And shunn'd the love that into bondage led.
The Widow failing, fresh besiegers came,
To share the fate of this retiring dame:
And each foresaw a thousand ills attend
The man that fled from so discreet a friend;
And pray'd, kind soul! that no event might make
The harden'd heart of Farmer Jones to ache.
But he still govern'd with resistless hand,
And where he could not guide he would command:
With steady view, in course direct he steer'd,
And his fair daughters loved him, though they
fear'd;
Each had her school, and as his wealth was known,
Each had in time a household of her own.
The Boy indeed was at the Grandam's side
Humour'd and train'd, her trouble and her pride:
Companions dear, with speech and spirits mild,
The childish widow and the vapourish child;
This nature prompts; minds uninform'd and weak
In such alliance ease and comfort seek:
Push'd by the levity of youth aside,
The cares of man, his humour, or his pride,
They feel, in their defenceless state, allied;
The child is pleased to meet regard from age,
The old are pleased e'en children to engage;
And all their wisdom, scorn'd by proud mankind,
They love to pour into the ductile mind,
By its own weakness into error led,
And by fond age with prejudices fed.
The Father, thankful for the good he had,
Yet saw with pain a whining, timid Lad;
Whom he instructing led through cultured fields,
To show what Man performs, what Nature yields:
But Stephen, listless, wander'd from the view,
From beasts he fled, for butterflies he flew,
And idly gazed about in search of something new.
The lambs indeed he loved, and wish'd to play
With things so mild, so harmless, and so gay;
Best pleased the weakest of the flock to see,
With whom he felt a sickly sympathy.
Meantime the Dame was anxious, day and night,
To guide the notions of her babe aright,
And on the favourite mind to throw her glimmering
light;
Her Bible-stories she impress'd betimes,
And fill'd his head with hymns and holy rhymes;
On powers unseen, the good and ill, she dwelt,
And the poor Boy mysterious terrors felt;
From frightful dreams he waking sobb'd in dread,
Till the good lady came to guard his bed.
The Father wish'd such errors to correct,
But let them pass in duty and respect:
But more it grieved his worthy mind to see
That Stephen never would a farmer be:
In vain he tried the shiftless Lad to guide,
And yet 'twas time that something should be tried:
He at the village-school perchance might gain
All that such mind could gather and retain;
Yet the good Dame affirm'd her favourite child
Was apt and studious, though sedate and mild;
'That he on many a learned point could speak,
And that his body, not his mind, was weak.'
The Father doubted--but to school was sent
The timid Stephen, weeping as he went:
There the rude lads compell'd the child to fight,
And sent him bleeding to his home at night;
At this the Grandam more indulgent grew;
And bade her Darling 'shun the beastly crew,
Whom Satan ruled, and who were sure to lie
Howling in torments, when they came to die.'
This was such comfort, that in high disdain
He told their fate, and felt their blows again:
Yet if the Boy had not a hero's heart,
Within the school he play'd a better part;
He wrote a clean fine hand, and at his slate
With more success than many a hero sate;
He thought not much indeed--but what depends
On pains and care was at his fingers' ends.
This had his Father's praise, who now espied
A spark of merit, with a blaze of pride;
And though a farmer he would never make,
He might a pen with some advantage take;
And as a clerk that instrument employ,
So well adapted to a timid boy.
A London Cousin soon a place obtain'd,
Easy but humble--little could be gain'd:
The time arrived when youth and age must part,
Tears in each eye, and sorrow in each heart;
The careful Father bade his Son attend
To all his duties and obey his Friend;
To keep his church and there behave aright,
As one existing in his Maker's sight,
Till acts to habits led, and duty to delight.
'Then try, my boy, as quickly as you can,
T'assume the looks and spirit of a man;
I say, be honest, faithful, civil, true,
And this you may, and yet have courage too:
Heroic men, their country's boast and pride,
Have fear'd their God, and nothing fear'd beside;
While others daring, yet imbecile, fly
The power of man, and that of God defy:
Be manly, then, though mild, for, sure as fate,
Thou art, my Stephen, too effeminate;
Here, take my purse, and make a worthy use
('Tis fairly stock'd) of what it will produce:
And now my blessing, not as any charm
Or conjuration; but 'twill do no harm.'
Stephen, whose thoughts were wandering up and
down,
Now charm'd with promised sights in London-town,
Now loth to leave his Grandam--lost the force,
The drift and tenor of this grave discourse;
But, in a general way, he understood
'Twas good advice, and meant, 'My son be good;'
And Stephen knew that all such precepts mean
That lads should read their Bible, and be clean.
The good old Lady, though in some distress,
Begg'd her dear Stephen would his grief suppress:
'Nay, dry those eyes, my child--and, first of all.
Hold fast thy faith, whatever may befall:'
Hear the best preacher, and preserve the text
For meditation till you hear the next;
Within your Bible night and morning look -
There is your duty, read no other book;
Be not in crowds, in broils, in riots seen,
And keep your conscience and your linen clean:
Be you a Joseph, and the time may be
When kings and rulers will be ruled by thee.'
