human
Can you write a poem for me in the style of John Lothrop Motley?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem in the style of John Lothrop Motley:
  Is it a party in a parlour,
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punch--some sipping tea;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and all--damned!
"Peter Bell", by W. WORDSWORTH.
OPHELIA.--What means this, my lord?
HAMLET.--Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.
considerably the dullest of the three.
'The world of all of us, AND WHERE
Peter Bells, one, two and three,
O'er the wide world wandering be.--
First, the antenatal Peter,
Wrapped in weeds of the same metre,
The second Peter; whose ambition
Is to link the proposition,
As the mean of two extremes--
The orthodoxal syllogism;
The First Peter--he who was
Like the shadow in the glass
Then came Peter Bell the Second,
Who henceforward must be reckoned
The body of a double soul,
Ends of a disjointed dream.--
O'er the grave been forced to pass
Smugger, milder, softer, neater,
Like the soul before it is
Predevote, like you and me,
To good or evil as may come;
His was the severer doom,--
And the last is Peter Bell,
Damned since our first parents fell,
Damned eternally to Hell--
And Peter Bell, when he had been
With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,
Grew serious--from his dress and mien
'Twas very plainly to be seen
His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;
His accent caught a nasal twang;
He oiled his hair; there might be heard
The grace of God in every word
But Peter now grew old, and had
An ill no doctor could unravel:
His torments almost drove him mad;--
Some said it was a fever bad--
His holy friends then came about,
And with long preaching and persuasion
Convinced the patient that, without
The smallest shadow of a doubt,
They said--'Thy name is Peter Bell;
Thy skin is of a brimstone hue;
Alive or dead--ay, sick or well--
The one God made to rhyme with hell;
Then Peter set up such a yell!--
The nurse, who with some water gruel
Was climbing up the stairs, as well
As her old legs could climb them--fell,
The Parson from the casement lept
Into the lake of Windermere--
And many an eel--though no adept
In God's right reason for it--kept
And all the rest rushed through the door
And tumbled over one another,
And broke their skulls.--Upon the floor
Meanwhile sat Peter Bell, and swore,
And raved of God, and sin, and death,
Blaspheming like an infidel;
And said, that with his clenched teeth
He'd seize the earth from underneath,
As he was speaking came a spasm,
And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder;
Like one who sees a strange phantasm
He lay,--there was a silent chasm
And yellow death lay on his face;
And a fixed smile that was not human
Told, as I understand the case,
That he was gone to the wrong place:--
Then there came down from Langdale Pike
A cloud, with lightning, wind and hail;
It swept over the mountains like
An ocean,--and I heard it strike
And I saw the black storm come
Nearer, minute after minute;
With hiss, and clash, and hollow hum,
The Devil WAS in it:--he had bought
Peter for half-a-crown; and when
The storm which bore him vanished, nought
That in the house that storm had caught
The gaping neighbours came next day--
They found all vanished from the shore:
The Bible, whence he used to pray,
Half scorched under a hen-coop lay;
The Devil, I safely can aver,
Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting;
Nor is he, as some sages swear,
A spirit, neither here nor there,
He is--what we are; for sometimes
The Devil is a gentleman;
At others a bard bartering rhymes
For sack; a statesman spinning crimes;
A thief, who cometh in the night,
With whole boots and net pantaloons,
Like some one whom it were not right
To mention;--or the luckless wight
But in this case he did appear
Like a slop-merchant from Wapping,
And with smug face, and eye severe,
On every side did perk and peer
He had on an upper Benjamin
(For he was of the driving schism)
In the which he wrapped his skin
From the storm he travelled in,
He called the ghost out of the corse;--
It was exceedingly like Peter,--
Only its voice was hollow and hoarse--
It had a queerish look of course--
The Devil knew not his name and lot;
Peter knew not that he was Bell:
Each had an upper stream of thought,
Which made all seem as it was not;
Peter thought he had parents dear,
Brothers, sisters, cousins, cronies,
In the fens of Lincolnshire;
He perhaps had found them there
Solemn phiz in his own village;
Where he thought oft when a boy
He'd clomb the orchard walls to pillage
