Moral Emblems. Роберт Стивенсон

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      Some like drink

      In a pint pot,

      Some like to think;

      Some not.

      Strong Dutch cheese,

      Old Kentucky rye,

      Some like these;

      Not I.

      Some like Poe,

      And others like Scott,

      Some like Mrs. Stowe;

      Some not.

      Some like to laugh,

      Some like to cry,

      Some like chaff;

      Not I.

      Here, perfect to a wish,

      We offer, not a dish,

      But just the platter:

      A book that’s not a book,

      A pamphlet in the look

      But not the matter.

      I own in disarray:

      As to the flowers of May

      The frosts of Winter;

      To my poetic rage,

      The smallness of the page

      And of the printer.

      As seamen on the seas

      With song and dance descry

      Adown the morning breeze

      An islet in the sky:

      In Araby the dry,

      As o’er the sandy plain

      The panting camels cry

      To smell the coming rain:

      So all things over earth

      A common law obey,

      And rarity and worth

      Pass, arm in arm, away;

      And even so, to-day,

      The printer and the bard,

      In pressless Davos, pray

      Their sixpenny reward.

      The pamphlet here presented

      Was planned and printed by

      A printer unindented,

      A bard whom all decry.

      The author and the printer,

      With various kinds of skill,

      Concocted it in Winter

      At Davos on the Hill.

      They burned the nightly taper;

      But now the work is ripe -

      Observe the costly paper,

      Remark the perfect type!

      See how the children in the print

      Bound on the book to see what’s in ‘t!

      O, like these pretty babes, may you

      Seize and apply this volume too!

      And while your eye upon the cuts

      With harmless ardour opes and shuts,

      Reader, may your immortal mind

      To their sage lessons not be blind.

      Reader, your soul upraise to see,

      In yon fair cut designed by me,

      The pauper by the highwayside

      Vainly soliciting from pride.

      Mark how the Beau with easy air

      Contemns the anxious rustic’s prayer,

      And, casting a disdainful eye,

      Goes gaily gallivanting by.

      He from the poor averts his head.

      He will regret it when he’s dead.

      Broad-gazing on untrodden lands,

      See where adventurous Cortez stands;

      While in the heavens above his head

      The Eagle seeks its daily bread.

      How aptly fact to fact replies:

      Heroes and eagles, hills and skies.

      Ye who contemn the fatted slave

      Look on this emblem, and be brave.

      See in the print how, moved by whim,

      Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim,

      Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat,

      To noose that individual’s hat.

      The sacred Ibis in the distance

      Joys to observe his bold resistance.

      Mark, printed on the opposing page,

      The unfortunate effects of rage.

      A man (who might be you or me)

      Hurls another into the sea.

      Poor soul, his unreflecting act

      His future joys will much contract,

      And he will spoil his evening toddy

      By dwelling on that mangled body.

      With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee,

      The dancing skiff puts forth to sea.

      The lone dissenter in the blast

      Recoils before the sight aghast.

      But she, although the heavens be black,

      Holds on upon the starboard tack,

      For why? although to-day she sink,

      Still safe she sails in printer’s ink,

      And though to-day the seamen drown,

      My cut shall hand their memory down.

      The careful angler chose his nook

      At morning by the lilied brook,

      And all the noon his rod he plied

      By that romantic riverside.

      Soon as the evening hours decline

      Tranquilly he’ll return to dine,

      And, breathing forth a pious wish,

      Will cram his belly full of fish.

      The Abbot for a walk went out,

      A wealthy cleric, very stout,

      And Robin has that Abbot stuck

      As the red hunter spears the buck.

      The djavel or the javelin

      Has, you observe, gone bravely in,

      And you may hear that weapon whack

      Bang through the middle of his back.

      Hence we may learn that Abbots should

      Never go walking in a wood.

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