Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 133

SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW

So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt,Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt!—Spare the offender and condemn Offense,And make life miserable to Pretense!"Whip Vice and Folly—that is satire's use—But be not personal, for that's abuse;Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen,Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.'"Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe,To think that razor but an old, old saw,A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure,That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure.Go to! go to!—you're as unfitted quiteTo give advice to writers as to write.I find in Folly and in Vice a lackOf head to hit, and for the lash no back;Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck,And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,God gave to him a corn, a heel to me.He, also, sets his face (so like a flintThe wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't)With cold austerity, against these warsOn scamps—'tis Scampery that he abhors!Behold advance in dignity and state—Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great—Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestowsIn alms what t'other one as justice owes.Rascality attends him like a shade,But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade,Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed.Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel,If, like Pelides, only in the heel.The fellow's self invites assault; his crimesWill each bear killing twenty thousand times!Anon Creed Haymond—but the list is longOf names to point the moral of my song.Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise,They foul the earth and horrify the skies—With Mr. Huntington (sole honest manIn all the reek of that rapscallion clan)Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can!