“Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam

Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas

Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum

Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne;

Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici?”

—Horace, Ars Poetica.

In ancient times, when bards without pretence

Knelt down to beauty, and deferr’d to sense,

Bright Nature glow’d in well-selected dress,

And pleas’d us with a double loveliness.

‘Twas then great Homer warm’d the list’ning heart,

And gentle Maro cheer’d the soul with art:

Then Horace made the laws of writing known,

And what he preach’d attended in his own;

With care reflected, and with wisdom taught

Each turn of poesy and rule of thought.

In various fashions various authors writ,

Yet none but strove for melody and wit;

Dulness was eas’d, and worth sublimely grac’d,

With even numbers, and harmonious taste.

Succeeding times an equal genius bore,

Yet the skill’d bard attends the rules of yore;

Unchang’d they reign, tho’ novel themes abound,

Their goal exalted, and their spirit sound.

Thus lofty Shakespeare struck the living lyre,

And Milton sang with scarce inferior fire;

Thus facile Pope our modern tongue refin’d,

And Horace’s to Homer’s talents join’d:

Thus Thomson the revolving year review’d,

And shew’d the changing charms of wold and wood;

Thus gentle Goldsmith and the dismal Dean

With classic ease serv’d up their smiles or spleen.

Cowper’s sad Muse enervate art display’d,

And Wordsworth’s prattle pain’d the Heav’nly Maid;

Yet thro’ it all the poet throng she led,

Beauty and truth still beaming bright ahead.

Immortal Keats th’ Olympian impulse knew,

And hapless Poe kept Helicon in view.

Sweet Tennyson melodic murmurs roll’d,

And shining Swinburne felt the flame of old:

So from on high the noble notes we hear,

When hark! they fade—they pause—they disappear!

Engulfing folly! Spawn of febrile earth!

Destructive monster of unnatural birth!

Aonia weeps as thy foul dictates sway

The public fancy and the poet’s lay.

True art, like Nature, variously glows,

And ev’ry side in gen’rous measure shews;

Surveys the scene with calm appraising eye,

And sings its choicest features as they lie.

No odd perspective lends eccentric tone,

Nor aimless musing takes its flight alone;

The idle fancy and the vagrant mind,

In science, not in art, their province find.

Artistic souls the earthly picture scan;

Paint what hath shone to centuries of man;

Psychology the mental wand’rer views,

And Aesculapius claims him, not the Muse!

Yet see on ev’ry hand the antic train

That swarm uncheck’d, and gibber o’er the plain.

Here Librist, Cubist, Spectrist forms arise;

With foetid vapours cloud the crystal skies;

Or led by transient madness, rend the air

With shrieks of bliss and whinings of despair.

Exempt from wit, each dullard pours his ink

In odes to bathtubs, or the kitchen sink;

Bent on effect, they search their souls for themes,

And spout disease, or colic-troubled dreams.

See to what depths a Lowell can descend;

How Masters can his guideless force expend;

Hear morbid Gould inflict a limping tune,

Or striving Sandburg bay the suff’ring moon.

Distress’d we watch the clownish chorus chant

Unmeaning nonsense and abhorrent cant;

When thro’ the gloom some reason is diffus’d,

We mourn to think of so much sense unus’d!

Undying Pallas, whose all-pow’rful rule

Exalts the artist and condemns the fool,

Whose gentle will made Grecian genius shine,

And gave to Rome her majesty divine,

Pardon the erring race which bade thee fly

So lately to thine own Olympian sky:

Descend once more to these celestial meads,

To kindle art, and ease our mortal needs.

Instruct each bard in bright forgotten truth,

And from his follies save aspiring youth;

Unfold again the heav’n-imparted code

That shapes the lyric, pastoral, and ode.

Pierian skill a second time confer

On feeble man, so prone to sink and err,

And with kind patience teach his race anew

To choose the good, the beautiful, the true.

These boons, Athena, in thy mercy send

To bless the few who still would call thee friend;

The faithful few who with threnetic lays

Implore thy succour, and diffuse thy praise:

Offspring of Jove, may thy forgiving care

Reward our smoking altars and our pray’r!