Imitation of Juvenal — Satire VIII

Ye kings, in wisdom, sense and power, supreme,
These freaks are worse than any sick man's dream.
To hated worth no Tyrant ere designed
Malice so subtle, vengeance so refined.
Even he who yoked the living to the dead,
Rivalled by you, hides the diminished head.
Never did Rome herself so set at naught
All plain blunt sense, all subtlety of thought.
Heavens! who sees majesty in George's face?
Or looks at Norfolk and can dream of grace?
What has this blessed earth to do with shame?
If Excellence was ever Eden's name?
Must honour still no Lonsdale's tail be bound?
Then execration is an empty sound.
Is Common-sense asleep? has she no wand
From this curst Pharaoh-plague to rid the land?
Then to our bishops reverent let us fall,
Worship Mayors, Tipstaffs, Aldermen and all.
Let Ignorance o'er the monster swarms preside
Till Egypt see her ancient fame outvied.
The thundering Thurlow, Apis! shall rejoice
In rites once offered to thy bellowing voice.
Insatiate Charlotte's tears and Charlotte's smile
Shall ape the scaly regent of the Nile.
Bishops, of milder Spaniel breed, shall boast
The reverence by the fierce Anubis lost.
And 'tis their due:--devotion has been paid
These seven long years to Grenville's onion head.

But whence this gall, this lengthened face of woe?
We were no saints at twenty,--be it so;
Yet happy they who in life's later scene
Need only blush for what they once have been,
Who pushed by thoughtless youth to deeds of shame
'Mid such bad daring sought a coward's name.
I grant that not in parents' hearts alone
A stripling's years may for his faults atone,
So would I plead for York--but long disgrace
And Moore and Partridge stare me in the face.
Alas! 'twas other cause than lack of years
That moistened Dunkirk's sands with blood and tears,
Else had Morality beheld her line
With Guards and Uhlans run along the Rhine,
Religion hailed her creeds by war restored,
And Truth had blest the logic of his sword.

Were such your servant Percy! (be it tried
Between ourselves! the noble laid aside)
Now would you be content with bare release
From such a desperate breaker of the peace?
Y[our] friend the country Justice scarce would fail
[To gi]ve a hint of whips and the cart's tail,
Or should you even stop short of Woolwich docks
Would less suffice than Bridewell and the stocks?

But ye who make our manners, laws, and sense,
Self-judged can with such discipline dispense,
And at your will what in a groom were base
Shall stick new splendour on his gartered grace.
And let that heir of Glory's endless day
Edward, the flower of chivalry, survey
(Fit token of thy reverence and love)
The boxer's armour, the dishonoured Glove.

When Calais heard (while Famine and Disease
To stern Plantagenet resigned her keys)
That victims yet were wanting to assuage
A baffled conqueror's deeply searching rage,
Six which themselves must single from a train
All brothers, long endeared by kindred pain,
Who then through rows of weeping comrades went
And self-devoted sought the monarch's tent,
Six simple burghers--to the rope that tied
Your vassal necks how poor the garter's pride!
Plebeian hands the [ ] mace have wrenched
From sovereigns deep in pedigree intrenched.
Let grandeur tell thee whither now is flown
The brightest jewel of a George's throne.
Blush Pride to see a farmer's wife produce
The first of genuine kings, a king for use;
Let Bourbon spawn her scoundrels, be my joy
The embryo Franklin in the printer's boy.

But grant
The bastard gave some favourite stocks of peers
Patents of Manhood for eight hundred years.
Eight hundred years uncalled to other tasks
Butlers have simply broached their Lordships' casks,
My Lady ne'er approached a thing so coarse
As Tom--but when he helped her to her horse--
A Norman Robber then, & c. & c.

Erroneously we measure life by breath;
They do not truly live who merit death.
Though Riot for their daily feast unite
Thy turtles [Wilston?] and thy Venison, Wright,
For them though all the portals open stand
Of Health's own temple at her Graham's command
And the great high-priest baffling Death and Sin
T' earth each immortal idiot to the chin,
Ask of these wretched beings worse than dead
If on the couch celestial gold can shed
The coarser blessings of a Peasant's bed.
Translation: 
Language: 
Rate this poem: 

Reviews

No reviews yet.