With Mine Own Petard

Time was the local poets sang their songsBeneath their breath in terror of the thongsI snapped about their shins. Though mild the strokeBards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk,"Fearing all noises but the one they makeThemselves--at which all other mortals quake.Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,Like rats from sewers scampering, their notesPour forth to move, where'er the season serves,If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;As once a ram's-horn solo maddened allThe sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.A year's exemption from the critic's curseMends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight,Or by the sudden plashing of a stoneFrom some adjacent cottage garden thrown,But straight renew the song with double dinWhene'er the light goes out or man goes in.Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,Accomplishing my body all in brass,And arm in battle royal to opposeA village poet singing through the nose,Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strumsWith clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?No, let them rhyme; I fought them once beforeAnd stilled their songs--but, Satan! how they swore!--Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throatsThey cleared for action with their sweetest notes;Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine)And damned them roundly all along the line;Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!What gained I so? I feathered every curseLaunched at the village bards with lilting verse.The town approved and christened me (to show itsHigh admiration) Chief of Local Poets!