  By Lord B. I. Sated with home, of wife, of children tired, The restless soul is driven abroad to roam; Sated abroad, all seen, yet nought admired, The restless soul is driven to ramble home; Sated with both, beneath new Drury's dome The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine, There growls, and curses, like a deadly gnome, Scorning to view fantastic columbine, Viewing with scorn and hate the nonsense of the Nine. II. Ye reckless dupes, who hither wend your way, To gaze on puppets in a painted dome, Pursuing pastimes glittering to betray, Like falling stars in life's eternal gloom, What seek ye here? Joy's evanescent bloom? Woe's me! the brightest wreaths she ever gave Are but as flowers that decorate a tomb. Man's heart the mournful urn o'er which they wave, Is sacred to despair, its pedestal the grave. III. Has life so little store of real woes, That here ye wend to taste fictitious grief? Or is it that from truth such anguish flows, Ye court the lying drama for relief? Long shall ye find the pang, the respite brief, Or if one tolerable page appears In folly's volume, 'tis the actor's leaf, Who dries his own by drawing others' tears, And, raising present mirth, makes glad his future years. IV. Albeit how like young Betty doth he flee! Light as the mote that danceth in the beam, He liveth only in man's present e'e, His life a flash, his memory a dream, Oblivious down he drops in Lethe's stream; Yet what are they, the learned and the great? Awhile of longer wonderment the theme! Who shall presume to prophesy their date, Where nought is certain, save the uncertainty of fate? V. This goodly pile, upheav'd by Wyatt's toil, Perchance than Holland's edifice more fleet, Again red Lemnos' artisan may spoil; The fire alarm, and midnight drum may beat, And all be strew'd ysmoking at your feet. Start ye? Perchance Death's angel may be sent Ere from the flaming temple ye retreat, And ye who met on revel idlesse bent May find in pleasure's fane your grave and monument, VI. Your debts mount high—ye plunge in deeper waste, The tradesman calls—no warning voice ye hear; The plaintiff sues—to public shows ye haste; The bailiff threats—ye feel no idle fear. Who can arrest your prodigal career? Who can keep down the levity of youth? What sound can startle age's stubborn ear? Who can redeem from wretchedness and ruth Men true to falshood's voice, false to the voice of truth? VII. To thee, blest saint! who doff'd thy skin to make The Smithfield rabble leap from theirs with joy, We dedicate the pile—arise! awake!— Knock down the Muses, wit and sense destroy, Clear our new stage from reason's dull alloy, Charm hobbling age, and tickle capering youth With cleaver, marrow-bone, and Tunbridge toy; While, vibrating in unbelieving tooth, Harps twang in Drury's walls, and make her boards a booth. VIII. For what is Hamlet, but a hare in March? And what is Brutus, but a croaking owl? And what is Rolla? Cupid steep'd in starch, Orlando's helmet in Augustine's cowl. Shakespeare, how true thine adage, "fair is foul;" To him whose soul is with fruition fraught The song of Braham is an Irish howl, Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And nought is everything, and everything is nought. IX. Sons of Parnassus? whom I view above, Not laurel-crown'd but clad in rusty black, Not spurring Pegasus through TempÉ's grove, But pacing Grub Street on a jaded hack, What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack, Ye mar to make again! for sure, ere long, Condemn'd to tread the bard's time-sanctioned track, Ye all shall join the bailiff-haunted throng, And reproduce in rags the rags ye blot in song. X. So fares the follower in the Muses' train, He toils to starve, and only lives in death; We slight him till our patronage is vain, Then round his skeleton a garland wreathe, And o'er his bones an empty requiem breathe— Oh! with what tragic horror would he start (Could he be conjured from the grave beneath), To find the stage again a Thespian cart, And elephants and colts down trampling Shakespeare's art. XI. Hence, pedant Nature! with thy Grecian rules! Centaurs (not fabulous) those rules efface; Back, sister Muses, to your native schools; Here booted grooms usurp Apollo's place, Hoofs shame the boards that Garrick used to grace, The play of limbs succeeds the play of wit; Man yields the drama to the Houynim race, His prompter spurs, his licencer the bit, The stage a stable-yard, a jockey-club the pit. XII. Is it for these ye rear this proud abode? Is it for these your superstition seeks To build a temple worthy of a god, To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks? Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks, A motley chaos, jumbling age and ranks, Where Punch, the lignum vitÆ Roscius, squeaks, And Wisdom weeps, and Folly plays his pranks, And moody Madness laughs, and hugs the chain he clanks.
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