Good cause have I to sing and vapour, For I am landlord to the Drapier: He, that of every ear's the charmer, Now condescends to be my farmer, And grace my villa with his strains; Lives such a bard on British plains? No; not in all the British court; For none but witlings there resort, Whose names and works (though dead) are made Immortal by the Dunciad; And sure, as monument of brass, Their fame to future times shall pass, How, with a weakly warbling tongue, Of brazen knight they vainly sung: A subject for their genius fit; He dares defy both sense and wit. What dares he not? He can, we know it, A laureate make that is no poet; A judge, without the least pretence To common law, or common sense; A bishop that is no divine; And coxcombs in red ribbons shine: Nay, he can make what's greater far, A middle state 'twixt peace and war; And say, there shall, for years together, Be peace and war, and both, and neither. Happy, O Market Hill! at least, That court and courtiers have no taste: You never else had known the Dean, But, as of old, obscurely lain; All things gone on the same dull track, And Drapier's Hill been still Drumlack: But now your name with Penshurst vies, And winged with fame shall reach the skies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND by PHILIP FRENEAU TO DEAN-BOURN, A RUDE RIVER IN DEVON, BY WHICH ... HE LIVED by ROBERT HERRICK WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ by ROBERT HERRICK A PAINTED FAN by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON A VALENTINE by LAURA ELIZABETH HOWE RICHARDS SWORD AND BUCKLER; OR, SERVING-MAN'S DEFENCE by WILLIAM BASSE |