'Nay,' said the Father--'Hush, my son!' replied
The Dame--'the Scriptures must not be denied.'
The Lad, still weeping, heard the wheels
approach,
And took his place within the evening coach,
With heart quite rent asunder: on one side
Was love, and grief, and fear, for scenes untried;
Wild beasts and wax-work fill'd the happier part
Of Stephen's varying and divided heart:
This he betray'd by sighs and questions strange,
Of famous shows, the Tower, and the Exchange.
Soon at his desk was placed the curious Boy,
Demure and silent at his new employ;
Yet as he could he much attention paid
To all around him, cautious and afraid;
On older Clerks his eager eyes were fix'd,
But Stephen never in their council mix'd:
Much their contempt he fear'd, for if like them,
He felt assured he should himself contemn;
'Oh! they were all so eloquent, so free,
No! he was nothing--nothing could he be:
They dress so smartly, and so boldly look,
And talk as if they read it from a book;
But I,' said Stephen, 'will forbear to speak,
And they will think me prudent and not weak.
They talk, the instant they have dropp'd the pen,
Of singing-women and of acting-men:
Of plays and places where at night they walk
Beneath the lamps, and with the ladies talk;
While other ladies for their pleasure sing, -
Oh! 'tis a glorious and a happy thing:
They would despise me, did they understand
I dare not look upon a scene so grand;
Or see the plays when critics rise and roar,
And hiss and groan, and cry--Encore! encore!
There's one among them looks a little kind;
If more encouraged, I would ope my mind.'
Alas! poor Stephen, happier had he kept
His purpose secret, while his envy slept!
Virtue perhaps had conquer'd, or his shame
At least preserved him simple as he came.
A year elapsed before this Clerk began
To treat the rustic something like a man;
He then in trifling points the youth advised,
Talk'd of his coat, and had it modernized;
Or with the lad a Sunday-walk would take,
And kindly strive his passions to awake;
Meanwhile explaining all they heard and saw,
Till Stephen stood in wonderment and awe;
To a neat garden near the town they stray'd,
Where the Lad felt delighted and afraid;
There all he saw was smart, and fine, and fair -
He could but marvel how he ventured there:
Soon he observed, with terror and alarm,
His friend enlocked within a Lady's arm,
And freely talking--'But it is,' said he,
'A near relation, and that makes him free;'
And much amazed was Stephen when he knew
This was the first and only interview;
Nay, had that lovely arm by him been seized,
The lovely owner had been highly pleased.
'Alas!' he sigh'd, 'I never can contrive
At such bold, blessed freedoms to arrive;
Never shall I such happy courage boast,
I dare as soon encounter with a ghost.'
Now to a play the friendly couple went,
But the Boy murmurd at the money spent;
'He lov'd,' he said, 'to buy, but not to spend -
They only talk awhile, and there's an end.'
'Come, you shall purchase books,' the Friend
replied;
'You are bewilder'd, and you want a guide;
To me refer the choice, and you shall find
The light break in upon your stagnant mind!'
The cooler Clerks exclaim'd, 'In vain your art
To improve a cub without a head or heart;
Rustics, though coarse, and savages, though wild,
Our cares may render liberal and mild:
But what, my friend, can flow from all these pains?
There is no dealing with a lack of brains.'
'True I am hopeless to behold him man,
But let me make the booby what I can:
Though the rude stone no polish will display,
Yet you may strip the rugged coat away.'
Stephen beheld his books--'I love to know
How money goes--now here is that to show:
And now' he cried, 'I shall be pleased to get
Beyond the Bible--there I puzzle yet.'
He spoke abash'd--'Nay, nay!' the friend replied,
'You need not lay the good old book aside;
Antique and curious, I myself indeed
Read it at times, but as a man should read;.
A fine old work it is, and I protest
I hate to hear it treated as a jest:
The book has wisdom in it, if you look
Wisely upon it, as another book:
For superstition (as our priests of sin
Are pleased to tell us) makes us blind within;
Of this hereafter--we will now select
Some works to please you, others to direct;
Tales and romances shall your fancy feed,
And reasoners form your morals and your creed.'
The books were view'd, the price was fairly
paid,
And Stephen read undaunted, undismay'd:
But not till first he papered all the row,
And placed in order to enjoy the show:
Next letter'd all the backs with care and speed,
Set them in ranks, and then began to read.
The love of Order--I the thing receive
From reverend men, and I in part believe -
Shows a clear mind and clean, and whoso needs
This love, but seldom in the world succeeds;
And yet with this some other love must be,
Ere I can fully to the fact agree;
Valour and study may by order gain,
By order sovereigns hold more steady reign;
Through all the tribes of nature order runs,
And rules around in systems and in suns:
Still has the love of order found a place,
With all that's low, degrading, mean, and base,
With all that merits scorn, and all that meets
disgrace -
In the cold miser, of all change afraid;
In pompous men in public seats obey'd;
In humble placemen, heralds, solemn drones,
Fanciers of flowers, and lads like Stephen Jones:
Order to these is armour and defence,
And love of method serves in lack of sense.
