Man Praises Man

 

Sobre el éxito y las conmemoraciones, la fama, la moda y la envidia mimética, los espectáculos y celebridades, la admiración y la vanidad, en The Task, de William Cowper:

Man praises man.  Desert in arts or arms

Wins public honour; and ten thousand sit

Patiently present at a sacred song,

Commemoration-mad; content to hear

(O wonderful effect of music's power!)

Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake.

But less, methinks than  sacrilege might serve—

(For, was it less, what heathen would have dared

To strip Jove's statue of his oaken wreath,

And hang it up in honour of a man?) 

Much less might serve, when all that we design

Is but to gratify an itching ear,

And give the day to a musician's praise.

Remember Handel! Who, that was not born

Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,

Or can, the more than Homer of his age? 

Yes—we remember him: and, while we praise

A talent so divine, remember too

That His most holy book, from whom it came,

Was never meant, was never used before, 

To buckram out the mem'ry of a man,

But hush!—the muse perhaps is too severe;

And with a gravity beyond the size

And measure of the offence, rebukes a deed

Less impious than absurd, and owing more 

To want of judgment than to wrong design.

So in the chapel of old Ely house,

When wandering Charles, who meant to be the third,

Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,

The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,

And eke did rear right merrily, two staves,

Sung to the praise and glory of King George!

—Man praises man: and Garrick's memory next,

When time hath somewhat mellow'd it, and made

The idol of our worship while he lived

The God of our idolatry once more,

Shall have its altar; and the world shall go

In pilgrimage to bow before his shrine.

The theatre too small shall suffocate

Its squeezed contents, and more than it admits

Shall sigh at their exclusion, and return

Ungratified: for there some noble lord

Shall stuff his shoulders with king Richard's bunch,

Or wrap himself in  Hamlet's inky cloak,

And strut, and storm, and straddle, stamp and stare,

To shew the world how Garrick did not act.

For Garrick was a worshipper himself;

He drew the liturgy, and framed the rites

And solemn ceremonial of the day,

And call'd the world to worship on the banks

Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof

That piety has still in human hearts 

Some place, a spark or two not yet extinct.  

The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths;

The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance; 

The mulberry-tree was hymn'd with dulcet airs;

And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree

Supplied such relics as devotion holds

Still sacred, and preserves with pious care.

So 'twas a hallow'd time; decorum reign'd,

And mirth without offence. No few return'd,

Doubtless, much edified, and all refresh'd,—

Man praises man. The rabble all alive

From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and sties,

Swarm in the streets.  The statesman of the day,

A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes.

Some shout him, and some hang upon his car,

To gaze in's eyes, and bless him. Maidens wave 

Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy:

While others, not so satisfied, unhorse 

The gilded equipage, and, turning loose 

His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve,

Why? What has charm's them? Hath he saved the state?

No. Doth he purpose its salvation? No.

Enchanting novelty, that moon at full,

That finds out every crevice of the head

That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs

Wrought this disturbance. But the wane is near,

And his own cattle must suffice him soon.

Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise,

And dedicate a tribute, in its use

And just direction sacred, to a thing

Doom'd to the dust, or lodged already there.

Encomium in old times was poets' work;

But poets having lavishly long since

Exhausted all materials of the art,

The task now falls into the public hand;

And I, contented with an humbler theme,

Have pour'd my stream of panegyric down

The vale of Nature, where it creeps, and winds

Among her lovely works with a secure

And unambitious course, reflecting clear,

If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes.

And I am recompensed, and deem the toils

Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine

May stand between an animal and woe,

And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge.