To An Author[340]

Your leaves bound up compact and fair, In neat array at length prepare, To pass their hour on learning's stage, To meet the surly critic's rage; The statesman's slight, the smatterer's sneer-- Were these, indeed, your only fear, You might be tranquil and resigned: What most should touch your fluttering mind; Is that, few critics will be found To sift your works, and deal the wound.

Thus, when one fleeting year is past On some bye-shelf your book is cast-- Another comes, with something new, And drives you fairly out of view: With some to praise, but more to blame, The mind returns to--whence it came; And some alive, who scarce could read Will publish satires on the dead.

Thrice happy Dryden[A], who could meet Some rival bard in every street! When all were bent on writing well It was some credit to excel:--

[A] See Johnson's lives of the English Poets.--Freneau's note.

Thrice happy Dryden, who could find A Milbourne for his sport designed-- And Pope, who saw the harmless rage Of Dennis bursting o'er his page Might justly spurn the critic's aim, Who only helped to swell his fame.

On these bleak climes by Fortune thrown, Where rigid Reason reigns alone, Where lovely Fancy has no sway, Nor magic forms about us play-- Nor nature takes her summer hue Tell me, what has the muse to do?--

An age employed in edging steel Can no poetic raptures feel; No solitude's attracting power, No leisure of the noon day hour, No shaded stream, no quiet grove Can this fantastic century move;

The muse of love in no request-- Go--try your fortune with the rest, One of the nine you should engage, To meet the follies of the age:--

On one, we fear, your choice must fall-- The least engaging of them all-- Her visage stern--an angry style-- A clouded brow--malicious smile-- A mind on murdered victims placed-- She, only she, can please the taste!

First published in the 1788 edition. It doubtless records the poet's mood a year or two after his first book, the 1786 collection, was given to the public. Its original title was "An Author's Soliloquy." In 1795 the title was changed to "An Author on Authorship." Text from the 1809 edition.

"Time's broad stage."--Ed. 1788.

"Pedants."--Ib.

The poem in the 1788 version is wholly in the first person.

"What most torments my boding mind."--Ed. 1788.

"No critic."--Ib.

"Read."--Ib.

"With dead men's works my book is class'd."--Ib.

This line and the following not in the original version.

"Soul."--Ib.

"And I must wear the marks of time Who hardly flourish'd in my prime."--Ed. 1788.

In the 1788 version two lines follow:

"While those condemn'd to stand alone Can only by themselves be known."--Ib.

"Around her."--Ib.

"No fabled Love's enchanting power, Nor tale of Flora's painted bower, Nor woodland haunt, or murmuring grove, Can their prosaic bosoms move."--Ib.

"I'll try my fortune."--Ib.

"Which of the Nine shall I engage To suit the humour of the age."--Ib.

Followed by:

"So late she does her wreathes prepare I hardly think them worth my care."--Ib.