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The argument is at an end.

quote by Saint Augustine
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Prejudice

IN yonder red-brick mansion, tight and square,
Just at the town's commencement, lives the mayor.
Some yards of shining gravel, fenced with box,
Lead to the painted portal--where one knocks :
There, in the left-hand parlour, all in state,
Sit he and she, on either side the grate.
But though their goods and chattels, sound and new,
Bespeak the owners very well to do,
His worship's wig and morning suit betray
Slight indications of an humbler day

That long, low shop, where still the name appears,
Some doors below, they kept for forty years :
And there, with various fortunes, smooth and rough,
They sold tobacco, coffee, tea, and snuff.
There labelled drawers display their spicy row--
Clove, mace, and nutmeg : from the ceiling low
Dangle long twelves and eights , and slender rush,
Mix'd with the varied forms of genus brush ;
Cask, firkin, bag, and barrel, crowd the floor,
And piles of country cheeses guard the door.
The frugal dames came in from far and near,
To buy their ounces and their quarterns here.
Hard was the toil, the profits slow to count,
And yet the mole-hill was at last a mount.
Those petty gains were hoarded day by day,
With little cost, for not a child had they ;
Till, long proceeding on the saving plan,
He found himself a warm, fore-handed man :
And being now arrived at life's decline,
Both he and she, they formed the bold design,
(Although it touched their prudence to the quick)
To turn their savings into stone and brick.
How many an ounce of tea and ounce of snuff,
There must have been consumed to make enough !

At length, with paint and paper, bright and gay,
The box was finished, and they went away.
But when their faces were no longer seen
Amongst the canisters of black and green ,
--Those well-known faces, all the country round--
'Twas said that had they levelled to the ground
The two old walnut trees before the door,
The customers would not have missed them more.
Now, like a pair of parrots in a cage,
They live, and civic honours crown their age :
Thrice, since the Whitsuntide they settled there,
Seven years ago, has he been chosen mayor ;
And now you'd scarcely know they were the same ;
Conscious he struts, of power, and wealth, and fame ;

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poem by Jane Taylor
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Ghost - Book IV

Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;

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poem by Charles Churchill
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Silent Pool

I have discovered finally to-day
This home that I have called my own
Is built of straw and clay,
Not, as I thought, of stone.

I wonder who the architect could be,
What builder made it of that stuff;
When it was left to me
The house seemed good enough.

Yet, slowly, as its roof began to sink,
And as its walls began to split,
And I began to think,
Then I suspected it;

But did not clearly know until today
That it was only built of straw and clay.

II

Now I will go about on my affairs
As though I had no cares,
Nor ever think at all
How one day soon that house is bound to fall,
So when I'm told the wind has blown it down
I may have something else to call my own.

I have enquired who was the architect,
What builder did erect.
I'm told they did design
Million and million others all like mine,
And argument with all men ends the same:-
It is impossible to fix the blame.

I am so glad that underneath our talk
Our minds together walk.
We argue all the while,
But down below our argument we smile,
We have our houses, but we understand
That our real property is common land.

III

At night we often go
With happy comrades to that real estate,
Where dreams in beauty grow,
And every man enjoys a common fate.

At night in sleep one flows
Below the surface of all argument;

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poem by Harold Monro
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Ducking Buttercup

In the midst of our last argument,
I did a reaching to kiss your lips.
And you balled your fist,
Prepared to hit me.

In the midst of our last argument,
I did a reaching to kiss your lips.
And you balled your fist,
Prepared to hit me.
To do it and split.

But I...
Am not a ducking buttercup.
Someone that gives up easy.
No I...
Am not a ducking buttercup.
Someone that gives up easy...
To appease someone,
Who is quick to leave.
After a plucking of me has been done.

In the midst of an argument...
I'm not a ducking buttercup,
Easily plucked when I've had enough.

No I...
Am not a ducking buttercup.
Easily plucked when I've had enough.
No I...
Am not a ducking buttercup.
I've got a backbone tough that's rough enough.

In the midst of our last argument,
I did a reaching to kiss your lips.
And you balled your fist,
Prepared to hit me.
To do it and split.

But I...
Am not a ducking buttercup.
Someone that gives up easy,
When the going gets tough!

