ANOTHER PREFACE TO AN ALBUM. AN ALBUM, while an ALBUM, is a thing, Of many similes that appropriate are; As none of them are new, or strange, or rare; Such as a maiden's heart-a baby's mind— Or the first state of those two parents of mankind. But ah! upon the simple maiden's heart, Will Love, too soon, some guileful image trace; And Sin and Satan soon will play their part, And alter much the helpless infant's case. Adam and Eve were soon seduced to start From Paradise, a while their resting place; And so, an ALBUM, in the course of time, Is soiled by hands and feet, fingers and rhyme. Oh! and alas! while on this volume's brink, Still a white sea, I stand, and meditate Upon the many-coloured kinds of ink, Whose tortuous currents here must permeate,A* When on the tortures of those brains I think, I sorrow, that all fair things must decay, The white be sullied by the ruthless blast; And China's finest crockery cracked and spoiled. Thou snow-white altar! which, to friendship rear'd, Thy graceful sculpture will appear among; Of what an ALBUM's like, before 'tis used, I thus have chanted in my homely phrase; But what it's like, by fate when long abused, To tell, perplexes me in various ways: Fancy invoked assistance has refused, To yield resemblances; because, she says, It were to Love and Friendship treason vile, To comment coarsely on their honest toil. Then, without thee, O Nymph! so often pray'd, Whose image floats, in heavenly tints portray'd, And patched, and tattered in thy drapery ;- 'Tis like a trunk, with ancient clothes replete, Thro' which with listless eye we walk and gape; Where beauty and deformity we meet, Birds of bright plumes and bats, the deer and ape: 'Tis like the Legislature,-whereunto Few swans, some hawks, and many goslings go. 'Tis like an ancient, single lady's chest, Where rummaging, the curious heir discovers Old patterns, worn-out thimbles, and the rest Of antique trumpery; fans, and flowers, and covers Of pincushions; a petrified wasp's nest; Letters from long defunct or married lovers; Work-boxes, ten-pences that once were knew, And murdered metre, if she was a blue. 'Tis like a doomsday book, wherein is writ Of every man's capacity the measure,-The length, and breadth, and boundaries of his wit, And value of his intellectual treasure: 'Tis like a party, when you ask to it Clowns, who derive from such soirées no pleasure, But are compelled in company to go, Their awkwardness and ignorance to show. 'Tis like a church-yard-where, in crooked rows, Beneath, whose virtues are thereon displayed; It is a sad, though an appropriate one. For, as those pale memorials to the eye The forms once dear, that we behold no more, And summon back the ghosts from Lethe's shore: Therefore, they are sacred; and I am ashamed In any wise their uses to have blamed. 'Tis like a TALISMAN, by magic hands [strange, Framed with quaint spells, and graved with figures Recalls each well-known form from distant lands, 'Tis like the enchanted mirror, 'huge and high,' Wherein the archimage Agrippa show'd The lady of his love to Surrey's eye, 'Albeit betwixt them' the 'grim ocean' flow'd: For, as we read, surrounding mists roll by, And we forget life's intervening road. The past is present, voices murmur sweet, And music breathes that long was obsolete. O ye! who herein are required to write, Be wise, before you undertake the same; Remember that whatever you indite, Remaineth, to your credit or your shame; That you had better leave the paper white, Than rack your hapless brains with idle aim: But above all things, if the book you take, Don't wait a year, before you bring it back. |