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THE 
 
 COMPLETE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
 THOMAS HOOD: 
 
 % ^iognijjljiccil Slutclj, ani |loU5. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EPES SARGENT. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLTII. 
 
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 *^n'er';(? '%ccor(£ng to Act of Congress, in the year 13M, by 
 ' -• EPES SARGENT, 
 In Lbe Clerk's Office <3i thg^iisti-ict Court of the District of Massachusetts 
 
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POETICAL WORKS 
 
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 E p E s s A 1^ o r: X t . 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PHILLIPS, SA]MPSOX AND COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLVII. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 As confidently as any one of his contemporaries Thomas 
 Hood may claim his place among the Standard Poets of 
 Great Britain. The present edition of his poetical works 
 contains all the poems included in the two volumes edited 
 at his request, and published in I^ondon by Mr. Moxon. 
 To these we have added a number of poems collected from 
 other reliable sources, which were probably excluded from 
 the ISIoxon edition by outstanding copyrights, with which 
 their republication would interfere. This may therefore 
 be regarded as the most complete collection of Hood's 
 Poetical Works yet published. 
 
 His friends assert that in the twenty years during which 
 Hood was writing for the press he never penned a line 
 intended to give pain to an individual, or which he might 
 himself wi.^'h to blot. This is the praise which Lyttelton 
 avvardod to the author of '•' The Seasons," and is almost too 
 much to ascribe to any individual who, like Hood, was a 
 raan of ardent feelings and exposed to strong temptations. 
 It is cnougli that we are able to say of him, as Walter Scott 
 said of Goldsmith — that his wreath is unsullied. 
 
 A* 
 
 X 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LIFE OF nOOD, XI 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 The Plea of the Midsummer Fairiea, 3 
 
 Hero and Leander, 43 
 
 Lycus, the Centaur, 73 
 
 The Two Peacocks of Bedfont, 87 
 
 The Two Swans, 94 
 
 The Dream of Eugene Aram, 104 
 
 The Elm Tree : A Dream in the Woods, 112 
 
 The Haunted House, 129 
 
 The Bridge of Sighs, • 143 
 
 The Song of the Shirt, 147 
 
 The Lady's Dream, 150 
 
 The Workhouse Clock 154 
 
 The Lay of the Laborer, 157 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Fair Ines, 163 
 
 The Departure of Summer, 165 
 
 Ode : Autumn, 170 
 
 Song, for Music, 172 
 
 BaUad, 172 
 
 Hymn to the Sun, 173 
 
 To a Cold Beauty, 174 
 
 Buth, 175 
 
 The Sea of Death, 176 
 
 Autumn, t • 177 
 
 Ballad, 177 
 
 I Remember, I Remember, i 178 
 
 BaUad, 179 
 
 The Water Lady 181 
 
 The Exile, 182 
 
 To an Absentee, i 183 
 
 Song, 183 
 
 L, 
 
VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Ode to the Moon, 184 
 
 To , 187 
 
 The Forsaken, 188 
 
 Autumn 183 
 
 Ode to Melancholy, 189 
 
 Sonnets. 
 
 Written in a Volume of Shakspeare, 193 
 
 To Fancy, 194 ' ' 
 
 To an Enthusiast, 194 
 
 " It is not death, that sometime in a sigh," 195 i 
 
 " By every sweet tradition of true hearts," 195 1 1 
 
 On Receiving a Gift, 196 i ! 
 
 SUence, 196 i 
 
 " The curse of Adam, the old curse of all," 197 I 
 
 " Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak," 197 jl 
 
 " The Last Man," 198 I ; 
 
 The Lee Shore, 205 I ; 
 
 The Death-bed, 206 
 
 Lines on seeing my Wife and two Children sleeping in the same Chamber, . . . 207 ; 
 
 To my Daughter, on her Birthday, 207 | ;' 
 
 To a Child Embracing his Mother, 203 j ; 
 
 Stanzas, 209 | j 
 
 To a False Friend, 210 i , 
 
 The Poet's Portion, 210 ! ; 
 
 Song, 211 I ! 
 
 Time, Hope, and Memory, 212 ! I 
 
 Flowers, 213 | j 
 
 To , 214 i ; 
 
 To , 214 J 
 
 To , 215 ! ] 
 
 Serenade, 216 j i 
 
 Verses in an Albmn, 216 j | 
 
 Ballad, 217 1 i 
 
 The Romance of Cologne, , 217 j i 
 
 The Key : A Moorish Romance, 219 j I 
 
 Sonnets. ! ; 
 
 To the Ocean, 224 i ! 
 
 Lear, 225 i i 
 
 Sonnet to a Sonnet, 225 \ 
 
 False Poets and True, 226 | ' 
 
 To , 220 i ' 
 
 For the Foiu'leenth of February, . . 227 
 
 To a Sleeping Child, 227 
 
 To a Sleeping Child, 228 
 
 " The world is with me, and its many cares," 223 \ 
 
 ncMoncus. ' . 
 
 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg, 231 i , 
 
 A Mornhig Thought, 306 ! : 
 
 A Tale of a Trumpet, 307 
 
fr^ 
 
 CONTENTS. ix 
 
 I No : 332 
 
 The Irish Schoolmaster, 333 
 
 I l^pigrains. 
 
 On the Art-Unions, 34I 
 
 The Superiority of Machinery, 34I 
 
 Tlie Forge : A Romance of the Iron Age, 342 
 
 To : Composed at Rotterdam, 357 
 
 The Season, 333 
 
 I^T*") • 358 
 
 Faithless Sally Brcnvn, 359 
 
 Bianca's Dream, 361 
 
 Over the Way, 37Q 
 
 Epicurean Reminiscences of a Sentimentalist 374 
 
 The Carelesse Nurse JIayd, 376 
 
 Ode to Perry, the Inventor of the Patent Perryan Pen, 377 
 
 Number One, 383 
 
 Lines on the Celebration of Peace, 385 
 
 The Demon-ship, 386 
 
 Spring, 389 
 
 Faithless Nelly Gray, 391 
 
 ■The Flowrer, 393 
 
 The Sea-spe!l, 394 
 
 A Sailor's Apology for Bow-legs, 398 
 
 The Bachelor's Dream, ^qq 
 
 The Wee Man, 403 
 
 Death's Ramble, 4q5 
 
 The Progress of Art, 407 
 
 A Fairy Tale, 4IO 
 
 The Turtles, 
 
 414 
 
 The Desert-born, 419 
 
 Love Lane, , 427 
 
 Domestic Poems. 
 
 I. Hymeneal Retrospections, 409 
 
 II. " The sun was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past,'" 430 
 
 m. A Parental Ode to my Son, 43I 
 
 TV. A Serenade, 433 
 
 A Plain Direction, 434 
 
 Equestrian Courtship 436 
 
 An Open Question, 437 
 
 Morning Meditations, 440 
 
 A Black Jub, 444 
 
 Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire, 45I 
 
 A Table of Errata, 466 
 
 A Row at the Oxford Arms 47O 
 
 Etching Moralized, 475 
 
 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy, 483 
 
 A Retrospective Review 437 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798. His father was a 
 native of Scotland, and was for many years a partner in the firm of 
 Vernor, Hood and Sharp, booksellers and publishers. Of his early 
 life he has given the public an outline in his Literary Reminiscences, 
 in which he tells us that when but twelve years of age he lost his 
 father and elder brother, and became thenceforth the chief care of 
 an affectionate and bereaved mother. From a brief memoir by Mrs. 
 S. C. Hall we learn that he was remarkable for great vivacity of 
 spirits, and prone to astonish good citizens, guests at his father's, no 
 less than his fellow-pupils when at school, by the shrewdness and 
 brilliancy of his observations upon topics of which it was thought 
 he knew nothing. At a high school to which he was sent he picked 
 up some Latin, became a tolerable English grammarian, and so good 
 a French scholar that he earned a few guineas — his first literary 
 fee — by revising for the press a new edition of " Paul et Yirginie." 
 A friend of the family, however, proposed to initiate him into the 
 profitable mysteries of commerce, and young Hood found himself 
 planted on a counting-house stool, where he remained long enough, 
 at least, to collect materials for a sonnet, in which he records his 
 mercantile experiences. 
 
 " Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool. 
 At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen 
 Began each morning, at the stroke of ten. 
 To write in Bell and Co.'s commercial school; 
 In Warnford Court, a shady nook and cool. 
 
XU LIFE OF UOOD. 
 
 The favorite retreat of merchant men ; 
 
 Yet would my pen turn vagrant even then. 
 
 And take stray dips in the Castalian pool. 
 
 Now double entry — now a flowery trope — 
 
 Mingling poetic honey v/ith trade wax — 
 
 Blogg, Brothers — JMilton — Grote and Prescott — Pope — 
 
 Bristles — and Hogg — Glyn Mills and Ilalifax — 
 
 Rogers — and Towgood — Hemp — the Bard of IIopo — 
 
 Barilla — Byron — Tallow — Burns — and Flax ! " 
 
 His health failing, he was " shipped as per advice, ia a Scotch 
 smack, " to his father's relations in Dundee. There he made his first 
 acquaintance with the press, an event of so much interest in the 
 career of an author that no one can describe it but liimself. Among 
 the temporary sojourners in his boarding-house at Dundee was a 
 legal antiquary, who had been sent for from Edinburgh to make 
 some researches among the civic records. " It was my humor to 
 think," says Hood, " that, in Political as well as Domestic Economy, 
 it must be better to sweep the Present than to dust the Past ; and 
 certain new brooms were recommended to the Town Council in a 
 quizzing letter, which the then editor of the Dundee Adccriiser or 
 Chronicle thought fit to favor with a prominent place in his columns. 
 ' 'Tis pleasant sure,' sings Lord Byron, ' to see one's self in print;' 
 and according to the popular notion I ought to have been quite up 
 in my stirrups, if not standing on the saddle, at thus seeing myself, 
 for the first strange time, set up in type. INIemory recalls, however, 
 but a very moderate share of exaltation, which was totally eclipsed, 
 moreover, by the exuberant transports of an accessory before the 
 fact, whom, uiethinks, I still see in my mind's eye, rushing out of 
 the printing-office with the wet sheet steaming in his hand, and flut- 
 tering all along the High Street, to announce breathlessly that ' we 
 were in.' But G. was an indifferent scholar, even in English, and 
 therefore thought the more highly of tliis literary feat. 
 
 " The reception of my letter in the Dundee newspaper eneounxged 
 me to forward a contribution to the Dundee Magazine, the editor 
 of which was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to ' wrap my 
 bit of nonsense under his Honor's Kiver,' without charging anything 
 for its insertion. Here was success sufficient to turn a young author 
 at once into ' a scribbling miller,' and make hun sell himself, body 
 
 :-_-Jj 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XIU 
 
 and soul, after the German fashion, to that minor Mephistophiles, 
 the printer's devil ! Nevertheless, it was not till years afterwards 
 and the lapse of a term equal to an ordinary apprenticeship, that 
 the Imp in question became really my Familiar. In the mean time, 
 I continued to compose occasionally, and, like the literary perform- 
 ances of Mr. Weller senior, my lucubrations were generally commit- 
 tad to paper, not in what is commonly called written hand, but an 
 imitation of print. Such a course hints suspiciously of type and 
 antityjse, and a longing eye to the Row ; whereas it was adopted 
 simply to make the reading more easy, and thus enable me the more 
 readily to form a judgment of the effect of my little efforts. It is 
 more difficult than may be supposed to decide on the value of a work 
 in MS., and especially when the hand-writing presents only a swell 
 mob of bad characters, that must be severally examined and re- 
 examined to arrive at the merits or demerits of the case. Print set- 
 tles it, as Coleridge used to say : and, to be candid, I have more than 
 once reversed, or greatly modified, a previous verdict, on seeing a 
 rough proof from the press. 
 
 " My mental constitution, however weak my physical one, waa 
 proof against that type-us fever which parches most scribblers till 
 they are set up, done up, and maybe cut up, in print and boards. 
 Perhaps I had read and trembled at the melancholy annals of those 
 unfortunates, who, rashly undertaking to write for bread, had poi- 
 soned themselves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked them- 
 selves, like Otway, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to 
 think humbly of myself, — there is nothing like early sickness and 
 sorrow for ' taking the conceit ' out of one, — my vanity did not pre- 
 sume to think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I ' had a call ' 
 to hold forth in print for the edification of mankind. Perchance, 
 the very deep reverence my reading had led me to entertain for our 
 bards and sages deterred me from thrusting myself into the fellow- 
 ship of beings that seemed only a little lower than the angels. How- 
 ever, in spite of that very common excuse for publication, ' the advice 
 of a friend,' who seriously recommended the submitting of my MSS. 
 to a literary authority, with a view to his imprimatur, my slight 
 acquaintance with the press was pushed no further." 
 
 Hood resided two years at Dundee, when he returned to London, 
 and, manifesting a great talent for drawing, was apprenticed to his 
 B 
 
Xiv LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 uncle, Mr. Robert Sands, an engraver. He -was afterwards -with one 
 of the Le Keux in the same pursuit ; but, though working in aqua 
 fortis, as he tells us, he stiU played -with Castaly, now writing — all 
 monkeys are imitators, and all young authors are monkeys — now j j 
 
 writing a Bandit to match the Corsair, and now hatching a Lalla 1 1 
 
 Crow by way of companion to Lalla Rookh. We recur to his own \ j 
 
 Reminiscences : 
 
 " In the mean time, while thus playing with literature, an event 
 was ripening which was to introduce me to authorship in earnest, and 
 make the muse, with whom I had only flirted, my companion for life. 
 .... In the beginning of the year 1821 a memorable duel, originat- 
 ing in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place at Chalk Farm, and termi- 
 nated in the death of Mr. John Scott, the able editor of the London \ j 
 Magazine. The melancholy result excited great interest, in which I !• 
 fully participated, little dreaming that his catastrophe involved any j | 
 consequences of importance to myself. But, on the loss of its con- I ! 
 ductor, the periodical passed into other hands. The new proprietors [ ' 
 were my friends ; they sent for me, and, after some preliminaries, I j i 
 was duly installed as a sort of sub-editor of the London Magazine. j i 
 
 " It would be affectation to say that engraving was resigned with |, 
 
 regret. There is always something mechanical about the art ; more- 
 over, it is as unwholesome as wearisome to sit copper-fastened to a 
 board, with a cantle scooped out to accommodate your stomach, if 
 you have one, painfully ruling, ruling, and still ruling lines straight 
 or crooked by the long hundred to the sc^uare inch, at the doubly- 
 hazardous risk, which Wordsworth so deprecates, of ' growing double. ' 
 So, farewell Woollett ! Strange ! Bartolozzi ! I have said my vanity 
 did not rashly plunge me into authorship ; but no sooner was there a < i 
 
 legitimate opening than I jumped at it, a la Grimaldi, head foremost, |i 
 
 and was speedily behind the scenes. j ! 
 
 " To judge by my zeal and delight in my new pursuit, the bowl ' 
 
 had at la^t found its natural bias. Not content with taking arti- 
 cles, like candidates for holy orders, — with rejecting articles, like the 
 Belgians, — I dreamt articles, thought articles, wrote articles, which I 
 
 were all inserted by the editor, of course with the concurrence of hia 
 deputy. The more irksome parts of authorship, such as the correc- 
 tion of the press, were to me labors of love. I received a revise from j 
 Mr. Baldwin's ^Mr. Parker, as if it had been a proof of his regard ; 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XT 
 
 forgave him all his slips, and really tliought thit printers' devils -n-ero 
 not so black as they are painted. But my top-gallant glory vas in 
 ' our contributors ' ! How I used to look forward to Elia ! and back- 
 ward for Hazlitt, and all round for Edward Herberfe, and how I used 
 to look up to Allan Cunningham ! for at that time the London had a 
 goodly list of writers — a rare company. It is now defunct; and 
 perhaps no ex-periodical might so appropriately be apostrophized 
 Avith the Irish funereal question, ' Arrah, honey, why did you die? ' 
 Had not you an editor, and elegant prose writers, and beautiful 
 poets, and broths of boys for criticism and classics, and wits and 
 humorists — Elia, Gary, Procter, Cunningham, BoANTing, Barton, 
 Hazlitt, Elton, Hartley Coleridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace Smith, 
 Reyi\olds, Poole, Clare, and Thomas Benyon, with a power besides? 
 Hadn't you Lions' Heads with Traditional Tales ? Had n't you an 
 Opium Eater, and a Dwarf, and a Giant, and a Learned Lamb, and 
 a Green Man? Hadn't you a regular Drama, and a Musical Report, 
 and a Report of Agriculture, and an Obituary, and a Price Current, 
 and a current price, of only half-a-crown ? Arrah, why did you die ? 
 "Why, somehow, the contributors fell away, -the concern went into 
 other hands — worst of all, a new editor tried to put the belles-lettres 
 in utilitarian envelopes ; whereupon the circulation of the Miscel- 
 lany, like that of poor LeFevre, got slower, slower, slower, and 
 slower still — and then stopped forever ! It was a sorry scattering of 
 those old Londoners ! Some went out of the country ; one (Clare) 
 went into it. Lamb retreated to Colebrooke. Jlr. Cary presented 
 himself to the British ^luseum. Reynolds and Barry took to engross- 
 ing when they should pen a stanza, and Thomas Benyon gave up 
 literature. 
 
 '• It is with mingled feelings of pride, pleasure and pain, that I 
 revert to tliosj old times, when the writers I had long known and 
 admired in spirit Avere present to me in the flesh ; when I had the 
 delight of listening to their wit and wisdom from their own lips, of 
 gazing on their faces, and grasping their right hands. Familiar fig- 
 ures rise before me, familiar voices ring in my ears, and, alas ! 
 amongst them are shapes that I must never see, sounds that I can 
 never hear, again. Before my departure from England, I was one 
 of the few who saw the grave close over the remains of one whom to 
 know as a friend Avas to love as a relation. Never did a better sou] 
 
XVI LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 go to a better world ! Never, perhaps (giving the lie direct to the 
 common imputation of envy, malice and hatred, amongst the brother- 
 hood), never did an author descend — to quote his favorite Sir T. 
 Browne — into ' the land of the mole and the pismire ' so hung with 
 golden opinions, and honored and regretted with such stacere eulogies 
 and elegies, by his contemporaries. To him, the first of these, my 
 reminiscences, is eminently due, for I lost in him not only a dear and 
 kind friend, but an invaluable critic, — one whom, were such literary 
 adoptions in modem use, I might well name, as Cotton called Walton, 
 my ' father. ' 
 
 " I was sitting, one morning, beside our editor, busily correcting 
 proofs, when a visitor was announced, whose name, grumbled by a 
 low, ventriloquial voice, like Tom Pipes calluig from the held through 
 the hatchway, did not resound distinctly on my tympanum. How- 
 ever, the door opened, and in came a stranger, a figure remarkable at 
 a glance, with a fine head on a small, spare body, supported by two 
 almost immaterial legs. He was clothed in sables, of a bygone 
 fashion, but there was something wanting, or something present 
 about him, that certified he was neither a divine, nor a physician, 
 nor a schoolmaster ; from a certain neatness and sobriety in his 
 dress, coupled with his sedate bearing, he might have been taken, but 
 that such a costume would be anomalous, for a Quaker in black. 
 He looked still more like (what he really was) a literary modern 
 antique, a new-old author, a living anachronism, contemporaiy at 
 once with Burton the elder and Colman the younger, ileanwhile, 
 he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, his walk was planti- 
 grade, and, with a cheerful 'How d'ye,' and one of the blandest, 
 sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly countenance, held out 
 two fingers to the editor. The two gentlemen in black soon fell into 
 discourse ; and, whilst they conferred, the Lavater principle within 
 me set to work upon the interesting specimen thus presented to its 
 speculations. It was a striking, intellectual face, full of wiry lines, 
 physiognomical quips and cranks, that gave it great character. 
 There was much earnestness about the brows, and a deal of specula- 
 tion in the eyes, which were brown and bright, and ' quick in turn- 
 ing ; ' the nose, a decided one, though of no established order ; and 
 there was a handsome smartness about the mouth. Altogether, it 
 was no common face — none of those wiUoio-pattern ones, which nature 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XVU 
 
 turns out by tlioasautls at her potteries ; — but more like a cliance 
 Bpecimou of the Chinese ware, one to the set — unique, antique, 
 quaint. No one who had once seen it could pretend not to know it 
 again. It was no face to lend its countenance to any confusion of 
 persons in a Comedy of Errors. You might have sworn to it piece- 
 meal — a separate affida^-it for every feature. In short, his face was 
 as original as his figure ; his figure, as his character ; his character, 
 as his writings ; his writings, the most original of the age. After 
 the literary' business had been settled, the editor invited his con- 
 tributor to dinner, adding, ' We shall have a hare — ' 
 
 ' And — and — and — and many friends ! ' 
 
 " The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the allusion, 
 were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars will 
 perchance have recognized already as the delightful essayist, the cap- 
 ital critic, the jileasant wit and humorist, the delicate-minded and 
 large-hearted Charles Lamb ! He was shy, like myself, with strang- 
 ers; so that, despite my yearnings, our first meeting scarcely amounted 
 to an introduction. We were both at dinner, amongst the hare's 
 many friends ; but our acquaintance got no further, in spite of a 
 desperate attempt on my part to attract his notice. His complaint 
 of the Decay of Beggars presented another chance ; I wrote on coarse 
 paper, and in ragged English, a letter of thanks to him, as if from 
 one of his mendicant clients, but it produced no eflfect. I had given 
 lip all hope, when, one night, sitting sick and sad in my bed-room, 
 racked with the rhoumatism, the door was suddenly opened, the 
 well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any formality, 
 and, with a cheerful ' AVell, boy, how are you? ' and the bland, sweet 
 smile, extended the two fingers. They were eagerly clutched, of 
 course, and from that hour we were firm friends." 
 
 In 1826 Hood made a collection of his contributions to the London 
 Magazine, which, with some other pieces, was issued under the title 
 of Whuns and Oddities. His first book had been published anony- 
 mously. It was styled Odes and Addresses to Great People, and was 
 written in conjunction with his brothei'-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reynolds. 
 This work had introduced Hood to the public as a humorist of no 
 common power ; a reputation which had been increased by his produc- 
 tions in the Magazine — a journal of which the ^Ycst minster Rciieic 
 
xvni 
 
 LIFE OF HOOD, 
 
 said, with great truth, that it was during its short life cleverly sup- 
 ported by a knot of men whom a too ardent love of the ancient and 
 quaint and homely in literature, hurried into sundry faults of taste, 
 which the sectarian influence of coterie intercourse confused into 
 mannerism. 
 
 Hood's National Tales appeared in 1827, and was followed by a 
 volume containing The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, Hero and 
 Leander, Lycus the Centaur, and other poems. In 1S23 he comiiionccd 
 the Comic Annual, which was continued for nine years. For one 
 year he edited Tlie Gem, in Avhich The Dream of Eugene Aram 
 first appeared ; afterwards, issued in a separate brochure, with designs 
 by W. Harvey. In 1834 he published Tylncy Hall, a novel with 
 which we remember to have been very much entertained, and which, 
 we think, never enjoyed the favor to which it was entitled by its merits. 
 In 183G he published a new edition of his Whims and Oddities in 
 Prose and Verse ; and in 1838 a selection of his contributions to the 
 Comic Annual, with new matter, in a series of monthly numbers, 
 under the title of Hood's Own. Ill health now compelled Iiim to go 
 to the continent to recruit ; and while in Belgium he published his 
 pleasant little volume. Up the Rhine. During his absence an article 
 on his works ajjpeared in the Westminster Review, from which we 
 extract the following description of Hood as he appeared in social 
 life: 
 
 " TVe began by stating our conviction that few writers were so 
 imperfectly understood as he of the ' Comic Annual ' is ; few, we 
 may add, have been more sparingly known in the world of society. 
 Hood has never sought the tinsel honors of Lionsliip. A shape of 
 slight figure, witli pale and pensive countenance, may, indeed, have 
 flitted through society occasionally, without causing any remark j 
 none of the Lady Worrymores or Capel Loffcs, who make themselves 
 ridiculous, and their literary protege's disrespectable, by their sense- 
 less ecstasies, ^ even dreaming that that slight figure was moving to 
 and fro to gather simples of humor and folly and absurdity, but not 
 in the spirit of a Syeoras, — that the rarest conceit coukl tAvinkle 
 through the sjjeetacles which give a decent gravity to those eyes, or 
 that the most luxuriant whimsies and the most irresistible repartees 
 could drop, rich as oil, if not always sweet as honey, from the corners 
 of that impassive-looking mouth. But we know liettcr ; and, as tho 
 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XIX 
 
 so;i divides him from ns, may say as much •without any fear of our 
 ni jud interposing to prevent ug. We have sat by his side through the 
 ' small hours,' listening to tales of ghosts, rememberwj, improved or 
 improvised, — such as night- watchers in the nineteenth century are 
 rarely permitted to enjoy. "We haTe heard him — apart from the 
 listening circle — accompany the long-winded tale of a traveller with 
 such a running fire of notes and comments aside as the brethren of 
 t;ie Row would give gold to gather and print. We have watched 
 him so provoke the component members of a social rubljer in that 
 moment of intense interest when the game hung on a card, that odd 
 tri;-ks have been forgotten, tramps wasted, and all four hands thrown 
 down, in an universal paroxysm. We have seen his Yorick spirit 
 sending forth its sparkling bubbles, in despite of trial and vicissitude ; 
 — for may we not allude to these, when in his preface to his last new 
 undertaking our friend has himself pointed thereat? His education 
 as an engraver has given him an eye of singular keenness, — his 
 genius a fancy ever ready, and a wit rarely blunt, rarely indebted to 
 others for its weapon ; and these are as much manifested in his daily 
 intercourse with his friends as in his more ceremonious Commerce 
 with the public. There is not a page in all his works more thor- 
 oughly humorous than the account we once heard him deliver of a j 
 hurried labor at the ' Comic Annual,' when, at the eleventh hour, 
 like Mozart over the overture to Don Giovanni, he fell asleep, and 
 continued (he declares) to dictate, for some good ten minutes, ere 
 his amanuensis, who had been plying the pen for half an hour, her- 
 self scarcely less somnolent, discerned the least change in his diction, 
 the least abatement of his fluency. There is no dilemma recounted 
 by Aire. Twigg, or Sirs. Jones, half so diverting as those with details 
 of which his familiar lettere from the continent are filled. But with 
 these the world will perhaps one day be edified ; and it would be un- 
 fair, by attempting them in feebler phrase, to forestall the new ' Pil- 
 grim of the Rhine.' " 
 
 Mrs. S. C. Hall's reminiscences of the poet relate to about the 
 same period of his life : 
 
 " I remember the first time I met him was at one of the pleasant 
 soirees of the painter Martin ; for a moment I turned away — as 
 many have done — disappointed, for the countenance, in repose, was 
 if melancholy rather than of mirth ; there was something calm, even 
 
XX LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 to solemnity, in the upper portion of the face, which, in public, was 
 seldom relieved by the eloquent play of the mouth, or the occasional 
 sparkle of the observant eye ; and it was a general remark among his 
 acquaintances, that he was too quiet for 'the world.' There uio 
 many wit-watchers to be founcrm society, who think there is nothing 
 in a man, unless, like a sounding-board, he make a great noise at a 
 small touch ; who consider themselves aggi-ieved, unless an ' author' 
 open at once like a book, and speak as he writes ; this vulgar notion, 
 like others of the same stamp, creeps into good society, or what is so 
 considered, and I have seen both Hook and Hood ' set,' as a pointer 
 sets a partridge, by persons who glitter in evanescent light simply by 
 repeating what such men have said. Mr. Hook, perhaps, liked this 
 celebrity, — this sitting and staring, this lion-hunt, — so different 
 from the heart-worship paid to verita1)le greatness. Mr. Hood did 
 not ; he was too sensitive, too refined, to endure it ; the dislike to 
 being pointed at as the ' man who was funny ' kept him out of a 
 crowd, where there were always numbers who really honored his 
 genius, and loved him for his gentle and domestic virtues. It was 
 only among his friends that his playful fancy flourished, or that he 
 yielded to its influence; although, strictly speaking, ' social ' in all 
 his feelings, he never sought to stimulate his wit by the false poison 
 of draughts of wine ; nor was he ever more cheerful than when at his 
 own fireside he enjoyed the companionship of his dear and devoted 
 wife. He was playful as a child; and his imagination, pure as 
 bright, frolicked with nature, whom he loved too well ever to outrage 
 or insult by slight or misrepresentation. And yet he was city born, 
 and city bred, — born in the unpoetic district of ' the Poultry,' — 
 though born, as it were, to letters, for his father was a bookseller." 
 On the return of Hood to England, he became editor of the New 
 X Monthly Magazine, and, on retiring from it in 1843, he published 
 X' the best of his writings in prose and verse in that journal, with some 
 
 •^ additions, with the title of "Whimsicalities." In 1844 he started 
 
 Hood's Mafjazine, his last periodical, and continued to contribute to 
 its pages until within a month before his death. In his later days 
 he was an occasional contributor to Punch, where his celebrated 
 Song of the Shirt made its first appearance. 
 
 Hood died on the third of May, 1845, leaving a widow and twc 
 children. He died a poor man. He had no money-making faculty, 
 
LIFE OF UOOD. XXI 
 
 lie could delight the world with his genius, but he did not make u 
 good commercial use of it. With all his talents and fame, he did 
 not manage to coin them into gold. Soon after his death a subscrip- 
 tion was commenced for the benefit of his family. The project was 
 communicated to the public in a single paragraph, which will be read 
 Avith melancholy interest : 
 
 " The late Thomas IIood. — This distinguished writer, who has, 
 for upwards of twenty years, entertained the public with a constant 
 succession of comic and humoristic works, in the whole range of ichich 
 not a single line of immoral tendenx:y, or calculated to pain an indi- 
 vidual, can he pointed out, whose poems and serious writings rank 
 among the noblest modern contributions of our national literature, 
 and whose pen was ever the ready and efficient advocate of the unfor- 
 tunate and the oppressed (as recently, for instance, in the admirable 
 ' Song of the Shirt,' which gave so remarkable an impulse to the 
 movement on belialf of the distressed needlewomen), has left, by his 
 death, a widow and two children in straitened and precarious cir 
 cumstances, with no other means of subsistence than a small pension, 
 terminable on t!ie failure of the widow's life, barely sufficient to sup- 
 ply a family of three with common necessaries, and totally inadequate 
 for the education and advancement of the orphan children. Even 
 this scant}^ resource has been, of necessit}-, forestalled to a consider- 
 able extent daring the last five months, in order to meet the heavy 
 sick-room and funeral expenses. Under these circumstances, a sub- 
 scription for the family has been set on foot. The admirers of 
 Thomas Hood throughout the country will, it is hoped, take this 
 opportunity of publicly testifying their recognition of his genius and 
 their sense of his personal wortli." 
 
 Of his latter days an affecting account was given in the Literary- 
 Gazette, shortly after his death : 
 
 " Thomas Hood died on Saturday morning. A spirit of true phi- 
 lanthropy has departed from its earthly tenement ; the light of a 
 curious and peculiar wit has been extinguished ; the feeling and 
 pathos of a natural poet have descended into the grave ; and left 
 those who knew, admired, and loved these qualities, to feel and de- 
 
XXll LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 plore the loss of him in whom they were so preeminently united. 
 Yet we can hardly say that we lament his death. Poor Hood ! his 
 sportive humor, like the rays from a crackling fire in a dilapidated 
 building, had long played among the fractures of a ruined consti- 
 tution, and flashed upon the world through the flaws and rents of a 
 Bhattered wreck. Yet, infirm as was the fabric, the equal mind was 
 never disturbed to the last. He contemplated the approach of de;ith 
 with a composed philosophy, and a resigned soul. It had no terrors 
 for him. A sliort while ago we sat for hours by his bed-side in gen- 
 eral and cheerful conversation, as when in social and healthful inter- 
 course. Then he spoke of the certain and unavoidable event about to 
 take place with perfect unreserve, unrufiled calmness ; and the lesson 
 and example how to die was never given in a more impressive and 
 consolatory manner than by Thomas Hood. His bodily sufierings 
 had made no change in his mental character. He was the same as 
 in his publications, — at times lively and jocular, at times serious and 
 affecting ; and upon the one great subject of a death-bed hope, he de- 
 clared himself, as throughout life, opposed to canters and hypocrites, 
 — a class he had always detested and written against; while he set 
 the higliest price upon sincere Christianity, whose works of charity 
 and mercy bore witness to the integrity and purity of the faith pro- 
 fessed. ' Our common friend,' he said, ' Mrs. E , I love ; for she 
 
 is truly religious, and not a fious, woman.' He seemed anxious that 
 his sentiments on the momentous question should not be misrepre- 
 sented ; and that his animosity against the pretended should not be 
 misconstrued into a want of just estimation for the real. 
 
 " Another subject upon which he dwelt with much earnestness and 
 gratitude, was the grant of a pension of one hundred pounds a year 
 to his wife. ' There is, after all,' he observed, ' much of good to 
 counterbalance the bad in this world. I have now a better opinion 
 of it than I once had, when pressed by wrongs and injuries.' Two 
 autograph letters from Sir Robert Peel, relating to this pension, gave 
 him intense gratification, and were indeed most honorable to tlic 
 heart of the writer, whose warmth in the expression of personal solic- 
 itude for himself and his family, and of admiration for his jM-oduc- 
 tions (with which Sir Robert seemed to be well acquainted), we firmly 
 believe imparted more delight to the dying man than even the pros- 
 pect that those so dear to him would not be left destitute. In hj< 
 
LIFE OF nooD. xxiii 
 
 answer to the minister's first communication, he had alluded to the 
 tendency of his -writings ever being on the side of humanity and 
 order, and not of the modern school, to separate society into two 
 classes, the rich and poor, and to inflame hatred on the one side, and 
 fear on the other. This avowal appeared, from the reply which 
 acknowledged its truth, to have been very acceptable to the premier, 
 from whom the gift had emanated." 
 
 On the 18 til July, 1854, a monument was raised to the memory 
 of Hood ; and in the sketch of the proceedings on this occasion, and 
 the speech of Mr. Mouckton Milnes, which we copy from the London 
 Times, we find a fit conclusion to this brief account of his life. Mr. 
 Milnes observed : 
 
 " I have been asked to come here to-day to say a few words before 
 we open to your view the monument which has been erected to the 
 memory of Hood. It is now some years since we laid our triend below 
 us in this pleasant place, where he rests after a long iUness — after a 
 life of noble struggle with much adversity, and of nothing but good to 
 his fellow-men. It is now thought advisable that a few words should 
 be said before that ceremony takes place. It is rather a habit of our 
 neighbors the French than of ourselves, to make eulogistic orations 
 at the tombs of our friends. I do not think the habit in general is 
 pleasing to our taste ; but there are reasons why, on the present 
 occasion, it may not be unbecoming. At the same time, it is very 
 difficult to perform this duty, because we must feel that, if ever there 
 was a character of simphcity and humility, it was that of the late 
 ]Mr. Thomas Hood ; aud it would not become us, on the jjresent occa- 
 sion, to indulge in eulogies which, if he were here himself, Avould be 
 distasteful to him; for he was a man who -ever retired from the 
 crowd, and who loved, as he has said in his o^m classical and beau- 
 tiful language : 
 
 ' To kneel remote upon the simple sod. 
 And sue, in formci pauperU , to God.' 
 
 Our German friends call a cemetery of this kind ' God's field,' and 
 we must not desecrate it by vain and pompous eulogies over a fellow- 
 mortal. All we can do is to commit him, with all his errors, to the 
 mercy of God, and at the same time to keep his memory dear and 
 fiis fame bright among us. This is the purpose of the friends of Mr. 
 Thomas Hood who have raised this structure. Some of them were 
 
XXIV LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 familiar with him from his youth — the eyes of others never lit upon 
 his person. It would be invidious to single out any of these frienda 
 of the poet ; but I may mention the name of one lady who is Avell 
 known to us all, Miss Eliza Cook, to whose exertions, in all quarters 
 of society, the erection of this monument is very much OAving. 
 Some, too, have contributed to it who did not appreciate him daring 
 his lifetime ; — to them may be applicable his beautiful lines : 
 
 'Farewell ! we did not know thy worth ; 
 But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized. 
 So angels walked unknown on earth. 
 But when they flew were recognized.' 
 
 " He was a poet — a poet in the true sense of the vrord ; but at the 
 same time I by no means think that his poetical powers were of so 
 great and remarkable a character that his reputation would have 
 become such as it is if it had been confined to his poetical works 
 alone. By his poetical works I mean those developments of pure im- 
 agination, which are more interesting to literary men than they can 
 be to the world in general. In all these works we recognize not 
 only the lyrical facilities which enable many a youth to throw out 
 good poetry, but the refined taste and cultivated mind of mature 
 years. But his fame — that for which he is chiefly known to us — 
 belongs to him as an English humorist ; and, in using that word, I 
 use no word inapplicable to the occasion or unworthy of his fame. 
 It is the boast of our literature, as distinguished from that of all 
 other nations, that from the earliest times of its history we find 
 humoristic writers who delighted the age in which they lived and 
 those which succeeded them. In that category we may place Shaks- 
 peare himsalf, and we may draw, downwards, a long genealogical 
 list of humorists, ending with the names of Charles Lamb, Sydney 
 Smith, and Thomas Hood. I do not know whether my opinions in 
 this matter may be peculiar ; but I have often thought that if I 
 were to pray to Heaven for a gift to be given to any person in wliose 
 moral and intellectual welfare I was especially interested, it would 
 be that he might have the gift of humor. The gift of humor is, as 
 it were, the balance of all the faculties. It enables a man to see the 
 strong contrasts of life around him ; it prevents him being too much 
 devoted to his own knowledge, and too proud of his own imagina- 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XX^ 
 
 don. and it also disposes him to suljmit, with a wise and pioua 
 patience, to the vicissitudes of liis daily existence. It is thus that 
 humorists, such as Hood has been, and as Dickens is now, are great 
 benefactors of our species, not only on account of the amusement 
 which they give us, but because they arc great moral teachers. The 
 humorous writings of Mr. Tliomas Hood have instructed you many 
 years, and will instruct your children after you. I should mention, 
 however, tliat this combinatiuu of poetry and humor does not pro- 
 duce, in all persons, the same blessed effects that it has produced 
 here. In some cases it has degenerated into impatient satire and 
 fierce revolt against the better feelings of humanity. In such a mind 
 as that of Swift, it produced these evil effects ; but in such a mind 
 as Hood's, it produced directly the contrary : it generated a noble and 
 generous sympathy with the wants and desires of his fellow-creat- 
 ures ; and it is for this combination of poetical genius and humor 
 and earnest philanthropy, that his name has grown up to become, as 
 it were, a proverb for great wit united with deep and solemn sympa- 
 thies. We recognize, ladies and gentlemen, these rare merits of Mr. 
 Thomas Hood in the productions of his mature life, such as ' The 
 Bridge of Sighs,' and 'The Song of the Shirt,' — verses which 
 appear occasionally, and only occasionally, in literature, and which 
 seem like products of the acme of the human mind — such jwoducts 
 as the prison-song of Lovelace, the elegy of Gray, the sea-songs of 
 Campbell, ' The Burial of Sir John Moore,' and the ' May Queen' 
 of Alfred Tennyson — poems which, though they cost their authors 
 much less trouble than many of their less successful works, are, nev- 
 ertheless, the anchors (so to speak) of their world-wide fame. These 
 beautiful poems of Mr. Thomas Hood have had a deep moral effect 
 on different classes of society. If there are among those poems, and 
 others of ^'ilr. Thomas Hood, some expressions of stern indignation 
 — if there are some passages which may seem almost exceptions to 
 the general amiability of his character — it is that he wished to 
 enforce the moral, that 
 
 ' Evil is wrought by want of thought 
 As well as want of heart.' 
 
 I do not think, therefore, that there was any levity in his character 
 because he was an humorist. I do not think, because you find in hia 
 C 
 
XXVI LIFE OF HOOD. 
 
 ■works that v.-hh Ins rich wit and his great possessions of language 
 he delighted to play with words as if, almost, they were fireworks, 
 there was a want of gravity or seriousness in his composition. In i 
 poem of his which id a 2>erfect reportorium of wit and spirit, ht 
 seems conscior.s of this himself, for he writes to the effect that — 
 
 'However critics may take offence, 
 A double meaning gives double sense.' 
 
 And there are, no doubt, certain subtile faculties about us which 
 enable us to find such great pleasure in the combination of this ao-il- 
 ity of diction with seriousness of purpose. Ladies and gentlemen 
 who have raised this monument, I was informed by a friend of mine, 
 and a dear friend of his, who remained with him to the last — Mr. 
 Ward — that ^Mr. Thomas Hood was in very great disease and suffer- 
 ing, that he was laboring under some pecuniary difficulties — that 
 his mind was not easy on those points, and that it would be a great 
 relief to him to obtain some assistance, if he could do so by any 
 honorable moans, for he was determined to employ no other. I went 
 on that occasion to Sir R. Peel, from whom I met witii the most per- 
 fect sympathy as regarded the object I had in view ; and it was to 
 me a most interesting fact that that great man, governing the desti- 
 nies of this mighty nation, and engaged as he was in the gravest 
 pursuits, could nevertheless be drawn, by the force of human sym- 
 pathy, to take a deep interest in this simple man of letters. What 
 was done on that occasion was sufficient for the pur^-iose. I will ask 
 you, therefore, in looking upon this bast, to regard it as a memorial 
 not only of the interest of his friends, but as a memorial of national 
 interest for a national name. It consists, as you perceive, of a plain 
 bust upon a pedestal. I have always thought that a man's bust is 
 the best monument which could be raised to him ; it is that which ia 
 most calculated to show people who come after him what he really 
 was, and it is l!:!a3 dumb and less vacant than the monuments which 
 we see mostly around us. It is perfectly true that, generally speak- 
 ing, we find that basts represent the dead when we could wish they 
 represented the li\dng ; it is perfectly true, also, that in our every- 
 day walk among living busts we see men of genius, whom we do not 
 recognize, and whose services and virtues we do not honor ; and, 
 after all, this may, perhaps, be but a poor acknowledgment of tha 
 
LIFE OF HOOD. XXVll 
 
 worth of the poet and humorist ; but still here it is, and we have 
 raised it, and I trust all will feel that in so doing we liave not done 
 honor to him, but to ourselves. I remember that at the time of his 
 fatal illness I Avas very much haunted with the recollection of some 
 lines of his, which, I dare say, some of you remember. They are 
 contained in a little poem called The Death-bed — 
 
 ' We watched her breathing through the night, 
 Iler breathing soft and low. 
 As in her breast the wave of life 
 Kept heaving to and fro. 
 
 ' So silently we seemed to speak, 
 So slowly moved about. 
 As we had lent her half our powers 
 To eke her living out. 
 
 * Our very hopes belied our fears. 
 Our fears our hopes belied — 
 We thought her dying when she slept. 
 And sleeping when she died. 
 
 ' For when the morn came dim and sad. 
 
 And chill with early showers. 
 Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
 Another morn than ours.' 
 
 Thomas Hood haa now another morn than ours — may that mom 
 have brightened into perfect day! May his spirit look down with 
 gi'atification upon us who have raised this modest homage to him — 
 may ho look down with pleasure on those he has loft behind him, and 
 who inherit his honor and his name — and may we all bear home 
 with us the consoling reflection, tliat the fiime of which a wise 
 and honest man should bo ambitious is not that of acquiring wealth 
 power, or even earning clamorous applause, but the attaming of 
 such homage as we are now paying to one who among us was a 
 brother and a friend — one Avho may make us at the same time 
 thankful to the age in which it has pleased Providence to cast our 
 lot, and grateful to the race and country of which we are common 
 citizens and men." 
 
 The monument consists of a large bronze bust of Hood, elevated 
 on a handsome pedestal of polished red granite. On a slab beneath 
 
XXVm LIPE OF HOOD. 
 
 the bust is his own self-inscribed epitaph — "He sang ' The Song of 
 the Shirt' ;" and upon the projecting front of the pedestal the 
 inscription is carved — "In memory of 2rf)oma(3 ?^ooiJ, born 23d 
 of iMay, 1798 ; died 3d of May, 1845 ; erected by public subscrip- 
 tion A.D. 1854." On the sides of the pedestal are medallions illus- 
 trating " The Bridge of Sighs " and " The Dream of Eugene Aram." 
 The monument is the work of Mr. Matthew Xoble. It is simple in 
 design, and correctly executed, and looks well in the midst of the 
 medley of monuments with which Kensal-green is filling. But, in- 
 dependently of any consideration of that kind, this must ever l">9 
 one of the chief treasures of the olace. 
 
THE PLEA 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MIDSUMMER FAIUIES. 
 
i'O CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 My dear Friend : I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many 
 better wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage, with some nomi- 
 nally great man ; but that where true affection points, and honest respect, I am free to 
 gratify my head and heart by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and dearness, worthy 
 of a much earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at once to your name • 
 and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling towards me, I desire to record a 
 respect and admiration for you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, 
 save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had not these better 
 reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the same selection by your intense yet criti- 
 cal relish for the works of our great Dramatist, and for that favorite play In particular 
 which has furnished the subject of my verses. 
 
 It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate by an allegory that immortality 
 which Shakspeare has conferred on the Fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's 
 Dream. But for hhn, those pretty children of our childhood would leave barely their 
 names to our maturer years ; they belong, as the mites upon the plum, to the bloom of 
 fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling of Time : 
 but the Poet has made this most perishable part of the mind's creation equal to the most 
 enduring ; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, and linked them by 
 60 many delightful associations with the productions of nature, that they are as real to the 
 mind's eye as their green magical circles to the outer sense. 
 
 It would have been a pity for such a race to go e.xtinct, even though they were but as 
 the butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world. 
 
 I am, my dear friend. 
 
 Yours, most truly, 
 T. Hood. 
 
THE 
 
 PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FMRIES. 
 
 'T AVAS in that mellow season of the year 
 
 "When the hot Sun singes the yellow leaves 
 
 Till they be gold, and with a broader sphere 
 
 The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves ; 
 
 When more abundantly the spider weaves, 
 
 And the cold wind breathes from a chillier clime ; 
 
 That forth I fared, on one of those still eves, 
 
 Touched with the dewy sadness of the time, 
 
 To think how the bright months had spent their prima 
 
 So that, wherever I addressed my way, 
 
 I seemed to track the melancholy feet 
 
 Of him that is the Father of Decay, 
 
 And spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ; — 
 
 Wherefore regretfully I made retreat 
 
 To some unwasted regions of my brain, 
 
 Charmed with the light of summer and the heat, 
 
 And bade that bounteous season bloom again, 
 
 And sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain. 
 
 It was a shady and sequestered scene. 
 Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio, 
 Planted Avith his own laurels ever green, 
 And roses that for endless summer blow ; 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 AnO <Jiere \Yttvh fountain springs to overflow 
 Theii" marble basins ; and cool green arcades 
 Of tall erarcbing sycamores, to throw 
 Aihwart the dappled path their dancing shades ; 
 With timid conejs cropping the green blades. 
 
 And there were crystal pools, peopled with fish, 
 Argent and gold : and some of Tjrian skin, 
 Some crimson-barred : — and ever at a wish 
 Thej rose obsequious till the wave grew thin 
 As glass upon their backs, and then dived in, 
 Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom ; 
 Whilst others with fresh hues rowed forth to win 
 My changeable regard, — for so we doom 
 Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom. 
 
 And there were many birds of many dyes, 
 From tree to tree still farincf to and fro, 
 And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes, 
 And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow, 
 Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow, 
 Besides some vocalists, without a name. 
 That oft on fairy errands come and go, 
 With accents magical ; — and all were tame, 
 And pecked at my hand where'er I came. 
 
 And for my sylvan company, in lieu 
 Of Pampinea with her lively peers. 
 Sate Queen Titania with her pretty crew. 
 All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears ; 
 For she was gracious to my childish years. 
 And made me free of her enchanted round ; 
 Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears, 
 And plants her court upon a verdant mound. 
 Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves profound. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 '« Ah. mc," she cries, "was ever moonlight seen 
 So clear and tender for our midnight trips ] 
 Go some one forth, and with a trump convene 
 My lieges all ! " — Away the goblin skips 
 A pace or two apart, and deftly strips 
 The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek, 
 Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips, 
 Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, 
 Like a frayed bird in the gray owlet's beak. 
 
 And, lo ! upon my fixed delighted ken 
 Appeared the loyal Fays. Some by degrees 
 Crept from the primrose-buds that opened then. 
 And some from bell-shaped blossoms like the bees , 
 Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas, 
 Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass ; 
 Some from the rivers, others from tall trees 
 Dropped, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass, 
 Spii'its and elfins small, of every class. 
 
 Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic, 
 Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain ; 
 And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic, 
 Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain, 
 Fresh dripping from a cloud — some bloomy rain, 
 Then circling the bright Moon, had washed her car, 
 And still bedewed it with a various stain : 
 Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star, 
 "Who bears all fairy embassies afar. 
 
 But Oberon, that night elsewhere exiled, 
 Was absent, whether some distempered spleen 
 Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled, 
 Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been 
 1* 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Sometimes obnoxious), kept liim from his queen, 
 And made her now peruse the starry skies 
 Prophetical with such an absent mien ; 
 Howbeit, the tears stole often to her ejes, 
 And oft the Moon was incensed with her siirhs — 
 
 Which made the elves sport drearily, and soon 
 Their hushing dances languished to a stand, 
 Like midnight leaves when, as the Zephji-s swoon, 
 All on their drooping stems they sink unfanned, — 
 So into silence drooped the fairy band. 
 To see their empress dear so pale and still. 
 Crowding her softly round on either hand, 
 As pale as frosty snow-di-ops, and as chill. 
 To whom the sceptred dame reveals her ill 
 
 " Alas ! '■ quoth she, '• ye know our fairy li^es 
 Are leased upon the fickle faith of men : 
 Not measured out against fate's mortal knives 
 Like human gossamers, we perish when 
 We fade, and are forgot in worldly ken. — 
 Though poesy has thus prolonged our date. 
 Thanks be to the sweet Bard's auspicious pen 
 That rescued us so long ! — howbeit of late 
 I feel some dark misgivings of our fate. 
 
 ••' And this dull day my melancholy sleep 
 Hath been so thronged with images of woe, 
 That even now I cannot choose but weep 
 To think this was some sad prophetic show 
 Of future horror to befall us so. — 
 Of mortal wreck and uttermost distress. — 
 Yea, oui- poor empu-e's fall and overthrow, — 
 Tor this was my long vision's dreadftd stress. 
 And when I waked my trouble was not less. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER TAIIIIES. 
 
 " Whenever to tlic clouds I tried to seek, 
 Such leaden weight dragged these Icarian wings, 
 Uy faithless wand was wavering and weak, 
 And slimy toads had trespassed in our rings — 
 The birds refused to sing for me — all things 
 Disowned their old allegiance to our spells ; ^ 
 The rude bees pricked me with their rebel stings ; 
 And, when I passed, the valley-lily's bells 
 Rang out, methought, most melancholy knells. 
 
 " And ever on the faint and flagging air 
 
 A doleful spirit with a dreary note 
 
 Cried in my fearful ear, ' Prepare ! prepare ! ' 
 
 Which soon I knew came from a raven's throat, 
 
 Perched on a cypress-bough not far remote,- 
 
 A cursed bird, too crafty to be shot. 
 
 That alway cometh with his soot-black coat 
 
 To make hearts dreary : — for he is a blot 
 
 Upon the book of life, as well ye wot ! — 
 
 " Wherefore some while I bribed him to be mute, 
 "With bitter acorns stuffing his foul maw, 
 Which barely I appeased, when some fresh bruit 
 Startled me all aheap ! — and soon I saw 
 The horridest shape that ever raised my awe,— 
 A monstrous giant, very huge and tall. 
 Such as in elder times, devoid of law, 
 With wicked might grieved the primeval ball, 
 And this was sure the deadliest of them all ! 
 
 " Gaunt was he as a wolf of Languedoc, 
 With bloody jaws, and frost upon his crown ; 
 So from his barren poll one hoary lock 
 Over liis wrinkled front fell far adown, 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Well-nigh to where his frosty brows did frown 
 Like jagged icicles at cottage eaves ; 
 And for his coronal he wore some brown 
 And bristled ears gathered from Ceres' sheaves, 
 Entwined with certain sere and russet leaves. 
 
 " And, lo ! upon a mast reared far aloft, 
 He bore a very bright and crescent blade. 
 The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft. 
 In meditative spite, that, sore dismayed, 
 I crept into an acorn-cup for shade ; 
 Meanwhile the horrid effigy went by : 
 I trow his look was dreadful, for it made 
 The trembling birds betake them to the sky. 
 For every leaf was lifted by his sigh. 
 
 " And ever, as he sighed, his foggy breath 
 Blurred out the landscape like a flight of smoke : 
 Thence knew I this was either dreary Death 
 Or Time, who leads all creatures to his stroke. 
 Ah, wretched me ! " — Here, even as she spoke, 
 The melancholy Shape came gliding in, 
 And leaned his back against an antique oak. 
 Folding his wmgs, that were so fine and thin. 
 They scarce were seen against the Dryad's skin. 
 
 Then what a fear seized all the little rout ! 
 Look how a flock of panicked sheep will stare — 
 And huddle close — and start — and wheel about. 
 Watching the roaming mongrel here and there, — 
 So did that sudden Apparition scare 
 All close aheap those small affrighted things ; 
 Nor sought they now the safety of the air. 
 As if some leaden spell withheld their wings ; 
 But who can fly that ancientest of Kings ? 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Whom now the Queen, with a forestalling tear 
 And previous sigh, beginneth to entreat, 
 Bidding him spare, for love, her lieges dear : 
 " Alas ! " quoth she, " is there no nodding wheat 
 Ripe for thy crooked weapon, and mo re 'meet, — 
 Or withered leaves to ravish from the tree, — 
 Or crumbling battlements for thy defeat 7 
 Think but what vaunting monuments there be 
 Builded in spite and mockery of thee. 
 
 "0, fret away the fabric walls of Fame, 
 And grind down marble Caesars with the dust : 
 Make tombs inscriptionless — raze each high name, 
 And waste old armors of renown with rust : 
 Do all of this, and thy revenge is just : 
 Make such decays the trophies of thy prime, 
 And check Ambition's overweening lust, 
 That dares exterminating war with Time, — 
 But we are guiltless of that lofty crime. 
 
 •'• Frail, feeble sprites ! — the children of a dream ! 
 
 Leased on the sufferance of fickle men, 
 
 Like motes dependent on the sunny beam, 
 
 Li vino; but in the sun's indulgent ken, 
 
 And when that light withdraws, withdrawing then ; 
 
 So do we flutter in the glance of youth 
 
 And fervid fancy, — and so perish when 
 
 The eye of faith grows aged ; — in sad truth, 
 
 Feeling thy sway, Time ! though not thy tooth ! 
 
 " Where be those old divinities forlorn, 
 That cwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream 1 
 Alas ! their memories are dimmed and torn. 
 Like the remainder tatters of a dream : 
 
10 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 So will it fore with our poor thrones, I deem ; — 
 For us the same dark trench Oblivion delves, 
 That holds the wastes of everj human scheme. 
 0, spare us then, — and these our pretty elves, 
 We soon, alas ! shall perish of ourselves ! " 
 
 Now as she ended, with a sigh, to name 
 Those old Olympians, scattered by the whirl 
 Of fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, 
 Methought a scornful and malignant curl 
 Showed on the lips of that malicious churl. 
 To think what noble havocs he had made : 
 So that I feared he all at once would hurl 
 The harmless fairies into endless shade, — 
 Howbeit he stopped a while to whet his blade. 
 
 Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail 
 Eise up in concert from their mingled dread ; 
 Pity it was to see them, all so pale. 
 Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed ; — 
 But Puck was seated on a spider's thread, 
 That hung between two branches of a brier. 
 And 'gan to swing and gambol heels o'er head. 
 Like any Southwark tumbler on a wire. 
 For him no present grief could long inspire. 
 
 Meanwhile the Queen with many piteous drops, 
 Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free. 
 Bedews a pathway from her throne ; — and stops 
 Before the foot of her arch enemy, 
 And with her little arms enfolds his knee, 
 That shows more gristly from that fair embrace : 
 But she will ne'er depart. " Alas ! " quoth she, 
 "My painful fingers I will here enlace 
 Till I have gained your pity for our race. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. H 
 
 "What have we ever done to earn this grudge, 
 And hate— (if not too humble for thy hating 1) — 
 Look o'er our labors and our lives, and judge 
 If there be any ills of our creating ; 
 For -w-e are very kindly creatures, dating 
 With nature's charities still sweet and bland : — 
 0, think this murder worthy of debating ! " — 
 Herewith she makes a signal with her hand, 
 To beckon some one from the Fairy band. 
 
 Anon I saw one of those elfin things. 
 
 Clad all in white like any chorister, 
 
 Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings. 
 
 That made soft music at each little stir, 
 
 But something louder than a bee's demur 
 
 Before he lights upon a bunch of broom. 
 
 And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, — 
 
 And, 0, his voice was sweet, touched with the gloom 
 
 Of that sad theme that argued of his doom ! 
 
 Quoth he, " We make all melodies our care, 
 That no false discords may offend the Sun, 
 Music's great master — tuning everywhere 
 All pastoral sounds and melodies, each one 
 Duly to place and season, so that none 
 May harshly interfere. We rouse at morn 
 The shrill sweet lark ; and when the day is done, 
 Hush silent pauses for the bird forlorn. 
 That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 
 
 " We gather in loud choirs the twittering race, 
 That make a chorus with their single note ; 
 And tend on new-fledged birds in every place. 
 That duly they may get their tunes by rote ; 
 
12 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMEK FAIRIES. 
 
 And oft, like echoes, answering remote, 
 We hide in thickets from the feathered throns:. 
 And strain in rivalship each throbbing throat, 
 Singing in shrill responses all day long, 
 Whilst the glad truant listens to our song. 
 
 " Wherefore, great King of Years, as thou dost love 
 The rainincf music from a mo/ninor cloud. 
 When vanished larks are caroling above, 
 To wake Apollo with their pipogs loud : — 
 If ever thou hast heard in leafy shroud 
 The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell, 
 Show thy sweet mercy on this little crowd. 
 And we will muffle up the sheepfold bell 
 Whene'er thou listenest to Philomel."' 
 
 Then Saturn thus : " Sweet is the merry lark, 
 That carols in man's ear so clear and strono- • 
 And youth must love to listen in the dark 
 That tuneful elegy of Tereus' wrong : , 
 
 But I have heard that ancient strain too lon^, 
 For sweet is sweet but when a little strancre, 
 And I grow weary for some newer song ; 
 For wherefore had I wings, unless to range 
 Through all things mutable from change to change 1 
 
 "But wouldst thou hear the melodies of Time, 
 Listen when sleep and drowsy darkness roll 
 Over hushed cities, and the midnight chime 
 Sounds from their hundred clocks, and deep bells toll 
 Like a last knell over the dead world" s soul. 
 Saying, Time shall be final of all things. 
 Whose late, last voice must elegize the whole, — 
 0, then I clap aloft my brave broad wings, 
 And make the wide air tremble while it rinss ! " 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. iO 
 
 Then next a fair Eve-Faj made meek address, 
 Saying. "We be the handmaids of the Spring, 
 In sign -whereof. May, the quaint broideress, 
 Hath wrought her samplers on our gauzy wing. 
 We tend upon buds" birth and blossoming, 
 And count the leafy tributes that they owe — 
 As. so much to the eai-th — so much to fling 
 In showers to the brook — so much to go 
 In whu-lwinds to the clouds that made them grow. 
 
 " The pastoral cowslips are our little pets, 
 And daisy stars, whose fii-mament is green ; 
 Pansies, and those veiled nuns, meek violets, 
 Sighing to that wai-m world from which they screen ; 
 And golden daffodils, plucked for May"s Queen ; 
 And lonely harebells, quaking on the heath ; 
 And Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen, 
 Whose tuneful voice, turned fi-agi-ance in his breath, 
 Kissed by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death. 
 
 '' The widowed primi'ose weeping to the moon, 
 And saffi-on crocus in whose chalice bright 
 A cool libation hoarded for the noon 
 Is kept — and she that purifies the light, 
 The virgin lily, faithful to her white, 
 Whereon Eve wept in Eden for her shame ; 
 And the most dainty rose, Aurora's spright, 
 Our every godchild, by whatever name — 
 Spare us our lives, for we did nurse the same ! " 
 
 Then that old Mower stamped his heel, and struck 
 His hurtful scythe against the harmless gi-ound. 
 Saying. • • Ye foolish imps, when am I stuck 
 With gaudy buds, or like a wooer crowned 
 2 
 
14 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 With flowery chaplets, save when they are found 
 Withered 7 — Whenever have I plucked a rose, 
 
 Except to scatter its vain leaves around 7 
 
 For so all gloss of beauty I oppose, 
 
 And bring decay on every flower that blows. 
 
 " Or when am I so wroth as when I view 
 
 The wanton pride of Summer : — how she decks 
 
 The birth-day world with blossoms ever new, 
 
 As if Time had not lived, and heaped great wrecks 
 
 Of years on years? — 0, then I bravely vex 
 
 And catch the gay Months in their gaudy plight. 
 
 And slay them with the wreaths about their necks. 
 
 Like foolish heifers in the holy rite, 
 
 And raise great trophies to my ancient might ! " 
 
 Then saith another, ' ' We are kindly things. 
 And like her oflspring nestle with the dove, — 
 Witness these hearts embroidered on our wings, 
 To show our constant patronage of love : — 
 We sit at even, in sweet bowers above 
 Lovers, and shake rich odors on the air, 
 To mingle with their sighs ; and still remove 
 The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear 
 Their privacy, and haunt some other where. 
 
 '• ' And we are near the mother when she sits 
 Beside her infant in its wicker bed ; 
 And we are in the fairy scene that flits 
 Across its tender brain : sweet dreams we shed, 
 And whilst the tender little soul is fled 
 Away, to sport with our young elves, the while 
 We touch the dimpled cheek with roses red, 
 And tickle the soft lips until they smile. 
 So that their careful parents they beguile. 
 
THE TLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 15 
 
 0, then, if ever thou hast breathed a vow 
 At Love's dear portal, or at pale moon-rise 
 Crushed the dear curl on a regardful brow 
 That did not frown thee from thj honej prize — 
 If ever thj sweet son sat on thy thighs, 
 And wooed thee from thy careful thoughts within 
 To watch the harmless beauty of his eyes, 
 Or glad thy fingers on his smooth soft skin. 
 For love's dear sake, let us thy pity win ! " 
 
 Then Saturn fiercely thus : " What joy have I 
 In tender babes, that have devoured mine own, 
 "Whenever to the light I heard them cry, 
 Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone 7 
 Whereon, till now, is my great hunger shown, 
 In monstrous dints of my enormous tooth ; 
 And, — but the peopled world is too full grown 
 For hunger's edge, — I would consume all youth 
 At one great meal, without delay or ruth ! 
 
 " For I am well-nigh crazed and wild to hear 
 How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, 
 Saying, ' We shall not die nor disappear. 
 But in these other selves, ourselves succeed, 
 Even as ripe flowers pass into their seed 
 Only to be renewed from prime to prime,' 
 All of which boastings I am forced to read. 
 Besides a thousand challenges to Time 
 Which bragging lovers have compiled in rhyme. 
 
 "Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o' nights, 
 There will I steal, and with my hurried hand 
 Startle them suddenly from their delights 
 Before their next encounter hath been planned, 
 
16 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Ravishing hours in little minutes spanned ; 
 But when thej say farewell, and grieve apart, 
 Then like a leaden statue I will stand, 
 Meanwhile their many tears incrust my dart, 
 And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart." 
 
 Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, 
 Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood 
 Each at his proper ease, as they had been 
 Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, 
 And wore the livery of Robin Hood, 
 Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup, — 
 So came this chief right frankly, and made gooa 
 His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, 
 Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup : 
 
 " We be small foresters and gay, who tend 
 On trees and all their furniture of green. 
 Training the young boughs airily to bend. 
 And show blue snatches of the sky between ; — 
 Or knit more close intricacies, to screen 
 Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them best, 
 But most the timid blackbird's — she, that seen, 
 Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest. 
 Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast. 
 
 " We bend each tree in proper attitude. 
 And founting willows train in silvery falls ; 
 We frame all shady roofs and arches rude. 
 And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls. 
 Or deep recesses where the Echo calls ; — 
 We shape all plumy trees against the sky, 
 And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals, — 
 When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply, 
 Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 17 
 
 " Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell, 
 
 And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, 
 
 That haply some lone musing wight may spell 
 
 Dainty Aminta, — gentle Rosalind, — 
 
 Or chastest Laura, — sweetly called to mind 
 
 In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down ; — 
 
 And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined 
 
 And vagrant ivy, — or rich moss, whose hrown 
 
 Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down, 
 
 " And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer, 
 We bear the seedling berries, for increase, 
 To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year, 
 Careful that mistletoe may never cease ; — 
 Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace 
 Of sombre forests, or to see light break 
 Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release 
 Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake, 
 Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake." 
 
 Then Saturn, with a frown : "Go forth, and fell 
 
 Oak for your coffins, and thenceforth lay by 
 
 Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell 
 
 To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky 
 
 Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy 
 
 The next green generation of the tree ; 
 
 But hence with the dead leaves, Avhene'er they fly, — 
 
 Which in the bleak air I would rather see, 
 
 Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be. 
 
 " For I dislike all prime, and verdant pets, 
 Ivy except, that on the aged wall 
 Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets 
 The crumbled tower it seems to league withal, 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 King-like, worn down bj its own coronal : — 
 
 Neither in forest haunts love I to won, 
 
 Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall, 
 
 And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves on, 
 
 Or bare — like Xature in her skeleton. 
 
 '• For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs, 
 Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs ; 
 And there in rustling nuptials we espouse, 
 Smit by the sadness in each other's ejes ; — 
 But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies. 
 And must be courted with the gauds of spring ; 
 Whilst Youth leans godlike on her lap. and cries. 
 What shall we always do, but love and sing ] — 
 And Time is reckoned a discarded thing:." 
 
 Here in my dream it made me fret to see 
 
 How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while 
 
 Had blithely jested with calamity, 
 
 With mistimed mirth mocking the doleful style 
 
 Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile 
 
 To see him so reflect their grief aside. 
 
 Turning their solemn looks to half a smile — 
 
 Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide ; — 
 
 But soon a novel advocate I spied. 
 
 Quoth he, •• We teach all natures to fulfil "^ 
 
 Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet, — 
 
 The bee's sweet alchemy. — the spider's skill, — 
 
 The pismire's care to garner up his wheat, — 
 
 And rustic masonry to swallows fleet, — 
 
 The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest, — 
 
 But most that lesser pelican, the sweet 
 
 And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast, 
 
 Its tender pity of poor babes distrest. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 19 
 
 " Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins 
 Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves 
 From our example ; so the spider spins, 
 And eke the silk- worm, patterned bj ourselves : 
 Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves 
 Of early bees, and busy toils commence. 
 Watched of wise men, that know not we are elves, 
 But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense. 
 And praise oui* human-like intelligence. 
 
 " Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale, 
 And plaintive dirges the late robins sing. 
 What time the leaves are scattered by the gale, 
 jMindful of that old forest burying ; — 
 As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing, 
 For whom our craft most curiously contrives. 
 If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing, 
 To take his honey-bag, — spare us our lives. 
 And we will pay the ransom in full hives." 
 
 " Now by my glass," quoth Time, " ye do offend 
 In teaching the brown bees that careful lore, 
 And frugal ants, whose millions would have end, 
 But they lay up for need a timely store, 
 And travail with the seasons evermore ; 
 Whereas Great Mammoth long hath passea away, 
 And none but I can tell what hide he wore ; 
 Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day. 
 In riddling wonder his great bones survey." 
 
 Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold, 
 TNTiose coat was like a brooklet that the sun 
 Hath all embroidered with its crooked gold. 
 It was so quaintly wrought and overrun 
 
20 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Vrith spangled traceries, — most meet for one 
 That was a -warden of the pearly streams : — 
 And as he stept out of the shadows dun, 
 His jewels sparkled in the pale moon"s gleams, 
 And shot uito the air their pointed beams. 
 
 Quoth he, '• We bear the gold and silver kejs 
 
 Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below 
 
 Course through the veinj earth.— which, when thej freeze 
 
 Into hard crysolites, we bid to flow, 
 
 Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as thej go. 
 
 We guide their windings to melodious flills. 
 
 At whose soft murmurings so sweet and low 
 
 Poets have turned their- smoothest madrio-als, 
 
 To sing to ladies in their banquet-halls. 
 
 "And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat 
 
 Parches the river god, — whose dustj urn 
 
 Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet 
 
 Against his pebbly floor wax faint and burn, 
 
 And languid fish, unpoised, grow sick and yearn, — 
 
 Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook. 
 
 And little channels dig, wherein we turn 
 
 The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook 
 
 The Xaiad-lily, pining for her brook. 
 
 '• Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads. 
 
 With living sapphires daintily inlaid, — 
 
 In all soft songs of waters and their reeds, — 
 
 And all reflections in a streamlet made. 
 
 Haply of thy own love, that, disarrayed, 
 
 Kills the fair lily with a livelier white, — 
 
 By silver trouts upspringing from green shade, 
 
 And winking stars reduplicate at night. 
 
 Spare us. poor ministers to such delight." 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 2i 
 
 Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks 
 
 Moved not the spiteful Shade : — Quoth he, " Your taste 
 
 Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks 
 
 And slavish rivulets that run to waste 
 
 In noontide SAveats, or, like poor vassals, haste 
 
 To swell the vast dominion of the sea, 
 
 In whose great presence I am held disgraced, 
 
 And neighbored with a king that rivals me 
 
 In ancient might and hoary majesty. 
 
 " Whereas I ruled in chaos, and still keep 
 The awful secrets of that ancient dearth, 
 Before the briny fountains of the deep 
 Brimmed up the hollow cavities of earth ; — 
 I saw each trickling Sea-God at his birth, 
 Each pearly Naiad Avith her oozy locks. 
 And infant Titans of enormous girth, 
 "V\Tiose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks 
 Stunning the early world with frequent shocks. 
 
 " TMiere now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood, 
 
 That scared the world ?— By this sharp scythe they fell^ 
 
 And half the sky was curdled with their blood : 
 
 So have all primal giants sighed farewell. 
 
