On Reading The Controversy Between Lord Byron And Mr Bowles

WHETHER a ship's poetic? -- Bowles would own, If here he dwelt, where Nature is prosaic, Unpicturesque, unmusical, and where Nature-reflecting Art is not yet born; -- A land without antiquities, with one, And only one, poor spot of classic ground, (That on which Cook first landed) -- where, instead Of heart-communings with ancestral relicks, Which purge the pride while they exalt the mind, We've nothing left us but anticipation, Better (I grant) than utter selfishness, Yet too o'erweening -- too American; Where's no past tense, the ign'rant present's all; Or only great by the All hail, hereafter! One foot of Future's glass should rest on Past; Where Hist'ry is not, Prophecy is guess -- If here he dwelt, Bowles (I repeat) would own A ship's the only poetry we see. For, first, she brings us "news of human kind," Of friends and kindred, whom perchance she held As visitors, that she might be a link, Connecting the fond fancy of far friendship, A few short months before, and whom she may In a few more, perhaps, receive again. Next is a ship poetic, forasmuch As in this spireless city and prophane, She is to my home-wand'ring phantasy, With her tall anch'ring masts, a three-spir'd minster, Van-crown'd; her bell our only half-hour chimes. Lastly, a ship is poetry to me, Since piously I trust, in no long space, Her wings will bear me from this prose-dull land.