To Thos. Floyd

How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy'dLeft the old home in need of livelier playFor body and mind? How fare, this many a day,The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd?If not too well with country sport employ'd,Visit my flock, the breezy hill that theyChoose for their fold; and see, for thence you may,From rising walls all roofless yet and void,

The lovely city, thronging tower and spire,The mind of the wide landscape, dreaming deep,Grey-silvery in the vale; a shrine where keepMemorial hopes their pale celestial fire:Like man's immortal conscience of desire,The spirit that watcheth in me ev'n in my sleep.

Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ansL'or de Rothschild, la gloire de Voltaire.I like that: Béranger in his printems,Voltaire and Rothschild: what three graces thereFoot it together! But of old Voltaire,I'd ask what Béranger found so sublimeIn that man's glory to adorn his rhyme.Was it mere fame?

Nay: for as wide a fameWas won by the gold-garnering millionaire,Who in the poet's verse might read his nameAnd what is that? when so much froth and scumFloat down the stream of Time (as Bacon saith),What is that for deliverance from the death?Could any sober man be proud to holdA lease of common talk, or die consoledFor thinking that on lips of fools to comeHe'll live with Pontius Pilate and Tom Thumb?That were more like eternal punishment,The true fool's Paradise by all consent.Béranger thought to set a crown on merit.

Man's merit! and to crown it in Voltaire?The modest eye, the gentle, fearless heart,The mouth of peace and truth, the angelic spirit!Why Arouet was soufflé with the leaven,Of which the little flock was bid beware:His very ambition was to play a part;Indifferent whether he did wrong or right,So he won credit; eager to denyA lie that failed, by adding lie to lie;Repaying evil unto seven-times-seven;A fount of slander, flattery and spite;Vain, irritable; true but to his faceOf mockery and mischievous grimace,A monkey of the schools, the saints' despair!

Granted he was a wonder of his kind.There is a devilish mockery in thingsWhich only a born devil can enjoy.True banter is of melancholy mind,Akin to madness; thus must Shakespeare toyWith Hamlet's reason, ere his fine art darePush his relentless humour to the quick;And so his mortal thrusts pierce not the skin.But for the superficial bickeringsThat poison life and never seem to prick,The reasonable educated grin,Truly no wag is equal to Voltaire;His never-dying ripple, wide and light,Has nigh the force of Nature: to compare,'Tis like the ocean when the sky is bright,And the cold north-wind tickles with surpriseThe briny levels of the infinite sea.--Shall we conclude his merit was his wit,His magic art and versatility?

And think of those foredoom'd in Dante's pit,Who, sunk at bottom of the loathly slough,Made the black mud up-bubble with their sighs;And all because they were unkind to Mirth,And went with smoky heart and gloomy browThe while they lived upon the pleasant earthIn the sweet air that rallies to the sun,And ne'er so much as smiled or gave God thanks:Surely a sparkle of the Frenchman's funHad rescued all their souls.

I think I seeThe Deity who in this Heaven abides,Le bon Dieu, holding both his aching sides,With radiant face of Pan, ruddy and hairy:Give him his famous whistles and goat-shanks,And then present him to Alighieri.

Nay, 'twixt the Frenchman and the FlorentineI ask no truce, grave Dante weaving wellHis dark-eyed thought into a song divine,Drawing high poetry from heaven and hell--And him who lightly mockt at all in turn.

It follow'd from his mundane thought of artThat he contemn'd religion: his concernWas comfort, taste, and wit: he had no heartFor man's attempt to build and beautifyHis home in Nature; so he set all byThat wisdom had evolved with purpose kind;Stamped it as folly, or as fraud attacked;Never discerning how his callow zestWas impiously defiling his own nest;Whereas the least philosophy may findThe truths are the ideas; the sole factIs the long story of man's growing mind.

Upon your thistle now I see my fig--Béranger thought of Voltaire as a seer,A latter-day John Baptist in a wig;A herald of that furious gospel-stormOf words and blood, that made the nations fear;When sickening France adulterously sinn'dWith Virtue, and went mad conceiving wind.He ranks him with those captains of reform,Luther and Calvin; who, whate'er they taught,Led folk from superstition to free thought.

They did. But whence or whither led Voltaire?The steward with fifty talents given in charge,Who spent them on himself, and liv'd at large;His only virtue that he did not hideThe pounds, but squander'd them to serve his pride;His praise that, cunning in his generation,He of the heavenly treasure did not spareTo win himself an earthly habitation.

Deny him not this laurel, nor to FranceThe apostolate of modern tolerance:Their Theseus he, who slew the Minotaur,The Dragon Persecution, in which warHe tipp'd the shafts that made the devil bleed;And won a victory that hath overcomeMany misdoings in a well-done deed;And more, I think, the mind of Christ revealing,Yea, more of common-sense and human feelingThan all the Creeds and Bulls of Christendom.

Yet was he only one of them that slew:The fiend had taken a deadly wound from Bayle;And did he 'roar to see his kingdom fail''Neath Robespierre, or raise his head anew?Nay, Voltaire's teaching never cured the heart:The lack of human feeling blots his art.When most his phrase with indignation burns,Still to the gallery his face he turns.

You bear him hard. Men are of common stuff,Each hath some fault, and he had faults enough:But of all slanderers that ever wereA virtuous critic is the most unfair.In greatness ever is some good to see;And what is character, unless it beThe colour of persistent qualities,That, like a ground in painting, balancesAll hues and forms, combining with one toneWhatever lights or shades are on it thrown?Now Voltaire had of Nature a rich ground,Two virtues rarely in conjunction found:Industry, which no pedant could excel,He matched with gaiety inexhaustible;And with heroic courage held these fast,As sailors nail their colours to the mast,With ruling excellence atoning all.Though, for the rest, he still for praise may call;Prudent to gain, as generous to shareLe superflu, chose si nécessaire;To most a rare companion above scorn,To not a few a kind, devoted friendThrough his long battling life, which in the endHe strove with good works richly to adorn.I have admired, and why should I abuseA man who can so long and well amuse?

Let me say, 'praise men, if ye would be praised:'Let your unwholesome flattery flow ungrudged,And with ungrudging measure shall men pourTheir stifling homage back till ye be crazed,And sane men humour you as fools past cure.But these wise maxims deal not with the dead,'Tis by example that the young are led,And judgement owes its kindness but to them;Nor will I praise, call you me hard or nice,One that degraded art, and varnished vice.They that praise ill thereby themselves condemn.

Few are who can;Not he: if ever he assay'd to impartA title loftier than his own renown,Native irreverence defied his art,His fingers soil'd the lustre of his crown.Here he adored what he was envious of,The vogue and dazzling fashion of the man.But man's true praise, the poet's praise, is love.

This only, that in weeding out my shelves,In fatherly regard for babes upgrown,Until they learn to garden for themselves,Much as I like to keep my sets entire,When I came out to you I had just thrownThree of his precious works behind the fire.