Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PROGRESS by JOHN GODFREY SAXE

First Line: IS THIS, OUR HAPPY AND 'PROGRESSIVE' AGE
Last Line: NOR BEEN ILL-NATURED EVEN WHEN SHE BLAMED.
IN this, our happy and "progressive" age,
When all alike ambitious cares engage;
When beardless boys to sudden sages grow,
And "Miss" her nurse abandons for a beau;
When for their dogmas Non-Resistants fight,
When dunces lecture, and when dandies write;
When matrons, seized with oratoric pangs,
Give happy birth to masculine harangues,
And spinsters, trembling for the nation's fate,
Neglect their stockings to preserve the state;
When critic-wits their brazen lustre shed
On golden authors whom they never read,
With parrot praise of "Roman grandeur" speak,
And in bad English eulogize the Greek; --
When facts like these no reprehension bring,
May not, uncensured, an Attorney sing?
In sooth he may; and though "unborn" to climb
Parnassus' heights, and "build the lofty rhyme,"
Though Flaccus fret, and warningly advise
That "middling verses gods and men despise,"
Yet will he sing, to Yankee license true,
In spite of Horace and "Minerva" too!

My theme is Progress, -- never-tiring theme
Of prosing dullness, and poetic dream;
Beloved of Optimists, who still protest
Whatever happens, happens for the best;
Who prate of "evil" as a thing unknown,
A fancied color, or a seeming tone,
A vague chimera cherished by the dull,
The empty product of an emptier skull.
Expert logicians they! -- to show at will,
By ill philosophy, that naught is ill!
Should some sly rogue, the city's constant curse,
Deplete your pocket and relieve your purse,
Or if, approaching with ill-omened tread,
Some bolder burglar break your house and head,
Hold, friend, thy rage! nay, let the rascal flee;
No evil has been done the world, or thee:
Here comes Philosophy will make it plain
Thy seeming loss is universal gain!
"Thy heap of gold was clearly grown too great, --
'T were best the poor should share thy large estate;
While misers gather, that the knaves should steal,
Is most conducive to the general weal;
Thus thieves the wrongs of avarice efface,
And stand the friends and stewards of the race;
Thus every moral ill but serves, in fact,
Some other equal ill to counteract."
Sublime Philosophy! -- benignant light!
Which sees in every pair of wrongs, a right;
Which finds no evil or in sin or pain,
And proves that decalogues are writ in vain!

Hail, mighty Progress! loftiest we find
Thy stalking strides in science of the mind.
What boots it now that Locke was learned and wise?
What boots it now that men have ears and eyes?
"Pure Reason" in their stead now hears and sees,
And walks apart in stately scorn of these;
Laughs at "experience," spurns "induction" hence,
Scouting "the senses," and transcending sense.
No more shall flippant ignorance inquire,
"If German breasts may feel poetic fire,"
Nor German dullness write ten folios full,
To show, for once, that Dutchmen are not dull.
For here Philosophy, acute, refined,
Sings all the marvels of the human mind
In strains so passing "dainty sweet" to hear,
That e'en the nursery turns a ravished ear!
Here Wit and Fancy in scholastic bowers
Twine beauteous wreaths of metaphysic flowers;
Here Speculation pours her dazzling light,
Here grand Invention wings a daring flight,
And soars ambitious to the lofty moon,
Whence, haply, freighted with some precious boon,
Some old "Philosophy" in fog incased,
Or new "Religion" for the changing taste,
She straight descends to Learning's blest abodes,
Just simultaneous with the Paris modes!
Here Plato's dogmas eloquently speak,
Not as of yore, in grand and graceful Greek,
But (quite beyond the dreaming sage's hope
Of future glory in his fancy's scope),
Translated down, as by some wizard touch,
Find "immortality" in good high Dutch!

