Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

To the last new Millennium of Orator Irving.

  Go on, mighty man, — doom them all to the shelf, —

  And when next thou with Prophecy troublest thy sconce,

  Oh forget not, I pray thee, to prove that thyself

  Art the Beast (Chapter iv.) that sees nine ways at once.

  1 “A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny.” — Rev. vi.

  2 When Whiston presented to Prince Eugene the Essay in which he attempted to connect his victories over the Turks with Revelation, the Prince is said to have replied, that “he was not aware he had ever had ever had honor of being known to St. John”.

  3 Mr. Dobbs was a member of the Irish Parliament, and, on all other subjects but the Millennium, a very sensible person: he chose Armagh as the scene of his Millennium on account of the name Armageddon mentioned in Revelation.

  THE THREE DOCTORS.

  doctoribus loetamur tribus.

  1826.

  Tho’ many great Doctors there be,

  There are three that all Doctors out-top,

  Doctor Eady, that famous M. D.,

  Doctor Southey, and dear Doctor Slop.1

  The purger, the proser, the bard —

  All quacks in a different style;

  Doctor Southey writes books by the yard.

  Doctor Eady writes puffs by the mile!2

  Doctor Slop, in no merit outdone

  By his scribbling or physicking brother,

  Can dose us with stuff like the one.

  Ay, and doze us with stuff like the other.

  Doctor Eady good company keeps

  With “No Popery” scribes, on the walls;

  Doctor Southey as gloriously sleeps

  With “No Popery” scribes on the stalls.

  Doctor Slop, upon subjects divine,

  Such bedlamite slaver lets drop,

  Taat if Eady should take the mad line,

  He’ll be sure of a patient in Slop.

  Seven millions of Papists, no less,

  Doctor Southey attacks, like a Turk;

  Doctor Eady, less bold, I confess,

  Attacks but his maid-of-all-work

  Doctor Southey, for his grand attack,

  Both a laureate and pensioner is;

  While poor Doctor Eady, alack,

  Has been had up to Bow-street for his!

  And truly, the law does so blunder,

  That tho’ little blood has been spilt, he

  May probably suffer as, under

  The Chalking Act, known to be guilty.

  So much for the merits sublime

  (With whose catalogue ne’er should I stop)

  Of the three greatest lights of our time,

  Doctor Eady and Southey and Slop!

  Should you ask me, to which of the three

  Great Doctors the preference should fall,

  As a matter of course I agree

  Doctor Eady must go to the wall.

  But as Southey with laurels is crowned,

  And Slop with a wig and a tail is,

  Let Eady’s bright temples be bound

  With a swingeing “Corona Muralis!”3

  1 The editor of the Morning Herald, so nicknamed.

  2 Alluding to the display of this doctor’s name, in chalk, on all the walls round the metropolis.

  3 A crown granted as a reward among the Romans to persons who performed any extraordinary exploits upon wall, such as scaling them, battering them, etc. — No doubt, writing upon them, to the extent Dr. Eady does, would equally establish a claim to the honor.

  EPITAPH ON A TUFT-HUNTER.

  Lament, lament, Sir Isaac Heard,

  Put mourning round thy page, Debrett,

  For here lies one who ne’er preferred

  A Viscount to a Marquis yet.

  Beside him place the God of Wit,

  Before him Beauty’s rosiest girls,

  Apollo for a star he’d quit,

  And Love’s own sister for an Earl’s.

  Did niggard fate no peers afford,

  He took of course to peers’ relations;

  And rather than not sport a Lord

  Put up with even the last creations;

  Even Irish names could he but tag ’em

  With “Lord” and “Duke,” were sweet to call;

  And at a pinch Lord Ballyraggum

  Was better than no Lord at all.

  Heaven grant him now some noble nook,

  For rest his soul! he’d rather be

  Genteelly damned beside a Duke,

  Than saved in vulgar company.

  ODE TO A HAT.

  — altum aedificat caput.” JUVENAL

  1826.

  Hail, reverent Hat! — sublime mid all

  The minor felts that round thee grovel; —

  Thou that the Gods “a Delta” call

  While meaner mortals call the “shovel.”

  When on thy shape (like pyramid,

  Cut horizontally in two)1

  I raptured gaze, what dreams unbid

  Of stalls and mitres bless my view!

  That brim of brims so sleekly good —

  Not flapt, like dull Wesleyans’, down,

  But looking (as all churchmen’s should)

  Devoutly upward — towards the crown.

  Gods! when I gaze upon that brim,

  So redolent of Church all over,

  What swarms of Tithes in vision dim, —

  Some-pig-tailed, some like cherubim,

  With ducklings’ wings — around it hover!

  Tenths of all dead and living things,

  That Nature into being brings,

  From calves and corn to chitterlings.

  Say, holy Hat, that hast, of cocks,

  The very cock most orthodox.

  To which of all the well-fed throng

  Of Zion,2 joy’st thou to belong?

  Thou’rt not Sir Harcourt Lees’s — no-

  For hats grow like the heads that wear ’em:

  And hats, on heads like his, would grow

  Particularly harum-scarum.

