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( Born August 16, 1771) From “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers”
THUS Lays of Minstrels—may they be the last!— | |
| On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast; | |
| While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, | |
| That dames may listen to the sound at nights; | |
| And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner’s brood, | 5 |
| Decoy young border nobles through the wood, | |
| And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, | |
| And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why; | |
| While high-born ladies in their magic cell, | |
| Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell, | 10 |
| Dispatch a courier to a wizard’s grave, | |
| And fight with honest men to shield a knave. | |
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| Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, | |
| The golden-crested haughty Marmion, | |
| Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, | 15 |
| Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, | |
| The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; | |
| A mighty mixture of the great and base. | |
| And think’st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, | |
| On public taste to foist thy stale romance? | 20 |
| Though Murray with his Miller may combine | |
| To yield thy muse just half a crown per line? | |
| No! when the sons of song descend to trade, | |
| Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. | |
| Let such forego the poet’s sacred name, | 25 |
| Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: | |
| Low may they sink to merited contempt, | |
| And scorn remunerate the mean attempt! | |
| Such be their meed, such still the just reward | |
| Of prostituted muse and hireling bard! | 30 |
| For this we spurn Apollo’s venal son, | |
| And bid a long “good-night to Marmion.” | |
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| These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; | |
| These are the bards to whom the muse must bow: | |
| While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, | 35 |
| Resign their hallow’d bays to Walter Scott. | |
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