Happy the youth, in this our golden age,
Condemned no more to con the prosy page
Of Locke and Bacon, antiquated fools,
Now justly banished from our moral schools.
By easier modes philosophy is taught,
Than through the medium of laborious thought.
Imagination kindly serves instead,
And saves the pupil many an aching head.
Room for the sages! -- hither come a throng
Of blooming Platos trippingly along,
In dress how fitted to beguile the fair!
What intellectual, stately heads -- of hair!
Hark to the Oracle! -- to Wisdom's tone
Breathed in a fragrant zephyr of Cologne.
That boy in gloves, the leader of the van,
Talks of the "outer" and the "inner man,"
And knits his girlish brow in stout resolve
Some mountain-sized "idea" to "evolve."
Delusive toil! -- thus in their infant days,
When children mimic manly deeds in plays,
Long will they sit, and eager "bob for whale"
Within the ocean of a water-pail!
The next, whose looks unluckily reveal
The ears portentous that his locks conceal,
Prates of the "orbs" with such a knowing frown,
You deem he puffs some lithographic town
In Western wilds, where yet unbroken ranks
Of thrifty beavers build unchartered "banks,"
And prowling panthers occupy the lots
Adorned with churches on the paper plots!

But ah! what suffering harp is this we hear?
What jarring sounds invade the wounded ear?
Who o'er the lyre a hand spasmodic flings,
And grinds harsh discord from the tortured strings?
The Sacred Muses, at the sound dismayed,
Retreat disordered to their native shade,
And Phoebus hastens to his high abode,
And Orpheus frowns to hear an "Orphie ode!"
"Talk not, ye jockeys, of the wondrous speed
That marks your Northern or your Southern steed;
See Progress fly o'er Education's course!
Not far-famed Derby owns a fleeter horse!
On rare Improvement's "short and easy" road,
How swift her flight to Learning's blest abode!
In other times -- 't was many years ago --
The scholar's course was toilsome, rough, and slow:
The fair Humanities were sought in tears,
And came, the trophy of laborious years.
Now Learning's shrine each idle youth may seek,
And, spending there a shilling and a week,
(At lightest cost of study, cash, and lungs,)
Comes back, like Rumor, with a hundred tongues!

What boots such progress, when the golden load
From heedless haste is lost upon the road?
When each great science, to the student's pace,
Stands like the wicket in a hurdle race,
Which to o'erleap is all the courser's mind,
And all his glory that't is left behind!

Nor less, O Progress, are thy newest rules
Enforced and honored in the "Ladies' School;"
Where Education, in its nobler sense,
Gives place to Learning's shallowest pretense;
Where hapless maids, in spite of wish or taste,
On vain "accomplishments" their moments waste;
By cruel parents here condemned to wrench
Their tender throats in mispronouncing French;
Here doomed to force, by unrelenting knocks,
Reluctant music from a tortured box;
Here taught, in inky shades and rigid lines,
To perpetrate equivocal "designs;"
"Drawings" that prove their title plainly true,
By showing nature "drawn," and "quartered" too!
In ancient times, I've heard my grandam tell,
Young maids were taught to read, and write, and spell;
(Neglected arts! once learned by rigid rules,
As prime essentials in the "common schools;")
Well taught beside in many a useful art
To mend the manners and improve the heart;
Nor yet unskilled to turn the busy wheel,
To ply the shuttle, and to twirl the reel,
Could thrifty tasks with cheerful grace pursue,
Themselves "accomplished," and their duties too.
Of tongues, each maiden had but one, 't is said,
(Enough, 't was thought, to serve a lady's head,)
But that was English, -- great and glorious tongue,
That Chatham spoke, and Milton, Shakespeare, sung!
Let thoughts too idle to be fitly dressed
In sturdy Saxon be in French expressed;
Let lovers breathe Italian, -- like, in sooth,
Its singers, soft, emasculate, and smooth;
But for a tongue whose ample powers embrace
Beauty and force, sublimity and grace,
Ornate or plain, harmonious, yet strong,
And formed alike for eloquence and song,
Give me the English, -- aptest tongue to paint
A sage or dunce, a villain or a saint,
To spur the slothful, counsel the distressed,
To lash the oppressor, and to soothe the oppressed,
To lend fantastic Humor freest scope
To marshall all his laughter-moving troop,
Give Pathos power, and Fancy lightest wings,
And Wit his merriest whims and keenest stings!

