From teasing countesses with letters, And rash intrusion on our betters;
From Cambrian booksellers, who scrape or Conceal all profits with a caper;
From shillings scant, that often send us
good Lord, defend us!
But if it be thy will immortal, Let Moira-house extend its portal; Forgiving the ill-fated sinner, And welcome Dermody to dinner : And may he live at ease again, Its bard for ever and-Amen.
PETITION OF TOM DERMODY To the three Fates in Council sitting.
"RIGHT rigorous, and so forth! humbled By cares and mournings, tost and tumbled, Before your ladyships Tom Fool, Knowing above the rest you rule, Most lamentably sets his case, With a bold heart and saucy face. Sans shoe or stocking, coat or breeches, You see him now, most mighty witches: His body worn like an old farthing, The angry spirit just a-parting; His credit rotten, and his purse As empty as a cobler's curse; His poeras too unsold,-that's worse! In short, between confounded crosses, Patrons all vex'd, and former losses, Sure as a gun he cannot fail Next week to warble in a jail;
Which jail to folks not very sanguine Is just as good, or worse than hanging; Though in the first some vain hopes flatter, But Hope's quite strangled by the latter. Thus is poor rhyming rascal treated; Fairly, or rather foully cheated
Of all the goods from wit accruing ; (Wit, that's synonimous with ruin). Then take it in your head-piece, ladies, To set up a poor bard whose trade is Low fall'n enough in conscience: pity The master of the magic ditty;
And turn your wheel once more in haste, To see him on the summit plac'd. For well you wot that woes ('od rot 'em!) Have long time stretch'd him at the bottom: Where he who erst fine lyrics gabbled, With mire and filth was sorely dabbled: So plentifully pelted that
He looks like any drowned rat. O Justice, Justice! take his part; Oh! lift him in thy lofty cart, Magnific Fame; and let fat Plenty Marry one poet out of twenty."
"RANK nurse of nonsense; on whose thankless coast The base weed thrives, the nobler bloom is lost : Parent of pride and poverty, where dwell Dullness and brogue and calumny :—farewell! Lo! from thy land the tuneful prophet flies, And spurns the dust behind in folly's eyes. Merit, bright meteor, o'er thy gloomy night Stream'd of poetic charm the loveliest light; Dimm'd by thy mist, and shorn of many a ray, The brilliant glory bursts, and glides away, In purer skies to shed its radiant glow, And leaves a lonely waste of gloom below. In vain thy children tun'd the lofty strain; Thy children propp'd the sinking isle in vain ; Vice is well-pension'd, virtue seeks the shades, And all the muse and all the patriot fades. No Moira comes to clear thy circling fogs, But Westmorland still rules congenial bogs.
"Yet ere my better fortune fills the sail, Ere fav'ring zephyr fans the speeding gale; While tears by turns, and angry curses, rend This injur'd breast; inglorious spot, attend: (For spite of anger, spite of satire's thrill, Nature boils o'er; thou art my country still). Oh! pause on ruin's steepy cliff profound: Oh! raise thy pale, thy drooping sons around; Exalt the poor, the lordly proud oppress, Thy tyrants humble, but thy soldiers bless. Worn by long toil, as if foredoom'd by fate To glut some pamper'd reprobate of state, Thy artists cherish; bid the mighty soul Of wisdom range beyond cold want's control; And haply when some native gem you see Unknown, unfriended, lost,-oh, think on me!”
• It was peculiarly ungrateful in Dermody to speak in these terms respecting his native country. He received in fact too much friendship, too much patronage.
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