Vanbrugh's House[1] Built From The Ruins Of Whitehall That Was Burnt, 1703

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 catch     Would 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 throng     Can 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 made     Sole patron of the building trade;     Leaving to wits the spacious air,     With license to build castles there:     In right whereof their old pretence     To 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 things     Grow 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 age     Is 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 away     In twisting up an ill spun Play:     This gives him lodging and provides     A stock of tawdry shift besides.     With the unravell'd shreds of which     The 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, thinks     He 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'd     In each capacity to build.     As Herald, he can in a day     Repair 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 pray     For leave to build - the poets way.     His prayer was granted, for the God     Consented with the usual nod.         After hard throes of many a day     Van 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 size     Corrupt 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 flower     Some faint resemblance to produce,     But not the virtue, taste, nor juice.     So modern rhymers strive to blast     The poetry of ages past;     Which, having wisely overthrown,     They from its ruins build their own.