The march of Progress let the Muse explore
In pseudo-science and empiric lore.
O sacred Science! how art thou profaned,
When shallow quacks and vagrants, unrestrained,
Flaunt in thy robes, and vagabonds are known
To brawl thy name, who never wrote their own;
When crazy theorists their addled schemes
(Unseemly product of dyspeptic dreams)
Impute to thee! -- as courtesans of yore
Their spurious bantlings left at Mars's door;
When each projector of a patent pill,
Or happy founder of a coffee-mill,
Invokes thine aid to celebrate his wares,
And crown with gold his philanthropic cares;
Thus Islam's hawkers piously proclaim
Their figs and pippins in the Prophet's name!

Some sage Physician, studious to advance
The art of healing, and its praise enhance,
By observation "scientific" finds
(What else were hidden from inferior minds)
That Water's useful in a thousand ways,
To cherish health, and lengthen out our days;
A mighty solvent in its simple scope
And quite "specific" with Castilian soap!
The doctor's labors let the thoughtless scorn,
See! a new "science" to the world is born;
"Disease is dirt! all pain the patient feels
Is but the soiling of the vital wheels;
To wash away all particles impure,
And cleanse the system, plainy is to cure!"
Thus shouts the doctor, eloquent, and proud
To teach his "science" to the gaping crowd;
Like "Father Mathew," eager to allure
Afflicted mortals to his "water-cure!"

'T is thus that modern "sciences" are made,
By bold assumption, puffing, and parade.
Take three stale "truths;" a dozen "facts," assumed;
Two known "effects," and fifty more presumed;
"Affinities" a score, to sense unknown,
And, just as "lucus, non lucendo" shown,
Add but a name of pompous Anglo-Greek,
And only not impossible to speak,
The work is done; a "science" stands confest,
And countless welcomes greet the queenly guest.

In closest girdle, O reluctant Muse,
In scantiest skirts, and lightest-stepping shoes,
Prepare to follow Fashion's gay advance,
And thread the mazes of her motley dance:
And, marking well each momentary hue,
And transient form, that meets the wondering view,
In kindred colors, gentle Muse, essay
Her Protean phases fitly to betray.
To-day, she slowly drags a cumbrous trail,
And "Ton" rejoices in its length of tail;
To-morrow, changing her capricious sport,
She trims her flounces just as much too short;
To-day, right jauntily, a hat she wears
That scarce affords a shelter to her ears;
To-morrow, haply, searching long in vain,
You spy her features down a Leghorn lane;
To-day, she glides along with queenly grace,
To-morrow, ambles in a mincing pace.
To-day, erect, she loves a martial air,
And envious train-bands emulate the fair;
To-morrow, changing as her whim may serve,
"She stoops to conquer" in a "Grecian curve."
To-day, with careful negligence arrayed
In scanty folds, of woven zephyrs made,
She moves like Dian in her woody bowers,
Or Flora floating o'er a bed of flowers;
To-morrow, laden with a motley freight,
Of startling bulk and formidable weight,
She waddles forth, ambitious to amaze
The vulgar crowd, who giggle as they gaze.

Despotic Fashion! potent is her sway,
Whom half the world full loyally obey;
Kings bow submissive to her stern decrees,
And proud Republics bend their necks and knees;
Where'er we turn the attentive eye, is seen
The worshiped presence of the modish queen;
In Dress, Philosophy, Religion, Art,
Whate'er employs the head, or hand, or heart.

Is some fine lady quite o'ercome with woes,
From an unyielding pimple on her nose,
Some unaccustomed "buzzing in her ears,"
Or other marvel to alarm her fears?
Fashion, with skill and judgment ever nice,
At once advises "medical advice!"
Then names her doctor, who, arrived in haste,
Proceeds accordant with the laws oi taste.
If real ills afflict the modish dame,
Her blind idolatry is still the same;
Less grievous far, she deems it, to endure
Genteel malpractice, than a vulgar cure.
If, spite of gilded pills and golden fees,
Her dear dyspepsia grows a dire disease,
And Doctor Dapper proves a shallow rogue,
The world must own that both were much in vogue.

