Bards of the Future! you that come
With striding march, and roll of drum,
What will your newest challenge be
...
With slower pen men used to write,
Of old, when 'letters' were 'polite';
In Anna's, or in George's days,
They could afford to turn a phrase,
...
I DREW it from its china tomb;—
It came out feebly scented
With some thin ghost of past perfume
That dust and days had lent it.
...
The Press is too much with us, small and great:
We are undone of chatter and on dit,
Report, retort, rejoinder, repartee,
Mole-hill and mare's nest, fiction up-to-date,
...
You ask me what was his intent?
In truth, I'm not a German;
'Tis plain though that he neither meant
A Lecture nor a Sermon.
...
As I went a-walking on _Lavender Hill_,
O, I met a Darling in frock and frill;
And she looked at me shyly, with eyes of blue,
'Are you going a-walking? Then take me too!'
...
Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,
Roses and vaporous blue;
...
In after days when grasses high
O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,
Though ill or well the world adjust
My slender claim to honour'd dust,
...
When Pope came back from Trojan wars once more,
He found a Bard, to meet him on the shore,
And hail his advent with a strain as clear
As e'er was sung by BYRON or by FRERE.
...
'A new Review!' You make me tremble
(Though as to that, I can dissemble
Till I hear more). But is it 'new'?
And will it be a _real_ Review?--
...