Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/200

Commending chiefly its docility
And humour in stage-tricks; or else indeed
Gets hissed at, howled at, stamped at like a dog,
Or worse, we’ll say. For dogs, unjustly kicked,
Yell, bite at need; but if your dramatist
(Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies
Because their grosser brains most naturally
Misjudge the fineness of his subtle wit)
Shows teeth an almond’s breath, protests the length
Of a.modest phrase,—‘My gentle countrymen,
‘There’s something in it, haply of your fault,’—
Why then, besides five hundred nobodies,
He’ll have five thousand, and five thousand more,
Against him,—the whole public,—all the hoofs
Of King Saul’s father’s asses, in full drove,—
And obviously deserve it. He appealed
To these,—and why say more if they condemn,
Than if they praised him?—Weep, my Æschylus,
But low and far, upon Sicilian shores!
For since ’twas Athens (so I read the myth)
Who gave commission to that fatal weight,
The tortoise, cold and hard, to drop on thee
And crush thee,—better cover thy bald head;
She’ll hear the softest hum of Hyblan bee
Before thy loud’st protesting.—For the rest,
The risk’s still worse upon the modern stage;
I could not, in so little, accept success,
Nor would I risk so much, in ease and calm,
For manifester gains; let those who prize,
Pursue them: I stand off.