 No Wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell, 
 
 Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done 
 
 That strove with Time, untimely, to excel ; 
 
 Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none 
 
 But my great shadow intercepts the sun ! " 
 
 Then saith the timid Fay, "0, mighty Time ! 
 Well hast thou wi'ought the cruel Titans' fall, 
 For they were stained with many a bloody crime : 
 Great giants work great wrongs, — but we are small, 
 
22 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 For Love goes lowlj ; — but Oppression 's tall, 
 And with surpassing strides goes foremost still 
 Where Love indeed can hardlj reach at all ; 
 Like a poor dwarf o"erburthened with good will, 
 That labors to efface the tracks of ill. 
 
 "Man even strives with Man, but we eschew 
 The guiltj feud, and all fierce strifes abhor ; 
 Nay, we are gentle as sweet heaven's dew, 
 Beside the red and horrid drops of war. 
 Weeping the cruel hates men battle for, 
 Which worldly bosoms nourish in our spite : 
 For in the gentle breast we ne'er withdraw, 
 But only when all love hath taken flight. 
 And youth's warm gracious heart is hai-dened quite. 
 
 ■' So are our gentle natures intertwined 
 With sweet humanities, and closely knit 
 Li kindly sympathy with human kind. 
 Witness how we befriend, with elfin-wit. 
 All hopeless maids and lovers. — nor omit 
 Magical succors unto hearts forlorn : — 
 We charm man's life, and do not perish it ; - - 
 So judge us by the helps we showed this morn 
 To one who held his wretched days in scorn. 
 
 " 'T was nigh sweet Amwell ; — for the Queen had tasked 
 
 Our skill to-day amidst the silver Lea, 
 
 Whereon the noontide sun had not yet basked ; 
 
 Wherefore some patient man we thought to see, 
 
 Planted in moss-grown rushes ta the knee. 
 
 Beside the cloudy margin cold and dim ; — 
 
 Howbeit no patient fisherman was he 
 
 That cast his sudden shadow from the brim, 
 
 Making us leave our toils to gaze on him. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 23 
 
 " His face was asliy pale, and leaden care 
 Had sunk the levelled arches of his broAV, 
 Once bridges for his joyous thoughts to fire 
 Over those melancholy springs and slow, 
 That from his })iteous eyes began to How, 
 And fell anon into the chilly stream ; 
 Which, as his mimicked image showed below, 
 Wrinkled his face with many a needless seam, 
 Making grief sadder in its own esteem. 
 
 " And, lo ! upon the air we saw him stretch 
 His passionate arms ; and, in a wayward strain, 
 He 'gan to elegize that fellow- wretch 
 That with mute gestures answered him again, 
 Saying, ' Poor slave, how long wilt thou remain 
 Life's sad weak captive in a prison strong, 
 Hoping with tears to rust away thy chain, 
 In bitter servitude to worldly wrong 1 — 
 Thou wearest that mortal livery too long ! ' 
 
 " This, with mere spleenful speeches and some tears, 
 
 When he had spent upon the imaged wave, 
 
 Speedily I convened my elfin peers 
 
 Under the lily-cups, that we might save 
 
 This woful mortal from a wilful grave 
 
 By shrewd diversions of his mind's regret, 
 
 Seeing he was mere Melancholy's slave, 
 
 That sank wherever a dark cloud he met. 
 
 And straight Avas tangled in her secret net. 
 
 " Therefore, as still he watched the water's flow, 
 Daintily we transformed, and with bright fins 
 Came glancing through the gloom ; some from below 
 Rose like dim fancies when a di'cam begins, 
 
24 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Snatching the light upon their purple skins ; 
 Then under the broad leaves made slow retire : 
 One like a golden gallej bravely wins 
 Its radiant course, — another glows like fire, — 
 Making that wayward man our pranks admire. 
 
 " And so he banished thought, and quite forgot 
 
 All contemplation of that wretched face ; 
 
 And so we wiled him from that lonely spot 
 
 Along the river's brink ; till, by Heaven's grace, 
 
 He met a gentle haunter of the place, 
 
 Eull of sweet wisdom gathered from the brooks, 
 
 Who there discussed his melancholy case 
 
 With wholesome texts learned from kind Nature's books. 
 
 Meanwhile he newly trimmed his lines and hooks." 
 
 Herewith the Fairy ceased. Quoth Ariel now — 
 " Let me remember how I saved a man, 
 Whose fatal noose was fastened on a boug-h, 
 Intended to abridge his sad life's span; 
 For haply I was by when he began 
 His stern soliloquy in life's dispraise, 
 And overheard his melancholy plan, 
 How he had made a vow to end his days. 
 And therefore followed him in all his ways, 
 
 "Through brake and tangled copse, for much he loathed 
 
 All populous haunts, and roamed in forests rude 
 
 To hide himself from man. But I had clothed 
 
 Mj delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued 
 
 Where only foxes and wild cats intrude. 
 
 Till we were come beside an ancient tree 
 
 Late blasted by a storm. Here he renewed 
 
 His loud complaints, — choosing that spot to be 
 
 The scene of his last horrid tragedy. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 25 
 
 '■ It was a wild and melancholy glen, 
 Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, 
 Wliose roots, like any bones of buried men, 
 Pu^hetl through the rotten sod for fear's remark ; 
 A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark, 
 "Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray, 
 Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark. 
 Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey, 
 ^Yith many blasted oaks moss-grown and gray. 
 
 " But here upon this final desperate clause 
 
 Suddenly I pronounced so sweet a strain. 
 
 Like a panged nightingale it made him pause, 
 
 Till half -the frenzy of his grief was slain, 
 
 The sad remainder oozing from his brain 
 
 In timely ecstasies of healing tears,. 
 
 TMiich through his ardent eyes began to di-ain ; — 
 
 jSIeanwhile the deadly fates unclosed their shears : — 
 
 So pity me and all my fated peers ! " 
 
 Thus Ariel ended, and was some time hushed : 
 
 When Avith the hoary shape a fresh tongue pleads. 
 
 And red as rose the gentle Fairy blushed 
 
 To read the record of her own good deeds : — 
 
 '• It chanced," quoth she, " in seeking through the meada 
 
 For honeyed cowslips, sweetest in the morn, 
 
 "Whilst yet the buds were hung with dewy beads, 
 
 And Echo answered to the huntsman's horn, 
 
 ^Xe found a babe left in the swarths forlorn. 
 
 "A little, sorrowful, deserted thing, 
 Begot of love, and yet no love begetting ; 
 Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring ; 
 And too soon banished from a mother's petting, 
 
26 THE PLEA OF TUE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 To churlisli nurture and the wide Avorld's frettino;, 
 For alien pity and unnatural care ; — 
 Alas ! to see liow the cold dew kept wetting 
 His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair, 
 Like gossamers across his forehead fair. 
 
 " His pretty pouting mouth, witless of speech, 
 Lay half-way open like a rose-lipped shell ; 
 And his young cheek was softer than a peach, 
 Whereon his tears, for roundness, could not dwell. 
 But quickly rolled themselves to pearls, and fell, 
 Some on the grass, and some against his hand, 
 Or haply wandered to the dimpled well, 
 Which love beside his mouth had sweetly planned, 
 Yet not for tears, but mirth and smilings bland. 
 
 ' ' Pity it was to see those frequent tears 
 Falling regardless from his friendless eyes ; 
 There was such beauty in those twin blue spheres, 
 As any mother's heart might leap to prize ; 
 Blue were they, like the zenith of the skies 
 Softened betwixt two clouds, both clear and mild ; - 
 Just touched with thought, and yet not over wise, 
 They showed the gentle spirit of a child, 
 Not yet by care or any craft defiled. 
 
 " Pity it was to see the ardent sun 
 
 Scorching his helpless limbs — it shone so warm ; 
 
 For kindly shade or shelter he had none. 
 
 Nor mother's gentle breast, come fair or storm. 
 
 Meanwhile I bade my pitying mates transform 
 
 Like grasshoppers, and then, with shrilly cries, 
 
 All round the infant noisily we swarm. 
 
 Haply some passing rustic to advise — 
 
 Whilst providential Heaven our care espies. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 27 
 
 " And sends full soon a tender-hearted hind, 
 Who, wondering at our loud unusual note, 
 Strays curiously aside, and so doth find 
 The orphan child laid in the grass remote, 
 And laps the foundling in his russet coat, 
 Wlio thence was nurtured in his kindly cot : — 
 But how he prospered let proud London quote, 
 How wise, how rich, and how renowned he got, 
 And chief of all her. citizens, I wot. 
 
 " Witness his goodly vessels on the Thames, 
 
 Whose holds were fraught with costly merchandise, — 
 
 Jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames. 
 
 And gorgeous silks that Samarcand supplies : 
 
 Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise. 
 
 The mart of merchants from the East and West ; 
 
 Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies, 
 
 Still bears, in token of his grateful bi-east, 
 
 The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest — 
 
 " The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest. 
 
 That all the summer, with a tuneful wing. 
 
 Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest. 
 
 Inspirited with dew to leap and sing : — 
 
 So let us also live, eternal King ! 
 
 Partakers of the green and pleasant earth : — 
 
 Pity it is to slay the meanest thing. 
 
 That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth : — 
 
 Enough there is of joy's decrease and dearth ! 
 
 " Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty, 
 Perished and gone, and hasting to decay ; — 
 Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty 
 Or spite it is to havoc and to slay : 
 
28 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Too many a lovely race, razed quite away, 
 
 Hath left large gaps in life and human loving ; — 
 
 Here then begin thy cruel war to stay, 
 
 And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, reproving 
 
 Thy desolating hand for our removing." 
 
 Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry, 
 And looking up, I saw the antic Puck 
 Grappling with Time, who clutched him like a fly, 
 Victim of his own sport, — the jester's luck ! 
 He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had stuck 
 His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow. 
 And now his ear, and now his beard, would pluck ; 
 Whereas the angry churl had snatched him now, 
 Crying, " Thou impish mischief, who art thou? '' 
 
 " Alas ! " quoth Puck, " a little random elf, 
 Born in the sport of nature, like a weed. 
 For simple sweet enjoyment of myself, 
 But for no other purpose, worth, or need ; 
 And yet withal of a most happy breed ; 
 And there is Robin Goodfellow besides, 
 INIy partner dear in many a prankish deed 
 To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides, 
 Like merry mummers twain on holy tides. 
 
 " "Tis we that bob the angler's idle cork. 
 
 Till even the patient man breathes half a curse ; 
 
 "We steal the morsel from the gossip's fork. 
 
 And curdling looks with secret straws disperse, 
 
 Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse : 
 
 And when an infant's beauty prospers ill. 
 
 We change, some mothers say, the child at nurse ; 
 
 But any graver purpose to fulfil, 
 
 We have not wit enough, and scarce the will. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 " We never let the canker melancholy 
 
 To gather on our faces like a rust, 
 
 But gloss our features with some change of folly, 
 
 Taking life's fabled miseries on trust, 
 
 But oulv sorrowing when sorrow must : 
 
 We ruminate no sage's solemn cud, 
 
 But own ourselves a pinch of lively dust 
 
 To frisk upon a wind. — whereas the flood 
 
 Of tears would turn us into heavy mud. 
 
 " Beshi-ew those sad interpreters of nature, 
 
 Who gloze her lively universal law, 
 
 As if 'she had not formeil our cheerful feature 
 
 To be so tickled with the slightest straw ! 
 
 So let them vex their mumping mouths, and draw 
 
 The corners downward, like a watery moon, 
 
 And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw - 
 
 We will not woo foul weather all too soon, 
 
 Or nurse November on the lap of June. 
 
 " For ours are winging sprites, like any bird, 
 That shun all stagnant settlements of grief ; 
 And even in our rest our hearts are stu-red. 
 Like insects settled on a dancing leaf : — 
 This is our small philosophy in brief. 
 Which thus to teach hath set me all agape : 
 But dost thou relish it ] 0, hoary chief ! 
 Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape, 
 And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape." 
 
 Then Saturn thus : —shaking his crooked blade 
 O'erhead, which made aloft a lightning flash 
 In ail the fairies' eyes, dismally frayed ! 
 His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash — 
 3* 
 
 9C> 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash — 
 " Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing ! 
 Whom naught can frighten, sadden, or abash, — 
 To hope my solemn countenance to wring 
 To idiot smiles ! — but I will prune th j wing ! 
 
 " Lo ! this most awful handle of my scythe 
 Stood once a May-pole, with a flowery crown. 
 Which rustics danced around, and maidens blithe, 
 To wanton pipings ; — but I plucked it down, 
 And robed the May Queen in a church-yard gown, 
 Turning her buds to rosemary and rue ; 
 And all their merry minstrelsy did drown, 
 And laid each lusty leaper in the dew ; — 
 So thou shalt fare — and every jovial crew ! " 
 
 Here he lets go the struggling imp, to clutch 
 His mortal engine with each grisly hand, 
 Which frights the elfin progeny so much. 
 They huddle in a heap, and trembling stand 
 All round Titania, like the queen bee's band. 
 With sighs and tears and very shrieks of woe ! — 
 Meanwhile, some moving argument I planned. 
 To make the stern Shade merciful, — when, lo ! 
 He drops his fatal scythe without a blow ! 
 
 For, just at need, a timely Apparition 
 
 Steps in between, to bear the awful brunt ; 
 
 INIaking him change his horrible position. 
 
 To marvel at this comer, brave and blunt. 
 
 That dares Time's irresistible affront, 
 
 Whose strokes have scarred even the gods of old ; — 
 
 Wliereas this seemed a mortal, at mere hunt 
 
 For coneys, lighted by the moonshine cold, 
 
 Or stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 81 
 
 Who, turning to the small assembled foys, 
 Doffs to the lily queen his courteous cap, 
 And holds her beauty for a while in gaze, 
 With bright eyes kindling at this pleasant hap ; 
 And thence upon the fair moon's silver map. 
 As if in question of this magic chance. 
 Laid like a dream upon the green earth's lap ; 
 And then upon old Saturn turns askance, 
 Exclaimmg, ^yith a glad and kmdly glance : — 
 
 "0, these be Fancy's revellers by night ! 
 Stealthy companions of the downy moth — 
 Diana's motes, that flit in her pale light, 
 Shunners of sunbeams in diurnal sloth : — 
 These be the feasters on night's silver cloth, — 
 The gnat with shrilly trump is their convener, 
 Forth from their flowery chambers, nothing loth, 
 With lulling tunes to charm the air serener. 
 Or dance upon the grass to make it greener. 
 
 ■ • These be the pretty genii of the flowers, 
 
 Daintily fed with honey and pure dew — 
 
 Midsummer's phantoms in her dreaming hours, 
 
 King Oberon. and all his merry crew, 
 
 The darling puppets of romance's view : 
 
 Fairies, and sprites, and goblin elves, we call them, 
 
 Famous for patronage of lovers true ; — 
 
 Xo harm they act, neither shall harm befall them. 
 
 So do not thus with crabbed frowns appall them." 
 
 0, what a cry was Saturn's then ! — it made 
 
 The fairies quake. •'• What care I for their pranks, 
 
 However they may lovers choose to aid. 
 
 Or dance their roundelays on flowery banks ? — 
 
32 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Long must thej dance before they earn my tlianlcs,- 
 So step aside, to some far safer spot, 
 Whilst with my hungry scythe I mo^Y their ranks, 
 And leave them in the sun, like weeds, to rot, 
 And with the next day's sun to be forgot." 
 
 Anon, he raised afresh liis weapon keen ; 
 But still the gracious Shade disarmed his aim, 
 Stepping with brave alacrity between, 
 And made his sere arm powerless and tame. 
 His be perpetual glory, for the shame 
 Of hoary Saturn in that grand defeat ! — 
 But I must tell, how here Titania came 
 With all her kneeling lieges, to entreat 
 His kindly succor, in sad tones, but sweet. 
 
 Saying, " Thou seest a wretched queen before thee, 
 
 The fading power of a failing land. 
 
 Who for her kingdom kneeleth to implore thee, 
 
 Now menaced by this tyrant's spoiling hand ; 
 
 No one but thee can hopefully withstand 
 
 That crooked blade, he longeth so to lift. 
 
 I pray thee blind him with his own vile sand, 
 
 Which only times all ruins by its drift. 
 
 Or prune his eagle wings that are so swift. 
 
 *' Or take him by that sole and grizzled tuft. 
 That hangs upon his bald and barren crown ; 
 And we will sing to see him so rebuffed, 
 And lend our little mights to pull him down, 
 And make lu-ave sport of his malicious frown, 
 For all his boastful mockery o'er men. 
 For thou wast born, I know, for this renown, 
 By my most magical and inward ken. 
 That readeth even at Fate's forestalling pen. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 33 
 
 " Nay, by the golden lustre of thine eye, 
 And by thy brow's most fair and ample span. 
 Thought's glorious palace, framed for fancies high, 
 And by thy cheek thus passionately wan, 
 I know the signs of an immortal man, — 
 Nature's chief darling, an illustrious mate, 
 Destined to foil old Death's oblivious plan. 
 And shine untarnished by the fogs of Fate, 
 Time's famous rival till the final date ! 
 
 " 0, shield us, then, from this usurping Time, 
 And we will visit thee in moonlight dreams ; 
 And teach thee tunes, to wed unto thy rhyme. 
 And dance about thee in all midnight gleams. 
 Giving thee glimpses of our magic schemes, » 
 
 Such as no mortal's eye hath ever seen ; 
 And, for thy love to us in our extremes, 
 Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green, 
 Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been ! 
 
 " And we '11 distil thee aromatic dews. 
 
 To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flowers : 
 
 And flavored syrups in thy drinks infuse, 
 
 And teach the nightingale to haunt thy bowers, 
 
 And with our games divert thy weariest hours, 
 
 With all that elfin wits can e'er devise. 
 
 And, this churl dead, there '11 be no hasting hours 
 
 To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies : " — 
 
 Here she was stopped by Saturn's furious cries. 
 
 Whom, therefore, the kind Shade rebukes anew, 
 Saying, " Thou haggard Sin, go forth, and scoop 
 Thy hollow coffin in some cliurch-yard yew. 
 Or make the autumnal flowers turn pale, and droop 
 
34 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Or fell the bearded corn, till gleaners stoop 
 Under fat sheaves, — or blast the piny grove ; — 
 But here thou shalt not harm this pretty group, 
 Whose lives are not so frail and feebly v^oye, 
 But leased on Nature's loveliness and love. 
 
 " 'T is these that free the small entangled fly, 
 Caught in the venomed spider's crafty snare ; — 
 These be the petty surgeons that apply 
 The healing balsams to the wounded hare, 
 Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care ! — 
 These be providers for the orphan brood. 
 Whose tender mother hath been slain in air. 
 Quitting with gaping bill her darlings' food, 
 
 Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. 
 
 • 
 
 " 'T is these befriend the timid trembling stag, 
 
 When, with a bursting heart beset with fears, 
 
 He feels his saving speed begin to flag ; 
 
 For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, 
 
 And prompt fresh shifts in his alarumed ears, 
 
 So piteously they view all bloody morts ; 
 
 Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears, 
 
 Like noisy pyes and jays. vnth. harsh reports, 
 
 They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. 
 
 '•'For these are kindly ministers of nature, 
 To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress ; 
 Pretty they be, and very small of stature, — 
 For mercy still consorts with littleness ; — 
 Wlierefore the sum of good is still the less. 
 And mischief grossest in this world of wrong ; — • 
 So do these charitable dwarfs redress 
 The ten-fold ravages of giants strong, 
 To whom great malice and great might belong. 
 
THE TLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 3« 
 
 " Likewise to them are Poets much beholden 
 For secret fovors in the midnight glooms ; 
 Brave Spenser quaffed out of their goblets golden, 
 And saw their tables spread of prompt mushrooms. 
 And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms 
 Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, 
 Like humming bees busy about the In-ooms.— 
 And glanced this fair queen's witchery full oft, 
 And in her magic wain soared far aloft. 
 
 " Nay, I myself, though mortal, once was nursed 
 
 By fau-y gossips, friendly at my birth, 
 
 And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed 
 
 Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, 
 
 Telling me wonders of the moon and earth ; ^ 
 
 My gramavye at her grave lap I conned, 
 
 .Where Puck hath been convened to make me mirth ; 
 
 I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, 
 
 And toyed with Oberon's permitted wand. 
 
 •• With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me 
 And delicate cates after my sunset meal, 
 And took me by my childish hand, and led me 
 By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel, 
 WTiose awful bases deep dark woods conceal. 
 Staining some dead lake with their verdant dyes : 
 And when the West sparkled at Phoebus" wheel. 
 With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes. 
 To let me see their cities in the skies. 
 
 '• "T was they first schooled my young imagination 
 To take its flights like any new-fledged bird, 
 And showed the span of winged meditation 
 Stretched wider than things grossly seen or heard. 
 
36 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 With SAveet swift Aiiel how I soared and stii-red 
 
 The fragrant blooms of spiritual bowers ! 
 
 'T was the J endeared what I have still preferred, 
 
 Nature" s blest attributes and balmy powers, 
 
 Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and flowers 
 
 " "Wherefore with all time loyalty and duty 
 
 Will I regard them in my honoring rhyme. 
 
 With love for love, and homages to Ijeauty, 
 
 And magic thoughts gathered in night's cool clime, 
 
 With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, 
 
 Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; 
 
 So these dear monarchs of the summer's prime 
 
 Shall live unstartled by his di'eadful yells, 
 
 Till shi-ill larks warn them to their flowery cells." 
 
 Look how a poisoned man turns livid black, 
 Drugged with a cup of deadly hellebore, 
 That sets his horrid features all at rack, — 
 So seemed these words into the ear to pour 
 Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar 
 Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage, 
 Wherewith his grisly arm he raised once more, 
 And bade the clustered sinews all engacre, 
 As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age. 
 
 Whereas the blade flashed on the dinted ground, 
 Down through his steadfast foe. yet made no scai 
 On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound ; 
 But Time was long benumbed, and stood ajar, 
 And then ^rith bafiied racre took fliorht afar. 
 To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom. 
 Or meaner fames (like mine) to mock and mar, 
 Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom, 
 Whetting its edo-e on some old Caesar's tomb. 
 

 THE PLEA OP THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 37 
 
 Ilowbeit he vanished in the forest shade, 
 Distantly heard as if some grumbling pard, 
 And, like Narcissus, to a sound decayed ; — 
 Meanwhile the fays clustered the gracious Bard, 
 The darling centre of their dear regard : 
 Besides of sundry dances on the green, 
 Never was mortal man so brightly starred. 
 Or won such pretty homages, I ween. 
 " Nod to him, "Elves ! " cries the melodious queen. 
 
 " Nod to him. Elves, and flutter round about him, 
 And quite enclose him with your pretty crowd, 
 x\.nd touch him lovingly, for that, without him. 
 The silk-worm now had spun our dreary shroud ; — 
 But he hath all dispersed death's tearful cloud, 
 And Time's dread effigy scared quite away : 
 Bow to him, then, as though to me ye bowed, 
 And his dear wishes prosper and obey 
 Wherever love and wit can find a way ! 
 
 " 'Noint him with fairy dews of magic savors, 
 Shaken from orient buds still pearly wet, 
 Roses and spicy pinks, — and, of all favors, 
 Plant in his walks the purple violet. 
 And meadow-sweet under the hedges set, 
 To mingle breaths with dainty eglantine 
 And honeysuckles sweet, — nor yet forget 
 Some pastoral flowery chaplets to entwine, 
 To vie the thoughts about his brow benign 
 
 " Let no wild things astonish him or fear him, 
 But tell them all how mild he is of heart, 
 Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him, 
 And eke the dappled does, yet never start ; 
 
38 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 
 
 Nor shall tlieir fawns into the thickets dart, 
 
 Nor wrens forsake their nests among the leaves, 
 
 Nor speckled thrushes flutter far apart ; — 
 
 But bid the sacred swallow haunt his eaves, 
 
 To guard his roof from lightning and from thieves. 
 
 " Or when he goes the nimble squirrel's visitor, 
 Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts, 
 For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor. — 
 Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience shuts 
 For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts, — 
 Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings, 
 HoAvever he may watch their straw-built huts ; — 
 So let him learn the crafts of all small things. 
 Which he will hint most aptly when he sings." 
 
 Here she leaves off, and with a graceful hand 
 Waves thrice three splendid circles round his head ; 
 Which, though deserted by the radiant wand, 
 Wears still the glory which her waving shed, 
 Such 'as erst crowned the old Apostle's head ; 
 To show the thoughts there harbored were divine. 
 And on immortal contemplations fed : — 
 Goodly it was to see that glory shine 
 Around a brow so lofty and benign ! — 
 
 Goodly it was to see the elfin brood 
 Contend for kisses of his gentle hand. 
 That had their mortal enemy withstood, 
 And stayed their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. 
 Long while this strife engaged the pretty band j 
 But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm, 
 Challenged the dawn creeping o'er eastern land, 
 And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm. 
 Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 39 
 
 And soon the rolling mist, that 'gan arise 
 From plashy mead and undiscovered stream, 
 Earth's morning incense to the early skies, 
 Crept o'er the failing landscape of my dream. 
 Soon faded then the Phantom of my theme — 
 A shapeless shade, that fancy disavowed, 
 And shrank to nothing in the mist extreme. 
 Then flew Titania,— and her little crowd, 
 Like flocking linuets, vanished in a cloud. 
 
TO S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 It is not with a hope mj feeble praise 
 
 Can add one moment's honor to thy own, 
 
 That with thy mighty name I grace these lays ; 
 
 I seek to glorify myself alone : 
 
 For that some precious favor thou hast shown 
 
 To my endeavor in a bygone time, 
 
 And by this token I would have it known 
 
 Thou art my friend, and friendly to my rhyme! 
 
 It is my dear ambition now to climb 
 
 Still higher in thy thought, — if my bold pen 
 
 May thrust on contemplations more sublime. — 
 
 But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when 
 
 We gain applauses from the great in name, 
 
 We seem to be partakers of their fame. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 Bards of old ! what sorrows have ye sung, 
 And tragic stories, chronicled in stone, — 
 Sad Philomel restored her ra^^shed tongue, 
 And transformed Niobe in dumbness shown ; 
 Sweet Sappho on her love forever calls. 
 And Hero on the drowned Leander falls ! 
 
 Was it that spectacles of sadder plights 
 Should make our blisses rehsh the more high? 
 Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knigbis, 
 Whose flourished fortunes prosper in Love's eye, 
 Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief. 
 Traced from the course of an old bas-relief. 
 
 There stands Abydos ! —here is Sestos' steep, 
 Hard by the gusty margin of the sea, 
 Where sprinkling waves continually do leap ; 
 And that is where those famous lovers be, 
 A builded gloom shot up into the gray, 
 As if the fii'st tall watch-tower of the day. 
 
 Lo ! how the lark soars upward and is gone ! 
 Turning a spirit as he nears the sky. 
 His voice is heard, though body there is none, 
 And rain-like music scatters from on high ; 
 But Love would follow with a falcon spite, 
 To pluck the minstrel from his dewy height. 
 
44 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 For Love hath framed a ditty of regrets, 
 Tuned to the hollow sobbings on the shore, 
 A vexing sense, that with like music frets, 
 And chimes this dismal burthen o'er and o'er 
 Saying, Leander's joys are past and spent. 
 Like stars extinguished in the firmament. 
 
 For ere the golden crevices of morn 
 
 Let in those regal luxuries of light. 
 
 Which all the variable east adorn, 
 
 And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, 
 
 Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side. 
 
 Must leave a widow where he found a bride. 
 
 Hark ! how the billows beat upon the sand ! 
 Like pawing steeds impatient of delay ; 
 Meanwhile their rider, lingering on the land. 
 Dallies with Love, and holds farewell at bay 
 A too short span. — How tedious slow is grief! 
 But parting renders time both sad and brief 
 
 " Alas ! (he sighed) that this first glimpsing light, 
 Which makes the wide world tenderly appear, 
 • Should be the burning signal for my flight, 
 From all the Avorld's best image, which is here ; 
 Whose very shadoAv, in my fond compare. 
 Shines far more bright than Beauty's self elsewhere. 
 
 Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark, 
 Whose leaves close up and show the outward pale, 
 And those fair mirrors where their joys did spark. 
 All dim and tarnished with a dreary veil. 
 No more to kindle till the night's return. 
 Like stars replenished at Joy's golden urn. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 45 
 
 Even thus they creep into the spectral gray, 
 That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim, 
 As when two shadows by old Lethe stray, 
 He clasping her and she entwining him ; 
 Like trees wind-parted that embrace anon. 
 True love so often goes before 'tis gone. 
 
 For what rich merchant but will pause in fear, 
 To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss 7 
 So Hero dotes upon her treasure here, 
 And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss, 
 Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head, 
 Fear agsravatino; fear with shows of di'ead. 
 
 CO* 
 
 She thinks how many have been sunk and drowned, 
 And spies their snow-white bones below the deep, 
 Then calls huge congregated monsters round, 
 And plants a rock wherever he would leap ; 
 Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream, 
 Which she interprets of that fatal stream. 
 
 Saying, " That honeyed fly I saw was thee, 
 Which lighted on a water-lily's cup, 
 When, lo ! the flower, enamored of my bee. 
 Closed on him suddenly and locked him up. 
 And he was smothered in her drenching dew ; 
 Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue." 
 
 But next, remembering her virgin flime, 
 
 She clips him in her arms and bids him go, 
 
 But seeing him break loose repents her shame, 
 
 And plucks him back upon her bosom's snow; 
 
 And tears unfix her iced resolve again, 
 
 Aa steadfast frosts are thawed by showers of rain. 
 
46 HERO AND LEAXDER. 
 
 for a type of parting ! — Love to love 
 Is like the fond attraction of two spheres, 
 AYhich needs a godlike effort to remove, 
 And then sink down their sunny atmospheres 
 In rain and darkness on each ruined heart, 
 Kor yet their melodies will sound apart. 
 
 So brave Leander sunders from his bride ; 
 
 The wrenching pang disparts his soul in twain , 
 
 Half stays with her, half goes towards the tide, — 
 
 And life must ache until they join again. 
 
 Now wouldst thou know the wideness of the wound. 
 
 Mete every step he takes upon the ground. 
 
 And for the agony and bosom-throe, 
 
 Let it be measured by the wide vast air, 
 
 For that is infinite, and so is woe, 
 
 Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. 
 
 Look how it heaves Leander" s laboring chest, 
 
 Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest ! 
 
 From which he leaps into the scooping brine, 
 That shocks his bosom with a double chill ; 
 Because, all hours, till the slow sun's decline, 
 That cold divorcer will betwixt them still ; 
 Wherefore he likens it to Styx" foul tide, 
 Where life grows death upon the other side. 
 
 Then sadly he confronts his two-fold toil 
 Against rude waves and an unwilling mind. 
 Wishing, alas ! with the stout rower's toil, 
 That like a rower he might gaze behind, 
 And watch that lonely statue he hath left 
 On her bleak summit, weeping and bereft ! 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 47 
 
 Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks 
 Pursue him still the furthest that they may ; 
 Her marble arms that overstretch the rocks, 
 And her pale passioned hands that seem to pray 
 In dumb petition to the gods above : 
 Love prays devoutly when it prays for love ! 
 
 Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave, 
 That hangs superfluous tears upon his cheek, 
 And bans his labor like a hopeless slave. 
 That, chained in hostile galley, faint and weak, 
 Plies on despairing through the restless foam, 
 Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-off home. 
 
 The di-owsy mist before him chill and dank, 
 
 Like a dull lethargy o'erleans the sea. 
 
 When he rows on against the utter blank, 
 
 Steering as if to dim eternity, — 
 
 Like Love's frail ghost departing with the dawn ; 
 
 A faihng shadow in the twilight drawn. 
 
 And soon is gone, — or nothing but a faint 
 And failing image in the eye of thought ; 
 That mocks his model with an after-paint, 
 And stains an atom like the shape she sought ; 
 Then with her earnest vows she hopes to fee 
 The old and hoary majesty of sea. 
 
 " King of waves, and brother of high Jove, 
 Preserve my sumless venture there afloat ; 
 A woman's heart, and its whole wealth of love, 
 Are all embarked upon that little boat ; 
 Nay, but two loves, two lives, a double fate 
 A perilous voyage for so dear a freight. 
 
48 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 "If impious mariners be stained with crime, 
 Shake not in awful rage thy hoary locks ; 
 Lay by thy storms until another time, 
 Lest my frail bark be dashed against the rocks : 
 Or rather smoothe thy deeps that he may fly 
 Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky ! 
 
 "Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath. 
 
 Nor gore him with crooked tusks, or wreathed horns ; 
 
 Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth, 
 
 Nor spine-fish wound him with their venomed thorns 
 
 But if he faint, and timely succor lack. 
 
 Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back. 
 
 " Let no false dimpling whii-lpools suck him in. 
 Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath ; 
 Let no jagged corals tear his tender skin. 
 Nor mountain billows bury him in death ; " — 
 And with that thought forestalling her own fears, 
 She drowned his painted image in her tears. 
 
 By this, the climbing sun, with rest repaired 
 Looked through the gold embrasures of the sky. 
 And asked the drowsy world how she had fared ; — 
 The drowsy world shone brightened in reply ; 
 And smiling off her fogs, his slanting beam 
 Spied young Leander in the middle stream. 
 
 His face was pallid, but the hectic morn 
 Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks. 
 And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn ; 
 So death lies ambushed in consumptive streaks ; 
 But inward grief was writhing o'er its task, 
 As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 He thought of Hero and the lost delight, 
 Her last embracings, and the space between ; 
 He thought of Hero and the future night, 
 Her speechless rapture and enamored mien. 
 When, lo ! before him, scarce two galleys' space, 
 His thoughts confronted with another flxce ! 
 
 Her aspect 's like a moon divinelj fliir. 
 But makes the midnight darker that it Kes on ; 
 "T is so beclouded with her coal-black hair 
 That densely skirts her luminous horizon, 
 Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set. 
 As marble lies advantaged upon jet. 
 
 She 's all too bright, too argent, and too pale, 
 
 To be a woman ; — but a woman's double, 
 
 Reflected on the wave so faint and frail, 
 
 She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble ; 
 
 Or dim creation of a mornino- dream, 
 
 Fair as the wave-bleached lily of the stream. 
 
 The very rumor strikes his seeing dead : 
 
 Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense : 
 
 He knows not if her lips be blue or red, 
 
 Nor of her eyes can give true evidence : 
 
 Like murder's witness swooning in the court, 
 
 His sight falls senseless by its own report. 
 
 Anon resuming, it declares her eyes 
 Ai'e tinct with azure, like two crystal wells 
 That drink the blue complexion of the skies. 
 Or pearls out-peeping from their silvery shells : 
 Her pohshed brow, it is an ample plain. 
 To lodge vast contemplations of the main. 
 5 
 
 49 
 
50 HERO AND LEAXDER. 
 
 Her lips might corals seem, but corals near, 
 Stray through her hah' like blossoms on a bower ; 
 And o'er the weaker red still domineer, 
 And make it pale by tribute to more power ; 
 Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue. 
 Touched by the bloom of water, tender blue. 
 
 Thus he beholds her rocking on the water, 
 Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, 
 Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter, 
 Naiad, or Nereid, or Siren fair, 
 Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, 
 A nightingale within a falcon's nest. 
 
 They say there be such maidens in the deep, 
 Charming poor mariners, that all too near 
 By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep, 
 As drowsy men are poisoned through the ear ; 
 Therefore Leander's fears begin to urge, 
 This snowy swan is come to sing his du'ge. 
 
 At which he falls into a deadly chill. 
 And strains his eyes upon her lips apart : 
 Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill, 
 Pierce through his marrow, like a breath-blown dart 
 Shot sudden from an Indian's hollow cane, 
 With mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain. 
 
 Here, then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd 
 A thousand thoughts Avithin a pulse's space ; 
 There seemed so brief a pause of life allowed, 
 His mind stretched universal, to embrace 
 The whole wide world, in an extreme farewell - 
 A moment's musino; — but an age to tell. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 51 
 
 For there stood Hero, widowed at a glance, 
 
 The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact, 
 
 Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and withered countenance, 
 
 A Avasted ruin that no wasting lacked ; 
 
 Time's tragic consequents ere time began, 
 
 A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span. 
 
 A moment's thinking is an hour in words, — 
 An hour of words is little for some woes ; 
 Too little breathing a long life affords, 
 For love to paint itself by perfect shows ; 
 Then let his love and grief unwronged He dumb, 
 Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. 
 
 As when the crew, hard by some jutty cape, 
 Struck pale and panicked by the billows' roar, 
 Lay by all timely measures of escape. 
 And let their bark go driving on the shore ; 
 So frayed Leander, drifting to hfs wreck. 
 Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck. 
 
 For he hath all forgot the swimmer's art. 
 The rower's cunning, and the pilot's skill, 
 Letting his arms fall down in languid part, 
 Swayed by the waves, and nothing by his will, 
 Till soon he jars against that glossy skin, 
 Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin. 
 
 Lo ! how she startles at the warning shock 
 And straightway girds him to her radiant breast, 
 More like his safe smooth harbor than his rock ; 
 Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest. 
 He cannot loose him from his grappling foe, 
 Whether for love or hate, she lets not go. 
 
52 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, 
 
 His ears are deafened -vrith the wiMering noise ; 
 
 He asks the purpose of her fell design. 
 
 But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice ; 
 
 Under the ponderous sea his body dips, 
 
 And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. 
 
 Look how a man is lowered to his grave ; 
 A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; 
 So he is sunk into the yawning wave, 
 The plunging sea fills up the watery gap ; 
 Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen, 
 , But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. 
 
 And where he swam the constant sun lies sleeping, 
 Over the verdant plain that makes his bed ; 
 And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, 
 Like gamesome boys over the church-yard dead ; 
 The light in vain keeps looking for his face, 
 Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place. 
 
 Yet weep and watch for him, though all in vain ! 
 Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander ! 
 Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again ! 
 Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Leander ! 
 Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape, 
 Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape ! 
 
 She says "t is love hath bribed her to this deed, 
 The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her. 
 bootless theft ! unprofitable meed ! 
 Love's treasury is sacked, but she no richer ; 
 The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead. 
 And all his golden looks are turned to lead ! 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 53 
 
 She holds the casket, but her simple hand 
 Hath spilled its dearest jewel by the way ; 
 She hath life's empty garment at command, 
 But her own death lies covert in the prey ; 
 As if a thief should steal a tainted vest, 
 Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest. 
 
 Now she compels him to her deeps below. 
 
 Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair, 
 
 ^Yhich. jealously she shakes all round her brow. 
 
 For di-ead of envy, though no eyes are there 
 
 But seals', and all brute tenants of the deep. 
 
 Which heedless through the wave their journeys keep, 
 
 Down and still downward through the dusky green 
 
 She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste 
 
 In too rash ignorance, as he had been 
 
 Born to the texture of that watery waste ; 
 
 That which she breathed and sighed, the emerald wave, 
 
 How could her pleasant home become his grave ! 
 
 Down and still downward through the dusky green 
 She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh 
 To mark how life was altered in its mien, 
 Or how the light grew torpid in his eye. 
 Or how his pearly breath, unprisoned there, 
 Flew up to join the universal air. 
 
 She could not miss the throbbings of his heart, 
 Whilst her own pulse so wantoned in its joy ; 
 She could not guess he straggled to depart, 
 And when he strove no more, the hapless boy ! 
 She read his mortal stillness for content. 
 Feeling no fear where only love was meant. 
 5* 
 
54 HEEO AND LEAXDER 
 
 Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor, 
 
 And straight unjokes her arms from her fan* prize ; 
 
 Then on his lovely face begins to pore, 
 
 As if to glut her soul ; — her hungry ejes 
 
 Have grown so jealous of her arms" delight : 
 
 It seems, she hath no other sense but sit)-ht. 
 
 But, 0, sad marvel ! 0, most bitter strange ! 
 What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale ] 
 Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange 
 Her kindly kisses ; — wherefore not exhale 
 Some odorous message from life's ruby gates, 
 Where she his first sweet embassy awaits] 
 
 Her eyes, poor watchers, fixed upon his looks, 
 Are grappled with a wonder near to grief. 
 As one, who pores on undeciphered books. 
 Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief; 
 So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought, 
 Framing a thousand doubts that end in naught. 
 
 Too stern inscription for a page so young, 
 The dark translation of his look was death ! 
 But death was written in an alien tono-ue, 
 And learning was not by to give it breath ; 
 So one deep woe sleeps bui-ied in its seal, 
 Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal. 
 
 Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap, 
 Nursing Death's marble effigy, which there 
 With heavy head lies pillowed in her lap, 
 And elbows all unhinged ; — his sleeking hair 
 Creeps o'er her knees, and settles where his hand 
 Leans with lax fingers crooked against the sand ; 
 
HERO AND LEAXDER. 
 
 55 
 
 And there lies spread in many an oozy trail, 
 Like glossy weals hung from a chalky base, 
 That shows no whiter than his brow is pale ; 
 So soon the wintry death had bleached his face 
 Into cold marble; — with blue chilly shades, 
 Showing wherein the freezy bloot^l pervades. 
 
 And o'er his steadfast cheek a furrowed pain 
 Hath set, and stiffened like a storm in ice, 
 Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain 
 Of mortal anguish : — yet you might gaze twice 
 Ere Death it seemed, and not his cousin. Sleep, 
 That through those creviced lids did underpeep. 
 
 But all that tender bloom about his eyes, 
 
 Is Death's own ^•iolets, which his utmost rite 
 
 It is to scatter when the red rose dies ; 
 
 For blue is chilly, and akin to white : 
 
 Also he leaves some tinges on his lips, 
 
 Which he hath kissed with such cold fi'osty nips. 
 
 " Surely," quoth she, "'he sleeps, the senseless things 
 Oppressed and faint with toiling in the stream I " 
 Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing 
 So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream ; 
 Meanwhile, her lily fingers tasks to twine 
 His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine. 
 
 " lovely boy ! "' — thus she attuned her voice, — 
 '•"Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid's home. 
 My love-mate thou shalt be. and true heart's choice ; 
 How have I longed such a twin-self should come, — 
 A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell, 
 My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell. 
 
56 HERO AND LEAIS^DER. 
 
 ' ' Here thou shalt live beneath this secret dome, 
 
 An ocean-bower ; defended bj the shade 
 
 Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom 
 
 To lap thee all about. Nay, be not frayed. 
 
 Those are but shady fishes that sail by 
 
 Like antic clouds across my liquid sky ! 
 
 ' • Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales, 
 And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins ; 
 They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails, 
 And winking stars are kindled at their fins : 
 These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood, 
 And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food. 
 
 "Lo ! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells, 
 My flowerets those, that never pine for drowth ; 
 Myself did plant them in the dappled shells, 
 That di-ink the wave with such a rosy mouth, — 
 Pearls wouldst thou have beside ? crystals to shine 1 
 I had such treasures once, — now they are thine. 
 
 " Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand, 
 And thou shalt hear the music of the sea. 
 Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, — 
 Is "t not a rich and wondrous melody ? 
 I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone 
 I heard the languages of ages gone ! 
 
 " I too can sing when it shall please thy choice, 
 And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell. 
 Though heretofore I have but set my voice 
 To some long sighs, grief harmonized, to tell 
 How desolate I fared ; — but this sweet change 
 Will add new notes of gladness to my range ! 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 " Or bid me speak, and I will tell thee tales, 
 Which I have framed out of the noise of waves ; 
 Ere now, I have communed with senseless gales, 
 And held vain colloquies with barren caves ; 
 But I could talk to thee whole days and days. 
 Only to word my love a thousand ways. 
 
 " But if thy lips will bless me with their speech, 
 Then ope, sweet oracles ! and I "11 be mute ; 
 I was born ignorant for thee to teach, 
 Nay, all love's lore to thy dear looks impute ; 
 Then ope thine eyes, fair teachere, by whose light 
 I saw to give away my heart aright ! " 
 
 But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies. 
 Over her knees, and with concealing clay 
 Like hoarding Ararice locks up his eyes. 
 And leaves her world impoverished of day ; 
 Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead. 
 But there the door is closed against her need. 
 
 Surely he sleeps. — so her false wits infer ! 
 Alas ! poor sluggard, ne'er to wake again ! 
 Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir 
 That might denote a vision in his brain ; 
 Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long. 
 Twice she hath reached the ending of her song. 
 
 Therefore, 't is time she tells him to uncover 
 Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears. 
 Whereby her April face is shaded over. 
 Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears ; 
 Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets, 
 Herself must rob those locked up cabmets. 
 
 67 
 
68 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 With that she stoops above his brow, and bids 
 Her busj hands forsake his tangled haii^, 
 And tenderly lift up those coffer-lids, 
 That she may gaze upon the jewels there, 
 Like babes that pluck an early bud apart, 
 To know the dainty color of its heart. 
 
 Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed, 
 Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies, 
 And then starts back to find the sleeper dead ; 
 So she looks in on his uncovered eyes, 
 And seeing all within so drear and dark, 
 Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark. 
 
 Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess, 
 Under the swoon of holy divination : 
 And what had all surpassed her simple guess. 
 She now resolves in this dark revelation ; 
 Death's very mystery, — oblivious death ; — 
 Long sleep,— deep night, and an entranced breath. 
 
 Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slam. 
 Merely obscured, and not extinguished, lies ; 
 Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows ao-ain 
 Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs. 
 And light comes in and kindles up the gloom, 
 To light her spirit from its transient tomb. 
 
 Then like the sun, awakened at new dawn. 
 With pale bewildered face she peers about, 
 And spies blurred images obscurely drawn. 
 Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt ; 
 But her true grief grows shapely by degrees, 
 A perished creature lying on her knees. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 And now she knows how that old Murther preys, 
 Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain : 
 How he roams all abroad and grimly slays, 
 Like a lean tiger in Love's own domain ; 
 Parting fond mates, — and oft in flowery lawns 
 Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns. 
 
 0, too dear knowledge ! 0, pernicious earning ! 
 Foul curse engraven upon beauty's page ! 
 Even now the sorrow of that deadly learning 
 Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age. 
 And on her cheek stamps verdict of death's truth 
 By canker blights upon the bud of youth ! 
 
 For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf, 
 So her cheeks' rose is perished by her sighs, 
 And withers in the sickly breath of grief; 
 Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes, 
 Tears, vu-gin tears, the first that ever leapt 
 From those young lids, now plentifully wept. 
 
 Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline 
 Drops straightway down, refusing to partake 
 In gross admixture with the baser brine. 
 But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque, 
 Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears ; 
 So one maid's trophy is another's tears ! 
 
 0, foul Arch-Shadow, thou old cloud of Night, 
 (Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,) 
 Thou blank oblivion — blotter out of light, 
 Life's ruthless murderer, and dear Love's bale ! 
 Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete. 
 Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet 1 
 
 59 
 

 60 
 
 HERO AND LEAXDER. 
 
 Lo ! what a lovely ruin thou hast made ! 
 Alas ! alas' ! thou hast no eyes to see, 
 And blindly slew'st him in misguided shade. 
 ^Vould I had lent my doting sense to thee ! 
 But now I turn to thee, a willing mark, 
 Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark ! 
 
 " 0, doubly cruel ! ; — twice misdoing spite. 
 
 But I will guide thee with my helping eyes. 
 
 Or walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, 
 
 Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs. 
 
 Kay, then thou shouldst have spared my rose, false Death, 
 
 And known Love's flower by smelling his sweet breath ; 
 
 " Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing, 
 Love should have grown from touching of his skin ; 
 But like cold marble thou art all unfeelins:. 
 And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within, 
 And being but a shape of freezing bone, 
 Thy touching only turned my love to stone ! 
 
 " And here, alas ! he lies across my knees, 
 With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave, 
 The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze ; 
 Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a grave, 
 0, come and dig it in my sad heart's core — 
 That wound will bring a balsam for its sore ! 
 
 " For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill 
 Lies stingless, like a sense benumbed with cold, 
 Healing all hurts only with sleep's good-will 1 
 So shall I slumber, and perchance behold 
 My living love in dreams, — 0, happy night, 
 That lets me company his banished spright ! 
 
HERO AND LEAXDER. 61 
 
 «' 0, poppy death ! — sweet poisoner of sleep ; 
 VfixeYQ shall I seek for thee, oblivious ckug, 
 That I may steep thee in my di'ink, and creep 
 Out of life's coil ? Look, Idol ! how I hug 
 Thy dainty image in this strict embrace, 
 And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face ! 
 
 " Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps ! 
 I do but read my sorrows by their shine ; 
 0, come and quench them with thy oozy damps, 
 And let my darkness intermix with thine ; 
 Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see 7 
 Now love is death,— death will be love to me ' 
 
 '■Away, away, this vain complaining breath, 
 It does but stu- the troubles that I weep ; 
 Let it be hushed and quieted, sweet Death ; 
 The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, — 
 Since love is silent I would fain be mute ; 
 0, Death, be gracious to my dying suit ! " 
 
 Thus far she pleads, but pleading naught avails her, 
 For Death, her sullen bui-then, deigns no heed ; 
 Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fails her, 
 She prays to heaven's fail- light, as if her need 
 Inspired her there were gods to pity pain. 
 Or end it. — but she lifts her arms in vain ! 
 
 Poor gilded Grief ! the subtle light by this 
 With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine, 
 And, diving do^-nward through the green abyss, 
 Lights up her palace with an amber shine ; 
 There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin 
 Reveals the ruby tide that fares within. 
 6 
 
D2 
 
 HERO AND LEAXDER. 
 
 Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glorj 
 On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it : 
 Look how the perjured glow suborns a storj 
 On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it ; 
 Grief will not swerve from grief, however told 
 On coral lips, or charactered in gold ; 
 
 Or else, thou maid ! safe anchored on Love's neck. 
 Listing the hapless doom of young Leander, 
 Thou wouldst not shed a tear for that old wi-eck. 
 Sitting secure where no wild surges wander ; 
 Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace, 
 And shows its sad reflection in thy face. 
 
 Thus having travelled on, and tracked the tale. 
 Like the due course of an old bas-relief, 
 Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale, 
 Brood here a while upon that sea-maid's grief, 
 And take a deeper imprint from the frieze 
 Of that joung Fate, with Death upon her knees. 
 
 Then whilst the melancholy Muse withal 
 Resumes her music in a sadder tone, 
 INIeanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall, 
 Conceive that lovely siren to live on, 
 Even as Hope whispered, the Promethean light 
 Would kindle up the dead Leander"s spright. 
 
 '• 'Tis light," she says, '• that feeds the glittering stars, 
 And those were stars set in his heavenly brow ; 
 But this salt cloud, this cold sea- vapor, mars 
 Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now ; 
 Tlierefore I '11 lay him in the clear blue air. 
 And see how these dull orbs will kindle there." 
 
HERO AND LEAXDER. 63 
 
 Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet, 
 With dead Leander in her fond arms' fold, 
 She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net 
 The sun hath twined above of liquid gold, 
 Xor slacks till on the margin of the land 
 She lays his body on the glowing sand. 
 
 There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach 
 Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then, 
 Some listless fishers, straying doTvn the beach. 
 Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, 
 Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake. 
 And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache. 
 
 First she begms to chafe him till she faints, 
 Then foils upon his mouth with kisses many, 
 And sometimes pauses m her own complaints 
 To list his breathing, but there is not any, — 
 Then looks mto his eyes where no light dwells • 
 Light makes no pictures in such muddy wells. 
 
 The bot sun parches his discovered eyes, 
 
 The hot sun beats on his discolored limbs, 
 
 The sand is oozy whereupon he lies, 
 
 Soiling his fairness ; — then away she swuns, 
 
 Meaning to gather him a daintier bed, 
 
 Plucking the cool fresh weeds, brown, green, and red. 
 
 But, simple-witted thief, while she dives under 
 Another robs her of her amorous theft ; 
 The ambushed fishermen creep forth to plunder, 
 And steal the unwatched treasure she has left ; 
 Only his void impression dints the sands : 
 Leander is purloined by stealthy hands ! 
 
64 HERO AXD LEAXDER. 
 
 Lo ! how she shudders off the beaded -waye ! 
 Like Grief all over tears, and senseless falls, 
 His void imprint seems hollowed for her grave ; 
 Then, rising on her knees, looks round and calls 
 On Hero ! Hero ! — having learned this name 
 Of his last breath, she calls him bj the same. 
 
 Then with her frantic hands she rends her hairs, 
 And casts them forth, sad keepsakes, to the wind, 
 As if in plucking those she plucked her cares ; 
 But grief lies deeper, and remains behind 
 Like a barbed arrow, rankling in her brain, 
 Turning her very thoughts to throbs of pain. 
 
 Anon her tangled locks are left alone, 
 And down upon the sand she meekly sits, 
 Hard by the foam, as humble as a stone. 
 Like an enchanted maid beside her wits. 
 That ponders with a look serene and tragic, 
 Stunned by the mighty mystery of magic. 
 
 Or think of Ariadne's utter trance. 
 
 Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor, 
 
 ^Yho left her gazing on the green expanse 
 
 That swallowed up his track, — yet this would mate her 
 
 Even in the cloudy sumanit of her woe, 
 
 When o'er the far sea-brim she saw him go. 
 
 For even so she bows, and bends her gaze 
 
 O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum 
 
 Its waves by weary thousands all her days. 
 
 Dismally doomed ! meanwhile the billows come. 
 
 And coldly dabble with her quiet feet, 
 
 Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 65 
 
 And thence into her lap have boldly sprung, 
 
 Washing her weedy tresses to and fro, 
 
 That round her crouching knees have darkly hung ; 
 
 But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow, 
 
 Like a lone beacon on a desert coast, 
 
 Showing where all her hope was wrecked and lost. 
 
 Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky, 
 
 She knoweth not her love's abrupt resort, 
 
 So like a shape of dreams he left her eye, 
 
 Winking with doubt. Meanwhile, the churls' report 
 
 Has thronged the beach with many a curious face, 
 
 That peeps upon her j5.*om its hiding-place. 
 
 And here a head, and there a brow half seen, 
 
 Dodges behind a rock. Here on his hands 
 
 A mariner his crumpled cheeks doth lean 
 
 Over a rugged crest. Another stands, 
 
 Holdinor bis harmful arrow at the head, 
 
 Still checked by human caution and strange dread. 
 
 One stops his ears, — another close beholder 
 
 Wliispers unto the next his grave surmise ; 
 
 This crouches down, — and just above liis shoulder, 
 
 A woman's pity saddens in her eyes. 
 
 And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief, 
 
 With all sweet helps of sisterly relief 
 
 And down the sunny beach she paces slowly. 
 With many doubtful pauses by the way ; 
 Grief hath an influence so hushed and holy, — 
 Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay 
 Her hand upon that sea-maid's shoulder white, 
 Which makes her startle up in wild affright. 
 6* 
 
66 HERO AXD LEANDER. 
 
 And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave. 
 That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream ; 
 Anon the sea fills up the watery care, 
 And seals her exit with a foamy seam, — 
 Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach, 
 Turning in uncouth wonder each to each. 
 
 Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge. 
 Wherever a brown weed falls thipugh the foam ; 
 Some point to white eruptions of the surge : — 
 But she is vanished to her shady home, 
 Under the deep, inscrutable, — and there 
 Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair. 
 
 Now here the sighing winds, before unheard, 
 Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow, 
 Till all the surface of the deep is stirred. 
 Like to the panting grief it hides below ; 
 And heaven is covered with a stormy rack 
 Soiling the waters with its inky black. 
 
 The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey. 
 And labors shoreward with a bendincr -winar, 
 Rowing against the wind her toilsome way ; 
 Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling 
 Their dewy frost still further on the stones. 
 That answer to the wind with hollow groans. 
 
 And here and there a fisher's far-off bark 
 Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail, 
 Like a bright flame amid the waters dark, 
 Watched with the hope and fear of maidens pale. 
 And anxious mothers that upturn their brows. 
 Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows, 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 61 
 
 For that the horrid deep has no sure track 
 To guide love safe into his homely haven. 
 And, lo ! the storm groTvs blacker in its wrath, 
 O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven, 
 That bodes of death and widow's sorrowing, 
 Under the dusty covert of his wing. 
 
 And so day ended. But no vesper spark 
 Hung forth its heavenly sign ; but sheets of flame 
 Played round the savage features of the dark, 
 Making night horrible. That night, there came 
 A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep, 
 And tore her hair and gazed upon the deep. 
 
 And waved aloft her bright and ruddy torch, 
 Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fanned. 
 That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch 
 The tender covert of her sheltering hand ; 
 Which yet, for love's dear sake, disdained retire, 
 And, like a glorying martyr, braved the fire. 
 
 For that was love's own sign and beacon guide 
 Across the Hellespont's wide weary space. 
 Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide ; 
 Look what a red it forges on her face, 
 As if she blushed at holding such a light. 
 Even in the unseen presence of the night ! 
 
 Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale, 
 
 And colder than the rude and ruffian air 
 
 That howls into her ear a horrid tale 
 
 Of storm, and wreck, and uttermost despair, 
 
 Saying, '• Leander floats amid the surge, 
 
 And those are dismal waves that sing his dirge." 
 
68 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 And, bark ! — a grieving voice, trembling and faint, 
 Blends witb tbe bollow sobbings of the sea ; 
 Like tbe sad music of a siren's plaint, 
 But shriller than Leander's voice should be, 
 Unless the wintry death had changed its tone, — 
 Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan. 
 
 For now, upon each brief and breathless pause 
 Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls 
 On Hero ! Hero ! — whereupon she draws 
 Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appalls 
 Her brave and constant spirit to recoil, 
 However the wild billows toss and toil. 
 
 " ! dost thou live under the deep, deep sea ? 
 I thought such love as .thine could never die ; 
 If thou hast gained an immortality 
 From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I ; 
 And this false cruel tide, that used to sever 
 Our hearts, shall be our common home forever ! 
 
 " There we will sit and sport upon one billow, 
 And sing our ocean-ditties all the day. 
 And lie together on the same green pillow, 
 That curls above us with its dewy spray ; 
 And ever in one presence live and dwell, ■ 
 Like two twin pearls within the self-same shell." 
 
 One moment, then, upon the dizzy verge 
 
 She stands ; — with face upturned against the sky ; 
 
 A moment more, upon the foamy surge 
 
 She gazes, with a calm despairing eye ; 
 
 Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath 
 
 Which life endures when it confronts with death ; — 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 69 
 
 Then from the giddy steep she madly springs, 
 Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept 
 Panting abroad, like unavailing wings. 
 To save her from her death. — The sea-maid wept, 
 And in a crystal cave her corse enshrined ; 
 No meaner sepulchre should Hero find ! 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 FROM AN UNKOLLED MANTSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CTRIUS. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Lyous, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Wate 
 Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorcer- 
 ess. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn 
 Lycus into a horse ; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to 
 break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur. 
 
 Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell 
 To wander, foredoomed, in that circle of hell 
 Where Witchery works with her will like a god, 
 Works more than the wonders of time at a nod, — 
 At a word, — at a touch, — at a flash of the eye ; 
 But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie. 
 Things born of a wish — to endure for a thought, 
 Or last for long ages — to vanish to naught. 
 Or put on new semblance 7 Jove, I had given 
 The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven 
 And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether 
 They kept the world's birth-day and brightened together ! 
 For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded 
 That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, 
 The flice I might dote on, should live out the lease 
 Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease : 
 And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream 
 To another — each horrid — and drank of the stream 
 7 
 
74 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaffed 
 
 Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught, — 
 
 Such drink as her own monarch-husband drained up 
 
 When he pledged her, and Fate closed his ejes in the cup. 
 
 And I plucked of the fruit with held breath, and a fear 
 
 That the branch would start back and scream out in my car : 
 
 For once, at my suppering, I plucked in the dusk 
 
 An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk ; 
 
 But by daylight my fingers were crimsoned with gore, 
 
 And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core ; 
 
 And once — only once — for the love of its blush, 
 
 I broke a bloom-bough, but there came such a gush 
 
 On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright, 
 
 While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shrieked at the sight ; 
 
 And, ! such an agony thrilled in that note, 
 
 That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, 
 
 As it longed to be free of a body Avhose hand 
 
 Was doomed to work torments a Fury had planned ! 
 
 There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, 
 As if rooted and horror-turned into a tree, — 
 
 ! for innocent death, — and, to suddenly win it, 
 
 1 drank of the stream, but no poison was in it ; 
 I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink 
 Some invisible fate pulled me back to the brink ; 
 I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height. 
 But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight ; 
 I ran at my fears — they were fears and no more. 
 
 For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar. 
 But moaned, — all their brutalized flesh could not smother 
 The horrible truth, — we were kin to each other ! 
 
 They were mournfully gentle, and grouped for relief. 
 All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 70 
 
 The leopard was there, — baby-mild in its feature ; 
 
 And the tiger, black-barred, Avith the gaze of a creature 
 
 That knew gentle pity ; the bristle-backed boar. 
 
 His innocent tusks stiiined with mulberry gore ; 
 
 And the laughing hyena — but laughing no more ; 
 
 And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise 
 
 Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes ; 
 
 The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine 
 
 Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine ; 
 
 And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, 
 
 How thoughtful in sadness ! but this is no season 
 
 To reckon them up, from the lag-bellied toad 
 
 To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. 
 
 There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came^ 
 
 That hung down their heads with a human-like shame ; 
 
 The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear 
 
 Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair ; 
 
 And the womanly soul, turning sick with disgust, 
 
 Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust ; 
 
 While all groaned their groans into one at their lot, 
 
 As I brought them the image of what they were not. 
 
 Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking 
 Through vile brutal organs — low tremulous croaking ; 
 Cries swallowed abruptly — deep animal tones 
 Attuned to strange passion, aud full-uttered groans ; 
 All shuddering weaker, till hushed in a pause 
 Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yaAvning jaws ; 
 And I cfuessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er 
 The tale of their woes, but the silence told more 
 Tliat writhed on their tongues ; and I knelt on the sod, 
 And prayed with my voice to the cloud-stirring God, 
 For the sad congregation of supplicants there. 
 That upturned to his heaven brute faces of prayer ; 
 
76 LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 And I ceased, and they uttered a moaning so deep, 
 
 That I wept for my heart-ease, — but they could not weep, 
 
 And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry, 
 
 At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. 
 
 Then I motioned them round, and, to soothe their distress, 
 
 I caressed, and they bent them to meet my caress, 
 
 Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm, 
 
 And with poor grateful eyes suffered meekly and calm 
 
 Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate 
 
 From returns that might cliill the warm pity to hate ; 
 
 So they passively bowed — save the serpent, that leapt 
 
 To my breast Hke a sister, and pressingly crept 
 
 In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blistered 
 
 My lips in rash love, — then di'ew backward, and glistered 
 
 Her eyes in my face, and, loud hissing affright, 
 
 Dropt down, and swift started away from my sight ! 
 
 This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, 
 Turned brute in my soul, though my body was not 
 When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, 
 That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, 
 And dashed off bright tears till their fingers were wet, 
 And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet : 
 But I fled — though they stretched out then- hands, all 
 
 entangled 
 With hair, and blood-stained of the breasts they had man- 
 gled,— 
 Though they called — and perchance but to ask had I seen 
 Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been : 
 But I stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold 
 Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told, 
 Might translate me in flesh to a brute ; and I dreaded 
 To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 77 
 
 With some pity, — and love in that pity perchance, — 
 To a thing not all lovely ; for once at a glance 
 Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder 
 That flowed like a long silver rivulet under 
 The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast, 
 Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest 7 
 
 So I roamed in that circle of Horrors, and Fear 
 Walked with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near 
 Clustered trees for their gloom — not to shelter from heat — 
 But lest a brute shadow should grow at my feet ; 
 And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place 
 Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face, 
 In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none 
 Could see, like invisible flames in the sun ;) 
 But grew to one monster that seized on the light, 
 Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night ; 
 Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the South ; 
 Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth 
 Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, 
 Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, 
 Bringing; Night on their wings : and the bodies wherein 
 Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, 
 Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight 
 Like a Titan, and threatfully warred with the light ; 
 I have heard the Avild shriek that gave signal to close, 
 When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes, 
 That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, 
 With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws. 
 And whirls of long tails : — I have seen the quick flutter 
 Of fragments dissevered, — and necks stretched to utter 
 Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of blows, 
 A.nd wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close, 
 7* 
 
78 LYCUS. THE CEXTAUR. 
 
 When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings, 
 And flew on the whirlwind that followed their wmgs. 
 
 Thus they fled — not forgotten — but often to grow 
 Like fears in mj eyes, when I walked to and fro 
 In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen 
 The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean 
 I knew not. nor whether the love I had won 
 Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun, 
 In its very noon-blaze. I could fancy a thing 
 Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling 
 On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky, 
 Half-seen, and half-dreamed in the soul of his eye. 
 And when in my musings I gazed on the stream, 
 In motionless trances of thought, there would seem 
 A face like that face, looking upward through mine : 
 With its eyes full of love, and the dim-droTs-ned shine 
 Of limbs and fiir garments, like clouds in that blue 
 Serene : — there I stood for long hours but to view 
 Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted 
 Towards me, and winked as the water- weed drifted 
 Between ; but the fish knew that presence, and plied 
 Their long cnrvj tails, and swift darted aside. 
 
 There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things 
 That once had been wonders — the fishes with wino-s. 
 And the glimmer of magnified eyes that looked up 
 From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup, 
 And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam, 
 Slow windins; aloncr like a tide in the stream. 
 Some maid of the waters, some Xaiad, methought 
 Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I brought 
 My wish to that fancy ; and often I dashed 
 My limbs in the water, and suddenly splashed 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 73 
 
 The cool drops around me, 3-et clung to the brink, 
 Chilled by watery fears, how that Beauty might sink 
 With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me 
 "With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me 
 In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear. 
 Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear 
 Came the tardy remembrance — 0, falsest of men ! 
 "Wliy was not that beauty remembered till then ] 
 jMy love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run 
 Into mine — like a drop — that our fate might be one. 
 That now, even now, — may-be, — clasped in a dream, 
 That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream. 
 And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother 
 On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another ! 
 
 Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, 
 Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind 
 On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt 
 To the bank, and shook off the cursed waters, and wept 
 With my brow in the reeds ; and the reeds to my ear 
 Bowed; bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear. 
 Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one 
 That loved me, — but to fly from her, and shun 
 Her love like a pest — though her love was as true 
 To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue : 
 For why should I love her with love that would bring 
 All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing 7 
 Because of her rival. — even Her whose witch-fiice 
 I had slighted, and therefore was doomed in that place 
 To roam, and had roamed, where all horrors grew rank, 
 Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank : 
 Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail 
 To our love like a blight ; and they told me the tale 
 
80 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 Of Scylla, and Picus, imprisoned to speak 
 
 His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak. 
 
 Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of my star 
 That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far 
 I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush 
 Of deep meditation, — when, lo ! a light crush 
 Of the reeds, and I turned and looked round in the night 
 Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipped of the light 
 Narrow- winking, the realized nymph of the stream, 
 Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam 
 Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing 
 Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing 
 In falls to her feet, and the blue waters rolled 
 Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold, 
 Sun-spangled, gold-broidered, and fled far behind, 
 Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined 
 In the reeds, and I hungered to see her unseal 
 The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal 
 The blue that was in them ; and they oped and she raised 
 Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed 
 With her eyes on my eyes ; but their color and shine 
 Was of that which they looked on, and mostly of mine — 
 For she loved me, — except when she blushed, and they sank, 
 Shame-huml)led, to number the stones on the bank, 
 Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me 
 How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me 
 AVould wing through the sun till she fainted away 
 Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay 
 In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes 
 In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. 
 But now they were healed, — my heart, it still dances 
 When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, 
 
LYCUS, THE CEXTAUR. 81 
 
 Ajid mj image how small when it sank in the deep 
 
 Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas ! now thej weep, 
 
 And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes 
 
 Shed mvisible tears ? Who beholds v.herc her sighs 
 
 Flow in eddies, or see the ascents of the leaf 
 
 She has plucked Avith her tresses 7 Who listens her giief 
 
 Like a for fall of waters, or hears where her feet 
 
 Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat 
 
 Them together ] Ah ! surely her flowers float adown 
 
 To the sea unaccepted, and little ones di'own 
 
 For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin-brother 
 
 Will miss him forever ; and the sorrowful mother 
 
 Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss 
 
 And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is, 
 
 Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain ! 
 
 We loved, — how we loved ! — for I thought not again 
 
 Of the woes that were whispered like fears in that place 
 
 If I gave me to beauty. Her foce was the face 
 
 Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drowned 
 
 For my absence, — her arms were the arms that sought round, 
 
 And clasped me to naught : for I gazed and became 
 
 Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name 
 
 For two loves, and called ever on ^gle, sweet maid 
 
 Of the sky-loAdng waters. — and was not afraid 
 
 Of the sight of her skin : — for it never could be 
 
 Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me ! 
 
 Thus our bliss had endui'ed for a time-shortened space. 
 Like a day made of three, and the smile of her foce 
 Had been with me for joy, — when she told me indeed 
 Her love was self-tasked with a work that would need 
 Some sliort hours, for in truth " t was the veriest pity 
 Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty 
 
 I 
 
82 LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 Of one with warm lips that should love her. and love her 
 
 When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. 
 
 So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested 
 
 My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested 
 
 Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep 
 
 Of di-eams, — but their meaning was hidden too deep 
 
 To be read what their woe was ; — but still it was woe 
 
 That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro 
 
 In that river of night ; — and the gaze of their eyes 
 
 Was sad, — and the bend of their brows, — and their cries 
 
 Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears 
 
 Travelled down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears 
 
 Awaked me, and, lo ! I was couched in a bower, 
 
 The growth of long summers reared up in an hour ! 
 
 Then I said, in the fear of my di-eam, I will fly 
 
 From this magic, but could not, because that my eye 
 
 Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ; and the earth 
 
 Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth 
 
 Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear. 
 
 Would startle tlie thrush ? and methought there drew near 
 
 A form as of 2Etg\e, — but it was not the face 
 
 Hope made, and I knew the witch- Queen of that place. 
 
 Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death 
 
 Which I feared, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. 
 
 There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised 
 
 From the grass at her foot, but I saw. as I gazed, 
 
 Her spite — and her countenance changed with her mind, 
 
 As she planned how to thrall me with beauty, and bind 
 
 My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses played 
 
 From shade into shine and from shine into shade. 
 
 Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, how fair ! 
 
 With long snaky locks of the adder-black haii- 
 
LYCTTS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 83 
 
 riifit clung round her neck, — those dark locks that I prize, 
 
 For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes 
 
 Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they rolled 
 
 And brightened, and suddenly ))lazed into gold 
 
 That she combed into flames, and the locks that fell down 
 
 Turned dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown, 
 
 Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, 
 
 That innocence wears when she is but a child ; 
 
 And her eyes, — 0, 1 ne'er had been witched with their shine, 
 
 Had they been any other, my -^gle, than thine ! 
 
 Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I maddened 
 In the full of their light, — but I saddened and saddened 
 The deeper I looked, — till I sank on the snow 
 Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe, 
 And answered its throb with a shudder of fears. 
 And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, 
 And strained her white arms with the still languid weight 
 Of a faintinsj distress. There she sat like the Fate 
 That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame 
 To hide me from her — the true 2Eg\e — that came 
 With the words on her lips the fiilse witch had foregiven 
 To make me immortal — for now I was even 
 At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush 
 Of world-sounds in my ear to cry welcome, and rush 
 With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river. 
 0, would it had flown from my body forever. 
 Ere I listened those words, when I felt, with a start, 
 The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart. 
 And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell 
 Had perished in horror — and heard the farewell 
 Of that voice that was drowned in the dash of the stream ' 
 How fain had I followed, and plunged with that scream 
 
84 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 
 
 Into death, but mj being indignantly lagged 
 
 Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragged 
 
 Behind me : — " 0, Circe ! 0, mother of spite ! 
 
 Speak the last of that curse ! and imprison me quite 
 
 In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name 
 
 The man that I was, — that no kindred may claim 
 
 The monster I am ! Let me utterly be 
 
 Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonor with me 
 
 Uninscribed ! " — But she listened my prayer, that wag 
 
 praise 
 To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze 
 On the river for love, — and perchance she would make 
 In pity a maid without eyes for my sake, 
 And she left me like Scorn. Then I asked of the wave 
 What monster I was ; and it trembled and gave 
 The true shape of my grief, and I turned with my face 
 From all waters forever, and fled through that place, 
 Till with horror more strong than all magic I passed 
 Its bounds, and the world was before me at last. 
 
 There I wandered in sorrow, and shunned the abodes 
 Of men, that stood up in the likeness of gods. 
 But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun 
 On their cities, where man was a million, not one ; 
 And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascending, 
 That showed where the hearts of the many were blentling, 
 And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came 
 From the trumpets that gathered whole bands in one fame 
 As a chorus of man, — and they streamed from the gates 
 Like a dusky libation poured out to the Fates. 
 But at times there were gentler processions of peace. 
 That I watched with my soul in my eyes till their cease, 
 
LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 85 
 
 There were women ! there men ! but to me a third sex 
 
 I saw them all dots — yet I loved them as specks : 
 
 And oft, to assuage a sad yearning of eyes, 
 
 I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise, 
 
 Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten 
 
 By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten ! 
 
 0. I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother 
 
 Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother 
 
 Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep 
 
 Sang di'eams in its ear of its manhood, while deep 
 
 In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks 
 
 That murmured between us, and kissed them with looks ; 
 
 But the willows unbosomed their secret, and never 
 
 I returned to a spot I had startled forever, 
 
 Though I oft longed to know, but could ask it of none, 
 
 "Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son. 
 
 For the haunters of fields they all shunned me by flight, 
 The men in their horror, the women in fright ; 
 None ever remained save a child once that sported 
 Among the wild bluebells, and painfully couiied 
 The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake lay 
 Tight strangled, because it had hissed him away 
 From the flower at his finger ; he rose and drew near 
 Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear, 
 But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright 
 To grow to large manhood of merciful might. 
 He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel 
 The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel. 
 And questioned my face with wide eyes ; but when under 
 My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder. 
 He stroked me, and uttered such kindliness then. 
 That the once love of women, the friendship of men 
 
86 LYCUS, THE CEXTArR. 
 
 In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kis3 
 
 On my heart in its desolate day such as this ; 
 
 And I yearned at his cheeks in my love, and do\^^l hent. 
 
 And lifted him up in my arms with intent 
 
 To kiss him, — but he, cruel-kindly, alas I 
 
 Held out to my lips a plucked handful of grass ! 
 
 Then I di'opt him in horror, but felt as I fled 
 
 The stone he indignantly hurled at my head. 
 
 That dissevered my ear, but I felt not, whose fate 
 
 Was to meet more distress in his love than his hate ! 
 
 Thus I wandered, companioned of grief and forlorn, 
 Till I wished for that land where my being was born ; 
 But what was that land with its love, where my home 
 Was self-shut against me ; for why should I come 
 Like an after-distress to my gi-ay-bearded father, 
 With a blight to the last of his sight 7 — let him rather 
 Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn 
 Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn 
 To his son even such as he left him. 0, how 
 Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now 
 Like gods to my humbled estate ] — or how bear 
 The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care 
 Of my hands 7 Then I turned me self-banished, and came 
 Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same 
 As myself. I have heard how they met by a sti'eam 
 In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream 
 That made wretches of many, as she rolled her wild eyes 
 Against heaven, and so Aimished. — The gentle and wise 
 Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill 
 In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still. 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 
 
 Alas ! that breathing Vanity should go 
 
 Where PriJe is Ijuriecl, — like its very ghost, 
 
 Uprisen from the naked bones below, 
 In novel flesh, clad in the silent Iwast 
 
 Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro, 
 Shedding its chilling superstition most 
 
 On young and ignorant natures — as it wont 
 
 To haunt the peaceful church-yard of Bedfont ! 
 
 Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer, 
 Behold two maidens, up the quiet green 
 
 Shining, far distant, in the summer air 
 
 That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes between 
 
 Their downy plumes, — sailing as if they were 
 Two far-off ships, — until they brush between 
 
 The church-yard's humble walls, and watch and wait 
 
 On either side of the wide-opened gate. 
 
 And there they stand — with haughty necks before 
 God's holy house, that points towards the skies — 
 
 Frowning reluctant duty from the poor, 
 
 And tempting homage from unthoughtful eyes : 
 
 And Youth looks lingering from the temple door, 
 Breathing its wishes in unfruitful sighs. 
 
 With pouting lips, — forgetful of the grace. 
 
 Of health, and smiles, on the heart-conscious face j — 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFOXT. 
 
 Because that "Wealth, which has no bliss beside, 
 i\Iay wear the happiness of rich attire ; 
 
 And those two sisters, in their sillj pride, 
 
 May change the soul's warm glances for the fii'e 
 
 Of lifeless diamonds ; — and for health denied, — 
 With art. that blushes at itself, inspire 
 
 Their languid cheeks — and flourish in a glory 
 
 That has no life in Life, nor after-story. 
 
 The aged priest goes shaking his gray hair 
 In meekest censuring, and turns his eye 
 
 Earthward in grief, and heavenward in prayer, 
 And sighs, and clasps his hands, and passes by. 
 
 Good-hearted man ! what sullen soul would wear 
 Thy sorrow for a garb, and constantly 
 
 Put on thy censure, that might win the praise 
 
 Of one so gray in goodness and in days 7 
 
 Also the solemn clerk partakes the shame 
 Of this ungodly shine of human pride, 
 
 And sadly blends his reverence and blame 
 In one grave bow, and passes with a stride 
 
 Impatient : — many a red-hooded dame 
 
 Turns her pained head, but not her glance, aside 
 
 From wanton dress, and marvels o'er ao^ain, 
 
 That Heaven hath no wet judgments for the vain. 
 
 " I have a lily in the bloom at home," 
 
 Quoth one, '' and by the blessed Sabbath day 
 
 I "11 pluck my lily in its pride, and come 
 And read a lesson upon vain array : — 
 
 And when stiff silks are rustling up, and some 
 Give place, I'll shake it in proud eyes and say — 
 
 Making my reverence, — ' Ladies, an you please, 
 
 King Solomon 's not half so fine as these.' " 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 89 
 
 Then her meek partner, vfho has nearly run 
 
 His earthly course, — " Nay, Goody, let your text 
 
 Gro\v in the garden. — We have only one — 
 
 Who knows that these dim eyes may see the next 7 
 
 Summer -will come again, and summer sun. 
 And lilies too, — but I were sorely vext 
 
 To mar my garden, and cut short the blow 
 
 Of the last lily I may live to grow." 
 
 " The last ! " quoth she, " and though the last it were — 
 Lo ! those two wantons, where they stand so proud, 
 
 With waving plumes, and joAvels in their hair, 
 And painted cheeks, like Dagons to be bowed 
 
 And curtseyed too ! — last Sabbath, after prayer, 
 I heard the little Tomkins ask aloud 
 
 If they were angels — but I made him know 
 
 God's bright ones better, with a bitter blow ! " 
 
 So speaking they pursue the pebbly walk 
 
 That leads to the white porch the Sunday throng, — 
 
 Hand-coupled urchins in restrained talk, 
 
 And anxious pedagogue that chastens wrong. 
 
 And posied church-warden with solemn stalk. 
 And gold-bedizened beadle flames along, 
 
 And gentle peasant clad in buff and green. 
 
 Like a meek cowslip in the spring serene ; 
 
 And blushing maiden, — modestly arrayed 
 
 In spotless white, — still conscious of the glass ; 
 
 And she, the lonely widow, that hath made 
 A sable covenant with grief, — alas ! 
 
 She veils her tears under the deep, deep shade. 
 While the poor kindly-hearted, as they pass, 
 
 Bend to unclouded childhood, and caress 
 
 Her boy, — so rosy ! — and so fiitherless ! 
 8* 
 
90 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 
 
 Thus, as good Christians ought, thej all draw near 
 The fair white temple, to the tirnelj call 
 
 Of pleasant bells that tremble in the ear. — 
 
 Now the last frock, and scarlet hood, and shawl, 
 
 Fade into dusk, in the dim atniosphere 
 
 Of the low porch, and heaven has won them all, 
 
 Saving those two, that turn aside and pass. 
 
 In velvet blossom, where all flesh is grass. 
 
 Ah me ! to see their silken manors trailed 
 In purple luxuries — with restless gold, — 
 
 Flaunting the grass where widowhood has wailed 
 In blotted black, — over the heapj mould 
 
 Panting wave-wantonly ! They never quailed 
 How the warm vanity abused the cold ; 
 
 Nor saw the solemn faces of the gone 
 
 Sadly uplooking through transparent stone : 
 
 But swept their dwellings with unquiet light, 
 Shocking the awful presence of the dead ; 
 
 Where gracious natures would their eyes benight. 
 Nor wear their being with a lip too red, 
 
 Nor move too rudely in the summer bright 
 Of sun, but put staid sorrow in their tread, 
 
 Meting it into steps, with inward breath, 
 
 In very pity to bereaved death. 
 
 Now in the church, time-sobered minds resign 
 To solemn prayer, and the loud chanted hymn, — 
 
 With glowing picturings of joys divine 
 
 Painting the mist-light where the roof is dim ; 
 
 But youth looks upward to the window shine, 
 Warming with rose and purple and the swim 
 
 Of gold, as if thought-tinted by the stains 
 
 Of gorgeous light through many-colored panes ; 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 91 
 
 Soiling the virgin snow wherein God hath 
 Enrobed his angels, — and with absent eyes 
 
 llearint^ of heaven, and its directed path, 
 
 Thoughtful of slippers, — and the glorious skies 
 
 Clouding with satin, — till the preacher's wrath 
 Consumes his pity, and he glows, and cries 
 
 With a deep voice that trembles in its might, 
 
 And earnest eyes grown eloquent in light : 
 
 "0, that the vacant eye would learn to look 
 
 On very beauty, and the heart embrace 
 True loveliness, and from this holy book 
 
 Drink the Avarm-breathing tenderness and grace 
 Of love indeed ! 0, that the young soul took 
 
 Its vir'^in passion from the glorious face 
 Of fair religion, and addressed its strife 
 To wui the riches of eternal life ! 
 
 " Doth the vain heart love glory that is none, 
 
 And the poor excellence of vain attire 1 
 go, and drown your eyes against the sun, 
 
 The visible ruler of the starry quire, 
 Till boiling gold in giddy eddies run, 
 
 Dazzling the brain with orbs of living fire ; 
 And the famt soul down darkens into night, 
 And dies a burning martyrdom to light. 
 
 '' go, and gaze, — when the low winds of even 
 Breathe hymns, and Nature's many forests nod 
 
 Their gold-crowned heads ; and the rich blooms of heaven 
 Sun-ripened give their blushes up to God ; 
 
 And mountain-rocks and cloudy steeps are riven 
 By founts of fire, as smitten by the rod 
 
 Of heavenly Moses, — that your thirsty sense 
 
 May quench its longings of magnificence ! 
 
92 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 
 
 " Yet suns shall perish — stars shall fade awaj — 
 Daj into darkness — darkness into death — 
 
 Death into silence ; the warm light of daj, 
 
 The blooms of summer, the rich glowing breath 
 
 Of even — all shall wither and decay, 
 
 Like the frail furniture of dreams beneath 
 
 The touch of morn — or bubbles of rich djes 
 
 That break and vanish in the aching eyes." 
 
 They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed 
 
 Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour 
 
 Their sin to earth, — and with low drooping head 
 Receive the solemn blessing, and implore 
 
 Its grace — then soberly, with chastened tread, 
 They meekly press towards the gusty door, 
 
 With humbled eyes that go to graze upon 
 
 The lowly grass — like him of Babylon. 
 
 The lowly grass ! — 0, water-constant mind ! 
 
 Fast-ebbing holiness ! — soon-fading grace 
 Of serious thought, as if the gushing v/ind 
 
 Through the low porch had washed it from the face 
 Forever ! — How they lift their eyes to find 
 
 Old vanities ! — Pride wins the very place 
 Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now 
 With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow ! 
 
 And, lo ! with eager looks they seek the way 
 
 Of old temptation at the lowly gate ; 
 To feast on feathers, and on vain array, 
 
 And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state 
 Of jewel-sprinkled locks. — But where are they. 
 
 The graceless haughty ones that used to wait 
 With lofty neck, and nods, and stiffened eye 7 — ■ 
 None challenge the old homage bending by. 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 93 
 
 In vain they look for the ungracious bloom 
 Of rich apparel where it glowed before, — 
 
 For vanity has faded all to gloom, 
 
 And lofty Pride has stiffened to the core, 
 
 For impious Life to tremble at its doom, — 
 Set for a warning token evermore, 
 
 "Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise 
 
 Shall gaze with lifted hands and wondering eyes. 
 
 The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn, 
 But shakes not sorrow under his gray hau* ; 
 
 The solemn clerk goes lavendered and shorn. 
 Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair : — 
 
 And ancient lips, that puckered up in scorn. 
 Go smoothly breathing to the house of prayer ; 
 
 And in the garden-plot, from day to day. 
 
 The lily blooms its long white life away. 
 
 And where two haughty maidens used to be, 
 
 In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod, 
 
 Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly. 
 Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod ; — 
 
 There, gentle stranger, thou may'st only see 
 
 Two sombre Peacocks. Age, with sapient nod 
 
 Marking the spot, still tarries to declare 
 
 How they once lived, and wherefore they are there. 
 
THE TWO SWANS 
 
 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 Immortal Imogen, crowned queen above 
 The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear 
 A fairy dream in honor of true love — 
 True above ills, and frailty, and all fear — 
 Perchance a shadow of his own career 
 Whose youth was darkly prisoned and long twined 
 By serpent-sorrow, till white Love drew near, 
 And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind 
 A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may wind. 
 
 I saw a tower builded on a lake. 
 Mocked by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — 
 That seemed a still intenser night to make. 
 Wherein the quiet waters sunk to sleep, — 
 And. whatsoe'er was prisoned in that keep, 
 A monstrous Snake was warden : — round and round 
 In sable ringlets I beheld him creep 
 Blackest amid black shadows to the ground, 
 Whilst his enormous head the topmost turret crowned. 
 
 From whence he shot fierce light against the stars, 
 Making the pale moon paler with affright ; 
 And with his ruby eye out-threatened Mars — 
 That blazed in the mid-heavens, hot and bright — 
 
THE TWO SWANS. 96 
 
 Nor slept, nor winked, but with a steadfast spite 
 "Watched their wan looks and tremblings in the skies : 
 And. that he might not slumber in the night, 
 The curtain-lids were plucked from his large eyes, 
 So he might never drowse, but watch his secret prize. 
 
 Prince or princess in dismal durance pent, 
 Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate. 
 Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent, 
 "Watching the lonely watei-s soon and late. 
 And clouds that pass and leave them to their Me, 
 Or company their grief with heavy tears : — 
 Meanwhile that Hope can spy no golden gate 
 For sweet escapement, but in darksome fears 
 They weep and pine away as if immortal years. 
 
 No gentle bird with gold upon its wing 
 "Will perch upon the grate — the gentle bird 
 Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring 
 Freedom's sweet key-note and commission word 
 Learned of a fairy's lips, for pity stirred — 
 Lest while he trembling sings, untimely guest ! 
 "Watched by that cruel Snake and darkly heard, 
 He leave a widow on her lonely nest, 
 To press in silent grief the darlings of her breast. 
 
 No sallant knight, adventurous, in his bark. 
 "VSnil seek the fruitful perils of the place. 
 To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark 
 That bear the serpent-image on their face. 
 And Love, brave Love ! though he attempt the base. 
 Nerved to his loyal death, he may not win 
 His captive lady from the strict embrace 
 Of that foul Serpent, clasping her within 
 His sable folds — like Eve enthralled by the old Sin. 
 
96 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 But there is none — no knight in panoply, 
 Nor Love, intrenched in his strong steelj coat : 
 No Httle speck — no sail — no helper nigh, 
 No sign — no whispering — no plash of boat : — 
 The distant shores show dimlj and remote. 
 Made of a deeper mist, — serene and gray, — 
 And slow and mute the cloudy shadows float 
 Over the gloomy wave, and pass away, 
 Chased by the silver beams that on their marges play. 
 
 And bright and silvery the willows sleep 
 Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease 
 Their hoary heads ; but quietly they weep 
 There sprinkling leaves — half fountains and half trees 
 There lilies be — and fairer than all these, 
 A solitary Swan her breast of snow 
 Launches against the wave that seems to freeze 
 Into a chaste reflection, still below 
 Twin-shadow of herself wherever she may go. 
 
 And forth she paddles in the very noon 
 Of solemn midnight like an elfin thing, 
 Charmed into being by the argent moon — 
 Whose silver light for love of her fair wino- 
 Goes with her in the shade, still worshipping 
 Her dainty plumage : — all around her grew 
 A radiant circlet, like a fairy ring ; 
 And all behind, a tiny little clue 
 Of light, to guide her back across the waters blue. 
 
 And sure she is no meaner than a fay, 
 Redeemed from sleepy death, for beauty's sake, 
 By old ordainment : — silent as she lay. 
 Touched by a moonlight wand I saw her wake, 
 
TUE TWO SWANS. 97 
 
 And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake 
 The verdant prison of her lily peers, 
 That slept amidst the stars upon the lake — 
 A breathing shape — restored to human fears, 
 And new-born love and grief — self-conscious of her tears. 
 
 And now she clasps her wings around her heart, 
 And near that lonelj isle begins to glide 
 Pale as her fears, and ofttimes with a start 
 Turns her impatient head from side to side 
 In universal teiTors — all too wide 
 To watch ; and often to that mai-ble keep 
 Upturns her pearly eyes, as if she spied 
 Some foe, and crouches in the shadows steep 
 That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep. 
 
 And well she may, to spy that fearfnl thing 
 All down the dusky walls in circlets wound ! 
 Alas ! for what rare prize, with many a ring 
 Girding the marble casket round and round ? 
 His folded tail, lost in the gloom profound, 
 Terribly darkeneth the rocky base ; 
 But on the top his monstrous head is crowned 
 With prickly spears, and on his doubtful face 
 Gleam his unwearied eyes, red watchers of the place. 
 
 Alas ! of the hot fires that nightly fall, 
 No one will scorch him in those orbs of spite, 
 So he may never see beneath the wall 
 That timid little creature, all too bright, 
 That stretches her fair neck, slender and white. 
 Invoking the pale moon, and vainly tries 
 Her throbbing throat, as if to charm the night 
 With song — but, hush — it perishes in sighs. 
 And there will be no dirge, sad swelling though she dies ! 
 9 
 
98 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake. 
 Fainting again into a lifeless flower ; 
 But soon the chillj springs anoint and wake 
 Her spirit from its death, and with new power 
 She sheds her stifled sorrows in a shower 
 Of tender song, timed to her falling tears — 
 That wins the shady summit of that tower, 
 - And, trembling all the sweeter for its fears, 
 Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's ears. 
 
 And, lo ! the scaly beast is all deprest. 
 Subdued like Argus by the might of sound — 
 What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest 
 To magic converse Avith the air, and bound 
 The many monster eyes, all slumber-drowned : — 
 So on the turret-top that watchful snake 
 Pillows his giant head, and lists profound, 
 As if his wrathful spite would never wake, 
 Charmed into sudden sleep for Love and Beauty's sake ! 
 
 His prickly crest lies prone upon his crown, 
 And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies, 
 To drink that dainty flood of music down — 
 His scaly throat is big with pent-up sighs — 
 And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies, 
 His looks for envy of the charmed sense 
 Are fain to listen, till his steadfast eyes, 
 Stung into pain by their own impotence. 
 Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. 
 
 0, tuneful Swan ! 0, melancholy bird ! 
 
 Sweet was that midnight miracle. of song, 
 
 Rich with ripe sorrow, needful of no word 
 
 To tell of pain, and love, and love's deep wrong — 
 
THE TWO SWANS. 99 
 
 Hinting a piteous tale — perchance how long 
 Thy unknown tears were mingled with the lake, 
 What time disguised thy leafy mates among — 
 And no eye knew what human love and ache 
 Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to brenk. 
 
 Therefore no poet will ungently touch 
 The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew 
 Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such 
 As human pain may wander through and through, 
 Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — - 
 Wherein life dwells, transfigured, not entombed, 
 By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew 
 Sorrow in all its shapes, leafy and plumed, 
 Or in gross husks of brutes eternally inhumed ? 
 
 And now the wino;ed soncr has scaled the height 
 Of that dark dwelling, builded for despair, 
 And soon a little casement flashino- bright 
 Widens self-opened into the cool air — 
 That music like a bird may enter there 
 And soothe the captive in his stony cage ; 
 For there is naught of grief, or painful care, 
 But plaintive song may happily engage 
 Fi'om sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage. 
 
 And forth into the light, small and remote, 
 A creature, like the fair son of a king. 
 Draws to the lattice in his jewelled coat 
 Against the silver moonlight glistening. 
 And leans upon his white hand listening 
 To that sweet music that with tenderer tone 
 Salutes him, wt)ndering ^hat kindly thing 
 Is come to soothe him with so tuneful moan, 
 Singing beneath the walls as if for him alone ! 
 
100 THE TWO SWAXS. 
 
 And while he listens, the mysterious song, 
 Woven with timid particles of speech, 
 Twines into passionate words that grieve along 
 The melancholy notes, and softly teach 
 The secrets of true love, — that trembling reach 
 His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun 
 He missions like replies, and each to each 
 Their silver voices mingle into one. 
 Like blended streams that make one music as they run 
 
 "' Ah ! Love, my hope is swooning in my heart, — 
 Ay, sweet, my cage is strong and hung full high — 
 Alas ! our lips are held so far apart. 
 Thy words come faint, they have so far to fly ! — 
 K I may only shun that serpent eye, — 
 Ah me ! that serpent eye doth never sleep : — 
 Then, nearer thee. Love's martyr, I will die ! — 
 Alas, alas ! that word has made me weep ! 
 For Pity's sake remain safe in thy marble keep ! 
 
 " My marble keep ! it is my marble tomb — 
 Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living breath - - 
 Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom ; — 
 But I will come to thee and sing beneath, 
 And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath ; — 
 Nay, I will find a path from these despairs. 
 Ah. needs then thou must tread the back of death. 
 Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs. — 
 Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! " 
 
 Full sudden at these words the princely youth 
 Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still 
 Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth, 
 But numbed to dulness by the fairy skill 
 
THE TWO SWANS. 101 
 
 Of that sweet music, (all more wild and shrill 
 For intense fear,) that charmed him as he lay — 
 Meanwhile the lover nerves his desperate will, 
 Held some short throbs hj natural dismay, 
 Then down, down the serpent-track begins his darksome way 
 
 Now dimly seen — now toiling out of sight. 
 Eclipsed and covered by the envious wall : 
 Now fair and spangled in the sudden light, 
 And clinging with wide arms for fear of fall ; 
 Now dark and sheltered by a kindly pall 
 Of dusky shadow from his wakeful foe ; 
 Slowly he winds adown — dimly and small, 
 "U^atched by the gentle swan that sings below, 
 Her hope increasing, still, the larger he doth grow. 
 
 But nine times nine the serpent folds embrace 
 The marble walls about — which he must tread 
 Before his -anxious foot may touch the base : 
 Long is the dreary path, and must be sped ! 
 But Love, that holds the mastery of di-ead, 
 Braces his spirit, and with constant toil 
 He wins his way, and now, with arms outspread, 
 Impatient plunges from the last long coil : 
 So may all gentle Love ungentle Malice foil. 
 
 The song is hushed, the charm is all complete, 
 And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake : 
 But scarce their tender bills have time to meet. 
 When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — 
 His steely scales a fearful rustling make, 
 Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell 
 The sable storm : — the plumy lovers quake — 
 And feel the troubled waters pant and swell, 
 Heaved by the giant bulk of their pursuer fell. 
 9* 
 
102 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, 
 Hiss horrible pursuit — his red eyes glare 
 The waters into blood — his eager breath 
 Grows hot upon their plumes : — now, minstrel fair ! 
 She drops her ring into the waves, and there 
 It widens all around, a fairy ring 
 Wrought of the silver light — the fearful pair 
 Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling 
 The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing. 
 
 Bending their course over the pale gray lake, 
 Against the pallid East, wherein light played 
 In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake 
 Circled them round continually, and bayed 
 Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade 
 The sanctuary ring — his sahle mail 
 Rolled darkly through the flood, and writhed and made 
 A shining track over the waters pale, 
 Lashed into boiling foam by his enormous tail. 
 
 And so they sailed into the distance dim. 
 Into the very distance — small and white, 
 Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim 
 Over the brooklets — followed by the spite 
 Of that huge Serpent, that with wild affright 
 Worried them on their course, and sore annoy, 
 Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light, 
 And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy. 
 Locked in embrace of sweet unutterable joy I 
 
 Then came the jSIorn, and with her pearly showers 
 Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes 
 Teal's are no grief; and from his rosy bowers 
 The Oriental sun began to rise. 
 
THE TWO SWANS. 103 
 
 Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; 
 Wherewith that sable Sei-j^ent far awaj 
 Fled, like a part of night — delicious sighs 
 From waking bosoms purified the day, 
 And little birds were singing sweetly from each spray. 
 
 \ 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 
 
 'T WAS in the prime of summer time, 
 
 An evening calm and cool, 
 And four-and-twentj happy boys 
 
 Came bounding out of school : 
 There were some that i-an, and some that leapt, 
 
 Like troutlets in a pool. 
 
 Away they sped with gamesome minds, 
 
 And souls untouched by sin ; 
 To a level mead they came, and there 
 
 They drave the wickets in : 
 Pleasantly shone the setting sun 
 
 Over the town of Lynn. 
 
 Like sportive deer they coursed about. 
 
 And shouted as they ran, — 
 Turning to mirth all things of earth, 
 
 As only boyhood can ; 
 But the Usher sat remote from all, 
 
 A melancholy man ! 
 
 His hat was off, his vest apart, 
 
 To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; 
 
 For a burning thought was in his brow, 
 And his bosom ill at ease : 
 
 So he leaned his head on his hands, and read 
 The book between his knees ! 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 105 
 
 Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er, 
 
 Nor ever glanced aside, 
 For the peace of his soul he read that book 
 
 In the golden eventide : 
 Much study had made him very lean, 
 
 And pale, and leaden-eyed. 
 
 At last he shut the ponderous tome. 
 
 With a fast and fervent grasp 
 He strained the dusky covers close, 
 
 And fixed the brazen hasp : 
 " 0, God ! could I so close my mind, 
 
 And clasp it with a clasp ! " 
 
 Then leaping on his feet upright, 
 
 Some moody turns he took, — 
 Now up the mead, then down the mead, 
 
 And past a shady nook, — 
 And, lo ! he saw a little boy 
 
 That pored upon a book ! 
 
 " My gentle lad, what is 't you read — 
 
 Romance or fairy fable ? 
 Or is it some historic page, 
 
 Of kings and crowns unstable?" 
 The young boy gave an upward glance, — 
 
 " It is ' The Death of Abel.' " 
 
 The Usher took six hasty strides. 
 
 As smit with sudden pain, — 
 Six hasty strides beyond the place. 
 
 Then slowly back again ; 
 And down he sat beside the lad, 
 
 And talked with him of Cain ; 
 
106 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 And, long since then, of bloody men, 
 Whose deeds tradition saves ; 
 
 Of lonely folk cut off unseen, 
 And hid in sudden airaves ; 
 
 Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn, 
 And murders done in caves ; 
 
 And how the sprites of injured men 
 Shriek upward from the sod, — 
 
 Ay, how the ghostly hand will point 
 To show the burial clod ; 
 
 And unknown facts of guilty acts 
 Are seen in dreams from God ! 
 
 He told how murderers walk the earth 
 Beneath the curse of Cain, — 
 ^ With crimson clouds before their eyes, 
 
 And flames about their brain • 
 
 For blood has left upon their souls 
 Its everlasting stain ! 
 
 " And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth, 
 Their pangs must be extreme, — 
 
 Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — 
 
 Who spill life's sacred stream ! 
 
 For why 7 Methought, last night, I wrought 
 A murder, in a di-eam ! 
 
 " One that had never done me wrong — 
 
 A feeble man and old ; 
 I led him to a lonely field, — 
 
 The moon shone clear and cold : 
 Now here, said I, this man shall die. 
 
 And I will have his gold ! 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 107 
 
 " Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, 
 
 And one with a heavy stone, 
 One hurried gash with a hasty knife, — 
 
 And then the deed was done : 
 There was nothing lying at my foot 
 
 But lifeless flesh and bone ! 
 
 " Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, 
 
 That could not do me ill ; 
 And yet I feared him all the more, 
 
 For lying there so still : 
 There was a manhood in his look, 
 
 That murder could not kill ! 
 
 " And, lo ! the universal air 
 
 Seemed lit with ghastly flame ; — 
 
 Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes 
 Were looking down in blame : 
 
 I took the dead man by his hand, 
 And called upon his name ! 
 
 " 0, God ! it made me quake to see 
 
 Such sense within the slain ! 
 But when I touched the lifeless clay. 
 
 The blood gushed out amain ! 
 For every clot, a burning spot 
 
 Was scorching in my brain ! 
 
 "My head was like an ardent coal, 
 
 My heart as solid ice ; 
 My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, 
 
 Was at tlie devil's price : 
 A dozen times I groaned ; the dead 
 
 Had never groaned but twice ! 
 
108 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 "And now, from forth the frowning sky, 
 From the heaven's topmost height, 
 
 I heard a voice — the awful voice 
 Of the blood-avenging sprite : — 
 
 ' Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead r 
 And hide it from my sight ! ' 
 
 ' I took the dreary body up, 
 And cast it in a stream, — 
 
 A sluggish water, black as ink, 
 
 The depth was so extreme : — , 
 
 My gentle Boy, remember this .1" 
 
 Is nothing but a dream ! 
 
 " Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, 
 And vanished in the pool ; 
 
 Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, 
 And washed my forehead cool. 
 
 And sat among the urchins young, 
 That evening, in the school. 
 
 " 0, Heaven ! to think of their white souls, 
 And mine so black and grim ! 
 
 I could not share in childish prayer, 
 Nor join in evening hymn : 
 
 Like a devil of the pit I seemed, 
 'Mid holy cherubim ! 
 
 " And peace went with them, one and all, 
 And each calm pillow spread ; 
 
 But Guilt was my grim chamberlain 
 That lighted me to bed ; 
 
 And drew my midnight curtains round, 
 With fingers bloody red ! 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " All night I lay in agony, 
 
 In anguish dark and deep ; 
 
 My fevered eyes I dared not close, 
 But stared aghast at Sleep : 
 
 For Sin had rendered unto her 
 The keys of hell to keep ! 
 
 " All night I lay in agony, 
 
 From weary chime to chime, 
 
 With one besetting horrid hint, 
 That racked me all the time ; 
 
 A mighty yearning, like the first 
 Fierce impulse unto crime ! 
 
 ■ " One stern tyrannic thought, that made 
 All other thoughts its slave ; 
 
 Stronger and stronger every pulse 
 Did that temptation crave, — 
 
 Still urging me to go and see 
 
 The Dead Man in his grave I 
 
 " Heavily I rose up, as soon 
 
 As light was in the sky, 
 And sought the black accursed pool 
 
 With a wild misgiving eye ; 
 And I saw the Dead in the river bed, 
 
 For the faithless stream was diy. 
 
 " Merrily rose the lark, and shook 
 The dew-drop from its wing ; 
 
 But I never marked its morning flight, 
 I never heard it sing : 
 
 For I was stooping once again 
 Under the horrid thing. 
 10 
 
 109 
 
110 THE DREAM OF EUGEXE AKAM. 
 
 " "With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, 
 I took him up and ran ; — 
 
 There was no time to dig a grave 
 Before the day began : 
 
 In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, 
 I hid the murdered man ! 
 
 " And all that daj I read in school. 
 But my thought was other where ; 
 
 As soon as the mid-day task was done, 
 In secret I was there : 
 
 And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, 
 And still the corse was bare ! 
 
 " Then down I cast me on my face. 
 
 And first began to weep, 
 For I knew my secret then was one 
 
 That earth refused to keep : 
 Or land or sea, though he should be 
 
 Ten thousand fathoms deep. 
 
 " So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, 
 Till blood for blood atones ! 
 
 Ay, though he "s buried in a cave, 
 And trodden down with stones, 
 
 And years have rotted ofi" his flesh, — 
 The world shall see his bones ! 
 
 " 0, God ! that horrid, horrid dream 
 
 Besets me now awake ! 
 Again — again, with dizzy brain, 
 
 The human life I take ; 
 And my red right hand grows raging hot, 
 
 Like Cranmer's at the stake. 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. Ill 
 
 " And still no peace for the restless clay 
 
 Will wave or mould allow ; 
 The horrid thing pursues my soul. — 
 
 It stands hefore me now ! " 
 The fearful Boy looked up, and saw 
 
 Huge di-ops upon his brow. 
 
 That very night, while gentle sleep 
 
 The urchin eyelids kissed, 
 Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, 
 
 Tlu'ough the cold and heavy mist : 
 And Eugene Aram walked betwe-m, 
 
 With gyves upon his wrist. 
 
THE ELM TREE 
 
 A DRK.\.M IN THE lYOODS. 
 
 "And this our life, exempt from public haunt. 
 Finds tonjnies in trees." As You Like It. 
 
 T WAS in a shaxiy avenue, 
 "WTiere lofty elms abound — 
 And from a tree 
 There came to me 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmured overhead. 
 And sometimes underground. 
 
 Amongst the leaves it seemed to sigh, 
 
 Amid the boughs to moan ; 
 It muttered in the stem, and then 
 
 The roots took up the tone ; 
 As if beneath the dewy grass 
 
 The dead began to groan. 
 
 No breeze there was to stir the leaves : 
 No bolts that tempests launch, 
 
 To rend the trunk or rugged bark ; 
 No gale to bend the branch ; 
 
 No quake of earth to heave the roots, 
 That stood so stiff and stanch. 
 
THE ELM TREE. 113 
 
 No bird was preening up aloft. 
 
 To rustle with its wing ; 
 No squirrel, in its sport or fear, 
 From bough to bough to spring ; 
 The solid bole 
 Had ne'er a hole 
 To hide a living thing ! 
 
 No scooping hollow cell to lodge 
 A furtive beast or fowl, 
 The martin, bat. 
 Or forest cat 
 That nightly loves to prowl. 
 Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud 
 The moping, snoring owl. 
 
 But still the sound was in my ear, 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmured overhead, 
 
 And sometimes underground — 
 'T was in a shady avenue 
 
 Where lofty elms abound. 
 
 0, hath the Dryad still a tongue 
 
 In this ungenial clime? 
 Have sylvan spirits still a voice 
 
 As in the classic prime — 
 To make the forest voluble. 
 
 As in the olden time 1 
 
 The olden time is dead and gone ; 
 
 Its years have filled their sum — 
 And even in Greece — her native Greece — 
 
 The sylvan nymph is dumb — 
 From ash, and beech, and aged oak. 
 
 No classic whispers come. 
 10* 
 
114 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 From poplar, pine, and drooping birch, 
 And fragrant linden trees ; 
 No living sound 
 E'er hovers round, 
 Unless the vagrant breeze, 
 The music of the merry bird, 
 Or hum of busy bees. 
 
 But busy bees forsake the elm 
 That bears no bloom aloft — 
 
 The finch was in the hawthorn-bush, 
 The blackbird in the croft ; 
 
 And among the firs the brooding dove, 
 That else might murmur soft. 
 
 Yet still I heard that solemn sound, 
 And sad it was to boot, 
 
 From every overhanging bough, 
 And each minuter shoot ; 
 
 From rugged trunk and mossy rind, 
 And from the twisted root. 
 
 From these,* — a melancholy moan ; 
 
 From those, — a dreary sigh ; 
 As if the boughs were wintry bare, 
 
 And wild winds sweeping by — 
 Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud 
 
 Was steadfast in the sky. 
 
 No sign or touch of stirring air 
 Could either sense observe — 
 
 The zephyr had not breath enough 
 The thistle-down to swerve, 
 
 Or force the filmy gossamers 
 To take another curve. 
 
THE ELM TREE. 
 
 In still and silent slumber hushed 
 
 All Nature seemed to be : 
 From heaven above, or earth beneath. 
 
 No whisper came to me — 
 Except the solemn sound and sad 
 
 From that Mysterious Tree ! 
 
 A hollow, hollow, hollow sound, 
 
 As is that dreamy roar 
 When distant billows boil and bound 
 
 Along a shingly shore — 
 But the ocean brim was far aloof, 
 
 A hundred miles or more. 
 
 No murmur of the gusty sea,- 
 
 No tumult of the beach, 
 However they may foam and fret, 
 
 The bounded sense could reach — 
 INIethought the trees in mystic tongue 
 
 Were talking each to each ! — 
 
 Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales 
 Of greenwood love or guilt, 
 Of whispered vows 
 Beneath their boughs ; 
 Or blood obscurely spilt ; 
 Or of that near-hand mansion-house 
 A royal Tudor built. 
 
 Perchance, of booty won or shared 
 Beneath the starry cope — 
 
 Or where the suicidal wretch 
 Hung up the fatal rope ; 
 
 Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, 
 Ensnared by Love and Hope. 
 
 116 
 
116 THE ELM THEE. 
 
 Of graves, perchance, untimely scooped 
 
 At midnight dark and dank — 
 And what is underneath the sod 
 Whereon the grass is rank — 
 Of old intrigues, 
 And privy leagues, 
 Tradition leaves in blank. 
 
 Of traitor lips that muttered plots — 
 Of kin who fought and fell — 
 
 God knows the undiscovered schemes, 
 The arts and acts of hell. 
 
 Performed long generations since, 
 K trees had tongues to tell ! 
 
 With wary eyes, and ears alert, 
 
 As one who walks afraid, 
 I wandered down the dappled path 
 
 Of mingled light and shade — 
 How sweetly gleamed that arch of blue 
 
 Beyond the green arcade ! 
 
 How cheerly shone the glimpse of heaven 
 
 Beyond that verdant aisle ! 
 
 All overarched with lofty elms, 
 
 That quenched the light, the while. 
 
 As dim and chill 
 
 As serves to fill 
 
 Some old cathedral pile ! 
 
 And many a gnarled trunk was there, 
 
 That ages long had stood. 
 Till Time had wrought them into shapes 
 
 Like Pan's fantastic brood ; 
 Or still more foul and hideous forms 
 
 That pagans carve in wood ! 
 
THE ELM TREE. 
 
 A crouching Satyi- lurking here — 
 And there a Goblin grim — 
 
 As staring full of demon life 
 As Gothic sculptor's whim — 
 
 A marvel it had scarcely been 
 To hear a voice from him ! 
 
 Some whisper from that horrid mouth 
 Of strange, unearthly tone ; 
 
 Or wild infernal laugh, to chill 
 One's marrow in the bone. 
 
 5ut no it grins like rigid Death, 
 
 And silent as a stone ! 
 
 As silent as its fellows be, 
 
 For all is mute with them — 
 
 The branch that climbs the leafy roof - 
 
 The rough and mossy stem — 
 
 The crooked root, 
 
 And tender shoot, 
 
 Where hangs the dewy gem. 
 
 One mystic tree alone there is. 
 Of sad and solemn sound — 
 
 That sometimes murmurs overhead, 
 And sometimes underground — 
 
 In all that shady avenue. 
 Where lofty elms abound. 
 
 in 
 
 PART n. 
 
 The scene is changed ! No green arcade. 
 No trees all ranged a-row — 
 
il8 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 But scattered like a beaten host, 
 Dispersing to and fro ; 
 
 With here and there a sjlvan corse, 
 That fell before tlie fJe. 
 
 The foe that down in yonder dell 
 
 Pursues his dailj toil ; 
 As witness many a prostrate trunk, 
 
 Bereft of leafy spoil, 
 Hard by its wooden stump, whereon 
 
 The adder loves to coil. 
 
 Alone he works — his ringing blows 
 Have banished bh-d and beast ; 
 
 The hind and fawn have cantered off 
 A hundi'ed yards at least ; 
 
 And on the maple's lofty top 
 The linnet's song has ceased. 
 
 No eye his labor overlooks. 
 Or when he takes his rest ; 
 
 Except the timid thrush that peeps 
 Above her secret nest, 
 
 Eorbid by love to leave the young 
 Beneath her speckled breast. 
 
 The woodman's heart is in his work. 
 
 His axe is sharp and good : 
 
 With sturdy arm and steady aim 
 
 He smites the gaping wood ; 
 
 From distant rocks 
 
 His lusty knocks 
 
 Reecho many a rood. 
 
THE ELM TREE. 
 
 119 
 
 His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; 
 
 The muscles serve him well ; 
 Ilis years have reached an extra span, 
 
 The number none can tell ; 
 But still his life-long task has beer 
 
 The timber tree to fell. 
 
 Through summer's parching sultriness, 
 And "winter's freezing cold. 
 From sapling youth 
 To virile growth, 
 And acre's ridd mould, 
 His energetic axe hath rung 
 "Within that forest old. 
 
 Aloft, upon his poising steel 
 The vivid sunbeams glance — 
 
 About his head and round his feet 
 The forest shadows dance ; 
 
 And bounding from his russet coat 
 The aeorn drops askance. 
 
 His face is like a Druid's face, 
 
 With wi'inkles furrowed deep, 
 And tanned by scorching suns as brown 
 
 As corn that "s ripe to reap ; 
 But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin, 
 
 Is white as wool of sheep. 
 
 His frame is like a giant's frame ; 
 
 His leo;s are loniz; and stark : 
 His arms like limbs of knotted yew ; 
 His hands like rugged bark ; 
 So he felleth still 
 "With right good will, 
 As if to build an ark ! 
 
120 THE ELM TKEE. 
 
 ! well within his fatal path 
 
 The fearful tree might quake 
 Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, 
 With aspen tremor shake ; 
 Through trunk and root, 
 And branch and shoot, 
 A low complaining make ! 
 
 • ! well to him the tree might breathe 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 
 A sigh that murmured overhead, 
 And groans from underground ; 
 
 As in that shady avenue 
 Where lofty elms abound ! 
 
 But calm and mute the maple stands, 
 The plane, the ash, the fir, 
 
 The elm, the beech, the drooping birch, 
 Without the least demur ; 
 
 And e"en the aspen's hoary leaf 
 Makes no unusual stir. 
 
 The pines — those old gigantic pines, 
 That writhe — recalling soon 
 
 The famous human group that writhes 
 With snakes in wild festoon — 
 
 In ramous wrestlings interlaced 
 A forest Laocoon — 
 
 Like Titans of primeval girth 
 
 By tortures overcome, 
 Their brown enormous limbs they twine, 
 
 Bedewed with tears of gum — 
 Fierce agonies that ought to yell, 
 
 But, like the marble, dumb. 
 
THE ELM TREE. 
 
 Nay, yonder blasted elm that stands 
 
 So like a man of sin, 
 Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad 
 
 To feel the worm within — 
 For all that gesture, so intense, 
 
 It makes no sort of din ! 
 
 An universal silence reigns 
 
 In rugged bark or peel. 
 Except that very trunk which rings 
 
 Beneath the biting steel — 
 Meanwhile the woodman plies his axe 
 
 With unrelenting zeal ! 
 
 No rustic song is on his tongue, 
 
 No whistle on his lips ; 
 But with a quiet thoughtfulness 
 
 His trusty tool he grips, 
 And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out 
 
 The bright and flying chips. 
 
 Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint 
 
 He spreads the fatal gash ; 
 Till, lo ! the remnant fibres rend, 
 
 With harsh and sudden crash, 
 And on the dull-resounding turf 
 
 The jarring branches lash ! 
 
 ! now the forest trees may sigh, 
 
 The ash, the poplar tall. 
 The elm, the birch, the drooping beech, 
 The aspens — one and all. 
 With solemn groan 
 And hollow moan 
 Lament a comrade's fall ! 
 11 
 
 121 
 
122 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 A goodly elm, of noble gii'tli, 
 That, thrice the human span — 
 
 While on their variegated course 
 The constant seasons ran — 
 
 Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt, 
 Haxi stood erect as man. 
 
 But now, like mortal man himself, 
 Struck down by hand of God, 
 
 Or heathen idol tumbled prone 
 Beneath the Eternal's nod, 
 
 In all its giant bulk and length 
 It lies along the sod ! 
 
 Ay, now the forest trees may grieve 
 And make a common moan 
 
 Around that patriarchal trunk 
 So newly overthrown ; 
 
 And with a murmur recognize 
 A doom to be their own ! 
 
 The echo sleeps : the idle axe, 
 
 A disregarded tool, 
 Lies crushing with its passive weight 
 
 The toad's reputed stool — 
 The woodman wipes his dewy brow 
 
 "Within the shadows cool. 
 
 No zephyr stirs : the ear may catch 
 The smallest insect-hum ; 
 
 But on the disappointed sense 
 No mystic whispers come ; 
 
 No tone of sylvan sympathy. 
 The forest trees are dumb. 
 
THE ELM TREE. 123 
 
 No leafy noise, nor inward voice, 
 
 No sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmurs overhead, 
 
 And sometimes underground ; 
 As in that shady avenue, 
 
 Where lofty elms abound ! 
 
 PART m. 
 
 The deed is done : the tree is low 
 
 That stood so long and firm ; 
 The woodman and his axe are gone, 
 
 His toil has found its term ; 
 And where he wi'ought the speckled thrush 
 
 Secui-ely hunts the worm. 
 
 The cony from the sandy bank 
 
 Has run a rapid race. 
 Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern, 
 
 To seek the open space ; 
 And on its haunches sits erect 
 
 To clean its furry face. 
 
 The dappled fawn is close at hand, 
 
 The hind is browsing near, — 
 And on the larch's lowest bough 
 The ousel whistles clear ; 
 But checks the note 
 Within its throat, 
 As choked with sudden fear ! 
 
124 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 With sudden fear hei' wormy quest 
 The thrush abruptly quits — 
 
 Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern 
 The startled cony flits ; 
 
 And on the larch's lowest bough 
 No more the ousel sits. 
 
 With sudden fear 
 The dappled deer 
 Effect a swift escape ; 
 But well might bolder creatures start, 
 
 And fly, or stand agape, 
 With rising hair and curdled blood, 
 To see so grim a Shape ! 
 
 The very sky turns pale above ; 
 
 The earth grows dark beneath ; 
 The human terror thrills with cold, 
 
 And draws a shorter breath — 
 An universal panic owns 
 
 The dread approach of Death ! 
 
 With silent pace, as shadows come, 
 And dark as shadows be. 
 
 The grisly phantom takes his stand 
 Beside the fallen tree. 
 
 And scans it with his gloomy eyes, 
 And laughs with horrid glee 
 
 A dreary laugh and desolate. 
 Where mirth is void and null, 
 
 As hollow as its echo sounds 
 Within the hollow skull — 
 
 " Whoever laid this tree along. 
 His hatchet was not dull ! 
 
THE ELM TREE. 
 
 " The human arm and human tool 
 
 Have done their duty well ! 
 But after sound of ringing axe 
 Must sound the ringing knell ; 
 When elm or oak 
 Have felt the stroke 
 My turn it is to fell ! 
 
 " No passive unregarded tree, 
 
 A senseless thing of wood, 
 Wherein the sluggish sap ascends 
 
 To swell the vernal bud — 
 But conscious, moving, breathing trunks 
 
 That throb with living blood ! 
 
 " No forest monarch yearly clad 
 
 In mantle green or brown ; 
 That unrecorded lives, and falls 
 
 By hand of rustic clown — 
 But kings who don the purple robe, 
 
 And wear the jewelled crown. 
 
 " Ah ! little recks the royal mind. 
 
 Within his banquet-hall. 
 While tapers shine and music breathes 
 
 And beauty leads the ball, — 
 He little recks the oaken plank 
 
 Shall be his palace wall ! 
 
 " Ah, little dreams the haughty peer, 
 The while his falcon flies — 
 
 Or on the blood-bedabbled turf 
 The antlered quarry dies — 
 
 That in his own ancestral park 
 The narrow dwelling lies 
 11* 
 
 125 
 
126 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 " But haughty peer and mighty king 
 
 One doom shall overwhelm ! 
 The oaken cell 
 Shall lodge him well 
 
 Whose sceptre ruled a realm — 
 While he who never knew a home 
 
 Shall find it in the elm ! 
 
 " The tattered, lean, dejected wretch, 
 Who begs from door to door, 
 
 And dies within the cressy ditch, 
 Or on the barren moor, 
 
 The friendly elm shall lodge and clothe 
 That houseless man and poor ! 
 
 " Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, 
 That lies so long and prone, 
 
 With many a fallen acorn-cup. 
 And mast and firry cone — 
 
 This rugged trunk shall hold its share 
 Of mortal flesh and bone ! 
 
 " A miser hoarding heaps of gold, 
 But pale with ague-fears — 
 
 A wife lamenting love's decay, 
 With secret cruel tears. 
 
 Distilling bitter, bitter drops 
 From sweets of former years — 
 
 •' A man within whose gloomy mind 
 Ofience had darkly sunk. 
 
 Who out of fierce Revenge's cup 
 Hath madly, darkly drunk — 
 
 Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep 
 Within this very trunk ! 
 
THE ELM TREE. 127 
 
 " This massy trunk that lies aloncr. 
 
 And many more must foil — 
 
 For the very knave 
 
 "Who digs the grave, 
 
 The man who spreads the pall, 
 
 And he who tolls the funeral bell, 
 
 The elm shall have them all ! 
 
 " The tall abounding elm that grows 
 
 In hedge-rows up and down : 
 In field and forest, copse and park, 
 
 And in the peopled town, 
 With colonies of noisy rooks 
 
 That nestle on its crown. 
 
 " And well the abounding elm may grow 
 
 In field and hedge so rife, 
 In forest, copse, and wooded park, 
 
 And 'mid the city's strife, 
 For, every hour that passes by 
 
 Shall end a human life ! " 
 
 The phantom ends : the shade is gone ; 
 
 The sky is clear and bright ; 
 On turf, and moss, and fallen tree, 
 
 There glows a ruddy light ; 
 And bounding through the golden fern 
 
 The rabbit comes to bite. 
 
 The thrush's mate beside her sits 
 
 And pipes a merry lay ; 
 The dove is in the evergreens ; 
 
 And on the larch's spray 
 The fly-bird flutters up and down, 
 
 To catch its tiny prey. 
 
128 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 The gentle hind and dappled fawn 
 Are coming up the glade ; 
 
 Each harmless furred and feathered thing 
 Is glad, and not afraid — 
 
 But on my saddened spirit still 
 The shadow leaves a shade. 
 
 A secret, vague, prophetic gloom, 
 As though by certain mark 
 
 I knew the fore-appointed tree, 
 "Within whose rugged bark 
 
 This warm and living frame shall find 
 Its narrow house and dark. 
 
 That mystic tree which breathed to me 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmured overhead, 
 
 And sometimes underground ; 
 Within that shady avenue 
 
 Where lofty elms abound. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 ' A jolly place," said he, " in times of old. 
 But something ails it now : the place is curst." 
 
 Hart-Leap Well, by Wordsworth. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, 
 Unnatural and full of contradictions ; 
 Yet others of our most romantic schemes 
 Are something more than fictions. 
 
 It might be only on enchanted ground ; 
 It might be merely by a thought's expansion ; 
 But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found 
 An old deserted mansion. 
 
 A residence for woman, child, and man, 
 A dwelling-place, — and yet no habitation ; 
 A house, — but under some prodigious ban 
 Of excommunication. 
 
 Unhinged the iron gates half open hung. 
 Jarred by the gusty gales of many Avinters, 
 That from its crumbled pedestal had flung 
 One marble globe in splinters. 
 
130 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 No dog "svas at the threshold, great or small ; 
 No pigeon on the roof — no household creature — 
 No cat demurely dozing on the wall — 
 Not one domestic feature. 
 
 No human ficjure stirred, to go or come : 
 No face looked forth from shut or open casement : 
 No chimney smoked — there was no sign of home 
 From parapet to basement. 
 
 With shattered panes the grassy court was starred ; 
 The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after ; 
 And through the ragged roof the sky shone, barred 
 With naked beam and rafter. 
 
 O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear ; 
 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 The flower grew wild and rankly as the weed, 
 Roses with thistles struggled for espial, 
 And vagrant plants of parasitic breed 
 Had overgrown the dial. 
 
 But, gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm. 
 No heart was there to heed the hour's duration ; 
 All times and tides were lost in one long term 
 Of stagnant desolation. 
 
 The wren had built within the porch, she found 
 Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough ; 
 And on the lawn, — within its turfy mound, — 
 The rabbit made his burrow. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 131 
 
 The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted through 
 
 The shrubby clumps, and frisked, and sat, and vanished 
 
 But leisurely and bold, as if he knew 
 
 His enemy -was banished. 
 
 The wary crow, — the pheasant from the woods, — 
 Lulled by the still and everlasting sameness. 
 Close to the mansion, like domestic broods, 
 Fed with a "shocking tameness." 
 
 The coot was swimming in the reedy pond, 
 Beside the water-hen, so soon aftrighted ; 
 And in the weedy moat the heron, fond 
 Of solitude, alighted. 
 
 The moping heron, motionless and stiff, 
 That on a stone, as silently and stilly, 
 Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if 
 To guard the water-lily. 
 
 No sound was heard, except, from far away, 
 The ringing of the whitwall's shrilly laughter. 
 Or. now and then, the chatter of the jay, 
 That Echo murmured after. 
 
 But Echo never mocked the human tongue ; 
 Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon, 
 A secret curse on that old building hung, 
 And its deserted garden. 
 
 The beds were all untouched by hand or tool ; 
 No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel. 
 Each walk as green as is the mantled pool 
 For want of human travel. 
 
132 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The vine unpruned, and tlie neglected peach, 
 Drooped from the wall with which they used to grapple ; 
 And on the cankered tree, in easy reach, 
 Rotted the golden apple. 
 
 But awfully the truant shunned the ground. 
 The vagrant kept aloof, and daring poacher : 
 In spite of gaps that through the fences round 
 Invited the encroacher. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 The pear and quince lay squandered on the grass ; 
 The mould was purple with unheeded showers 
 Of bloomy plums — a wilderness it was 
 Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers ! 
 
 The marigold amidst the nettles blew, 
 
 The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble, 
 
 The thistle and the stock together grew. 
 
 The hollyhock and bramble. 
 
 The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced ; 
 
 The sturdy burdock choked its slender neighbor. 
 
 The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced 
 
 Of human care and labor. 
 
 The very yew formality had trained 
 
 To such a rigid pyramidal stature, 
 
 For want of trimming had almost regained 
 
 The raggedness of nature. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 135 
 
 The fountain was a-dry — neglect and time 
 Had marred the work of artisan and mason, 
 And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime, 
 Sprawled in the ruined basin. 
 
 The statue, fallen from its marble base, 
 Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten, 
 Lay like the idol of some bygone race, 
 Its name and rites forgotten. 
 
 On every side the aspect was the same, 
 All ruined, desolate, forlorn and savage : 
 No hand or foot within the precinct came 
 To rectify or ravage. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 PART n. 
 
 0, very gloomy is the house of woe, 
 WTiere tears are falling while the bell is knelling, 
 With all the dark solemnities which show 
 That Death is in the dwelling ! 
 
 0, very, very dreary is the room 
 Where love, domestic love, no longer nestles. 
 But, smitten by the common stroke of doom, 
 The corpse lies on the trestles ! 
 12 
 
134 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 But house of woe, and hearse, and sable pall, 
 The narrow home of the departed mortal, 
 Ne'er looked so gloomy as that ghostly hall. 
 With its deserted portal ! 
 
 The centipede along the threshold crept, 
 The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle, 
 And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept, 
 At every nook and angle. 
 
 . The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood ; 
 The emmets of the steps had old possession. 
 And marched hi search of their diurnal food 
 In undisturbed procession. 
 
 As undisturbed as the prehensile cell 
 Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue ; 
 For never foot upon that threshold fell, 
 To enter or to issue. 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 Howbeit, the door I pushed — or so I dreamed — 
 Which slowly, slowly gaped, — the hinges creakino- 
 With such a rusty eloquence, it seemed 
 That Time himself was speaking. 
 
 But Time was dumb within that mansion old, 
 Or left his tale to the heraldic bannei-s 
 That hung from the corroded walls, and told 
 Of former men and manners. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 135 
 
 Those tattered flags, that with the opened door 
 Seemed the old wave of battle to remember, 
 While fallen fragments danced upon the floor 
 Like dead leaves in December. 
 
 The startled bats flew out — bkd after bird — 
 The screech-owl overhead began to flutter, 
 And seemed to mock the cry that she had heard 
 Some dying victim utter ! 
 
 A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof. 
 And up the staii', and further still and further, 
 Till in some ringing chamber far aloof 
 It ceased its tale of murther ! 
 
 Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round. 
 The banner shuddered, and the racrsred streamer ; 
 All things the horrid tenor of the sound 
 Acknowledged with a tremor. 
 
 The antlers, where the helmet hung and belt, 
 Stirred as the tempest stirs the forest branches, 
 Or as the stag had trembled when he felt 
 The bloodhound at his haunches. 
 
 The window jingled in its crumbled frame, 
 And through its many gaps of destitution 
 Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came, 
 Like those of dissolution. 
 
 The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball, 
 Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic ; 
 And nameless beetles ran along the wall 
 Li universal panic. 
 
136 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The subtle spider, that from overhead 
 Hung like a spy on human guilt and error, 
 Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread 
 Ran with a nimble terror. 
 
 The very stains and fractures on the wall, 
 Assuming features solemn and terrific, 
 Hinted some tragedy of that old hall, 
 Locked up in hieroglyphic. 
 
 Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt, 
 Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid 
 The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out. 
 So ominously vivid. 
 
 Some key to that inscrutable appeal, 
 Which made the very frame of Nature quiver, 
 And every thrilling nerve and fibre feel 
 So ague-like a shiver. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 If but a rat had lingered in the house, 
 To lure the thought into a social channel ! 
 But not a rat remained, or tiny mouse. 
 To squeak behind the panel. 
 
 Huge drops rolled down the walls, as if they wept ; 
 And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly 
 The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept 
 On that damp hearth and chilly. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 137 
 
 For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there, 
 Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal ; 
 The slug was crawling on the vacant cliau', — 
 The snail upon the settle. 
 
 The floor was redolent of mould and must, 
 The fungus in the rotten seams had quickened ; 
 "While on the oaken table coats of dust 
 Perennially had thickened. 
 
 No mark of leathern jack or metal cann, 
 No cup — no horn — no hospitable token, — 
 All social ties between that board and man 
 Had long ago been broken. 
 
 There was so foul a rumor in the air. 
 The shadow -of a presence so atrocious, 
 No human creature could have feasted there, 
 Even the most ferocious. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 PART m. 
 
 'T is hard for human actions to account, 
 Whether from reason or from impulse only — 
 But some internal prompting bade me mount 
 The gloomy stairs and lonely. 
 12* 
 
138 THE HArXTED HOUSE. 
 
 Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold. 
 TVith odors as from bones and relics carnal, 
 Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould, 
 The chapel vault, or charnel. 
 
 Those drearj stairs, where with the sounding stress 
 Of every step so many echoes blended, 
 The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess 
 How many feet ascended. 
 
 The tempest with its spoils had drifted in, 
 Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted, 
 As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin, 
 "With leaves that rankly rotted. 
 
 The air was thick — and in the upper gloom 
 The bat — or something in its shape — was winging : 
 And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb, 
 The death's-head moth was clinging. 
 
 That mystic moth, which, with a sense profooind 
 Of all unholy presence, augurs truly ; 
 And with a grim simificance flits round 
 The taper burning bluely. 
 
 Such omens in the place there seemed to be. 
 At every crooked turn, or on the landing, 
 The straining eyeball was prepared to see 
 Some apparition standing. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 139 
 
 Yet no portentous shape the sight amazed ; 
 Each object plain, and tangible, and valid ; 
 But from their tarnished frames dark figures gazed, 
 And faces spectre-pallid. 
 
 Not merely with the mimic life that lies 
 
 Within the compass of art's simulation ; 
 
 Then- souls were looking through their painted eyes 
 
 With awful speculation. 
 
 On every lip a speechless horror dwelt ; 
 On every brow the burthen of afiiiction ; 
 The old ancestral spirits knew and felt 
 The house's malediction. 
 
 Such earnest woe their features overcast, 
 
 They might have stirred, or sighed, or wept, or spoken. 
 
 But, save the hollow moaning of the blast, 
 
 The stillness was unbroken. 
 
 No other sound or stu- of life was there, 
 Except my steps in solitary clamber, 
 From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair, 
 From chamber into chamber. 
 
 Deserted rooms of luxury and state, 
 That old magnificence had richly furnished 
 With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, 
 And carvings gilt and burnished. 
 
 Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art, 
 With Scripture history, or classic fable ; 
 But all had faded, save one ragged part, 
 Where Cain was slaying Abel. 
 
140 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The silent waste of mildew and the moth 
 Had marred the tissue with a partial ravage ; 
 But undecajing frowned upon the cloth 
 Each feature stern and savage. 
 
 The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ; 
 Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and duller 
 But still the Bloody Haxd shone strangely out 
 With vehemence of color ! 
 
 The Bloody Hand that with a lurid stam 
 Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token, 
 Projected from the casement's painted pane, 
 Where all beside was broken. 
 
 The Bloody Hand significant of crime, 
 That, glaring on the old heraldic banner, 
 Had kept its crimson unimpaired by time, 
 In such a wondrous manner ! 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
 The death-watch ticked behind the panelled oak, 
 Inexplicable tremors shook the arras, 
 And echoes strange and mystical awoke. 
 The fancy to embarrass. 
 
 Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread, 
 But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, 
 The while some secret inspiration said, 
 That chamber is the ghostly ! 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 141 
 
 Across the door no gossamer festoon 
 
 Swung pendulous — no web — no dusty fringes, 
 
 No silky chrysalis or white cocoon 
 
 About its nooks and hinges. 
 
 The spider shunned the interdicted room, 
 The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banished. 
 And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom 
 The very midge had vanished. 
 
 One lonely ray that glanced upon a bed, 
 As if with awful aim direct and certain, 
 To show the Bloody Hand in burning red 
 Embroidered on the curtain. 
 
 And yet no gory stain was on the quilt — 
 The pillow in its place had slowly rotted; 
 The floor alone retained the trace of guilt, 
 Those boards obscurely spotted. 
 
 Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence 
 With mazy doubles to the grated casement — 
 0, what a tale they told of fear intense, 
 Of horror and amazement ! 
 
 What human creature in the dead of night 
 Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance 7 
 Had sought the door, the window, in his flight. 
 Striving for dear existence 7 
 
 What shrieking spirit in that bloody room 
 Its mortal frame had violently quitted 7 — 
 Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom, 
 A ghostly shadow flitted. 
 
142 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 Across the sunbeam, and along the wall, 
 But painted on the air so verj dimly, 
 It hardlj veiled the tapestry at all. 
 Or portrait frowning grimly. 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted ! 
 
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 
 
 " Drowned ! drowned ! " — Hamlet. 
 
 Ojie more unfortunate, 
 Wearj of breath, 
 Rashlj importunate, 
 Gone to her death ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care ; 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 Look at her garments 
 Clinging like cerements ; 
 Whilst the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing ; 
 Take her up instantly. 
 Loving, not loathing. — 
 
 Touch her not scornfully ; 
 Think of her mournfully, 
 Gently and humanly ; 
 Not of the stains of her. 
 All that remains of her 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
144 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny 
 Kash and undutifal : 
 Past all dishonor, 
 Death has left on her 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 Still, for all slips of hers, 
 One of Eve"s family — 
 Wipe those poor lips of hers 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 
 Loop up her tresses 
 Escaped from the comb, 
 Her fair auburn tresses ; 
 Whilst "wonderment guesses 
 Where was her home 1 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 Who was her mother? 
 Had she a sister ? 
 Had she a brother? 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 Yet, than all other? 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 Under the sun ! 
 0, it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city full, 
 Home she had none. 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly 
 
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 145 
 
 Feelings had changed : 
 Love, by harsh evidence, 
 Thrown from its eminence ; 
 Even God's providence 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 Where the lamps quiver- 
 So far in the river, 
 With many a light 
 From window and casement, 
 From garret to basement. 
 She stood, with amazement, 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and shiver; 
 But not the dark arch. 
 Or the black flowing river : 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery, 
 Swift to be hurled — 
 Anywhere, anywhere 
 Out of the world ! 
 
 In she plunged boldly, 
 No matter how coldly 
 The rough river ran, — 
 Over the brink of it. 
 Picture it — think of it, 
 Dissolute man ! 
 Lave in it, drink of it, 
 Then, if you can ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care ; 
 13 
 
146 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 Ere her limbs frigidly 
 Stiffen too rigidly, 
 Decently, — kindly, — 
 Smooth, and compose them ; 
 And her eyes, close them, 
 Staring so blindly ! 
 
 Dreadfully staring 
 Through muddy impurity, 
 As when with the daring 
 Last look of despairing 
 Fixed on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurred by contumely. 
 Cold inhumanity, 
 Burning insanity. 
 Into her rest. — 
 Cross her hands humbly, 
 As if praying dumbly. 
 Over her breast ! 
 
 Owning her weakness. 
 Her evil behavior, 
 And leaving, with meekness 
 Her sins to her Saviour ! 
 
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT, 
 
 W^ITH fingei-s weary and worn, 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 
 
 Plying her needle and thread — 
 Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
 
 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 
 She sang the " Song of the Shirt ! " 
 
 " Work I work ! work ! 
 While the cock is crowing aloof! 
 
 And work — work — work, 
 Till the stars shine through the roof! 
 It "s ! to be a slave 
 
 Along with the barbarous Turk, 
 Where woman has never a soul to save. 
 
 If this is Christian work ! 
 
 '' Work — work — work 
 Till the brain begins to swim ! 
 
 Work — work — work 
 Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! 
 Seam, and gusset, and band, 
 
 Band, and gusset, and seam. 
 Till over the buttons I fall asleep, 
 
 And sew them on in a dream ! 
 
 L 
 
148 THE SOXG OF THE SHIRT. 
 
 "0, men, with sisters dear ! 
 
 0, men, with mothers and wives ! 
 It is not linen you "re wearing out, 
 
 But human creatures' lives ! 
 Stitch — stitch — stitch, 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
 Sewing at once, with a double thread, 
 
 A shroud as well as a shiii;. 
 
 " But why do I talk of death ? 
 
 That phantom of grisly bone, 
 I hardly fear his terrible shape, 
 
 It seems so like my own — 
 It seems so like my own, 
 
 Because of the fasts I keep ; 
 0, God ! that bread should be so dear. 
 
 And flesh and blood so cheap ! 
 
 " Work — work — work ! 
 
 My labor never flags ; 
 And what are its wages 7 A bed of straw, 
 
 A crust of bread — and rags. 
 That shattered roof — and this naked floor — 
 
 A table — a broken chau' — 
 And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank 
 
 For sometimes falling there ! 
 
 ' ' Work — work — work ! 
 
 From weary chime to chime, 
 Work — work — work. 
 
 As prisoners work for crime ! 
 Band, and gusset, and seam. 
 
 Seam, and gusset, and band, 
 Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed 
 
 As well as the weary hand. 
 
THE SOXa OF THE SHIKT. 
 
 149 
 
 « ' "Work — work — work, 
 In the dull December light, 
 
 And work — work — work, 
 When the Aveather is warm and bright — 
 While underneath the eaves 
 
 The brooding swallows cling, 
 As if to show me their sunny backs, 
 And twit me with the spring. 
 " ! but to breathe the breath 
 Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — 
 
 With the sky above my head, 
 And the grass beneath my feet, 
 For only one short hour 
 
 To feel as I used to feel. 
 Before I knew the woes of want, 
 
 And the walk that costs a meal ! 
 " ! but for one short hour ! 
 
 A respite however brief ! 
 No blessed leisure for love or hope. 
 
 But only time for grief ! 
 A little weeping would ease my heart, 
 
 But in their briny bed 
 My tears must stop, for every drop 
 
 Hinders needle and thread ! " 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat in unwomanly rags. 
 Plying her needle and thread — 
 
 Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,— 
 Would that its tone could reach the rich ! - 
 She sang this " Song of the Shirt ! " 
 13* 
 
 i 
 
THE LADY'S DREAM. 
 
 The ladj lay in her bed, 
 
 Her couch so warm and soft, 
 But her sleep was restless and broken still ; 
 
 For, turning often and oft 
 From side to side, she muttered and moaned, 
 
 And tossed her arms aloft. 
 
 At last she startled up, 
 
 And gazed on the vacant air. 
 With a look of awe, as if she saw 
 
 Some dreadful phantom there — 
 And then in the pillow she buried her face 
 
 From visions ill to bear. 
 
 The very curtain shook, 
 
 Her terror was so extreme ; 
 And the light that fell on the broidered quilt 
 
 Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
 And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried : 
 
 ' • 0, me ! that awful dream ! 
 
 " That wear J, wearj walk, 
 
 In the church-yard's dismal ground ! 
 And those horrible things, with shady wings, 
 
 That came and flitted round, — 
 Death, death, and nothing but death, 
 
 In every sight and sound ! 
 
THE lady's dream. 
 
 151 
 
 " Ajid, ! those maidens young, 
 
 Who wrought in that dreary room, 
 With figures drooping and spectres thin. 
 
 And cheeks -without a bloom ; — 
 And the voice that cried, • For the pomp of pride, 
 
 We haste to an early tomb ! 
 
 " ' For the pomp and pleasure of pride, 
 
 We toil like Afric slaves. 
 And only to earn a home, at last. 
 
 Where yonder cypress waves ; ' — 
 And then they pointed — I never saw 
 
 A ground so full of graves ! 
 
