OR, THE PUPPET-SHEW.
Translated from the Latin of Addison.
To trivial wonders is my song confined, A slender crew, and folks without a mind; Whose futile forms no impious hand inspires With warmth unhallowed, or Promethean fires.
Where gaping throngs admire the mimic feat, And sleight of face enchants the grinning street, All whom the pleasure or the wonder bring, Intent on mirth, fill the allotted ring. Nor reigns disorder; but precedence fit Marshals the crowd, and as they pay they sit.
At last the curtain slides, and straight all eyes Fix on the box, where thread in many plies Crosses the window, lest the pervious space Betrayed the guile. And now a shrill-tongued race. Enter their lackered hall and much-daubed home. Here, pent in narrow scene and lowly dome, Plots, wars, and pomps, and all man's busy day, On their small boards, the little people play. A blustering manny struts above the rest, With breadth of buckle on his ampler vest; Whose wandering eye-balls roll with living light; Immoderate swells his paunch, and to huge height Rises his back. The pigmy tribe askance Ponder his frightful step and giant glance.
He, trusting in his size and unmatched force, Rails on the mob without remorse; puny And, scattering loud his tyrant wit around, In squalls of joy the wicked droll is drown'd. Oft too, though serious rites the rest engage, And some high pageant fills the thoughtful stage, Reckless he spurns upon the earnest train, With bursts of bootless cheer and shrill disdain ; Oft shocks the painted fair in froward mood, And darts loud kisses on the averted wood.
Meantime, with various games, the common sort Strain their light limbs, and cope in agile sport.
Sometimes the wooden gentry you behold In purple issue and the blaze of gold; As bent on motive of some great appeal, Or high concernment of the commonweal; In decent rank the matron troop advance, The gorgeous chieftain, and the glittering lance, So, ere the stars just loose their silver wain, Glide forth the pageant sprites and fairy train, In festive mazes tread their narrow round, And touch with noiseless feet the frequent ground; Aurora dawns, nor any trace is seen
But a sweet herbage, and a fresher green.
Yet clouds will rise, and mar this fairer light, For wars are known, fell wars and horrid fight. The savage band are up in arms; fierce blows Deform their seat, and break their soft repose. So faithless as the smiles of pleasure are! So close the heel of joy is rubbed by care! Now swords, now tubes with fetid sulphur prest, And gleam of iron, and lances in the rest, And dreadful clash ensue: the bars within Strain to the pressure and the hideous din ; While the touched nitre, with distracting sound, Spatters its fires and erring hisses round.
Heaped is the floor with slain; strewed round the stage Host lies on host, dire fruit of civil rage.
At length, when war has spent his frantic fires, And thirst of blood no more the breast inspires, To former arts they turn, and wonted ways. And here not seldom such whom happier days Knew, or renown of sequent ages held, Shew their small bulks, a venerable eld, Fathers, dread names, majestic walk revered, With careful front, and spread of snowy beard.
Thus sad Tithonus changed his mighty trunk, In deathless waste thus ever dwindling shrunk, Till all the hero in a cricket slunk.
But now the lineage of this pigmy band, Their latent life, and the directing hand, I shall unfold. The workman shapes his wood Till, to the human mould, he has subdued His oak-born progeny; with strappings meet Arms to the shoulders binds, to the legs, feet; Limb suits to limb, and joint to joint inserts: Then fits small blocks, through which his hand exerts The easy weights. Thus, dexterous he employs The secret motion, and affords the voice. And now complete, each little puppet shews
His lines of deep-trenched thought, and chisselled brows. They leap, they swing, act all their volant airs, And utter sounds compressed, and words not theirs.
THOU mountain stream, whose early torrent-course Hath many a drear and distant region seen, Windest thy downward way with slacken'd force, As with the journey thou had'st wearied been; And all enamour'd of these margins green, Delight'st to wander with a sportive tide, Seeming with refluent current still to glide
Around the hazel banks that o'er thee lean :- Like thee, sweet stream, my wearied soul would roam (Forgetful of life's dark and troublous hour) Through scenes where Fancy frames her fairy bower, And Love, enchanted, rears his cottage-home; But time and tide wait not-and I, like thee,
go where tempests rage, and wrecks bestrew the sea.
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