For rustic youth could I a list produce
Of Stephen's books, how great might be the use!
But evil fate was theirs--survey'd, enjoy'd
Some happy months, and then by force destroyed:
So will'd the Fates--but these with patience read
Had vast effect on Stephen's heart and head.
This soon appear'd: within a single week
He oped his lips, and made attempt to speak;
He fail'd indeed--but still his Friend confess'd
The best have fail'd, and he had done his best:
The first of swimmers, when at first he swims,
Has little use or freedom in his limbs;
Nay, when at length he strikes with manly force,
The cramp may seize him, and impede his course.
Encouraged thus, our Clerk again essay'd
The daring act, though daunted and afraid:
Succeeding now, though partial his success,
And pertness mark'd his manner and address,
Yet such improvement issued from his books,
That all discern'd it in his speech and looks:
He ventured then on every theme to speak,
And felt no feverish tingling in his cheek;
His friend, approving, hail'd the happy change,
The Clerks exclaim'd--''Tis famous, and 'tis
strange.'
Two years had pass'd; the Youth attended still
(Though thus accomplish'd) with a ready quill:
He sat th' allotted hours, though hard the case,
While timid prudence ruled in virtue's place;
By promise bound, the Son his letters penn'd
To his good parent at the quarter's end.
At first he sent those lines, the state to tell
Of his own health, and hoped his friends were well;
He kept their virtuous precepts in his mind,
And needed nothing--then his name was sign'd:
But now he wrote of Sunday-walks and views,
Of actors' names, choice novels, and strange news;
How coats were cut, and of his urgent need
For fresh supply, which he desired with speed.
The Father doubted, when these letters came,
To what they tended, yet was loth to blame:
'Stephen was once my duteous son, and now
My most obedient--this can I allow?
Can I with pleasure or with patience see
A boy at once so heartless and so free?'
But soon the kinsman heavy tidings told,
That love and prudence could no more withhold:
'Stephen, though steady at his desk, was grown
A rake and coxcomb--this he grieved to own;
His cousin left his church, and spent the day
Lounging about in quite a heathen way;
Sometimes he swore, but had indeed the grace
To show the shame imprinted on his face:
I search'd his room, and in his absence read
Books that I knew would turn a stronger head.
The works of atheists half the number made,
The rest were lives of harlots leaving trade;
Which neither man nor boy would deign to read,
If from the scandal and pollution freed:
I sometimes threaten'd, and would fairly state
My sense of things so vile and profligate;
But I'm a cit, such works are lost on me -
They're knowledge, and (good Lord!) philosophy.'
'Oh, send him down,' the Father soon replied;
Let me behold him, and my skill be tried:
If care and kindness lose their wonted use,
Some rougher medicine will the end produce.'
Stephen with grief and anger heard his doom -
'Go to the farmer? to the rustic's home?
Curse the base threat'ning--' 'Nay, child, never
curse;
Corrupted long, your case is growing worse.'
'I!' quoth the youth; 'I challenge all mankind
To find a fault; what fault have you to find?
Improve I not in manner, speech, and grace?
Inquire--my friends will tell it to your face;
Have I been taught to guard his kine and sheep?
A man like me has other things to keep;
This let him know.'--'It would his wrath excite:
But come, prepare, you must away to-night.'
'What! leave my studies, my improvements leave,
My faithful friends and intimates to grieve?'
'Go to your father, Stephen, let him see
All these improvements; they are lost on me.'
The Youth, though loth, obey'd, and soon he saw
The Farmer-father, with some signs of awe;
Who, kind, yet silent, waited to behold
How one would act, so daring, yet so cold:
And soon he found, between the friendly pair
That secrets pass'd which he was not to share;
But he resolved those secrets to obtain,
And quash rebellion in his lawful reign.
Stephen, though vain, was with his father mute;
He fear'd a crisis, and he shunn'd dispute;
And yet he long'd with youthful pride to show
He knew such things as farmers could not know;
These to the Grandam he with freedom spoke,
Saw her amazement, and enjoy'd the joke:
But on the father when he cast his eye,
Something he found that made his valour shy;
And thus there seem'd to be a hollow truce,
Still threat'ning something dismal to produce.
Ere this the Father at his leisure read
The son's choice volumes, and his wonder fled;
He saw how wrought the works of either kind
On so presuming, yet so weak a mind;
These in a chosen hour he made his prey,
Condemn'd, and bore with vengeful thoughts away;
Then in a close recess the couple near,
He sat unseen to see, unheard to hear.
There soon a trial for his patience came;
Beneath were placed the Youth and ancient Dame,
Each on a purpose fix'd--but neither thought
How near a foe, with power and vengeance fraught.
