Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/195

The crowd with laughter at his odd mistakes:
Here, in this roaring, tossing, weltering sea,
To tune sweet lyrics, is that work for me?
Two brothers, counsellor and pleader, went
Through life on terms of mutual compliment;
That thought the other Gracchus, this supposed
His brother Mucius; so they praised and prosed.
Our tuneful race the selfsame madness goads:
My friend writes elegies, and I write odes:
O how we puff each other! "'Tis divine;
The Muses had a hand in every line."
Remark our swagger as we pass the dome
Built to receive the future bards of Rome;
Then follow us and listen what we say,
How each by turns awards and takes the bay.
Like Samnite fencers, with elaborate art
We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart.
I'm dubbed Alcæus, and retire in force:
And who is he? Callimachus of course:
Or, if 'tis not enough, I bid him rise
Mimnermus, and he swells to twice his size.
Writing myself, I'm tortured to appease
Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees:
But when my pen's laid down, my sense restored,
I rest from boring, rest from being bored.
Bad poets are our jest: yet they delight,
Just like their betters, in whate'er they write,
Hug their fool's paradise, and if you're slack
To give them praise, themselves supply the lack.
But he who meditates a work of art,