Believe me when I say,
I'm not a ducking buttercup.
Believe me when I say,
I'm not a ducking buttercup.
Believe me when I say,
I'm not a ducking buttercup.
Someone that gives up easy,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

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poem by Nyein Way
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Blazing Through All Precedents

Blazing through all precedents,
Supreme Court Justices have customarily abused
omnipotence until as decedents
they are compelled by death, an act of God, to be recused.

Of corporate money there’s no dearth
in politics, said John Paul Stevens, arguing in dissent;
decisions with some moral worth
are lacking in the Highest Court, should have been his lament.

Inspired by a comment by Justice John Paul Stevens, cited by Adam Liptak in an article on him in the NYT, January 25,2010 (“After 34 Years, a Plainspoken Justice Gets Louder”) :
The Supreme Court announced its big campaign finance decision at 10 in the morning last Thursday. By 10: 30 a.m., after Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had offered a brisk summary of the majority opinion and Justice John Paul Stevens labored through a 20-minute rebuttal, a sort of twilight had settled over the courtroom. It seemed the Stevens era was ending. Justice Stevens, who will turn 90 in April, joined the court in 1975 and is the longest-serving current justice by more than a decade. He has given signals that he intends to retire at the end of this term, and his dissent on Thursday was shot through with disappointment, frustration and uncharacteristic sarcasm.He seemed weary, and more than once he stumbled over and mispronounced ordinary words in the lawyer’s lexicon — corruption, corporation, allegation. Sometimes he would take a second or third run at the word, sometimes not. But there was no mistaking his basic message. “The rule announced today — that Congress must treat corporations exactly like human speakers in the political realm — represents a radical change in the law, ” he said from the bench. “The court’s decision is at war with the views of generations of Americans.”..
“It is difficult to convey how thoroughly egregious counsel’s closing argument was, ” Justice Stevens wrote of a defense lawyer’s work. “Suffice it to say that the argument shares far more in common with a prosecutor’s closing than with a criminal defense attorney’s. Indeed, the argument was so outrageous that it would have rightly subjected a prosecutor to charges of misconduct.” In the second case, Justice Stevens did vote to uphold the death sentence, saying that even a closing argument worthy of Clarence Darrow would not have spared the defendant. That carefully calibrated distinction was of a piece with the view he announced in 2008 in Baze v. Rees, when he said he had come to the conclusion that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment. But he went on to say that his conclusion did not justify “a refusal to respect precedents that remain a part of our law.”

1/25/10

poem by Gershon Hepner
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If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

quote by William Godwin
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Only Two Fools Will Enjoy An Endless Argument

Advice.
Whether accepted or not.

If you do something for someone...
Do it and let it go.
Without making reservations,
In anticipated expectations.

Advice.
Whether accepted or not.

Listen to those you believe to be fools.
There is much to learn...
In the avoidance of ignorance.
But let it flow from the lips first.
Any interruptions introduces an argument.
And when was the last time anyone won an argument,
With a fool?
Only two fools will enjoy an endless argument!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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De Worthiness of Argument

(A little argument spices up luv
And life now and then)

Widout women,
Dere would be no men.
Widout men,
Dere would be no women.
Widout women and men,
Dere would be no argument.
And widout de spice of argument,
De world would be seasonless and full of zombies.

poem by Gabriel Eshun
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Badhead

so far i've not really stayed in touch
well you knew as much
it's no suprise that today
i'll get up around two from a lack of anything to do

and i might aswell just grin and bear it
because it's not worth the trouble of an argument

and you have not really stayed in touch
well i knew as much
its no suprise that today
i'll get up around two with nothing to do
except get a touch of flu

and i might aswell just grin and bear it
because it's not worth the trouble of an argument
and in any case i'd rather wear it
it's like a bad head in the morning

and i know

and i might aswell just grin and bear it
bcasue it's not worth the trouble of an argument
and in any case i'd rather wear it
it's like a bad head in the morning

song performed by Blur from Parklife
Added by Lucian Velea
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Hyperactive

Shes got a date for lunch in Singapore,
Holds stock in I.B.M. and hates Dior.
She puts up her make-up on at 6.00am
She goes to work, gets home then puts it on again
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got so much energy;
Shes such an expert at surprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
she never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
The other dancers hypervantilate and start to sweat.
One look at her - I know the nights not over yet.
She says Where are we going now?
Her voice is sweet and soft.
I think she lost the key that turns her motor off.
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got so much energy;
Shes such an expert at surprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got do much energy;
Shes such an expert at suprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
she never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.