And now the matron told, as tidings sad,
What she had heard of her beloved lad;
How he to graceless, wicked men gave heed,
And wicked books would night and morning read;
Some former lectures she again began,
And begg'd attention of her little man;
She brought, with many a pious boast, in view
His former studies, and condemn'd the new:
Once he the names of saints and patriarchs old,
Judges and kings, and chiefs and prophets, told;
Then he in winter-nights the Bible took,
To count how often in the sacred book
The sacred name appear'd, and could rehearse
Which were the middle chapter, word, and verse,
The very letter in the middle placed,
And so employ'd the hours that others waste.
'Such wert thou once; and now, my child, they say
Thy faith like water runneth fast away,
The prince of devils hath, I fear, beguiled
The ready wit of my backsliding child.'
On this, with lofty looks, our Clerk began
His grave rebuke, as he assumed the man. -
'There is no devil,' said the hopeful youth,
'Nor prince of devils: that I know for truth.
Have I not told you how my books describe
The arts of priests, and all the canting tribe?
Your Bible mentions Egypt, where it seems
Was Joseph found when Pharoah dream'd his dreams:
Now in that place, in some bewilder'd head,
(The learned write) religious dreams were bred;
Whence through the earth, with various forms
combined,
They came to frighten and afflict mankind,
Prone (so I read) to let a priest invade
Their souls with awe, and by his craft be made
Slave to his will, and profit to his trade:
So say my books, and how the rogues agreed
To blind the victims, to defraud and lead;
When joys above to ready dupes were sold,
And hell was threaten'd to the shy and cold.
'Why so amazed, and so prepared to pray?
As if a Being heard a word we say:
This may surprise you; I myself began
To feel disturb'd, and to my Bible ran:
I now am wiser--yet agree in this,
The book has things that are not much amiss;
It is a fine old work, and I protest
I hate to hear it treated as a jest:
The book has wisdom in it, if you look
Wisely upon it as another book.'
'Oh! wicked! wicked! my unhappy child,
How hast thou been by evil men beguiled!'
'How! wicked, say you? You can little guess
The gain of that which you call wickedness;
Why, sins you think it sinful but to name
Have gain'd both wives and widows wealth and fame;
And this because such people never dread
Those threaten'd pains; hell comes not in their
head:
Love is our nature, wealth we all desire,
And what we wish 'tis lawful to acquire;
So say my books--and what beside they show
'Tis time to let this honest Farmer know.
Nay, look not grave: am I commanded down
To feed his cattle and become his clown?
Is such his purpose? Then he shall be told
The vulgar insult--Hold, in mercy hold! -
Father, oh! father! throw the whip away;
I was but jesting; on my knees I pray -
There, hold his arm--oh! leave us not alone:
In pity cease, and I will yet atone
For all my sin'--In vain; stroke after stroke,
On side and shoulder, quick as mill-wheels broke;
Quick as the patient's pulse, who trembling cried,
And still the parent with a stroke replied;
Till all the medicine he prepared was dealt,
And every bone the precious influence felt;
Till all the panting flesh was red and raw,
And every thought was turn'd to fear and awe;
Till every doubt to due respect gave place. -
Such cures are done when doctors know the case.
'Oh! I shall die--my father! do receive
My dying words; indeed I do believe.
The books are lying books, I know it well;
There is a devil, oh! there is a hell;
And I'm a sinner: spare me, I am young,
My sinful words were only on my tongue;
My heart consented not; 'tis all a lie:
Oh! spare me then, I'm not prepared to die.'
'Vain, worthless, stupid wretch!' the Father
cried;
'Dost thou presume to teach? art thou a guide?
Driveller and dog, it gives the mind distress
To hear thy thoughts in their religious dress;
Thy pious folly moved my strong disdain,
Yet I forgave thee for thy want of brain;
But Job in patience must the man exceed
Who could endure thee in thy present creed.
Is it for thee, thou idiot, to pretend
The wicked cause a helping hand to lend?
Canst thou a judge in any question be?
Atheists themselves would scorn a friend like thee.
'Lo! yonder blaze thy worthies; in one heap
Thy scoundrel favourites must for ever sleep:
Each yields its poison to the flame in turn,
Where whores and infidels are doomed to burn;
Two noble faggots made the flame you see,
Reserving only two fair twigs for thee;
That in thy view the instruments may stand,
And be in future ready for my hand:
The just mementos that, though silent, show
Whence thy correction and improvements flow;
Beholding these, thou wilt confess their power,
And feel the shame of this important hour.
'Hadst thou been humble, I had first design'd
By care from folly to have freed thy mind;
And when a clean foundation had been laid,
Our priest, more able, would have lent his aid:
But thou art weak, and force must folly guide;
And thou art vain, and pain must humble pride:
Teachers men honour, learners they allure;
But learners teaching, of contempt are sure;
Scorn is their certain meed, and smart their only
cure!'
