CONSISTENCY

Should painter attach to a fair human head

The thick, turgid neck of a stallion,

Or depict a spruce lass with the tail of a bass,

I am sure you would guy the rapscallion.

Believe me, dear Pisos, that just such a freak

Is the crude and preposterous poem

Which merely abounds in a torrent of sounds,

With no depth of reason below‘ em.

‘ T is all very well to give license to art,—

The wisdom of license defend I;

But the line should be drawn at the fripperish spawn

Of a mere cacoethes scribendi.

It is too much the fashion to strain at effects,—

Yes, that's what's the matter with Hannah!

Our popular taste, by the tyros debased,

Paints each barnyard a grove of Diana!

Should a patron require you to paint a marine,

Would you work in some trees with their barks on?

When his strict orders are for a Japanese jar,

Would you give him a pitcher like Clarkson?

Now, this is my moral: Compose what you may,

And Fame will be ever far distant

Unless you combine with a simple design

A treatment in toto consistent.