The produce of his neighbour's tillage,
And the Devil thought he had,
'Mid the misery and confusion
Of an unjust war, just made
A fortune by the gainful trade
That he had a mansion planned
In a square like Grosvenor Square,
That he was aping fashion, and
And all this, though quite ideal,--
Ready at a breath to vanish,--
Was a state not more unreal
After a little conversation,
The Devil told Peter, if he chose,
He'd bring him to the world of fashion
And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,
And after waiting some few days
For a new livery--dirty yellow
Hell is a city much like London--
A populous and a smoky city;
There are all sorts of people undone,
All sorts of caitiff corpses planning
There is a ***, who has lost
His wits, or sold them, none knows which;
He walks about a double ghost,
A manufacturing mob; a set
Of thieves who by themselves are sent
Which last is a scheme of paper money,
And means--being interpreted--
'Bees, keep your wax--give us the honey,
There is a great talk of revolution--
And a great chance of despotism--
German soldiers--camps--confusion--
Taxes too, on wine and bread,
And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese,
From which those patriots pure are fed,
There are mincing women, mewing,
(Like cats, who amant misere,)
Of their own virtue, and pursuing
Lawyers--judges--old hobnobbers
Are there--bailiffs--chancellors--
Bishops--great and little robbers--
Things whose trade is, over ladies
To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,
Till all that is divine in woman
Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,
Frowning, preaching--such a riot!
Each with never-ceasing labour,
And all these meet at levees;--
Dinners convivial and political;--
Suppers of epic poets;--teas,
Lunches and snacks so aldermanic
That one would furnish forth ten dinners,
Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic,
At conversazioni--balls--
Conventicles--and drawing-rooms--
Courts of law--committees--calls
And this is Hell--and in this smother
All are damnable and damned;
Each one damning, damns the other;
'Tis a lie to say, 'God damns'!
Where was Heaven's Attorney General
When they first gave out such flams?
Statesmen damn themselves to be
Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls
To the auction of a fee;
The rich are damned, beyond all cure,
To taunt, and starve, and trample on
The weak and wretched; and the poor
Sometimes the poor are damned indeed
To take,--not means for being blessed,--
But Cobbett's snuff, revenge; that weed
And some few, like we know who,
Damned--but God alone knows why--
To believe their minds are given
Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,
Each man be he sound or no
Must indifferently sicken;
So good and bad, sane and mad,
The oppressor and the oppressed;
Those who weep to see what others
All are damned--they breathe an air,
Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:
Each pursues what seems most fair,
In throned state is ever dwelling.
Lo. Peter in Hell's Grosvenor Square,
A footman in the Devil's service!
To virtue would prefer vice.
But Peter, though now damned, was not
What Peter was before damnation.
Suits with their genuine station.
All things that Peter saw and felt
Had a peculiar aspect to him;
Like cloud to cloud, into him.
And so the outward world uniting
To that within him, he became
Were moulded in a different frame.
And he scorned them, and they scorned him;
And he scorned all they did; and they
Drinking, lying, swearing, play.
Such were his fellow-servants; thus
His virtue, like our own, was built
To bully one another's guilt.
He had a mind which was somehow
At once circumference and centre
Something did ever enter.
He had as much imagination
As a pint-pot;--he never could
Than that wherein he stood.
Yet his was individual mind,
And new created all he saw
Them, by a master-spirit's law.
Thus--though unimaginative--
An apprehension clear, intense,
Wakening a sort of thought in sense.
But from the first 'twas Peter's drift
To be a kind of moral eunuch,
The closest, all-concealing tunic.
She laughed the while, with an arch smile,
And kissed him with a sister's kiss,
Tempt not again my deepest bliss.
''Tis you are cold--for I, not coy,
Yield love for love, frank, warm, and true;
More, learned friend, than you.
'Boeca bacciata non perde ventura,
Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna:--
So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a            a
Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.
Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe.
