MYRRHA
: And pure as is my love to thee, shall they,
|
Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion,
|
Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.
|
475
| SARDANAPALUS
: Say it.
|
MYRRHA
:It is that no kind hand will gather
|
The dust of both into one urn.
|
SARDANAPALUS
:The better:
|
Rather let them be borne abroad upon
|
The winds of heaven, and scatter’d into air,
|
Than be polluted more by human hands
|
480
| Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace,
|
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin,
|
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt
|
Hath piled in her brick mountains, o’er dead kings,
|
Or
kine
, for none know whether those proud piles
|
485
| Be for their monarch, or their ox-god Apis:
|
So much for monuments that have forgotten
|
Their very record!
|
MYRRHA
:Then farewell, thou earth!
|
And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia!
|
Be thou still free and beautiful, and far
|
490
| Aloof from desolation! My last prayer
|
Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee!
|
SARDANAPALUS
: And that?
|
MYRRHA
:Is yours.
|
[
The trumpet of
PANIA
sounds without
.]
|
SARDANAPALUS
:Hark!
|
MYRRHA
:
Now
!
|
SARDANAPALUS
:Adieu, Assyria!
|
I loved thee well, my own, my fathers’ land,
|
And better as my country than my kingdom.
|
495
| I sated thee with peace and joys; and this
|
Is my reward! and now I owe thee nothing,
|
Not even a grave.
|
[
He mounts the pile
.]
|
Now, Myrrha!
|
MYRRHA
:Art thou ready?
|
SARDANAPALUS
: As the torch in thy grasp.
|
[
MYRRHA
fires the pile
.]
|
MYRRHA
:’Tis fired! I come.
|
[
As
MYRRHA
springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls
.]
|
THE BLUES
A Literary Eclogue
|
‘Nimium ne crede colorí.’ — V
IRGIL
.
|
O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue, Though your
hair were as red, as your stockings are blue
.
|
Eclogue First
|
London – Before the Door of a Lecture Room.
|
[
Enter
TRACY
,
meeting
INKEL
.]
|
INKEL
: You’re too late.
|
TRACY
:Is it over?
|
INKEL
: Nor will be this hour. But the benches are cramm’d, like a garden in flower, With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion;
|
So, instead of ‘beaux arts,’ we may say ‘la
belle
passion’
|
5
| For learning, which lately has taken the lead in The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading.
|
TRACY
: I know it too well, and have worn out my patience With studying to study your new publications.
|
There’s Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co.
|
10
| With their damnable –
|
INKEL
:Hold, my good friend, do you know Whom you speak to?
|
TRACY
:Right well, boy, and so does ‘the Row:’ You’re an author – a poet –
|
INKEL
: And think you that I Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry The Muses?
|
TRACY
: Excuse me: I meant no offence
|
15
| To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence To their favours is such — but the subject to drop, I am just piping hot from a publisher’s shop, (Next door to the pastry-cook’s; so that when I Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy
|
20
| On the bibliopole’s shelves, it is only two paces, As one finds every author in one of those places;) Where I just had been skimming a charming critique, So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek! Where your friend — you know who — has just got such a threshing,
|
25
| That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely ‘
refreshing
.’ What a beautiful word!
|
INKEL
: Very true; ’tis so soft And so cooling – they use it a little too oft; And the papers have got it at last – but no matter. So they’ve cut up our friend then?
|
TRACY
: Not left him a tatter –
|
30
| Not a rag of his present or past reputation, Which they call a disgrace to the age and the nation.
|
INKEL
: I’m sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know – Our poor friend! – but I thought it would terminate so. Our friendship is such, I’ll read nothing to shock it.
|
35
| You don’t happen to have the Review in your pocket?
|
TRACY
: No; I left a round dozen of authors and others (Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother’s) All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps, And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse.
|
40
| INKEL
: Let us join them.
|
TRACY
:What, won’t you return to the lecture?
|
INKEL
: Why, the place is so cramm’d, there’s not room for a spectre.
|
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd –
|
TRACY
: How can you know that till you hear him?
|
INKEL
: I heard Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat
|
45
| Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat.
|
TRACY
: I have had no great loss then?
|
INKEL
:Loss! – such a palaver! I’d inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours To the torrent of trash which around him he pours,
|
50
| Pump’d up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, That—come — do not make me speak ill of one’s neighbour.
|
TRACY
:
I
make you!
|
INKEL
: Yes, you! I said nothing until You compell’d me, by speaking the truth —
|
TRACY
:
To speak ill
? Is that your deduction?
|
INKEL
:When speaking of Scamp ill,
|
55
| I certainly
follow, not set
an example. The fellow’s a fool, an impostor, a zany.