 " And still the coffins came. 
 
 With theii- sorrowful trains and slow ; 
 
 Coffin after coffin stilL 
 
 A sad and sickening show ; 
 
 From grief exempt, I never had di'eamt 
 Of such a world of woe ! 
 
 " Qf the hearts that daily break, 
 
 Of the tears that hourly fall, 
 Of the many, many troubles of life, 
 
 That grieve this earthly ball — 
 Disease, and Hunger, and Pain, and Want, 
 
 But now I di-eamt of them all ! 
 
 " For the blind and the cripple were there, 
 And the babe that pined for bread. 
 
 And the houseless man, and the widow poor 
 Who begged — to bury the dead ; 
 
 The naked, alas ! that I might have clad. 
 The famished I might have fed ! 
 
152 THE lady's dream. 
 
 " The sorrow I might have soothed, 
 
 And the unregarded tears ; 
 For manj a thronging shape was there, 
 
 From long-forgotten years, — 
 Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, 
 
 Who raised my childish fears ! 
 
 " Each pleading look, that long ago 
 I scanned with a heedless eye, 
 
 Each face was gazing as plainly there 
 As when I passed it by : 
 
 Woe, woe for me if the past should be 
 Thus present when I die ! 
 
 "No need of sulphureous lake. 
 
 No need of fiery coal. 
 But only that crowd of human kind 
 
 Who wanted pity and dole — 
 In everlasting retrospect — 
 
 Will wring my sinful soul ! 
 
 " Alas ! I have walked through life 
 
 Too heedless where I trod ; 
 Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm, 
 
 And fill the burial sod — 
 Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 
 
 Not unmarked of God ! 
 
 '' I drank the richest draughts ; 
 
 And ate whatever is sood — 
 Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit. 
 
 Supplied my hungry mood ; 
 But I never remembered the wretched ones 
 
 That starve for want of food ! 
 
THE lady's dream. 153 
 
 " I dressed as the noble dress, 
 
 In cloth of silver and gold, 
 With silk, and satin, and costly furs, 
 
 In many an ample fold ; 
 But I never remembered the naked limbs 
 
 That froze with winter's cold. 
 
 '• The wounds I might have healed ! 
 
 The human sorrow and smart ! 
 And yet it never Avas in my soul 
 
 To play so ill a part : 
 But evil is wrought by want of thought, 
 
 As well as want of heart ! " 
 
 She clasped her fervent hands, 
 
 And the tears began to stream ; 
 Large, and bitter, and fast they fell; 
 
 Remorse was so extreme ; 
 And yet, 0, yet, that many a dame 
 
 Would dream the Lady's Dream ! 
 
THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK 
 
 AX ALLEGORY. 
 
 There "s a murmur in the air, 
 A noise in every street — 
 The murmur of many tongues, 
 The noise of numerous feet — 
 While rouni the workhouse door 
 The laboring classes flock. 
 For why ] — the overseer of the poor 
 Is setting the workhouse clock. 
 
 Who does not hear the tramp 
 Of thousands speeding along 
 Of either sex and various stamp, 
 Sickly, crippled, or strong. 
 Walking, limping, creeping 
 From court, and allev. and lane, 
 But all in one direction sweeping, 
 Like rivers that seek the main ? 
 Who does not see them sally 
 From mill, and garret, and room, 
 Li lane, and court, and alley, 
 From homes in poverty's lowest valley, 
 Furnished with shuttle and loom — 
 Poor slaves of Civilization's galley — 
 And in the road and footways rally. 
 As if for the day of doom ? 
 
THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 
 
 Some, of hardly human form, 
 Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil ; 
 Dino^y with smoke and dust and oil, 
 And smirched besides -with vicious soil, 
 Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. 
 Father, mother, and careful child, 
 Looking as if it had never smiled — 
 The seamstress, lean, and weary, and wan, 
 "With only the ghosts of garments on — 
 The weaver, her sallow neighbor. 
 The grim and sooty artisan ; 
 Every soul — child, woman, or man, 
 Who lives — or dies — by labor. 
 
 Stirred by an overwhelming zeal, 
 
 And social impulse, a terrible throng ! 
 
 Leaving shuttle, and neaile, and wheel. 
 
 Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel, 
 
 Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel — 
 
 Yea. rest and the yet untasted meal — 
 
 Gushing, rushing, crushing along, 
 
 A very torrent of Man ! 
 
 Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong, 
 
 Grown at last to a hurricane sti'ong. 
 
 Stop its course who can ! 
 
 Stop who can its onward course 
 
 And irresistible moral force ; 
 
 ! vain and idle di-eam ! 
 
 For surely as men are all akin, 
 
 "Whether of fair or sable skin, 
 
 According to Nature's scheme, 
 
 That human movement contains within 
 
 A blood-power stronger than steam. 
 
 155 
 
156 THE -WOBKHOUSE CLOCK. 
 
 Onward, onward, with hasty feet, ■ ■•'S«>5 
 Thej swarm — and westward still — " '"= 
 Masses born to drink and eat. 
 But starWng amidst WhitechapeFs meat, 
 And famishing down Cornhill ! 
 Through the Poultry — but still unfed — 
 Christian charity, hang your head ! 
 Hungry — passing the Street of Bread ; 
 Thirsty — the Street of Milk ; 
 Ragged — beside the Ludgate mart. 
 So gorgeous, through mechanic art, 
 With cotton, and wool, and silk ! 
 
 At last, before that door 
 
 That bears so many a knock 
 
 Ere ever it opens to sick or poor. 
 
 Like sheep they huddle and flock — 
 
 And would that all the good and wise 
 
 Could see the million of hollow eyes, 
 
 With a gleam derived from hope and the skies, 
 
 Upturned to the workhouse clock ! 
 
 ! that the parish powers, 
 
 Who regulate labor's hours, 
 
 The daily amount of human trial. 
 
 Weariness, pain, and self-denial. 
 
 Would turn from the artificial dial 
 
 That striketh ten or eleven, 
 
 And go, for once, by that older one 
 
 That stands in the light of Nature's sun, 
 
 And takes its time from Heaven ! 
 
THE LAY OF THE LABORER, 
 
 A SPADE ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what ye will — 
 And here 's a ready hand 
 
 To ply the needful tool, 
 And skilled enough, by lessons rough, 
 
 In Labor's rugged school. 
 
 To hedge, or dig the ditch. 
 
 To lop or fell the tree. 
 To lay the swarth on the sultry field, 
 
 Or plough the stubborn lea ; 
 The harvest stack to bind, 
 
 The wheaten rick to thatch, 
 And never fear in my pouch to find 
 
 The tinder or the match. 
 
 To a flaming barn or farm 
 
 My fancies never roam; 
 The fire I yeai-n to kindle and burn 
 
 Is on the hearth of home ; 
 Where children huddle and crouch 
 
 Through dark long whiter days, 
 14 
 
158 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 
 
 Where starving children huddle and crouch, 
 
 To see the cheerful rays, 
 A-glowing on the haggard cheek, 
 
 And not in the haggard's blaze ! 
 
 To Him -who sends a drought 
 
 o 
 
 To parch the fields forlorn. 
 The rain to flood the meadows with mud, 
 
 The blight to blast the corn. 
 To Him I leave to guide 
 
 The bolt in its crooked path, 
 To strike the miser's rick, and show 
 
 The skies blood-red with wrath. 
 
 A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what je will — 
 The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash, 
 
 The market-team to drive, 
 Or mend the fence bj the cover-side, 
 
 And leave the game alive. 
 
 Ay, only give me work. 
 
 And then you need not fear 
 That I shall snare his worship's hare. 
 
 Or kill his grace's deer ; 
 Break into his lordship's house. 
 
 To steal the plate so rich ; 
 Or leave the yeoman that had a purse 
 
 To welter in the ditch. 
 
 Wherever Nature needs. 
 Wherever Labor calls, 
 
THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 155 
 
 No job I '11 shirk of the hardest work, 
 
 To shun the workhouse walls ; 
 Where savage laws begrudge 
 
 The pauper babe its breath, 
 And doom a wife to a widow's life, 
 
 Before her partner's death. 
 
 Mj only claim is this, 
 
 "With labor stiff and stark 
 By lawful turn my living to earn. 
 
 Between the light and dark ; 
 My daily bread and nightly bed. 
 
 My bacon, and drop of beer — 
 But all from the hand that holds the land, 
 
 And none from the overseer ! 
 
 No parish money, or loaf, 
 
 No pauper badges for me, — 
 A son of the soil by right of toil 
 
 Entitled to my fee. 
 No alms I ask. give me my task ; 
 
 Here are the arm. the leg, 
 The strength, the sinews of a man, 
 
 To work, and not to beg. 
 
 Still one of Adam's heirs, 
 
 Though doomed by chance of birth 
 To dress so mean, and to eat the lean 
 
 Instead of the fat of the earth : 
 To make such humble meals 
 
 As honest labor can, 
 A bone and a crust, with a grace to God, 
 
 And little thanks to man ! 
 
160 THE LAY OE THE LABORER. 
 
 A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what ye will — 
 Whatever the tool to ply, 
 
 Here is a willing di-udge, 
 With muscle and limb, and woe to him 
 
 Who does their pay begrudge ! 
 
 Who every weekly score 
 
 Docks labor's little mite, 
 Bestows on the poor at the temple door, 
 
 But robbed them over night. 
 The very shilling he hoped to save. 
 
 As health and morals fail, 
 Shall visit me in the New Bastile 
 
 The Spital, or the Gaol ! 
 
(r- 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 FAIR ENES. 
 
 SAW ye not fair Ines ? 
 
 She 's gone into the west. 
 
 To dazzle when the sun is down, 
 
 And rob the world of rest : 
 
 She took our daylight with her, 
 
 The smiles that we love best, 
 
 With morning blushes on her cheek, 
 
 And pearls upon her breast. 
 
 turn again, fail* Ines, 
 Before the fall of night, 
 
 For fear the moon should shine alone, 
 
 And stars unrivalled bright ; 
 
 And blessed will the lover be 
 
 That walks beneath their light, 
 
 And breathes the love against thy cheek 
 
 1 dare not even write ! 
 
 Would I had been, fair Ines, 
 That gallant cavalier, 
 Who rode so gayly by thy side, 
 And whispered thee so near ! — 
 
164 FAIR INES. 
 
 Were there no bonny dames at home, 
 Or no true lovers here, 
 That he should cross the seas to win 
 The dearest of the dear 1 
 
 I saw thee, lovely Ines, 
 
 Descend along the shore. 
 
 With bands of noble gentlemen, 
 
 And banners waved before : 
 
 And gentle youth and maidens gay. 
 
 And snowy plumes they wore ; — 
 
 It would have been a beauteous dream, 
 
 — K it had been no more ! 
 
 Alas, alas ! fair Ines, 
 
 She went away with song. 
 
 With music waiting on her steps. 
 
 And shoutings of the throng ; 
 
 But some were sad, and felt no mirth, 
 
 But only music's wrong. 
 
 In sounds that sang farewell, farewell, 
 
 To her you 've loved so long. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, fair Ines ! 
 
 That vessel never bore 
 
 So fair a lady on its deck, 
 
 Nor danced so light before, — 
 
 Alas for pleasure on the sea. 
 
 And sorrow on the shore! 
 
 The smile that blest one lover's heart 
 
 Has broken many more ! 
 
THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 165 
 
 THE DEPARTURE OF SOIMER. 
 
 Summer is gone on swallows" wings, 
 
 And earth has buried all her flowers : 
 
 No more the lark, the linnet sings, 
 
 But silence sits in faded bowers. 
 
 There is a shadow on the plain 
 
 Of "Winter ere he comes again, — 
 
 There is in woods a solemn sound 
 
 Of hollow warnings whispered round, 
 
 As Echo in her deep recess 
 
 For once had turned a prophetess. 
 
 Shuddering Autumn stops to list, 
 
 And breathes his fear in sudden sighs. 
 
 With clouded face, and hazel ejes 
 
 That quench themselves, and hide in mist. 
 
 Yes. Summer 's gone like pageant bright ; 
 Its glorious days of golden light 
 Are gone — the mimic suns that quiver, 
 Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river. 
 Gone the sweetly-scented breeze 
 That spoke in music to the trees ; 
 Gone for damp and chilly breath, 
 As if fresh blown o"er marble seas. 
 Or newly from the lungs of Death. — 
 Gone its virgin roses* blushes. 
 Warm as when Aurora rushes 
 Freshly from the god's embrace, 
 With all her shame upon her face. 
 Old Time hath laid them in the mould ; 
 Sure he is blind as well as old, 
 Whose hand relentless never spares 
 Young cheeks so beauty-bright as theirs ! 
 
166 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 
 
 Gone are the flame-ejed lovers now 
 From -where so blushing-blest they tarried 
 Under the hawthorn's blossom-bough, 
 Gone ; for Daj and Xight are married. 
 All the light of love is fled : — 
 Alas ! that negro breasts should hide 
 The lips that were so rosy red, 
 At morning and at even-tide ! 
 
 Delicjhtful Summer ! then adieu 
 Till thou shalt visit us anew : 
 But who without regretful sigh 
 Can say adieu, and see thee fly ? 
 Not he that e'er hath felt thy power, 
 His joy expanding like a flower 
 That Cometh after rain and snow, 
 Looks up at heaven, and learns to glow : — 
 Not he that fled from Babel-strife 
 To the green Sabbath-land of life, 
 To dodge dull Care 'mid clustered trees, 
 And cool his forehead in the breeze, — 
 Whose spirit, weary- worn perchance, 
 Shook from its wings a weight of grief, 
 And perched upon an aspen-leaf, 
 For every breath to make it dance. 
 
 Farewell ! — on wings of sombre stain, 
 That blacken in the last blue skies, 
 Thou fly'st ; but thou wilt come again 
 On the gay wings of butterflies. 
 Spring at thy approach will sprout 
 Her new Corinthian beauties out. 
 Leaf-woven homes, where twitter-words 
 Will grow to songs, and eggs to birds ; 
 
THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER, 167 
 
 Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers, 
 
 And April smiles to sunny hours. 
 
 Bright days shall be, and gentle nights 
 
 Full of soft breath and echo-lights, 
 
 As if the god of sun-time kept 
 
 His eyes half-open while he slept. 
 
 Roses shall be where roses were, 
 
 Not shadows, but reality ; 
 
 As if they never perished there, 
 
 But slept in immortality : 
 
 Nature shall thrill with new delight, 
 
 And Times relumined river run 
 
 Warm as young blood, and dazzling bright 
 
 As if its source were in the sun ! 
 
 But say, hath Winter then no charms 'I 
 Is there no joy, no gladness, warms 
 His aged heart ? no happy wiles 
 To cheat the hoary one to smiles 1 
 Onward he comes — the cruel North 
 Pours his fiu'ious whirlwind forth 
 Before him — and we breathe the breath 
 Of famished bears that howl to death. 
 Onward he comes from rocks that blanch 
 O'er solid streams that never flow ; 
 His tears all ice, his locks all snow, 
 Just crept from some huge avalanche — 
 A thing half-breathing and half-warm. 
 As if one spark began to glow 
 Within some statue's marble form. 
 Or pilgrim stiffened in the storm. 
 ! will not Mirth's light arrows fail 
 To pierce that frozen coat of mail 1 
 
168 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 
 
 ! will not joy but strive in vain 
 To light up those glazed eyes again 1 
 
 No ! take him in, and blaze the oak, 
 And pour the wine, and warm the ale ; 
 His sides shall shake to many a joke. 
 His tongue shall thaw in many a tale, 
 His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay, 
 And even his palsy charmed away. 
 "What heeds he then the boisterous shout 
 Of angry winds that scold without, 
 Like shrewish wives at tavern door 7 
 What heeds he then the wild uproar 
 Of billows bursting on the shore 7 
 In dashing waves, in howling breeze, 
 There is a music that can charm him ; 
 When safe, and sheltered, and at ease. 
 He hears the storm that cannot harm him. 
 
 But hark ! those shouts ! that sudden din 
 Of little hearts that laugh within. 
 ! take him where the youngsters play, 
 And he will grow as young as they ! 
 They come ! they come ! each blue-eyed Sport, 
 The Twelfth-Night King and all his court — 
 'T is iSIu-th- fresh crowned with mistletoe ! 
 Music with her merry fiddles, 
 Joy "on light fantastic toe," 
 Wit with all his jests and riddles. 
 Singing and dancing as they go. 
 And Love, young Love, among the rest, 
 A welcome — nor unbidden guest. 
 
 But still for Summer dost thou grieve 7 
 Then read our poets — they shall weave 
 
THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 163 
 
 A garden of green flmcies still, 
 
 Where thy wish may rove at will. 
 
 They have kept for after treats 
 
 The essences of summer sweets, 
 
 And echoes of its songs that wind 
 
 In endless music through the mind : 
 
 They have stamped in visible traces 
 
 The " thoughts that breathe," in words that shine — 
 
 The flights of soul in sunny places — 
 
 To o-reet and company with thine. 
 
 These shall wing thee on to flowers — 
 
 The past or future that shall seem 
 
 All the brighter in thy dream 
 
 For blowing in such desert hours. 
 
 The summer never shines so bright 
 
 As thought of in a winter's night ; 
 
 And the sweetest, loveliest rose 
 
 Is in the bud before it blows ; 
 
 The dear one of the lover's heart 
 
 Is painted to his longing eyes. 
 
 In charms she ne'er can realize — 
 
 But when she turns again to part. 
 
 Dream thou then, and bind thy brow 
 
 With wreath of fancy roses now, 
 
 And drink of summer in the cup 
 
 Where the Muse hath mixed it up ; 
 
 The " dance, and song, and sun-burnt mirth," 
 
 With the warm nectar of the earth : 
 
 Drink ! 't will glow in every vein, 
 
 And thou shalt dream the wmter through : 
 Then waken to the sun again, 
 And find thy summer vision true ! 
 15 
 
170 ODE: AUTUMN. 
 
 ODE: 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn 
 Stand shadowless like silence, listening 
 To silence, for no lonely bird would sing 
 Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, 
 Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn ; — 
 Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright 
 With tangled gossamer that fell by night. 
 Pearling his coronet of golden corn. 
 
 Where are the songs of Summer 1 — With the sun, 
 
 Oping the dusky eyelids of the South, 
 
 Till shade and silence waken up as one, 
 
 And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. 
 
 Where are the merry birds ? — Away, away. 
 
 On panting wings through the inclement skies, 
 
 Lest owls should prey 
 
 Undazzled at noon-day, 
 And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. 
 Where are the blooms of Summer ? — In the west. 
 Blushing their last to the last sunny hours. 
 When the mild Eve by sudden Xight is prest 
 Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers 
 
 To a most gloomy breast. 
 Where is the pride of Summer, — the green prime, - 
 The many, many leaves all twinkling ] — Three 
 On the mossed elm ; three on the naked lime 
 Trembling, — and one upon the old oak tree ! 
 
 Where is the Dryad"s immortality 1 — 
 Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew. 
 Or wearing the long gloomy Winter thi'ough 
 In the smooth holly's green eternity. 
 
ODE : AUTUMN. 
 
 in 
 
 The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard, 
 
 The ants have brimmed their garners with ripe grain, 
 
 And honey-bees have stored 
 The sweets of summer in their luscious cells ; 
 The swallows all have winged across the main ; 
 But here the Autumn melancholy dwells. 
 
 And sighs her tearful spells 
 iVmongst the sunless shadows of the plain. 
 Alone, alone, 
 Upon a mossy stone, 
 She sits and reckons up the dead and gone, 
 With the last leaves for a love-rosary, 
 Whilst all the withered world looks drearily, 
 Like a dim picture of the diowned past 
 In the hushed mind's mysterious far away. 
 Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last 
 Into that distance, gray upon the gray. 
 
 0, go and sit with her. and be o'ershaded 
 Under the languid downfall of her hair : 
 She wears a coronal of flowers fiided 
 Upon her forehead, and a face of care ; — 
 There is enough of withered everywhere 
 To make her bower, — and enough of gloom ; 
 There is enough of sadness to invite. 
 If only for the rose that died. — whose doom 
 Is Beauty's, — she that with the living bloom 
 Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light ; — 
 There is enough of sorrowing, and quite 
 Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear, — 
 Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl ; 
 Enough of fear and shadowy despair. 
 To frame her cloudy prison for the soul ! 
 
172 SONG. — BALLAD. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 FOR MUSIC. 
 
 A LAKE and a fairy boat 
 
 To sail in the moonlight clear, — 
 
 And merrily we would float 
 
 From the dragons that watch us here ! 
 
 Thy gown should be snow-white silk ; 
 And strings of orient pearls, 
 Like gossamers dipped in milk, 
 Should twine with thy raven curls ! 
 
 Red rubies should deck thy hands, 
 And diamonds should be thy dower — 
 But fairies have broke their wands, 
 And wishing has lost its power ! 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 Spring it is cheery, 
 
 Winter is dreary. 
 Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly ; 
 
 When he 's forsaken, 
 
 AVithered and shaken, 
 What can an old man do but die 7 
 
 Love will not clip him. 
 
 Maids will not lip him, 
 Maud and Marian pass him by ; 
 
 Youth it is sunny, 
 
 Age has no honey, — 
 What can an old man do but die 1 
 
HYMN TO THE SUN. 
 
 June it was jolly, 
 
 for its folly ! 
 A dancing leg and a laughing eye ; 
 
 Youth may be silly, 
 
 Wisdom is chilly, — 
 What can an old man do but die 7 
 
 Friends they are scanty, 
 Beggars are plenty, 
 
 If he has followers, I know why ; 
 Gold 's in his clutches, 
 (Buying him crutches !) — 
 
 What can an old man do but die 7 
 
 m 
 
 HYiMN TO THE SUN. 
 
 Giver of glowing light ! 
 Though but a god of other days, 
 
 The kings and sages 
 
 Of wiser ages 
 Still live and gladden in thy genial rays. 
 
 King of the tuneful lyre, 
 Still poets' hymns to thee belong ; 
 
 Though lips are cold 
 
 Whereon of old 
 Thy beams all turned to worshipping and song ! 
 
 Lord of the dreadful bow. 
 None triumph now for Python's death ; 
 But thou dost save 
 From hungry grave 
 The life that hangs upon a summer breath. 
 15* 
 
17-4 TO A COLD BEAUTY. 
 
 Father of rosj day, 
 No more th j clouds of incense rise ; 
 
 But waking flowers 
 
 At morning liours 
 Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies, 
 
 God of the Delphic fane, 
 No more thou listenest to hymns sublime ; 
 
 But they will leave 
 
 On winds at eve 
 A solemn echo to the end of time. 
 
 TO A COLD BEAUTY. 
 
 Lady, wouldst thou heiress be 
 To "Winter's cold and cruel part? 
 
 When he sets the rivers free, 
 
 Thou dost still lock up thy heart ; — 
 
 Thou that shouldst outlast the snow 
 
 But in the whiteness of thy brow 7 
 
 Scorn and cold neglect are made 
 For winter gloom and winter wind, 
 
 But thou wilt wrong the summer air, 
 Breathing it to words unkind, — 
 
 Breath which only should belong 
 
 To love, to sunlight, and to song ! 
 
 When the little buds unclose. 
 
 Red, and white, and pied, and blue, 
 
 And that virgin flower, the rose. 
 Opes her heart to hold the dew. 
 
 Wilt thou lock thy bosom up 
 
 With no jewel in its cup 7 
 
BUTH. 
 
 Let not cold December sit 
 
 Thus in Love's peculiar throne; — 
 Brooklets are not prisoned now, 
 
 But crystal frosts are all agone, 
 And that which hangs upon the spray, 
 
 It is no snow, but flower of May! 
 
 ITo 
 
 RUTH. 
 
 c5he stood breast-high amid the corn, 
 Clasped by the golden light of morn, 
 Like the sweetheart of the sun. 
 Who many a glowing kiss had won. 
 
 On her cheek an autumn flush. 
 Deeply ripened ; — such a blush 
 In the midst of brown was born, 
 Like red poppies grown with corn. 
 
 Round her eyes her tresses fell ; 
 Which were blackest none could tell, 
 But long lashes veiled a light 
 That had else been all too bright. 
 
 And her hat, with shady brim. 
 Made her tressy forehead dim ; — 
 Thus she stood amid the stocks, 
 Praising God with sweetest looks : — 
 
 Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean 
 Where I reap thou shouldst but glean ; 
 Lay thy sheaf adown and come, 
 Share my harvest and my home. 
 
176 THE SEA OF DEATH. 
 
 THE SEA OF DEATH. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Methought I saw 
 
 Life swiftly treading over endless space ; 
 And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace, 
 The ocean-past, -which, with increasing wave, 
 Swallowed her steps like a pursuing grave. 
 
 Sad were my thoughts that anchored silently 
 On the dead waters of that passionless sea. 
 Unstirred by any touch of living breath : 
 Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, 
 Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings 
 On crowded carcasses — sad passive things 
 That wore the thin gray surface like a veil 
 Over the calmness of their features pale. 
 
 And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep 
 
 Like water-lilies on that motionless deep. 
 
 How beautiful ! with bright unruffled hair 
 
 On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were 
 
 Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse ! 
 
 And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips, 
 
 iSIeekly apart, as if the soul intense 
 
 Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : 
 
 And so they lay in loveliness, and kept 
 
 The birth-night of their peace, that Life even wept 
 
 With very envy of their happy fronts ; 
 
 For there were neighbor brows scarred by the brunts 
 
 Of strife and sorrowing — where Care had set 
 
 His crooked autograph, and marred the jet 
 
 Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn. 
 
 And lips that curled in bitterness and scorn — 
 
AUTUMN. — BALLAD. 177 
 
 Wretched, — as tbey had breathed of this world's pain, 
 
 And so bequeathed it to the world again, 
 
 Through the beholder's heart, in heavy sighs. 
 
 So laj they garmented in torpid light, 
 
 Under the pall of a transparent night, 
 
 Like solemn apparitions lulled sublime 
 
 To everlasting rest, — tind with them Time 
 
 Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face 
 
 Of a dark dial in a sunless place. 
 
 AUTHMX. 
 
 The autumn skies are flushed with gold, 
 And fair and bright the rivers run : 
 These are but streams of winter cold, 
 And painted mists that quench the sun. 
 
 In secret boughs no sweet bii-ds sing, 
 In secret boughs no bird can shroud ; 
 These are but leaves that take to wing, 
 And wintry winds that pipe so loud, 
 
 *T is not trees' shade, but cloudy glooms 
 That on the cheerless valleys foil : 
 The flowers are in their grassy tombs, 
 And tears of dew are on them all. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 She 's up and gone, the graceless girl ! 
 
 And robbed my faihng years ; 
 ^ly blood before was thin and cold. 
 
 But now t is turned to tears ■ — 
 
178 I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 
 
 M J shadow falls upon my grave ; 
 
 So near the brink I stand, 
 She might have staid a little yet, 
 
 And led me by the hand ! 
 
 Ay, call her on the barren moor, 
 
 And call her on the hill, — 
 'Tis nothing but the heron's cry, 
 
 And plover's answer shrill; 
 My child is flown on wilder wings 
 
 Than they have ever spread, 
 And I may even walk a waste 
 
 That widened when she fled. 
 
 Full many a thankless child has been, 
 
 But never one like mine ; 
 Her meat was served on plates of gold, | 
 
 Her drink was rosy wine ; 
 But now she '11 share the robin's food. 
 
 And sup the common rill. 
 Before her feet will turn again 
 
 To meet her father's will ! 
 
 I RE]SIE\rBER, I REMEMBER. 
 
 I REMEMBER. I remember 
 The house where I was bom, 
 The little window where the sun 
 Came peeping in at morn : 
 He never came a wink too soon, 
 Nor brought too long a day, 
 But now I often wish the night 
 Had borne my breath away ' 
 
BALLAD. 179 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 The roses red and white, 
 The violets, and the lilj-cups, 
 Those flowers made of light ! 
 The lilacs where the robin built, 
 And where my brother set 
 The laburnum on his birth-daj, — 
 The tree is living jet ! 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 Where I was used to swinsr. 
 
 And thought the air- must rush as fresh 
 
 To swallows on the wine ; 
 
 My spirit flew in feathers then. 
 
 That is so heavy now, 
 
 And summer pools could hardly cool 
 
 The fever on my brow ! 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The fir-trees dark and high : 
 
 I used to think their slender tops 
 
 Were close against the sky : 
 
 It was a childish ignorance, 
 
 But now 'tis little joy 
 
 To know I 'm further oflf from heaven 
 
 Than when I was a boy. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 Sigh on. sad heart, for Love's eclipse 
 And Beauty's fairest queen, 
 
 Though 't is not for my peasant lips 
 To soil her name between : 
 
180 BALLAD. 
 
 A king might lay his sceptre down, 
 But I am poor and naught, 
 
 The brow should wear a golden crown 
 That wears her in its thought. 
 
 The diamonds glancing in her hair, 
 ^ Whose sudden beams surprise, 
 Might bid such humble hopes beware 
 
 The glancing of her eyes ; 
 Yet looking once. I looked too long, 
 
 And if my love is sin. 
 Death follows on the heels of wrong. 
 
 And kills the crime within. 
 
 Her dress seemed wove of lily leaves, 
 
 It was so pure and fine, 
 lofty wears, and lowly weaves. 
 
 But hoddan gray is mine ; 
 And homely hose must step apart, 
 
 Where gartered princes stand. 
 But may he wear my love at heart 
 
 That wins her lily hand I 
 
 Alas! there "s far from russet frize 
 
 To silks and satin gowns. 
 But I doubt if God made like degrees 
 
 In courtly hearts and clowns. 
 My father wronged a maiden's mirth, 
 
 And brought her cheeks to blame, 
 And all that "s lordly of my birth 
 
 Is my reproach and shame ! 
 
 "Tis vain to weep. — 't is vain to sigh, 
 'Tis vain this idle speech. 
 
 For where her happy pearls do lie 
 My tears may never reach ; 
 
THE WATER LADY. 18 1 
 
 Yet when I 'm gone, e'en lofty pride 
 
 May say of what has been, 
 His love was nobly born and died, 
 
 Though all the rest was mean ! 
 
 My speech is rude, — but speech is weak 
 
 Such love as mine to tell, 
 Yet had I words, I dare not speak, 
 
 So, lady, fare thee well ; 
 I will not wish thy better state 
 
 Was one of low degree. 
 But I must weep that partial fate 
 
 Made such a chm-1 of me. 
 
 THE WATER LADY. 
 
 Alas ! the moon should ever beam 
 To show what man should never see ! ■ 
 I saw a maiden on a stream, 
 And fair was she ! 
 
 I staid a while, to see her throw 
 Her tresses back, that all beset 
 The fair horizon of her brow 
 With clouds of jet. 
 
 I staid a little while to view 
 Her cheek, that wore in place of red 
 The bloom of water, tender blue, 
 Daintily spread. 
 
 I staid to watch, a little space, 
 Her parted lips if she would sing ; 
 The watei-s closed above her face 
 With many a ring. 
 16 
 
182 THE EXILE. 
 
 And still I staid a little more ; 
 Alas ! she never comes again ! 
 I throw my flowers from the shore, 
 And watch in vain. 
 
 I know my life will fade away, 
 I know that I must vainly pine ; 
 For I am made of mortal clay, 
 But she 's divine ! 
 
 THE EXILE. 
 
 The swallow with summer 
 
 Will wing o'er the seas, 
 The wind that I sigh to 
 
 Will visit thy trees, 
 The ship that it hastens 
 
 Thy ports will contain, 
 But me — I must never 
 
 See England again ! 
 
 There 's many that weep there^ 
 
 But one weeps alone, 
 For the tears that are fjilling 
 
 So far from her own ; 
 So far from thy own, lov6, 
 
 We know not our pain ; 
 K death is between us, 
 
 Or only the main. 
 
 When the white cloud reclines 
 On the verge of the sea, 
 
 I fancy the white cliffs, 
 And di-eam upon thee ; 
 
TO AN ABSENTEE. SONG. 183 
 
 But the cloud spread its wings 
 To the blue heaven and flies. 
 
 We never shall meet, love, 
 Except in the skies ! 
 
 TO AN ABSENTEE. 
 
 O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea. 
 Through all the miles that stretch between, 
 My thought must fly to rest on thee, 
 And would, though worlds should intervene. 
 
 Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks 
 The further we are forced apart, 
 Aflbction's firm elastic links 
 But bind the closer round the heart. 
 
 For now we sever each from each, 
 I learn what I have lost in thee ; 
 Alas ! that nothing less could teach 
 How great indeed my love should be ! 
 
 Farewell ! I did not know thy worth ; 
 But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized: 
 So angels walked unknown on earth. 
 But when they flew were recognized ! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 The stars are with the voyager 
 
 Wherever he may sail ; 
 The moon is constant to her time ; 
 
 The sun will never fail ; 
 
184 ODE TO THE MOON. 
 
 But follow, follow round the world, 
 The gi-een earth and the sea : 
 
 So love is with the lover's heart, 
 Wherever he may be. 
 
 THierever he may be. the stars 
 
 Must daily lose their light ; 
 The moon will veil her in the shade ; 
 
 The sun will set at night. 
 The sun may set, but constant love 
 
 Will shine when he 's away ; 
 So that dull night is never night, 
 
 And day is brighter day. 
 
 ODE TO THE MOON. 
 
 MOTHEK of light ! how fairly dost thou go 
 Over those hoary crests, divinely led ! — 
 Art thou that huntress of the silver bow 
 Fabled of old 1 Or rather dost thou tread 
 Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, 
 Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, 
 Where hunter never climbed, — secure from dread ] 
 How many antique fancies have I read 
 Of that mild pr^ence ! and how many wrought ! 
 
 Wondi'ous and bright, 
 
 Upon the silver light. 
 Chasing fair figures with the artist, Thought ! 
 
 What art thou like ? — sometimes I see thee ride 
 A far-bound galley on its perilous way, 
 Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray : — 
 Sometimes behold thee glide, 
 
ODE TO THE MOON. 18o 
 
 Clustered by all thy family of stars, 
 
 Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide, 
 
 Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars ; — 
 
 Sometimes I watch thee ou from steep to steep, 
 
 Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch, 
 
 Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep, 
 
 To catch the young Endymion asleep, — 
 
 Leaving thy splendor at the jagged porch ! — 
 
 0, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be ! 
 Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named ; 
 And he, the veriest Pagan, that first framed 
 A silver idol, and ne"er worshipped thee ! — 
 It is too late, or thou shouldst have my knee ; 
 Too late now for the old Ephesiau vows, 
 And not divine the crescent on thy brows ! — 
 Yet, call thee nothing but the mere mild moon, 
 
 Behind those chestnut boughs. 
 Casting their dappled shadows at my feet ; 
 I will be grateful for that simple boon, 
 In many a thoughtful verse and anthem sweet, 
 And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet. 
 
 In nights far gone,— ay, far away and dead,— 
 Before Care-fretted with a lidless eye,— 
 I was thy wooer on my little bed. 
 Letting the early houi's of rest go by, 
 To see°thee flood the heaven with milky light, 
 And feed thy snow-white swans, before I slept ; 
 For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams,— 
 Thou wert the fairies' armorer, that kept 
 Their burnished helms, and crowns, and corselets bright; 
 Their spears and glittering mails ; 
 16* 
 
186 ODE TO THE MOON. 
 
 And ever thou didst spill in winding streams 
 
 Sparkles and midnight gleams, 
 For fishes to new gloss their argent scales ! — 
 
 Why sighs ? — why creeping tears 7 — why clasped hands 7 - 
 
 Is it to count the boy's expended dower 7 
 
 That fairies since have broke their gifted wands 7 
 
 That young Delight, like any o'erblown flower. 
 
 Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the gi'ound 7 — 
 
 Why then, fair Moon, for all thou mark'st no hour, 
 
 Thou art a sadder dial to old Time 
 
 Than ever I have found 
 On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tower, 
 Mottoed with stern and melancholy rhyme. 
 
 Why should I grieve for this 7 — 1 must yearn, 
 
 Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory, 
 
 Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn. 
 
 Richly embossed with childhood's revelry, 
 
 With leaves and clustered fruits, and flowers eterne^ — 
 
 (Eternal to the world, though not to me,) 
 
 Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be, 
 
 The deathless wreath, and undecayed festoon. 
 
 When I am hearsed within, — 
 Less than the pallid primrose to the moon, 
 That now she watches through a vapor thin. 
 
 So let it be : — Before I lived to sigh. 
 Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills, 
 Beautiful orb ! and so, whene'er I lie 
 Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. 
 Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills, 
 And blessed thy fail- face, mother mild ! 
 Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run, 
 
ir 
 
 TO 
 
 tm 
 
 Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond, 
 And blend their plighted shadows into one : — 
 Still smile at even ou the bedded child, 
 And close his eyelids with thy silver wand ! 
 
 TO 
 
 Welcome, dear heart, and a most kind good-morrow , 
 The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shuie : — 
 Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow 
 Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine. 
 Here are red roses, gathered at thy cheeks, — 
 The white were all too happy to look white : 
 For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks ; 
 It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright ! 
 
 Dost love sweet hyacinth 1 Its scented leaf 
 Curls manifold,— all love's delights blow double : 
 'T is said this floweret is inscribed with grief, — 
 But let that hint of a forgotten trouble. 
 
 I plucked the primrose at night's dewy noon ; 
 Like Hope, it showed its blossoms in the night ; — 
 'T was like Endymion, watching for the moon ! 
 And here are sunflowers, amorous of light ! 
 
 These golden buttercups are April's seal, — 
 The daisy stars her constellations be : 
 These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, 
 Therefore I pluck no daisies but for thee ! 
 
 Here 's daisies for the morn, primrose for gloom, 
 Pansies and roses for the noontide hours : — 
 A wight once made a dial of their bloom, — 
 So may thy life be measured out by flowers ! 
 
188 THE FORSAKEN. — AUTUMN. 
 
 THE FORSAKEN. 
 
 The dead are in their silent graves, 
 And the dew is cold above, 
 And the living weep and sigh 
 Over dust that once was love. 
 
 Once I only wept the dead, 
 But now the living cause my pain : 
 How couldst thou steal me from my tears, 
 To leave me to my tears again 1 
 
 My mother rests beneath the sod, — 
 Her rest is calm and very deep : 
 I wished that she could see our loves, — 
 But now I gladden in her sleep. 
 
 Last night unbound my raven locks. 
 The morning saw them turned to gray. 
 Once they were black and well beloved, 
 But thou art changed, — and so are they ! 
 
 The useless lock I gave thee once. 
 
 To gaze upon and think of me, 
 
 Was ta'en with smiles, — but this was torn 
 
 In sorrow that I send to thee. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 The Autumn is old, 
 The sere leaves are flying ; 
 He hath gathered up gold, 
 And now he is dying ; — 
 Old age, begin sighing ! 
 
ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 189 
 
 The vintage is ripe, 
 The harvest is heaping ; — 
 But some that have sowed 
 Have no riches for reaping ; — 
 Poor wretch, fall a weeping ! 
 
 The year 's in the wane, 
 There is nothing adorning, 
 The night has no eve, 
 And the day has no morning ; — 
 Cold winter gives warning. 
 
 The rivers run chill, 
 
 The red sun is sinking. 
 
 And I am grown old, 
 
 And life is fast shrinking ; — 
 
 Here 's enow for sad thinking ! 
 
 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 
 
 Come, let us set our careful breasts, 
 Like Philomel, against the thorn, 
 To aggravate the inward grief. 
 That makes her accents so forlorn ; 
 The world h;\3 many cruel points. 
 Whereby our bosoms have been torn. 
 And there are dainty themes of grief, 
 In sadness to outlast the morn, — 
 True honor's dearth, affection's death. 
 Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn, 
 With all the piteous tales that tears 
 Have watered since the world was l^orn. 
 
190 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 
 
 The ■world ! — it is a mlderness, 
 Where tears are hung on every tree ; 
 For thus my gloomy fantasy 
 Makes all things weep with me ! 
 Come let us sit and watch the sky, 
 And fency clouds where no clouds be ; 
 Grief is enough to blot the eye, 
 And make heaven black with misery. 
 Why should birds sing such merry notes, 
 Unless they were more blest than we 7 
 No sorrow ever chokes their throats, 
 Except sweet nightingale ; for she 
 Was born to pain our hearts the more 
 With her sad melody. 
 Why shines the sun. except that he 
 Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide, 
 And pensive shades for [Melancholy, 
 When all the earth is bright beside 1 
 Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wavCj 
 Mirth shall not win us back again. 
 Whilst man is made of his own grave, 
 And fairest clouds but gilded rain ! 
 
 I saw my mother in her shroud. 
 Her cheek was cold and very pale ; 
 And ever since I ve looked on all 
 As creatures doomed to fail ! 
 Why do buds ope, except to die ? 
 Ay, let us watch the roses wither, 
 And think of our loves' cheeks ; 
 And, 0. how quickly time doth fly 
 To bring death's winter hither ! 
 Minutes, hours, days, and weeks. 
 
ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 
 
 191 
 
 Months, years, and ages, shrink to naught ; 
 An age past is but a thought ! 
 
 Ay, let us think of him a while, 
 
 That, with a coflBn for a boat. 
 
 Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat, 
 
 And for our table choose a tomb : 
 
 There 's dark enough in any skull 
 
 To charge with black a raven plume ; 
 
 And for the saddest funeral thoughts 
 
 A winding-sheet hath ample room, 
 
 Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, 
 
 Hath writ the common doom. 
 
 How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom, 
 
 And o'er the dead lets fill its dew, 
 
 As if in tears it wept for them, 
 
 The many human fiimilies 
 
 That sleep around its stem ! 
 
 How cold the dead have made these stones, 
 
 With natural di-ops kept ever wet ! 
 
 Lo ! here the best, the worst, the world 
 
 Doth now remember or forget, 
 
 Ai*e in one common ruin hurled, 
 
 And love and hate are calmly met ; 
 
 The loveliest eyes that ever shone, 
 
 The fairest hands, and locks of jet. 
 
 Is 't not enough to vex our souls. 
 
 And fill our eyes, that we have set 
 
 Our love upon a rose's leaf. 
 
 Our hearts upon a violet ? 
 
 Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet; 
 
 And, sometimes, at their swift decay 
 
 Beforehand we must fret : 
 
 The roses bud and bloom again ; 
 
192 ODE TO MELAXCHOLT. 
 
 But love may haunt the grave of love, 
 And vratch the mould in vain. 
 
 clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, 
 
 And do not take my tears amiss ; 
 
 For tears must flow to wash away 
 
 A thought that shows so stern as this : 
 
 Forgive, if somewhile I forget. 
 
 In woe to come, the present hliss. 
 
 As frighted Proserpine let fall 
 
 Her flowers at the sight of Dis, 
 
 Even so the dark and bright will kiss. 
 
 The sunniest things throw sternest shade, 
 
 And there is even a happiness 
 
 That makes the heart afraid ! 
 
 Now let us with a spell invoke 
 
 The full-orbed moon to grieve our eyes ; 
 
 Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud 
 
 Lapped all about her, let her rise 
 
 All pale and dim. as if ffom rest 
 
 The ghost of the late buried sun 
 
 Had crept into the skies. 
 
 The moon ! she is the source of sighs, 
 
 The very face to make us sad ; 
 
 If but to think in other times 
 
 The same calm quiet look she had. 
 
 As if the world held nothincr base, 
 
 Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; 
 
 The same fair light that shone in streams, 
 
 The fairy lamp that charmed the lad ; 
 
 For so it is, with spent delights 
 
 She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad. 
 
 All things are touched with melancholy. 
 
 Born of the secret souls mistrust, 
 
SONNETS. 195 
 
 To feel her fair ethereal wings 
 Weighed down with vile deorraded dust ; 
 Even the bright extremes of joy 
 Bring on conclusions of disgust, 
 Like the sAveet blossoms of the May, 
 Whose fragrance ends in must. 
 0, give her, then, her tribute just, 
 Her sighs and tears, and musings holy ! 
 There is no music in the life 
 That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; 
 There 's not a string attuned to mirth, 
 But has its chord in Melancholy. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 WKITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 
 The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled ! 
 Hues of all flowers that in their ashes lie, 
 Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, 
 Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, — 
 Like exhalations from the leafy mould, 
 Look here how honor glorifies the dead, 
 And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold 
 Such is the memory of poets old. 
 Who on Parnassus' hill have bloomed elate ; 
 Now they are laid under their marbles cold, 
 And turned to clay, whereof they were create ; 
 But god Apollo hath them all enrolled. 
 And blazoned on the very clouds of fate ! 
 17 
 
194 SONNETS. 
 
 TO FANCY. 
 
 Most delicate Ariel ! submissive thing, 
 Won by the mind's high magic to its hest, — 
 Invisible embassy, or secret guest, — 
 Weighing the light air on a lighter wing ; — 
 Whether into the midnight moon, to bring 
 Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, — 
 Or rich romances from the florid West, — 
 Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, — 
 Still by thy charmed allegiance to the will 
 The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain, 
 As by the fingering of fairy skill, — 
 Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain, 
 Odors, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile, 
 Making this dull world an enchanted isle. 
 
 TO AN ENTHUSIAST. 
 
 Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, 
 Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind. 
 And still a large late love of all thy kind. 
 Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, 
 For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, 
 Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind 
 Thine eyes with tears, — that thou hast not resigned 
 The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : 
 For as the current of thy life shall flow. 
 Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stained, 
 Through flowery valley or unwholesome fen, 
 Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe 
 Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordained 
 To share beyond the lot of common men. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 196 
 
 It is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
 
 This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight ; 
 
 That sometime these bi'ight stars, that now reply 
 
 In sunlio;ht to the sun. shall set in nio-ht : 
 
 That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
 
 And all life's ruddj springs forget to flow ; 
 
 That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright 
 
 Be lapped in alien clay and laid below ; 
 
 It is not death to know this, — but to know 
 
 That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves 
 
 In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
 
 So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves 
 
 Over the past-away, there may be then 
 
 No resurrection in the minds of men. 
 
 By every sweet tradition of true hearts, 
 
 Graven by Time, in love with his own lore ; 
 
 By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts, 
 
 Wherein Love died to be alive the more ; 
 
 Yea, by the sad impression on the shore 
 
 Left by the drowned Leander, to endear 
 
 That coast forever, where the billows' roar 
 
 Moaneth for pity in the poet's ear ; 
 
 By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear 
 
 That quenched her brand's last twinkle in its fall ; 
 
 By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear 
 
 That sighed around her flight ; I swear by all, 
 
 The world shall find such pattern in my act, 
 
 As if Love's great examples still were lacked. 
 
 LL 
 
^ 
 
 196 SONNETS. 
 
 ON RECEIVINa A GIFT. 
 
 Look how the golden ocean shines above 
 
 Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth : 
 
 So does the bright and blessed light of love 
 
 Its own things glorify, and raise their worth. 
 
 As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine, 
 
 And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed, 
 
 Even so our tokens shine ; nay, they outshine 
 
 Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed ; 
 
 For where be ocean waves but half so clear. 
 
 So calmly constant, and so kindly warm, 
 
 As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere, 
 
 That hath no dregs to be upturned by storm 7 
 
 Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price, 
 
 And more than gold to doting Avarice. 
 
 SILENCE. 
 
 There is a silence where hath been no sound 
 
 There is a silence where no sound may be. 
 
 In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea. 
 
 Or in wide desert where no life is found, 
 
 Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound , 
 
 No voice is hushed — no life treads silently, 
 
 But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, 
 
 That never spoke, over the idle ground : 
 
 But in green ruins, in the desolate^alls 
 
 Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 
 
 Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, 
 
 And owls, that flit continually between. 
 
 Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, 
 
 There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. 
 
SONNETS. 19t 
 
 The curse of Adam, the old curse of all 
 
 Though I inherit in this feverish life 
 
 Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, 
 
 And fruitless thought, in Care"s eternal thrall. 
 
 Yet more sweet honey than of bittei' gall 
 
 I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. 
 
 Then what was Plan's lost Paradise ! — how rife 
 
 Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! 
 
 Such as our own pure passion still might frame, 
 
 Of this fair earth, and its delightful bowers, 
 
 If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came 
 
 To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers : — 
 
 But, ! as many and such tears are ours, 
 
 As only should be shed for guilt and shame ! 
 
 Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak, 
 Lives not within the humor of the eye ; — 
 Not being but an outward fantasy. 
 That skims the surface of a tinted cheek — 
 Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak, 
 As if the rose made summer, — and so lie 
 Amongst the perishable things that die, 
 Unlike the love which I would give and seek, • 
 Whose healtk is of no hue — to feel decay 
 With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. 
 Love is its own great loveliness alway, 
 And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; 
 Its bough owns no December and no May, 
 But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. 
 17* 
 
198 THE LAST MAN. 
 
 " THE LAST MAN." 
 
 'T WAS in the year two thousand and one, 
 
 A pleasant morning of May, 
 
 I sat on the gallows-ti'ee all alone; 
 
 A chanting a merry lay. — 
 
 To think how the pest had spared my life, 
 
 To sing with the lai-ks that day ! 
 
 When up the heath came a jolly knave. 
 Like a scarecrow, all in rags : 
 It made me crow to see his old duds 
 All abroad in the wind, like flags : — 
 So up he came to the timbers" foot 
 And pitched down his greasy bags. — 
 
 Good Lord ! how blithe the old beggar was 
 
 At pulling out his scraps, — 
 
 The very sight of his broken orts 
 
 Made a work in his wi'inkled chaps : 
 
 '• Come down," says he, "you Newgate-bird, 
 
 And have a taste of my snaps ! '' 
 
 Then down the rope, like a tai" from the mast, 
 
 I slided, and by him stood ; 
 
 But I wished myself on the gallows again 
 
 When I smelt that beggar's food. — 
 
 A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust ; — 
 
 '• ! " quoth he. '■ the heavens are good ! " 
 
 Then after this gi-ace he cast him down. 
 
 Says I. " You "11 get sweeter air 
 
 A pace or two off, on the windward side," — 
 
 For the felons' bones lay there. — 
 
 But he only laughed at the empty skulls, 
 
 And offered them part of his fai-e. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 199 
 
 '• I never liarmed them, and they Avon't harm me : 
 
 Let the proud and the rich be cravens ! " 
 
 I did not like that strancre beo-^ar man, 
 
 He looked so up at the heavens. 
 
 Anon he shook out his empty old poke ; 
 
 '• There "s the crumbs/' saith he, '• for the ravens ! " 
 
 It made me angiy to see his face, 
 
 It had such a jesting look ; 
 
 But -^vhile I made up my mind to speak, 
 
 A small case-bottle he took ; 
 
 Quoth he, " Though I gather the green water-cress, 
 
 My (.h-iuk is not of the brook ! '' 
 
 Full manners-like he tendered the dram : 
 
 0, it came of a dainty cask ! 
 
 But, whenever it came to his turn to pull, 
 
 ' ■ Your leave, good sir, I must ask ; 
 
 But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve, 
 
 When a hangman sups at my flask ! " 
 
 And then he laughed so loudly and lonof, 
 
 The churl was quite out of breath ; 
 
 I thought the very Old One was come 
 
 To mock me before my death. 
 
 And wished I had buried the dead men's bones 
 
 That were lying about the heath ! 
 
 But the beggar gave me a jolly clap — 
 " Come, let us pledge each other, 
 For all the wide world is dead beside. 
 And we are brother and brother — 
 I 've a yearning for thee in my heart. 
 As if we had come of one mother. 
 
200 THE LAST MAN. 
 
 '• I 've a yearning for thee in my heart, 
 That almost makes me weep, 
 For as I passed from town to town 
 The folks were all stone-asleep, — 
 But when I saw thee sitting aloft, 
 It made me both laugh and leap ! " 
 
 Now a curse (I thought) be on his love, 
 
 And a curse upon his mirth, — 
 
 An' it were not for that beggar man 
 
 I 'd be the king of the earth, — 
 
 But I promised myself an hour should oome 
 
 To make him rue his birth ! — 
 
 So down we sat and boused again 
 
 Till the sun was in mid-sky. 
 
 When, just when the gentle west- wind came, 
 
 We hearkened a dismal cry ; 
 
 "Up, up, on the tree," quoth the beggar man, 
 
 " Till these horrible dogs go by ! " 
 
 And, lo ! from the forest's far-off skirts 
 
 They came all yelling for gore, 
 
 A hundred hounds pursuing at once, 
 
 And a panting hart before, 
 
 Till he sunk adown at the gallows' foot, 
 
 And there his haunches they tore ! 
 
 His haunches they tore, without a horn 
 To tell when the chase was done ; 
 And there was not a single scarlet coat 
 To flaunt it in the sun ! — 
 I turned, and looked at the beggar man. 
 And his tears dropt one by one ! 
 
THE LAST MAN. 201 
 
 And with curses sore he chid at the hounds, 
 
 Till the last dropt out of sight ; 
 
 Anon, saith he, '' Let "s down again, 
 
 And ramble for our delight, 
 
 For the world 's all free, and we may choose 
 
 A right cose J barn for to-night ! " 
 
 With that, he set up his staff on end, 
 And it fell with the point due west ; 
 So we fared that way to a city great 
 Where the folks had died of the pest — 
 It was fine to enter in house and hall, 
 Wherever it liked me best ; — 
 
 For the porters all were stiff and cold, 
 
 And could not lift their heads ; 
 
 And when he came where their masters lay, 
 
 The rats leapt out of the beds : — 
 
 The grandest palaces in the land 
 
 Were as free as workhouse sheds. 
 
 But the beggar man made a mumping face, 
 
 And knocked at every gate : 
 
 It made me curse to hear how he whined ; 
 
 So our fellowship turned to hate, 
 
 And I bade him walk the world by himself, 
 
 For I scorned so humble a mate ! 
 
 So he turned right and / turned left, 
 
 As if we had never met ; 
 
 And I chose a fair stone house for myself, 
 
 For the city was all to let ; 
 
 And for three brave holidays drank my fill 
 
 Of the choicest that I could get. 
 
202 THE LAST MAN. 
 
 And because my jerkin was coarse and worn, 
 
 I got me a properer vest ; 
 
 It was purple velvet, stitched o'er with gold, 
 
 And a shining star at the breast, — 
 
 'T was enough to fetch old Joan from her grave 
 
 To see me so purely drest ! — 
 
 But Joan was dead and under the mould, 
 
 And every buxom lass ; 
 
 In vain I watched at the window-pane, 
 
 For a Christian soul to pass ; — 
 
 But sheep and kine wandered up the street. 
 
 And browsed on the new-come grass. — 
 
 When, lo ! I spied the old beggar man, 
 And lustily he did sing ! — 
 His rags were lapped in a scarlet cloak, 
 And a crown he had like a king ; 
 So he stept right up before my gate 
 And danced me a saucy fling ! 
 
 Heaven mend us all ! — but, within my mind 
 I had killed him then and there ; 
 To see him lording so braggart-like 
 That was born to his beggar's fare, 
 And how he had stolen the royal crown 
 His betters were meant to wear. 
 
 But God forbid that a thief should die, 
 
 Without his share of the laws ! 
 
 So I nimbly whipt my tackle out, 
 
 And soon tied up his claws, — 
 
 I was judge myself, and jury, and all. 
 
 And solemnly tried the cause. 
 
r 
 
 THE LAST MAN. 203 
 
 But the beggar man would not plead, but cried 
 
 Like a babe without its corals, 
 
 For he knew how hard it is apt to go 
 
 When the law and a thief have quarrels, — 
 
 There was not a Christian soul alive 
 
 To speak a word for his morals. 
 
 0, how gayly I doffed mj costly gear, 
 
 And put on my work-day clothes ; 
 
 I was tired of such a long Sunday life, — 
 
 And never was one of the sloths ; 
 
 But the beggar man grumbled a weary deal, 
 
 And made many crooked mouths. 
 
 So I hauled him off to the gallows' foot. 
 
 And blinded him in his bags ; 
 
 'T was a weary job to heave him up, 
 
 For a doomed man always lags ; 
 
 But by ten of the clock he was off his legs 
 
 In the wind, and airino; his rags ! 
 
 So there he hung, and there I stood. 
 
 The last man left alive, 
 
 To have my own will of all the earth : 
 
 Quoth I, now I shall thrive ! 
 
 But when was ever honey made 
 
 With one bee in a hive 7 
 
 My conscience began to gnaw my heart. 
 
 Before the day was done, 
 
 For the other men's lives had all gone out, 
 
 Like candles in the sun ! — 
 
 But it seemed as if I had broke, at last, 
 
 A thousand necks in one ! 
 
204 THE LAST MAN. 
 
 So I went and cut his body down, 
 
 To bury it decently ; — 
 
 God send there were any good soul alive 
 
 To do the like by me ! 
 
 But the wild dogs came with terrible speed, 
 
 And bayed me up the tree ! 
 
 My sight was like a drunkard's sight, 
 And my head began to swim, 
 To see their* jaws all white with foam, 
 Like the ravenous ocean-brim : — 
 But when the wild dogs trotted away 
 Their jaws were bloody and grim ! 
 
 Their jaws were bloody and grim, good Lord ! 
 
 But the beggar man, where was he 7 — 
 
 There was naught of him but some ribbons of raga 
 
 Below the gallows-tree ! — 
 
 I know the devil, when I am dead, 
 
 Will send his hounds for me ! — 
 
 I 've buried my babies one by one. 
 And dug the deep hole for Joan, 
 And covered the faces of kith and kin, 
 And felt the old church-yard stone 
 Go cold to my heart, full many a time, 
 But I never felt so lone ! 
 
 For the lion and Adam were company, 
 And the tiger him beguiled ; 
 But the simple kine are foes to my life, 
 And the household brutes are wild. 
 If the veriest cur would lick my hand, 
 I could love it like a child ! 
 
THE LEE SnOKE. 20' 
 
 And the beggar man's ghost besets my dream, 
 
 At night, to make me madder, — 
 
 And my wretched conscience, within my breast, 
 
 Is like a stinging adder ; — 
 
 I sigh when I pass the gallows' foot, 
 
 And look at the rope and ladder ! 
 
 For hanging looks sweet, — but, alas ! in vain 
 
 My desperate fancy begs, — 
 
 I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up, 
 
 And drink it to the dregs, — 
 
 For there is not another man alive, 
 
 In the world, to pull my legs ! 
 
 THE LEE SHORE. 
 
 Sleet ! and hail ! and thunder ! 
 
 And ye winds that rave, 
 Till the sands thereunder 
 
 Tinge the sullen wave — 
 
 Winds, that like a demon 
 Howl with horrid note 
 
 Round the toiling seaman, 
 In his tossing boat — 
 
 From his humble dwelling 
 
 On the shingly shore, 
 Where the billows swelling 
 
 Keep such hollow roar — 
 
 From that weepmg woman, 
 Seeking with her cries 
 18 
 
206 THE DEATH-BED. 
 
 Succor superhuman 
 
 From the frowning skies — 
 
 From the urchin pining 
 For his father's knee — 
 
 From the lattice shining, 
 Drive him out to sea ! 
 
 Let broad leagues dissever 
 Him from yonder foam ; — 
 
 0, God ! to think man ever 
 Comes too near his home ! 
 
 THE DEATH-BED. 
 
 We watched her breathing through the night, 
 
 Her breathing soft and low, 
 As in her breast the wave of life 
 
 Kept heaving to and fro. 
 
 So silently we seemed to speak, 
 
 So slowly moved about. 
 As we had lent her half our powers 
 
 To eke her living out. 
 
 Our very hopes belied our fears, 
 
 Our fears our hopes belied — 
 We thought her dying when she slept, 
 
 Ai.d sleeping when she died. 
 
 For when the morn came dim and sad, 
 
 And chill with early showers. 
 Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
 
 Another morn than ours. . 
 
LINES. — TO MY DAUGHTER. 2'l' 
 
 LINES 
 
 ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE SAME 
 CnAMBER. 
 
 And has the earth lost its so spacious round. 
 The sky its blue circumference above, 
 That in this little chamber there is found 
 Both earth and heaven — my universe of love ! 
 All that my God can give me or remove, 
 Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death. 
 Sweet that in this small compass I behove 
 To live their living and to breathe their breath ! 
 Almost I wish that with one common sigh 
 We might resign all mundane care and strife, 
 And seek together that transcendent sky, 
 Where father, mother, children, husband, wife, 
 Together pant in everlasting life ! 
 
 TO MY DAUGHTER, 
 
 ON HER BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago. 
 While yet the morning sun was low, 
 And rosy with the eastern glow 
 
 The landscape smiled ; 
 Whilst lowed the newly-wakened herds - 
 Sweet as the early song of birds, 
 I heard those first, delightful words, 
 
 '•Thou hast a child!" 
 
 Along with that uprising dew 
 
 Tears glistened in my eyes, though few, 
 
 To hail a dawning quite as new, 
 
208 TO A CHILD. 
 
 To me, as time : 
 It was not sorrow — not annoy — 
 But like a happy maid, though coy, 
 With grief- like welcome, even joy 
 
 Forestalls its prime. 
 
 So may" St thou live, dear ! many years, 
 
 In all the bliss that life endears. 
 
 Not without smiles, nor yet fi-om tears 
 
 Too strictly kept : 
 When fii'st thy infant littleness 
 I folded in my fond caress, 
 The greatest proof of happiness 
 
 Was this — I wept. 
 
 TO A CHILD 
 
 EMBRACING HIS MOTHER. 
 
 Love thy mother, little one ! 
 Kiss and clasp her neck again, — 
 Hereafter she may have a son 
 Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain. 
 Love thy mother, little one ! 
 
 Gaze upon her living eyes. 
 And mirror hack her love for thee, — 
 Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs 
 To meet them vrhen they cannot see. 
 Graze upon her living eyes ! 
 
 Press her lips the while they glow 
 With love that they have often told, — 
 Hereafter thou may'st press in woe. 
 And kiss them till thine own are cold. 
 Press her lips the while they glow ! 
 
STANZAS. 209 
 
 0, revere her raven hair ! 
 Although it be not silver-graj ; 
 Too earlj death, led on bj care, 
 May snatch save one dear lock away. 
 ! revere her raven hair ! 
 
 Pray for her at eve and morn, 
 That heaven may long the stroke defer, — 
 For thou may'st live the hour forlorn 
 When thou wilt ask to die with her. 
 Pray for her at eve and morn ! 
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 Farewell life ! my senses swim, 
 And the world is growing dim : 
 Thronging shadows cloud the light, 
 Like the advent of the night — 
 Colder, colder, colder still. 
 Upward steals a vapor chill ; 
 Strong the earthy odor grows — 
 I smell the mould above the rose ! 
 
 Welcome life ! the spirit strives ! 
 Strength returns and hope revives ; 
 Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn 
 Fly like shadows at the morn, — 
 O'er the earth there comes a bloom ; 
 Sunny light for sullen gloom. 
 Warm perfume for vapor cold — 
 I smell the rose above the mould ! 
 
 April, 1845. 
 
 18* 
 
210 TO A FALSE FRIEND. — A POET'S PORTION. 
 
 TO A FALSE FRIEND. 
 
 Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 
 
 Our hands will never meet again. 
 
 Friends if we have ever been, 
 
 Friends we cannot now remain • 
 
 I onlj know I loved you once, 
 
 I only know I loved in vain ; 
 
 Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 
 
 Our hands will never meet again ! 
 
 Then farewell to heart and hand ! 
 
 I would our hands had never met : 
 
 Even the outward form of love 
 
 Must be resigned with some regret. 
 
 Friends we still might seem to be, 
 
 K my wrong could e'er forget 
 
 Our hands have joined, but not our hearts ; 
 
 I would our hands had never met ! 
 
 THE POET'S PORTION. 
 
 What is a mine — a treasury — a dower — 
 A magic talisman of mighty power 7 
 A poet's wide possession of the earth. 
 He has the enjoyment of a flower's birth 
 Before its budding — ere the first red streaks,- 
 And winter cannot rob him of their cheeks. 
 Look — if his dawn be not as other men's ! 
 Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens 
 The first of sunlight is abroad — he sees 
 Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees, 
 And opes the splendid fissures of the morn. 
 When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn 
 
SONG. 211 
 
 Linger for harvesting ? Before the leaf 
 
 Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf 
 
 The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame. 
 
 Xo sweet there is. no pleasure I can name, 
 
 But he will sip it first — before the lees. 
 
 "T is his to taste rich honey, — ere the bees 
 
 Are busy with the brooms. He may forestall 
 
 June's rosy advent for his coronal ; 
 
 Before the expectant buds upon the bough, 
 
 Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow. 
 
 ! blest to see the flower in its seed, 
 
 Before its leafy presence ; for indeed 
 
 Leaves are but wingS; on which the summer flies, 
 
 And each thing perishable fades and dies, 
 
 Escaped in thought : but his rich thinkings be 
 
 Like overflows of immortality. 
 
 So that what there is steeped shall perish never, 
 
 But live and bloom, and be a joy forever. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Lady, leave thy silken thread 
 
 And flowery tapestrie : 
 There *s living roses on the bush. 
 
 And blossoms on the tree : 
 Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand 
 
 Some random bud will meet ; 
 Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find 
 
 The daisy at thy feet. 
 
 'T is like the birthday of the world, 
 "When eai-th was born in bloom ; 
 
 The light is made of many dyes, 
 The an- is all perfume ; 
 
212 TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY. 
 
 There 's crimson buds, and white and blue 
 
 The very rainbow showers 
 Have turned to blossoms where they fell, 
 
 And sown the earth with flowers. 
 
 There 's fairy tulips in the east. 
 
 The garden of the sun ; 
 The very streams reflect the hues, 
 
 And blossom as they run : 
 While Morn opes like a crimson rose, 
 
 Still wet with pearly showers ; 
 Then, lady, leave the silken thread 
 
 Thou twinest into flowers ! 
 
 TDIE, HOPE, AXD MEMORY. 
 
 I HEARD a gentle maiden, in the spring, 
 Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing : 
 " Fly through the world, and I will follow thee. 
 Only for looks that may turn back on me : 
 
 '• Only for roses that your chance may throw — 
 Though withered — I will wear them on my brow, 
 To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain ; 
 Warmed with such love, that they will bloom again. 
 
 " Thy love before thee, I must tread behind, 
 Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind ; 
 But trust not all her fondness, though it seem. 
 Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream. 
 
 •' •■ Her fice is smiling, and her voice is sweet : 
 
 But smiles betray, and music sings deceit ; 
 
 And words speak false ; — yet, if they welcome prove 
 
 I '11 be their echo, and repeat their love. 
 
FLOWERS. 213 
 
 " Only if wakened to sad truth, at last, 
 The bitterness to come, and sweetness past ; 
 When thou art vext. then, turn again, and see 
 Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved thee." 
 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 I WILL not have the mad Clytie, 
 Whose head is turned by the sun ; 
 The tulip is a courtly quean, 
 Whom, therefore, I will shun : 
 The cowslip is a country wench, 
 The violet is a nun ; — 
 But I will woo the dainty rose. 
 The queen of every one. 
 
 The pea is but a wanton witch, 
 In too much haste to wed, 
 And clasps her rings on every hand ; 
 The wolfsbane I should dread ; — 
 Nor will I dreary rosemarye. 
 That always mourns the dead ; — 
 But I will woo the dainty rose, 
 With her cheeks of tender red. 
 
 The lily is all in -white, like a saint. 
 
 And so is no mate for me — 
 
 And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, 
 
 She is of such low degree ; 
 
 Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves. 
 
 And the broom 's betrothed to the bee ; — 
 
 But I will plight with the dainty rose, 
 
 For fairest of all is she. 
 
214 TO 
 
 TO . 
 
 Still glides the gentle streamlet on. 
 "With shifting current new and strange ; 
 The water that was here is gone. 
 But those green shadows never change. 
 
 Serene or ruffled by the storm. 
 On present waves, as on the past, 
 The mirrored grove retains its form, 
 The self-same trees their semblance cast. 
 
 The hue each fleetmg globule wears, 
 That di-op bequeaths it to the next ;. 
 One picture still the surface bears, 
 To illustrate the murmured text. 
 
 So; love, however time may flow, 
 Fresh hours pursuing those that flee, 
 One constant image still shall show 
 My tide of life is true to thee. 
 
 TO 
 
 Let us make a leap, my dear. 
 In our love, of many a year. 
 And date it very far away. 
 On a bright clear summer day, 
 When the heart was like a sun 
 To itself, and falsehood none ; 
 And the rosy lips a part 
 Of the very loving heart, 
 And the shining of the eye 
 But a sign to know it by ; — 
 
TO 
 
 215 
 
 AMien my faults were all forgiven, 
 And ray life deserved of Heaven. 
 Dearest, let us reckon so, 
 And love for all that long ago ; 
 Each absence count a year complete, 
 And keep a birthday when we meet. 
 
 TO . 
 
 I LOVE thee — I love thee ! 
 
 'T is all that I can say ; — 
 It is my vision in the night. 
 
 My di-eammg in the day ; 
 The very echo of my heart. 
 
 The blessuag when I pray : 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Is all that I can say. 
 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Is ever on my tongue ; 
 In all my proudest poesy 
 
 That chorus still is sung ; 
 It is the verdict of my eyes. 
 
 Amidst the gay and young 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 A thousand maids among. 
 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Thy bright and hazel glance, 
 The mellow lute upon those lips. 
 
 Whose tender tones entrance ; 
 But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofe 
 
 That still these words enhance, 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Whatever be thy chance. 
 
f 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 "21 G SERENADE. — VERSES IX AN ALBUM. 
 
 SERENADE. 
 
 Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how 
 
 I wake and passionate watches keep ; 
 
 ! And jet; while I addi-ess thee now, 
 
 Methinks thou smilest in thj sleep. 
 
 1 T is sweet enough to make me weep. 
 
 That tender thought of love and thee, 
 
 That while the world is hushed so deep, 
 
 Thy soul 's perhaps awake to me ! 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep ! 
 
 TVith golden \'ision3 for thy dower, 
 
 While I this midnight vigil keep. 
 
 And bless thee in thy silent bower ; 
 
 To me "t is sweeter than the power 
 
 Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurled, 
 
 That I alone, at this still hour, 
 
 In patient love outwatch the world. 
 
 VEKSES IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 Far above the hollow 
 
 i Tempest, and its moan. 
 
 Singeth bright Apollo 
 
 In his golden zone, — 
 
 Cloud doth never shade him, 
 
 Nor a storm invade him, 
 
 ! On his joyous throne. 
 
 So when I behold me 
 
 In an orb as bright. 
 
 How thy soul doth fold me 
 
BALLAD. — THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE. 217 
 
 In its throne of light ! 
 Sorrow never paineth 
 Nor a care attaineth. 
 To that blessed heijiht. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 It was not in the winter 
 Our loving lot was cast ; 
 It was the time of roses, — 
 We plucked them as we passed ! 
 
