The Pen Poem by William Hutton

In joyous strain the verse should move,
Which celebrates the thing we love.

Come, my pale friend, put on a smile,
And we'll in numbers sport awhile.
What though I've made of thee a tool,
Don't thou make me appear a fool.
I own, I could not let thee rest,
But rudely stripp'd thy downy vest;
Ere with impurity wert ting'd,
I scrap'd thee as a pig that's sing'd;
And, as the cook-maid serves a trout,
Have drawn thy tender entrails out;
Often, as folks the magpye tweak,
I've slit thy tongue to make thee speak;
Pursuing still the rude attack,
I've dy'd thy slender limbs in black.

Thou tall and slim grew'st in the water;
But, while with me reducing shorter;
For now and then an eye may see
I cut thy stature one degree:
And when, dear pen, thou'st had thy day,
Like me, worn out, art thrown away.
Our end the same, we're neither free;
A knife cuts thee up--Time cuts me.

When rhyme has started in my head,
At dark midnight I've left my bed;
Grop'd for thee, as for hidden treasure,
Just to secure the thought and measure;
Earnestly wish'd for break of day,
That thy bright work I might survey;
But looking on when Phœbus rose,
Could neither make it verse or prose.

Thy letters I could not distinguish;
They were not Hebrew, Greek, or English;
Nor in a strait line hadst thou got 'em,
Nor rang'd, like Dyche from top to bottom;
But marching downward, sinking quite,
From hand the left to foot the right;
In all directions flying glib,
Like sparks when bursting from a squib;
Striving which first should get sway,
As if asham'd at sight of day.

In stupid mood, you've many a time
Stood still because you'd never a rhyme;
Again, you've been in error caught,
Procur'd a rhyme, but had no thought;
Yet if by chance sure nought was sweeter,
You've hit a thought, and hit a metre,
You seem'd as if by joy o'ercome,
Between my fingers and my thumb;
And wish'd, when laid to public view,
'Twould please the world as it pleas'd you.
All the returns you crav'd the while
Were to be treated with a smile;
Not of contempt it must occasion,
No--say the smile of approbation.

Let strictest truth and you agree
Your errors will be charg'd to me;
Nor ever once offend the ear;
No, not the chastest of the fair.

In politics ne'er make a rout;
Let right and wrong-heads deal it out.
An evil grows, you may be sure,
But with that evil grows a cure.

Never with reputations play;
Nor sport a character away;
Much better you had never written;
Nor smite, except you have been smitten.
But, should an evil raise its crown,
You're authoris'd to kick it down.

You'd better be a tooth-pick made
Than follow the poetic trade;
Unless you can, with powers alert,
Instruct the reader, or divert.
But you'll attain a double worth,
If ever you accomplish both.