Classic Poem

HERE J OHNSON is laid. Have a care how you walk;
If he stir in his sleep, in his sleep he will talk.
Ye gods! how he talk'd! What a torrent of sound,
His hearers invaded, encompass'd and — drown'd!
What a banquet of memory, fact, illustration,
In that innings-for-one that he call'd conversation!
Can't you hear his sonorous " Why no, Sir!" and " Stay, Sir!
Your premiss is wrong," or " You don't see your way, Sir!"
How he silenc'd a prig, or a slip-shod romancer!
How he pounc'd on a fool with a knock-me-down answer!

But peace to his slumbers! Tho' rough in the rind,
The heart of the giant was gentle and kind:
What signifies now, if in bouts with a friend,
When his pistol miss'd fire, he would use the butt-end?
If he trampled your flow'rs, like a bull in a garden,
What matter for that? he was sure to ask pardon;
And you felt on the whole, tho' he'd toss'd you and gor'd you,
It was something, at least, that he had not ignor'd you.
Yes! the outside was rugged. But test him within,
You found he had nought of the bear but the skin;
And for bottom and base to his anfractuosity,
A fund of fine feeling, good taste, generosity.
He was true to his conscience, his King, and his duty;
And he hated the Whigs, and he soften'd to Beauty.

Turn now to his Writings. I grant, in his tales,
That he made little fishes talk vastly like whales;
I grant that his language was rather emphatic,
Nay, even — to put the thing plainly — dogmatic;
But read him for Style, — and dismiss from your thoughts,
The crowd of compilers who copied his faults, —
Say, where is there English so full and so clear,
So weighty, so dignified, manly, sincere?
So strong in expression, conviction, persuasion?
So prompt to take colour from place and occasion?
So widely remov'd from the doubtful, the tentative;
So truly — and in the best sense — argumentative?
You may talk of your Burkes and your G IBBONS so clever,
But I hark back to him with a " J OHNSON for ever!"
And I feel as I muse on his ponderous figure,
Tho' he's great in this age, in the next he'll grow bigger;
And still while...[Caetera desunt.]