VANBRUGH'S HOUSE

In times of old, when Time was young,

And poets their own verses sung,

A verse would draw a stone or beam,

That now would overload a team;

Lead‘ em a dance of many a mile,

Then rear‘ em to a goodly pile.

Each number had its diff'rent power;

Heroic strains could build a tower;

Sonnets and elegies to Chloris,

Might raise a house about two stories;

A lyric ode would slate; a catch

Would tile; an epigram would thatch.

Now Poets feel this art is lost,

Both to their own and landlord's cost.

Not one of all the tuneful throng

Can hire a lodging for a song.

For Jove consider'd well the case,

That poets were a numerous race;

And if they all had power to build,

The earth would very soon be fill'd:

Materials would be quickly spent,

And houses would not give a rent.

The God of Wealth was therefore made

Sole patron of the building trade;

Leaving to wits the spacious air,

With license to build castles there:

In right whereof their old pretence

To lodge in garrets comes from thence.

There is a worm by Phoebus bred,

By leaves of mulberry is fed,

Which unprovided where to dwell,

Conforms itself to weave a cell;

Then curious hands this texture take,

And for themselves fine garments make.

Meantime a pair of awkward things

Grow to his back instead of wings;

He flutters when he thinks he flies,

Then sheds about his spawn and dies.

Just such an insect of the age

Is he that scribbles for the stage;

His birth he does from Phoebus raise,

And feeds upon imagin'd bays;

Throws all his wit and hours away

In twisting up an ill spun Play:

This gives him lodging and provides

A stock of tawdry shift besides.

With the unravell'd shreds of which

The under wits adorn their speech:

And now he spreads his little fans,

( For all the Muses Geese are Swans )

And borne on Fancy's pinions, thinks

He soars sublimest when he sinks:

But scatt'ring round his fly-blows, dies;

Whence broods of insect-poets rise.

Premising thus, in modern way,

The greater part I have to say;

Sing, Muse, the house of Poet Van,

In higher strain than we began.

Van ( for‘ tis fit the reader know it )

Is both a Herald and a Poet;

No wonder then if nicely skill'd

In each capacity to build.

As Herald, he can in a day

Repair a house gone to decay;

Or by achievements, arms, device,

Erect a new one in a trice;

And poets, if they had their due,

By ancient right are builders too:

This made him to Apollo pray

For leave to build — the poets way.

His prayer was granted, for the God

Consented with the usual nod.

After hard throes of many a day

Van was delivered of a play,

Which in due time brought forth a house,

Just as the mountain did the mouse.

One story high, one postern door,

And one small chamber on a floor,

Born like a phoenix from the flame:

But neither bulk nor shape the same;

As animals of largest size

Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies;

A type of modern wit and style,

The rubbish of an ancient pile;

So chemists boast they have a power,

From the dead ashes of a flower

Some faint resemblance to produce,

But not the virtue, taste, nor juice.

So modern rhymers strive to blast

The poetry of ages past;

Which, having wisely overthrown,

They from its ruins build their own.