e interlopers blending thoughts of fame and pelf are vending
Various wares while they're ascending. FOX the public fancy hits,
At so much per scratch revealing scratches on the walls and ceiling,
Made with infinite good feeling, by dead heroes, bards, and wits,
To amuse an epileptic milliner between her fits.
REICHENBACH here runs up, saying he can see a marsh light playing
On the hill in open day; in swamps to sink above his knees
For his pains he is devoted. 'Mongst the rest, too, here, I noted
The unknown, but often quoted, author of the "Vestiges,"
Seeking for the geese that spring from barnacles that grow on trees.
Here our path with doubts and dangers thick is set; for shabby strangers,
Little better than bush-rangers, try our purses to retain:
Pupils these of PROUDHON'S teaching: CARLYLE runs amongst us preaching
That we are but wind-bags, screeching flunkies, shams and shadows vain:
CULLEN, WISEMAN, NEWMAN, tell us our true path is down again.
And a band, denominated Critics, of mere words created,
(Like the horses who were stated to be children of the wind)
Come to settle each pretension; but our best and wisest men shun
The oft proffered intervention of these blind guides of the blind;
On we press, and leave quacks, critics, dreamers, schemers, all behind.
From the crowd some intervening pine-trees now our band are screening,
Yet they shout, their praises meaning for the quacks we leave below.
We, with bated breath, slow creeping up the sharply rising steep, in
Indian file our course must keep in paths that faint and fainter grow--
Only by the spoils of those who went before, the track we know.
For in crevice, nook, and cranny peering, we perceive that many
Of our predecessors any loads they liked not, here threw down.
LOYOLA'S whole knightly armour, and the ploughshare of the farmer
HAMPDEN; SOUTHEY'S early drama of _Wat Tyler_; CODRUS' crown;
Stout ARCHBISHOP BLACKBURN'S cutlass; JOAN OF ARC'S plain hodden gown;
GALILEO'S _early_ notion of the Sun's diurnal motion;
BECKET'S slily feigned devotion to his Royal Master's sway;
LOPE'S, CALDERON'S, CERVANTES' swords, exchanged for pens, and DANTE'S
(When as force could not supplant his foes, he took a surer way);
BRUTUS' simulated weakness; strewn about the mountain, lay.
On these relics as we trample, fired by such a good example,
Some of our men leave an ample share upon the flinty strand;