The Happy Printer
The Printer's is a happy lot:
Alone of all professions,
No fateful smudges ever blot
His earliest 'impressions.'
The outgrowth of his youthful ken
No cold obstruction fetters;
He quickly learns the 'types' of men,
And all the world of 'letters.'
With 'forms' he scorns to compromise;
For him no 'rule' has terrors;
The 'slips' he makes he can 'revise'--
They are but 'printers' errors.'
From doubtful questions of the 'Press'
He wisely holds aloof;
In all polemics, more or less,
His argument is 'proof.'
Save in their 'case,' with High and Low,
Small need has he to grapple!
Without dissent he still can go
To his accustomed 'Chapel,'
From ills that others scape or shirk,
He rarely fails to rally;
For him, his most 'composing' work
Is labour of the 'galley.'
Though ways be foul, and days are dim,
He makes no lamentation;
The primal 'fount' of woe to him
Is--want of occupation:
And when, at last, Time finds him grey
With over-close attention,
He solves the problem of the day,
And gets an Old Age pension.
Ars Victrix
YES; when the ways oppose—
When the hard means rebel,
Fairer the work out-grows,—
More potent far the spell.
O Poet, then, forbear
The loosely-sandalled verse,
Choose rather thou to wear
The buskin—strait and terse;
Leave to the tiro’s hand
The limp and shapeless style;
See that thy form demand
The labor of the file.
Sculptor, do thou discard
The yielding clay,—consign
To Paros marble hard
The beauty of thy line;—
Model thy Satyr’s face
For bronze of Syracuse;
In the veined agate trace
The profile of thy Muse.
Painter, that still must mix
But transient tints anew,
Thou in the furnace fix
The firm enamel’s hue;
Let the smooth tile receive
Thy dove-drawn Erycine;
Thy Sirens blue at eve
Coiled in a wash of wine.
All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,—
The Coin, Tiberius;
Even the gods must go;
Only the lofty Rhyme
Not countless years o’erthrow,—
Not long array of time.
Paint, chisel, then, or write;
But, that the work surpass,
With the hard fashion fight,—
With the resisting mass.
