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"Gottingen 7 Mar" "F.P.O. Mr 13 1826" "Direct An Herrn Beddoes bey Eysel 77 Weender Strasse Göttingen Hannover" TO DAY a truant from the odd old bones And winds of flesh, which, as tamed rocks and stones Piled cavernously make his body's dwelling, Have housed man's soul: there, where time's billows swelling Make a deep ghostly and invisible sea Of melted worlds, antidiluvially Upon the sand of ever crumbling hours God-founded, stands the castle, all it's towers With veiny tendrils ivied: this bright day I leave its chambers, and with oars away Seek some enchanted island where to play. And what do you, that in the enchantment dwell And should be raving ever, a wild swell Of passionate life rolling about the world Now sunsucked to the clouds, dashed on the curled Leafhidden daisies; an incarnate storm Letting the sun through on the meadows yellow; Or anything except that earthy fellow That wise dog's brother, man? O shame to tell! Make tea in Circe's cup, boil the cool well, The well Pierian, which no bird dare sip But nightingales. There let them kettles dip Who write their simpering sonnets to it's song And walk on sunday's in Parnassus park. Take thy example from the sunny lark, Throw off the mantle which conceals the soul, The many-citied world, and seek thy goal Straight as a starbeam falls. Creep not nor climb As they who place their topmost of sublime On some peak of this planet pitifully, Dart eaglewise with open wings and fly, Until you meet the gods. Thus council I The men who can, but tremble to be great, Cursed be the fool who taught to hesitate And to regret: time lost most bitterly. And thus I write and I dare write to thee, Fearing that still, as you were wont to do, You feed and fear some asinine Review. Let Juggernaut roll on, and we, whose sires Blooded his wheels and prayed around his fires, Laugh at the leaden ass in the God's skin. Example follows precept. I have been Giving some negro minutes of the night Freed from the slavery of my ruling spright Anatomy the grim, to a new story In whose satiric pathos we will glory. In it Despair has married wildest Mirth And to their wedding-banquet all the earth Is bade to bring its enmities and loves Triumphs and horrors: you shall see the doves Billing with quiet joy and all the while Their nest's the skull of some old King of Nile: But he who fills the cups and makes the jest Pipes to the dancers, is the fool o' the feast. Who's he? I've dug him up and decked him trim And made a mock, a fool, a slave of him Who was the planet's tyrant: dotard Death: Man's hate and dread: not with a stoical breath To meet him like Augustus standing up, Nor with grave saws to season the cold cup Like the philosopher, nor yet to hail His coming with a verse or jesting tale, As Adrian did and More: but of his night His moony ghostliness and silent might To rob him, to uncypress him i' the light To unmask all his secrets; make him play Momus o'er wine by torchlight; is the way To conquer him and kill; and from the day Spurned, hissed and hooted send him back again An unmasked braggart to his bankrupt den. For death is more "a jest" than life: you see Contempt grows quick from familiarity. I owe this wisdom to Anatomy-- Your muse is younger in her soul than mine,-- 0 feed her still on woman's smiles and wine, And give the world a tender song once more, For all the good can love and can adore What's human, fair and gentle. Few, I know, Can bear to sit at my board when I show The wretchedness and folly of man's all And laugh myself right heartily. Your call Is higher and more human: I will do Unsociably my part & still be true To my own soul: but e'er admire you And own that you have nature's kindest trust Her weak and dear to nourish,--that I must Then fare, as you deserve it, well, and live In the calm feelings you to others give. There, Mr. B.C. is your small doggrell? a punishment, tolerably severe, for your delay in answering my letter; pray be as lazy again and you shall have a "double only" of German hexameters in the Klopstock style. L.E.L. is at Gottingen too to the confusion of German Ink & paper. Look to 't my Parnassian. I am quite delighted at Mrs. Shelley's overwhelming your charming friend of the New Monthly: he has troubled the manes of Sternhold, Hopkins & Robert Wisdom. Apollo forgive him and make him Laureate for it. Now you must tell me all about the last Last Man. Have you seen Martin's Deluge; do you like it? And do you know that it is a rascally plagiarism upon Danby? D. was to have painted a picture for the King: subject the opening of ye sixth seal in ye revelations: price 800 guineas: he had collected his ideas and scene, and very imprudently mentioned them publicly to his friends & foes--it appears; Like Campbell and Lord B: and lo! his own ideas stare at him out of Martin's canvass in the institution--this is Last man again--and why does not he paint a last Man? What do they at the wretched Theatres? any fool: tragedies? Don't talk to me of Magazines; they are vermin I detest; and is Darley delivered yet. I hope he's not a mountain. Write or expect--T.L.B. Now once more O ye dry Bones, & once more ye muscles--&c. I have given up Schiller he's never original. Goethe is something like, though not very: if you can by any means get Taylor's translation of the Iphigenia, read it--Don't believe Lord Gower's Faust, it's full of absurd and ignorant blunders, besides it's evident tameness and lameness. But what an idle generation you are: why don't you learn German? We Germans learn English I assure you: and write it a little. I would not have doggrelized you if I had had anything to say worth a rotten apple; but I only know about Anatomy now: & Germany partakes of the existing mental stagnation of Europe--We'll try and stirr it bye & bye. Addressed to "B.W. PROCTER Esqre 14 Southampton Row Russel Square London England Back Home |