 That churlish season never frowned 
 On early lovers yet ! 
 0, no — the world was newly crowned 
 With flowei-s when first we met. 
 
 "T was twilight, and I bade you go, 
 But still you held me fast : 
 It was the time of roses, — 
 We plucked them as we passed ! 
 
 THE ROJIANCE OF COLOGNE. 
 
 'T 13 even — on the pleasant banks of Rhine 
 The thrush is singing and the dove is cooing ; 
 A youth and maiden on the turf recline 
 Alone — and he is wooing. 
 
 Yet woos in vain, for to the voice of love 
 No kindly sympathy the maid discovers, 
 Though round them both, and in the air above, 
 The tender spirit hovers. 
 19 
 
218 THE KOMANCE OF COLOGNE. 
 
 Untouched by lovely Nature and her laws, 
 The more he pleads, more coyly she represses ; 
 Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws, 
 Rejecting his addresses. 
 
 Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave, 
 Bright eyes and dainty lips and tresses curly, 
 In outward loveliness a child of Eve, 
 But cold as nymph of Lurley. 
 
 The more Love tries her pity to engross. 
 The more she chills him with a strange behavior ; 
 Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross 
 And image of the Saviour. 
 
 Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan, 
 As from the presence of a thing unhuman ; — 
 0, what unholy spell hath turned to stone 
 The young warm heart of woman ! 
 
 ***** 
 'T is midnight — and the moonbeam, cold and wan. 
 On bower and river quietly is sleeping, 
 And o'er the corse of a self-murdered man 
 The maiden fair is weeping. 
 
 In vain she looks into his glassy eyes, 
 No pressure answers to her hands so pressing ; 
 In her fond arms impassively he lies, 
 Clay-cokl to her caressing. 
 
 Despairing, stunned, by her eternal loss. 
 She flies to succor that may best beseem her ; 
 But, lo ! a frowning figure veils the Cross, 
 And hides the blest Redeemer ! 
 
 With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll, 
 Wherein she reads, in melancholy letters. 
 
THE KEY. 219 
 
 The cruel, fatal pact that placed her soul 
 And her young heart in fetters. 
 
 " Wretch ! sinner ! renegade to truth and God ! 
 Thy holy faith for human love to barter ! " 
 No more she hears, but on the bloody sod 
 Sinks, Bigotry's last martyr ! 
 
 And side by side the hapless lovers lie ; 
 Tell me, harsh priest ! by yonder tragic token, 
 What part hath God in such a bond, whereby 
 Or hearts or vows are broken 1 
 
 THE KEY. 
 
 A MOORISH ROMANCE. 
 
 " On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve the keys 
 of their ancestors' houses in Spain ; to which country they still express 
 the hopes of one day returning, and again planting the Crescent on the 
 ancient walls of the Alhambra." — Scott's Travels in Morocco and 
 Algiers. 
 
 " Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing ? " — Sancho 
 Panza. 
 
 The Moor leans on his cushion. 
 
 With the pipe between his lips ; 
 
 And still at frequent intervals 
 
 The sweet sherbet he sips ; 
 
 But, spite of lulling vapor 
 
 And the sober cooling cup, 
 
 The spirit of the swarthy Moor 
 
 Is fiercely kindling up ! 
 
 One hand is on his pistol. 
 On its ornamented stock, 
 While his finger feels the trigger 
 And is busy with the lock — 
 
220 THE KEY. 
 
 The other seeks his ataghan, 
 And clasps its jewelled hilt — 
 ! much of gore in days of yore 
 That crooked blade has split ! 
 
 His brows are knit, his eyes of jet 
 
 In vivid blackness roll, 
 
 And gleam with fatal flashes 
 
 Like the fire-damp of the coal ; 
 
 His jaws are set, and through his teeth 
 
 He draws a savage breath, 
 
 As if about to raise the shout 
 
 Of Victory or Death ! 
 
 For why 1 the last Zebeck that came 
 
 And moored within the mole 
 
 Such tidings unto Tunis brought 
 
 As stir his very soul — 
 
 The cruel jar of civil war. 
 
 The sad and stormy reign, 
 
 That blackens like a thunder-cloud 
 
 The sunny land of Spain ! 
 
 No strife of glorious Chivalry, 
 
 For honor's gain or loss. 
 
 Nor yet that ancient rivalry, 
 
 The Crescent with the Cross. 
 
 No charge of gallant Paladins 
 
 On Moslems stern and stanch ; 
 
 But Christians shedding Christian blood 
 
 Beneath the olive's branch ! 
 
 A war of horrid parricide. 
 
 And brother killing brother ; 
 
 Yea, like to "dogs and sons of dogs," 
 
 That worry one another. 
 
THE KEY. 
 
 But let them bite and tear and fight ; 
 The more the Kaffers slaj, 
 The sooner Hagar's swarming sons 
 Shall make the land a prey ! 
 
 The sooner shall the Moor behold 
 The Alhambra's pile again, 
 And those who pined in Barbary 
 Shall shout for joy in Spain ; 
 The sooner shall the Crescent wave 
 On dear Granada's walls, 
 And proud Mohammed Ali sit 
 Within his flither's halls ! 
 
 " Alla-il-alla ! " tiger-like 
 Up springs the swarthy Moor, 
 And, with a wide and hasty stride, 
 Steps o'er the marble floor ; 
 Across the hall, till from the wall. 
 Where such quaint patterns be. 
 With eager hand he snatches down 
 An old and massive key ! 
 
 A massive key of curious shape, 
 And dark with dirt and rust. 
 And well three weary centuries 
 The metal might incrust ! 
 For since the king Boabdil fell 
 Before the native stock. 
 That ancient key, so quaint to see, 
 Hath never been in lock. 
 
 Brought over by the Saracens 
 Who fled across the main, 
 A token of the secret hope 
 Of going back again ; 
 19* 
 
 221 
 
222 THE KEY. 
 
 From race to race, from hand to hand, 
 From house to house, it passed ; 
 0, -will it ever, ever ope 
 The palace gate, at last? 
 
 Three hundred years and fifty-two 
 On post and wall it hung — 
 Three hundred years and fifty-two 
 A dream to old and young ; 
 But now a brighter destiny 
 The Prophet's will accords : 
 The time is come to scour the rust, 
 And lubricate the wards. 
 
 For should the Moor with sword and lance 
 
 At Algesiras land, 
 
 Where is the bold Bernardo now 
 
 Their progress to withstand 1 
 
 To Burgos should the Moslem come, 
 
 Where is the noble Cid 
 
 Five royal crowns to topple down, 
 
 As gallant Diaz did 1 
 
 Hath Xeres any Pounder now, • 
 
 When other weapons fail, 
 
 With club to thrash invaders rash, 
 
 Like barley with a flail ] 
 
 Hath Seville any Perez still, 
 
 To lay his clusters low, 
 
 And ride with seven turbans green 
 
 Around his saddle-bow ? 
 
 No ! never more shall Europe see 
 Such heroes brave and Ixild, 
 Such valor, faith, and loyalty. 
 As used to shine of old ! 
 
THE KEY. 223 
 
 No longer to one battle-cry 
 
 United Spaniards run, 
 
 And with their thronging spears uphold 
 
 The Vii'gin and her Son ! 
 
 From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay 
 
 Internal discord dwells. 
 
 And Barcelona bears the scars 
 
 Of Spanish shot and shells. 
 
 The fleets decline, the merchants pine 
 
 For want of foreign trade ; 
 
 And gold is scant : and Alicante 
 
 Is sealed by strict blockade ! 
 
 The loyal fly, and valor falls, 
 
 Opposed by court intrigue ; 
 
 But treachery and traitors thrive, 
 
 Upheld by foreign league ; 
 
 While factions seeking private ends 
 
 By turns usurping reign — 
 
 Well may the dreaming, scheming Moor 
 
 Exulting point to Spain ! 
 
 Well may he cleanse the rusty key 
 With Afric sand and oil, 
 And hope an Andalusian home 
 Shall recompense the toil ! 
 Well may he swear the Moorish speai" 
 Through wild Castile shall sweep, 
 And where the Catalonian sowed 
 The Saracen shall reap ! 
 
 Well may he vow to spurn the Cross 
 Beneath the Arab hoof, 
 And plant the Crescent yet again 
 Above the Alhambra's roof, 
 
224 SONNETS. 
 
 When those from whom St. Jago's name 
 In chorus once arose 
 Are shouting faction's battle-cries, 
 And Spain forgets to '• Close ! " 
 
 Well may he swear his ataghan 
 
 Shall rout the traitor swarm, 
 
 And carve them into arabesques 
 
 That show no human form — 
 
 The blame be theirs whose bloody feuds 
 
 Invite the savage Moor, 
 
 And tempt him with the ancient key 
 
 To seek the ancient door ' 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 TO THE OCEAN. 
 
 Shall I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love. 
 That once, in rage, with the wild winds at strife, 
 Thou darest menace my unit of a life, 
 Sending my clay below, my soul above, 
 Whilst roared thy waves, like lions when they rove 
 By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth ? 
 Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ? — 
 Didst thou ne"er murmur gently like the dove? 
 Nay, didst thou not against my own dear shore 
 Full break, last link between my land and me 7 — 
 My absent friends talk in thy very roar, 
 In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see. 
 And, if I must not see my England more. 
 Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee ! 
 
 Coblentz, May, 1835. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 LEAR. 
 
 22; 
 
 A POOR old king, with sorrow for my crown, 
 Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind — 
 For pity, my own tears have made me blind, 
 That I might never see my children's frown ; 
 And may be madness, like a friend, has thrown 
 A folded fillet over my dark mind, 
 So that unkindly speech may sound for kind, — 
 Albeit I know not. — I am childish grown — 
 And have not gold to purchase wit withal — 
 I that have once maintained most royal state — 
 A very bankrupt now, that may not call 
 My child, my child — all-beggared save in tears, 
 Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate, 
 Foolish — and blind — and overcome with years ! 
 
 SONNET TO A SONNET. 
 
 Rare composition of a poet-knight. 
 Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men, 
 Distinguished for a polished lance and pen 
 In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight ; 
 Lustrous in scholarship, in honor bright, 
 Accomplished in all graces current then, 
 Humane as any in historic ken, 
 Brave, handsome, noble, aflable, polite ; 
 Most courteous to that race become of late 
 So fiercely scornful of all kind advance. 
 Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate 
 To Albion, plotting ever her mischance, — 
 Alas, fiiir verse ! how false and out of date 
 Thy phrase '-sweet enemy"' applied to France ! 
 
226 SONNETS. 
 
 FALSE POETS AND TRUE. 
 
 Look how the lark soars upward and is gone, 
 
 Turning a spirit as he nears the sky ! 
 
 His voice is heard, hut body there is none 
 
 To fix the vague excursions of the eye. 
 
 So, poets' songs are with us, though they die 
 
 Obscured and hid by Death's oblivious shroud, 
 
 And earth inherits the rich melody, 
 
 Like raining music from the morning cloud. 
 
 Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud. 
 
 Their voices reach us through the lapse of space : 
 
 The noisy day is deafened by a crowd 
 
 Of undistinguished birds, a twittering race ; 
 
 But only lark and nightingale forlorn 
 
 Fill up the silences of night and morn. 
 
 TO 
 
 My heart is sick with longing, though I feed 
 On hope ; Time goes with such a heavy pace 
 That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace, 
 As if he slept — forgetting his old speed : 
 For, as in sunshine only we can read 
 The march of minutes on the dial's face. 
 So in the shadows of this lonely place 
 There is no love, and time is dead indeed. 
 But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart, 
 Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies, 
 It seems we only meet to tear apart 
 With aching hands and lingering of eyes. 
 Alas, alas ! that we must learn hours' flight 
 By the same light of love that makes them bright ' 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 227 
 
 FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY. 
 
 No popular respect will I omit 
 To do thee honor on this happy day, 
 When every loyal lover tasks his wit 
 His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, 
 And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. 
 Rather thou knowest I would still outrun 
 All calendars with Love's,— whose date alway 
 Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun, — 
 For with thy favor was my life begun ; 
 And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles, 
 And not by summers, for I thrive on none 
 But those thy cheerful countenance compiles : 
 ! if it be to choose and call thee mine, 
 Love, thou art every day my Valentine. 
 
 TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 
 
 0, 't is a touching thing, to make one weep, — 
 A tender infant with its curtained eye. 
 Breathing as it would neither live nor die 
 With that unchanging countenance of sleep ! 
 As if its silent dream, serene and deep, 
 Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky, 
 So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie. 
 With no more life than roses — just to keep 
 The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. 
 blossom boy ! so calm is thy repose, 
 So sweet a compromise of life and death, 
 'T is pity those fair buds should e'er unclose 
 For memory to stain their inward leaf, 
 Tino-ing thy dreams with unacquainted grief. 
 
 ^ 
 
228 SONNETS. 
 
 TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 
 
 Thine eyelids slept so beauteouslj, I deemed 
 
 No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : 
 
 Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay, 
 
 I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dreamed 
 
 Of dimples ; — for those parted lips so seemed, 
 
 I never thought a smile could sweetlier play. 
 
 Nor that so graceful life could chase away 
 
 Thy graceful death, — till those blue eyes upbeamed. 
 
 Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drowned, 
 
 And roses bloom more rosily for joy, 
 
 And odorous silence ripens into sound. 
 
 And fingers move to sound. — All-beauteous boy ! 
 
 How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove. 
 
 If not more lovely, thou art more like Love ! 
 
 The world is with me, and its many cares. 
 
 Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fears 
 
 That wait on all terrestrial affairs — 
 
 The shades of former and of future years — 
 
 Foreboding fancies and prophetic tears. 
 
 Quelling a spii'it that was once elate. 
 
 Heavens ! what a wilderness the world appears, 
 
 Where youth, and mirth, and health are out of date 
 
 But no — a laugh of innocence and joy 
 
 Resounds, like music of the fairy race. 
 
 And, gladly turning from the world's annoy, 
 
 I gaze upon a little radiant face. 
 
 And bless, internally, the merry boy 
 
 Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place." 
 
HUMOROUS POEMS. 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 A GOLDEN LEGEND. 
 
 " What is here ^ 
 Gold 1 yellow, glittering, precious gold 1 " 
 
 TiMON OF Athens. 
 
 J^ev 39ctiiflree. 
 
 To trace the Ivilmansegg pedigree, 
 'Co the very roots of the family tree, 
 
 Were a task as rash as ridiculous : 
 Through antediluvian mists as thick 
 As London fog such a line to pick 
 Were enough, in truth, to puzzle Old Nick, 
 
 Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas. 
 
 It would n't require much verbal strain 
 To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain ; 
 
 But, waving all such digressions. 
 Suffice it, according to family lore, 
 A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore, 
 
 Who was famed for his great possessions. 
 
 Tradition said he feathered his nest 
 Through an agricultural interest 
 In the golden age of farming ; 
 When golden eggs were laid by the geese, 
 And Colchian sheep wore a golden fleece, 
 
232 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And golden pippins — the sterling kind 
 
 Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — 
 
 Made horticulture quite charming ! 
 
 A lord of land, on his own estate 
 He lived at a very lively rate, 
 
 But his income would bear carousing ; 
 Such acres he had of pasture and heath, 
 With herbage so rich from the ore beneath, 
 The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth 
 
 Were turned into gold by browsing. 
 
 He gave, without any extra thrift, 
 A flock of sheep for a birthday gift 
 
 To each son of his loins, or daughter : 
 And his debts — if debts he had — at will 
 He liquidated by giving each bill 
 
 A dip in Pactolian water. 
 
 'T was said that even his pigs of lead, 
 By crossing with some by Midas bred, 
 
 Made a perfect mine of his piggery. 
 And as for cattle, one yearling bull 
 Was worth all Smithfield-market full 
 
 Of the golden bulls of Pope Gregory. 
 
 The high-bred horses within his stud. 
 Like human creatures of birth and blood, 
 
 Had their golden cups and flagons : 
 And as for the common husbandry nags, 
 Their noses were tied in money-bags, 
 
 Wlien they stopped with the carts and wagons. 
 
 Moreover, he had a golden ass. 
 Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass. 
 That was worth his own weight in money — 
 
MISS KILMANSEOa AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 238 
 
 And a golden hive, on a golden bank, 
 Where golden bees, bj alchemical prank, 
 Grathered gold instead of honey. 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and gold without end ! 
 He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend, 
 Gold to give, and gold to lend, 
 
 And reversions of gold in futuro. 
 In -wealth the family revelled and rolled. 
 Himself and vrife and sons so bold : — 
 And his daughters sang to their harps of gold 
 " bella eta del" oro ! '"' 
 
 Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg kin 
 
 In golden text on a vellum skin. 
 
 Though certain people would wink and grin. 
 
 And declare the whole story a parable — 
 That the ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes, 
 Who held a long lease, in prosperous times. 
 
 Of acreS; pasture and arable. 
 
 That as money makes money, his golden bees 
 Were the Five per Cents, or which you please, 
 
 When his cash was more than plenty — 
 That the golden cups were racing affairs ; 
 And his daughtei-s, who sang Itahan airs, 
 
 Had their golden harps of Clementi. 
 
 That the golden ass. or golden bull, 
 Was Enghsh John, with his pockets full, 
 
 Then at war by land and water : 
 While beef, and mutton, and other meat. 
 Were almost as dear as money to eat, 
 And farmers reaped golden harvests of wheat 
 
 At the Lord knows what per quarter ! 
 20* 
 
23'4 MISS KILMAXSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 What diflFerent dooms our birthdays bring ! 
 For instance, one little manikin thing 
 
 Survives to wear manj a wrinkle ; 
 While death forbids another to wake, 
 And a son that it took nine moons to make 
 
 Expires without even a twinkle : 
 
 Into this world we come like ships. 
 
 Launched from the docks, and stocks, and slips, 
 
 For fortune fair or fatal ; 
 And one little craft is cast away 
 In its very first trip in Babbicome Bay, 
 
 While another rides safe at Port Xatal. 
 
 What different lots our stars accord ! 
 
 This babe to be hailed and wooed as a lord ! 
 
 And that to be shuimed like a leper ! 
 One. to the world's wine, honey, and corn. 
 Another, like Colchester native, born 
 
 To its vinegar, only, and pepper. 
 
 One is littered under a roof 
 Neither wind nor water proof, — 
 
 That "s the prose of Love in a cottage, — 
 A puny, naked, shivering wretch, 
 The wbole of whose biithright would not fetch, 
 Though Robins himself drew up the sketch, 
 
 The bid of - a mess of pottage." 
 
 Born of Fortunatus's kdn. 
 Another comes tenderly ushered in 
 
 To a prospect all bright and burnished : 
 No tenant he for life's back slums — 
 He comes to the world as a gentleman comes 
 
 To a lodging ready famished. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGQ AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 235 
 
 And the other sex — the tender — the fair — 
 
 What wide reverses of fate are there ! 
 
 Whilst Margaret, charmed bj the Bulbul rare, 
 
 In a garden of Gul reposes, 
 Poor 'Pe<^<yj hawks nosegays from street to street 
 Till — think of that, who find life so sweet ! — 
 
 She hates the smell of roses ! 
 
 Not so with the infmt Kilmansegg ! 
 She was not born to steal or beg, 
 
 Or gather cresses in ditches ; 
 To plait the straw, or bind the shoe, 
 Or sit all day to hem and sew, 
 As females must, and not a few — 
 
 To fill their insides with stitches ! 
 
 She was not doomed, for bread to eat. 
 
 To be put to her hands as well as her feet — 
 
 To carry home linen from mangles — 
 Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limbed, 
 To dance on a rope in a jacket trimmed 
 
 With as many blows as spangles. 
 
 She was one of those who by Fortune's boon 
 Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon 
 
 In her mouth, not a wooden ladle : 
 To speak according to poet's wont, 
 Plutus as sponsor stood at her font, 
 
 And Midas rocked the cradle. 
 
 At her first debut she found her head 
 On a pillow of down, in a downy bed, 
 
 With a damask canopy over. 
 For although by the vulgar popular saw 
 All mothers are said to be "'in the straw," 
 
 Some children are born in clover. 
 
236 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Her very first draught of vital air 
 It was not the common chameleon fare 
 Of plebeian lungs and noses, — 
 No — her earliest snifi" 
 Of this world was a whiff 
 Of the genuine Otto of Roses ! 
 
 When she saw the light, it was no mere ray 
 Of that light so common, so every-day, 
 
 That the sun each morning launches ; 
 But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes. 
 From a thing — a gooseberry-bush for size — 
 
 With a golden stem and branches. 
 
 She was born exactly at half-past two, 
 As witnessed a time-piece in or-molu 
 
 That stood on a marble table — 
 Showing at once the time of day. 
 And a team of Gildings running away 
 
 As fast as they were able, 
 With a golden god, with a golden star. 
 And a golden spear, in a golden car, 
 
 According to Grecian fable. 
 
 Like other babes, at her birth she cried ; 
 Which made a sensation far and wide. 
 
 Ay, for twenty miles around her ; 
 For though to the ear ■ t was nothing more 
 Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar 
 Of a fifty-thousand pounder ! 
 It shook the next heir 
 In his library chair, 
 And made him cry " Confound her ! " 
 
 Of signs and omens there was no dearth. 
 Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 237 
 
 Or the advent of other great people : 
 
 Two bullocks dropped dead, 
 
 As if knocked on the head, 
 
 And barrels of stout 
 
 And ale ran about, 
 And the village-bells such a peal rang out, 
 That they cracked the village steeple. 
 
 In no time at all, like mushroom spawn, 
 Tables sprang up all over the lawn ; 
 Not furnished scantily or shabbily, 
 But on scale as vast 
 As that huge repast, 
 With its loads and cargoes 
 Of drink and botargoes, 
 At the birth of the babe in Rabelais. 
 
 Hundi-eds of men were turned into beasts, 
 Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts, 
 " By the magic of ale and cider : 
 And each country lass, and each country lad, 
 Began to caper and dance like mad, 
 And even some old ones appeared to have had 
 A bite from the Naples spider. 
 
 Then as night came on, 
 
 It had scared King John, 
 Who considered such signs not risible, 
 
 To have seen the maroons. 
 
 And the whirhng moons. 
 
 And the serpents of flame, 
 
 And wheels of the same, 
 That according to some were " whizzable." 
 
 0, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
 Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs. 
 That her parents had such full pockets ! 
 
238 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 For had she been born of want and thrift, 
 For care and nursing all adrift, 
 It 's ten to one she had had to make shift 
 With rickets instead of rockets ! 
 
 And how was the precious baby drest 7 
 In a robe of the East, with lace of the West, 
 Like one of Croesus's issue — 
 Her best bibs were made 
 Of rich gold brocade. 
 And the others of silver tissue. 
 
 And when the baby inclined to nap 
 She was lulled on a Gros de Naples lap, 
 By a nurse in a modish Paris cap, 
 
 Of notions so exalted, 
 She drank nothing loAver than Cura^oa, 
 Maraschino, or pink Noyau, 
 
 And on principle never malted. ^ 
 
 From a golden boat, with a golden spoon, 
 The babe was fed night, morning, and noon ; 
 
 And, although the tale seems fabulous, 
 'T is said her tops and bottoms were gilt. 
 Like the oats in that stable-yard palace built 
 
 For the horse of Heliogabalus. 
 
 And when she took to squall and kick — 
 For pain will wring and pins will prick 
 E'en the wealthiest nabob's daughter — . 
 They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin, 
 But a liquor with leaf of gold therein. 
 Videlicet, — Dantzic Water. 
 
 In short, she was born, and bred, and nurst, 
 And drest in the best from the very first, 
 To please the genteelest censor — 
 
MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 239 
 
 And then, as soon as strength -svoulJ allow. 
 Was vaccinated, as babes are now, 
 With virus ta'en from the best-bred cow 
 Of Lord Althorpe's — now Earl Spencer. 
 
 ^et C!tl)r{steuina. 
 
 Though Shakspeare asks us " What 's in a name V 
 (As if cognomens were much the same,) 
 
 There 's reallj a very great scope in it. 
 A name 7 — why, was n't there Doctor Dodd, 
 That servant at once of Mammon and God, 
 Who found four thousand pounds and odd, 
 
 A prison — a cart — and a rope in it 7 
 
 A name 1 — if the party had a voice. 
 What mortal would be a Bugg by choice ? 
 As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice ? 
 
 Or any such nauseous blazon ? 
 Not to mention many a vulgar name. 
 That would make a door-plate blush for shame, 
 
 If door-plates were not so brazen ! 
 
 A name 7 — it has more than nominal worth, 
 And belongs to good or bad luck at birth — 
 
 As dames of a certain degree know. 
 In spite of his page's hat and hose. 
 His page's jacket, and buttons in rows. 
 Bob only sounds like a page of prose 
 
 Till turned into Kupertino. 
 
 Now, to christen the infant Kilmansegg, 
 For days and days it was quite a plague, 
 
 To hunt the list in the lexicon : 
 And scores were tried, like coin, by the ring, 
 Ere names were found just the proper thing, 
 
 For a minor rich as a Mexican. 
 
210 MISS KILMAXSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Then cards were sent, the presence to beg 
 Of all the kin of Kilmansegg, 
 
 White, yellow, and brown relations : 
 Brothers, wardens of city halls, 
 And uncles — rich as three golden balls 
 
 From taking pledges of nations. 
 
 Nephews, whom Fortune seemed to bewitch, 
 
 Risino; m life like rockets — 
 Nieces whose doweries knew no hitch — 
 Aunts as certain of dying rich 
 As candles in golden sockets — 
 Cousins German, and cousins' sons, 
 All thriving and opulent — some had tons 
 
 Of Kentish hops in their pockets ! 
 
 For money had stuck to the race through life 
 (As it did to the bushel when cash so rife 
 Posed Ali Baba's brother's wife) — 
 
 And, down to the cousins and coz-lings 
 The fortunate brood of the Kilmanseggs, 
 As if they had come out of golden eggs, 
 
 "Were all as wealthy as " goslings." 
 
 It would fill a Court Grazette to name 
 What east and west end people came 
 
 To the rite of Christianity ; 
 The lofty lord and the titled dame. 
 
 All diamonds, plumes, and urbanity ; 
 The Lordship the Mayor with his golden chain, 
 And two Gold Sticks, and the sheriffs twain, 
 Nine foreign counts, and other great men 
 With their orders or stars, to help M or N 
 
 To renounce all pomp and vanity. 
 
 To paint the maternal Kilmansegg 
 The pen of an Eastern poet would beg, 
 
mSS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 241 
 
 And need an elaborate sonnet ; 
 Hovr she sparkled Tvith gems whenever she stirred, 
 And her head niddle-noddled at every word, 
 And seemed so happy, a paradise bird 
 
 Had nidificated upon it. 
 
 And Sir Jacob the father strutted and bowed, 
 And smiled to himself, and laughed aloud. 
 
 To think of his heiress and daughter — 
 And then in his pockets he made a grope, 
 And then, in the fulness of joy and hope, . 
 Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap 
 
 In imperceptible water. 
 
 He had rolled in money like pigs in mud, 
 Till it seemed to have entered into his blood 
 
 By some occult projection : 
 And his cheeks, instead of a healthy hue, 
 As yellow as any guinea grew, 
 Making the common phrase seem true 
 
 About a rich complexion. 
 
 And now came the nurse, and during a pause, 
 Her dead-leaf satin would fitly cause 
 
 A very autumnal rustle — 
 So full of figure, so full of fuss, 
 As she carried about the babe to buss, 
 
 She seemed to be nothing but bustle. 
 
 A wealthy Nabob was godpapa. 
 
 And an Indian Bejiium was godmamma. 
 
 Whose jewels a queen might covet ; 
 And the priest was a vicar, and dean withal 
 Of that temple we see with a golden ball, 
 
 And a golden cross above it. 
 21 
 
 ZZZ.i 
 
242 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 The font was a bowl of American gold, 
 Won by Raleigh in clays of old, 
 
 In spite of Spanish bravado ; 
 And the book of prayer was so overrun 
 With gilt devices, it shone in the sun 
 Like a copy — a presentation one — 
 
 Of Humboldt's "El Dorado." 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but gold ! 
 The same auriferous shine behold 
 
 Wherever the eye could settle ! 
 On the walls — the sideboard — the ceiling-sky — 
 On the gorgeous footmen standing by, 
 In coats to delight a miner's eye 
 
 With seams of the precious metal. 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and besides the gold. 
 The very robe of the infant told 
 A tale of wealth in every fold, 
 
 It lapped her like a vapor ! 
 So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss 
 Could compare it to nothing except a cross 
 
 Of cobweb with bank-note paper. 
 
 Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect sight, forsooth, 
 To see them, like "the dew of her youth," 
 
 In such a plentiful sprinkle. 
 Meanwhile, the vicar read through the form. 
 And gave her another, not overwarm. 
 
 That made her little eyes twinkle. 
 
 Then the babe was crossed and blessed amain ; 
 But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane, 
 
 Which the humbler female endorses — 
 Instead of one name, as some people prefiXj 
 Kilmansegg went at the tails of six, 
 
 Like a carriage of state with its horses. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND UER PRECIOUS LEG. 246 
 
 ! then the kisses she got and hugs ! 
 The golden mugs and the golden jugs, 
 
 That lent fresh rays to the midges ! 
 The golden knives, and the golden spoons, 
 The gems that sparkled like fairy boons, 
 It was one of the Kilmansegg's own saloons, 
 
 But looked like Rundell and Bridge's ! 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! the ne^Y and the old ! 
 The company ate and drank from gold, 
 
 They revelled, they sang, and were merry ; 
 And one of the Gold Sticks rose from his chair 
 And toasted " the lass with the golden hair " 
 
 In a bumper of golden sherry. 
 
 Gold ! still gold ! it rained on the nurse. 
 Who, unlike Daniie, was none the worse ; 
 There was nothing but guineas glistening ! 
 Fifty were given to Doctor James, 
 For calling the little baby names ; 
 And for saying Amen ! 
 The clerk had ten. 
 And that was the end of the Christening. 
 
 Our youth ! our childhood ! that spring of springs 
 'Tis surely one of the blessedest things 
 
 That nature ever invented ! 
 When the rich are wealthy beyond their ^vealth, 
 And the poor are rich in spirits and health, 
 
 And all with their lots contmted ! 
 
 There "s little Phelim, he sings like a thrush, 
 In the self-same pair of patchwork plush, 
 With the self-same empty pockets, 
 
24-i MISS KILilAXSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 That tempted his daddy so often to cut 
 His throat, or jump in the water-butt — 
 But what cares Phelim? an empty nut 
 "Would sooner bring tears to their sockets. 
 
 Give him a collar without a skirt, — 
 
 That 's the Irish linen for shirt ; 
 
 And a slice of bread, with a taste of dirt, — 
 
 That 's poverty's Irish butter : 
 And what does he lack to make him blest ? 
 Some oyster-shells, or a sparrow's nest, 
 
 A candle-end and a gutter. 
 
 But, to leave the happy Phelim alone, 
 Gnawing, perchance, a man'owless bone, 
 
 For which no dog would quarrel — 
 Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Cutting her fii'st little toothy-peg 
 With a fifty-guinea coral — 
 A peg upon which 
 About poor and rich 
 Reflection mio;ht hancr a moral. 
 
 Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed, 
 
 Capped, papped, napped, and lapped from the first 
 
 On the knees of Prodigality. 
 Her childhood was one eternal round 
 Of the game of going on Tickler's ground 
 
 Coo o 
 
 Picking up gold — in reality. 
 
 With extempore carts she never played, 
 Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's trade, 
 Or little dirt pies and puddings made, 
 
 Like children happy and squalid ; 
 The very puppet she had to pet. 
 Like a bait for the " Xix my Dolly " set, 
 
 Was a dolly of gold — and solid ! 
 
MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 245 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! 't was the burden still ! 
 To gain the heiress's early good will 
 
 There was much corruption and bribery ; 
 The yearly cost of her golden toys 
 Would have given half London's charity-boys 
 And charity-girls the annual joys 
 
 Of a holiday dinner at Highbury. 
 
 Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ; 
 And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's day ; 
 
 Till her fancy was tinged by her presents — 
 And fii'st a goldfinch excited her wish, 
 Then a spherical bowl with its golden fish, 
 
 And then two golden pheasants. 
 
 Nay, once she squalled and screamed like wild — 
 And it shows how the bias we give to a child 
 
 Is a thing most weighty and solemn : — 
 But whence was wonder or blame to spring 
 E little Miss K.— after such a swing — 
 Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing 
 
 On the top of the Fish-street column 1 
 
 J^er ISoucation. 
 
 According to metaphysical creed. 
 
 To the earliest books that children read 
 
 For much good or much bad they are debtors — 
 But before with their ABC they start, 
 There are things in morals, as well as art. 
 That play a very important part — 
 
 " Impressions before the ktters." 
 
 Dame Education begms the pile. 
 Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian style. 
 But alas for the elevation ! 
 21* 
 
246 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 If the lady's maid or Gossip the nurse 
 With a load of rubbish, or something worse, 
 Have made a rotten foundation. 
 
 Even thus with little Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Before she learnt her E for egg, 
 
 Ere her governess came, or her masters — 
 Teachers of quite a different kind 
 Had "crammed" her beforehand, and put her mind 
 
 In a go-cart on golden castors. 
 
 Long before her A B and C, 
 
 They had taught her by heart her L. S. D., 
 
 And as how she was born a great heiress ; 
 And as sure as London is built of bricks, 
 My lord would ask her the day to fix 
 To ride in a fine gilt coach and six, 
 
 Like Her Worship the Lady Mayoress. 
 
 Instead of stories from Edgeworth's page. 
 The true golden lore for our golden age. 
 
 Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer, 
 Teaching the worth of virtue and health, 
 All that she knew was the virtue of wealth, 
 Provided by vulgar nursery stealth 
 
 With a book of leaf-gold for a primer. 
 
 The very metal of merit they told. 
 
 And praised her for being as " good as gold ! " 
 
 Till she grew as a peacock haughty ; 
 Of money they talked the whole day round, 
 And weighed desert like grapes by the pound. 
 Till she had an iiea from the very sound 
 
 That people with naught were naughty. 
 
 They praised — poor children with nothing at all ! 
 Lord ! how you twaddle and waddle and squall. 
 Like common-bred geese and ganders ! 
 
MISS IvILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 247 
 
 What sad little bad little figures you make 
 To the rich Miss K., whose plainest seed-cake 
 Was stuffed with corianders ! 
 
 They praised her falls, as well as her walk, 
 
 Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk, 
 
 They praised — how they praised — her very small talk 
 
 As if it fell from a Solon ! 
 Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop 
 A ruby comma, or pearl full-stop, 
 
 Or an emerald semi-colon. 
 
 They praised her spirit, and now and then 
 The nurse brought her own little " nevy " Ben, 
 
 To play with the future mayoress : 
 And when he got raps, and taps, and slaps. 
 Scratches and pinches, snips and snaps. 
 
 As if from a tigress, or bearess, 
 They told him how lords would court that hand, 
 And always gave him to understand, 
 While he rubi^ed, poor soul. 
 His carrotty poll. 
 
 That his hair had been pulled by " a hairess." 
 
 Such were the lessons from maid and nurse, 
 A governess helped to make still worse, 
 Giving an appetite so perverse 
 
 Fresh diet whereon to batten — 
 Beginning with A B C to hold 
 Like a royal playbill printed in gold 
 
 On a square of pearl-white satin. 
 
 The books to teach the verbs and nouns. 
 And those about countries, cities and towns, 
 Instead of their sober di'abs and browns, 
 
 Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges ; — 
 Her Butler, and Enfield, and Entick — in short, 
 
248 MISS KILilAXSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Her "early lessons" of every sort, 
 
 Looked like souvenirs, keepsakes, and pledges. 
 
 Old Johnson shone out in as fine array 
 
 As he did one night when he vrent to the play ; 
 
 Chambaud Kke a beau of King Charles's day — 
 
 Lindlej Murray in like conditions ; 
 Each vreary, unwelcome, irksome task, 
 Appeared in a fancy dress and a mask — 
 If you wish for similar copies, ask 
 
 For Howell and James's editions. 
 
 Novels she read to amuse her mind. 
 
 But ahvavs the affluent match-making; kind. 
 
 That ends with Promessi Sposi, 
 And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand, 
 He could give check-mate to Coutts in the Strand 
 
 So, along with a ring and posy, 
 He endows the bride with Golconda off-hand, 
 
 And gives the groom Potosi. 
 
 Plays she perused — but she liked the best 
 ' Those comedy gentlefolks always possessed 
 
 Of fortunes so truly romantic — 
 Of money so ready that right or wrong 
 It always is ready to go for a song. 
 Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong — 
 They ought to have purses as green and long 
 
 As the cacumber called the Gigantic. 
 
 Then Eastern tales she loved for the sake 
 Of the pui^e of Oriental make. 
 
 And the thousand pieces they put in it ; 
 But pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold, 
 For Nature with her had lost its hold, 
 No field but the Field of the Cloth of Gold 
 
 "Would ever have caught her foot in it. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AIsD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 249 
 
 What more 7 She learnt to sing and dance, 
 To sit on a horse, although he should prance, 
 And to speak a French not spoken in France 
 
 Any more than at Babel's building ; 
 And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks, 
 But her great delight was in foncy works 
 
 That are done with gold or gilding. 
 Gold ! still gold ! — the bright and the dead, 
 With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread, 
 She worked in gold, as if for her bread ; 
 
 The metal had so undermined her. 
 Gold ran m her thoughts and filled her brain, 
 She was golden-headed as Peter's cane 
 With which he walked behind her. 
 
 J^tv ^accCUent. 
 The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg, 
 And a better never lifted leg, 
 
 Was a very rich bay, called Banker ; 
 A horse of a breed and a metal so rare, — , 
 By Bullion out of an Ingot mare, — 
 That for action, the best of figures, and air. 
 
 It made many good judges hanker. 
 
 And when she took a ride in the park, 
 Equestrian lord, or pedestrian clerk, 
 
 Was thrown in an amorous fever, 
 To see the heiress how well she sat. 
 With her groom behind her. Bob or Nat, 
 In green, half smothered with gold, and a hat 
 
 With more gold lace than beaver. 
 
 And then when Banker obtained a pat. 
 To see how he arched his neck at that ! 
 He snorted with pride and pleasure ! 
 Like the steed in the fable so lofty and grand, 
 
250 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Wlio gave the poor ass to understiind 
 That he did n't carry a bag of sand, 
 But a burden of golden treasure. 
 
 A load of treasure ? — alas ! alas ! 
 
 Had her horse but been fed upon English grass, 
 
 And sheltered in Yorkshire spinnejs, 
 Had he scoured the sand with the desert ass. 
 
 Or where the American whinnies — 
 But a hunter from Erin's turf and gorse, 
 A regular thorough-bred Irish horse, 
 Whj, he ran away, as a matter of course, 
 
 With a girl worth her weight in guineas ! 
 
 Mayhap 't is the trick of such pampered nags 
 To shy at the sisrht of a begmr in rao;s. 
 
 But away, like the bolt of a rabbit, 
 Away went the horse in the madness of fright, 
 And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight ■ 
 "Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light. 
 
 Or only the skirt of her habit 7 
 
 Away she flies, with the groom behind, — 
 It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind, 
 
 When Hymen himself is the starter : 
 And the maid rides first in the four-footed strife. 
 Biding, striding, as if for her life, 
 While the lover rides after to catch him a wife, 
 
 Althouo;h it "s catchincf a Tartar. 
 
 But the groom has lost his glittering hat ! 
 Though he does not sigh and pull up for that — 
 Alas ! his horse is a tit for tat 
 
 To sell to a very low bidder — 
 His wind is ruined, his shoulder is sprung ; 
 Things, though a horse be handsome and young, 
 
 A purchaser will consider. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 251 
 
 But Still flies the heiress through stones and dust ; 
 0, for a fall, if fall she must, 
 
 On the gentle lap of Flora ! 
 But still, thank Heaven ! she clings to her seat — 
 Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat 
 With the dead who ride so fast and fleet 
 
 In the ballad of Leonora ! 
 
 Away she gallops ! — it 's awful work ! 
 It 's faster than Turpin's ride to York, 
 
 On Bess, that notable clipper ! 
 She has circled the ring ! — she crosses the park ! 
 Mazeppa, although he was stripped so stark, 
 
 Mazeppa could n't outstrip her ! 
 
 The fields seem running away with the folks ! 
 The elms are having a race for the oaks, 
 
 At a pace that all jockeys disparages ! 
 All, all is racing ! the Serpentine 
 Seems rushing past like the " arrowy Rhine," 
 The houses have got on a railway line. 
 
 And are ofi" like the first-class carriages ! 
 
 She '11 lose her life ! she is losing her breath ! 
 A cruel chase, she is chasing Death, 
 
 As female shriekings forewarn her : 
 And now — as gratis as blood of Guelph — 
 She clears that gate, which has cleared itself 
 
 Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! 
 
 Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
 For her head, her brains, her body, and legs, 
 Her life 's not worth a copper ! 
 Willy-nilly, 
 In Piccadilly, 
 .V hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, 
 A hundred voices cry, " Stop her ! " 
 
252 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And one old gentleman stares and stands, 
 Shakes his head and lifts his hands, 
 And says. " How very improper ! " 
 
 On and on ! — what a perilous run ! 
 The iron rails seem all mingling in one, 
 
 To shut out the Green Park scenery ! 
 And now the cellar its dangers reveals, 
 She shudders — she shrieks — she 's doomed, she feels. 
 To be torn by powers of horses and wheels, 
 
 Like a spinner by steam machinery ! 
 
 Sick with horror she shuts her eyes, 
 But the very stones seem uttering cries. 
 
 As they did to that Persian daughter. 
 When she climbed up the steep vociferous hill, 
 Her little silver flagon to fill 
 
 "With the magical golden water ! 
 
 " Batter her ! shatter her ! 
 
 Throw and scatter her ! ' ' 
 Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer. 
 
 '• Dash at the heavy Dover ! 
 Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! 
 Smash her ! crash her ! " (the stones did n't flatter her .) 
 " Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her ! 
 
 Roll on her over and over ! " 
 
 For so she gathered the awful sense 
 
 Of the street in its past uimiacadamized tense. 
 
 As the wild horse overran it, — 
 His four heels making the clatter of six. 
 Like a devil's tattoo, played with iron sticks 
 
 On a kettle-drum of granite ! 
 
 On ! still on ! she 's dazzled with hints 
 Of oranges, ribbons, and colored prints, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 253 
 
 A kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints, 
 
 And human faces all flashing, 
 Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints 
 
 That the desperate hoof keeps dashing ! 
 
 On and on ! still frightfully fast ! 
 
 Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past ! 
 
 But — yes — no — yes ! — they 're down at last ! 
 
 The Furies and Fates have found them ! 
 Down they go with a sparkle and crash. 
 Like a bark that's struck by the lightning flash — ■ 
 
 There 's a shriek — and a sob — 
 
 And the dense dark mob 
 Like a billow closes around them ! 
 
 'P -W *ir Tf ■T? "ff 
 
 * * * * * ■ * 
 
 " She breathes ! " 
 " She don't ! " 
 " She '11 recover ! " 
 " She won't ! " 
 " She 's stirring ! she 's living, by Nemesis ! " 
 Gold, still gold ! on counter and shelf ! 
 Golden dishes as plenty as delf ! 
 Miss Kilmansegg 's coming again to herself 
 On an opulent goldsmith's premises ! 
 
 Gold ! fine gold ! — both yellow and red, 
 Beaten, and molten — polished, and dead — 
 To see the gold with profusion spread 
 
 In all forms of its manuficture I 
 But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg, 
 When the femoral bone of her dexter leg 
 
 Has met with a compound fracture 1 
 22 
 
254 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Gold may soothe Adversity's smart ; 
 Naj, help to bin«l up a broken heart : 
 But to try it on any other part 
 
 Were as certain a disappointment. 
 As if one should rub the dish and plate, 
 Taken out of a Staffordshire crate — 
 In the hope of a golden service of state — 
 
 With Singleton's "Golden Ointment." 
 
 %itv i3cec[ous Heg. 
 
 " As the twig is bent, the tree "s inclined," 
 Is an adage often recalled to mind, 
 
 Referring to juvenile bias : 
 And never so well is the verity seen, 
 As when to the weak, warped side we lean, 
 
 While life's tempests and hurricanes try us. 
 
 Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb, 
 By a very, very remarkable whim, 
 
 She showed her early tuition : 
 While the buds of character came into blow 
 With a certain tmge that served to show 
 The nursery culture loner aero. 
 
 As the graft is known by fruition ! 
 
 For the king's physician, who nursed the case. 
 His verdict gave with an awful face. 
 
 And three others concurred to egg it : 
 That the patient, to give old Death the slip, 
 Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip, 
 
 Must send her leg as a legate. 
 
 The Ihnb was doomed, — it couldn't be saved, — 
 And like other people the patient behaved, 
 Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 255 
 
 Which makes some persons so falter, 
 They rather would part, without a groan, 
 With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, 
 
 The J obtained at St. George's altar. 
 
 But "when it came to fitting the stump 
 With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump 
 
 She spoke, in the spirit olden ; 
 She couldn't — she shouldn't — she wouldn't — have wood ! 
 Xor a leg of cork, if she never stood, 
 And she swore an oath, or something as good, 
 
 The proxy limb should be golden I 
 
 A wooden leg ! what, a sort of peg, 
 
 For your common Jockeys and Jennies ! 
 No, no, her mother might worry and plague — 
 Weep, go down on her knees, and beg, 
 But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg ! 
 She could — she would have a Golden Leg, 
 
 If it cost ten thousand guineas ! 
 
 Wood indeed, in forest or park. 
 
 With its sylvan honors and feudal bark, 
 
 Is an aristocratical article : 
 But split and sawn, and hacked about town. 
 Serving all needs of pauper or clown, 
 Trod on ! staggered on ! Wood cut down 
 
 Is vulgar — fibre and particle ! 
 
 And cork ! — when the noble cork-tree shades 
 A lovely group of Castilian maids, 
 
 'T is a thino- for a sons; or sonnet ! — 
 But cork, as it stops the bottle of gin. 
 Or bungs the beer — the small beer — in, 
 It pierced her heart like a corking-pin, 
 
 To think of standing upon it ! 
 
256 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 A leg of gold — solid gold throughout, 
 Nothing else, whether slim or stout. 
 
 Should ever support her, God willing ! 
 She must — she could — she would have her whim 
 Her ftxther, she turned a deaf ear to him — 
 
 He might kill her — she didn't mind killing ! 
 He was welcome to cut off her other limb — 
 
 He might cut her all off with a shilling ! 
 
 All other promised gifts were in vain, 
 
 Golden girdle, or golden chain, 
 
 She writhed with impatience more than pain, 
 
 And uttered " pshaws ! " and " pishes ! " 
 But a leg of gold ! as she lay in bed, 
 It danced before her — it ran in her head ! 
 
 It jumped with her dearest wishes ! 
 
 '• Gold — gold — gold ! 0, let it be gold ! " 
 Asleep or awake that tale she told, 
 
 And when she grew delirious : 
 Till her parents resolved to grant her wish. 
 If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish, 
 
 The case was getting so serious. 
 
 So a leg was made in a comely mould. 
 Of gold, fine virgin glittering gold. 
 
 As solid as man could make it — 
 Solid in foot, and calf, and shank, 
 *• A prodigious sum of money it sank ; 
 In fiict, 't was a branch of the family bank. 
 
 And no easy matter to break it. 
 
 All sterling metal, — not half-and-half. 
 
 The goldsmith's mark was stamped on the calf, — 
 
 'T was pure as from Mexican barter ! 
 And" to make it more costly, just over the knee, 
 Where another ligature used to be, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND UER PRECIOUS LEG. 257 
 
 Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see, 
 A new-fangled budge of the garter ! 
 
 'T was a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg. 
 Fit for the court of Scander-Beg, 
 That i^recious leg of Miss Kilmansegg ! 
 
 For, thanks to parental bounty, 
 Secure from mortification's touch, 
 She stood on a member that cost as much 
 
 As a Member for all the County ! 
 
 • ?^Er Jfame. 
 
 To gratify stern Ambition's whims. 
 
 What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs 
 
 On a field of battle we scatter ! 
 Severed by sword, or bullet, or saw, 
 Off they go, all bleeding and raw, — 
 But the public seems to get the lock-jaw, 
 
 So little is said on the matter ! 
 
 Legs, the tightest that ever were seen, 
 
 The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green, 
 
 Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover ; 
 Shattered, scattered, cut, and bowled down, 
 Off they go, worse off for renown, 
 A line in the Times^ or a talk about town, 
 
 Than the leg that a fly runs over ! 
 
 But the precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Tho.t gowden, goolden, golden leg, 
 
 Was the theme of all conversation ! 
 Had it been a pillar of church and state, 
 Or a prop to support the whole dead weight. 
 It could not have furnished more debate 
 
 To the heads and tails of the nation ! 
 22* 
 
258 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 East and west, and north and south, 
 
 Though useless for either hunger or drouth, — ■ 
 
 The Leg was in everybody's mouth, 
 
 To use a poetical figure ; 
 Rumor, in taking her ravenous swim, 
 Saw, and seized on the tempting limb. 
 
 Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. 
 
 Wilful murder fell very dead ; 
 
 Debates in the House were hardly read ; 
 
 In vain the police reports were fed 
 
 With L-ish riots and mmpuses — 
 The Leg ! the Leg ! was the great event ; 
 Through every circle in life it went. 
 
 Like the leg of a pair of compasses. 
 
 The last new novel seemed tame and flat ; 
 The Leg, a novelty newer than that, 
 
 Had tripped up the heels of fiction ! ' 
 It Burked the very essays of Burke, 
 And, alas ! how wealth over wit plays the Turk ! 
 As a regular piece of goldsmith's work, 
 
 Got the better of Goldsmith's diction. 
 
 " A leg of gold ! what, of solid gold 7" 
 Cried rich and poor, and young and old, 
 
 And Master and Miss and ]\Iadam ; 
 'T was the talk of 'change — the alley — the bank ■ 
 And with men of scientific rank 
 It made as much stir as the fossil shank 
 
 Of a lizard coeval with Adam ! 
 
 Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves, 
 
 Men who had lost a limb themselves, 
 
 Its interest did not dwindle ; 
 But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and Tom, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 259 
 
 Could hardly have spun more yarns therefrom, 
 If the leg had been a spindle. 
 
 jMeainvliile the story Avent to and fro, 
 Till, gathering like the ball of snow. 
 By the time it got to Stratford-le-Bow, 
 
 Through exaggeration's touches. 
 The heiress and hope of the Ivilmanseggs 
 Was propped on two fine golden legs, 
 
 And a pair of golden crutches ! 
 
 Never had leg so great a run ! 
 
 'T was the " go " and the " kick " thrown into one 
 
 The mode — the new thing under the sun ! 
 
 The rage — the fancy — the passion ! 
 Bonnets were named, and hats were worn, 
 A la golden leg instead of Leghorn, 
 And stockings and shoes 
 Of golden hues 
 Took the lead in the walks of fashion ! 
 
 The Golden Leg had a vast career. 
 
 It was sung and danced — and to show how near 
 
 Low folly to lofty approaches, 
 Down to society's very dregs, 
 The belles of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs," 
 And St. Giles's beaux sported golden legs 
 
 In their pinchbeck pins and brooches ! 
 
 31^ev JFirst Step. 
 
 Supposing the trunk and limbs of man 
 Shared, on the allegorical plan. 
 
 By the passions that mark humanity. 
 Whichever might claim the head, or heart, 
 The stomach, or any other part. 
 
 The legs would be seized by Vanity. 
 
'160 MISS KIIJMAXSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 There's Bardus. a six-foot column of fop, 
 A lighthouse without anj light atop, 
 
 Whose height would attract beholders, 
 If he had not lost some inches clear 
 By looking down at his kerseymere, 
 Ogling the limbs he holds so dear, 
 
 Till he got a stoop in his shoulders. 
 
 Calk of art. of science, or books, 
 A.nd down go the everlasting looks. 
 
 To his crural beauties so wedded ! 
 Try him. whenever you will, you find 
 Bjs mind in his legs, and his legs in his mind, 
 All prongs and folly — in short, a kind 
 Of fork — that is fiddle-headed. 
 
 What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg, 
 With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg, 
 Fit for the court of Scander-Bes:, 
 Disdained to hide it, like Joan or Meg, 
 
 In petticoats stuffed or quilted? 
 Not she ! 't was her convalescent whim 
 To dazzle the world with her precious limb,- 
 
 Nay, to go a little high-kilted. 
 
 So cards Avere sent for that sort of mob 
 Where Tartars and Africans hob-and-nob, 
 And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob 
 
 To Polish or Lapland lovers — 
 Cards like that hieroglyphical call 
 To a geographical Fancy Ball 
 
 On the recent post-office covers. 
 
 For if lion-hunters — and great ones too — 
 
 Would mob a savage from Latakoo. 
 
 Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 261 
 
 That unfortunate Sandwich scion — 
 Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt, 
 Would gladly, madlj, rush to a rout, 
 
 That promised a Golden Lion ! 
 
 ^et 3ancs 33all. 
 
 Of all the spirits of evil fame 
 
 That hurt the soul or injure the frame, 
 
 And poison what 's honest and hearty. 
 There 's none more needs a Mathew to preach 
 A cooling, antiphlogistic speech, 
 To praise and enforce 
 A temperate course, 
 Than the Evil Spirit of Party. 
 
 Go to the House of Commons, or Lords, 
 And they seem to be busy with simple words 
 
 In their popular sense or pedantic — 
 But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers, 
 They 're really busy, whatever appears, 
 Putting peas in each other's ears, 
 
 To drive their enemies frantic ! 
 
 Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs, 
 
 Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs, 
 
 Gi^ang them lashes, thrashes, and digs, 
 
 With their writliing and pain delighted — 
 But after all that 's said, and more, 
 The malice and spite of Party are poor 
 To the malice and spite of a party next door, 
 
 To a party not invited. 
 
 On with the cap and out with the light. 
 Weariness bids the world good-night, 
 
 At least for the usual season ; 
 But, hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ; 
 
262 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels, 
 Like Wilful Murder and Treason ! 
 
 Another crash — and the carriage goes — 
 Again poor Weariness seeks the repose 
 
 That Nature demands imperious ; 
 But Echo takes up the burden noAf, 
 With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow, 
 Till Silence herself seems making a row, 
 
 Like a Quaker gone delirious ! 
 
 'T is night — a winter night — and the stars 
 Are shining like winkin' — Venus and Mars 
 Are rolling along in their golden cars 
 
 Through the sky's serene expansion — • 
 But vainly the stars dispense their rays, 
 Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze 
 
 Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous mansion ! 
 
 Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright .' 
 His bed-chamber windows look so bright, 
 
 With light all the square is glutted ! 
 Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan, 
 And a tremor sickens his inward man, 
 For he feels as only a gentleman can 
 
 Who thinks he 's being " gutted." 
 
 Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ; 
 But only to dream of a dreadful storm 
 
 From Autumn's sulphurous locker : 
 But the only electric body that falls 
 Wears a negative coat and positive smalls, 
 And draws the peal that so appalls 
 
 From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker I 
 
 'T is Curiosity's benefit night — 
 
 And perchance 't is the English second-sight, 
 
 1 
 
MISS KILMAXSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 268 
 
 But whatever it be, so be it — 
 As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg 
 Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg, 
 
 As many more 
 
 Mob round the door, 
 To see them going to see it ! 
 
 In they go — in jackets and cloaks, 
 Plumes, and bonnets, turbans, and toques, 
 
 As if to a Congress of Nations : 
 Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks, 
 Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Turks — 
 Some like original foreign works, 
 
 But mostly like bad translations. 
 
 In they go, and to work like a pack, 
 
 Juan, Moses, and Shachabac, 
 
 Tom. and Jerry, and Springheeled Jack, 
 
 For some of low Fancy are lovers — 
 Skirtincr. zigzaorwing castino; about, 
 Here and there, and in and out, 
 With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout 
 
 In one of the stiffest of covers. 
 
 In they went, and hunted about, 
 Open-mouthed like chub and trout. 
 And some with the upper lip thrust out. 
 
 Like that fish for routing, a barbel — 
 While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the crowd, 
 And rubbed his hands, and smiled aloud. 
 And bowed, and bowed, and bowed, and bowed. 
 
 Like a man who is sawing marble. 
 
 For princes were there, and noble peers ; 
 Dukes descended from Noi-man spears ; 
 Earls that dated from early years ; 
 
264 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And lords in vast variety — 
 Besides the gentry both new and old — 
 For people who stand on legs of gold 
 
 Are sure to stand well with society. 
 
 " But where — where — where ? " with one accord 
 Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord, 
 
 Wang-Fong and II Bondocani — 
 When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump, 
 They heard a foot begin to stump. 
 Thump ! lump ! 
 Lump ! thump ! 
 Like the spectre in " Don Giovanni ! " 
 
 And, lo ! the heiress, Miss Kilmansegg, 
 With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, 
 
 In the garb of a goddess olden — 
 Like chaste Diana going to hunt, 
 With a golden spear — which of course was blunt. 
 And a tunic looped up to a gem in front. 
 
 To show the Leg that was Golden ! 
 
 Gold ! still gold ! her Crescent behold. 
 That should be silver, but would be gold ; 
 
 And her robe's auriferous spangles ! 
 Her golden stomacher — how she would melt ! 
 Her golden quiver and golden belt. 
 
 Where a golden bugle dangles ! 
 
 And her jewelled garter 1 0, sin ! 0, shame ' 
 Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame. 
 That brings such blots on female fame ! 
 
 But to be a true recorder. 
 Besides its thin transparent stuff, 
 The tunic was looped quite high enough 
 
 To give a glimpse of the Order ! 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 265 
 
 But what have sin or shame to do 
 
 With a Golden Leg — and a stout one, too 1 
 
 Awaj with all Prudery's panics ! 
 That the precious metal, by thick and thin, 
 Will cover square acres of land or sin, 
 Is a fact made plain 
 Again, and again, 
 In morals as well as mechanics. 
 
 A few, indeed, of her proper sex. 
 
 Who seemed to feel her foot on their necks, 
 
 And feared then- charms would meet with checks 
 
 From so rare and splendid a blazon — 
 A few cried " fie ! " — and ■ ■ forward " ' — and ' ' bold ! ' 
 And said of the Leg it might be gold, 
 
 But to them it looked like brazen ! 
 
 'T was hard, they hinted, for flesh and blood, 
 Virtue, and beauty, and all that 's good, 
 
 To strike to mere dross their topgallants — 
 But what were beauty, or virtue, or worth, 
 Gentle manners, or gentle birth. 
 Nay, what the most talented head on earth 
 
 To a Leg worth fifty Talents ! 
 
 But the men sang quite another hymn 
 
 Of glory and praise to the precious limb — 
 
 Age, sordid age, admired the whim, 
 
 And its indecorum pardoned — 
 While half of the young — ay, more than half — 
 Bowed down and worshipped the Golden Calf, 
 
 Like the Jews when their hearts were hardened. 
 
 A Golden Leg ! what fancies it fired ! 
 What golden wishes and hopes mspired ! 
 To give but a mere abridgment — 
 23 
 
266 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 What a leg to leg-bail Embarrassment's serf ! 
 What a leg for a leg to take on the turf ! 
 What a leg for a marching regiment ! 
 
 A Golden Leg ! — whatever Love sings, 
 
 'T was worth a bushel of ■• plain gold I'ings," 
 
 With which the romantic wheedles. 
 'T was worth all the legs in stockings and socks 
 'T was a leg that might be i^ut in the stocks, 
 
 N. B. — Not the parish beadle's ! 
 
 And Ladj K. nid-nodded her head, 
 Lapped in a turban fancj-bred, 
 Just like a love-apple, huge and red, 
 Some Mussul- womanish mystery ; 
 But whatever she meant 
 To represent, 
 She talked like the Muse of History. 
 
 She told how the filial leg was lost : 
 And then how much the gold one cost 
 
 With its weight to a Trojan fraction 
 And how it took off, and how it put on 
 And called on Devil, Duke, and Don, 
 Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, 
 
 To notice its beautiful action. 
 
 And then of the Leg she went in quest ; 
 And led it where the light was best ; 
 And made it lay itself up to rest 
 
 In postures for painters' studies : 
 It cost more tricks and trouble, by half. 
 Than it takes to exhibit a six-leg-cred calf 
 
 To a boothful of country cuddies. 
 
 Nor yet did the heiress herself omit 
 The arts that help to make a hit, 
 
MISS KTLMANSEGQ AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 267 
 
 And preserve a prominent station. 
 She talked and laughed far more than her share ; 
 And took a part in '• Rich and Rare 
 Were the Gems she wore " — and the gems were there^ 
 
 Like a song with an illustration. 
 
 She even stood up Avith a count of France 
 To dance — alas ! the measui-es we dance 
 
 When Vanity plays the piper ! 
 Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray, 
 And lead all sorts of legs astray, 
 Wood, or metal, or human clay, — 
 
 Since Satan first played the viper ! 
 
 But first she doffed her hunting gear, 
 
 And favored Tom Tug with her golden spear, 
 
 To row with down the river — 
 A Bonze had her golden bow to hold ; 
 A Hermit her belt and bugle of gold ; 
 
 And an Abbot her golden quiver. 
 
 And then a space was cleared on the floor, 
 And she walked the Minuet de la Cour, 
 With all the pomp of a Pompadour ; 
 
 But, although she began andante, 
 Conceive the faces of all the rout, 
 When she finished off with a whirligig bout. 
 And the Precious Leg stuck stifily out 
 
 Like the leg of a figurante, ! 
 
 So the courtly dance was goldenly done. 
 And golden opinions, of course, it won 
 
 From all different sorts of people — 
 Chiming, ding-dong, with flattering phrase, 
 In one vociferous peal of praise, 
 Like the peal that rings on royal days 
 
 From Loyalty's parish steeple. 
 
•268 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And yet, had the leg been one of those 
 That dance for bread in flesh-colored hose, 
 
 "With Rosina's pastoral bevy, 
 The jeers it had met, — the shouts ! the scoff ! 
 The cutting advice to "take itself off," 
 
 For sounding but half so heairy. 
 
 Had it been a leg like those, perchance, 
 That teach little girls and boys to dance, 
 To set, poussette, recede, and advance. 
 
 With the steps and figures most proper, — 
 Had it hopped for a weekly or quarterly sum, 
 How little of praise or grist would have come 
 
 To a mill with such a hopper ! 
 
 But the Leg was none of those limbs forlorn — 
 Bartering capers and hops for corn — 
 That meet with public hisses and scorn, 
 
 Or the morning journal denounces — 
 Had it pleased to caper from morn till dusk, 
 There was all the music of '• Money Musk " 
 
 In its ponderous bangs and bounces. 
 
 But hark ! — as slow as the strokes of a pump, 
 Lump, thump ! 
 Thump, lump ! 
 As the Giant of Castle Otranto might stump 
 
 To a lower room from an upper — 
 Down she goes with a noisy dint. 
 For, taking the crimson turban's hint, 
 A noble lord at the head of the Mint 
 Is leading the Leg to supper ! 
 
 But the supper, alas ! must rest untold. 
 With its blaze of light and its glitter of gold, 
 For to paint that scene of glamour, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 269 
 
 It would need the great Enchanter's charm, 
 Who waves over palace, and cot, and farm, 
 An arm like the goldbeater's golden arm 
 That wields a golden hammer. 
 
 He — only He — could fitly state 
 
 The Massive Service of Golden Plate, 
 
 With the proper phrase and expansion — 
 The Rare Selection of Foreign Wines — 
 The Alps of Ice and Mountains of Pines, 
 The punch in Oceans and sugary shrines, 
 The Temple of Taste from Gunter's Designs — 
 In short, all that Wealth with a Feast combines, 
 
 In a Splendid Family Mansion. 
 
 Sufl&ce it each masked outlandish guest 
 Ate and drank of the very best, 
 
 According to critical conners — 
 And then they pledged the hostess and host, 
 But the Golden Leg was the standing toast. 
 And, as somebody swore, 
 Walked off with more 
 Than its share of the " hips ! " and honors ! 
 
 " Miss Kilmansegg ! — 
 Full glasses I beg ! — 
 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg ! " 
 
 And away went the bottle careering ! 
 Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in peals ! 
 Till the Clown did n't know his head from his heels. 
 The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels, 
 And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering ! 
 f^tv JDtcam. 
 Miss Kilmansegg took off her Leg, 
 And laid it down like a cribbage-peg, 
 28* 
 
270 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 For the rout was done and the riot : 
 The square was hushed ; not a sound was heard ; 
 The sky was gray, and no creature stirred, 
 Except one little precocious bird, 
 
 That chii-ped — and then was quiet. 
 
 So still without. — so still within : — 
 It had been a sin 
 To di'op a pin — 
 So intense is silence after a din. 
 
 It seemed like Death's rehearsal ! 
 To stir the air no eddy came ; 
 And the taper burnt ynth as still a flame, 
 As to flicker had been a burning shame, 
 In a calm so universal. 
 
 The time for sleep had come, at last ; 
 And there was the bed, so soft, so vast. 
 
 Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover ; 
 Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt, 
 From the piece of work just ravelled out, 
 For one of the pleasures of having a rout 
 
 Is the pleasure of having it over. 
 
 No sordid pallet, or truckle mean, 
 
 Of straw, and rug. and tatters unclean ; 
 
 But a splendid, gilded, carved machine, 
 
 That was fit for a royal chamber. 
 On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath ; 
 And the damask curtains hunor beneath. 
 
 Like clouds of crimson and amber. 
 
 Curtains, held up by two little plump things, 
 With golden bodies and golden wings, — 
 Mere fins for such solidities — 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 271 
 
 Two Cupids, in short, 
 Of the regular sort, 
 But the housemaid called them " Cupidities.'' 
 
 No patchwork quilt, all seams and scars, 
 But velvet, powdered with golden stars, 
 
 A fit mantle for iVi o-A^commanders ! 
 And the pillow, as -fl-hite as snow undimmed. 
 And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimmed, 
 Was cased in the finest cambric, and trimmed 
 
 With the costliest lace of Flanders. 
 
 And the bed — of the eider's softest down, 
 'T was a place to revel, to smother, to drown 
 
 In a bliss inferred by the poet ; 
 For if ignorance be indeed a bliss, 
 What blessed ignorance equals this. 
 
 To sleep — and not to know it 7 
 
 0, bed ! 0, bed ! delicious bed ! 
 
 That heaven upon earth to the weary head ; 
 
 But a place that to name would be ill-bred. 
 
 To the head with a wakeful trouble — 
 'T is held by such a different lease ! 
 To one, a place of comfort and peace, 
 All stuffed with the down of stubble geese. 
 
 To another with only the stubble ! 
 
 To one a perfect halcyon nest, 
 
 All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest, 
 
 And soft as the fur of the cony — 
 To another, so restless for body and head. 
 That the bed seems borrowed from Nettlebed, 
 
 And the pillow from Stratford the Stony ! 
 
 To the happy, a first-class carriage of ease, 
 To the Land of Nod, or where you please ; 
 
272 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 But alas ! for the watchers and -weepers, 
 Who turn, and turn, and turn again, 
 But turn, and turn, and turn in vain. 
 With an anxious brain, 
 And thoughts in a train 
 That does not run upon sleepers ! 
 
 Wide awake as the mousing owl, 
 Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl, — 
 
 But more profitless vigils keeping, — 
 Wide awake in the dark thej stare. 
 Filling with phantoms the vacant air. 
 As if that crook-backed tyrant Care 
 
 Had plotted to kill them sleeping. 
 
 And ! when the blessed diurnal light 
 Is quenched by the providential night, 
 
 To render our slumber more certain, 
 Pity, pity the wretches that weep, 
 For they must be wretched who cannot sleep 
 
 When God himself draws the curtain ! 
 
 The careful Betty the pillow beats, 
 
 And airs the blankets, and smooths the sheets, 
 
 And gives the mattress a shaking — 
 But vainly Betty performs her part, 
 K a ruffled head and a rumpled heart 
 
 As well as the couch want making. 
 
 There 's Morbid, all bile, and verjuice, and nerves. 
 Where other people would make preserves, 
 
 He turns his fruits into pickles : 
 Jealous, en\aous, and fretful by day. 
 At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey. 
 He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, 
 
 Tormentmg himself with his prickles. 
 
MISS KILMAX3EGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 273 
 
 But a child — that bids the world orood-night, 
 In downright earnest, and cuts it quite — 
 
 A cherub no art can copy, — 
 'T is a perfect picture to see him lie 
 As if he had supped on dormouse pie, 
 (An ancient classical dish, by the by) 
 
 With sauce of syrup of poppy. 
 
 0, bed ! bed ! bed ! delicious bed ! 
 
 That heaven upon earth to the weary head. 
 
 Whether lofty or low its condition ! 
 But, instead of putting our plagues on shelves, 
 In our blankets how often we toss ourselves, 
 Or are tossed by such allegorical elves 
 
 As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambition ! 
 
 The independent Miss Kilmansegg 
 Took oflF her independent Leg 
 
 And laid it beneath her pillow, 
 And then on the bed her frame she cast ; 
 The time for repose had come at last, 
 But long, long after the storm is past 
 
 Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow. 
 
 Xo part she had in vulgar cares 
 
 That belong to common household affairs — 
 
 Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs 
 
 Who lie with a shrewd surmising 
 That while they are couchant (a bitter cup ! ) 
 Their bread and butter are getting up. 
 
 And the coals — confound them ! — are rising 
 
 No fear she had her sleep to postpone, 
 Like the crippled Avidow who weeps alone, 
 And cannot make a doze her own. 
 
 For the di-ead that mayhap on the morrow, 
 
274 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 The true and Christian reading to balk, 
 A broker will take up her bed and walk, 
 By way of curing her sorrow. 
 
 No cause like these she had to bewail : 
 
 But the breath of applause had blown a gale. 
 
 And winds from that quarter seldom fail 
 
 To cause some human commotion ; 
 But whenever such breezes coincide 
 With the very spring-tide 
 Of human pride. 
 There 's no such swell on the ocean ! 
 
 Peace, and ease, and slumber lost. 
 
 She turned, and rolled, and tumbled, and tossed, 
 
 With a tumult that would not settle : 
 A common case, indeed, with such 
 As have too little, or think too much. 
 
 Of the precious and glittering metal. 
 
 Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot 
 The peer whose tree had an olden root. 
 The proud, the great, the learned to boot, 
 
 The handsome, the gay, and the witty — 
 The man of science — of arms — of art. 
 The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart. 
 
 And the man who deals in the city. 
 
 Gold, still gold — and true to the mould ! 
 In the very scheme of her dream it told ; 
 
 For, by magical transmutation. 
 From her Leg through her body it seemed to. go, 
 Till, gold above, and gold below. 
 She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe 
 
 To her orsan of Veneration ! 
 