song performed by Robert Palmer
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Canto IV

THE ARGUMENT

Alas ! The Poëms curious Model
Is Alter’d quite i'th’ Poets Noddle !
So Nature oft, for want of Tools,
Decrees Wise men, produces Fools :
To tell you True, my Muse and I
Design’d at first, the Victory
To Master Dean ; how’t came about
I cannot tell ; but now the Rout
Is His : yet so, The Fancy’s righer
To end in Pot, commence in Pitcher !
Such was the Project ! such th’ Event !
But listen to the Argument !
The Chanter’s Dream : A Chapter called ;
Fine Speeches made ; The Pulpit mawled ;
This Counter-Scuffle, I dare stand in’t,
The Goddess Discord had a hand in’t :
The Prelates foes ; The Changers friends ;
The Canto, and the Poëme ends.

The Pulpit now lifting its lofty Head
With carved Canopy stands Covered ;
When the Church-clocks with their melodious chime,
Summon’d the Singing-boyes to rise : ‘Tis time
To Rise to Matins ! Thus the Bells did Chink !
Thus did at least the dreaming Sluggard think.
Drown’d in sweet Sleep th’Arch-changer roll’d at case,
( A Soveraign Medicine ‘gainst the twinging Fleas, )
Whose roving Fancy traverst may a Theme,
Startled at last with terror of a Dream ;
He cry’d out, waken’d at his own fierce crying,
And parboil’d in his mellow Sweat lay frying.
His Pages starting at the sudden Noyse,
Began to bussle, rubbing their gum-glew’d Eyes ;
One frighted runs, but poor fool, knew not whither,
And from the dore leaps back, e’re well got thither :
Girot, ( a trustier Slave ne’re waited on him, )
Runs to his Master, ne’re a Rag upon him ;
What the Rope ails you ? (cry’d the testy Lacquey,)
Does th’ Night-mare ride you, or the Old Witch make you
Roar at this rate ? What a mad coil you keep here,
That people cannot steal a nap, or sleep here ?
Compose your self for shame ! The wiser Sun
His race Nocturnal has but half-way run ;
Is this a time for Prayers ? Let Singing-boyes
Whose Pension’s pay for’t, do those Drudgeries !
Ah friend ! ( reply’d the quaking Chanter ) friend !
Insult not o’re my juster Passion ; lend
Thy patient Ear to my sad Fate, and joyn

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poem by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux from Le Lutrin
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper

I
Query: was ever a quainter
Crotchet than this of the painter
Giacomo Pacchiarotto
Who took "Reform" for his motto?

II
He, pupil of old Fungaio,
Is always confounded (heigho!)
With Pacchia, contemporaneous
No question, but how extraneous
In the grace of soul, the power
Of hand,—undoubted dower
Of Pacchia who decked (as we know,
My Kirkup!) San Bernardino,
Turning the small dark Oratory
To Siena's Art-laboratory,
As he made its straitness roomy
And glorified its gloomy,
With Bazzi and Beccafumi.
(Another heigho for Bazzi:
How people miscall him Razzi!)

III
This Painter was of opinion
Our earth should be his dominion
Whose Art could correct to pattern
What Nature had slurred—the slattern!
And since, beneath the heavens,
Things lay now at sixes and sevens,
Or, as he said, sopra-sotto—
Thought the painter Pacchiarotto
Things wanted reforming, therefore.
"Wanted it"—ay, but wherefore?
When earth held one so ready
As he to step forth, stand steady
In the middle of God's creation
And prove to demonstration
What the dark is, what the light is,
What the wrong is, what the right is,
What the ugly, what the beautiful,
What the restive, what the dutiful,
In Mankind profuse around him?
Man, devil as now he found him,
Would presently soar up angel
At the summons of such evangel,
And owe—what would Man not owe
To the painter Pacchiarotto?
Ay, look to thy laurels, Giotto!

