Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD VISCOUNT MONT-CASSEL, by THOMAS SHERIDAN (1687-1738)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD VISCOUNT MONT-CASSEL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A peacock nobly born and bred
Last Line: With honor live, with honor die.
Subject(s): Advice; Fables; Mountcashel, Edward. Viscount (1711-36); Allegories


A peacock nobly born and bred
Once took a fancy in his head,
Whether for pleasure, health or food,
To ramble in a neighb'ring wood.
The birds around from every tree
Crowded in flocks the sight to see.
His train, adorned with glitt'ring rays
Provokes their malice not their praise.
But soon his envied splendor drew
Censure from all the vulgar crew.
Each bird, as if by mankind taught,
Turned all his wit to find a fault;
And whereso'er he took his flight,
They always kept him full in sight.
Of him alone the forest rung;
He grew the talk of every tongue.
Wise Goodman Owl was heard to say,
"The peacock scratched his head today."
The Raven swore in hollow tone,
He saw him pick a dirty bone.
"For all his pride," says Gossip Quail,
"He wants a feather of his tail."
A Linnet came and whispered low,
He saw him bill a carrion Crow.
Others observed he spoiled the wood
By nipping every tender bud,
Did all the mischief in his pow'r
To every plant and every flow'r;
The blossoms enviously he gathers,
For fear they should outvie his feathers;
For new-laid eggs he searched about,
Broke every one that he found out;
Nor was he satisfied to plunder --
He tore the very nests asunder.
In short whate'er he said or did
Could not by any means be hid.

But now for what was first in view,
My Lord, I turn myself to you;
To you, I make the application,
The rising honor of our nation,
From school translated to a college,
There to acquire superior knowledge;
To have your noble blood refined
By what can best adorn your mind.
You enter on a public stage
In the first wildness of your age,
And all around you every eye,
On everything you do, a spy;
Where not a trivial act can be
From the severest censure free.

If smallest faults can give a handle
For calumny, reproach and scandal,
If true or false, the world will talk,
How circumspectly must you walk!

You know, my Lord, 'tis wisely said
(And you the passage often read),
"The higher any persons rise,
The more exposed to cens'ring eyes."
And if a vicious course they steer,
How monstrous will their crimes appear!

Your fellow-students will each day
Find something right or wrong to say:
"Our Lord Mont-Cassel missed a prayer,
In spite of all his tutor's care;
Instead of lecture in the hall,
His Lordship was engaged at ball;
The little sorry theme he writ
Was scribbled without fear or wit;
He fell in company with rooks
Who choused him out of half his books."

But should you copy vulgar Lords,
Whose actions only vice records,
Whose very footmen show more sense,
Appear of greater consequence,
How foes will smile! how friends will grieve!
To find you ruined past retrieve.
Nay, all the world about will stare
To see you slip through all our care.

Then listen, while I now describe
The grand achievements of your tribe.
They drink, they quarrel, swear and game,
And Dick the footman does the same.
Behold a knot of peers approach;
They just have bilked a hackney-coach.
Behold them in their tavern airs,
Kicking the drawers down the stairs.
Behold their conduct at a play;
What comedy so good as they!
The valor of a noble rake
At midnight makes a city quake;
The hero breaks the watchman's head,
And fights the tradesman from his bed.
His lordly soul undaunted hears
The windows clatt'ring round his ears;
With busy hands he keeps a-doing,
Nor dreads at all the jingling ruin.
And though his comrades all are flown,
He stays to throw the t'other stone.
(Now change, my Muse, no longer jest;
A graver style becomes the rest.)
He blasts his fortune, health and fame
Without the least regard to shame.
At length when all his credit's gone,
No tradesman left to be undone,
A peer reduced he makes pretension
To royal bounty for a pension;
Becomes to get a mean support
A truckling vassal to the court.

O let it never once be said,
My Lord, that you are thus misled!
Let not your early parts be lost,
Which so much pains and labor cost.
Ill-natured folks will say with joy,
"That Lord was once a hopeful boy."
And every friend will grieve to see
So fine a plant a stunted tree.

I know, my Lord, you can with ease
Command your passions as you please;
If they break loose, you are undone,
And down a precipice you run.

Let prudence every action guide
And only virtue be your pride.
Be just the same you were at school
(I cannot give a better rule),
Where your example has done more
Than rods could ever do before.
Preserve your honor and your truth,
Those lovely ornaments of youth,
By which you have distinguished been
To the first dang'rous year, sixteen,
When too like Icarus we rise,
And spurn at what our friends advise,
Till sad experience brings to view
How rash and giddily we flew.
Apply this hint, and take it thus;
Your tutor is your Daedalus;
His care will show the safest way;
Your duty must be to obey,
Till rip'ning judgment makes you see
The safest course as well as he;
As he directs, if you can fly,
With honor live, with honor die.





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