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- TO A WEALTHY MAN WHO PROMISED A SECOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THE DUBLIN MUNICIPAL
- GALLERY IF IT WERE PROVED THE PEOPLE WANTED PICTURES
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- YOU gave, but will not give again
- Until enough of paudeen's pence
- By Biddy's halfpennies have lain
- To be "some sort of evidence',
- Before you'll put your guineas down,
- That things it were a pride to give
- Are what the blind and ignorant town
- Imagines best to make it thrive.
- What cared Duke Ercole, that bid
- His mummers to the market-place,
- What th' onion-sellers thought or did
- So that his plautus set the pace
- For the Italian comedies?
- And Guidobaldo, when he made
- That grammar school of courtesies
- Where wit and beauty learned their trade
- Upon Urbino's windy hill,
- Had sent no runners to and fro
- That he might learn the shepherds' will
- And when they drove out Cosimo,
- Indifferent how the rancour ran,
- He gave the hours they had set free
- To Michelozzo's latest plan
- For the San Marco Library,
- Whence turbulent Italy should draw
- Delight in Art whoSe end is peace,
- In logic and in natural law
- By sucking at the dugs of Greece.
- Your open hand but shows our loss,
- For he knew better how to live.
- Let paudeens play at pitch and toss,
- Look up in the sun's eye and give
- What the exultant heart calls good
- That some new day may breed the best
- Because you gave, not what they would,
- But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!
- December
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