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poem by Robert Browning from Pacchiarotto (1876)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Farewell

_P_. Farewell to Europe, and at once farewell
To all the follies which in Europe dwell;
To Eastern India now, a richer clime,
Richer, alas! in everything but rhyme,
The Muses steer their course; and, fond of change,
At large, in other worlds, desire to range;
Resolved, at least, since they the fool must play,
To do it in a different place, and way.
_F_. What whim is this, what error of the brain,
What madness worse than in the dog-star's reign?
Why into foreign countries would you roam,
Are there not knaves and fools enough at home?
If satire be thy object--and thy lays
As yet have shown no talents fit for praise--
If satire be thy object, search all round,
Nor to thy purpose can one spot be found
Like England, where, to rampant vigour grown,
Vice chokes up every virtue; where, self-sown,
The seeds of folly shoot forth rank and bold,
And every seed brings forth a hundredfold.
_P_. No more of this--though Truth, (the more our shame,
The more our guilt) though Truth perhaps may claim,
And justify her part in this, yet here,
For the first time, e'en Truth offends my ear;
Declaim from morn to night, from night to morn,
Take up the theme anew, when day's new-born,
I hear, and hate--be England what she will,
With all her faults, she is my country still.
_F_. Thy country! and what then? Is that mere word
Against the voice of Reason to be heard?
Are prejudices, deep imbibed in youth,
To counteract, and make thee hate the truth?
'Tis sure the symptom of a narrow soul
To draw its grand attachment from the whole,
And take up with a part; men, not confined
Within such paltry limits, men design'd
Their nature to exalt, where'er they go,
Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow,
Where'er the blessed sun, placed in the sky
To watch this subject world, can dart his eye,
Are still the same, and, prejudice outgrown,
Consider every country as their own;
At one grand view they take in Nature's plan,
Not more at home in England than Japan.
_P_. My good, grave Sir of Theory, whose wit,
Grasping at shadows, ne'er caught substance yet,
'Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine
On vain refinements vainly to refine,
To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign,
To boast of apathy when out of pain,

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poem by Charles Churchill
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Another Fusion

There's been fierce argument of late
In my vicinitee,
Between the Commonwealth and State,
For I fell out with me.

I am a sturdy Federalist,
A staunch Australian;
And I have waved an angry fist
At me, the States' Rights man.

The argument began like this:
I to myself one night
Remarked: 'There's something sore amiss
That cries to be put right.

'This argument 'twixt Commonwealth
And State must cease, 'tis plain.
'Tis interfering with my health
And rending me in twain.'

'Then, as a free,' myself replied,
'Elector of the State,
I hold my Rights can't be denied,
And I've been wronged of late.

'The Commonwealth's extravagance'
'Hold on,' I said, 'hold on!
A fool could tell you at a glance
Where all the money's gone.

'Of late the States' expenditure
Has risen high and higher.'
'What rot,' me thought. 'That's pretty pure!'
Then shouted, 'I'm a liar!'

I rose to smite the Fed'ralist
And - what do you suppose?
I found, with my avenging fist,
The States' Rights person's nose.

And yet, it did seem strange, because
Though, truly, as I've said,
I hit the State elector, 'twas
The Federal nose that bled.

'See here,' I said, 'this game won't do.
We'll have to stop and think.
There's something wrong with me and you.
Let's go and have a drink.'

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.

Much malice, mingled with a little wit,
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;
Because the muse has peopled Caledon
With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown,
As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own.
Let Æsop answer, who has set to view
Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;
And Mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,
Has sharply blamed a British lioness;
That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,
Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.
Led by those great examples, may not I
The wonted organs of their words supply?
If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then
For brutes to claim the privilege of men.
Others our Hind of folly will indite,
To entertain a dangerous guest by night.
Let those remember, that she cannot die,
Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;
Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;
The wary savage would not give offence,
To forfeit the protection of her prince;
But watched the time her vengeance to complete,
When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;
Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,
And with a lenten salad cooled her blood.
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,
Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.
For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove
To express her plain simplicity of love,
Did all the honours of her house so well,
No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.
She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,
To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;
Remembering every storm which tossed the state,
When both were objects of the public hate,
And dropt a tear betwixt for her own children's fate.
Nor failed she then a full review to make
Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;
Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,
Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,
Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,
Her choice of honourable infamy.
On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;
Then with acknowledgments herself she charged;
For friendship, of itself an holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,
They met like chance companions on the way,

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poem by John Dryden
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