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.

 

The Winter Evening

 

From William Cowper, The Task (The Winter Evening):

Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,

Nor such as with a frown forbids the play

Of fancy, or prescribes the sound of mirth:

Nor do we madly, like an impious world,

Who deem religion frenzy, and the God

That made them an intruder on their joys,

Start at his awful name, or deem his praise 

A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone, 

Exciting oft our gratitude and love,

While we retrace with Memory's pointing wand,

That calls the past to our exact review,

The danger we have 'scaped, the broken snare, 

The disappointed foe, deliverance found

Unlook'd for, life preserved, and peace restored, 

Fruits of omnipotent eternal love.

O evenings worthy of the gods! exclaim'd

The Sabine bard. O evenings, I reply,

More to be prized and coveted than yours,

As more illumined, and with nobler truths,

That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy.

    Is Winter hideous in a garb like this?

Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps,

The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng,

To thaw him into feeling; or the smart

And snappish dialogue, that flippant wits

Call comedy to prompt him with a smile?

The self-complacent actor, when he views

(Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) 

The slope of faces, from the floor to the roof

(As if one master-spring controll'd them all)

Relax'd into a universal grin,

Sees not a countenance there that speaks of joy

Half so refined or so sincere as ours.

     Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks,

That idleness have ever yet contrived

To fill the void of an unfurnish'd brain,

To palliate dullness, and give time a shove.

Time, as he passes us has a dove's wing,

Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound; 

But the world's Time, is Time in masquerade! 

Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged

With motley plumes; and, where the peacock shows

His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red,

With spots quadrangular of diamond form,

Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,

And spades the emblem of untimely graves.

What should be, and what was an hour-glass once,

Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard-mace:

Well does the work of his destructive scythe.

Thus deck'd, he charms a world whom fashion blinds

To his true worth, most pleased when idle most;

Whose only happy are their wasted hours. 

E'en misses, at whose age their mothers wore

The backstring and the bib, assume the dress 

Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school

Of card-devoted Time, and night by night

Placed at some vacant corner of the board,

Learn every trick, and soon play all the game.

But truce with censure. Roving as I rove,

Where shall I find and end, or how proceed?

As he that travels far oft turns aside,

To view some rugged rock or mouldering tower,

Which seen delights him not; then coming home

Describes and prints it, that the world may know 

How far he went for what was nothing worth;

So I, with brush in hand, and palette spread,

With colours mix'd for different use,

Paint cards, and dolls, and every idle thing,

That Fancy finds in her excursive flights.