  Who knows but thou mayst deck the pate

  Of that famed Doctor Ad-mth-te,

  (The reverend rat, whom we saw stand

  On his hind-legs in Westmoreland,)

  Who changed so quick from blue to yellow,

  And would from yellow back to blue,

  And back again, convenient fellow,

  If ‘twere his interest so to do.

  Or haply smartest of triangles,

  Thou art the hat of Doctor Owen;

  The hat that, to his vestry wrangles,

  That venerable priest doth go in, —

  And then and there amid the stare

  Of all St. Olave’s, takes the chair

  And quotes with phiz right orthodox

  The example of his reverend brothers,

  To prove that priests all fleece their flocks

  And he must fleece as well as others.

  Blest Hat! (whoe’er thy lord may be)

  Thus low I take off mine to thee,

  The homage of a layman’s castor,

  To the spruce delta of his pastor.

  Oh mayst thou be, as thou proceedest,

  Still smarter cockt, still brusht the brighter,

  Till, bowing all the way, thou leadest

  Thy sleek possessor to a mitre!

  1 So described by a Reverend Historian of the Church:— “A Delta hat like the horizontal section of a pyramid.” — GRANT’S “History of the English Church.”

  2 Archbishop Magee affectionately calls the Church Establishment of Ireland “the little Zion.”

  NEWS FOR COUNTRY COUSINS.

  Dear Coz, as I know neither you nor Miss Draper,

  When Parliament’s up, ever take in a paper,

  But trust for your news to such stray odds and ends

  As you chance to pick up from political friends-

  Being one of this well-informed class, I sit do
wn

  To transmit you the last newest news that’s in town.

  As to Greece and Lord Cochrane, things couldn’t look better —

  His Lordship (who promises now to fight faster)

  Has just taken Rhodes and despatched off a letter

  To Daniel O’Connell, to make him Grand Master;

  Engaging to change the old name, if he can,

  From the Knights of St. John to the Knights of St. Dan; —

  Or if Dan should prefer (as a still better whim)

  Being made the Colossus, ’tis all one to him.

  From Russia the last accounts are that the Tsar —

  Most generous and kind as all sovereigns are,

  And whose first princely act (as you know, I suppose)

  Was to give away all his late brother’s old clothes1 —

  Is now busy collecting with brotherly care

  The late Emperor’s nightcaps, and thinks, of bestowing

  One nightcap apiece (if he has them to spare)

  On all the distinguisht old ladies now going.

  (While I write, an arrival from Riga — the “Brothers” —

  Having nightcaps on board for Lord Eldon and others.)

  Last advices from India — Sir Archy, ’tis thought,

  Was near catching a Tartar (the first ever caught

  In N. Lat. 2l.) — and his Highness Burmese,

  Being very hard prest to shell out the rupees,

  And not having rhino sufficient, they say, meant

  To pawn his august Golden Foot2 for the payment.

  (How lucky for monarchs, that thus when they choose

  Can establish a running account with the Jews!)

  The security being what Rothschild calls “goot,”

  A loan will be shortly, of course, set on foot;

  The parties are Rothschild, A. Baring and Co.

  With three other great pawnbrokers: each takes a toe,

  And engages (lest Gold-foot should give us leg-bail,

  As he did once before) to pay down on the nail.

  * * * * *

  This is all for the present — what vile pens and paper!

  Yours truly, dear Cousin — best love to Miss Draper.

  September, 1826.

  1 A distribution was made of the Emperor Alexander’s military wardrobe by his successor.

  2 This potentate styles himself the Monarch of the Golden foot.

  A VISION.

  BY THE AUTHOR OF “CHRISTABEL.”

  “Up!” said the Spirit and ere I could pray

  One hasty orison, whirled me away

  To a Limbo, lying — I wist not where —

  Above or below, in earth or air;

  For it glimmered o’er with a doubtful light,

  One couldn’t say whether ’twas day or night;

  And ’twas crost by many a mazy track,

  One didn’t know how to get on or back;

  And I felt like a needle that’s going astray

  (With its one eye out) thro’ a bundle of hay;

  When the Spirit he grinned, and whispered me,

  “Thou’rt now in the Court of Chancery!”

  Around me flitted unnumbered swarms

  Of shapeless, bodiless, tailless forms;

  (Like bottled-up babes that grace the room

  Of that worthy knight, Sir Everard Home) —

  All of them, things half-killed in rearing;

  Some were lame — some wanted hearing;

  Some had thro’ half a century run,

  Tho’ they hadn’t a leg to stand upon.

  Others, more merry, as just beginning,

  Around on a point of law were spinning;

  Or balanced aloft, ‘twixt Bill and Answer,

  Lead at each end, like a tight-rope dancer.

  Some were so cross that nothing could please ’em;-

  Some gulpt down affidavits to ease ’em —

  All were in motion, yet never a one,

  Let it move as it might, could ever move on,

  “These,” said the Spirit, “you plainly see,

  “Are what they call suits in Chancery!”

  I heard a loud screaming of old and young,

  Like a chorus by fifty Vellutis sung;

  Or an Irish Dump (“the words by Moore “)

  At an amateur concert screamed in score; —

  So harsh on my ear that wailing fell

  Of the wretches who in this Limbo dwell!

  It seemed like the dismal symphony

  Of the shapes’ Aeneas in hell did see;

  Or those frogs whose legs a barbarous cook

  Cut off and left the frogs in the brook,

  To cry all night, till life’s last dregs,

  “Give us our legs! — give us our legs!”

  Touched with the sad and sorrowful scene,

  I askt what all this yell might mean,

  When the Spirit replied, with a grin of glee,

  “’Tis the cry of the Suitors in Chancery!”

  I lookt and I saw a wizard rise,1

  With a wig like a cloud before men’s eyes.

  In his aged hand he held a wand,

  Wherewith he beckoned his embryo band,

  And they moved and moved as he waved it o’er,

  But they never get on one inch the more.

  And still they kept limping to and fro,

  Like Ariels round old Prospero —

  Saying, “Dear Master, let us go,”

  But still old Prospero answered “No.”

  And I heard the while that wizard elf

  Muttering, muttering spells to himself,

  While o’er as many old papers he turned,

  As Hume e’er moved for or Omar burned.

  He talkt of his virtue— “tho’ some, less nice,

  (He owned with a sigh) preferred his Vice” —

  And he said, “I think”— “I doubt”— “I hope,”

  Called God to witness, and damned the Pope;

  With many more sleights of tongue and hand

  I couldn’t for the soul of me understand.

  Amazed and posed, I was just about

  To ask his name, when the screams without,

  The merciless clack of the imps within,

  And that conjuror’s mutterings, made such a din,

  That, startled, I woke — leapt up in my bed —

  Found the Spirit, the imps, and the conjuror fled,

  And blest my stars, right pleased to see,

  That I wasn’t as yet in Chancery.

  1 The Lord Chancellor Eldon.

  THE PETITION OF THE ORANGEMEN OF IRELAND.

  1826.

  To the people of England, the humble Petition

  Of Ireland’s disconsolate Orangemen, showing —

  That sad, very sad, is our present condition; —

  Our jobbing all gone and our noble selves going; —

  That forming one seventh, within a few fractions,

  Of Ireland’s seven millions of hot heads and hearts,

  We hold it the basest of all base transactions

  To keep us from murdering the other six parts; —

  That as to laws made for the good of the many,

  We humbly suggest there is nothing less true;

  As all human laws (and our own, more than any)

  Are made by and for a particular few: —

  That much it delights every true Orange brother

  To see you in England such ardor evince,

  In discussing which sect most tormented the other,

  And burned with most gusto some hundred years since; —

  That we love to behold, while old England grows faint,

  Messrs. Southey and Butler nigh coming to blows,

  To decide whether Dunstan, that strong-bodied Saint,

  Ever truly and really pulled the De’il’s nose;

  Whether t’other Saint, Dominic, burnt the De’il’s paw —

  Whether Edwy in
trigued with Elgiva’s odd mother —

  And many such points, from which Southey can draw

  Conclusions most apt for our hating each other.

  That ’tis very well known this devout Irish nation

  Has now for some ages, gone happily on

  Believing in two kinds of Substantiation,

  One party in Trans and the other in Con;1

  That we, your petitioning Cons, have in right

  Of the said monosyllable ravaged the lands

  And embezzled the goods and annoyed, day and night,

  Both the bodies and souls of the sticklers for Trans; —

  That we trust to Peel, Eldon, and other such sages,

  For keeping us still in the same state of mind;

  Pretty much as the world used to be in those ages,

  When still smaller syllables maddened mankind; —

  When the words ex and per2 served as well to annoy

  One’s neighbors and friends with, as con and trans now;

  And Christians, like Southey, who stickled for oi,

  Cut the throats of all Christians who stickled for ou.3

  That relying on England whose kindness already

  So often has helpt us to play this game o’er,

  We have got our red coats and our carabines ready,

  And wait but the word to show sport as before.

  That as to the expense — the few millions or so,

  Which for all such diversions John Bull has to pay —

  ’Tis at least a great comfort to John Bull to know

  That to Orangemen’s pockets ‘twill all find its way.

  For which your petitioners ever will pray,

  Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.

  1 Consubstantiation — the true Reformed belief; at least, the belief of Luther, and, as Mosheim asserts, of Melancthon also.

  2 When John of Ragusa went to Constantinople (at the time this dispute between “ex” and “per” was going on), he found the Turks, we are told, “laughing at the Christians for being divided by two such insignificant particles.”

  3 The Arian controversy. — Before that time, says Hooker, “in order to be a sound believing Christian, men were not curious what syllables or particles of speech they used.”

  COTTON AND CORN.

  A DIALOGUE.

  Said Cotton to Corn, t’other day,

  As they met and exchanged a salute —

  (Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,

  Poor Cotton half famished on foot):

  “Great Squire, if it isn’t uncivil

  “To hint at starvation before you,

  “Look down on a poor hungry devil,