|
TRACY
: And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many.
|
But we two will be wise.
|
INKEL:Pray, then, let us retire.
|
TRACY: I would, but —
|
INKEL: There must be attraction much higher
|
60
| Than Scamp, or the Jews’ harp he nicknames his lyre, To call
you
to this hotbed.
|
TRACY:I own it – tis true A fair lady –
|
INKEL
:A spinster?
|
TRACY
:Miss Lilac!
|
INKEL
:The Blue! The heiress?
|
TRACY
:The angel!
|
INKEL
:The devil! why, man!
|
Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can.
|
65
| You
wed with Miss Lilac! ’twould be your perdition:
|
She’s a poet, a chymist, a mathematician.
|
TRACY
: I say she’s an angel.
|
INKEL:
Say rather an
angle
.
|
If you and she marry, you’ll certainly wrangle.
|
I say she’s a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
|
70
| TRACY: And is that any cause for not coming together?
|
INKEL
: Humph! I can’t say I know any happy alliance Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science.
|
She’s so learned in all things, and fond of concerning
|
Herself in all matters connected with learning,
|
75
| That -
|
TRACY
: What?
|
INKEL
:I perhaps may as well hold my tongue; But there’s five hundred people can tell you you’re wrong.
|
TRACY
: You forget Lady Lilac’s as rich as a Jew.
|
INKEL
: Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue?
|
TRACY
: Why, Jack, I’ll be frank with you – something of both.
|
80
| The girl’s a fine girl.
|
INKEL
:And you feel nothing loth To her good lady-mother’s reversion; and yet Her life is as good as your own, I will bet.
|
TRACY
: Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand.
|
85
| INKEL: Why, that heart’s in the inkstand – that hand on the pen;
|
TRACY: A propos – Will you write me a song now and then?
|
INKEL
: To what purpose?
|
TRACY
: You know, my dear friend, that in prose My talent is decent, as far as it goes; But in rhyme—
|
INKEL
:You’re a terrible stick, to be sure.
|
90
| TRACY
: I own it; and yet, in these times, there’s no lure For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two; And so, as I can’t, will you furnish a few?
|
INKEL
: In your name?
|
TRACY
:In my name. I will copy them out, To slip into her hand at the very next rout.
|
95
| INKEL:
Are you so far advanced as to hazard this?
|
TRACY
:Why, Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking’s eye, So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
|
What I’ve told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
|
INKEL
:
As sublime
! – If it be so, no need of my Muse.
|
100
| TRACY
: But consider, dear Inkel, she’s one of the ‘Blues.’
|
INKEL
: As sublime! — Mr Tracy — I’ve nothing to say. Stick to prose — As sublime!! — but I wish you good day.
|
TRACY
: Nay, stay, my dear fellow – consider – I’m wrong; I own it; but, prithee, compose me the song.
|
105
| INKEL
:
As
sublime!!
|
TRACY
:I but used the expression in haste.
|
INKEL
: That may be, Mr Tracy, but shows damn’d bad taste.
|
TRACY
: I own it – I know it – acknowledge it – what Can I say to you more?
|
INKEL
:I see what you’d be at: You disparage my parts with insidious abuse,
|
110
| Till you think you can turn them best to your own use.
|
TRACY
: And is that not a sign I respect them?
|
INKEL
:Why that
|
To be sure makes a difference.
|
TRACY
: I know what is what: And you, who’re a man of the gay world, no less Than a poet of t’other, may easily guess
|
115
| That I never could mean, by a word, to offend A genius like you, and moreover my friend.
|
INKEL
: No doubt; you by this time should know what is due. To a man of— but come — let us shake hands.
|
TRACY
:You knew, And you
know
, my dear fellow, how heartily I,
|
20
| Whatever you publish, am ready to buy.
|
INKEL
: That’s my bookseller’s business; I care not for sale; Indeed the best poems at first rather fail. There were Renegade’s epics, and Botherby’s plays, And my own grand romance —
|
125
| TRACY
:Had its full share of praise. I myself saw it puff’d in the ‘Old Girl’s Review.’
|
INKEL
: What Review?
|
TRACY
: ’Tis the English ‘Journal de Trevoux;’ A clerical work of our jesuits at home. Have you never yet seen it?
|
INKEL
:That pleasure’s to come.
|
TRACY
: Make haste then.
|
INKEL
:Why so?
|
TRACY
:I have heard people say
|
130
| That it threaten’d to give up the
ghost
t’other day.
INKEL
: Well, that is a sign of some
spirit
.
TRACY
: No doubt.
|
Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddlecome’s rout? INKEL: I’ve a card, and shall go: but at present, as soon
|