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 catchWould 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 throngCan 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 madeSole patron of the building trade;Leaving to wits the spacious air,With license to build castles there:In right whereof their old pretenceTo 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 thingsGrow 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 ageIs 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 awayIn twisting up an ill spun Play:This gives him lodging and providesA stock of tawdry shift besides.With the unravell'd shreds of whichThe 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, thinksHe 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'dIn each capacity to build.As Herald, he can in a dayRepair 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 prayFor leave to build--the poets way.His prayer was granted, for the GodConsented with the usual nod.After hard throes of many a dayVan 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 sizeCorrupt 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 flowerSome faint resemblance to produce,But not the virtue, taste, nor juice.So modern rhymers strive to blastThe poetry of ages past;Which, having wisely overthrown,They from its ruins build their own.