What impious mockery, when, with soulless art,
Fashion, intrusive, seeks to rule the heart!
Directs how grief may tastefully be borne;
Instructs Bereavement just how long to mourn;
Shows Sorrow how by nice degrees to fade,
And marks its measure in a ribbon's shade!
More impious still, when, through her wanton laws,
She desecrates Religion's sacred cause;
Shows how "the narrow road" is easiest trod,
And how, genteelest, worms may worship God;
How sacred rites may bear a worldly grace,
And self-abasement wear a haughty face;
How sinners, long in Folly's mazes whirled,
With pomp and splendor may "renounce the world;"
How, "with all saints hereafter to appear,"
Yet quite escape the vulgar portion here!

Imperial fashion! her impartial care
Things most momentous, and most trivial, share;
Now crushing conscience (her invet'rate foe),
And now a waist, and now, perchance, a toe;
At once for pistols and "the Polka" votes,
And shapes alike our characters and coats.
The gravest question which the world divides,
And lightest riddle, in a breath decides:
"If wrong may not, by circumstance, be right," --
"If black cravats be more genteel than white," --
"If by her 'bishop', or her 'grace,' alone,
A genuine lady, or a church, is known;" --
Problems like these she solves with graceful air,
At once a casuist and a connoisseur.

Does some sleek knave, whom magic money-bags
Have raised above his fellow-knaves in rags,
Some willing minion of unblushing Vice,
Who boasts that "Virtue ever has her price," --
Does he, unpitying, blast thy sister's fame,
Or doom thy daughter to undying shame,
To bow her head beneath the eye of scorn,
And droop and wither in her maiden morn?
Fashion "regrets," declares "'t was very wrong,"
And, quite dejected, hums an opera song.
Impartial friend, your cause to her appealed,
Yourself and foe she summons to the field,
Where Honor carefully the case observes,
And nicely weighs it in a scale of nerves.
Despotic rite! whose fierce, vindictive reign
Boasts, unrebuked, its countless victims slain,
While Christian rulers, recreant, support
The pagan honors of thy bloody court,
And "Freedom's champions" spurn their hallowed trust,
Kneel at thy nod, and basely lick the dust.

Degraded Congress! once the honored scene
Of patriotic deeds; where men of solemn mien,
In virtue strong, in understanding clear,
Earnest, though courteous, and, though smooth, sincere,
To gravest counsels lent the teeming hours,
And gave their country all their mighty powers.
But times are changed, a rude, degenerate race
Usurp the seats, and shame the sacred place.
Here plotting demagogues with zeal defend
The "people's rights," -- to gain some private end.
Here Southern youths, on Folly's surges tost,
Their fathers' wisdom eloquently boast.
(So dowerless spinsters proudly number o'er
The costly jewels that their grandams wore.)
Here would-be Tullys pompously parade
Their tumid tropes for simple "Buncombe" made,
Full on the chair the chilling torrent shower,
And work their word-pumps through the allotted hour.
Deluded "Buncombe!" while, with honest praise,
She notes each grand and patriotic phrase,
And, much rejoicing in her hopeful son,
Deems all her own the laurels he has won,
She little dreams how brother members fled,
And left the house as vacant as his head!
Here rural Chathams, eager to attest
The "growing greatness of the mighty West,"
To make the plainest proposition clear,
Crack Priscian's head, and Mr. Speaker's ear;
Then, closing up in one terrific shout,
Pour all their "wild-cats" furiously out!
Here lawless boors with ruffian bullies vie,
Who last shall give the rude, insulting "lie,"
While "Order! order!" loud the chairman calls,
And echoing "Order!" every member bawls;
Till rising high in rancorous debate,
And higher still in fierce envenomed hate,
Retorted blows the scene of riot crown,
And big Lycurgus knocks the lesser down!

Ye honest dames in frequent proverbs named,
For finest fish and foulest English famed,
Whose matchless tongues, 't is said, were never heard
To speak a flattering or a feeble word, --
Here all your choice invective ye might urge
Our lawless Solons fittingly to scourge,
Here, in congenial company, might rail
Till, quite worn out, your creaking voices fail, --
Unless, indeed, for once compelled to yield
In wordy strife, ye vanquished quit the field!