And smoothed his spacious forehead down
And in his dream sate down.
The Devil was no uncommon creature;
A leaden-witted thief--just huddled
With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.
He was that heavy, dull, cold thing,
The spirit of evil well may be:
And calls lust, luxury.
Now he was quite the kind of wight
Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,
And best East Indian madeira!
It was his fancy to invite
Men of science, wit, and learning,
Had set those spirits burning.
And men of learning, science, wit,
Exposed to the wide sky.
And all the while with loose fat smile,
The willing wretch sat winking there,
Homage to his unnoticed chair.
Though to be sure this place was Hell;
He was the Devil--and all they--
Were damned eternally.
Among the guests who often stayed
Standing behind his master's chair.
He was a mighty poet--and
A subtle-souled psychologist;
But his own mind--which was a mist.
This was a man who might have turned
Hell into Heaven--and so in gladness
Trusted.--and damned himself to madness.
He spoke of poetry, and how
'Divine it was--a light--a love--
A dew rained down from God above;
'A power which comes and goes like dream,
And which none can ever trace--
Of those words upon his face.
Now Peter, when he heard such talk,
Would, heedless of a broken pate,
Or drop and break his master's plate.
At night he oft would start and wake
Like a lover, and began
And on the heart of man--
And on the universal sky--
And the wide earth's bosom green,--
And yet remain unseen.
For in his thought he visited
The spots in which, ere dead and damned,
Which thus his fancy crammed.
And these obscure remembrances
Stirred such harmony in Peter,
In poetic metre.
For though it was without a sense
Of memory, yet he remembered well
He knew something of heath and fell.
He had also dim recollections
Of pedlars tramping on their rounds;
Old parsons make in burying-grounds.
But Peter's verse was clear, and came
Announcing from the frozen hearth
It augured to the Earth:
Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,
Making that green which late was gray,
With a broad light like day.
For language was in Peter's hand
Like clay while he was yet a potter;
As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.
And Mr. --, the bookseller,
Gave twenty pounds for some;--then scorning
Instantly gave the Devil warning.
Whereat the Devil took offence,
And swore in his soul a great oath then,
Of what was due to gentlemen!'
'O that mine enemy had written
A book!'--cried Job:--a fearful curse,
The Devil to Peter wished no worse.
When Peter's next new book found vent,
The Devil to all the first Reviews
And this short notice--'Pray abuse.'
Then seriatim, month and quarter,
Appeared such mad tirades.--One said--
The last thing as he went to bed.'
Another--'Let him shave his head!
Where's Dr. Willis?--Or is he joking?
In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?'
One more, 'Is incest not enough?
And must there be adultery too?
Is twenty times too good for you.
'By that last book of yours WE think
You've double damned yourself to scorn;
The babe that is unborn.'
All these Reviews the Devil made
Up in a parcel, which he had
Untied them--read them--went half mad.
'What!' cried he, 'this is my reward
For nights of thought, and days, of toil?
Consume their spirits' oil?
'What have I done to them?--and who
IS Mrs. Foy? 'Tis very cruel
I've half a mind to fight a duel.
'Or,' cried he, a grave look collecting,
'Is it my genius, like the moon,
Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?'
For Peter did not know the town,
But thought, as country readers do,
From God's own voice in a review.
All Peter did on this occasion
Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.
Is to delight, not pose.
The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair
For Born's translation of Kant's book;
As in a lottery-wheel are shook.
Five thousand crammed octavo pages
Of German psychologics,--he
More than will e'er be due to me.
I looked on them nine several days,
And then I saw that they were bad;
I found Sir William Drummond had.
When the book came, the Devil sent
And set his soul on fire.
Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,
Made him beyond the bottom see
We may know more than he.
Now Peter ran to seed in soul
Into a walking paradox;
--Among the woods and rocks
Furious he rode, where late he ran,
Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;
He half believed "White Obi".
This steed in vision he would ride,
High trotting over nine-inch bridges,
A mad-brained goblin for a guide--
Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.