The Newspaper
A time like this, a busy, bustling time,
Suits ill with writers, very ill with rhyme:
Unheard we sing, when party-rage runs strong,
And mightier madness checks the flowing song:
Or, should we force the peaceful Muse to wield
Her feeble arms amid the furious field,
Where party-pens a wordy war maintain,
Poor is her anger, and her friendship vain;
And oft the foes who feel her sting, combine,
Till serious vengeance pays an idle line:
For party-poets are like wasps, who dart
Death to themselves, and to their foes but smart.
Hard then our fate: if general themes we
choose,
Neglect awaits the song, and chills the Muse;
Or should we sing the subject of the day,
To-morrow's wonder puffs our praise away.
More blest the bards of that poetic time,
When all found readers who could find a rhyme;
Green grew the bays on every teeming head,
And Cibber was enthroned, and Settle read.
Sing, drooping Muse, the cause of thy decline;
Why reign no more the once-triumphant Nine?
Alas! new charms the wavering many gain,
And rival sheets the reader's eye detain;
A daily swarm, that banish every Muse,
Come flying forth, and mortals call them NEWS:
For these, unread, the noblest volumes lie;
For these, in sheets unsoil'd, the Muses die;
Unbought, unblest, the virgin copies wait
In vain for fame, and sink, unseen, to fate.
Since, then, the Town forsakes us for our foes,
The smoothest numbers for the harshest prose;
Let us, with generous scorn, the taste deride,
And sing our rivals with a rival's pride.
Ye gentle poets, who so oft complain
That foul neglect is all your labours gain;
That pity only checks your growing spite
To erring man, and prompts you still to write;
That your choice works on humble stalls are laid,
Or vainly grace the windows of the trade;
Be ye my friends, if friendship e'er can warm
Those rival bosoms whom the Muses charm;
Think of the common cause wherein we go,
Like gallant Greeks against the Trojan foe;
Nor let one peevish chief his leader blame,
Till, crown'd with conquest, we regain our fame;
And let us join our forces to subdue
This bold assuming but successful crew.
I sing of NEWS, and all those vapid sheets
The rattling hawker vends through gaping streets;
Whate'er their name, whate'er the time they fly,
Damp from the press, to charm the reader's eye:
For soon as Morning dawns with roseate hue,
The HERALD of the morn arises too;
POST after POST succeeds, and, all day long,
GAZETTES and LEDGERS swarm, a noisy throng.
When evening comes, she comes with all her train;
Of LEDGERS, CHRONICLES, and POSTS again.
Like bats, appearing when the sun goes down,
From holes obscure and corners of the town.
Of all these triflers, all like these, I write;
Oh! like my subject could my song delight,
The crowd at Lloyd's one poet's name should raise,
And all the Alley echo to his praise.
In shoals the hours their constant numbers
bring,
Like insects waking to th' advancing spring;
Which take their rise from grubs obscene that lie
In shallow pools, or thence ascend the sky:
Such are these base ephemeras, so born
To die before the next revolving morn.
Yet thus they differ: insect-tribes are lost
In the first visit of a winters frost;
While these remain, a base but constant breed,
Whose swarming sons their short-lived sires
succeed;
No changing season makes their number less,
Nor Sunday shines a sabbath on the press!
Then lo! the sainted MONITOR is born,
Whose pious face some sacred texts adorn:
As artful sinners cloak the secret sin,
To veil with seeming grace the guile within;
So moral Essays on his front appear,
But all is carnal business in the rear;
The fresh-coin'd lie, the secret whisper'd last,
And all the gleanings of the six days past.
With these retired through half the Sabbath-day,
The London lounger yawns his hours away:
Not so, my little flock! your preacher fly,
Nor waste the time no worldly wealth can buy;
But let the decent maid and sober clown
Pray for these idlers of the sinful town:
This day, at least, on nobler themes bestow,
Nor give to WOODFALL, or the world below.
But, Sunday past, what numbers flourish then,
What wondrous labours of the press and pen;
Diurnal most, some thrice each week affords,
Some only once,--O avarice of words!
When thousand starving minds such manna seek,
To drop the precious food but once a week.
Endless it were to sing the powers of all,
Their names, their numbers; how they rise and fall:
Like baneful herbs the gazer's eye they seize,
Rush to the head, and poison where they please:
Like idle flies, a busy, buzzing train,
They drop their maggots in the trifler's brain:
That genia soil receives the fruitful store,
And there they grow, and breed a thousand more.
Now be their arts display'd, how first they
choose
A cause and party, as the bard his Muse;
Inspired by these, with clamorous zeal they cry,
And through the town their dreams and omens fly;
So the Sibylline leaves were blown about,
Disjointed scraps of fate involved in doubt;
So idle dreams, the journals of the night,
Are right and wrong by turns, and mingle wrong with
right.-
Some champions for the rights that prop the crown,
Some sturdy patriots, sworn to pull them down;
Some neutral powers, with secret forces fraught,
Wishing for war, but willing to be bought:
While some to every side and party go,
Shift every friend, and join with every foe;
Like sturdy rogues in privateers, they strike
This side and that, the foes of both alike;
A traitor-crew, who thrive in troubled times,
Fear'd for their force, and courted for their
crimes.