MISS KILMAXSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And still she retained, through Fancy's art, 
 The p;olden bow. and the orolden dart, 
 With -which she had played a goddess's part 
 
 In her recent glorification. 
 And still, like one of the self-same brood. 
 On a plinth of the self-same metal she stood 
 
 For the whole world's adoration. 
 
 And hymns of incense around her rolled. 
 From golden harps and censers of gold, — 
 For Fancy in di-eams is as uncontrolled 
 
 As a horse without a bridle : 
 What wonder, then, from all checks exempt, 
 If, inspired by the Golden Leg. she dreamt 
 
 She was turned to a golden idol 7 
 
 ?^er (ttouttsjip. 
 
 When, leaving Eden's happy land, 
 The grieving angel led by the hand 
 
 Our banished fother and mother, 
 Forgotten, amid their awful doom. 
 The teai-s. the fears, and the future's gloom, 
 On each brow was a wreath of Paradise bloom, 
 
 That our parents had twined for each other. 
 
 It was only while sitting like figures of stone, 
 For the grienng angel had skyward flown, 
 As they sat, those two, in the world alone, 
 
 With disconsolate hearts nigh cloven, 
 That, scenting the gust of happier hours, 
 'They looked around for the precious flowei's. 
 And, lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear bowers - 
 
 The chaplet that Love had woven ! 
 
 And still, when a pan- of lovers meet, 
 There 's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet, 
 
 275 
 
276 MISS KILMAXSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 That savors still of that happy retreat 
 Where Eve by Adam was courted : 
 Whilst the joyous thrush, and the gentle dove, 
 Wooed their mates in the boughs above, 
 And the serpent, as yet, only sported. 
 
 Who hath not felt that breath in the air, 
 
 A perfume and freshness strange and rare, 
 
 A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere, 
 
 When young hearts yearn together 7 
 All sweets below, and all sunny above, 
 ! there "s nothing in life like making love, 
 
 Save making hay in fine weather ! 
 
 Who hath not found amongst his flowers 
 A blossom too bright for this world of ours. 
 
 Like a rose among snows of Sweden 1 
 But, to turn again to Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Where must Love have gone to beg, 
 If such a thing as a Golden Les 
 
 Had put its foot in Eden ? 
 
 And yet — to tell the rigid truth — 
 
 Her favor was sought by age and youth — 
 
 For the prey will find a prowler ! 
 She was followed, flattered, courted, addressed, 
 Wooed, and cooed, and wheedled, and pressed, 
 By suitors from Xorth, South, East, and West, 
 
 Like that heiress, in song, Tibbie Fowler ! 
 
 But, alas ! alas ! for the woman's fate, 
 Who has from a mob to choose a mate ! 
 
 'T is a strange and painful mystery ! 
 But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch ; 
 The more the fish, the worse the catch ; 
 The more the sparks, the worse the match ; 
 
 Is a fact in woman's history. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 277 
 
 Give her betAveen a brace to pick, 
 
 And, mayhap, with luck to help the trick, 
 
 She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick — 
 
 But, her future bliss to baffle. 
 Amongst a score let her have a voice, 
 And she '11 have as little cause to rejoice 
 As if she had won the " ma,n of her choice " 
 
 In a matrimonial raffle ! 
 
 Thus, even thus, with the heiress and hope, 
 Fulfilling the adage of too much rope, 
 
 With so ample a competition. 
 She chose the least worthy of all the group, 
 Just as the vulture makes a stoop, 
 And singles out from the herd or troop 
 
 The beast of the worst condition. 
 
 A foreign count — who came incog.. 
 Not under a cloud, but under a fog, 
 
 In a Calais packet's fore-cabin. 
 To charm some lady British-born, 
 With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn, 
 And his hooky nose, and his beard half-shorn, 
 
 Like a half-converted Rabbin. 
 
 And because the sex confess a charm 
 
 In the man who has slashed a head or arm. 
 
 Or has been a throat's undoing, 
 He was dressed like one of the glorious trade, 
 At least when glory is off parade. 
 With a stock, and a frock, well trimmed with braid 
 
 And frogs — that went a- wooing. 
 
 Moreover, as counts are apt to do, 
 On the left-hand side of his dark surtout, 
 At one of those holes that buttons go through, 
 24 
 
278 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 (To be a precise recorder), 
 A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap, 
 About an inch of ribbon mayhap. 
 That one of his rivals, a whimsical cbap, 
 
 Described as his '• Retail Order." 
 
 And then — and much it helped bis chance — 
 He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance, 
 Perform charades and proverbs of France — 
 
 Act the tender, and do the cruel ; 
 For amongst his other killing parts. 
 He had broken a brace of female hearts, 
 
 And murdered three men in duel ! 
 
 Savage at heai-t, and false of tongue, 
 Subtle with age, and smooth to the young, 
 
 Like a snake in his coiling and curling — 
 Such was the count — to give him a niche — 
 "Wlio came to court that heiress rich. 
 And knelt at her foot — one need n't say which — 
 
 Besiegino; her castle of Sterll/ip-. 
 
 With prayers and vows he opened his trench, 
 And plied her with English, Spanish, and French, 
 
 In phrases the most sentimental ! 
 And quoted poems in high and low Dutch. 
 With now and then an Italian touch, 
 Till she yielded, without resisting much, 
 
 To homage so continental. 
 
 And then, the sordid bargain to close, 
 With a miniature sketch of his hooky nose. 
 And his dear dark eyes, as black as sloes. 
 And his beard and whiskers as black as those, 
 
 The lady's consent he requited — 
 And instead of the lock that lovers beg, 
 The count received from Miss Kilmansegg 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 279 
 
 A model, in small, of" her Precious Leg — 
 And so the couple were plighted ! 
 
 But, ! the love that gold must crown ! 
 Better — better, the love of the clown. 
 Who admires his lass in her Sunday gown, 
 
 As if all the fairies had dressed her ! 
 Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth, 
 Except that he never will part on earth 
 
 With his true love's crooked tester ! 
 
 Alas ! for the love that 's linked with gold ! 
 Better — better a thousand times told — 
 
 More honest, happy, and laudable, 
 The downright loving of pretty Cis, 
 Who wipes her lips, though there 's nothing amiss, 
 And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss, 
 
 In which her heart is audible ! 
 
 Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright, 
 
 Who loves as she labors, with all her might. 
 
 And without any sordid leaven ! 
 Who blushes as red as haws and hips, 
 Down to her very finger-tips. 
 For Roger's blue ribbons — to her, like strips 
 
 Cut out of the azure of heaven ! 
 
 JD^er iHarriage. 
 
 'T was morn — a most auspicious one ! 
 From the irolden East the golden sun 
 Came forth his glorious race to run, 
 
 Through clouds of most splendid tinges ; 
 Clouds that lately slept in shade. 
 But now seemed made 
 Of gold brocade, 
 With magnificent golden fringes. 
 
280 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Gold above, and gold below. 
 
 The earth reflected the golden glow, 
 
 From river, and hill, and valley ; 
 Gilt bj the golden light of morn. 
 The Thames — it looked like the Golden Horn, 
 And the barge that carried coal or corn 
 
 Like Cleopatra's galley ! 
 
 Bright as a cluster of golden-rod. 
 Suburban poplars began to nod, 
 
 With extempore splendor furnished ; 
 While London was bright with glittering clocks 
 Golden dragons, and golden cocks, 
 And above them all. 
 The dome of St. Paul, 
 With its golden cross and its golden ball, 
 Shone out as if newly burnished ! 
 
 And, lo ! for golden hours and joys. 
 Troops of glittering golden boys 
 Danced along with a jocund noise, 
 
 And their gilded emblems carried ! 
 Li short, 't was the year's most golden day. 
 By mortals called the first of May, 
 When Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Of the Golden Leg, 
 With a golden ring was married ! 
 
 And thousands of children, women, and men, 
 Counted the clock from eight till ten. 
 
 From St. James's sonorous steeple ; 
 For, next to that interesting job, 
 The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob, 
 There 's nothing so draws a London mob 
 
 As the noosing of very rich people. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGa AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 281 
 
 And a treat it was for a mob to behold 
 The bridal carriage that blazed with gold ! 
 And the footmen tall, and the coachman bold, 
 
 In liveries so resplendent — 
 Coats you wondered to see in place, 
 They seemed so rich with golden lace. 
 
 That they might have been independent. 
 
 Coats that made those menials proud 
 Gaze with scorn on the dingy croAvd, 
 
 From their gilded elevations ; 
 Not to forget that saucy lad 
 (Ostentation's favorite cad). 
 The page, who looked, so splendidly clad, 
 
 Like a page of the " Wealth of Nations." 
 
 But the coachman carried oflf.the state, 
 With what was a Lancashire body of late 
 
 Turned into a Dresden Figure ; 
 With a bridal nosegay of early bloom. 
 About the size of a birchen broom, 
 And so huge a white favor, had Gog been groom, 
 
 He need not have worn a bigger. 
 
 And then to see the groom ! the count ! 
 With foreign orders to such an amount, 
 
 And whiskers so wild — nay, bestial ; 
 He seemed to have borrowed the shaggy hair 
 As well as the stars of the Polar Bear, 
 
 To make him look celestial ! 
 
 And then — Great Jove ! — the struggle, the crush^ 
 The screams, the heaving, the awful rush. 
 
 The swearing, the tearing, and fighting, — 
 The hats and bonnets smashed like an egg, — 
 To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg, 
 24* 
 
282 MISS KILMAXSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 "Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Was fully displayed in alighting ! 
 
 From the golden ankle up to the knee 
 There it was for the mob to see ! 
 A shocking act had it chanced to be 
 
 A crooked leg or a skinny : 
 But although a magnificent veil she wore. 
 Such as never was seen before, 
 In case of blushes, she blushed no more 
 
 Than George the First on a guinea ! 
 
 Another step, and, lo ! she warS launched ! 
 All in white, as brides are blanched, 
 
 With a wreath of most wonderful splendor — 
 Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device, 
 That, according* to calculation nice, 
 Her head was worth as royal a price 
 
 As the head of the Young Pretender. 
 
 Bravely she shone — and shone the more 
 
 As she sailed through the crowd of squalid and poor 
 
 Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion — 
 Led by the count, with his sloe-black eyes 
 Bright with triumph, and some surprise, 
 Like Anson on making sure of his prize 
 
 The famous Mexican galleon ! 
 
 Anon came Lady K., with her face 
 Quite made up to act with grace, 
 
 But she cut the performance shorter 
 For instead of pacing stately and stiff, 
 At the stare of the vulgar she took a miff, 
 And ran, full speed, into church, as if 
 
 To get married before her daughter. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND UER PRECIOUS LEG. 283 
 
 But Sir Jacob walked more sloAvly, and bowed 
 Rigbt and left to tbe gaping crowd, 
 
 Wherever a glance was seizable ; 
 For Sir Jacob thought he bowed like a Guelph, 
 And therefore bowed to imp and elf, 
 And would gladly have made a bow to himself, 
 
 Had such a bow been feasible. 
 
 And last — and not the least of the sight, 
 Six "Handsome Fortunes," all in white. 
 Came to help in the marriage rite, — 
 
 And rehearse their own hymeneals ; 
 And then, the bright procession to close, 
 They were followed by just as many beaux, 
 
 Quite fine enough for ideals. 
 
 Glittering men, and splendid dames, 
 
 Thus they entered the porch of St. James , 
 
 Pursued by a thunder of laughter ; 
 For the beadle was forced to intervene, 
 For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen, 
 With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the Green, 
 
 Would fain have followed after I 
 
 Beadle-like he hushed the shout ; 
 
 But the temple was full " inside and out," 
 
 And a buzz kept buzzing all round about 
 
 Like bees when the day is sunny — 
 A buzz universal that interfered 
 With the rite that ought to have been revered. 
 As if the couple already were smeared 
 
 With Wedlock's treacle and honey ! 
 
 Yet Wedlock 's a very awful thing ! 
 'T is something like that feat in the ring 
 Which requires good nerve to do it — 
 
284 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 When one of a " Grand Equestrian Troop" 
 Makes a jump at a gilded hoop, 
 
 Not certain at all 
 
 Of what may befall 
 After his getting through it ! 
 
 But the count he felt the nervous work 
 No more than any polygamous Turk, 
 
 Or bold piratical skipper, 
 Who, during his buccaneering search, 
 Would as soon engage " a hand " in church 
 
 As a hand on board his clipper ! 
 
 And how did the bride perform her part 7 
 Like any bride who is cold at heart. 
 
 Mere snow with the ice's glitter ; 
 What but a life of winter for her ! 
 Bright but chilly, alive without stir, 
 So splendidly comfortless, — just like a fir 
 
 When the frost is severe and bitter. 
 
 Such were the future man and wife ! 
 Whose bale or bliss to the end of life 
 A few short words were to settle — 
 Wilt thou have this woman 7 
 
 I will — - and then, 
 Wilt thou have this man 7 
 I will, and Amen — 
 And those two were one flesh, in the angels' ken, 
 Except one Leg — that was metal. 
 
 Then the names Avere signed — and kissed the kiss 
 And the bride, who came from her coach a miss, 
 
 As a countess walked to her carriage — 
 Whilst Hymen preened his plumes like a dove, 
 And Cupid fluttered his wings above, 
 
MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 285 
 
 lu the shape of a fly — as little a Love 
 As ever looked in at a marriage ! 
 
 Another crash — and away they dashed, 
 And the gilded carriage and footmen flashed 
 
 From the eyes of the gaping people — 
 Who turned to gaze at the toe-and-heel 
 Of the golden boys beginning a reel, 
 To the merry sound of a wedding-peal 
 
 From St. James's musical steeple. 
 
 Those wedding-bells ! those wedding-bells ! 
 How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells 
 
 From a tower in an ivy-green jacket ! 
 But town-made joys how dearly they cost ; 
 And after all are tumbled and tost, 
 Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost 
 
 In town-made riot and racket. 
 
 The wedding-peal, how sweetly it peals 
 With grass or heather beneath our heels, — 
 
 For bells are Music's laughter ! — 
 But a London peal, well mingled, be sure, 
 With vulgar noises and voices impure. 
 What a harsh and discordant overture 
 
 To the harmony meant to come after ! 
 
 But hence with Discord — perchance, too soon 
 To cloud the face of the honeymoon 
 
 With a dismal occultation ! — 
 Whatever Fate's concerted trick. 
 The countess and count, at the present nick, 
 Have a chicken and not a crow to pick 
 
 At a sumptuous cold collation. 
 
 A breakfast — no unsubstantial mess. 
 But one in the style of good Queen Bess, 
 WTio — hearty as hippocampus — 
 
286 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Broke her fast with ale and beef, 
 Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf, 
 And in lieu of anchovj — grampus ! 
 
 A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh. 
 Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh. 
 
 With wines the most rare and curious — 
 Wines, of the richest flavor and hue ; 
 With fruits from the worlds both Old and New , 
 And fruits obtained before they were due 
 
 At a discount most usurious. 
 
 For wealthy palates there be, that scout 
 What is in season, for what is out^ 
 
 And prefer all precocious savor ; 
 For instance, early green peas, of the sort 
 That costs some four or five guineas a quart ; 
 
 Where the Mint is the principal flavor. 
 
 And many a wealthy man was there. 
 Such as the wealthy city could spare, 
 
 To put in a portly appearance — 
 Men whom their fathers had helped to gild : 
 And men who had had their fortunes to build, 
 And — much to their credit — had richly filled 
 
 Their purses by pursy-verance. 
 
 Men, by popular rumor at least, 
 Not the last to enjoy a feast ! 
 
 And truly they were not idle ! 
 Luckier far than the chestnut tits. 
 Which, down at the door, stood champing their bita 
 
 At a difierent sort of bridle. 
 
 For the time was come — and the whiskered count 
 Helped his bride in the carriage to mount, 
 And fain would the Muse deny it, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG A^TD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 287 
 
 But the crowd, including two butchers in blue, 
 (The regular killing Whitechapel hue,) 
 Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view, 
 As if they had come to buy it ! 
 
 Then away ! away ! with all the speed 
 That golden spurs can give to the steed, — 
 Both yellow boys and guineas, indeed, 
 
 Concurred to urge the cattle, — 
 Away they went, with favors white, 
 Yellow jackets, and pannels bright, 
 And left the mob, like a mob at night. 
 
 Agape at the sound of a rattle. 
 
 Away ! away ! they rattled and rolled, 
 
 The count, and his bride, and her Leg of Gold - 
 
 That faded charm to the charmer ! 
 Away, — through Old Brentford rang the din, 
 Of wheels and heels, on their way to win 
 That hill, named after one of her kin 
 
 The Hill of the Golden Farmer ! 
 
 Gold, still gold — it flew like dust ! 
 
 It tipped the post-boy, and paid the trust ; 
 
 In each open palm it was freely thrust ; 
 
 There was nothing but giving and taking ! 
 And if gold could insure the future hour. 
 What hopes attended that bride to her bower ; 
 But, alas ! even hearts with a four-horse power 
 
 Of opulence end in breaking ! 
 
 The moon — the moon, so silver and cold, 
 Her fickle temper has oft been told, 
 
 Now shady — now bright and sunny — 
 But, of all the lunar things that change, 
 The one that shows most fickle and strange, 
 
288 MISS KILMANSEGG AISB HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 And takes the most eccentric range, 
 Is the moon — so called — of honey ! 
 
 To some a full-grown orb revealed, 
 As big and as round as Norval's shield, 
 
 And as brio-ht as a burner Bude-lio;hted ; 
 To others as dull, and dingj, and damp, 
 As any oleaginous lamp, 
 Of the regular old parochial stamp, 
 
 In a London fog benighted. 
 
 To the loving, a bright and constant sphere, 
 That makes earth's commonest scenes appear 
 
 All poetic, romantic, and tender ; 
 Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump, 
 And investing a common post, or a pump, 
 A currant-bush or a gooseberry clump, 
 
 With a halo of dreamlike splendor. 
 
 A sphere such as shone from Italian skies, 
 In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes, 
 
 Tipping trees with its argent braveries — 
 And to couples not favored with Fortune's boons 
 One of the most delightful of moons, 
 For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons 
 
 Like a silver service of Savory's ! 
 
 For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear, 
 And the meanest thing most precious and dear, 
 
 When the magic of love is present : 
 Love, that lends a sweetness and grace 
 To the humblest spot and the plainest face — 
 That turns Wilderness Row into Paradise Place, 
 
 And Garlic Hill to Mount Pleasant ! 
 
 Love that sweetens sugarless tea, 
 And makes contentment and joy agree 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 289 
 
 With the coarsest boarding and bedding ; 
 Love, that no golden ties can attach, 
 But nestles under the humblest thatch, 
 And will flj away from an emperor's match 
 
 To dance at a penny wedding ! 
 
 0, happy, happy, thrice happy state, 
 When such a bright planet governs the fate 
 
 Of a pair of united lovers ! 
 'T is theirs, in spite of the serpent's hiss, 
 To enjoy the pure primeval kiss 
 With as much of the old original bliss 
 
 As mortality ever recovers ! 
 
 There 's strength in double joints, no doubt, 
 
 In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout, 
 
 That the single sorts know nothing about — 
 
 And a fist is strongest when doubled — 
 And double aqua-fortis, of course. 
 And double soda-water, perforce. 
 
 Are the strongest that ever bubbled ! 
 
 There 's double beauty whenever a swan 
 Swims on a lake, with her double thereon ; 
 And ask the gardener, Luke or John, 
 
 Of the beauty of double-blowing — 
 A double dahlia delights the eye ; 
 And it 's far the loveliest sight in the sky 
 
 When a double rainbow is glowing ! 
 
 There 's warmth in a pair of double soles ; 
 As well as a double allowance of coals — 
 
 In a coat that is double-breasted — 
 In double windows and double doors ; 
 And a double U wind is blest by scores 
 
 For its warmth to the tender-chested. 
 25 
 
290 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 There 's two-fold sweetness in double-pipes ; 
 And a double barrel and double snipes 
 
 Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure : 
 There 's double safety in double locks ; 
 And double letters bring cash for the box ; 
 And all the world knows that double knocks 
 
 Are gentility's double measure. 
 
 There 's a double sweetness in double rhymes, 
 And a double at whist and a double Times 
 
 In profit are certainly double — 
 By doubling, the hare contrives to escape : 
 And all seamen delight in a doubled cape, 
 
 And a double-reefed topsail in trouble. 
 
 There 's a double chuck at a double chin, 
 
 And of course there 's a double pleasure therein, 
 
 If the parties are brought to telling : 
 And, however our Dennises take offence, 
 A double meaning shows double sense ; 
 And if proverbs tell truth, 
 A double tooth 
 Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling ! 
 
 But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense. 
 Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence 
 
 Through whatever the list discovers, 
 They are all in the double blessedness summed 
 Of what was formerly double-drummed, 
 
 The man-iasje of two true lovers ! 
 
 Now the Kilmansegg Moon — it must be told — 
 Though instead of silver it tipped with gold — 
 Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold, 
 
 And, before its days were at thirty, 
 Such gloomy clouds began to collect, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 291 
 
 With an ominous ring of ill effect, 
 As gave but too much cause to expect 
 Such weather as seamen call dirty ! 
 And yet the moon was the " young May moon," 
 And the scented hawthorn had blossomed soon,^ 
 
 And the thrush and the blackbird were singing — 
 The snow-white lambs were skipping in play, 
 And the bee was humming a tune all day 
 To flowers as welcome as flowers in May, 
 
 And the trout in the stream was sprmgmg ! 
 But what were the hues of the blooming earth, 
 Its scents — its sounds — or the music and mirth, 
 
 Or its furred or its feathered creatures, 
 To a pair in the world" s last sordid stage. 
 Who had never looked into Nature's page. 
 And had strange ideas of a Golden Age, 
 Without any Arcadian features ? 
 
 And what were joys of the pastoral kind 
 
 To a bride — town-made — with a heart and mmd 
 
 With simplicity ever at battle 1 
 A bride of an ostentatious race, 
 Who. thrown in the Golden Farmer's place, 
 Would have trimmed her shepherds with golden lace, 
 
 And gilt the horns of her cattle. 
 She could not please the pigs with her whim, _ 
 And the sheep would n"t cast their eyes at a limb 
 
 For which she had l^een such a martyr : 
 The deer in the park, and the colts at grass, 
 And the cows, unheeded let it pass ; 
 And the ass on the common was such an ass, 
 That he wouldn't have swapped 
 The thistle he cropped 
 For her Leg, including the Garter ! 
 
292 MISS KILMANSEGG AXD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 She hated lanes, and she hated fields — 
 She hated all that the country yields — 
 
 And barely knew turnips from clover : 
 She hated walking in any shape, 
 And a country stile was an awkward scrape, 
 Without the bribe of a mob to gape 
 
 At the Leg in clambering over ! 
 
 blessed Nature, " rus ! ras ! " 
 Who cannot sigh for the country thus, 
 
 Absorbed in a worldly torpor — 
 Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath 
 Untainted by care, and crime, and death, 
 And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath — 
 
 That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper ! 
 
 But to hail the pearly advent of Morn, 
 And relish the odor fresh from the thorn, 
 
 She was far too pampered a madam — 
 Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong, 
 While, after ages of sorrow and wrong. 
 The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong, 
 And all the woes that to man belonof. 
 The lark still carols the self-same sonc 
 
 That he did to the uncurst Adam ! 
 
 The Lark ! she had given all Leipsic's flocks 
 For a Yauxhall tune in a musical box ; 
 
 And as for the birds in the thicket. 
 Thrush or ousel in leafy niche. 
 The linnet or finch, she was far too rich 
 To care for a morning concert to which 
 
 She was welcome without any ticket. 
 
 Gold, still gold, her standard of old, 
 All pastoral joys were tried by gold, 
 Or by fancies golden and crural — 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 293 
 
 Till ere she had passed one week unblest, 
 As her agricultiu-al uncle's guest, 
 Her mind mus made up and fully imprest 
 That felicity could not be rural ! 
 
 And the count ? — to the snow-white lambs at play. 
 And all the scents and the sights of May, 
 
 And the birds that warbled their passion, 
 His ears, and dark eyes, and decided nose. 
 Were as deaf and as blind and as duU as those 
 That overlook the Bouquet de Rose, 
 The Huile Antique, 
 And Parfum Unique, 
 In a barber's Temple of Fashion. 
 
 To tell, indeed, the true extent 
 Of his rural bias, so far it went 
 
 As to covet estates in ring fences — 
 And for rural lore he had learned in town 
 That the country was green turned up with brown, 
 And garnished with trees that a man might cut down 
 
 Instead of his own expenses. 
 
 And yet, had that fault been his only one, 
 The pair might have had few quarrels or none, 
 
 For their tastes thus far were in common ; 
 But faults he had that a haughty bride 
 With a Golden Leg could hardly abide — 
 Faults that would even have roused the pride 
 
 Of a far less metalsome woman ! 
 
 It was early (lays indeed for a wife, 
 In the very spring of her married life, 
 
 To be chilled by its wintry weather — 
 But, instead of sitting as love-birds do, 
 Or Hymen's turtles that bill and coo — 
 25* 
 
29-1 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Enjoying their " moon and honey for two," 
 They were scarcely seen together ! 
 
 In vain she sat with her Precious Leg 
 A little exposed a la Kilmansegg, 
 
 And rolled her eyes in their sockets ! 
 He left her in spite of her tend^ regards, 
 And those loving murmurs described by bards, 
 For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards, 
 
 And the poking of balls into pockets ! 
 
 Moreover he loved the deepest stake 
 
 And the heaviest bets the players would make ; 
 
 And he drank — the reverse of sparely, — 
 And he used strange curses that made her fret ; 
 And when he played with herself at piquet, 
 She found, to her cost, 
 For she always lost, 
 That the count did not count quite fairly. 
 
 And then came dark mistrust and doubt, 
 Gathered by worming his secrets out. 
 
 And slips in his conversations — 
 Fears, which all her peace destroyed, 
 That his title was null — his coffers were void — 
 And his French chateau was in Spain, or enjoyed 
 
 The most airy of situations. 
 
 But still his heart — if he had such a part — 
 She — only she — might possess his heart. 
 
 And hold his affections in fetters — 
 Alas ! that hope, like a crazy ship, 
 Was forced its anchor and cable to slip 
 When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip 
 
 In his private papers and letters. 
 
29^ 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 Letters that told of dangerous leagues ; 
 And notes that hinted as many intrigues 
 
 As the count's in the " Barljer of Seville " - 
 In short, such mysteries came to light, 
 That the countess-bride, on the thirtieth night, 
 Woke and started up in affright, 
 And kicked and screamed with all her might, 
 And finally fainted away outright. 
 
 For she dreamt she had married the Devil ! 
 
 Who hath not met with home-made bread, 
 A heavy compound of putty and lead — 
 And home-made wines that rack the head, 
 
 And home-made liqueurs and waters 1 
 Home-made pop that will not foam. 
 And home-made dishes that drive one fi-om home, 
 Not to name each mess, 
 For the face or dress. 
 Home-made by the homely daughters 1 
 
 Home-made physic, that sickens the sick ; 
 Thick for thin and thin for thick ; — 
 In short, each homogeneous trick 
 
 For poisoning domesticity ? 
 And since our Parents, called the First, 
 A little family squabble nurst, 
 Of all our evils the worst of the worst 
 
 Is home-made infelicity. 
 There 's a golden bird that claps its wings, 
 And dances for joy on its perch, and singa 
 
 With a Persian exultation : 
 For the sun is shining into the room, 
 And brightens up the carpet-bloom, 
 
296 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 As if it were new, bran-new from the loom, 
 Or the lone nun's fabrication. 
 
 And thence the glorious radiance flames 
 On pictures in massy gilded frames — 
 Enshrining, however, no painted dames, 
 
 But portraits of colts and fillies — 
 Pictures hanging on walls which shine, 
 In spite of the bard's familiar line, 
 
 With clusters of "gilded lilies." 
 
 And still the flooding sunlight shares 
 Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs. 
 
 That shine as if freshly burnished — 
 And gilded tables, with glittering stocks 
 Of gilded china, and golden clocks. 
 Toy, and trinket, and musical box. 
 
 That Peace and Paris have furnished. 
 
 And, lo ! with the brightest gleam of all 
 The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall 
 
 On an object as rare as splendid — 
 The golden foot of the Golden Leg 
 Of the countess — once Miss Kilmansegg — 
 
 But there all sunshine is ended. 
 
 Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim, 
 And downward cast, yet not at the limb. 
 
 Once the centre of all speculation ; 
 But downward drooping in comfort's dearth, 
 As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth — 
 Whence human sorrows derive their birth — 
 
 By a moral gravitation. 
 
 Her golden hair is out of its braids, 
 And her sighs betray the gloomy shades 
 That her evil planet revolves in — 
 
MISS KILMAXSEGG AND HER TRECIOUS LEG. 297 
 
 And tears are falling that catch a gleam 
 So bright as thej drop in the sunny beam, 
 That tears of aqua regia thej seem 
 The -water that gold dissolves in ! 
 
 Yet. not in filial grief were shed 
 
 Those tears for a mother's insanity ; 
 Nor yet because her father was dead, 
 For the bowing Sir Jacob had bowed his head 
 
 To Death — with his usual urbanity ; 
 The waters that down her visage rilled 
 Were drops of unrectified spirit distilled 
 
 From the limbec of Pride and Vanity. 
 
 Tears that fell alone and uncheckt, 
 
 Without relief, and without respect. 
 
 Like the fabled pearls that the jjigs neglect, 
 
 When pigs have that opportunity — 
 And of all the griefs that mortals share, 
 The one that seems the hardest to bear 
 
 Is the grief without community. 
 
 How blessed the heart that has a friend 
 A sj'mpathizing ear to lend 
 
 To troubles too great to smother ! 
 For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored 
 Till a sparkling, bubbling head they afford, 
 So sorrow is cheered by being poured 
 
 From one vessel into another. 
 
 But friend or gossip she had not one 
 
 To hear the vile deeds that the count had done, 
 
 How night after night he rambled ; 
 And how she had learned by sad degrees 
 That he drank, and smoked, and, worse than these, 
 
 That he "swindled, intrigued, and gambled." 
 
298 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 How lie kissed the maids, and sparred with John ; 
 And came to bed with his garments on ; 
 
 With other offences as heinous — 
 And brought strange gentlemen home to dine, 
 That he said were in the Fancy line, 
 And thej fancied spnits instead of wine. 
 
 And called her lap-dog " Wenus ! " 
 
 Of '■' making a book '"' how he made a stir, 
 But never had written a line to her, 
 
 Once his idol and Cara Sposa : 
 And how he had stormed, and treated her ill, 
 Because she refused to go down to a mill, 
 She didn't know where, but remembered still 
 
 That the miller's name was Mendoza. 
 
 How often he waked her up at night. 
 And oftener still by the morning light. 
 
 Reeling home from his haunts unlawful ; 
 Singing songs that shouldn't be sung, 
 Except by beggars and thieves unhung — 
 Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue 
 
 Made still more horrid and awful ! 
 
 How oft, instead of otto of rose, 
 
 With vTilgar smells he offended her nose, 
 
 From gin, tobacco, and onion ! 
 And then how wildly he used to stare ! 
 And shake his fist at nothing, and swear, — 
 And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair, 
 Till he looked like a study of Giant Despair 
 
 For a new edition of Bunyan ! 
 
 For dice will run the contrary way, 
 As well is known to all who play. 
 
 And cards will conspire as in treason : 
 And what with keeping a hunting-box, 
 
_MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 29D 
 
 Following fox — 
 Friends in flocks. 
 Burgundies, Hocks, 
 From London Docks ; 
 Stultz's frocks, 
 Manton and Nock's 
 Barrels and locks, 
 Shooting blue rocks. 
 Trainers and jocks, 
 Buskins and socks, 
 Pugilistical knocks, 
 And fighting-cocks, 
 If he found himself short in funds and stocks, 
 These rhymes will furnish the reason ! 
 
 BQs friends, indeed, were falling away — 
 Friends who insist on play or pay — 
 And he feared at no very distant day 
 
 To be cut by Lord and by Cadger, 
 As one who was gone or going to smash. 
 For his checks no longer drew the cash. 
 Because, as his comrades explained in flash, 
 
 " He had overdrawn his badger." 
 
 Gold ! gold — alas ! for the gold 
 Spent where souls are bought and sold, 
 
 In Vice's Walpurgis revel ! 
 Alas ! for mufiles, and bulldogs, and guns, 
 The leg that walks, and the leg that runs, 
 All real evils, though Fancy ones, 
 "When they lead to debt, dishonor, and duns, 
 
 Nay, to death, and perchance the Devil ! 
 
 Alas ! for the last of a Golden race ! 
 Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place, 
 She had warrant for all her clamor — 
 
300 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes, 
 Was breaking her heart by constant aches. 
 With as little remorse as the pauper Tvho breaks 
 A flint with a parish hammer ! 
 
 3Scr aast 55?ill. 
 
 Now the Precious Leg, while cash was flush, 
 Or the count's acceptance worth a rush, 
 
 Had never excited dissension : 
 But no sooner the stocks began to fall, 
 Than, without any ossification at all, 
 The limb became what people call 
 
 A perfect bone of contention. 
 
 For altered days brought altered ways, 
 And instead of the complimentary phrase, 
 
 So current before her bridal — 
 The countess heard, in language low. 
 That her Precious Leg was precious slow, 
 A good 'un to look at but bad to go, 
 
 And kept quite a sum lying idle. 
 
 That instead of playing musical airs, 
 
 Like Colin' s foot in going up-stairs — 
 
 As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares — 
 
 It made an infernal stumping. 
 Whereas a member of cork, or wood. 
 Would be lighter and cheaper, and quite as good, 
 
 Without the unbearable thumping. 
 
 Perhaps she thought it a decent thing 
 To show her calf to cobbler and kinsr. 
 
 But nothing could be absurder — 
 While none but the crazy would advertise 
 Their gold before theu' servants' eyes, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 301 
 
 Who of course some night -would make it a prize, 
 By a shocking and barbarous murder. 
 
 But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff. 
 
 The Leg kept its situation : 
 For legs are not to be taken off 
 
 By a verbal amputation. 
 And mortals -when they take a whim, 
 The greater the folly the stiffer the limb 
 
 That stands upon it or by it — 
 So the countess, then ]NIis3 Kilmansegg, 
 At her marriage refused to stir a peg. 
 Till the lawyers had fastened on her leg, 
 
 As fast as the law could tie it. 
 
 Firmly then — and more firmly yet — 
 
 With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat. 
 
 The proud one confronted the cruel : 
 And loud and bitter the quarrel arose, 
 ^ Fierce and merciless — one of those, 
 With spoken daggers, and looks like blows, 
 In all but the bloodshed a duel ! 
 
 Rash; and wild, and wretched, and wrong. 
 Were the words that came from weak and strong, 
 
 Till, maddened for desperate matters, 
 Fierce as tigress escaped fi'om her den, 
 She flew to her desk — 't was opened — and then, 
 In the time it takes to try a pen, 
 Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, 
 
 Her Will was in fifty tatters ! 
 
 But the count, instead of curses wild. 
 Only nodded his head and smiled. 
 As if at the spleen of an angry child ; 
 26 
 
302 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 But the calm was deceitful and sinister ! 
 A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea — 
 For Hate in that moment had sworn to be 
 The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, 
 
 And that very night to administer ! 
 
 'Met IBcatJ. 
 
 'T is a stern and startling thing to think 
 How often mortality stands on the brink 
 
 Of its grave without any misgiving : 
 And yet, in this slippery world of strife, 
 In the stir of human bustle so rife 
 There are daily sounds to tell us that Life 
 
 Is dying, and Death is living ! 
 
 Ay, Beauty the girl, and Love the boy, 
 Bright as they are with hope and joy, 
 
 How their souls would sadden instanter, 
 To remember that one of those wedding bells, 
 Which ring so merrily through the dells, 
 Is the same that knells 
 Our last farewells. 
 Only broken into a canter ! 
 
 But breath and blood set doom at naught — 
 How little the wretched countess thought, 
 When at night she unloosed her sandal, 
 That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth, 
 And that Death, in the shape of a death's-head moth, 
 Was fluttering round her candle ! 
 
 As she looked at her clock of or-molu, 
 
 For the hours she had gone so wearily through 
 
 At the end of a day of trial — 
 How little she saw in her pride of prime 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 303 
 
 The dart of death in the hand of Time — 
 That hand which moved on the dial ! 
 
 As she went with her taper up the stair, 
 How little her swollen eje was aware 
 
 That the Shadow which followed was double ! 
 Or when she closed her chamber door, 
 It was shutting out. and forevermore, 
 
 The world — and its worldly trouble. 
 
 Little she dreamt, as she laid aside 
 
 Her jewels — after one glance of pride — 
 
 The J were solemn bequests to Vanity — 
 Or when her robes she began to doff, 
 That she stood so near to the putting off 
 
 Of tlie flesh that clothes humanity. 
 
 And when she quenched the taper's light, 
 How little she thought, as the smoke took flight. 
 That her day was done — and merged in a night 
 Of dreams and duration uncertain — 
 Or, along with her own, 
 That a hand of bone 
 Was closing mortality's curtain ! 
 
 But life is sweet, and mortality blind, 
 And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind 
 
 In concealing the day of sorrow ; 
 And enough is the present tense of toil — 
 For this world is, to all. a stiffish soil — 
 And the mind flies back with a glad recoil 
 
 From the debts not due till to-morrow. 
 
 Wherefore else does the spirit fly 
 And bid its daily cares good-by, 
 Along with its daily clothing 1 
 Just as the felon condemned to die — 
 
304 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 With a very natural loathing — 
 
 Leaving the sheriff to dream of ropes, 
 From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes, 
 To caper on sunny greens and slopes, 
 Instead of the dance upon nothing. 
 
 Thus, even thus, the countess slept, 
 While Death still nearer and nearer crept, 
 
 Like the Thane "who smote the sleeping — 
 But her mind was busy with early joys. 
 Her golden treasures and golden toys, 
 That flashed a bright 
 And golden light 
 Under lids still red with weeping. 
 
 The golden doll that she used to hug ! 
 Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! 
 
 Her godfather's golden presents ! 
 The golden service she had at her meals, 
 The golden watch, and chain, and seals, 
 Her golden scissors, and thi-ead, and reels. 
 
 And her golden fishes and pheasants ! 
 
 The golden guineas in silken purse — 
 
 And the golden legends she heard from her nurse, 
 
 Of the ^layor in his gilded carriage — 
 And London streets that were paved with gold — 
 And the golden eggs that were laid of old — 
 With each golden thing 
 To the golden ring 
 At her own auriferous marriage ! 
 
 And still the golden light of the sun 
 Through her golden dream appeared to run. 
 Though the night that roared without was one 
 To terrify seamen or gypsies — 
 
MISS KILMAXSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 305 
 
 While the moon, as if in malicious mirth, 
 Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth, 
 As though she enjoyed the tempest's birth, 
 In revenge of her old eclipses. 
 
 But vainly, vainly the thunder fell. 
 
 For the soul of the sleeper vras under a spell 
 
 That time had lately embittered — 
 The count, as once at her foot he knelt — 
 That foot which now he wanted to melt ! 
 But — hush! - — 't was a stir at her pillow she felt— 
 
 And some object before her glittered. 
 
 'T was the Golden Leg ! — she knew its gleam ! 
 And up she started, and tried to scream, — 
 
 But even in the moment she started — - 
 Down came the limb with a frightful smash, 
 And. lost in the universal flash 
 That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash, 
 
 The spark, called Vital, departed ! 
 
 Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and cold, 
 For gold she had lived, and she died for gold 
 
 By a golden weapon — not oaken ; 
 In the morning they foiind her all alone — 
 Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone — 
 But her Leg. the Golden Leg. was gone, 
 
 And the " golden bowl was broken ! " 
 
 Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet — 
 At the Golden Lion the inquest met — 
 
 Its foreman, a carver and gilder — 
 And the jury debated from twelve till three 
 What the verdict ought to be. 
 26* 
 
306 A MORNING THOUGHT. 
 
 And they brought it in as Felo-de-Se, 
 " Because her own leg had killed her ! " 
 
 mer: iWoral. 
 Gold! gold! gold! gold! 
 Bright and yellow, hard and cold, 
 Molten, graven, hammered and rolled ; 
 Heavy to get, and light to hold ; 
 Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold, 
 Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled : 
 Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old 
 To the very verge of the church-yard mould ; 
 Price of many a crime untold : 
 Gold! gold! gold! gold! 
 Good or bad a thousand-fold ! 
 
 How widely its agencies vary — 
 To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — 
 As even its minted coins express, 
 Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess, 
 
 And now of a Bloody Mary. 
 
 A MORNING THOUGHT. 
 
 No more, no more will I resign 
 My couch so warm and soft. 
 
 To trouble trout with hook and line, 
 That will not spring aloft. 
 
 With larks appointments one may fix 
 To greet the dawning skies, 
 
 But hang the getting up at six 
 For fish that will not r/se .' 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 " Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing 1 
 Speak a little louder, for I 'm very hard of hearing." 
 
 Old Ballad 
 
 Of all old women hard of heariiK^, 
 
 The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing ! 
 
 On her head, it is true. 
 
 Two flaps there grew, 
 That served for a pair of gold rings to go through ; 
 But for any purpose of ears in a parley, 
 They heard no more than ears of barley. 
 
 No hint was needed from D. E. F. 
 
 You saw in her face that the woman was deaf : 
 
 From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery, 
 
 Each queer feature asked a query : 
 
 A look that said, in a silent way, 
 
 " "Who 7 and What 7 and How 7 and Eh 7 
 
 I 'd give my ears to know what you say ! " 
 
 And well she might ! for each auricular 
 
 Was deaf as a post — and that post in particular 
 
 That stands at the corner of Dyott-street now. 
 
 And never hears a word of a row ! 
 
 Ears that might serve her now and then 
 As extempore racks for an idle pen ; 
 Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops 
 With coral, ruby, or garnet drops ; 
 
308 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 Or, provided the owner so inclined, 
 
 Ears to stick a blister behind ; 
 
 But as for hearing wisdom or wit, 
 
 Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit, 
 
 Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt, 
 
 Sermon, lecture, or musical bit. 
 
 Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit. 
 
 They might as well, for any such wish, 
 
 Have been buttered, done brown, and laid in a dish ! 
 
 She was deaf as a post, — as said before, — 
 
 And as deaf as twenty similes more. 
 
 Including the adder, that deafest of snakes. 
 
 Which never hears the coil it makes. 
 
 She was deaf as a house — which modern tricks ^ 
 Of language would call as deaf as bricks — 
 For her all human kind were dumb, 
 Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum, 
 That none could get a sound to come, 
 Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks ! 
 She was deaf as a stone — say one of the stones 
 Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones ; 
 And surely deafness no further could reach 
 Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech ! 
 She was deaf as a nut — for nuts, no doubt. 
 Are deaf to the grub that 's hollowing out — 
 As deaf, alas ! as the dead and forgotten — 
 (Gray has noticed the waste of breath, 
 In addressing the " dull, cold ear of death "), 
 Or the Felon's ear that was stuffed with Cotton — 
 Or Cbarles the First, in statue quo ; 
 Or the ^till-born figures of Madame Tussaud, 
 With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax. 
 That only stare, whatever you "ax," 
 For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax. 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET SO^ 
 
 She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, 
 
 And would n"t listen to Mrs. Bond, — 
 
 As deaf as any Frenchman appears, 
 
 WTien he puts his shoulders into his ears : 
 
 And — whatever the citizen tells his son — 
 
 As deaf as Gog and Magog at one ! 
 
 Or, still to be a simile-seeker, 
 
 As deaf as dog's-ears to Enfield's. Speaker ! 
 
 She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy, 
 Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy; 
 Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics. 
 Were plugged with gums and antiseptics. 
 
 She was deaf as a nail — that you cannot hammer 
 A meaning into, for all your clamor — 
 There never u-as such a deaf old Gammer ! 
 
 So formed to worry 
 
 Both Lindley and Murray, 
 By having no ear for music or grammar ! 
 
 Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings. 
 Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings, 
 Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle. 
 Deaf to even the definite article — 
 No verbal message was worth a pin, 
 Though you hired an earwig to carry it in ! 
 
 In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke, 
 
 Or all the deafness in Yearsley's Work, 
 
 Who, in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing, 
 Boring, blasting, and pioneering. 
 To give the dunny organ a clearing. 
 
 Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing. 
 
 Of course the loss was a great privation. 
 For one of her sex — whatever her station — 
 And none the less that the dame had a turn 
 
310 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 For making all flimilies one concern, 
 
 And learning whatever there was to learn 
 
 In the prattling, tattling village of Tringham — 
 
 As wJio wore silk 7 and who wore gingham 7 
 
 And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em? 
 
 How the Smiths contrived to live ? and whether 
 
 The fourteen Murphys all pigged together? 
 
 The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners, 
 
 And what they boiled for their Sunday dinners ? 
 
 What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf, 
 
 Crockery, china, wooden, or delf 7 
 
 And if the parlor of Mrs. 0' Grady 
 
 Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady 7 
 
 Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle 7 
 
 Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle 7 
 
 What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown 7 
 
 And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown 7 
 
 If the cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope 7 
 
 And how the Grubbs were off for soap 7 
 
 If the Snobbs had furnished their room up stairs. 
 
 And how they managed for tables and chairs, 
 
 Beds, and other household affairs. 
 
 Iron, wooden, and Staftbrdshire wares ; 
 
 And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows 1 
 In fact she had much of the spirit that lies 
 Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys, 
 
 By courtesy called Statistical Fellows — 
 A prying, spying, inquisitive clan, 
 Who had gone upon much of the self-same plan, 
 
 Jotting the laboring class's riches ; 
 And after poking in pot and pan. 
 
 And routing garments in want of stitches, 
 Have ascertained that a working maif 
 
 Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches ! 
 
[F=^ 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. J31] 
 
 But this, alas ! from her loss of hearing, 
 
 Was all a sealed book to Dame Eleanor Spearing ; 
 And often her tears would rise to their founts — 
 
 Supposing a little scandal at play 
 
 'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait — 
 
 That she could n't audit the gossips' accounts. 
 
 'T is true, to her cottage still they came, 
 
 And ate her muffins just the same. 
 
 And drank the tea of the widowed dame, 
 
 And never swallowed a thimble the less 
 Of something the reader is left to guess, 
 For all the deafness of Mrs. S., 
 
 Who saiu them talk, and chuckle, and cough, 
 But to see and not share in the social flow. 
 She might as well have lived, you know. 
 In one of the houses in Owen's Row, 
 
 Near the New River Head, with its water cut off! 
 
 And yet the almond-oil she had tried. 
 
 And fifty infallible things beside, 
 
 Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin, 
 
 Dabbed, and dribbled, and squirted in : 
 But all remedies failed ; and though some it was clear 
 
 (Like the brandy and salt 
 
 We now exalt) 
 Had made a noise in the public ear. 
 She was just as deaf as ever, poor dear 
 
 At last — one very fine day in June — 
 Suppose her sitting, 
 Busily knitting, 
 And humming she did n't quite know what tune , 
 
 For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz, 
 Which, unless the sound of a circulation, 
 Or of thoughts in the process of fabrication, 
 
312 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 By a spinning-jennjish operation, 
 
 It "s hard to say what buzzing it is. 
 However, except that ghost of a sound, 
 She sat in a silence most profound — 
 The cat was purring about the mat. 
 But her mistress heard no more of that 
 Than if it had been a boatswain's cat ; 
 And as for the clock the moments nicking, 
 The dame only gave it credit for ticking. 
 The bark of her dog she did not catch ; 
 Nor yet the click of the lifted latch ; 
 Nor yet the creak of the opening door ; 
 Nor yet the fall of the foot on the floor — 
 But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown, 
 And turned its skirt of a darker brown. 
 
 And, lo ! a man ! a pedler 7 ay. marry. 
 
 With a little back-shop that such tradesmen carry, 
 
 Stocked with brooches, ribbons, and rings, 
 
 Spectacles, razors, and other odd things, 
 
 For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings ; 
 
 A chapman for goodness and cheapness of ware 
 
 Held a fair dealer enoiigh at a fair, 
 
 But deemed a piratical sort of invader 
 
 By him we dub the '• regular trader," 
 
 Who, luring the passengers in as they pass 
 
 By lamps, gay panels, and mouldings of brass. 
 
 And windows with only one huge pane of glass, 
 
 And his name in gilt characters. GeiTQan or Roman 
 
 If he is n't a pedler, at least is a showman ! 
 
 However, in the stranger came, 
 
 And, the moment he met the eyes of the dame, 
 
 Threw her as knowino- a nod as thoucrh 
 
 He had known her fifty long years ago ; 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 31< 
 
 And, presto ! before slie could utter "Jack" — 
 Much less '' Robinson" — opened his pack — 
 
 And then from amongst his portable gear, 
 With even more than a pedler's tact, — 
 (Slick himself might have envied the act) — 
 Before she had time to be deaf, in fact, 
 
 Popped a trumpet into her ear. 
 
 " There, ma'am ! try it ! 
 
 You need n't buy it — 
 The last new patent — and nothing comes nigh it 
 For affording the deaf, at little expense, 
 The sense of hearing, and hearing of sense ! 
 A real blessing — and no mistake, 
 Invented for poor humanity's sake; 
 For what can be a greater privation 
 Than playing dummy to all creation, 
 And only looking at conversation — 
 Great philosophers talking like Platos, 
 And members of Parliament moral as Catos, 
 And your ears as dull as waxy potatoes ! 
 Not to name the mischievous quizzers, 
 Sharp as knives, but double as scissors. 
 Who get you to answer quite by guess 
 Yes for no, and no for yes." 
 (" That 's very true," says Dame Eleanor S.) 
 
 " Try it again ! No harm in trying — 
 I 'm sure you '11 find it worth your buying. 
 A little practice — that is all — 
 And you "11 hear a whisper, however small. 
 Through an Act of Parliament party wall, — 
 Every syllable clear as day, 
 And even what people are going to say — 
 27 
 
314 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 I would n't tell a lie, I would n't, 
 
 But my trumpets have heard what Solomon's could n't ; 
 And as for Scott, he promises fine, 
 But can he warrant liis horns, like mine, 
 
 Never to hear what a lady shouldn't? — 
 Only a guinea — and can't take less." 
 (" That 's very dear," says Dame Eleanor S.) 
 
 " Dear ! — dear, to call it dear ! 
 Why it is n"t a horn you buy, but an ear ; 
 Only think, and you '11 find on reflection 
 You 're bargaining, ma'am, for the Voice of Affection ; 
 For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, 
 And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth : 
 Not to mention the striking; of clocks — 
 Cackle of hens — crowing of cocks — 
 Lowing of cow. and bull, and ox — 
 Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks — 
 Murmur of waterfall over the rocks — 
 Every sound that Echo mocks — 
 Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box — 
 And, zounds ! to call such a concert dear ! 
 But I must n't swear with my horn in your ear. 
 Why, in buying that trumpet you buy all those 
 That Harper, or any trumpeter, blows 
 At the Queen's levees, or the Lord Mayor's shows, 
 At least as far as the music goes, 
 Licluding the wonderful lively sound 
 Of the Guards' key-bugles all the year round. 
 Come — suppose we call it a pound ! 
 Come," said the talkative man of the pack, 
 " Before I put my box on my back. 
 For this elegant, useful conductor of sound, 
 Come — suppose we call it a pound ' 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 315 
 
 " Only a pound ! it 's only the price 
 Of hearing a concert once or twice, 
 
 It 's only the fee 
 
 You might give Mr. C, 
 And after all not hear his advice, 
 But common prudence would bid you stump it ; 
 
 For. not to enlarge, 
 
 It 's the regular charge 
 At a fancy fair for a penny trumpet. 
 Lord ! what "s a pound to the blessing of hearing ! " 
 ("A pound s a pound," said Dame Eleanor Spearing.) 
 
 " Try it again I no harm in trying ! 
 
 A pound "s a pound, there "s no denying ; 
 
 But think what thousands and thousands of pounds 
 
 We pay for nothing but hearing sounds ; 
 
 Sounds of equity, justice, and law, 
 
 Parliamentary jabber and jaw, 
 
 Pious cant and moral saw, 
 
 Hocus-pocuS; and Xong-tong-paw, 
 
 And empty sounds not worth a straw ; 
 
 Why, it costs a guinea, as I 'm a sinner, 
 
 To hear the sounds at a public dinner ! 
 
 One-pound-one thrown into the puddle, 
 
 To listen to fiddle, faddle and fuddle ! 
 
 Kot to forget the sounds we buy 
 
 From those who sell their sounds so high, 
 
 That, unless the managers pitch it strong, 
 
 To get a signora to warble a song 
 
 Ton must fork out the blunt with a haymaker's prong. 
 
 " It 's not the thing for me — I know it — 
 To crack my own trumpet up and blow it: 
 But it is the best, and time will show it. 
 
316 A TALE OP A TRUMPET. 
 
 There was Mrs. F. 
 
 So very deaf, 
 That she might have worn a percussion-cap, 
 And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap 
 Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day 
 She heard from her husband at Botany Bay ! 
 Come — eighteen shillings — that 's very low. 
 You '11 save the money as shillings go, — 
 And I never knew so bad a lot, — 
 By hearing whether they ring or not ! 
 Eighteen shillings ! it 's worth the price, 
 Supposing you 're delicate-minded and nice, 
 To have the medical man of your choice. 
 Instead of the one with the strongest voice — 
 Who comes and asks you how 's your liver, 
 And where you ache, and whether you shiver, 
 And as to your nerves so apt to quiver, 
 As if he was hailing a boat on the river ! 
 And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot. 
 Tells you to keep yourself perfectly quiet ! 
 
 "Or a tradesman comes — as tradesmen will — 
 Short and crusty about his bill, 
 
 Of patience, indeed, a perfect scorner. 
 And because you 're deaf and unable to pay, 
 Shouts whatever he has to say, 
 In a vulgar voice that goes over the way, 
 
 Down the street and round the corner ! 
 Come — speak your mind — it 's ' No or Yes.' " 
 (" I 've half a mind," said Dame Eleanor S.) 
 
 " Try it again — no harm in trying ; 
 
 Of course you hear me, as easy as lying ; 
 
 No pain at all, like a surgical trick. 
 
 To make you squall, and struggle, and kick, 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 317 
 
 Like Jul 10. or Rose, 
 
 Whose ear undergoes 
 Such horrid tugs at membrane and gristle, 
 For being as deaf as youreelf to a whistle ! 
 
 " You maj go to surgical chaps, if you choose. 
 
 Who will blow up your tubes like copper flues. 
 
 Or cut your tonsils right away, 
 
 As you'd shell out your almonds for Christmas-day; 
 
 And after all a matter of doubt. 
 
 Whether you ever would hem' the shout 
 
 Of the little blackguards that bawl about, 
 
 • There you go with your tonsils out ! ' 
 
 Why. I knew a deaf Welshman who came from Glamorgan 
 
 On purpose to try a surgical spell, 
 
 And paid a guinea, and might as well 
 Hare called a monkey into his organ ! 
 For the Aurist only took a mug, 
 And poured in his ear some acoustical drug, 
 That, instead of curing, deafened him rather, 
 As Hamlet's uncle served Hamlet's father I 
 That 's the way with your surgical gentry ! 
 And happy your luck 
 K you don't get stuck 
 Tlxrough your liver and lights at a royal entry, 
 Because you never answered the sentry ! 
 
 '• Try it again, dear madam, try it ! 
 Many would sell their beds to buy it. 
 I warrant you often wake up in the night. 
 Ready to shake to a jelly with fright, 
 And up you must get to strike a light. 
 And down you go in you know not what, 
 Whether the weather is chilly or not, — 
 27* 
 
318 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 That 's the way a cold is got, — 
 To see if you heard a noise or not ' 
 
 " Wlij, bless jou, a woman with organs like yours 
 Is hardly safe to step out of doors ! 
 Just fancy a horse that conies full pelt, 
 But as quiet as if he was ' shod with felt,' 
 Till he rushes against you with all his force, 
 x\nd then I need n't describe, of course, 
 Vfhile he kicks you about without remorse, 
 How awkward it is to be groomed by a horse ! 
 Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear, 
 And you never di'eam that the brute is near, 
 Till he pokes his horn right into your ear, 
 Whether you like the thing or lump it, — 
 And all for want of buying a trumpet ! 
 
 " I 'm not a female to fret and vex, 
 But if I belonged to the sensitive sex, 
 Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds, 
 I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds. 
 
 Lord ! only think of chucking a copper 
 To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, 
 ^^^lO looks as if he was singing a hymn. 
 
 Instead of a song that 's very improper ! 
 Or just suppose in a public place 
 You see a great fellow a-pulling a face, 
 With his staring eyes and his mouth like an 0, — 
 And how is a poor deaf lady to know — 
 The lower orders are up to such games — 
 If he 's calling ' Green Peas,' or calling her names ? " 
 (•'• They 're tenpence a peck ! " said the deafest of dames.) 
 
 " 'Tis strange what very strong advising, 
 By word of mouth or advertising. 
 
A TALE OF A TRUilPET, 
 
 319 
 
 Bj chalking on walls, or placarding on vans, 
 
 With fifty other different plans, 
 
 The very high pressure, in fact, of pressing, 
 
 It needs to persuade one to purchase a blessing ! 
 
 "WTiether the Soothing American Syrup, 
 
 A Safety Hat or a Safety Stirrup, — 
 
 Lifallible Pills for the human frame. 
 
 Or Rowland's 0-don't-o (an ominous name !) 
 
 A Doudney"s suit which the shape so hits 
 
 That it beats all others into Jits ; 
 
 A Mechi's razor for beards unshorn, 
 
 Or a Ghost-of-a- Whisper-Catching Horn ! 
 
 " Try it again, ma'am, only try ! " 
 
 Was still the voluble pedler's cry ; 
 
 " It 's a great privation, there 's no dispute, 
 
 To live like the dumb unsociable brute. 
 
 And to hear no more of the pro and cofi, 
 
 And how society's going on, 
 
 Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John, 
 
 And all for want of this sme qua non ; 
 
 Whereas, with a horn that never offends, 
 You may join the genteelest party that is, 
 And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz, 
 
 And be certain to hear of your absent friends ; 
 Not that elegant ladies, in fact. 
 In genteel society ever detract. 
 Or lend a brush when a friend is blacked. 
 At least as a mere malicious act. — 
 But only talk scandal for fear some fool 
 Should think they were bred at charity school. 
 
 Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation. 
 Which even the most Don Juanish rake 
 Would surely object to undertiike 
 
 At the same high pitch as an altercation. 
 
320 A TALE OF A IRrMPET. 
 
 It "s not for me. of course, to judge 
 
 How much a deaf ladj ought to begrudge ; 
 
 But half-a-gumea seems no great matter — 
 
 Letting alone more rational patter — 
 
 Onlj to hear a 2'»arrot chatter : 
 
 Not to mention that feathered wit, 
 
 The starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit ; 
 
 The pies and jajs that utter words, 
 
 And other Dicky Gossips of bu'ds, 
 
 That talk with as much good sense and decorum 
 
 As many Beaks who belong to the quorum. 
 
 '• Try it — buy it — say ten-and-sLx, 
 
 The lowest price a miser could fix : 
 
 I don't pretend with horns of mine, 
 
 Like some in the advertisina; line. 
 
 To ' inagnlfy sounds' on such marvellous scales, 
 
 That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale's ; 
 
 But popular rumors, right or wrong, — 
 
 Charity sermons, short or long, — 
 
 Lecture, speech, concerto, or song, 
 
 All noises and voices, feeble or strong, 
 
 From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong, 
 
 This tube will deliver, distinct and clear ; 
 
 Or supposing by chance 
 
 You wish to dance. 
 Why, it "s putting a Horn-pipe into your ear ! 
 
 Try it — buy it ! 
 
 Buy it — try it ! 
 The last new patent, and nothing comes nigh it, 
 
 For guiding sounds to proper tunnel : 
 Only try till the end of June, 
 And if you and the tnimpet are out of tune, 
 I '11 turn it gratis into a funnel ! " 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 321 
 
 In short, tlie pcdler so beset her, — 
 Lord Bacon couldn't have gammoned her better, — 
 With flatteries plump and indirect, 
 And plied his tongue with such effect, — 
 A tongue that could almost have buttered a crumpet. 
 The deaf old woman bought the trumpet. 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 The pedler was gone. With the horn's assistance, 
 She heard his steps die away in the distance ; 
 And then she heard the tick of the clock, 
 The purring of puss, and the snoring of Shock ! 
 And she purposely dropt a pin that was little, 
 And heai-d it fall as plain as a skittle ! 
 
 'T was a wonderful horn, to be but just ! 
 Nor meant to gather dust, must, and rust : 
 So in half a jiffy, or less than that, 
 In her scarlet cloak and her steeple hat, 
 Like old Dame Trot, but without her Cat, 
 The gossip was hunting all Tringham thorough, 
 As if she meant to canvass the borough. 
 
 Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity : — 
 And, sure, had the horn been one of those 
 The wild rhinoceros wears on his nose 
 
 It couldn't have ripped up more depravity ! 
 
 Depravity ! mercy shield her ears ! 
 
 'T was plain enough that her village peers 
 
 In the ways of vice were no raw beginners ; 
 For whenever she raised the tube to her drum, 
 Such sounds were transmitted as only come 
 
 From the very brass band of human sinners ! 
 
 Ribald jest and blasphemous curse, 
 (Bunyan never vented worse,) 
 
 r=.l 
 
322 A TALE OF A TEUMPET. 
 
 With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech 
 
 Which the seven Dialecticians teach ; 
 
 Filthy conjunctions, and dissolute nouns, 
 
 And particles picked from the kennels of towns, 
 
 With irregular verbs for irregular jobs. 
 
 Chiefly active in rows and mobs, 
 
 Picking possessive pronouns' fobs. 
 
 And interjections as bad as a blight. 
 
 Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight ; 
 
 Fanciful phrases for crime and sin. 
 
 And smacking of vulgar lips where gin, 
 
 Garlic, tobacco, and ofials go in — 
 
 A jargon so truly adapted, in fact, 
 
 To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act. 
 
 So fit for the brute with the human shape. 
 
 Savage baboon, or libidinous ape. 
 
 From their ugly mouths it will certainly come 
 
 Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb ! 
 
 Alas ! for the voice of Virtue and Truth, 
 And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth ! 
 The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang 
 Shocked the dame with a volley of slang, 
 Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang ; 
 While the charity chap. 
 With his mufiin cap, 
 
 His crimson coat and his badge so parish, 
 Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole, 
 Cursed his eyes, limbs, body, and soul, 
 
 As if they did n't belong to the parish ! 
 'T was awful to hear, as she went along, 
 The wicked words of the popular song ; 
 
 Or supposing she listened — as gossips will — 
 At a door ajar, or a window agape, 
 To catch the sounds they allowed to escape, 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 323 
 
 Those sounds belonged to Depravity still ! 
 The dark allusion, or bolder brag 
 Of the dexterous " dodge," and the lots of " s^Yag," 
 The plundered house — or the stolen nag — 
 The blazing rick, or the darker crime 
 That (quenched the spark l^efore its time — 
 The wanton speech of the wife immoral — 
 The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel, — 
 With savage menaces, which threatened the life, 
 Till the heart seemed merely a strop " for the knife ; ' 
 The human liver, no better than that 
 Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman's cat ; 
 
 And the head, so usefiil for shaking and nodding, 
 To be punched into holes, like a " shocking bad hat " 
 
 That is only fit to be punched into Avadding ! 
 
 In short, wherever she turned the horn. 
 To the highly bred or the lowly born. 
 The working man who looked over the hedge, 
 Or the mother nursing her infant pledge. 
 The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels. 
 Or the governess pacmg the village through, 
 With her twelve young ladies, two and two. 
 Looking, as such young ladies do, 
 
 Trus'sed by Decorum and stuffed with morals — 
 Whether she listened to Hob or Bob, 
 Nob or Snob, 
 The Squire on his cob, 
 Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job. 
 To the saint who expounded at " Little Zion ' — 
 Or the " sinner who kept the Golden Lion '' — 
 The man teetotally weaned from liquor — 
 The beadle, the clerk, or the reverend vicar — 
 Nay, the very pie in its cage of wicker — 
 She gathered such meanings, double or single, 
 
324 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 That, like the bell 
 With muffins to sell, 
 Her ear was kept in a constant tingle ! 
 
 But this was naught to the tales of shame, 
 ■ The constant runnings of evil fame, 
 Foul, and dirty, and black as ink. 
 That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, 
 Poured in her horn like slops in a sink : 
 
 "While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, 
 With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, 
 And not a little of feline spleen 
 
 Lapped up in " Catty "packages," too, 
 
 To give a zest to the sipping and supping ; 
 For still, by some invisible tether. 
 Scandal and tea are linked together, 
 
 As surely as scarification and cupping ; 
 Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea — 
 Or sloe, or whatever it happened to be, 
 For some grocerly thieves 
 Turn over new leaves 
 Without much amending their lives or their tea — 
 No, never since cup was filled or stirred. 
 Were such vile and horrible anecdotes heard. 
 As blackened their neighbors of either gender, 
 Especially that which is called the Tender, 
 But instead of the softness we fancy therewith, 
 As hardened in vice as the vice of a smith. 
 
 Women ! the wretches ! had soiled and marred 
 Whatever to womanly nature belongs ; 
 
 For the marriage tie they had no regard. 
 
 Nay, sped their mates to the sexton's yard, 
 
 (Like Madame Lafiarge, who with poisonous pinches 
 Kept cutting off her L by inches) 
 
 And as for drinking, they drank so hard 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 325 
 
 That they drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs ! 
 The men — thej fought and gambled at fairs ; 
 And poached — and did n't respect gray hairs — 
 Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses ; 
 And broke in houses as well as horses ; 
 Unfolded folds to kill their o^vn mutton, 
 And -would their ovm. mothers and wives for a button — 
 But not to repeat the deeds they did, 
 Backsliding in spite of all moral skid. 
 If all were true that fell from the tongue. 
 There was not a villager, old or young. 
 But deserved to be whipped, imprisoned, or hung, 
 Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries 
 To publish at Colburn's, or Longmans', or Murray's. 
 
 Meanwhile the trumpet, co}i amore^ 
 Transmitted each -vile diabolical story ; 
 And gave the least whisper of slips and falls, 
 As that gallery does in the dome of St. Paul's, 
 Which, as all the world knows, by practice or print, 
 Is famous for making the most of a hint. 
 Not a murmur of shame. 
 Or buzz of blame, 
 Not a flying report that flew at a name, 
 Not a plausible gloss, or significant note, 
 Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat 
 Of a beam in the eye or diminutive mote, 
 But vortex-like that tube of tin 
 Sucked the censorious particle in ; 
 
 And, truth to tell, for as willinor an organ 
 As ever listened to serpent's hiss. 
 Nor took the viperous sound amiss, 
 
 On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon ! 
 28 
 
S26 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 The dame, it is true, Yrould mutter " Shocking ! " 
 And give her head a sorrowful rocking, 
 And make a clucking with palate and tongue, 
 Like the call of Partlett to gather her young, — 
 A sound, when human, that always proclaims 
 At least a thousand pities and shames. 
 
 But still the darker the tale of sin, 
 Like certain folks when calamities burst, 
 Who find a comfort in " hearing the worst," 
 
 The further she poked the trumpet in. 
 Kay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread 
 
 East, and West, and North, and South, 
 Like the ball which, according to Captain Z., 
 
 Went in at his ear, and came out at his mouth. 
 
 What wonder, between the horn and the dame, 
 Such mischief was made wherever they came. 
 That the parish of Tringham was all in a flame I 
 
 For although it requires such loud discharges, 
 Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear, 
 To turn the smallest of table-beer, 
 A little whisper breathed into tlie ear 
 
 Will sour a temper '•' as sour as varges." 
 In fact, such very ill blood there grew, 
 
 From this private circulation of stories. 
 That the nearest neighbors, the ^-ilkge through, 
 Looked at each other as yellow and blue 
 As any electioneering crew 
 
 Wearing the colors of Whigs and Tories. 
 
 Ah ! well the poet said, in sooth, 
 
 That ■' whispering tongues can poison Truth," 
 
 Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid, 
 
 Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, 
 
r~ 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 327 
 
 And rack dear Love with internal fuel, 
 Like arsenic pastry, or, what is as cruel, 
 Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel ; 
 At least such torments began to wring 'em 
 
 From the ver j morn 
 
 When that mischievous horn 
 Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham. 
 
 The Social Clubs dissolved in huifs. 
 
 And the Sons of Harmony came to cuflfs. 
 
 While feuds arose, and family quarrels. 
 
 That discomposed the mechanics of morals, 
 
 For screws were loose between brother and brother, 
 
 While sisters fastened their nails on each other : 
 
 Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, 
 
 And spar, and jar — and breezes as stiff 
 
 As ever upset a friendship or skiff ! 
 
 The plighted lovers, who used to walk, 
 
 Refused to meet, and declined to talk ; 
 
 And wished for two moons to reflect the sun, 
 
 That they mightn't look together on one ; 
 
 While wedded affection ran so low. 
 
 That the oldest John Andei-son snubbed his Jo — 
 
 And instead of the toddle adown the hill. 
 
 Hand in hand, 
 
 As the song has planned. 
 Scratched her, penniless, out of his will ! 
 
 In short, to describe what came to pass 
 
 Li a true, though somewhat theatrical way. 
 Instead of " Love in a Village " — alas ! 
 The piece they performed was ' ' The De"\il to Pay ! ' 
 
 However, as secrets are l)rought to light, 
 
 And mischief comes home like chickens at night ; 
 
328 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 And rivers are tracked throughout their course, 
 And forgeries traced to their proper source ; — 
 
 And the sow that ought 
 
 By the ear is caught, — 
 And the sin to the sinful door is brought ; 
 And the cat at last escapes from the bag — 
 And the saddle is placed on the proper nag ; 
 And the fog blows off, and the key is found — 
 And the faulty scent is picked out by the hound — 
 And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground — 
 And the matter gets wind to waft it about ; 
 And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out — 
 And the riddle is guessed — and the puzzle is known — ■ 
 So the truth was sniffed, and the trumpet was blown ! 
 