Hail, Social Progress! each new moon is rife
With some new theory of social life,
Some matchless scheme ingeniously designed
From half their miseries to free mankind;
On human wrongs triumphant war to wage,
And bring anew the glorious golden age.
"Association" is the magic word
From many a social "priest and prophet" heard,
"Attractive Labor" is the angel given,
To render earth a sublunary Heaven!
"Attractive Labor!" ring the changes round,
And labor grows attractive in the sound;
And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk
Unwelcomed fancies at the name of "work,"
Sees pleasant pastime in its longing view
Of "toil made easy" and "attractive" too,
And, fancy-rapt, with joyful ardor, turns
Delightful grindstones and seductive churns!
"Men are not bad," these social sages preach;
"Men are not what their actions seem to teach;
No moral ill is natural or fixed, --
Men only err by being badly mixed!"
To them the world a huge plum-pudding seems,
Made up of richest viands, fruits, and creams,
Which of all choice ingredients partook,
And then was ruined by a blundering cook!

Inventive France! what wonder-working schemes
Astound the world whene'er a Frenchman dreams.
What fine-spun theories, -- ingenious, new,
Sublime, stupendous, everything but true!
One little favor, O "Imperial France!"
Still teach the world to cook, to dress, to dance;
Let, if thou wilt, thy boots and barbers roam,
But keep thy morals and thy creeds at home!

O might the Muse prolong her flowing rhyme
(Too closely cramped by unrelenting Time,
Whose dreadful scythe swings heedlessly along,
And, missing speeches, clips the thread of song),
How would she strive, in fitting verse, to sing
The wondrous Progress of the Printing King!
Bibles and Novels, Treatises and Songs,
Lectures on "Rights," and Strictures upon Wrongs;
Verse in all metres, Travels in all climes,
Rhymes without reason, Sonnets without rhymes;
"Translations from the French," so vilely done,
The wheat escaping leaves the chaff alone;
Memoirs, where dunces steadily essay
To cheat Oblivion of her certain prey;
Critiques, where pedants vauntingly expose
Unlicensed verses in unlawful prose;
Lampoons, whose authors strive in vain to throw
Their headless arrows from a nerveless bow;
Poems by youths, who, crossing Nature's will,
Harangue the landscape they were born to till;
Huge tomes of Law, that lead by rugged routes
Through ancient dogmas down to modern doubts;
Where Judges oft, with well-affected ease,
Give learned reasons for absurd decrees,
Or, more ingenious still, contrive to found
Some just decision on fallacious ground,
Or blink the point, and, haply, in its place,
Moot and decide some hypothetic case;
Smart Epigrams, all sadly out of joint,
And pointless, -- save the "exclamation point,"
Which stands in state, with vacant wonder fraught,
The pompous tombstone of some pauper thought;
Ingenious systems based on doubtful facts,
"Tracts for the Times," and most untimely tracts;
Polemic Pamphlets, Literary Toys,
And Easy Lessons for uneasy boys;
Hebdomadal Gazettes, and Daily News,
Gay Magazines, and Quarterly Reviews: --
Small portion these, of all the vast array
Of darkened leaves that cloud each passing day,
And pour their tide unceasingly along,
A gathering, swelling, overwhelming throng!

Cease, O my Muse, nor, indiscreet, prolong
To epic length thy unambitious song.
Good friends, be gentle to a maiden Muse,
Her errors pardon, and her faults excuse.
Not uninvited to her task she came,
To sue for favor, nor to seek for fame.
Be this, at least, her just though humble praise:
No stale excuses heralded her lays,
No singer's trick, -- conveniently to bring
A sudden cough, when importuned to sing;
No deprecating phrases, learned by rote, --
"She'd quite forgot," or "never knew a note," --
But to her task, with ready zeal, addressed
Her earnest care, and aimed to do her best;
Strove to be just in each satiric word,
To doubtful wit undoubted truth preferred,
To please and profit equally has aimed,
Nor been ill-natured even when she blamed.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net