Chief to the prosperous side the numbers sail,
Fickle and false, they veer with every gale;
As birds that migrate from a freezing shore
In search of warmer climes, come skimming o'er,
Some bold adventurers first prepare to try
The doubtful sunshine of the distant sky;
But soon the growing Summer's certain sun
Wins more and more, till all at last are won:
So, on the early prospect of disgrace,
Fly in vast troops this apprehensive race;
Instinctive tribes! their failing food they dread,
And buy, with timely change, their future bread.
Such are our guides; how many a peaceful head,
Born to be still, have they to wrangling led!
How many an honest zealot stol'n from trade,
And factious tools of pious pastors made!
With clews like these they thread the maze of
state,
These oracles explore, to learn our fate;
Pleased with the guides who can so well deceive,
Who cannot lie so fast as they believe.
Oft lend I, loth, to some sage friend an ear,
(For we who will not speak are doom'd to hear);
While he, bewilder'd, tells his anxious thought,
Infectious fear from tainted scribblers caught,
Or idiot hope; for each his mind assails,
As LLOYD'S court-light or STOCKDALE'S gloom
prevails.
Yet stand I patient while but one declaims,
Or gives dull comments on the speech he maims:
But oh! ye Muses, keep your votary's feet
From tavern-haunts where politicians meet;
Where rector, doctor, and attorney pause,
First on each parish, then each public cause:
Indited roads, and rates that still increase;
The murmuring poor, who will not fast in peace;
Election zeal and friendship, since declined;
A tax commuted, or a tithe in kind;
The Dutch and Germans kindling into strife;
Dull port and poachers vile; the serious ills of
life.
Here comes the neighbouring Justice, pleased to
guide
His little club, and in the chair preside.
In private business his commands prevail,
On public themes his reasoning turns the scale;
Assenting silence soothes his happy ear,
And, in or out, his party triumphs here.
Nor here th' infectious rage for party stops,
But flits along from palaces to shops;
Our weekly journals o'er the land abound,
And spread their plague and influenzas round;
The village, too, the peaceful, pleasant plain,
Breeds the Whig farmer and the Tory swain;
Brookes' and St Alban's boasts not, but, instead,
Stares the Red Ram, and swings the Rodney's Head:-
Hither, with all a patriot's care, comes he
Who owns the little hut that makes him free;
Whose yearly forty shillings buy the smile
Of mightier men, and never waste the while;
Who feels his freehold's worth, and looks elate,
A little prop and pillar of the state.
Here he delights the weekly news to con,
And mingle comments as he blunders on;
To swallow all their varying authors teach,
To spell a title, and confound a speech:
Till with a muddled mind he quits the news,
And claims his nation's licence to abuse;
Then joins the cry, 'That all the courtly race
Are venal candidates for power and place;'
Yet feels some joy, amid the general vice,
That his own vote will bring its wonted price.
These are the ills the teeming Press supplies,
The pois'nous springs from learning's fountain
rise;
Not there the wise alone their entrance find,
Imparting useful light to mortals blind;
But, blind themselves, these erring guides hold out
Alluring lights to lead us far about;
Screen'd by such means, here Scandal whets her
quill,
Here Slander shoots unseen, whene'er she will;
Here Fraud and Falsehood labour to deceive,
And Folly aids them both, impatient to believe.
Such, sons of Britain! are the guides ye trust;
So wise their counsel, their reports so just!-
Yet, though we cannot call their morals pure,
Their judgment nice, or their decisions sure;
Merit they have to mightier works unknown,
A style, a manner, and a fate their own.
We, who for longer fame with labour strive,
Are pain'd to keep our sickly works alive;
Studious we toil, with patient care refine,
Nor let our love protect one languid line.
Severe ourselves, at last our works appear,
When, ah! we find our readers more severe;
For, after all our care and pains, how few
Acquire applause, or keep it if they do!
Not so these sheets, ordain'd to happier fate,
Praised through their day, and but that day their
date;
Their careless authors only strive to join
As many words as make an even line;
As many lines as fill a row complete;
As many rows as furnish up a sheet:
From side to side, with ready types they run,
The measure's ended, and the work is done;
Oh, born with ease, how envied and how blest!
Your fate to-day and your to-morrow's rest,
To you all readers turn, and they can look
Pleased on a paper, who abhor a book;
Those who ne'er deign'd their Bible to peruse,
Would think it hard to be denied their News;
Sinners and saints, the wisest with the weak,
Here mingle tastes, and one amusement seek;
This, like the public inn, provides a treat,
Where each promiscuous guest sits down to eat;
And such this mental food, as we may call
Something to all men, and to some men all.
Next, in what rare production shall we trace
Such various subjects in so small a space?
