Classic Poem

The March of Mind upon its mighty stilts,
(A spirit by no means to fasten mocks on,)
In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts,
Hants — Bucks, Herts, Oxon,
Got up a thing our ancestors ne'er thought on,
A thing that, only in our proper youth,
We should have chuckled at — in sober truth,
A Conversazione at Hog's Norton!

A place whose native dialect, somehow,
Has always by an adage been affronted,
And that it is all gutterals , is now
Taken for grunted.

Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine,
The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth —
If you have ever heard such creature dine —
And — for Hog's Norton, make a mix of both! —

O shades of Shakspeare! Chaucer! Spenser!
Milton! Pope! Gray! Warton!
O Colman! Kenny! Planche! Poole! Peake!
Pocock! Reynolds! Morton!
O Grey! Peel! Sadler! Wilberforce! Burdett!
Hume! Wilmot Horton!
Think of your prose and verse, and worse — delivered in
Hog's Norton! —

The founder of Hog's Norton Athenaeum
Framed her society
With some variety
From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum;
Not a mere pic-nic, for the mind's repast,
But, tempting to the solid knife-and-forker,
It held its sessions in the house that last
Had killed a porker.

It chanced one Friday,
One Farmer Grayley stuck a very big hog,
A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog,
Which made of course a literary high day, — —
Not that our Farmer was a man to go
With literary tastes — so far from suiting 'em,
When he heard mention of Professor Crowe ,
Or Lalla- Rookh , he always was for shooting 'em!
In fact in letters he was quite a log,
With him great Bacon
Was literally taken,
And Hogg — the Poet — nothing but a Hog!
As to all others on the list of Fame,
Although they were discussed and mentioned daily,
He only recognized one classic name,
And thought that she had hung herself — Miss Baillie!

To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter
Had a great taste for the Castalian water —
A Wordsworth worshipper — a Southey wooer, —
(Though men that deal in water-color cakes
May disbelieve the fact — yet nothing's truer)
She got the bluer
The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes:
The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver,
At future Authorship was apt to hint,
Producing what some call the Type-us Fever,
Which means a burning to be seen in print.

Of learning's laurels — Miss Joanna Baillie —
Of Mrs. Hemans — Mrs. Wilson — daily
Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley;
And Fancy hinting that she had the better
Of L. E. L. by one initial letter,
She thought the world would quite enraptured see

" Love L AYS AND L YRICS BY A. P. I. G. "

Accordingly, with very great propriety,
She joined the H. N. B. and double S.,
That is, — Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society;
And saving when her Pa. his pigs prohibited,
Contributed
Her pork and poetry towards the mess.

This feast, we said, one Friday was the case,
When farmer Grayley — from Macbeth to quote —
Screwing his courage to the " sticking place, "
Stuck a large knife into a grunter's throat: —
A kind of murder that the law's rebuke
Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke,
Showing the little sympathy of big-wigs
With pig-wigs!

The swine — poor wretch! — with nobody to speak for it,
And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it;
So — like the fabled swan — died singing out,
And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard
A note that notified without a card,
An invitation to the evening rout.

And when the time came duly, — " at the close of
The day, " as Beattie has it, " when the ham — "
Bacon, and pork were ready to dispose of,
And pettitoes and chit'lings too, to cram, —
Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s
All in appropriate and swinish dresses,
For lo! it is a fact, and not a joke,
Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it,
They came — each " Pig-faced Lady, " in that bonnet
We call a poke .
The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman
At pork and poetry was chosen chairwoman; —
In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey,
Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy,
She always named the authoress of " Psyche, " —
As Mrs. Tiggey!

And now arose a question of some moment, —
What author for a lecture was the richer,
Bacon or Hogg? there were no votes for Beaumont,
But some for Flitcher;
While others, with a more sagacious reasoning,
Proposed another work,
And thought their pork
Would prove more relishing from Thomson's Season-ing!

But, practised in Shaksperian readings daily, —
O! Miss Macaulay! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton! —
Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley
Selected him that evening to snort on.
In short, to make our story not a big tale,
Just fancy her exerting
Her talents, and converting
The Winter's Tale to something like a pig-tale!
Her sister auditory,
All sitting round, with grave and learned faces,
Were very plauditory,
Of course, and clapped her at the proper places;
Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse,
She thought herself the blessedest of Blues.
But Happiness, alas! has blights of ill,
And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode; —
There is no travelling through life but still
The heart will meet with breakers on the road!

With that peculiar voice
Heard only from Hog's Norton throats and noses,
Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice
Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies,
When coming to that line, where Proserpine
Lets fall her flowers from the wain of Dis;
Imagine this —
Uprose on his hind legs old Farmer Grayley,
Grunting this question for the club's digestion,
" Do Dis's Wagon go from the Ould Bäaley? "