 *4^ ^^ 4^ ^^ 
 
 TT TT TP TV 
 
 'T is a day in November — a day of fog — 
 But the Tringham people are all agog ; 
 Fathers, mothers, and mothers' sons, — 
 With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns, — 
 As if in pursuit of a rabid dog ; 
 But their voices — raised to the highest pitch — 
 Declare that the game is " a Witch ! — a Witch ! " 
 Over the green and along by the George — 
 Past the stocks, and the church, and the forge, 
 And round the pound, and skirting the pond, 
 Till they come to the whitewashed cottage beyond, 
 And there at the door they muster and cluster. 
 And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster — 
 Enough to put old Nick in a fluster ! 
 A noise, indeed, so loud and long, 
 And mixed with expressions so very strong. 
 That supposing, according to popular fame, 
 " Wise Woman " and Witch to be the same, 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 329 
 
 Xo hag with a broom would un\visely stop, 
 But up and away through the chimnej-top ; 
 Whereas, the moment thej bui-st the door, 
 Phmted fast ou her sanded floor. 
 With her trumpet up to her organ of hearing, 
 Lo and behold ! — Dame Eleanor Spearing ! 
 
 ! then arises the fearful shout — 
 Bawled and screamed, and bandied about — 
 " Seize her ! — di'ag the old Jezebel out ! " 
 While the beadle — the foremost of all the band 
 Snatches the horn from her trembling hand. 
 And after a pause of doubt and fear, 
 Puts it up to his sharpest ear. 
 
 " Now silence — silence — one and all ! " 
 For the clerk is quoting from Holy Paul ' 
 
 But before he rehearses 
 
 A couple of verses, 
 The beadle lets the trumpet fall ; 
 For instead of the words so pious and humble, 
 He hears a supernatural grumble. 
 
 Enough, enouojh ! and more than enough ; — 
 Twenty impatient hands and rough, 
 By arm. and leg. and neck, and scruff, 
 Apron, "kerchief, gown of stuff — 
 Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff — 
 Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, 
 With the spite of woman and fury of man ; 
 And then — but first they kill her cat, 
 And murder her dog on the very mat — 
 And crush the infernal trumpet flat ; — 
 And then they hurry her through the door 
 She never, never, will enter more ! 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 A TALE or A TRUMPET. 
 
 Awaj ! away ! down the clustj lane 
 
 They pull her,, and haul her, with might and main ; 
 
 And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry, 
 
 Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry, 
 
 "Who happens to get ••' a leg to carry ! " 
 
 And happy the foot that can give her a kick. 
 
 And happy the hand that can find a brick — 
 
 And happy the fingers that hold a stick — 
 
 Knife to cut. or pin to prick — 
 
 And happy the boy who can lend her a lick ; — 
 
 Is ay, happy the urchin — charity-bred — 
 
 Who can shy very nigh to her ^-icked old head ! 
 
 Alas ! to think how people's creeds 
 Are contradicted by people's deeds ! 
 
 But though the wishes that Witches utter 
 Can play the most diabolical rigs — 
 Send styes in the eye — and measle the pigs — 
 
 Grease horses' heels — and spoil the butter ; 
 Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk — 
 And turn new milk to water and chalk, — 
 Blight apples — and give the chickens the pip — 
 And cramp the stomach — and cripple the hip — 
 And waste the body — and addle the eggs — 
 And give a baby bandy legs : 
 Though in common belief a Witch's curse 
 Involves all these horrible things and wol^e — 
 As ignorant bumpkins all profess — 
 No bumpkin makes a poke the less 
 At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S. ! 
 
 As if she were only a sack of barley ; 
 Or gives her credit for greater might 
 Than the powers of darkness confer at night 
 
 On that other old woman, the parish Charley; 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 
 
 331 
 
 Ay, now 's the time for a Witch to call 
 
 On her imps and sucklings one and all — 
 
 Newes, Pjewacket, or Peek in the Crown, 
 
 (As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down) 
 
 Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack, 
 
 Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black, 
 
 Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack — 
 
 Ay, now *s the nick for her friend Old Harry 
 
 To come ' • with his tail " " like the bold Glengarry, 
 
 And drive her foes from their savage job 
 
 As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob : — 
 
 But no such matter is down in the bond ; 
 And spite of her cries that never cease, 
 But scare the ducks and astonish the geese, 
 
 The dame is di-agged to the fatal pond ! 
 
 And now they come to the water's brim — 
 
 And in they bundle her — sink or swim ; 
 
 Though it's twenty to one that the wretch must drown, 
 
 With twenty sticks to hold her down ; 
 
 Including the help to the self-same end. 
 
 Which a travelling pedler stops to lend. 
 
 A pedler ! — Yes ! — The same ! — the same ! 
 
 Who sold the horn to the drowning dame ! 
 
 And now is foremost amid the stii'. 
 
 With a token only revealed to her ; 
 
 A token that makes her shudder and shriek, 
 
 And point with her finger, and strive to speak — 
 
 But before she can utter the name of the Devil, 
 
 Her head is under the water level ! 
 
 ittoral. 
 
 There are folks about town — to name no names — 
 Who much resemble that deafest of dames ; 
 
332 
 
 NO. 
 
 And over their tea, and muffing, and crumpets, 
 Circulate many a scandalous word, 
 And whisper tales they could only have heard 
 
 Through some such Diabolical Trumpets ! 
 
 NO! 
 
 No sun — no moon ! 
 
 No morn — no noon — 
 No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day — 
 
 No sky — no earthly view — 
 
 No distance looking blue — 
 No road — no street — no "t'other side the way "- 
 
 No end to any Row — 
 
 No indications where the Crescents go — 
 
 No top to any steeple — 
 No recognitions of familiar people — 
 
 No courtesies for showing 'em — 
 
 No knowing 'em ! 
 No travelling at all — no locomotion. 
 No inkling of the way — no notion — 
 
 " No go " — by land or ocean — 
 
 No mail — no post — 
 
 No news from any foreign coast — 
 No park — no ring — no afternoon gentility — 
 
 No company — no nobility — 
 No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, 
 
 No comfortable feel in any member — 
 No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, 
 No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, 
 
 November ! 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Alack ! 't is melancholy theme to think 
 How Learning doth in rugged states abide, 
 And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, 
 In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied ; 
 Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride, 
 Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, 
 ■ But with one lonely priest compelled to hide, 
 In midst of foggy moors and mosses green, 
 In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen ! 
 
 This college looketh South and "West alsoe, 
 Because it hath a cast in windows twain ; 
 Crazy and cracked they be, and wind doth blow 
 Thorough transparent holes in every pane. 
 Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again 
 With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach 
 To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain 
 Stormeth, he puts, '-once more unto the breach," 
 Outside and in, though broke, yet so he mendeth each. 
 
 And in the midst a little door there is, 
 Whereon a board that doth congratulate 
 With painted letters, red as blood I wis. 
 Thus written, "erjilOrtu tafeen in to aSatc;" 
 And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate. 
 Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak, 
 And moans of infants that bemoan then* flite, 
 In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, 
 Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak. 
 
334 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 For some are meant to right illegal wrongs, 
 And some for Doctors of Divinitie, 
 Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues, 
 And soe win academical degree ; 
 But some are bred for service of the sea, 
 Howbeit, their store of learning is but small, 
 For mickle waste he counteth it would be 
 To stock a head with bookish wares at all. 
 Only to be knocked off by ruthless cannon-ball. 
 
 Six babes he sways, — some little and some big, 
 Divided into classes six ; — alsoe, 
 He keeps a parlor boarder of a pig. 
 That in the college fareth to and fro. 
 And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below, — 
 And eke the learned rudiments they scan, 
 And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know, — 
 Hereafter to be shown in caravan. 
 And raise the wonderment of many a learned man. 
 
 Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls, 
 Whereof, above his head, some two or three 
 Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls. 
 But on the branches of no living tree, 
 And overlook the learned family ; 
 While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch, 
 Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, 
 Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research 
 In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge — now a birch 
 
 No chair he hath, the awful pedagogue. 
 Such as would magisterial hams imbed. 
 But sitteth lowly on a beechen log, 
 Secure in high authority and dread : 
 Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head 
 And hke Apollo's, all beset with rays, 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Because his locks are sc unkempt and red, 
 And stand abroad in many several ways : — 
 No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baize, 
 
 And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows 
 O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue, 
 That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows 
 A mongrel tint, that is ne brow no blue ; 
 His nose. — it is a coral to the view ; 
 Well nourished with Pierian potheen,— 
 For much he loves his native mountain dew ; — 
 But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, 
 A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green. 
 
 As for his coat, 't is such a jerkin short 
 As Spenser had, ere he composed his Tales ; 
 But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught. 
 So that the wind his airy breast assails ; 
 Below, he wears the nether garb of males. 
 Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee : - 
 Thence further down the native red prevails. 
 Of his own naked fleecy hosierie : — 
 Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pie. 
 
 Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap 
 His function in a magisterial gown. 
 That shows more countries in it than a map, — 
 Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown. 
 Besides some blots, standing for country-town ; 
 And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide ; 
 But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown, 
 He turns the garment of the other side. 
 Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied ! 
 
 And soe he sits, amidst the little pack, 
 That look for shady or for sunny noon, 
 
 335 
 
536 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Within his visage, like an almanack, — 
 His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon : 
 But when his mouth droops clown, like rainy moon, 
 With horrid chill each little heart unwarms, 
 Knowing that infant showers will follow soon, 
 And with forebodings of near wrath and storms 
 The J sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms, 
 
 Ah ! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat 
 "Corduroy Colloquy,"— or " Ki, K», Kod,"— 
 Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat 
 More sodden, though already made of sod. 
 For Dan shall whip him with the word of God, — 
 Severe by rule, and not by nature mild. 
 He never spoils the child and spares the rod. 
 But spoils the rod and never spares the child, 
 And soe with holy rule deems he is reconciled. 
 
 But surely the just sky will never wink 
 At men who take delight in childish throe, 
 And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink 
 Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe ; 
 Such bloody pedagogues, when they shall know, 
 By useless birches, that forlorn recess, 
 Which is no holiday, in Pit below, 
 Will hell not seem designed for their distress, — 
 A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse 7 
 
 Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use 
 
 Of needful disciphne, in due degree. 
 
 Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce ! 
 
 Whene'er the twig untrained grows up a tree, 
 
 This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be. 
 
 Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands. 
 
 And Learning's help be used for infamie, 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 33T 
 
 By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands, 
 In murdered English write Rock"s murderous commands 
 
 But, ah ! what shrilly cry doth now alarm 
 The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam, 
 All sudden fluttering from the brandished arm 
 And cajskling chorus with the human scream ; 
 Meanwhile the scourge plies that unkindly seam 
 In Phelim's brogues, which bares his naked skin, 
 Like traitor gap in Avarlike fort, I deem, 
 That falsely lets the fierce besieger in. 
 Nor seeks the pedagogue by other course to win. 
 
 No parent dear he hath to heed his cries ; — 
 Alas ! his pai-ent dear is far aloof. 
 And deep in Seven-Dial cellar lies, 
 Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof, 
 Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof. 
 Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin's Isle, 
 Or, whilst he labors, weaves a fancy-woof, 
 Dreaming he sees his home, — his Phelim smile ; 
 Ah, me ! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while ! 
 
 Ah ! who can paint that hard and heavy time, 
 When first the scholar lists in Learning's train. 
 And mounts her rugged steep enforced to climb, 
 Like sooty imp, by sharp posterior pain. 
 From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane, 
 Wherein, alas ! no sugared juices dwell 7 
 For this, the while one stripling's sluices drain. 
 Another weepeth over chillblains fell. 
 Always upon the heel, yet never to be well ! 
 
 Anon a third, for his delicious root, 
 Late ravished from his tooth by elder chit, 
 29 
 
 -=zr=:^.\ 
 
338 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 r 
 
 So soon is human violence afoot, 
 So hardly is the harmless biter bit ! 
 Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit 
 And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, 
 Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit. 
 Alack, — mischance comes seldomtimes alone. 
 But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one 
 
 For, lo ! the pedagogue, with sudden drub, 
 Smites his scald head, that is already sore, — 
 Superfluous wound, — such is Misfortune's rub ! 
 Who straight makes answer with redoubled roar, 
 And sheds salt tears twice faster than before, 
 That still with backward fist he strives to dry ; 
 Washing with brackish moisture, o'er and o'er, 
 His muddy cheek, that grows more- foul thereby, 
 Till all his rainy face looks grim as rainy sky. 
 
 So Dan, by dint of noise, obtains a peace, 
 And with his natural untender knack, 
 By new distress, bids former grievance cease. 
 Like tears dried up with rugged huckaback. 
 That sets the mournful visage all awrack ; 
 Yet soon the childish countenance will shine 
 Even as thorough storms the soonest slack, 
 For grief and beef in adverse ways incline, 
 This keeps, and that decays, when duly soaked in brine. 
 
 Now, all is hushed, and, with a look profound. 
 The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; 
 (So be it called) although he doth expound 
 Without a book, both Greek and Latin sage ; 
 Now telleth he of Rome's rude infant age, 
 How Romulus was bred in savage wood, 
 By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage, 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 339 
 
 And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud, 
 But watered it, alas ! with warm fraternal blood. 
 
 Anon, be turns to that Homeric war, 
 How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town ; 
 And stout Acbilles, at his jaunting-car. 
 Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown : 
 And eke the bard, that sung of their renown, 
 In garb of Greece most beggar-like and torn, 
 He paints, with colly, wandering up and down : 
 Because, at once, in seven cities born ; 
 And so. of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn. 
 
 Anon, through old Mythology he goes. 
 Of gods defunct, and all their pedigrees, 
 But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows 
 How Plato wise, and clear-eyed Socrates, 
 Confessed not to those heathen he's and she's ; 
 But through the clouds of the Olympic cope 
 Beheld St. Peter with his holy keys. 
 And owned their love was naught, and bowed to Pope, 
 Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope. 
 
 From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside, 
 To new philosophies, that still are green. 
 And shows what railroads have been tracked to guide 
 The wheels of great political machine ; 
 If English corn should grow abroad, I ween, 
 And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet ; 
 How many pigs be born to each spalpeen ; 
 And, ah ! how man shall thrive beyond his meat, — 
 With twenty souls alive to one square sod of peat ! 
 
 Here he makes end ; and all the fry of youth. 
 That stood around with serious look intense, 
 
340 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth, 
 Which thej had opened to his eloquence, 
 As if their hearing were a three-fold sense. 
 But now the current of his words is done, 
 And whether any fruits shall spring from thence, 
 In future time, with any mother's son ! 
 It is a thing, God wot ! that can be told by none. 
 
 Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, 
 The hour is come to lay aside their lore : 
 The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon. 
 And cries " Begone ! " unto the imps, — and four 
 Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door, 
 Like ardent spirits vented from a cask. 
 All blithe and boisterous, — but leave two more. 
 With Reading made Uneasy for a task. 
 To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask. 
 
 Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod. 
 With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, 
 That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod, 
 So soothly kind is Erin to her own ! 
 And one. at Hare and Hound, plays all alone, — 
 For Phelim 's gone to tend his step-dame" s cow ; 
 Ah ! Phelim's step-dame is a cankered crone ! 
 Whilst other twain play at an Irish row. 
 And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow' 
 
 But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift. 
 Now changeth ferula for rural hoe ; 
 But, first of all, with tender hand doth sliift 
 His college gown, because of solar glow. 
 And hangs it on a bush, to scare the crow : 
 Meanwliile, he plants in earth the dappled bean, 
 Or trains the young potatoes all a-row, 
 
EriGRAMS. 341 
 
 Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green. 
 With that crisp curly herb, called Kale in Aberdeen. 
 
 And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours, 
 Linked each to each bj labor, like a bee, 
 Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bowers ; — 
 Would there were many more such wights as he, 
 To sway each capital academic 
 Of Cam and Isis ; for, alack ! at each 
 There dwells I wot some di-onish Dominie, 
 That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach. 
 But wears a flom-y head, and talks in flowery speech ! 
 
 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 ON THE ART-UNIONS. 
 
 That picture-raffles will conduce to nourish 
 Design, or cause good Coloring to flourish, 
 Admits of logic-chopping and wise sawing, 
 But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing ! 
 
 THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY. 
 
 A MECHANIC his labor will often discard 
 
 If the rate of his pay he dislikes : 
 But a clock — and its case is uncommonly hard ■ 
 
 Will continue to work though it strikes. 
 39* 
 
THE FORGE: 
 
 A ROIIAXCE CF THE IROX AGE. 
 
 " Who 's here, beside foul weather ?" — King Lear. 
 
 " Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me. 
 
 Should have stood that night against my fire." — Coudelia. 
 
 PAET I. 
 LiEE a dead man gone to his shroud, 
 The sun has sunk in a coppery cloud, 
 And the wind is rising squally and loud 
 
 With many a stormy token, — 
 Playing a wild funereal air. 
 Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare. 
 To the dead leaves dancing here and there — 
 
 In short, if the truth were spoken, 
 It 's an ugly one for anywhere, 
 
 But an awful night for the Brocken. 
 
 For, ! to stop 
 On that mountain top, 
 After the dews of evening drop, 
 
 Is always a dreary frolic — 
 Then what must it be when Xature groans, 
 And the very mountain murmurs and moans 
 
 As if it writhed with the colic — 
 With other strange supernatural tones, 
 From wood; and water, and echoing stones, 
 Not to forget unburied bones — 
 
 In a region so diabolic ! 
 A place where he whom we call Old Scratch, 
 By help of his Witches — a precious batch — 
 
THE FOllGE. 343 
 
 Gives midnight concerts and sermons, 
 In a pulpit and orchestra built to match^ 
 A plot right worthy of him to hatch, 
 And well adapted, he knows, to catch 
 
 The musical, mystical Germans ! 
 
 However, it 's quite 
 As wild a night 
 As ever was known on that sinister height 
 
 Since the Demon-Dance was morriced — 
 The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling, 
 And the blast through the pines is howling and growling. 
 As if a thousand wolves were prowling 
 About in the old Black Forest ! 
 
 Madly, sadly, the tempest raves 
 
 Through the narrow guUeys and hollow caves, 
 
 And bursts on the rocks in windy waves. 
 
 Like the Ijillows that roar 
 
 On a gusty shore 
 Mourning over the mariners' graves — 
 Nay, more like a frantic lamentation 
 
 From a howling set 
 
 Of demons met 
 To wake a dead relation. 
 
 Badly, madly, the vapors fly 
 Over the dark distracted sky. 
 
 At a pace that no pen can paint ! 
 Black and vague like the shadows of dreams, 
 Scudding over the moon that seems 
 Shorn of half her usual beams. 
 
 As pale as if she would faint ! 
 
 The lightning flashes. 
 The thunder crashes, 
 
344 
 
 THE FORGE. 
 
 The trees encounter with horrible clashes, 
 While rolling up from marish and bog, 
 Rank and rich, 
 As from Stygian ditch, 
 Rises a foul sulphureous fog, 
 Hinting that Satan himself is agog, — 
 But, leanng at once this heroical pitch, 
 The night is a very bad night, in which 
 You would n't turn out a dog. 
 
 Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm, 
 
 And whenever by chance 
 
 The moon gets a glance, 
 She spies the traveller's lonely form, 
 Walking, leaping, striding along. 
 As none can do but the super-strong ; 
 And flapping his arms to keep him warm, 
 For the breeze from the north is a regular starver, 
 
 And, to tell the truth, 
 
 More keen, in sooth, 
 And cutting than any German carver ! 
 
 However, no time it is to lag ; 
 And on he scrambles from crag to crag, 
 Like one determined never to flag — 
 Now weathers a block 
 Of jutting rock. 
 With hardly room for a toe to wag ; 
 But holding on by a timber-snag, 
 That looks like the arm of a friendly hag • 
 
 Then stooping under a drooping bough. 
 Or leaping over some horrid chasm. 
 Enough to give any heart a spasm ! 
 
 And sinking down a precipice now, 
 Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how, 
 
THE FORGE. 345 
 
 In spots ■whence all creatures would keep aloof, 
 
 Except the goat, with his cloven hoof, 
 
 Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if 
 
 He grew like the weed on the face of the cliff ! 
 
 So down, still down, the traveller goes. 
 
 Safe as the chamois amid his snows, 
 
 Though fiercer than ever the hurricane blows, 
 
 And round him eddj, "with whirl and whizz, 
 Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain. 
 Enough to bewilder a weaker brain. 
 
 Or blanch any other visage than his. 
 Which, spite of lightning, thunder, and hail. 
 The blinding sleet, and the freezing gale, 
 And the horrid abyss. 
 If his foot should miss. 
 Instead of tending at all to pale. 
 Like cheeks that feel the chill of affright — 
 Remains — the very reverse of white ! 
 
 His heart is granite — his iron nerve 
 
 Feels no convulsive twitches ; 
 And as to his foot, it does not swerve. 
 Though the screech-owls are flitting about him that serve 
 
 For parrots to Brocken Witches ! 
 
 Nay, full in his very path he spies 
 
 The gleam of the w^ehr wolf's horrid eyes ; 
 
 But if his members quiver — 
 It is not for that — no, it is not for that — 
 Nor rat, nor cat, as black as your hat. 
 Nor the snake that hissed, nor the toad that spat, 
 Nor glimmering candles of dead men's fat. 
 Nor even the flap of the vampire bat. 
 No anserine skin would rise thereat. 
 
 It 's the cold that makes Him shiver ! 
 
346 THE FORGE. 
 
 So down, still down, through gully and glen, 
 Never trodden by foot of men, 
 Past the eagle's nest, and the she-wolf's den, 
 Never caring a jot how steep 
 Or how narrow the track he has to keep, 
 Or how wide and deep 
 An abyss to leap. 
 Or what may fly, or walk, or creep, 
 Down he hurries through darkness and storm, 
 Flapping his arms to keep him warm — 
 Till, threading many a pass abhorrent, 
 
 At last he reaches the mountain gorge. 
 And takes a path along by a torrent — 
 The very identical path, by St. George ! 
 Down which young Fridolin went to the Forge, 
 With a message meant for his own death-warrant ! 
 
 Young Fridolin ! young Fridolin ! 
 So fi'ee from sauce, and sloth, and sin. 
 The best of pages. 
 Whatever their ages. 
 Since first that singular fashion came in — 
 Not he like those modern and idle young gluttons 
 With little jackets, so smart and spruce, 
 Of Lincoln green, sky-blue, or puce — 
 And a little gold-lace you may introduce - - 
 Very showy, but as for use, 
 Not worth so many buttons ! 
 
 Young Fridolin ! young Fridolin ! 
 
 Of his duty so true a fulfiller — 
 But here we need no further go, 
 For whoever desires the tale to know 
 
 May read it all in Schiller. 
 
 Faster now the traveller speeds, 
 
 Whither his guiding beacon leads, 
 
THE FORGE. 347 
 
 For by yonder glare 
 In the murky air, 
 He knows that the Eisen Hutte is there ! 
 
 With its sooty Cyclops, savage and grim, 
 Hosts a guest had better forbear, 
 Whose thoughts are set upon dainty fare — 
 But, stiff with cold in every limb. 
 The furnace fire is the bait for Him ! 
 
 Faster and faster still he goes. 
 
 Whilst redder and redder the welkin glows, 
 
 And the lowest clouds that scud in the sky 
 
 Get crimson fringes in flitting by. 
 
 Till, lo ! amid the lurid light. 
 The darkest object intensely dark. 
 
 Just where the bright is intensely bright, 
 
 The Forge, the Forge itself is in sight. 
 
 Like the pitch-black hull of a burning bark, 
 With volleying smoke, and many a spark. 
 
 Vomiting fire, red, yellow, and white ! 
 
 Restless, quivering tongues of flame ! 
 Heavenward striving still to go, 
 While others, reversed in the stream below. 
 Seem seeking a place we will not name. 
 But well that traveller knows the same, 
 Who stops and stands. 
 So rubbing his hands, 
 And snuffing the rare 
 Perfumes in the air. 
 For old familiar odors are there, 
 And then direct by the shortest cut. 
 Like Alpine marmot, whom neither rut, 
 Rivers, rocks, nor thickets rebut, 
 Makes his way to the blazing hut ! 
 
348 
 
 THE FORGE. 
 
 PART U. 
 
 Idly watching the farnace-flames, 
 The men of the stithy- 
 Are in their smithy, 
 Brutal monsters, with bulky frames, 
 Beings Humanity scarcely claims, 
 But hybrids rather of demon race, 
 Unblessed by the holy rite of grace, 
 Who never had gone by Christian names, 
 Mark, or Matthew, Peter, or James — 
 Naked, foul, unshorn, unkempt, 
 From touch of natural shame exempt, 
 Things of which Delirium has di-eamt — 
 But wherefore dwell on these verbal sketches, 
 When traced with frightful truth and vigor, 
 Costume, attitude, face, and figure, 
 Retsch has drawn the very wretches ! 
 
 However, there they lounge about, 
 The grim, gigantic fellows, 
 
 Hardly hearing the storm without, 
 That makes so very dreadful a rout, 
 For the constant roar 
 From the furnace door, 
 And the blast of the monstrous bellows ' 
 
 0, what a scene 
 That Forge had been 
 For Salvator Rosa's study ! 
 With wall, and beam, and post, and pin, 
 And those ruffianly creatures, like Shapes of Sin ! 
 Hair, and eyes, and rusty skin ; 
 Illumed by a light so ruddy. 
 The hut, and whatever there is therein, 
 Looks either red-hot or bloody ! 
 
THE FORGE. 349 
 
 And, ! to hear the frequent burst 
 Of strange extravagant laughter, 
 Harsh and hoarse. 
 And resounding perforce 
 From echoing roof and rafter ! 
 Though curses, the worst 
 That ever were curst. 
 And threats that Cain invented the first, 
 Come growling the instant after ! 
 
 But again the livelier peal is rung, 
 
 For the Smith-hight Salamander, 
 In the jargon of some Titanic tongue, 
 Elsewhere never said or sung, 
 With the voice of a Stentor in joke has flung 
 Some cumbrous sort 
 Of sledge-hammer retort 
 At Red-Beard, the crew's commander. 
 
 Some frightful jest — who knows how wild, 
 Or obscene, from a monster so defiled. 
 And a horrible mouth, of such extent. 
 From flapping ear to ear it went. 
 And showed such tusks whenever it smiled — 
 The very mouth to devour a child ! 
 
 But fair or foul, the jest gives birth 
 To another bellow of demon mirth, 
 
 That far outroars the weather. 
 As if all the hyenas that prowl the earth 
 
 Had clubbed their laughs too;ether ! 
 
 And, lo ! in the middle of all the din. 
 Not seeming to care a single pin. 
 
 For a prospect so volcanic, 
 A stranger steps abruptly in, 
 30 
 
350 
 
 THE FOKGE. 
 
 Of an aspect rather Satanic : 
 And he looks, with a grin, at those Cyclops grim 
 Who stare and grin again at him 
 
 With wondrous little panic. 
 
 Then up to the furnace the stranger goes, 
 Eager to thaw his ears and nose. 
 
 And warm his frozen fingers and toes — 
 While each succeeding minute 
 Hotter and hotter the smithy grows, 
 And seems to declare, 
 By a fiercer glare, 
 On wall, roof, floor, and everywhere. 
 It knows the Devil is in it ! 
 
 Still not a word 
 
 Is uttered or heard. 
 But the beetle-browed foreman nods and winks, 
 Much as a shaggy old lion blinks. 
 
 And makes a shift 
 
 To impart his drift 
 To a smoky brother, who, joining the links, 
 Hints to a third the thing he thinks ; 
 
 And whatever it be. 
 
 They all agree 
 
 In smiling with faces full of glee, 
 As if about to enjoy high jinks. 
 
 What sort of tricks they mean to play 
 By way of diversion, who can say, 
 Of such ferocious and barbarous folk. 
 Who chuckled, indeed, and never spoke 
 Of burning Robert the Jager to coke. 
 Except as a capital practical joke ! 
 
 Who never thought of Mercy, or heard her, 
 Or any gentle emotion felt ; 
 
THE FORGE. 
 
 351 
 
 But, hard as the iron they had to melt, 
 
 Sported with Danger and romped with Murder ! 
 
 Meanwhile the stranger, — 
 The Brocken Ranger, 
 Besides another and hotter post, 
 That renders him not averse to a roast, — 
 Creeping into the furnace almost, 
 Has made himself as warm as a toast — 
 
 \Yhen, unsuspicious of any danger, 
 And least of all of any such maggot 
 As treating his body like a fagot, 
 All at once he is seized and shoven 
 In pastime cruel, 
 Like so much fuel, 
 Headlong into the blazing oven ! 
 
 In he goes ! with a frightful shout 
 Mocked by the rugged rufiianly band, 
 As round the furnace mouth they stand, 
 Bar, and shovel, and ladle in hand, 
 
 To hinder their butt from crawling out, 
 Who, making one fierce attempt, but vain. 
 Receives such a blow 
 From Red-Beard's crow 
 As crashes the skull and gashes the brain, ^ 
 xVnd blind, and dizzy, and stunned with pain, 
 
 With merely an interjectional ! 
 Back he rolls in the flames again. 
 " Ha ! Ha ! Ho ! Ho ! " That second fall 
 Seems the very best joke of all, 
 To judge by the roar. 
 Twice as loud as before. 
 That fills the hut from the roof to the floor, 
 And flies a league or two out. of the door. 
 
552 
 
 THE FORGE. 
 
 Up the mountain and over the moor — 
 But scarcely the jollj echoes they wake 
 Have well begun 
 To take up the fun, 
 Ere the shaggy felons have cause to quake, 
 
 And begin to feel that the deed they have done, 
 Instead of being a pleasant one, 
 Was a very great error — and no mistake. 
 
 For why 7 — in lieu 
 Of its former hue, 
 So natural, warm, and florid. 
 The furnace burns of brimstone blue, 
 And instead of the couleiir de rose it threw, 
 With a cooler reflection, — justly due — 
 Exhibits each of the Pagan crew. 
 
 Livid, ghastly and horrid ! 
 But vainly they close their guilty eyes 
 
 Against prophetic fears ; 
 Or with hard and homy palms devise 
 To dam their enormous ears — 
 
 There are sounds in the air, 
 Not here or there, 
 In-esistible voices evei'ywhere, 
 No bulwarks can ever rebut. 
 
 And to match the screams. 
 Tremendous gleams. 
 Of horrors that like the phantoms of dreams 
 
 They see with their eyelids shut ! 
 For a-wful coveys of terrible things, 
 With forked tongues and venomous stings, 
 On hagweed, broomsticks, and leathern wings, 
 Are hoverinor round the hut ! 
 
THE FORGE. 
 
 353 
 
 Shapes ! that within the focus bright 
 
 Of the Forge, are like shadows and blots ; 
 But further off, in the shades of night, 
 Clothed Viith their own phosphoric hght. 
 
 Are seen in the darkest spots. 
 Sounds ! that fill the air with noises, 
 Strange and indescribable voices, 
 From hags, in a diabolical clatter — 
 Cats that spit curses, and apes that chatter 
 Scraps of cabalistical matter — 
 
 Owls that screech, and dogs that yell — 
 Skeleton hounds that will never be fatter — 
 
 All the domestic tribes of Hell, 
 Shrieking for flesh to tear and tatter, 
 Bones to shatter, 
 And limbs to scatter, — 
 And who it is that must fui-nish the latter 
 
 Those blue-looking men know well ! 
 Those blue-looking men that huddle together. 
 For all their sturdy Hmbs and thews, 
 Their unshorn locks, like Xazarene Jews, 
 And buffalo beards, and hides of leather, 
 Huddled all in a heap together. 
 Like timid lamb, and ewe, and wether, 
 And as females say. 
 In a similar way, 
 Fit for knocking down with a feather ! 
 
 In and out, in and out, 
 The gathering goblins hover about, 
 Every minute augmenting the rout ; 
 For like a spell 
 The unearthly smell 
 That ftimes from the furnace, chimney and mouth, 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 THE FORGE. 
 
 Draws them in — an infernal legion — 
 From East, and West, and North, and South, 
 Like carrion birds from every region, 
 
 Till not a yard square 
 
 Of the sickening air 
 But has a Demon or two for its share, 
 Breathing fury, woe, and despair. 
 Never, never was such a sight ! 
 It beats the very Walpurgis Night, 
 Displayed in the Story of Doctor Faustus ; 
 
 For the scene to describe, 
 
 Of the awful tribe. 
 If we were hvo Gothes would quite exhaust us ! 
 Suffice it, amid that dreary swarm. 
 There musters each foul repulsive form 
 That ever a fancy overwarm 
 
 Begot in its worst delirium : 
 Besides some others of monstrous size, 
 Never before revealed to eyes, 
 Of the genus Megatherium ! 
 
 Meanwhile the demons, filthy and foul, 
 Gorgon, Chimera, Harpy, and Ghoul, 
 Are not contented to gibber and howl 
 
 As a dirge for their late commander ; 
 But one of the bevy — witch or wizard, 
 Disguised as a monstrous flying lizard, 
 
 Springs on the grisly Salamander, 
 Who stoutly fights, and struggles, and kicks, 
 And tries the best of his wrestling tricks, — 
 No paltry strife. 
 But for life, dear life, — 
 But the ruthless talons refuse to unfix, 
 
 Till, far beyond a surgical case, 
 
 With starting eyes and black in the face, 
 
THE FORGE. 355 
 
 Down he tumbles as dead as bricks ! 
 A pretty sight for his mates to view ! 
 Those shaggy murderers looking so blue, 
 iVnd for him above all, 
 Red-bearded and tall, 
 With whom, at that very particular nick, 
 There is such an unlucky crow to pick, 
 As the one of iron that did the trick 
 
 In a recent bloody aifair — 
 No wonder, feeling a little sick, 
 With pulses beating uncommonly quick, 
 And breath he never found so thick, 
 
 He longs for the open air ! 
 
 Three paces, or four, 
 And he gains the door ; 
 But ere he accomplishes one, 
 The sound of a blow comes, heavy and dull. 
 And, clasping his fingers round his skull, 
 However the deed was done. 
 
 That gave him that florid 
 Red gash on the forehead — 
 With a roll of the eyeballs perfectly horrid. 
 There 's a tremulous quiver, 
 The last death-shiver, 
 And Red-Beard's coui'se is run ! 
 
 Halloo ! Halloo ! 
 They have done for two ! 
 But a heavyish job remains to do ! 
 
 For yonder, sledge and shovel in hand. 
 Like elder Sons of Giant Despair, 
 
 A couple of Cyclops make a stand, 
 And, fiercely hammering here and there, 
 Keep at bay the Powers of Air — 
 
356: THE FORaE. 
 
 But desperation is all in vain ! — 
 
 Thej faint — tliej choke, 
 
 For the sulphurous smoke 
 Is poisoning heart, and lung, and brain ; 
 They reel, thej sink, they gasp, they smother , 
 One for a moment survives his brother, 
 Then rolls a corpse across the other ! 
 
 Hulloo! Hulloo! 
 
 And Hullabaloo ! 
 There is only one more thing to do — 
 And, seized by beak, and talon, and claw. 
 Bony hand, and hairy paw, 
 Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw, 
 The four huge bodies are hauled and shoven 
 Each after each in the roarins oven ! 
 * * * * 
 
 The Eisen Hutte is standins; still ; 
 Go to the Hartz whenever you will, 
 And there it is beside a hill, 
 And a rapid stream that turns many a mill ; 
 The self-same Forge. — you'll know it at si^ht — 
 Casting upward, day and night. 
 Flames of red, and yellow, and white ! 
 
 Ay, half a mile from the mountain gorge. 
 
 There it is, the famous Foro-e, 
 
 With its furnace, — the same that blazed of yore,— 
 
 Hugely fed with fuel and ore ; 
 
 But ever since that tremendous revel. 
 Whatever iron is melted therein, — 
 As travellers know who have been to Berlin, — 
 
 Is all as black as the Devil ! 
 
TO 
 
 357 
 
 TO 
 
 COMPOSED AT ROTTERDAM. 
 
 [ GAZE upon a city, — a city new and strange ; 
 Down many a watery vista my fancy takes a range : 
 From side to side I saunter, and wonder where I am ; 
 And can you be in England, and / at Rotterdam ! 
 
 Before me lie dark waters in broad canals and deep. 
 Whereon the silver moonbeams sleep, restless in their sleep ; 
 A sort of vulgar Venice reminds me where I am ; 
 YeS; yes, you are in England, and I 'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 Tall houses with quaint gables, where frequent windows shine, 
 And quays that lead to bridges, and trees in formal line, 
 And masts of spicy vessels from western Surinam, 
 All tell me you 're in England, but I 'm in Rotterdam. 
 
 Those sailors, how outlandish the face and form of each ! 
 They deal in foreign gestures, and use a foreign speech ; 
 A tongue not learned near Isis, or studied by the Cam, 
 Declares that you 're in England, and I 'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 And now across a market my doubtful way I trace, 
 Where stands a solemn statue, the Genius of the place ; 
 And to the great Ei'asmus I offer my salaam ; 
 Who tells me you 're in England, but I 'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 The coffee-room is open — I mingle in its crowd, — 
 The dominos are noisy — the hookahs raise a cloud : 
 The flavor now of Fearon's, that mingles with my dram, 
 Reminds me you 're in England, and I'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 Then here it goes, a bumper — the toast it shall be mine, 
 In schiedam, or in sherry, tokay, or hock of Rhine ; 
 it well deserves the brightest, where sunbeam ever swam — 
 '' The Girl I love hi England " I drink at Rotterdam ! 
 March, 1835. 
 
358 THE SEASON. — LOVE. 
 
 THE SEASON. 
 
 Summer 's gone and over ! 
 
 Fogs are falling down ; 
 And with russet tinges 
 
 Autumn 's doing brown. 
 
 Boughs are daily rifled 
 By the gusty thieves, 
 
 And the Book of Nature 
 Getteth short of leaves. 
 
 Round the tops of houses, 
 Swallows, as they flit, 
 
 Give, like yearly tenants. 
 Notices to quit. 
 
 Skies, of fickle temper, 
 Weep by turns, and laugh ■ 
 
 Night and Day together 
 Taking half-and-half. 
 
 So September endeth — 
 Cold, and most perverse — 
 
 But the month that follows 
 Sure will pmch us worse ! 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 0, Love ! what art thou, Love? the ace of hearts. 
 
 Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits; 
 A player, masquerading many parts 
 
 In life's odd carnival ; — a boy that shoots. 
 From ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts ; 
 
 A gardener, pulling heart' s-ease up by the roots; 
 The Puck of Passion — partly false — part real — 
 A marriageable maiden's " beau ideal " 1 
 
FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 359 
 
 0. Love ! what art thou. Love ] a wicked thing, 
 Makmg green misses spoil their work at school : 
 
 A melancholj man, cross-gartering ! 
 
 Grave ripe-faced Wisdom made an April fool ?- 
 
 A youngster, tilting at a wedding-ring 7 
 A sinner, sitting on a cuttie-stool ? 
 
 A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel, 
 
 Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel ? 
 
 0, Love ! what art thou. Love ? one that is bad 
 With palpitations of the heart — like mine — 
 
 A poor bewildered maid, making so sad 
 A necklace of her garters — fell design ! 
 
 A poet, gone unreasonably mad, 
 
 Ending his sonnets with a hempen line ? 
 
 0, Love ! — but whither, now ? forgive me, pray ; 
 
 I 'm not the first that Love hath led astray. 
 
 FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 
 
 AX OLD BALLAD. 
 
 You^'G Ben he was a nice young man, 
 
 A cai-penter by trade ; 
 And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 
 
 That was a lady's maid. 
 
 But as they fetched a walk one day, 
 They met a press-gang crew ; 
 
 And Sally she did faint away, 
 AMiilst Ben he was brought to. 
 
 The boatswain swore with wicked words, 
 
 Enough to shock a saint, 
 That though she did seem in a fit, 
 
 'T was nothing but a feint. 
 
360 FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 
 
 " Come, girl," said he, "hold up your head, 
 
 He '11 be as good as me ; 
 For when your swam is in our boat, 
 
 A boatswain he will be." 
 
 So when they 'd made their game of her, 
 
 And taken off her elf, 
 She roused, and found she only was 
 
 A coming to herself 
 
 " And is he gone, and is he gone ? " 
 She cried, and wept outright : 
 
 " Then I will to the water side, 
 And see him out of sig-ht." 
 
 A waterman came up to her, — 
 "Now, young woman," said he, 
 
 " K you weep on so, you will make 
 Eye- water in the sea." 
 
 " Alas ! they 've taken my beau, Ben, 
 
 To sail with old Benbow ; " 
 And her woe began to run afresh, 
 
 As if she 'd said. Gee woe ! 
 
 Says he, " They Ve only taken him 
 To the Tender-ship, you see; " 
 
 "The Tender-ship," cried Sally Brown, 
 " What a hard-ship that must be ! 
 
 " ! would I were a mermaid now, 
 
 For then I 'd follow him ; 
 But, ! — I'm not a fish- woman, 
 
 And so I cannot swim. 
 
 " Alas ! I was not born beneath 
 
 The virgin and the scales, 
 So I must curse my cruel stars, 
 
 And walk about in Wales." 
 
bianca's dream. 361 
 
 Now Ben had sailed to many a place 
 
 That 's underneath the world ; 
 But in two years the ship came home, 
 
 And all her sails were furled. 
 
 But when he called on Sally Brown, 
 
 To see how she got on, 
 He found she 'd got another Ben, 
 
 Whose Christian name was John. 
 
 " 0, Sally Brown, 0, Sally Brown, 
 
 How could you serve me so 7 
 I 've met with many a breeze before, 
 
 But never such a blow ! " 
 
 Then reading on his 'bacco-box, 
 
 He heaved a heavy sigh, 
 And then began to eye his pipe, 
 
 And then to pipe his eye. 
 
 And then he tried to sing " All 's Well," 
 
 But could not, though he tried ; 
 His head was turned, and so h'fe chewed 
 
 His pigtail till he died. 
 
 His death, which happened in his berth, 
 
 At forty-odd befell : 
 They went and told the sexton, and 
 The sexton tolled the bell. 
 
 BIANCA'S DREAM. 
 
 A VENETI^iJSI STORY. 
 
 BiANCA ! — fair Bianca ! — who could dwell 
 With safety on her dark and hazel gaze. 
 
 Nor find there lurked in it a witching spell, 
 Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days 1 
 31 
 
362 bianca's dream. 
 
 The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell 
 
 She turned to gas, and set it in a blaze ; 
 Each eye of hers had Love's Eupyrion in it, 
 That he could light his link at in a minute. 
 
 So that, wherever in her charms she shone, 
 A thousand breasts were kindled into flame ; 
 
 Maidens who cursed her looks forgot their own, 
 
 And beaux were turned to flambeaux where she came 
 
 All hearts indeed were conquered but her own, 
 Which none could ever temper down or tame : 
 
 In short, to take our haberdasher's hints, 
 
 She might have written over it, — " From Flints." 
 
 She was, in truth, the wonder of her sex, 
 
 At least in Venice — where with eyes of brown, 
 
 Tenderly languid, ladies seldom vex 
 
 An amorous gentle with a needless frown ; 
 
 Where gondolas convey guitars by pecks. 
 
 And love at casements climbeth up and down, 
 
 Whom, for his tricks and custom in that kind, 
 
 Some have considered a Venetian blind. 
 
 Howbeit, this difference was quickly taught. 
 
 Amongst more youths who had this cruel jailer, 
 
 To hapless Julio — all in vain he sought 
 
 With each new moon his hatter and his tailor ; 
 
 In vain the richest padusoy he bought. 
 
 And went in bran-new beaver to assail her — 
 
 As if to show that Love had made him smart 
 
 All over — and not merely round his heart. 
 
 In vain he labored through the sylvan park 
 Bianca haunted in — that where she came 
 
 Her learned eyes in wandering might mark 
 The twisted cipher of her maiden name. 
 
bianca's dream. 363 
 
 Wholesomely going through a course of bark : 
 
 No one was touched or troubled bj his flame, 
 Except the Dryads, those old maids that grow 
 In trees, — like wooden dolls in embryo. 
 
 In vain complaining elegies he writ, 
 
 And taught his tuneful instrument to grieve. 
 
 And sang in quavers how Ids heart was split, 
 Constant beneath her lattice with each eve ; 
 
 She mocked his wooing with her wicked wit, 
 
 And slashed his suit so that it matched his sleeve, 
 
 Till he grew silent at the vesper star, 
 
 And, quite despairing, hamstringed his guitar. 
 
 Bianca's heart was coldly frosted o'er 
 
 With snows unmelting — an eternal sheet ; 
 
 But his was red within him. hke the core 
 Of old Vesuvius, with perpetual heat ; 
 
 And oft he longed internally to pour 
 His flames and glowing lava at her feet, 
 
 But when his burnings he began to spout, 
 
 She stopped his mouth, and put the crater out. 
 
 Meanwhile he wasted in the eyes of men, 
 So thin, he seemed a sort of skeleton-key 
 
 Suspended at Death's door — so pale — and then 
 He turned as nervous as an aspen-tree ; 
 
 The Hfe of man is three-score years and ten, 
 But he was perishing at twenty-three. 
 
 For people truly said, as grief grew stronger, 
 
 '■'■ It could not shorten his poor life — much longer." 
 
 For why, he neither slept, nor drank, nor fed, 
 
 Nor relished any kind of mii'th below ; 
 Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his head, 
 
 Love had become his universal foe, 
 
364 biaxca's dream. 
 
 Salt in his sugar — nightmare in his bed, 
 
 At last, no wonder wretched Julio, 
 A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth 
 Of hope, — made up his mind to cut her girth ! 
 
 For hapless lovers always died of old, 
 Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud ; 
 
 So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told 
 The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood : 
 
 And so poor Sappho, when her boy was cold. 
 Drowned her salt tear-drops in a salter flood, 
 
 Theii" fame still breathing, though their breath be past 
 
 For those old suitors lived beyond their last. 
 
 So Julio went to drown, — when life was dull, 
 But took his corks, and merely had a bath ; 
 
 And once, he pulled a trigger at his skull, 
 But merely broke a window in his wrath ; 
 
 And once, his hopeless being to annul. 
 He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath, 
 
 A line so ample, 't was a query whether 
 
 'T was meant to be a halter or a tether. 
 
 Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust 
 His sorrows throuo;h — "t is horrible to die ; 
 
 And come down with our little all of dust, 
 That dun of all the duns to satisfy ; 
 
 To leave Hfe's pleasant city as we must. 
 
 In Death's most dreary sponging-house to lie, 
 
 Where even all our personals must go 
 
 To pay the debt of nature that we owe ! 
 
 So Julio lived : — 'twas nothing but a pet 
 
 He took at life — a momentary spite ; 
 Besides, he hoped that time would some day get 
 The better of love's flame, however bright. 
 
bianca's dream. 
 
 865 
 
 A thing that time has never compassed yet, 
 
 For love, we know, is an immortal light. 
 Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt. 
 Was always in, — for none have found it out. 
 Meanwhile, Bianca dreamed— 'twas once when night 
 
 Along the darkened plain began to creep. 
 Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright, 
 
 Although in skin as sooty as a sweep : 
 The flowers had shut their eyes — the zephyr light 
 
 Was gone, for it had rocked the leaves to sleep, 
 And all the little birds had laid their heads 
 Under their wings — sleeping in feather beds. 
 
 Lone in her chamber sate the dark-eyed maid, 
 By easy stages jaunting through her prayers, 
 
 But listening side long to a serenade, 
 
 That robbed the saints a little of their shares ; 
 
 For Julio underneath the lattice played 
 His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs. 
 
 Born only underneath Italian skies, 
 
 Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs. 
 
 Sweet was the tune — the words were even sweeter, 
 Praising her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair, 
 
 With all the common tropes wherewith in metre 
 The hackney poets overcharge their fair. 
 
 Her shape was like Diana's, but completer ; 
 Her brow with Grecian Helen's might compare. 
 
 Cupid, alas ! was cruel Sagittarius, 
 
 Julio — the weeping waterman Aquarius. 
 
 Now, after listing to such landings rare, 
 
 'T was very natural indeed to go — 
 What if she did postpone one little prayer ! — 
 
 To ask her mirror " if it was not so'?" 
 31* 
 
366 
 
 biaxca's dream. 
 
 'T "was a large mirror, none the worse for wear, 
 
 Reflecting her at once from top to toe : 
 And there she gazed upon that glossy track. 
 That showed her front face, though it •' gave her back." 
 
 And long her lovely eyes were held in thrall, 
 By that dear page where first the woman reads : 
 
 That Julio was no flatterer, none at all, 
 
 She told herself — and then she told her beads ; 
 
 Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall 
 Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds : 
 
 For sleep had crept and kissed her unawares, 
 
 Just at the half-way milestone of her prayers. 
 
 Then like a drooping rose so bended she, 
 
 Till her bowed head upon her hand reposed ; 
 
 But still she plainly saw, or seemed to see. 
 
 That fair reflection, though her eyes were closed, 
 
 A beauty bright, as it was wont to be. 
 
 A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed : 
 
 'T is very natural, some people say, 
 
 To dream of what we dwell on in the- day. 
 
 Still shone her face — yet not, alas ! the same, 
 But "gan some dreary touches to assume, 
 
 And sadder thoughts with sadder changes came — 
 Her eyes resigned their light, her lips their bloom, 
 
 Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same. 
 
 Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes with rheum 
 
 There was a throbbing at her heart within. 
 
 For, ! there was a shooting in her chin. 
 
 And. lo ! upon her sad desponding brow 
 
 The cruel trenches of besieging age. 
 With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show 
 
 Her place was booking for the seventh stage ; 
 
bianca's dream. 8G7 
 
 And where her raven tresses used to floAv, 
 
 Some locks that time had left her in his rao-e. 
 And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady, 
 A compound (like our Psalms) of tete and braid j. 
 
 Then for her shape — alas! how Saturn wrecks, 
 And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about, 
 
 Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks. 
 Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout, 
 
 Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex : 
 Witness those pensioners called In and Out, 
 
 Who, all day watching first and second rater, 
 
 Quaintly unbend themselves — but grow no straighter 
 
 So time with fair Bianca dealt, and made 
 
 Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow ; 
 
 His iron hand upon her spine he laid, 
 
 And twisted all awry her " winsome marrow." 
 
 In truth it was a change ! — she had obeyed 
 The holy Pope before her chest grew narrow, 
 
 But spectacles and palsy seemed to make her 
 
 Something between a Glassite and a Quaker. 
 
 Her grief and gall meanwhile were quite extreme, 
 And she had ample reason for her trouble ; 
 
 For what sad maiden can endure to seem 
 
 Set in for singleness, though growing double 1 
 
 The fancy maddened her ; but now the dream, 
 Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble. 
 
 Burst, — but still left some fragments of its size, 
 
 That, like the soap-suds, smarted, in her eyes. 
 
 And here — just here — as she began to heed 
 The real world, her clock chimed out its score ; 
 
 A clock it was of the Venetian breed, 
 
 That cried the hour from one to twenty-four ; 
 
368 bianca's dream. 
 
 The works moreover standing in some need 
 
 Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more ; 
 A warning; voice that clenched Bianca's fears, 
 Such strokes referring doubtless to her years. 
 
 At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun, 
 By twenty she had quite renounced the veil ; 
 
 She thought of Julio just at twenty-one. 
 And thirty made her very sad and pale, 
 
 To paint that ruin where her charms would run ; 
 At forty all the maid began to fail. 
 
 And thouo;ht no higher, as the late dream crossed her, 
 
 Of single blessedness, than single Gloster. 
 
 And so Bianca changed : — the next sweet even. 
 
 With Julio in a black Venetian bark, 
 Rowed slow and stealthily — the hour, eleven, 
 
 Just sounding from the tower old St. Mark, 
 She sate with eyes turned quietly to heaven. 
 
 Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark 
 That veiled her blushing cheek, — for Julio brought her 
 Of course — to break the ice upon the water. 
 
 But what a puzzle is one's serious mind 
 To open ! — oysters, when the ice is thick, 
 
 Are not so difficult and disinclined ; 
 And Julio felt the declaration stick 
 
 About his throat in a most awful kind; 
 However, he contrived by bits to pick 
 
 His trouble forth, — much like a rotten cork 
 
 Groped from a long-necked bottle with a fork. 
 
 But Love is still the quickest of all readers ; 
 
 And Julio spent, besides those signs profuse 
 That English telegraphs and foreign pleadei-s. 
 
 In help of language, are so apt to use, 
 
bianca's dream. 36& 
 
 Arms-, slioulderS; fingers, all \sove interceders, 
 
 Nods, shrugs and bendS; — Bianca could not choose 
 But soften to his suit with more focility, 
 He told his story with so much agility. 
 
 " Be thou my park, and I will be thy dear, 
 (So he began at last to speak or quote:) 
 
 Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier, 
 (For passion takes this figurative note :) 
 
 Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier ; 
 Be thou my dove, and I Avill be thy cote : 
 
 My lily be, and I will be thy river ; 
 
 Be thou my life — and I will be thy liver.'' 
 
 This, with more tender logic of the kind, 
 He poured into her small and shell-like .ear, 
 
 That timidly against his lips inclined : 
 
 Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere 
 
 That even now began to steal behind 
 
 A dewy vapor, which was lingering near, 
 
 Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale, 
 
 Just like a virgin putting on the veil : — 
 
 Bidding adieu to all her sparks — the stars. 
 
 That erst had wooed and worshipped in her train, 
 Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars — 
 
 Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again. 
 Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars, 
 
 Bianca did not watch these signs in vain. 
 But turned to Julio at the dark eclipse, 
 With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips. 
 
 He took the hint full speedily, and, backed 
 
 By love, and night, and the occasion's meetness, 
 
 Bestowed a something on her cheek that smacked 
 (Though quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness ; 
 
 That made her think all other kisses lacked 
 
370 
 
 OVER THE WAY. 
 
 Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness 
 Being used but sisterlj salutes to feel, 
 Insipid things — like sandwiches of veal. 
 
 He took her hand, and soon she felt him wring 
 The i^retty fingers all, instead of one ; 
 
 Anon his stealthy arm began to cling 
 
 About her waist that had been clasped by none ; 
 
 Their dear confessions I forbear to sing. 
 
 Since cold description would but be outrun ; 
 
 For bHss and Lish watches have the power 
 
 In twenty minutes to lose half an hour ! 
 
 OVER THE WAY. 
 
 " I gat over against a window where there stood a pot with yery pretty 
 flowers ; and had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, 
 and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck me.'' — Arabian Nights. 
 
 Alas ! the flames of an unhappy lover 
 About my heart and on my vitals prey ; 
 I 've caught a fever that I can't get over, 
 Over the way ! 
 
 ! why are eyes of hazel 7 noses Grecian ? 
 I've lost my rest by night, my peace by day, 
 For want of some brown Holland or Venetian, 
 
 Over the way ! 
 
 1 've gazed too often, till my heart "s as lost 
 As any needle in a stack of hay : 
 Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed 
 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax — 
 Of what avail Lord Althorpe or Earl Grey 7 
 They cannot ease me of my wmdow-tax 
 Over the way ! 
 
OVER THE V\'AY. 371 
 
 Even on Sunday my devotions vary, 
 And from St. Bennet Flint they go astray 
 To dear St. Mary Overy — the Mary 
 Over the way ! 
 
 ! if my godmother were but a fairy, 
 With magic wand, how I would beg and pray 
 That she would change me into that canary 
 
 Over the way ! 
 
 1 envy everything that 's near Miss Lindo, 
 A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay — 
 
 Blest blue-bottles ! that buzz about the window 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Even at even, for there be no shutters, 
 I see her reading on, from grave to gay, 
 Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters, 
 Over the way ! 
 
 And then — ! then — while the clear waxen taper 
 Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray, 
 I see twelve auburn curls put into paper 
 Over the way ! 
 
 But how breathe unto her my deep regards, 
 Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay, — 
 Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Cold as the pole she is to my adoring ; — 
 Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse's Bay, 
 I meet an icy end to my exploring 
 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Each dirty little Savoyard that dances 
 She looks on — Punch — or chimney-sweeps in May 
 Zounds ! wherefore cannot I attract her glances 
 Over the way ? 
 
372 
 
 OVER THE WAY. 
 
 Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat, 
 Or yelping cur, run over by a dray ; 
 But I 'm in love — she never pities that ! 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I go to the same church — a love-lost labor ; 
 Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play ; 
 She does not seem to know she has a neighbor 
 Over the way ! 
 
 At private theatres she never acts ; 
 No Crown-and- Anchor balls her fancy sway ; 
 She never visits gentlemen with tracts 
 Over the way ! 
 
 To billets-doux by post she shows no favor — 
 In short, there is no plot that I can lay 
 To break my window-pains to my enslaver 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I play the flute — she heeds not my chromatics — 
 No friend an introduction can purvey ; 
 I wish a fire would break out in the attics 
 Over the way ! 
 
 My wasted form ought of itself to touch her ; 
 My baker feels my appetite's decay ; 
 And as for butcher's meat — ! she 's my butcher 
 Over the way ! 
 
 At beef I turn ; at lamb or veal I pout ; 
 I never ring now to bring up the tray ; 
 My stomach grumbles at my dining out 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I 'm weary of my life ; without regret 
 I could resign this miserable clay 
 To lie within that box of mignonette 
 Over the way ! 
 
OVER THE WAY. *■ 373 
 
 I 've fitted bullets to my pistol-bore ; 
 I 've vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray, 
 Quite sick of Number One — and Number Four 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Sometimes my fancy builds up castles any, 
 Sometimes it only paints a ferme ornee, 
 A horse — a cow — six fowls — a pig — and Mary, 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white, 
 Standing before the altar, like a fay ; 
 Sometimes of balls, and neighborly invite 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I 've cooed with her in dreams, like any turtle ; 
 I 've snatched her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay ; 
 Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop, 
 Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat "po-shay," 
 And showered crowns to make the horses gallop 
 Over the way ! 
 
 And thrice I 've started up from dreams appalling 
 Of killing rivals in a bloody fray — 
 There is a young man very fond of calling 
 Over the way ! 
 
 ! happy man — above all kings in glory. 
 Whoever in her ear may say his say, 
 And add a tale of love to that one story 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Nabob of Arcot — Despot of Japan — 
 Sultan of Persia — Emperor of Cathay — 
 Much rather would I be the happy man 
 on Over the way ! 
 
374 EPICUREAN REMIXISCEN^CES. 
 
 With such a lot my heart would be in clover - 
 But what — 0, horror ! — what do I survey ! 
 Postilions and white favors ! — all is over 
 Over the way ! 
 
 EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENITMENTALIST. 
 
 " My Tables ! Meat it is, I set it down ! " — Hamlet. 
 
 I THINK it was Spring — but not certain I am — 
 
 When my passion began first to work ; 
 But I know we were certainly looking for lamb, 
 
 And the season was over for pork. 
 
 'T was at Christmas, I think, when I met with Miss Chase. 
 
 Yes. — for Morris had asked me to dine, — 
 And I thought I had never beheld such a face, 
 
 Or so noble a turkey and chine. 
 
 Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild 
 
 With sheer envy to witness my luck ; 
 How she blushed as I gave her some tui'tle, and smiled 
 
 As I afterwards offered some duck. 
 
 I looked and I languished, alas ! to my cost, 
 Through three courses of dishes and meats ; 
 
 Getting deeper in love — but my heart was quite lost, 
 When it came to the trifle and sweets ! 
 
 With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land, 
 
 To her parents I told my designs — 
 And then to herself I presented my hand, 
 
 With a very fine pottle of pines ! 
 
 I asked her to have me for weal or for wo^^ 
 
 And she did not object in the least ; — 
 I can't tell the date — but we married, I know, 
 
 Just in time to have game at the feast. 
 

 EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES. 37^ 
 
 We weut to , it certainly was the sea-side ; 
 
 For the next, the most blessed of morns, 
 I remember how fondly I gazed at mj bride, 
 
 Sitting down to a plateful of prawns. 
 0, never may memory lose sight of that year, 
 
 But still hallow the time as it ought ! 
 That season the "grass " was remarkably dear. 
 
 And the peas at a guinea a quart. 
 
 So happy, like hours, all our days seemed to haste, 
 A fond pair, such as poets have drawn. 
 
 So united in heart — so congenial in taste — 
 We were both of us partial to brawn ! 
 
 A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride. 
 But then Death — I ne'er dreamt about that ! 
 
 0, there 's nothing is certain in life, as I cried 
 When my turbot eloped with the cat ! 
 
 My dearest took ill at the turn of the year. 
 But the cause no physician could nab ; 
 
 But somethuig it seemed like consumption, I fear, — 
 It was just after supping on crab. 
 
 In vain she was doctored, in vain she was dosed, 
 Still her sti'ength and her appetite pined ; 
 
 She lost relish for what she had relished the most, 
 Even salmon she deeply declined ! 
 
 For months still I lingered in hope and in doubt, 
 ^Yliile her form it grew wasted and thin ; 
 
 But the last dying spark of existence went out. 
 As the oysters were just coming in ! 
 
 She died, and she left me the saddest of men, 
 
 To indulge in a widower's moan ; 
 0, I felt all the power of solitude then, 
 
 As I ate my first natives alone ! 
 
376 THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD. 
 
 But when I beheld Virtue's friends in their cloaks, 
 And with sorrowful crape on theii' hats, 
 
 my grief poured a flood ! and the out-of-door folks 
 Were all crying — I think it was sprats ! 
 
 THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD. 
 
 I SAWB a Mayd sitte on a Bank, 
 
 Beguiled by "Wooer fayne and fond ; 
 
 And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank, 
 
 Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond ! 
 
 All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, 
 For She was fayre and He was Kinde ; 
 The Sunne went down before She wist 
 Another Sonne had sett behinde ! 
 
 With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe, 
 That deemd Her owne the Urchine's Sinne, 
 She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe 
 Past being Whipt for fallynge in. 
 
 She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde 
 With Shrikes that Echo answerede round — 
 ! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde 
 The Momente that her Care was drownd ! 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 877 
 
 ODE TO PERRY, 
 
 TUB INVENTOR OF THE PATENT PERRYAN PEN. 
 
 *' In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instru- 
 ments. Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it — soft and 
 yielding when rigid inflexibility is not a desideratum — fluent and flowing, 
 at need, for eloquent rapidity — slow and retentive in cases of deliberation 
 — never spluttering or by amplification going wide of the mark — never 
 splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready to wear itself out 
 rather in their service — all things as it were with all men, — ready to em- 
 brace the hand of Jew, Christian, or Mahometan, — heavy with the German, 
 light with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, 
 backward in coming forward with the Hebrew, — in short, for flexibility, 
 amiability, constitutional durability, general abilitj^ and universal utility, it 
 would be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn." — Perry's Character 
 isTics OF A Settler. 
 
 ! Patent Pen-inventing Perrian Perry ! 
 
 Friend of the goose and gander, 
 That now unplucked of their quill-feathers wander, 
 Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry, 
 
 About the happy fen, 
 Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen, 
 For which they chant thy praise all Britain through, 
 
 From Goose-Green unto Gander- Cleugh ! — 
 
 Friend to all Author-kind, — 
 Whether of Poet or of Proser, — 
 Thou art composer unto the composer 
 Of pens^ — yea, patent vehicles for Mind 
 To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive 
 
 Per rygrmations through the realms of thought ; 
 Each plying from the Comic to the Pensive, 
 
 An Omnibus of intellectual sort ! 
 
 Modern improvements in their course we feel ; 
 And while to iron-railroads heavy wares, 
 32* 
 
378 ODE TO PERRY. 
 
 Dry goods, and human bodies, pay their fares, 
 
 Mind flies on steel. 
 To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Penzance ; 
 
 Nay, penetrates, perchance. 
 To Pennsylvania, or. without rash vaunts, 
 To where the Penguin haunts ! 
 
 In times bygone, when each man cut his quill. 
 
 With little Perryan skill, 
 What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade 
 Appeared the writing implements home-made ! 
 What Pens were sliced, hewed, hacked, and haggled out, 
 Slit or unslit, with many a various snout. 
 Aquiline. Roman, crooked, square, and snubby, 
 
 Stumpy and stubby; 
 Some capable of ladye-billets neat. 
 Some only fit for ledger-keeping clerk, 
 And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark, 
 Or smudge thi'ough some illegible receipt : 
 Others in florid caligraphic plans, 
 Equal to ships, and wiggy heads, and swans ! 
 
 To try in any common inkstands, then. 
 With all their miscellaneous stocks, 
 
 To find a decent pen, 
 Was like a dip into a lucky box : 
 
 You drew, — and got one very curly. 
 And split like endive in some hurly-burly ; 
 The next unsUt, and square at end, a spade ; 
 The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made ; 
 The fourth a broom ; the fifth of no avail. 
 Turned upwards, like a rabbit's tail : 
 And last, not least, by way of a relief, 
 A stump that Master Richard, James or John, 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 379 
 
 Had tried his candle-cookery upon, 
 Making " roast-beef! " 
 
 Not so thy Perryan Pens ! 
 True to their M"s and N's, 
 They do not "with a whizzing zig-zag split, 
 Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit, 
 Or di'op large dots, 
 Huge full-stop blots, 
 Where even semicolons were unfit. 
 They will not frizzle up, or, broom-like, drudge 
 
 In sable sludge — 
 Nay, bought at proper " Patent Perryan" shops, 
 They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops : 
 G impose both prose and verse, the sad and merry — 
 For when the editor, whose pains compile 
 The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile, 
 Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's. 
 But lays '• by the most celebrated Pens," 
 What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry ? 
 
 Pleasant they are to feel ! 
 So firm ! so flexible ! composed of steel 
 So finely tempered — fit for tenderest Miss 
 
 To give her passion breath, 
 Or kings to sign the warrant stern of death — 
 But their supremest merit still is this. 
 
 Write with them all your days. 
 Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays — 
 (No dramatist should ever be without 'em) — 
 
 And, just conceive the bliss, — 
 There is so little of the goose about 'em, 
 
 One 's safe from any hiss ! 
 
380 
 
 ODE TO PEKRY. 
 
 Ah ! who can paint that first great awful night, 
 
 Big with a blessing or a blight, 
 When the poor dramatist, all fume and fret, 
 Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright, 
 Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness — more f's yet: 
 Flushed, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat, 
 Add famished, fuddled, and fatigued, to that ; 
 Funeral, fate-foreboding — sits in doubt. 
 Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage, 
 To see his play upon the stage come out ; 
 No stage to him ! it is Thalia's carriage, 
 And he is sitting on the spikes behind it, 
 Striving to look as if he didn't mind it ! 
 
 Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat 
 His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt : 
 He kneads, moulds, pummels it. and sits it flat, 
 Squeezes and twists it up. until the felt. 
 That went a beaver in, comes out a rat ! 
 Miss IMitford had mis-gi^^ngs, and in fright, 
 
 Upon Rienzi's night. 
 Gnawed up one long kid glove, and all her bag, 
 
 Quite to a rag. 
 Knowles has confessed he trembled as for life, 
 
 Afraid of his own " Wife ; '"' 
 Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail 
 Of water backing him, all down his spine, — 
 " The ice-brook's temper '' — pleasant to the chine ! 
 For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail. 
 Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental prayer, 
 Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where 1 
 Nay. did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth, 
 While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck, 
 
 Squeeze out and suck 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 881 
 
 More oranges tattt his one fevered mouth 
 Than Nellj had to hawk from north to south 7 
 Yea, Buckstone, changing color like a mullet, 
 Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice, 
 From his best friend, an ice, 
 Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet. 
 
 Doth punning Peake noi sit upon the points 
 Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints, 
 
 During their trial 7 
 
 "T is past denial. 
 And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock. 
 All eyes upon him, turn to very meacock 7 
 And does not Planch e, tremulous and blank. 
 Meanwhile his personages tread the boards, 
 
 Seem goaded by sharp swords. 
 And called upon himself to '• walk the plank " 7 
 As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot, 
 
 What have they more 
 Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot, 
 Thau bear that capers on a hotted floor ! 
 
 Thus pending — does not Mathews, at sad shift 
 For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny 7 — 
 Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift 7 — 
 And Kenny think he 's going to Kilkenny 7 — 
 Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note 
 Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple 
 
 About his arms, and Adam's apple 
 Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat 7 
 Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire 
 Or not to take a jump into the fire 7 
 Did "Wade feel as composed as music can 7 
 And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man 7 
 
382 
 
 ODE TO PERRY. 
 
 Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf, 
 Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater, 
 And ere its chano-es rino; transform himself 1 — 
 
 A frio-htful muo; of human delf ? 
 A spirit-bottle — empty of " the cratur " 7 
 
 A leaden-platter ready for the shelf? 
 
 A thunderstruck dumb-waiter 7 
 
 To clench the fact, 
 Myself, once guilty of one small rash act, 
 Committed at the Surrey, 
 Quite in a hurry, 
 Felt all this flurry, 
 Corporal worry, 
 And spiritual scurry, 
 Dram-devil — attic curry ! 
 All going well, 
 From prompter's bell, 
 Until befell 
 A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce — 
 
 There 's no denying 
 I felt in all four elements at once ! 
 My head was swimming, while my arms were flying ! 
 My legs for running — all the rest was frying ! 
 
 Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use, 
 
 Thy pens so innocent of goose ! 
 For this shall dramatists, when they make merry. 
 Discarding port and sherry, 
 Drink— "Perry!" 
 Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose 
 
 To distant lands, 
 Perry, admitted on all hands, 
 Text, running, German, Roman, 
 For Patent Perryans approached by no man ! 
 
NUMBER ONE. 383 
 
 And when, ah me ! far distant be the hour ! 
 Pluto shidl call thee to his gloomy bower, 
 Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many ! 
 And Penury itself shall club its penny 
 To raise thy monument in lofty place, 
 Higher than York's or any son of War : 
 Whilst time all meaner effigies shall bury, 
 
 On due pentagonal base 
 Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, periwigged Perry, 
 Perched on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr ! 
 
 NUMBER ONE. 
 
 VERSIFIED FROM THE PROSE OF A TOUXG LADY. 
 
 Tt 's very hard ! — and so it is, to live in such a row, — 
 And witness this that every miss but me has got a beau. — 
 For Love goes calling up and down, but here he seems to 
 
 shun ; 
 I 'm sure he has been asked enough to call at Number One ! 
 
 I 'm sick of all the double knocks that come to Number 
 
 Four ! — 
 That Number Three, I often see a lover at the door ; — 
 And one in blue, at Number Two, calls daily like a dun. — 
 It 's very hard they come so near, and not to Number One ! 
 
 ^Iis3 Bell, I hear, has got a dear exactly to her mind, — ■ 
 By sitting at the window-pane without a bit of blind ; — 
 But I go in the balcony, which she has never done. 
 Yet arts that thrive at Number Five don't take at Number 
 One! 
 
 "T is hard, with plenty in the street, and plenty passing by, — 
 There 's nice young men at Number Ten, but only rather 
 shy; — 
 
884 
 
 NUMBEK ONE. 
 
 And Mrs. Smith across the way has got a groTvu-up .son, 
 But, la ! he hardlj seems to know there is a Xumber One ! 
 
 There 's Mr. Wick at Number Nine, but he 's intent on pelf; 
 
 And though he 's pious will not love his neighbor as him- 
 self.— 
 
 At Number Seven there was a sale — the goods had quite 
 a run ! 
 
