TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN

Long have I sate on this disastrous shore,

And, sighing, sought to gain a passage o'er

To Europe's courts, where, as our travellers say,

Poets may flourish, or — perhaps — they may;

But such abuse has from your coarse pen fell

Perhaps I may defer my voyage as well,

Why should I far in search of patrons roam,

And Shylock leave to triumph here at home?

Should Shylock's poemsstyle you all that's base,

Abuse your stature, and malignyour face,

Make you the worst and vilest of your kind,

With not one spark of virtuein your mind;

Would you to Shylock'srancorous page reply,

So fam'd for scandal, and so prone to lie?

Still may those bag-pipes of sedition play,

( For fools may writeand knaves must have their day )

Still from that page let clamorous bardsdefame,

And madness rave, and malice take her aim:

May scribes on scribes in verse and prose combine,

And fiend-like Sawney roarthrough every line;

Long may they write, unquestion'd and unhurt,

And all their rage discharge, and all their dirt:

Night-owls must screech, by heaven's supreme decree,

And wolves must howl, or wolves they would not be.

From empty froth these scribbling insects rose;

What honest man but counts them for his foes?

When they are lash'd, may dunce with dunce condole,

And bellow nonsense from the tortured soul;

When they are dead and in some dungeon cramm'd,

( For die they will, and all their works be damn'd )

When they have belch'd their last departing groans,

May dogs and doctors barbecuetheir bones,

And, the last horrors of their souls to calm,

Shylock, their bard,console them with — a psalm!