In times of old, when Time was young, And poets their own verses sung, A verse would draw a stone or beam, That now would overload a team;
Lead‘ em a dance of many a mile, Then rear‘ em to a goodly pile. Each number had its diff'rent power; Heroic strains could build a tower;
Sonnets and elegies to Chloris, Might raise a house about two stories; A lyric ode would slate; a catch Would tile; an epigram would thatch.
Now Poets feel this art is lost, Both to their own and landlord's cost. Not one of all the tuneful throng Can hire a lodging for a song.
For Jove consider'd well the case, That poets were a numerous race; And if they all had power to build, The earth would very soon be fill'd:
Materials would be quickly spent, And houses would not give a rent. The God of Wealth was therefore made Sole patron of the building trade;
Leaving to wits the spacious air, With license to build castles there: In right whereof their old pretence To lodge in garrets comes from thence.
There is a worm by Phoebus bred, By leaves of mulberry is fed, Which unprovided where to dwell, Conforms itself to weave a cell;
Then curious hands this texture take, And for themselves fine garments make. Meantime a pair of awkward things Grow to his back instead of wings;
He flutters when he thinks he flies, Then sheds about his spawn and dies. Just such an insect of the age Is he that scribbles for the stage;
His birth he does from Phoebus raise, And feeds upon imagin'd bays; Throws all his wit and hours away In twisting up an ill spun Play:
This gives him lodging and provides A stock of tawdry shift besides. With the unravell'd shreds of which The under wits adorn their speech:
And now he spreads his little fans, ( For all the Muses Geese are Swans ) And borne on Fancy's pinions, thinks He soars sublimest when he sinks:
But scatt'ring round his fly-blows, dies; Whence broods of insect-poets rise. Premising thus, in modern way, The greater part I have to say;
Sing, Muse, the house of Poet Van, In higher strain than we began. Van ( for‘ tis fit the reader know it ) Is both a Herald and a Poet;
No wonder then if nicely skill'd In each capacity to build. As Herald, he can in a day Repair a house gone to decay;
Or by achievements, arms, device, Erect a new one in a trice; And poets, if they had their due, By ancient right are builders too:
This made him to Apollo pray For leave to build — the poets way. His prayer was granted, for the God Consented with the usual nod.
After hard throes of many a day Van was delivered of a play, Which in due time brought forth a house, Just as the mountain did the mouse.
One story high, one postern door, And one small chamber on a floor, Born like a phoenix from the flame: But neither bulk nor shape the same;
As animals of largest size Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies; A type of modern wit and style, The rubbish of an ancient pile;
So chemists boast they have a power, From the dead ashes of a flower Some faint resemblance to produce, But not the virtue, taste, nor juice.
So modern rhymers strive to blast The poetry of ages past; Which, having wisely overthrown, They from its ruins build their own.
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