I had a dream this morning off Madeira,
About my poem and its publication.
Methought it was still-born, and I could hear a
Priest read the service at its inhumation.
The ship rolled heavy and my cot swung near a
Shipmate, who snored and whistled in rotation.
He snored then, and I heard a buzzing sound
As from a large wild-bee-hive underground.
The scene then changed to Guildhall, where a mob,
As large as those one sees at an election,
Were listening to a lawyer in his robe
Striving to prove there had been no dissection.
“True! there was some suspicion of a job
Like those chirurgeons call a resurrection,
But he would prove ’twas groundless, and would show’em
The very corpse.” He did so – ’twas my poem!
The scene then changed to Greece, where Aristotle
Was lecturing to a class of smart young Greeks
About a blue snake corked up in a bottle,
Which had not tasted food for thirteen weeks!
The phial was of the colour of green wattle,
A little dingier than Ap Jenkins’ leeks.
Methought, as it was handed round the class,
The Greeks had little skill in colouring glass.
When all had seen it well, the sage ‘gan lecture
On the belles lettres and on criticism,
In which, as an Oxonian might conjecture,
He was most liberal of his syllogism.
Commencing from the era of old Hector,
He soon exhausted the whole catechism
Of Grecian poets; then, “If time avails,”
He said, “he’d take a glance at ‘New South Wales:’ “
A poem lately published by myself.
“Botanides” (so he pronounced my name,
As he took down the volume from the shelf)
“Was a South Sea adventurer for fame.
Whether he wrote for pleasure or for pelf
Does not appear, altho’ ’twere much the same.
He wrote two thousand years after our time,
In mixed Iambics and in English rhyme.
“Botanides transgresses all my laws
For regular poems, I lament to say.
I can’t divine his reasons, nor the cause
Of such procedure in the present day.
And why should men deserve or get applause
For breaking fences that mark out their way?
You’d think it was his log-book he had written
In verse for New South Wales or for Great Britain.
” ‘Tis neither an epic poem nor an ode;
Nor is it even a Pastoral or a play.
No hero combats and no demigod
Unfolds the thickening plot’s catastrophe.
Botanides stands on a turnpike road,
Sketching the travellers on a market-day,
Settlers and statesmen, priests and harlequins
Are blended as in one of Wilkie’s scenes.
“His style is somewhat smooth and flows along
As softly as a well-trained charioteer
At Isthmian games or as a Lesbian song.
But it wants nerve at times, nor is it clear
Throughout. Besides, the different actors throng
Too close together and so disappear
Too soon; and then the wit, tart and satiric,
Partakes of caustic more than panegyric.
“We seldom have a good poem from a sailor,
As it is clear Botanides must be;
(Perchance the master of a South Sea whaler),
We, therefore, know but little of the sea
Or the sea-life, nor can discern a failure
In the rough sketches of its scenery.
Still, when his ship is labouring in the gale,
Botanides does not appear to fail.
“He seldom rises to the true Sublime
And Beautiful; but then he seldom falls
Far below par. His light Etruscan rhyme
Moves airily along and seldom drawls.
Yet I’ve seen a small schooner in my time,
Mounting one swivel with four-poundor balls,
Annoy the Spartan shipping during war,
More than a heavy Dutch-built seventy-four.
“In morals he is faultless, and his verse
Is as Diana’s nymphs, spotless and chaste.
I hate your titled poets who traverse
Our isles for lewd scenes, and whose genius, taste,
And various learning are their country’s curse,
Transforming its fair scenes into a waste!
God of the Golden Lyre and Silver Bow!
Thy shafts prepare and lay the monsters low!
“He’s neither Whig nor Tory; tho’ to speak
Precisely, Freedom is his favourite tune.
He hates a tyrant like a very Greek,
And prizes Liberty as the best boon
The Gods can give. Nay, to protect the weak
From wrong, he shows the lash perhaps too soon.
‘Tis thus he gives that precious fool, his cousin,
Barron Field, Esquire, poet, a round dozen.
“At times our bard writes like Sir Walter Scott
In his dramatic sketch – poorly enough!
Dormitat aliquando – then I’ve thought
Of James Hogg and his Winter Evening stuff,
Or of The City of the Plague! (I’ve got
The latter for waste paper); I had tough
Work to peruse it. Howsoever, his style
Is not, like Mr. Wordsworth’s, puerile.
“Nor does it, like the Laureate’s in Kehama,
Abound in stories that would fright one’s wife,
It has a scene or two fit for the drama,
But has no monsters like the Thane of Fife.
‘Tis just a Peristrephic Panorama
Of a sea voyage and a colonial life.
Here you see ships and sharks, dolphins and whales,
And there a kangaroo from New South Wales.”
Here he began, by way of illustration,
To read aloud some extracts here and there.
But ere he finished half the first quotation;
(It was about Judge Field) I do declare,
His foreign twang and Greek pronunciation
Made me so restive, and so shocked my ear,
I started up, my larboard cot-string broke,
The noise disturbed my dream and I awoke.
(John Dunmore Lang)
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