As the first ship upon the waters bore
Incongruous kinds who never met before;
Or as some curious virtuoso joins
In one small room, moths, minerals, and coins,
Birds, beasts, and fishes; nor refuses place
To serpents, toads, and all the reptile race;
So here compress'd within a single sheet,
Great things and small, the mean and mighty meet.
'Tis this which makes all Europe's business known,
Yet here a private man may place his own:
And, where he reads of Lords and Commons, he
May tell their honours that he sells rappee.
Add next th' amusement which the motley page
Affords to either sex and every age:
Lo! where it comes before the cheerful fire,-
Damps from the press in smoky curls aspire
(As from the earth the sun exhales the dew),
Ere we can read the wonders that ensue:
Then eager every eye surveys the part
That brings its favourite subject to the heart;
Grave politicians look for facts alone,
And gravely add conjectures of their own:
The sprightly nymph, who never broke her rest
For tottering crowns or mighty lands oppress'd,
Finds broils and battles, but neglects them all
For songs and suits, a birth-day, or a ball:
The keen warm man o'erlooks each idle tale
For 'Monies wanted,' and 'Estates on Sale;'
While some with equal minds to all attend,
Pleased with each part, and grieved to find an end.
So charm the news; but we who, far from town,
Wait till the postman brings the packet down,
Once in the week, a vacant day behold,
And stay for tidings, till they're three days old:
That day arrives; no welcome post appears,
But the dull morn a sullen aspect wears:
We meet, but ah! without our wonted smile,
To talk of headaches, and complain of bile;
Sullen we ponder o'er a dull repast,
Nor feast the body while the mind must fast.
A master passion is the love of news,
Not music so commands, nor so the Muse:
Give poets claret, they grow idle soon;
Feed the musician and he's out of tune;
But the sick mind, of this disease possess'd,
Flies from all cure, and sickens when at rest.
Now sing, my Muse, what various parts compose
These rival sheets of politics and prose.
First, from each brother's hoard a part they
draw,
A mutual theft that never feared a law;
Whate'er they gain, to each man's portion fall,
And read it once, you read it through them all:
For this their runners ramble day and night,
To drag each lurking deed to open light;
For daily bread the dirty trade they ply,
Coin their fresh tales, and live upon the lie:
Like bees for honey, forth for news they spring,-
Industrious creatures! ever on the wing;
Home to their several cells they bear the store,
Cull'd of all kinds, then roam abroad for more.
No anxious virgin flies to 'fair Tweed-side;'
No injured husband mourns his faithless bride;
No duel dooms the fiery youth to bleed;
But through the town transpires each vent'rous
deed.
Should some fair frail one drive her prancing pair
Where rival peers contend to please the fair;
When, with new force, she aids her conquering eyes,
And beauty decks, with all that beauty buys:
Quickly we learn whose heart her influence feels,
Whose acres melt before her glowing wheels.
To these a thousand idle themes succeed,
Deeds of all kinds, and comments to each deed.
Here stocks, the state barometers, we view,
That rise or fall by causes known to few;
Promotion's ladder who goes up or down;
Who wed, or who seduced, amuse the town;
What new-born heir has made his father blest;
What heir exults, his father now at rest;
That ample list the Tyburn-herald gives,
And each known knave, who still for Tyburn lives.
So grows the work, and now the printer tries
His powers no more, but leans on his allies.
When lo! the advertising tribe succeed,
Pay to be read, yet find but few will read;
And chief th' illustrious race, whose drops and
pills
Have patent powers to vanquish human ills:
These, with their cures, a constant aid remain,
To bless the pale composer's fertile brain;
Fertile it is, but still the noblest soil
Requires some pause, some intervals from toil;
And they at least a certain ease obtain
From Katterfelto's skill, and Graham's glowing
strain.
I too must aid, and pay to see my name
Hung in these dirty avenues to fame;
Nor pay in vain, if aught the Muse has seen,
And sung, could make these avenues more clean;
Could stop one slander ere it found its way,
And give to public scorn its helpless prey.
By the same aid, the Stage invites her friends,
And kindly tells the banquet she intends;
Thither from real life the many run,
With Siddons weep, or laugh with Abingdon;
Pleased in fictitious joy or grief, to see
The mimic passion with their own agree;
To steal a few enchanted hours away
From self, and drop the curtain on the day.
But who can steal from self that wretched wight
Whose darling work is tried some fatal night?
Most wretched man! when, bane to every bliss,
He hears the serpent-critic's rising hiss;
Then groans succeed; nor traitors on the wheel
Can feel like him, or have such pangs to feel.
Nor end they here: next day he reads his fall
In every paper; critics are they all:
He sees his branded name with wild affright,
And hears again the cat-calls of the night.
Such help the STAGE affords: a larger space
Is fill'd by PUFFS and all the puffing race.
Physic had once alone the lofty style,
The well-known boast, that ceased to raise a smile:
Now all the province of that tribe invade,
And we abound in quacks of every trade.
The simple barber, once an honest name,
Cervantes founded, Fielding raised his fame:
Barber no more--a gay perfumer comes,
On whose soft cheek his own cosmetic blooms;
Here he appears, each simple mind to move,
And advertises beauty, grace, and love.