After these ghastly rides, he came
His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame
Of their intelligence.
To Peter's view, all seemed one hue;
He got so subtle, that to be
Nothing, was all his glory.
One single point in his belief
Ear in his doctrines' blighted sheaf,
That 'Happiness is wrong';
So thought Calvin and Dominic;
Our flesh from off our bones to pick,
If they might 'do their do.'
His morals thus were undermined:--
He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,
As when he tramped beside the Otter.
In the death hues of agony
Shades like a rainbow's rise and flee,
Mixed with a certain hungry wish.
So in his Country's dying face
Wailing her own abandoned case,
With hardened sneer he turned away:
And coolly to his own soul said;--
Or, no--a thought is in my head--
Her shroud for a new sheet I'll take:
'My wife wants one.--Let who will bury
As the Prince Regent did with Sherry,--'
'Ay--and at last desert me too.'
And so his Soul would not be gay,
Wounded and wasting, day by day,
Till all its life of life was gone.
As troubled skies stain waters clear,
They were the ghosts of what they were,
Shaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.
For he now raved enormous folly,
To have heard him, like a male Molly,
Chanting those stupid staves.
Yet the Reviews, who heaped abuse
The folly which soothes tyranny,
Praise him, for those who feed 'em.
'He was a man, too great to scan;--
He was the most sublime, religious,
Pure-minded Poet of these days.'
As soon as he read that, cried Peter,
Than e'er was made by living creature
Up to this blessed day.'
Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil;--
Thy niece and thy daughter,
Thy gorge ever cramming,
Flit up from Hell with pure intent!
Slash them at Manchester,
'Let thy body-guard yeomen
Hew down babes and women,
And laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!
It was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent.
The Devil now knew his proper cue.--
Soon as he read the ode, he drove
And said:--'For money or for love,
'Pray find some cure or sinecure;
To feed from the superfluous taxes
Than he.' His lordship stands and racks his
Stupid brains, while one might count
As many beads as he had boroughs,--
Smoothing away the unmeaning furrows:
'It happens fortunately, dear Sir,
I can. I hope I need require
That he'll be worthy of his hire.'
These words exchanged, the news sent off
To Peter, home the Devil hied,--
Yet that same night he died.
The Devil's corpse was leaded down;
His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf,
Where was the Devil himself?
When Peter heard of his promotion,
His eyes grew like two stars for bliss:
Seemed a Lord's shoe to kiss.
He hired a house, bought plate, and made
A genteel drive up to his door,
Peter was ever poor.
But a disease soon struck into
The very life and soul of Peter--
Dug better--none a heartier eater.
And yet a strange and horrid curse
Clung upon Peter, night and day;
I can find strength to say.
Peter was dull--he was at first
Dull--oh, so dull--so very dull!
Dull--beyond all conception--dull.
No one could read his books--no mortal,
But a few natural friends, would hear him;
Described by Swift--no man could bear him.
His sister, wife, and children yawned,
With a long, slow, and drear ennui,
Anywhere else to be.
But in his verse, and in his prose,
The essence of his dulness was
On his red gridiron of brass.
A printer's boy, folding those pages,
Fell slumbrously upon one side;
As opiates, were the same applied.
Even the Reviewers who were hired
To do the work of his reviewing,
To dream of what they should be doing.
And worse and worse, the drowsy curse
Yawned in him, till it grew a pest--
A power to infect and to infest.
His servant-maids and dogs grew dull;
His kitten, late a sportive elf;
All grew dull as Peter's self.
The earth under his feet--the springs,
Which lived within it a quick life,
Were dead to their harmonious strife.
The birds and beasts within the wood,
The insects, and each creeping thing,
Near Peter's house took wing.
And every neighbouring cottager
Stupidly yawned upon the other:
To save a dying mother.
Yet all from that charmed district went
Over his father's grave.
No bailiff dared within that space,
For fear of the dull charm, to enter;
The yawn of such a venture.
Seven miles above--below--around--
This pest of dulness holds its sway;
How should it ever pass away?