which it eased... "All is well! all is well!"

CANTO IV.

I.

The Poets pour wine; and, when 'tis new, all decry it;
But, once let it be old, every trifler must try it.
And Polonius, who praises no wine that's not Massic,
Complains of my verse, that my verse is not classic.
And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not badly,
My earlier verses, sighs "Commonplace sadly!"

As for you, O Polonius, you vex me but slightly;
But you, Tilburina, your eyes beam so brightly
In despite of their languishing looks, on my word,
That to see you look cross I can scarcely afford.
Yes! the silliest woman that smiles on a bard
Better far than Longinus himself can reward
The appeal to her feelings of which she approves;
And the critics I most care to please are the Loves.

Alas, friend! what boots it, a stone at his head
And a brass on his breast,--when a man is once dead?
Ay! were fame the sole guerdon, poor guerdon were then
Theirs who, stripping life bare, stand forth models for men.
The reformer's?--a creed by posterity learnt
A century after its author is burnt!
The poet's?--a laurel that hides the bald brow
It hath blighted! The painter's?--Ask Raphael now
Which Madonna's authentic! The stateman's?--a name
For parties to blacken, or boys to declaim!
The soldier's?--three lines on the cold Abbey pavement!
Were this all the life of the wise and the brave meant,
All it ends in, thrice better, Neaera, it were
Unregarded to sport with thine odorous hair,
Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the shade
And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead,
Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought,
A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied for naught
Save the name of John Milton! For all men, indeed,
Who in some choice edition may graciously read,
With fair illustration, and erudite note,
The song which the poet in bitterness wrote,
Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in this--
The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss
The grief of the man: Tasso's song--not his madness!
Dante's dreams--not his waking to exile and sadness!
Milton's music--but not Milton's blindness!...
Yet rise,
My Milton, and answer, with those noble eyes
Which the gl