'Come, faded belles, who would your youth renew,
And learn the wonders of Olympian dew;
Restore the roses that begin to faint,
Nor think celestial washes vulgar paint;
Your former features, airs, and arts assume,
Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom.
Come, battered beaux, whose locks are turned to
gray,
And crop Discretion's lying badge away;
Read where they vend these smart engaging things,
These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs;
No female eye the fair deception sees,
Not Nature's self so natural as these.'
Such are their arts, but not confined to them,
The muse impartial most her sons condemn:
For they, degenerate! join the venal throng,
And puff a lazy Pegasus along:
More guilty these, by Nature less design'd
For little arts that suit the vulgar kind.
That barbers' boys, who would to trade advance,
Wish us to call them smart Friseurs from France:
That he who builds a chop-house, on his door
Paints 'The true old original Blue Boar!'-
These are the arts by which a thousand live,
Where Truth may smile, and Justice may forgive:-
But when, amidst this rabble rout, we find
A puffing poet to his honour blind;
Who slily drops quotations all about
Packet or post, and points their merit out;
Who advertises what reviewers say,
With sham editions every second day;
Who dares not trust his praises out of sight,
But hurries into fame with all his might;
Although the verse some transient praise obtains,
Contempt is all the anxious poet gains.
Now Puffs exhausted, Advertisements past,
Their Correspondents stand exposed at last;
These are a numerous tribe, to fame unknown,
Who for the public good forego their own;
Who volunteers in paper-war engage,
With double portion of their party's rage:
Such are the Bruti, Decii, who appear
Wooing the printer for admission here;
Whose generous souls can condescend to pray
For leave to throw their precious time away.
Oh! cruel WOODFALL! when a patriot draws
His gray-goose quill in his dear country's cause,
To vex and maul a ministerial race,
Can thy stern soul refuse the champion place?
Alas! thou know'st not with what anxious heart
He longs his best-loved labours to impart;
How he has sent them to thy brethren round,
And still the same unkind reception found:
At length indignant will he damn the state,
Turn to his trade, and leave us to our fate.
These Roman souls, like Rome's great sons, are
known
To live in cells on labours of their own.
Thus Milo, could we see the noble chief,
Feeds, for his country's good, on legs of beef:
Camillus copies deeds for sordid pay,
Yet fights the public battles twice a-day:
E'en now the godlike Brutus views his score
Scroll'd on the bar-board, swinging with the door:
Where, tippling punch, grave Cato's self you'll
see,
And Amor Patriae vending smuggled tea.
Last in these ranks, and least, their art's
disgrace,
Neglected stand the Muses' meanest race;
Scribblers who court contempt, whose verse the eye
Disdainful views, and glances swiftly by:
This Poet's Corner is the place they choose,
A fatal nursery for an infant Muse;
Unlike that Corner where true Poets lie,
These cannot live, and they shall never die;
Hapless the lad whose mind such dreams invade,
And win to verse the talents due to trade.
Curb then, O youth! these raptures as they rise,
Keep down the evil spirit and be wise;
Follow your calling, think the Muses foes,
Nor lean upon the pestle and compose.
I know your day-dreams, and I know the snare
Hid in your flow'ry path, and cry 'Beware!'
Thoughtless of ill, and to the future blind,
A sudden couplet rushes on your mind;
Here you may nameless print your idle rhymes,
And read your first-born work a thousand times;
Th'infection spreads, your couplet grows apace,
Stanzas to Delia's dog or Celia's face:
You take a name; Philander's odes are seen,
Printed, and praised, in every magazine:
Diarian sages greet their brother sage,
And your dark pages please th' enlightened age.-
Alas! what years you thus consume in vain,
Ruled by this wretched bias of the brain!
Go! to your desks and counters all return;
Your sonnets scatter, your acrostics burn;
Trade, and be rich; or, should your careful sires
Bequeath your wealth, indulge the nobler fires;
Should love of fame your youthful heart betray,
Pursue fair fame, but in a glorious way,
Nor in the idle scenes of Fancy's painting stray.
Of all the good that mortal men pursue,
The Muse has least to give, and gives to few;
Like some coquettish fair, she leads us on,
With smiles and hopes, till youth and peace are
gone.
Then, wed for life, the restless wrangling pair
Forget how constant one, and one how fair:
Meanwhile Ambition, like a blooming bride,
Brings power and wealth to grace her lover's side;
And though she smiles not with such flattering
charms,
The brave will sooner win her to their arms.
Then wed to her, if Virtue tie the bands,
Go spread your country's fame in hostile lands;
Her court, her senate, or her arms adorn,
And let her foes lament that you were born:
Or weigh her laws, their ancient rights defend,
Though hosts oppose, be theirs and Reason's friend;
Arm'd with strong powers, in their defence engage,
And rise the THURLOW of the future age.
poem by George Crabbe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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