 And here I "ve got mj single lot on hand at Xumber One ! 
 
 My mother often sits at ^vork and talks of props and stays, 
 And what a comfort I shall be in her declining davs : — 
 The very maids about the house have set me down a nun, 
 The sweethearts all belong to them that call at Number One ! 
 
 Once only, when the flue took fire, one Friday afternoon, 
 Young Mr. Long came kindly in and told me not to swoon : 
 Why can't he come again without the Phoenix and the Sun 7 
 We cannot always have a flue on fire at Number One ! 
 
 I am not old, I am not plain, nor awkward in my gait — 
 I am not crooked, like the bride that went from Number 
 
 Eight : — 
 I 'm sure white satin made her look as brown as any bun — 
 But even beauty has no chance, I think, at Number One ! 
 
 At Number Six they say i\Iiss Rose has slain a score of 
 
 hearts. 
 And Cupid, for her sake, has been quite prodigal of darts. 
 The imp they show with bended bow, I wish he had a gun ! 
 But if he had. he 'd never deign to shoot with Number One. 
 
 It 's very hard, and so it is, to live in such a row ! 
 And here "s a ballad-singer come to aggravate my woe : — 
 0, take away your foolish song and tones enough to stun — 
 There is " Nae luck about the house," I know, at Number 
 One! 
 
LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. 385 
 
 LINIS ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. 
 
 BY DORCAS DOVE. 
 
 And is it thus ye welcome Peace, 
 
 From mouths of forty -poundiug Bores ? 
 
 0, cease, exploding Cannons, cease ! 
 Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores ! 
 
 Not so the quiet Queen should come ; 
 
 But like a Nurse to still our Fears, 
 With shoes of List, demurely dumb. 
 
 And Wool or Cotton in her Ears ! 
 
 She asks for no triumphal Arch ; 
 
 No Steeples for their ropy Tongues ; 
 Down, Drumsticks, down ! She needs no March, 
 
 Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs. 
 
 She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats 
 
 To tell that She is drawing nigh : 
 Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, 
 
 When War has closed his bloodshot Eye 1 
 
 Returning to Domestic Loves, 
 
 When War has ceased with all its Ills, 
 
 Captains should come like sucking Doves, 
 With Olive Branches in their Bills. 
 
 No need there is of vulgar Shout, 
 
 Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife and Drum, 
 
 And Soldiers marching all about, 
 To let Us know that Peace is come. 
 
 0, mild should be the Signs, and meek, 
 
 Sweet Peace's Advent to proclaim ! 
 Silence her noiseless Foot should speak, 
 
 And Echo should repeat the same. 
 
386 THE DEMON-SHIP. 
 
 Lo ! where tlie Soldier walks, alas ! 
 
 With Scars received on foreign Grounds ; 
 Shall we consume in colored Glass 
 
 The Oil that should be poured in Wounds 7 
 
 The bleeding Gaps of War to close, 
 Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail 1 
 
 Will Squibs enliven Orphans' Woes 1 
 Or Crackers cheer the Widow's Tale ? 
 
 THE DEMON-SHIP. 
 
 "T WAS off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea looked 
 
 black and grim, 
 For stormy clouds with murky fleece were mustering at the 
 
 brim ; 
 Titanic shades ! enormous gloom ! — as if the solid night 
 Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light ! 
 It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, 
 With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky ! 
 
 Down went my helm — close reefed — the tack held freely 
 
 in my hand — 
 With ballast snug — I put about, and scudded for the land. 
 Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee ; my little boat flew fast, 
 But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. 
 Lord ! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail ! 
 What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of 
 
 hail ! 
 What darksome caverns yawned before ! what jagged steeps 
 
 behind ! 
 Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the 
 
 wind. 
 Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, 
 But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place ; 
 
THE DEMON-SHIP. 387 
 
 As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against 
 
 the cloud 
 A snowy sheet, as if each sui'ge upturned a sailor's shroud : 
 Still flew my boat ; alas ! alas ! her course was nearly run ' 
 Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heaped in one ! 
 With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast, 
 As if the scooping sea contained one only wave, at last ! 
 Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift-pursuing grave ; 
 It seemed as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to 
 
 a wave ! 
 Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face — 
 I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base ! 
 I saw its Alpine hoary head impending over mine ! 
 Another pulse, and down it rushed, an avalanche of brine ! 
 Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home ; 
 The waters closed — and when I shiieked. I shrieked below 
 
 the foam ! 
 Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed — 
 For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed. 
 ****** 
 
 •' ' Where am I ? in the breathing world, or in the world of 
 
 death?"' 
 With sharp and sudden pang I di'ew another birth of breath : 
 My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound, 
 And was that ship a 7-eal ship whose tackle seemed around 7 
 
 A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft ; 
 But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft ? 
 A face that mocked the human face before me watched alone ; 
 But were those eyes the eyes of man that looked against 
 my own? 
 
 ! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight 
 As met my gaze, when first I looked on that accursed night 
 
388 
 
 THE DEMON-SHIP. 
 
 I 've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes 
 Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my 
 
 dreams — 
 Hyenas, cats, blood-loving bats, and apes with hateful stare. 
 Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls, the lion and she-bear, 
 Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite — 
 Detested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light ! 
 
 Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their 
 
 tombs — 
 All fantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms — 
 Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast, — 
 But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the 
 
 mast ! 
 
 His cheek was black — his brow was black — his eyes and 
 hair as dark : 
 
 His hand was black, and where it touched it left a sable 
 mark ; 
 
 His throat was black, his vest the same, and when I looked 
 beneath. 
 
 His breast was black — all, all was black, except his grin- 
 ning teeth. 
 
 His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves ! 
 
 0, horror ! e'en the ship was black that ploughed the inky 
 waves ! 
 
 "Alas ! " I cried, " for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake, 
 Where am I ] in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake 1 
 What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal ? 
 It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gained my soul ! 
 0, mother dear ! my tender nurse ! dear meadows that 
 
 beguiled 
 My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child, — 
 My mother dear — my native fields, I never more shall see 
 I'm sailing in the Devil's Ship, upon the Devil's Sea ! " 
 
 
SPRING. 3d& 
 
 Loud laughed that Sable Mariner, and loudlj in return 
 His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to 
 
 stern — 
 A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce — 
 As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once : 
 A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoyed the merry fit, 
 With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like demons of the Pit. 
 They crowed their fill, and then the Chief made answer for 
 
 the whole ; — 
 " Our skins," said he, " are black, ye see, because we carry 
 
 coal ; 
 You '11 find your mother sure enough, and see your native 
 
 fields — 
 For this here ship has picked you up — the Mary Ann of 
 
 Shields ! " 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 A KEW VERSION. 
 
 " Ham. The air bites shrewdly — it is very cold. 
 Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air." — Hamlet. 
 
 " Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness^ come ! '' 
 ! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, 
 
 How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum ? 
 There "s no such season. 
 
 The Spring ! I shrink and shudder at her name ! 
 
 For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter ! 
 And suffer from her bloivs as if they came 
 
 From Spring the Fighter. 
 
 Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing. 
 
 And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, 
 
 Who do not feel as if they had a Sp?'mg 
 Poured down their shoulders ! 
 83* 
 
890 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Let others eulogize her floral shows ; 
 
 From me they cannot win a single stanza. 
 I know her blooms are in full blow — and so 's 
 
 The Influenza. 
 
 Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale. 
 Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, 
 
 Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale. 
 Are things I sneeze at ! 
 
 Fair is the vernal quarter of the year ! 
 
 And fair its early buddings and its blowings — 
 But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear 
 
 With other sowings ! 
 
 For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, 
 
 A frigid, not a genial inspiration ; 
 Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy 
 
 An inflammation. 
 
 Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, 
 To me all vernal luxuries are fables, 
 
 ! where 's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, 
 Stifi" as a table's? 
 
 1 limp in agony, — I wheeze and cough ; 
 
 And quake with Ague, that great Agitator : 
 Nor dream, before July, of leaving off 
 My Respirator. 
 
 What wonder if in May itself I lack 
 
 A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ? — 
 
 Spring mild and gentle ! — yes, a Spring-heeled Jack 
 To those he sprang on. 
 
 In short, whatever panegyrics lie 
 
 In fulsome odes too many to be cited, 
 The tenderness of Spring is all my eye. 
 
 And that is blis-hted ! 
 
FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 391 
 
 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
 
 Ben Battle was a soldier bold, 
 
 And used to war's alarms ; 
 But a cannon-ball took off his legs, 
 
 So be laid down bis arms ! 
 
 Now, as tbey bore bim off tbe field, 
 
 Said be, ' ' Let otbers sboot, 
 For bere I leave my second leg. 
 
 And tbe Forty-second Foot ! " 
 
 Tbe army-surgeons made bim limbs : 
 
 Said be, " Tbey 're only pegs : 
 But tbere 's as wooden members quite 
 
 As represent my legs ! " 
 
 Now, Ben be loved a pretty maid. 
 
 Her name was Nelly Gray ; 
 So he went to pay her his devours. 
 
 When be devoured bis pay ! 
 
 But when he called on Nelly Gray, 
 
 She made bim quite a scoff; 
 And when she saw bis wooden leora, 
 
 Began to take them off! 
 
 " 0, Nelly Gray ! 0, Nelly Gray 
 
 Is this your love so warm 7 
 The love that loves a scarlet coat 
 
 Should be more uniform ! " 
 
 Said she, " I loved a soldier once 
 
 For he was blithe and brave ; 
 But I will never have a man 
 
 With both legs in tbe grave ! 
 
392 
 
 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 
 
 " Before you had those timber toes, 
 
 Your love I did allow, 
 But then, you know, you stand upon 
 
 Another footint; now ! " 
 
 " 0, Nelly Gray ! 0, Nelly Gray ! 
 
 For all your jeering speeches, 
 At duty's call, I left my legs, 
 
 In Badajos's hreaches ! " 
 
 " Why then," said she, " you 've lost the feet 
 
 Of legs in war's alarms. 
 And now you cannot wear your shoes 
 
 Upon your feats of arms ! " 
 
 " 0, false and fickle Nelly Gray ! 
 
 I know why you refuse : — 
 Though I 've no feet — some other man 
 
 Is standing in my shoes ! 
 
 " I wish I ne'er had seen your face ; 
 
 But, now, a long farewell ! 
 For you will be my death ; — alas 
 
 You will not be my Nell ! " 
 
 Now, when he went from Nelly Gray, 
 
 His heart so heavy got, 
 And life was such a burthen grown, 
 
 It made him take a knot ! 
 
 So round his melancholy neck 
 
 A rope he did entwine, 
 And, for his second time in life, 
 
 Enlisted in the Line ! 
 
 One end he tied around a beam, 
 
 And then removed his pegs, 
 And, as his legs were off, — of course, 
 
 He soon was off his legs ! 
 
THE FLOWER. 393 
 
 And there he hung, till he was dead 
 
 As any nail in town. — 
 For. though distress had cut him up, 
 
 It could not cut him down ! 
 
 A dozen men sat on his corpse, 
 
 To find out why he died — 
 And they buried Ben in four cross-roads, 
 
 "With a stake in his inside ! 
 
 THE FLOWER. 
 
 Alone, across a foreign plain, 
 
 The exile slowly wanders, 
 And on his isle beyond the main 
 
 With saddened spirit ponders ; 
 
 This lovely isle beyond the sea., 
 "With all its household treasures j 
 
 Its cottage homes, its merry birds, 
 And all its rural pleasures : 
 
 Its leafy woods, its shady vales. 
 Its moors, and purple heather ; 
 
 Its verdant fields bedecked with stars 
 His childhood loved to gather ; 
 
 T\Tien, lo ! he starts, with glad surprise, 
 Home-joys come rushing o"er him, 
 
 For "modest-, wee, and crimson-tipped," 
 He spies the flower before him ! 
 
 "With eager haste he stoops him down, 
 His eyes with moisture hazy, 
 
 And as he plucks the simple bloom 
 He murmurs, " Lawk-a-daisy ! " 
 
394 
 
 THE SEA-SPELL. 
 
 THE SEA-SPELL. 
 
 " Cauld, cauld, he lies beneath the deep." — Old Scotch Baliad. 
 
 It -was a jolly mariner ! 
 
 The tallest man of thi-ee, — 
 
 He loosed his sail against the -svind, 
 
 And turned his boat to sea : 
 
 The ink-black skj told every eye 
 
 A storm was soon to be ! 
 
 But still that jolly mariner 
 
 Took in no reef at all, 
 
 For, in his pouch, confidingly, 
 
 He "wore a baby's caul ; 
 
 A thing, as gossip-nurses kno-\T, 
 
 That always brings a squall ! 
 
 TTis hat was new. or, newly glazed, 
 Shone brightly in the sun ; 
 His jacket, like a mariner's, 
 True blue as e'er was spun : 
 His ample trousers, like St. Paul, 
 Bore forty stripes save one. 
 
 And now the fretting, foaming tide 
 
 He steered away to cross ; 
 
 The bounding pinnace played a game 
 
 Of dreary pitch and toss ; 
 
 A game that, on the good dry land, 
 
 Is apt to bring a loss ! 
 
 Good Heaven befriend that little boat, 
 
 And guide her on her way ! 
 
 A boat, they say, has canvas wings, 
 
 But cannot fly away ! 
 
 Though, like a merry singing-bird, 
 
 She sits upon the spray ! 
 
THE SEA-SPELL. 395 
 
 Still south by east the little boat, 
 
 With tawny sail, kept beating : 
 
 Now out of sight, between t^yo waves, 
 
 Now o'er the horizon fleeting; 
 
 Like greedy swine that feed on mast, — 
 
 The waves her mast seemed eating ! 
 
 The sullen sky grew black above, 
 
 The wave as black beneath ; 
 
 Each roaring billow showed full soon 
 
 A white and foamy wreath ; 
 
 Like angry dogs that snarl at first, 
 
 And then display their teeth. 
 
 The boatman looked against the wind. 
 
 The mast began to creak, 
 
 The wave, per saltum, came and dried, 
 
 Li salt, upon his cheek ! 
 
 The pointed wave against him reared, 
 
 As if it owned a pique ! 
 
 Nor rushing wind nor gushing wave 
 
 The boatman could alarm, 
 
 But still he stood away to sea, 
 
 And trusted in his charm ; 
 
 He thought by purchase he was safe, 
 
 And armed against all harm ! 
 
 Now thick and fast and far aslant 
 The stormy rain came pouring, 
 He heard, upon the sandy bank. 
 The distant breakers roaring, — 
 A groaning; intermitting sound, 
 Like Gog and Magog snoring ! 
 
 The sea-fowl shrieked around the mast, 
 Ahead the grampus tumbled, 
 
396 THE SEA-SPELL. 
 
 And far off, from a copper cloud, 
 The hollow thunder rumbled ; 
 It would have quailed another heart, 
 But his "was never humbled. 
 
 For why 7 he had that infant's caul ; 
 And wherefore should he dread 7 
 Alas ! alas ! he little thought, 
 Before the ebb-tide sped, — 
 That, like that infant, he should die, 
 And with a watery head ! 
 
 The rushing brine flowed in apace ; 
 
 His boat had ne'er a deck : 
 
 Fate seemed to call him on, and he 
 
 Attended to her beck ; 
 
 And so he went, still trusting on. 
 
 Though reckless — to his wreck ! 
 
 For as he left his helm, to heave 
 
 The ballast-bags a-weather. 
 
 Three monstrous seas came roaring on, 
 
 Like lions leao-ued toorether. 
 
 The two first waves the little boat 
 
 Swam over like a feather, — 
 
 The two first waves were past and gone, 
 
 And sinking in her wake ; 
 
 The hugest still came leaping on. 
 
 And hissing like a snake. 
 
 Now helm a-lee ! for through the midst 
 
 The monster he must take ! 
 
 Ah, me ! it was a dreary mount ! 
 Its base as black as night, 
 Its top of pale and li\ad green. 
 Its crest of awful white, \ 
 
THE SEA-SPELL. 397 
 
 Like Neptune with a leprosy, — 
 And so it reared upright ! 
 
 With quaking sails the little boat 
 Climbed up the foaming heap ; 
 With quaking sails it paused a while, 
 At balance on the steep ; 
 Then, rushing down the nether slope, 
 Plunged with a dizzj sweep ! 
 
 Look, how a horse, made mad with fear, 
 
 Disdains his careful guide ; 
 
 So now the headlong headstrong boat, 
 
 Unmanaged, turns aside, 
 
 And straight presents her reeling flank 
 
 Against the swelling tide ! 
 
 The gustj wind assaults the sail ; 
 Her ballast lies a-lee ! 
 The sheet "s to windward taut and stifl^ 
 ! the Lively — where is she ? 
 Her capsized keel is in the foam. 
 Her pennon 's in the sea ! 
 
 The wild gull, sailing overhead, 
 Thi-ee times beheld emerge 
 The head of that bold mariner, 
 And then she screamed his dirge ! 
 For he had sunk within his grave, 
 Lapped in a shroud of surge ! 
 
 The ensuing wave, with horrid foam, 
 Rushed o'er and covered all ; 
 The jolly boatman's drowning scream 
 Was smothered by the squall. 
 Heaven never heard his cry, nor did 
 The ocean heed his caul. 
 34 
 
398 
 
 A sailor's apology for bow-legs. 
 
 A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. 
 
 There 's some is born -with their straight legs by natur — 
 
 And some is born with bow-legs from the first — 
 
 And some that should have growed a good deal straighter, 
 
 But they were badly nursed, 
 And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs 
 
 Astride of casks and kegs : 
 I 've got myself a sort of bow to larboard, 
 
 And starboard, 
 And this is what it was that warped my legs. — 
 
 'T was all along of Poll, as I may say, 
 That fouled my cable when I ought to slip ; 
 But on the tenth of May, 
 When I gets under weigh, 
 Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, 
 
 I sees the mail 
 
 Get under sail. 
 The only one there was to make the trip. 
 
 Well — I gives chase, 
 
 But as she run 
 
 Two knots to one. 
 There warn't no use in keeping on the race ! 
 
 Well — casting round about, what next to try on, 
 
 And how to spin, 
 I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, 
 And bears away to leeward for the inn, 
 
 Beats round the gable. 
 And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : 
 Well — there they stand, four kickers m a row, 
 
 And so 
 I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable. 
 But riding isn't in a seaman's natur — 
 So I whips out a toughish end of yarn, 
 
A sailor's apology for bow-legs. 399 
 
 And gets a kind of sort of a land- waiter 
 
 To splice me, heel to heel, 
 
 Under the she-mare" s keel, 
 And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn . 
 
 My eyes ! how she did pitch ! 
 And would n"t keep her own to go in no line, 
 Though I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line, 
 But always making lee-way to the ditch. 
 And yawed her head about all sorts of ways. 
 
 The devil sink the craft ! 
 And was n't she trimendous slack in stays ! 
 We could n't. nohow, keep the inn abaft ! 
 
 Well — I suppose 
 We had n't run a knot — or much beyond — 
 (What will you have on it 7) — but off she goes, 
 Up to her bends in a fresh-water jjond ! 
 
 There I am ! — all a-back ! 
 So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, 
 To heave her head round on the t'other tack ; 
 
 But when I starts. 
 
 The leather parts. 
 And goes away right over by the ears ! 
 
 What could a fellow do. 
 Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, 
 But trim myself upright for bringing-to. 
 And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows, 
 
 Li rig all snug and clever, 
 Just while his craft was taking in her water 1 
 I did n't like my berth, though, howsomedever. 
 Because the yarn, you see, kept getting tauter, — 
 Says I — I wish this job was rather shorter ! 
 
 The chase had gained a mile 
 Ahead, and still the she-mare .^tood a-drinkinsc : 
 
400 THE bachelor's DREAM. 
 
 Now, all the while 
 Her body did n"t take of course to shrinking. 
 Says I, she 's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking - 
 
 And so she swelled, and swelled, 
 
 And yet the tackle held, 
 Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. 
 
 My eyes ! but she took in enough to founder ! 
 And there 's my timbers straining every bit. 
 
 Ready to split. 
 And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! 
 
 Well, there — oflF Hartford Ness, 
 We lay both lashed and water-logged together, 
 
 And can't contrive a signal of distress ; 
 Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, 
 Though sick of riding out — and nothing less ; 
 When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn : — 
 Hollo ! says I, come underneath her quarter ! — 
 And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn. 
 So I gets off, and lands upon the road. 
 And leaves the she-mare to her own consarn, 
 
 A-standing by the water. 
 K I get on another, I '11 be blowed ! — 
 And that 's the way, you see, my legs got bowed ! 
 
 THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. 
 
 My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, 
 My curtains drawn and all is snug ; 
 Old Puss is in her elbow-chair. 
 And Tray is sitting on the rug. 
 Last night I had a curious dream. 
 Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg ■ 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 1 
 
THE bachelor's DREAM. 'iOl 
 
 She looked so fair, she sang so well, 
 I could but woo and she was won ; 
 Myself in blue, the bride in white, 
 The ring was placed, the deed was done! 
 Away we went in chaise-and-four. 
 As fast as grinning boys could flog — 
 What d" ye think of that, my cat 1 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
 What loving tete-a-tetes to come ! 
 But tete-a-tetes must still defer ! 
 When Susan came to live with me, 
 Her mother came to live with her ! 
 With sister Belle she could n't part, 
 But all ?ny ties had leave to jog — 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 
 
 The mother brought a pretty Poll — 
 A monkey too, what work he made ! 
 The sister introduced a beau — 
 My Susan brought a favorite maid. 
 She had a tabby of her own, — 
 A snappish mongrel christened Gog, — 
 What d' ye tliink of that, my cat ? 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
 The monkey 1;)it — the parrot screamed, 
 All day the sister strummed and sung ; 
 The petted maid was such a scold ! 
 My Susan learned to use her tongue ; 
 Her mother had such wretched health, - 
 She sate and croaked like any frog — 
 What d* ye think of that, my cat 7 
 What d" ye think of that, my dog 7 
 3-i* 
 
402 
 
 THE bachelor's DREAM. 
 
 No longer Deary, Duck, and Love, 
 I soon came down to simple " M ! " 
 The very servants crossed my wish, 
 My Susan let me down to them. 
 The poker hardly seemed my own, 
 I might as well have been a log — 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
 My clothes they were the queerest shape ! 
 Such coats and hats she never met ! 
 My ways they were the oddest ways ! 
 My friends were such a vulgar set ! 
 Poor Tompkinson was snubbed and huffedj 
 She could not bear that Mister Blogg — 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 
 
 At times we had a spar, and then 
 Mamma must mingle in the song — 
 The sister took a sister's part — 
 The maid declared her master wrong — 
 The parrot learned to call me '' Fool ! " 
 My life was like a London fog — 
 Wliat d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 1 
 
 My Susan's taste was superfine. 
 As proved by bills that had no end ; 
 / never had a decent coat — 
 / never had a coin to spend ! 
 She forced me to resign my club. 
 Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog — 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
 What d" ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
THE WEE MAX. 403 
 
 Each Sunday night we gave a rout 
 To fops and flirts, a pretty list ; 
 And when I tried to steal away, 
 I found my study full of whist ! 
 Then, first to come, and last to go, 
 There always was a Captain Hogg — ■ 
 Wliat d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
 Now was not that an awful dream 
 For one who single is and snug — 
 With Pussy in the elbow-chair, 
 And Tray reposing on the rug 1 — 
 If I must totter down the hill, 
 'T is safest done without a clog — 
 What d' ye think of that, my cat? 
 What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 
 
 THE WEE MAN. 
 
 A ROllAXCE. 
 
 It was a merry company, 
 And they were just afloat, 
 
 When, lo ! a man, of dwarfish span, 
 Came up and hailed the boat. 
 
 " Good-morrow to ye, gentle folks, 
 And will you let me in 7 — 
 
 A slender space will serve my case, 
 For I am small and thin." 
 
 They saw he was a dwarfish man, 
 And very small and thin ; 
 
 Not seven such would matter much, 
 And so thev took him in. 
 
404 
 
 THE WEB MAN. 
 
 They laughed to see his little hat, 
 
 With such a narrow brim ; 
 They laughed to note his dapper coat, 
 
 With skirts so scant and trim. 
 
 But barely had they gone a mile, 
 
 When, gravely, one and all 
 At once began to think the man 
 
 Was not so very small. 
 
 His coat had got a broader skirt, 
 
 His hat a broader biim, 
 His leg grew stout, and soon plumped out 
 
 A very proper limb. 
 
 Still on they went, and as they went 
 More rough the billows grew, — 
 
 And rose and fell, a greater swell, 
 And he was swelling too ! 
 
 And, lo ! where room had been for seven, 
 
 For six there scarce was space ! 
 For five ! — for four ! — for three ! — not more 
 
 Than two could find a place ! 
 
 There was not even room for one ! 
 
 They crowded by degrees — 
 Ay — closer yet, till elbows met. 
 
 And knees were iooi;s;ina; knees. 
 
 " Good sir, you must not sit astern, 
 
 The wave will else come in ! " 
 Without a word he gravely stirred. 
 
 Another seat to win. 
 
 " Good sir, the boat has lost her trim. 
 
 You must not sit a-lee ! " 
 With smiling face and courteous grace, 
 
 The middle seat took he. 
 
death's ramble. 405 
 
 But still, bj constant quiet growth, 
 
 His back became so wide, 
 Each neighbor wight, to left and right, 
 
 "Was thrust against the side. 
 
 Lord ! how they chided with themselves, 
 
 That they had let him in ! 
 To see him grow so monstrous now. 
 
 That came so small and thin. 
 
 On every brow a dew-drop stood. 
 
 They grew so scared and hot, — 
 " I' the name of all that 's great and tall, 
 
 "Who are ye, sir, and what 7 " 
 
 Loud laughed the Gogmagog, a laugh 
 
 As loud as giant's roar — 
 " When fii'st I came, my proper name 
 
 "Waa Little — now I 'm Moore ! " 
 
 DEATH'S RA^IBLE. 
 
 One day the dreary old King of Death 
 Inclined for some sport with the carnal, 
 
 So he tied a pack of darts on his back, 
 And quietly stole from his charnel. 
 
 His head waa bald of flesh and of hair, 
 
 His body was lean and lank ; 
 His joints at each stir made a crack, and the cur 
 
 Took a gnaw, by the way, at his shank. 
 
 And what did he do with his deadly darts. 
 
 This goblin of grisly bone 7 
 He dabbled and spilled man's blood, and he killed 
 
 Like a butcher that kills his own. 
 
i06 death's ramble. 
 
 The first he slaughtered it made him laugh, 
 
 (For the man was a coffin-maker,) 
 To think how the mutes, and men in black suits, 
 
 Would mourn for an undertaker. 
 
 Death saw two Quakers sitting at church ; 
 
 Quoth he, " We shall not differ." 
 And he let them alone, like figures of stone, 
 
 For he could not make them stiffer. 
 
 He saw two duellists going to fight, 
 
 In fear they could not smother ; 
 And he shot one through at once — for he knew 
 
 They never would shoot each other. 
 
 He saw a watchman fast in his box, 
 
 And he gave a snore infernal ; 
 Said Death, " He may keep his breath, for his sleep 
 
 Can never be more eternal." 
 
 He met a coachman di-iving a coach 
 
 So slow that his fare grew sick : 
 But he let him stray on his tedious way, 
 
 For Death only wars on the quick. 
 
 Death saw a tollman taking a toll. 
 
 In the spirit of his fraternity ; 
 But be knew that sort of man would extort, 
 
 Though summoned to all eternity. 
 
 He found an author writing his life, 
 
 But he let him write no fui'ther ; 
 For Death, who strikes whenever he likes, 
 
 Is jealous of all self-mui'ther ! 
 
 Death saw a patient that pulled out his purse, 
 
 And a doctor that took the sum ; 
 But he let them be — for he knew that the " fee'' 
 
 Was a prelude to " faw " and " fum." 
 
THE PROGRESS OF ART. 
 
 He met a dustman rincrinor a bell, 
 And he gave him a mortal thrust ; 
 
 For himself, bj law, since Adam's flaw, 
 Is contractor for all our dust. 
 
 He saw a sailor mixing his grog, 
 
 And he marked him out for slaughter ; 
 
 For on water he scarcely had cared for death, 
 And never on rum-and-water. 
 
 Death saw two players playing at cards, 
 But the game was n't worth a dump, 
 
 For he quickly laid them flat with a spade, 
 To wait for the final trump ! 
 
 407 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF ART. 
 
 HAPPY time ! — Art's early days ! 
 When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise^ 
 
 Narcissus-like I hun^ ! 
 When great Rembrandt but little seemed. 
 And such Old Masters all were deemed 
 
 As nothing to the young ! 
 
 Some scratchy strokes — abrupt and few, 
 So easily and swift I drew, 
 
 Sufiieed for my design ; 
 My sketchy, supei"ficial hand. 
 Drew solids at a dash — and spanned 
 
 A surface with a line. 
 
 Not long my eye was thus content, 
 
 But grew more critical — my bent 
 
 Essayed a higher walk : 
 
 1 copied leaden eyes in lead — 
 Rheumatic hands in white and red, 
 
 And gouty feet — in chalk. 
 
n) 
 
 408 THE PROGRESS OF ART. 
 
 Anon my studious art for days 
 Kept making faces — tappy phrase, 
 
 For faces such as mine ! 
 Accomplished in the details then, 
 I left the minor parts of men, 
 
 And drew the form divine. 
 
 Old gods and heroes — Trojan — Greek, 
 Figures — long after the antique, 
 
 Great Ajax justly feared ; 
 Hectors, of whom at night I dreamt, 
 And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt 
 
 Bird-nesters to his beard. 
 
 A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, 
 A Pallas, that out-stared her owl, 
 
 A Vulcan — very lame ; 
 A Dian stuck about with stars. 
 With my right hand I murdered Mars — 
 
 (One Williams did the same.) 
 
 But tired of this dry work at last. 
 Crayon and chalk aside I cast. 
 
 And gave my brush a di'ink '} 
 Dipping — "as when a painter dips 
 In gloom of earthquake and eclipse," — 
 
 That is — in Indian ink. 
 
 then, what black Mont Blancs arose. 
 Crested with soot, and not with snows : 
 
 What clouds of dingy hue ! 
 In spite of what the bard has penned, 
 
 1 fear the distance did not ' •' lend 
 
 Enchantment to the \aew." 
 
 Not Radclyffe's brush did e"er design 
 Black forests half so black as mine, 
 
409 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF ART. 
 
 Or lakes so like a pall ; 
 The Chinese cake dispersed a ray 
 Of darkness, like the light of Day 
 
 And Martin, over all. 
 Yet urchin pride sustained me still ; 
 I gazed on all with right good Avill, 
 
 And spread the dingy tint ; ^ 
 " No holy Luke helped me to paint ; 
 The Devil, surely not a Saint, 
 Had any finger in't! " 
 But colors came ! —like morning light, 
 With gorgeous hues displacing night, 
 
 Or Spring's enlivened scene: 
 At once the sable shades withdrew ; 
 My skies got very, very blue ; 
 My trees, extremely green. 
 
 And, washed by my cosmetic brush, 
 How Beauty's cheek began to blush ! 
 
 With lock of auburn stain — 
 (Not Goldsmith's Auburn) —nut-brown hair, 
 That made her loveliest of the fair ; 
 
 Not " loveliest of the plain ! " 
 
 Her lips were of vermilion hue ; 
 Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue, 
 
 Set all my heart in flame ! 
 A young Pygmalion, I adored 
 The maids I made — but time was stored 
 
 With evil — and it came ! 
 Perspective dawned — and soon I saw 
 My houses stand against its law ; 
 
 And " keeping " all unkept ! 
 35 
 
410 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 My beauties were no longer things 
 For love and fond imaginings ; 
 But horrors to be wept ! 
 
 Ah ! why did knowledge ope my eyes ? 
 Why did I get more artist-wise ? 
 
 It only serves to hint 
 What grave defects and wants are mine ; 
 That I 'm no Hilton in design — 
 
 In nature no Dewint ! 
 
 Thrice happy time ! — Art's early days ! 
 When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise. 
 
 Narcissus-like I hung ! 
 When great Rembrandt but little seemed, 
 And such Old Masters all were deemed 
 
 As nothing to the young ! 
 
 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 On Hounslow heath — and close beside the road, 
 As western travellers may oft have seen, — 
 A little house some years ago there stood, 
 
 A minikin abode ; 
 And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood ; 
 The walls of white, the window-shutters green ; — 
 Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West, 
 
 (Though now at rest,) 
 On which it used to wander to and fro, 
 Because its master ne'er maintained a rider, 
 Like those who trade in Paternoster Row ; 
 But made his business travel for itself. 
 
 Till he had made his pelf, 
 And then retired — if one may call it so. 
 
 Of a roadsider. 
 
 rz^J 
 
A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 411 
 
 Perchance, the very race and constant riot 
 Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran, 
 Made him more relish the repose and quiet 
 
 Of his now sedentary caravan ; 
 Perchance, he loved the ground because 't was common, 
 And so he might impale a strip of soil, 
 
 That furnished, by his toil, 
 Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman ; — 
 And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower. 
 Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil 
 His peace, — unless, in some unlucky hour, 
 A stray horse came and gobbled up his bower ! 
 
 But, tired of always looking at the coaches. 
 
 The same to come,— when they had seen them one day ! 
 
 And, used to brisker life, both man and wife 
 Began to suffer N U E's approaches, 
 And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday, — 
 So, having had some quarters of school-breeding. 
 They turned themselves, like other folks, to readuag ; 
 But setting out Avhere others nigh have done, 
 And being ripened in the seventh stage. 
 The childhood of old age, 
 Began, as other children have begun, — 
 Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope, 
 
 Or Bard of Hope, 
 Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson, — 
 But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John, 
 • And then relaxed themselves with Whittington, 
 
 Or Valentine and Orson — 
 But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con, 
 And being easily melted in their dotage, 
 Slobbered, — and kept 
 Reading, — and wept 
 Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage. 
 
412 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 Thus reading on — the longer 
 They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger 
 In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim, — 
 If talking trees and birds revealed to him. 
 She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly- wagons. 
 
 And magic fishes swim 
 In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons, — 
 Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons ; 
 When, as it fell upon a summer's day. 
 As the old man sat a feeding 
 
 On the old babe-reading, 
 Beside his open street-and-parlor door, 
 
 A hideous roar 
 Proclaimed a di-ove of beasts was coming by the way. 
 
 Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed, 
 Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels, 
 
 Or Durham feed. 
 With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils, 
 
 From nether side of Tweed, 
 
 Or Firth of Forth ; 
 Looking half wild with joy to leave the North, — 
 With dusty hides, all mobbing on together, — 
 When, — whether from a fly's malicious comment 
 Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank ; 
 
 Or whether 
 Only in some enthusiastic moment, — 
 However, one brown monster, in a frisk. 
 Giving his tale a perpendicular whisk, . 
 
 Kicked out a passage through the beastly rabble ; 
 And after a pas seul, — or, if you will, a 
 Hornpipe before the basket-maker's villa. 
 
 Leapt o'er the tiny pale, — 
 Backed his beef-steaks against the wooden gable, 
 And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail 
 
A FAIKT TALE. 
 
 413 
 
 Bight o'er the page 
 Wherein the sage 
 Just then Avas spelling some romantic fable. 
 
 The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, 
 
 Could not peruse — who could? — two tales at once ; 
 
 And being huffed 
 At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft, 
 
 Banged-to the door, 
 But most unluckily enclosed a morsel 
 Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel : — 
 
 The monster gave a roar, 
 And bolting off with speed, increased by pain, 
 The little house became a coach once more, 
 And, like Macheath, '' took to the road " again ! 
 
 Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree, 
 The ancient woman stooping with her crupper 
 Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should bej 
 "Was setting up some household herbs for supper : 
 Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale, 
 And quaintly wondering if magic shifts 
 Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail, 
 To turn it to a coach, — what pretty gifts 
 Might come of cabbages, and curly kale : 
 Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail, 
 iSTor turned, till home had turned a corner, quite 
 Gone out of sight ! 
 
 At last, conceive her, rising from the ground, 
 Weary of sitting on her russet clothing ; 
 And looking round 
 Where rest was to be found. 
 There was no house — no villa there — no nothing ! 
 No house ! 
 35* 
 
414 THE TUKTLES. 
 
 The change was quite amazing ; 
 It made her senses stagger for a minute, 
 The riddle's explication seemed to harden ; 
 But soon her superannuated nous 
 Explained the horrid mystery : — and raising 
 . Her hand to heaven, -with the cabbage in it, 
 
 On which she meant to sup,*— 
 " Well ! this is Fairy Work ! I "ll bet a farden, 
 Little Prince Silverwings has ketched me up, 
 And set me down in some one else's garden ! " 
 
 THE TUKTLES. 
 
 The rage of the vulture, the love^of the turtle." — Btron. 
 
 One day, it was before a civic dinner, 
 
 Two London Aldermen, no matter which, — 
 Cordwainer. Girdler, Pattern-maker. Skinner,— 
 
 But both were florid, corpulent, and rich. 
 And both right fond of festive demolition, 
 
 Set forth upon a secret expedition. 
 Yet not, as might be foncied from the token, 
 
 To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street 
 Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat. 
 Or drink, as Milk, or Vintry. or Portsoken, 
 But eastward to that more aquatic quarter, 
 
 Where folks take water. 
 Or. bound on voyages, secure a berth 
 For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or Perth, 
 Calais, Boulogne, or any port on earth ! 
 
 Jostled and jostling, through the mud. 
 Peculiar to the town of Lud, 
 Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they dived, 
 
THE TURTLES. ^l*^ 
 
 Past many a gusty avenue, through vrhich 
 Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch, 
 From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived ; 
 With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught, 
 
 From loco-smoko-mOtive craft ; 
 Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons, 
 Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax, 
 Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax. 
 Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kippered salmons, 
 
 Nuts, oranges, and lemons. 
 Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum, 
 Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum ; 
 Alamode-beef and greens — the London soil — 
 Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine, and oil, 
 Bark, asafoetida, squills, vitriol, hops, 
 In short, all whiflfs, and sniffs, and puffs, and snuffs, 
 From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs. 
 Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops — 
 In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, wagons, taverns, shops, 
 Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops, 
 That, as we walk upon the river's ridge. 
 Assault the nose — below the bridge. 
 A walk, however, as tradition tells, 
 That once' a poor blind Tobit used to choose, 
 Because, incapable of other views. 
 
 He met with " such a sight of smells." 
 
 But on. and on, and on. 
 In spite of all unsavory shocks, 
 
 Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir John, 
 SteadiFy steering ship-like for the docks — 
 And now they reach a place the Muse, unwiUmg, 
 Recalls for female slang and vulgar douig, 
 The famous Gate of Billing 
 That does not lead to cooing — 
 
416 THE TURTLES. 
 
 And now they pass that house that is so ugly 
 A customer to people looking smuggVy — 
 And novr along that fotal hill they pass 
 Where centuries ago an Oxford bled, 
 And proved — too late to save his life, alas ! — 
 That he was " off his head." 
 
 At last before a lofty brick-built pile 
 
 Sir Peter stopped, and with mysterious smile 
 
 Tinkled a bell that served to bring 
 
 The wire-drawn genius of the ring, 
 
 A species of commercial Samuel Weller — 
 
 To whom Sir Peter, tipping him a wink, 
 
 And something else to di'ink, 
 
 " Show us the cellar." 
 
 Obsequious bowed the man. and led the way 
 Down sundry flights of stairs, where windows small, 
 Dapplal with mud, let in a dingy ray — 
 A dirty tax, if they were taxed at all. 
 At length they came into a cellar damp, 
 » "With venerable cobwebs fringed around, 
 
 A cellar of that stamp 
 Which often harbors vintages renowned. 
 The feudal Hock, or Burgundy the courtly. 
 
 With sherry, brown or golden, 
 
 Or port, so olden. 
 Bereft of body 't is no longer portly — 
 But old or otherwise — to be veracious — 
 That cobwebbed cellar, damp, and dim. and spacious 
 
 Held nothing crusty — but crustaceous. 
 
 Prone on the chilly floor. 
 Five splendid turtles — such a five ! 
 Natives of some West Indian shore, 
 
 Were flapping all alive, 
 
THE TURTLES. 
 
 417 
 
 Late landed from the Jolly Planter's yawl — 
 A sight whereon the dignitaries fixed 
 Their eager eyes, with ecstasy unmixed, 
 
 Like fathers that behold their infants crawl, 
 
 Enjoying every little kick and sprawl. 
 
 Nay _ for from flitherly the thoughts they bred, • • 
 
 Poor loggerheads from far Ascension ferried ! 
 
 The Aldermen too plainly wished them dead 
 And Aldermanbury'd ! 
 
 " There ! " cried Sii' Peter, with an air 
 
 Triumphant as an ancient victor's, 
 
 And pointing to the creatures rich and rare, 
 " There 's picters ! 
 
 ' ' Talk of Olympic Games ! They 're not worth mention ; 
 The real prize for wrestling is when Jack, 
 
 In Providence or Ascension, 
 Can throw a lively turtle on its back ! " 
 
 " Ay ! " cried Sir John, and with a score of nods, 
 Thoughtful of classical symposium, 
 
 '• There "s food for gods ! 
 There 's nectar ! there 's ambrosium ! 
 There 's food for Roman emperors to eat — 
 
 0, there had been a treat 
 (Those ancient names will sometimes hobble us) 
 
 For Helio-gobble-us ! 
 
 " There were a feast for Alexander's Feast ! 
 
 The real sort — none of your mock or spurious ! " 
 
 And then he mentioned Aldermen deceased, 
 
 And " Epicurius," 
 And how Tertullian had enjoyed such foison ; 
 And speculated on that verdigrease 
 
 That is n't poison. 
 
418 THE TURTLES. 
 
 " Talk of jour Spring, and verdure, and all that ! 
 
 Give me green fat ! 
 As for jour poets with their groves of myrtles 
 
 And billing turtles, 
 Give me, for poetry, them Turtles there, 
 
 A-billing in a bill of fare ! 
 
 " Of all the things I ever swallow — 
 Good, well-dressed turtle beats them hollow ; 
 It almost makes me wish, I vow. 
 To have tioo stomachs, like a cow ! "' 
 And, lo ! as with the cud, an inward thrill 
 Upheaved his waistcoat and disturbed his frill, 
 His mouth was oozing and he worked his jaw - - 
 " I almost think that I could eat one raw ! " 
 
 And thus, as '-inward love breeds outward talk," 
 The portly pair continued to discourse ; 
 And then — as Gray describes of life's divorce — 
 With ' ' longing, lingering look ' ' prepared to walk,- 
 Havino; throusih one delio-hted sense, at least, 
 Enjoyed a sort of Barmecidal feast, 
 And with prophetic gestures, strange to see, 
 Forestalled the civic banquet yet to be. 
 Its callipash and callipee ! 
 
 A pleasant prospect — but. alack ! 
 Scarcely each Alderman had turned his back, 
 When, seizing on the moment so propitious. 
 And having learned that they were so delicious 
 
 To bite and sup, 
 From praises so high flown and injudicious, — 
 
 And nothing could be more pernicious ! 
 The Turtles fell to work, and ate each other up ! 
 
THE DESERT-BORX. '*l9 
 
 Never, from folly or urbanity, 
 Praise people thus profusely to their faces, 
 Till, quite in love T\itli their own graces, 
 They "re eaten up by vanity ! 
 
 THE DESERT-BORN. 
 "Fly to the desert, fly with me." — Lauy Hester Stanhope. 
 
 T WAS in the wilds of Lebanon, amongst its barren hills,— 
 To think upon it, even now, my very blood it chills! — 
 11 J sketch-book spread before me, and my pencil in my hand, 
 I gazed upon the mountain range, the red tumultuous sand, 
 The plamy palms, the sombre firs, the cedars tall and proud, 
 When, lo ! a shadow passed across the paper like a cloud. 
 And looking up I saw a form, apt figure for the scene, 
 Methought I stood in presence of some oriental queen ! 
 
 The turban on her head was white as any driven snow ; 
 A purple bandalette passed o'er the lofty brow below. 
 And thence upon her shoulders fell, by either jewelled ear; 
 In yellow folds voluminous she wore her long cachemere;^ 
 Whilst underneath, with ample sleeves, a Turkish robe of silk 
 Enveloped her in drapery the color of new milk : 
 Yet oft it floated wide in front, disclosing underneath 
 A crorgeous Persian tunic, rich with many a broidered wreath, 
 Compdled by clasps of costly pearl around her neck to meet, 
 And yellow as the amber were the buskins on her feet ! 
 
 Of course I bowed my lowest bow: of all the things on earth, 
 The reverence due to loveliness, to rank, or ancient birth, 
 To power, to wealth, to genius, or to any thing uncommon, 
 A man should bend the lowest in a Desert to a Woma7i ! 
 
 y=^ 
 
420 THE DESERT-BORN. 
 
 Yet some strange influence stronger still, though vague and 
 
 undefined, 
 Compelled me, and -^vith magic might subdued my soul and 
 
 mind : 
 There was a something in her air that drew the spirit nigh, 
 Beyond the common witchery that dwells in woman's eye ! 
 With reverence deep, like any slave of that peculiar land, 
 I bowed my forehead to the earth, and kissed the arid sand ; 
 And then I touched her garment's hem, devoutly as a Dervise, 
 Predestinated (so I felt) forever to her service. 
 
 Nor was I wrong in auguring thus my fortune from her face ; 
 She knew me. seemingly, as well as any of her race ; 
 " "Welcome ! " she cried, as I uprose submissive to my feet; 
 " It was ordained that you and I should in this desert meet ! 
 Ay, ages since, before thy soul had burst its prison-bars. 
 This interview was promised in the language of the stars ! " 
 Then clapping, as the Easterns wont, her all-commanding 
 
 hands, 
 A score of mounted Arabs came fast spurring o'er the sands. 
 Nor reined they up their foaming steeds till in my very face 
 They blew the breath impetuous, and panting from the race. 
 
 " Fear naught," exclaimed the radiant one, as I sprang oflF 
 
 aloof ; 
 "Thy precious frame need never fear a blow from horse's hoof! 
 Thy natal star was fortunate as any orb of birth, 
 And fate hath held in store for thee the rarest gift of earth." 
 Then turning to the dusky men, that humbly waited near, 
 She cried, " Go bring the Beautiful — for, lo! the Man ia 
 
 here ! " 
 
 Ojffwent the obsequious train as swift as Arab hoofs could flee, 
 But Fancy fond outraced them all, with bridle loose and 
 free, 
 
THE DESERT-BOKN. 421 
 
 And brought me back, for love's attack, some fair Circassian 
 
 bride, 
 Or Georgian girl, the Harem's boast, and fit for Sultan's side ; 
 Methought I liftaVup her veil, and saw dark eyes beneath, 
 Mild as gazelle's, a snowy brow, ripe lips, and pearly teeth, 
 A swanlike neck, a shoulder round, full bosom, and a waist 
 Not too compact, and rounded limbs, to oriental taste. 
 Methought — but here, alas ! alas ! the airy dream to blight, 
 Behold the Arabs leading up a Mare of milky white ! 
 To tellthe truth, without reserve, evasion, or remorse, 
 The last of creatures in my love or liking is a horse ; 
 Whether in early youth some kick untimely laid me flat, 
 Whether from born antipathy, as some dislike a cat, 
 I never yet could bear the kind, from Meux's giant steeds 
 Down to those little bearish cubs of Shetland's shaggy breeds; 
 As for a war-horse, he that can bestride one is a hero, — 
 Merely to look at such a sight my courage sinks to zero. 
 With lightning eyes, and thunder mane, and hurricanes of 
 
 legs, 
 Tempestuous tail — to picture him description vainly begs ! 
 His fiery nostrils send forth clouds of smoke instead of breath ; 
 Nay, was it not a horse that bore the grisly shape of Death 1 
 Judge then how cold an ague-fit of agony was mine 
 To see the mistress of my fate, imperious, make a sign 
 To which my own foreboding soul the cruel sense supplied : 
 '• Mount, happy man, and run away with your Arabian 
 
 bride ! " 
 Grim was the smile, and tremulous the voice with which 1 
 
 spoke, 
 Like any one's when jesting with a subject not a joke, 
 So men have trifled with the axe before the fatal stroke. 
 
 •' Lady, if mine had been the luck in Yorkshire to be bom, 
 Or any of its ridings, this would be a blessed morn ; 
 36 
 
422 THE DESERT-BORX. 
 
 But, hapless one! I cannot ride; there's something in a horse 
 That I can always honor, but I never could endorse ; 
 To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite 
 Averse to running long, and apt to be paid oflf at sight : 
 In legal phrase, for evex-y class to understand me still, 
 I never was in stirrups yet a tenant but at will : 
 Or, if you please, in artist terms, I never went a-straddle 
 On any horse without ' a want of keeping ' in the saddle. 
 In short," and here I blushed, abashed, and held my head 
 
 full low, 
 " I 'm one of those whose infant ears have heard the chimes 
 
 of Bow!" 
 
 The lady smiled, as houris smile, adovm from Turkish skies, 
 And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes ; 
 " Stranger,'" she said, '-'or rather say, my nearest, dearest 
 
 friend. 
 There 's something in your eyes, your air, and that high 
 
 instep's bend. 
 That tells me you 're of Arab race, — whatever spot of earth, 
 Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honor of your birth, 
 The East it is your country ! Like an infant changed at 
 
 nurse 
 By fairies, you have undergone a nurtureship perverse ; 
 But this — these desert sands — these palms, and cedai'S 
 
 waving wild. 
 All, all, adopt thee as their own — an oriental child; — 
 The cloud may hide the sun a while, but soon or late, no doubt, 
 The spirit of your ancestry will burst and sparkle out ! 
 I read the starry characters — and, lo! 'tis wi'itten there, 
 Thou wort foredoomed of sons of men to ride upon this Mare, 
 A Mare till now was never backed by one of mortal mould ; 
 Hark ! how she neighs, as if for thee she knew that she was 
 
 foaled!" 
 
TUE DESERT-BORN. 423 
 
 And truly — I devoutly -wished a blast of the simoom 
 
 Had stifled her ! — the mare herself appeared to mock my 
 
 doom ; 
 With many a bound she capered round and round me like a 
 
 dance : 
 I feared indeed some Avild caress would end the fearful prance, 
 And felt myself, and saw myself — the fantasy was horrid ! 
 Like old Redgauntlet; with a shoe imprinted on my forehead ! 
 On bended knees, with bowing head, and hands upraised in 
 
 prayer, 
 I begged the turbaned Sultaness the issue to forbear ; 
 I painted weeping orphan babes, around a widowed wife, 
 And di-ew my death as ^"ividly as others di-aw from life ; 
 '• Behold,"' I said, •• a simple man, for such high feats unfit, 
 Who never yet has learned to know the crupper from the bit. 
 Whereas the boldest horsemanship, and first equestrian skill, 
 Would well be tasked to bend so wild a creature to the will." 
 Alas ! alas ! 't was all in vain, to supplicate and kneel, 
 The quadruped could not have been more cold to my aj^peal ! 
 
 " Fear nothing,'" said the smiling Fate, " when human help 
 
 is vain. 
 Spirits shall by thy stii-rups fly, and fairies guide the rein ; 
 Just glance at yonder animal, her perfect shape remark, 
 And in thy breast at once shall glow the oriental spark ! 
 As for thy spouse and tender babes, no Arab roams the wild 
 But for a Mare of such descent would barter wife and child." 
 
 ' Nay, then," cried I — (Heaven shrive the lie ! ) "to tell 
 
 the secret truth, 
 'T was my unhappy fortune once to over-ride a youth ! 
 A playful child, — so full of life ! — a little fiiir-haired boy, 
 His sister's pet, his father's hope, his mother's darling joy ! 
 Ah me ! the frantic shriek she gave ! I hear it ringing now .' 
 That hour, upon the bloody spot, I made a holy vow ; 
 
424 THE DESERT-BORN. 
 
 A solemn compact, deeply sworn, to witness mj remorse, 
 That never more these limbs of mine should mount on livins 
 horse ! " 
 
 Good Heaven ! to see the angry glance that flashed upon 
 
 me now ! 
 A chill ran all my marrow through -^ the drops were on my 
 
 brow ! 
 I knew my doom, and stole a glance at that accursed Mare, 
 And there she stood, with nostrils wide, that snuffed the 
 
 sultry air. 
 How lion-like she lashed her flanks with her abundant tail ; 
 While on her neck the stormy mane kept tossing to the gale ! 
 How fearfully she rolled her eyes between the earth and sky, 
 As if in wild uncertainty to gallop or to fly ! 
 While with her hoof she scooped the sand as if before she gave 
 My plunge into eternity she meant to dig my grave ! 
 
 And I, that ne'er could calmly bear a horse's ears at play — 
 Or hear without a yard of jump his shrill and sudden neigh — 
 Whose foot within a stable-door had never stood an inch — 
 Whose hand to pat a living steed would feel an awful flinch, — 
 I, that had never thrown a leg across a pony small, 
 To scour the pathless desert on the tallest of the tall ! 
 For, ! it is no fable, but at every look I cast, 
 Her restless legs seemed twice as long as when I saw them last ! 
 
 In agony I shook — and yet, although congealed by fears. 
 My blood was l)oiling flist, to judge from noises in my ears ; 
 I gasped as if in vacuo, and, thrilling with despair, 
 Some secret demon seemed to pass his fingers through my hair. 
 I could not stir — I could not speak — I could not even see — 
 A sudden mist rose up between that awful Mare and me, — 
 I tried to pray, but found no words, though ready ripe to weep. 
 No tear would flow, o'er every sense a swoon began to creep 
 
THE DESERT-BORN. 425 
 
 When, lo ! to bring my horrid fate at once unto the brunt, 
 Two Arabs seized me from behind, two others in the front. 
 And ere a muscle eould l)e strung to try the strife forlorn, 
 I found myself, Mazeppa-like, upon the Desert-Born ! 
 
 Terrific was the neigh she gave, the moment that my weight 
 Was felt upon her back, as if exulting in her freight ; 
 Whilst dolefully I heard a voice that set each nerve ajar, — 
 " Off with the bridle — quick ! — and leave his guidance to 
 his star ! " 
 
 "Allah ! il Allah ! '" rose the shout, and starting with a bound, 
 The dreadful Creature cleared at once a dozen yards of 
 
 ground ; 
 And grasping at her mane with both my cold convulsive 
 
 hands, 
 Away we flew — away ! away ! across the shifting sands ! 
 My eyes were closed in utter di-ead of such a fearful race. 
 But yet by certain signs I knew we went no earthly pace. 
 For turn whichever way we might, the wind with equal force 
 Rushed like a torrid hurricane still adverse to our course — 
 One moment close at hand I heard the roaring Syrian Sea, 
 The next it only murmured like the humming of a bee ! 
 And when I dared at last to glance across the wild immense, 
 0, ne'er shall I forget the whirl that met the dizzy sense ! 
 "What seemed a little sprig of fern, ere lips could reckon 
 
 twain, 
 A palm of forty cubits high, we passed it on the plain ! 
 What tongue could tell, — what pencil paint, — what pen 
 
 describe the ride ] 
 Xow off — now on — now up — now down, — and flung 
 
 from side to side ! 
 I tried to speak, but had no voice, to soothe her with its tone ; 
 My scanty breath was jolted out with many a sudden groan, 
 36* 
 
126 THE DESERT-BORI^. 
 
 Mj joints were racked — my back was strained, so firmly I 
 
 had clung — 
 My nostrils gushed, and thrice my teeth had bitten through 
 
 my tongue — 
 When, lo ! — farewell all hope of life ! — she turned and faced 
 
 the rocks, — 
 None but a flying horse could clear those monstrous granite 
 
 blocks ! 
 So thought I, — but I little knew the desert pride and fire, 
 Derived from a most deer-like dam, and lion-hearted sire ; 
 Little I guessed the energy of muscle, blood and bone ; 
 Bound after bound, with eager springs, she cleared each 
 
 massive stone ; — 
 Nine mortal leaps were passed before a huge gray rock at 
 
 length 
 Stood planted there as if to dare her utmost pitch of strength ; 
 My time was come ! that granite heap my monument of 
 
 death ! 
 She paused, she snorted loud and long, and drew a fuller 
 
 breath ; 
 Nine strides, and then a louder beat that warned me of her 
 
 spring, 
 I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing — 
 But, ! the crash ! — the hideous shock ! — the million sparks 
 
 around ! 
 Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest of that prodigious 
 
 mound ! 
 Wild shrieked the headlong Desert-Born — or else 't was 
 
 demons' mirth, 
 One second more, and Man and Mare rolled breathless on 
 
 the earth ! 
 ****** 
 How long it was I cannot tell ere I revived to sense^ 
 And then but to endure the pangs of agony intense : 
 
THE DESERT-BORN. 427 
 
 For over me lay powerless, and still as any stone, 
 
 The Corse that erst had so much fire, strength, spirit of itso\nL 
 
 My heart Avas still — my pulses stopped — midway " twixt life 
 
 and death. 
 With pain unspeakable I fetched the fragment of a breath, 
 Not vital air enough to frame one short and feeble sigh, 
 Yet even that I loathed because it would not let me die. 
 
 ! slowly, slowly, slowly on, from starry night till morn, 
 Time flapped along, with leaden wings, across that waste 
 
 forlorn, 
 
 1 cursed the hour that brought me first within this world of 
 
 strife — 
 A sore and heavy sin it is to scorn the gift of life — 
 But who hath felt a horse's weight oppress his laboring 
 
 breast ? 
 Why, any who has had, like me, the Night Mare on his 
 
 chest. 
 
 LOVE LANE. 
 
 If I should love a maiden more, 
 And woo her every hope to crown, 
 I 'd love her all the country o'er. 
 But not declare it out of to^^-n. 
 
 One even, by a mossy bank, 
 ■ That held a hornet's nest within. 
 To Ellen on my knees I sank, — 
 How snakes will twine around the shin ! 
 
 A bashfal fear my soul unnerved, 
 And gave my heart a backward tug ; 
 Nor was I cheered when she observed. 
 Whilst I was silent, " What a slug ! " 
 
 At length my offer I preferred, 
 And Hope a kind reply forebode — 
 
428 LOVE LANE. 
 
 Alas ! the only sound I heard 
 Was, " "What a horrid ugly toad ! " 
 I vowed to give her all mj heart, 
 To love her till my life took leave, 
 And painted all a lover's smart — 
 Except a wasp gone up his sleeve ! 
 
 But when I ventured to abide 
 
 Her father's and her mother's grants — 
 
 Sudden she started up and cried, 
 
 " dear ! I am all over ants ! " 
 
 Nay, when beginning to beseech 
 The cause that led to my rebuff, 
 The answer was as strange a speech — 
 A " Daddy-Longlegs, sure enough ! " 
 
 I spoke of fortune — house, — and lands, 
 And still renewed the warm attack, — 
 'T is vain to offer ladies hands 
 That have a spider on the back ! 
 
 'T is vain to talk of hopes and fears, 
 And hope the least reply to win, 
 From any maid that stops her ears 
 In dread of earwigs creeping in ! 
 
 'T is vain to call the dearest names 
 Whilst stoats and weasels startle by — 
 As vain to talk of mutual flames 
 To one with glowworms in her eye ! 
 
 What checked me in my fond address, 
 And knocked each pretty image down ? 
 What stopped my Ellen's faltering yes 7 
 A caterpillar on her gown ! 
 
 To list to Philomel is sweet — 
 To see the. moon rise silver-pale, — 
 
DOMESTIC POEMS. 
 
 429 
 
 But not to kneel at lady's feet 
 And crush a rival in a snail ! 
 
 Sweet is the eventide, and kind 
 Its zephyr, balmy as the south ; 
 But svreeter still to speak your mind 
 Without a chafer in your mouth ! 
 
 At last, emboldened by my bliss, 
 
 Still fickle Fortune played me foul, 
 
 For Tvhen I strove to snatch a kiss 
 
 She screamed — by proxy, through an ovrl ! 
 
 Then, lovers, doomed to life or death, 
 Shun moonlight, twilight, lanes and bats, 
 Lest you should have in self-same breath 
 To bless your fate — and cui'se the gnats ! 
 
 DO:^rESTIC POKMS. 
 
 " It's hame, hame, hame." — A. Crxx'iNGHAM. 
 ' There 's no place like home." — Clabi. 
 
 I. 
 
 HYMENEAL RETROSPECTIONS. 
 
 Kate ! my dear partner, through joy and through strife 
 
 "When I look back at Hymen's dear day, 
 Not a lovelier bride ever changed to a wife. 
 
 Though you 're now so old. wizened, and gray ! 
 
 Those eyes, then, were stars, shining rulers of fate ! 
 
 But as liquid as stars in a pool ; 
 Though now they're so dim, they appear, my dear Kate, 
 
 Just like gooseberries 'boiled for a fool ! 
 That brow was like marble, so smooth and so fair ; 
 
 Thouc'h it "s wrinkled so crookedly now, 
 
iSO DOMESTIC POEMS. 
 
 As if Time, when those furrows were roade by the share, 
 Had been tipsy whilst driving his plough ! 
 
 Your nose, it was such as the sculptors all chose, 
 
 When a Venus demanded their skill ; 
 Though now it can hardly be reckoned a nose. 
 
 But a sort of Poll-Parroty bill ! 
 
 Your mouth, it was then quite a bait for the bees, 
 Such a nectar there hung on each lip ; 
 
 Though now it has taken that lemon-like squeeze, 
 Not a blue-bottle comes for a sip ! 
 
 Your chin, it was one of Love's favorite haunts, 
 From its dimple he could not get loose ; 
 
 Though now the neat hand of a barber it wants. 
 Or a singe, like the breast of a goose ! 
 
 How rich were those locks, so abundant and full. 
 With their ringlets of auburn so deep ! 
 
 Though now they look only like frizzles of wool, 
 By a bramble torn off from a sheep ! 
 
 That neck, not a swan could excel it in grace, 
 While in whiteness it vied with your arms : 
 
 Though noAV a grave 'kerchief you properly place, 
 To conceal that scrag-end of your charms ! 
 
 Your figure was tall, then, and perfectly straight, 
 Though it now has two twists from upright — 
 
 But bless you ! still bless you ! my partner ! my Kate ! 
 Though you be such a perfect old fright ! 
 
 n. 
 
 The sun was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past ; 
 On Anna's soft and gentle breast my head reclined at last ; 
 
DOMESTIC POEMS. 431 
 
 The darkness closed around, so dear to fond congenial souls ; 
 xVnd thus she murmured at my ear, " My love, we "re out of 
 coals ! 
 
 '* That Mister Bond has called again, insisting on his rent ; 
 And all the Todds are coming up to see us, out of Kent ; 
 I quite forgot to tell you John has had a tipsy fall ; — 
 I "m sure there 's something going on "with that vile Mary 
 Hall ! 
 
 '' Miss Bell has hought the sweetest silk, and I have bought 
 
 the rest — 
 Of course, if we go out of town, Southend will be the best. 
 I really think the Jones's house would be the thing for us ; 
 I think I told you Mrs. Pope had parted with her niis — 
 
 ■' Cook, by the way, came up to-day, to bid me suit myself — 
 And, what d" ye think 7 the rats have gnawed the victuals 
 
 on the shelf. 
 And, Lord I there "s such a letter come, inviting you to fight ! 
 Of course you don't intend to go — God bless you, dear, 
 
 good-night! " 
 
 m. 
 
 A PARENTAL ODE TO JIT SOX, AGED THKEE YEARS AXD 
 FIVE MONTHS. 
 
 Thou happy, happy elf! 
 (But stop, — fii'st let me kiss away that tear) — • 
 
 Thou tiny image of myself ! 
 (i\Iy love, he's poking peas into his ear !) 
 Thou merry, laughing sprite ! 
 With spirits feather-light. 
 Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin — 
 (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin !) 
 
432 DOMESTIC POEMS. 
 
 Thou little tricksy Puck ! 
 With antic toys so funnily bestuck, 
 Licfht as the sino;ino; bii'd that Tving-s the air — 
 (The door ! the door! he "11 tumble down the stair !) 
 
 Thou darling of thy sire ! 
 (Why, Jane, he '11 set his pinafore afire !) 
 
 Thou imp of mirth and joy ! 
 In Love's dear chain so stroncr and briorht a link, 
 Thou idol of thy parents — (Drat the boy ! 
 
 There goes my ink !) 
 
 Thou cherub — but of earth ; 
 Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, 
 
 In harmless sport and mirth, 
 (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail !) 
 
 Thou human liumming-bee, extracting honey 
 From every blossom in the world that blows, 
 
 Singing in youth's elysium ever sunny, 
 (Another tumble! — that 's his precious nose !) 
 
 Thy father's pride and hope ! 
 (He "11 break the mirror with that skipping-rope !) 
 With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint- 
 ( Where did he learn that squint?) 
 
 Thou young domestic dove ! 
 (He '11 have that jug off, with another shove !) 
 
 Dear nursling of the Hymeneal nest ! 
 
 (Ai'e those torn clothes his best T) 
 
 Little epitome of man I 
 (He '11 climb upon the table, that "s his plan !) 
 Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life — 
 
 (He 's got a knife !) 
 
 Thou enviable being ! 
 
 No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, 
 
DOMESTIC POEMS. 433 
 
 Play on, play on, 
 
 My elfin John ! 
 Toss the light ball — bestride the stick — 
 (I knew so many cakes would make him sick !) 
 With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down. 
 Prompting the foce grotesque, and antic brisk. 
 
 With many a lamb-like frisk, 
 (He 's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) 
 
 Thou pretty opening rose ! 
 (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
 Balmy and breathing music like the South, 
 (He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
 Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, — 
 (I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
 Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove,— 
 
 (I '11 tell you what, my love, 
 I cannot write, unless he 's sent above !) 
 
 IV. 
 
 A SERENADE. 
 
 " LuLLABT, 0, lullaby ! " 
 Thus I heard a father cry, 
 
 " Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 The brat will never shut an eye; 
 Hither come, some power divine ! 
 Close his lids, or open mine ! " 
 
 " Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 What the devil makes him cry 1 
 
 Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 Still he stares — I wonder why, 
 Wliy are not the sons of earth 
 Blind, like puppies, from the birth ] " 
 37 
 
434 A PLAIN DIRECTION. 
 
 ''Lullaby, 0, lullaby!" 
 Thus I heard the father cry ; 
 
 " Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 Mary, you must come and try ! — 
 Hush, 0, hush, for mercy's sake — 
 The more I sing, the more you wake ! " 
 
 "Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
 Fie, you little creature, fie ! 
 
 Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 Is no poppy-syrup nigh ? 
 Give him some, or give him all, 
 I am nodding to his fall ! " 
 
 "Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
 Two such nights and I shall die ! 
 
 Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 He '11 be bruised, and so shall I,— 
 How can I from bed-posts keep, 
 When I 'm walking in my sleep ! " 
 
 "Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
 Sleep his very looks deny — 
 
 Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
 Nature soon will stupefy — 
 My nerves relax, — my eyes grow dim — 
 Who 's that fallen — me or him? " 
 
 A PLAIN DIRECTION. 
 
 "Do you never deviate 1" — John Bull. 
 
 In London once I lost my way in faring to and fro. 
 And asked a little ragged boy the way that I should go ; 
 He gave a nod, and then a wink, and told me to get there 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
A PLAIX DIRECTION. 435 
 
 I boxed his little saucy ears, and tlien away I strode ; 
 But since I *ve found that weary path is quite a common road, 
 Utopia is a pleasant place, but how shall I get there ? 
 " Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square."' 
 
 I "ve read about a famous town that drove a famous trade. 
 Where Whittington walked up and found a fortune ready made. 
 The very streets are paved with gold ; but how shall I get 
 
 there ? 
 '• Straight do^-n the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 I 've read about a Fairy Land, in some romantic tale, 
 "Where dwarfs if good are sure to thrive and wicked giants fail : 
 My wish is great, my shoes are strong, but how shall I get 
 
 there 7 
 '' Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square.'' 
 
 I 've heard about some happy isle, where every man is free, 
 And none can lie in bonds for life for want of L. S. D. 
 
 ! that "s the land of Liberty ! but ho.w shall I get there ? 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 1 "ve dreamt about some blessed spot, beneath the blessed sky, 
 Where bread and justice never rise too dear for folks to buy. 
 It 's cheaper than the Ward of Cheap, but how shall I get 
 
 there ? 
 " Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 They say there is an ancient house, as pure as it is old, 
 Where iiiembors always speak thek minds, and votes are 
 
 never sold. 
 I 'm fond of all antiquities, but how shall I get there 7 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 They say there is a royal court maintained in noble state, 
 "Where every able man, and good, is certain to be great ! 
 I 'm very fond of seeing sights, but how shall I get there 1 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square."' 
 
i36 EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP. 
 
 They say there is a temple too, "where Christians come to pray; 
 But canting knaves and hypocrites and bigots keep away. 
 ! that 's the parish church for me I but how shall I get there 7 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 They say there is a garden fair, that "s haunted by the dove, 
 Where love of gold doth ne'er eclipse the golden light of love ; 
 The place must be a Paradise, but how shall I get there 1 
 ' ' Straight do"\vn the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square. 
 
 I 've heard there is a famous land for public spirit known — 
 Whose patriots love its interests much better than their own. 
 The Land of Promise sure it is ! but how shall I get there ? 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 I ' ve read about a fine estate, a mansion large and strong ; 
 A view all over Kent and back, and goincr for a sonc. 
 George Robins knows the very spot, but how shall I get there? 
 "Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 I 've heard there is a company all formal and enrolled, 
 Will take your smallest silver coin and give it back in gold. 
 Of course the office-door is mobbed, but how shall I o-et there 7 
 " Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 
 
 I've heardabout a pleasant land, where omelettes grow entrees. 
 And roasted pigs run crying out, " Come eat me, if you 
 
 please." 
 My appetite is rather keen, but how shall I get there 1 
 ''Straight do^n the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square. '■ 
 
 EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP. 
 
 It was a young maiden went forth to ride, 
 And there was a wooer to pace by her side ; 
 His horse was so little, and hers so hio-h, 
 He thought his angel was up in the sky. 
 
AN OPEN QUESTION. 43Y 
 
 His love was great, though his wit was small ; 
 He bade her ride easy — and that was all. 
 The verj horses began to neigh, — 
 Because their betters had naught to say. 
 
 They rode by elm, and they rode by oak, 
 
 They rode by a church-yard, and then he spoke : — 
 
 '• My pretty maiden, if you '11 agree 
 
 You shall always ramble through life with me." 
 
 The damsel ansAvered him never a word. 
 
 But kicked the gray mare, and away she spurred. 
 
 The wooer still followed behind the jade, 
 
 And enjoyed — hke a wooer — the dust she made. 
 
 They rode through moss, and they rode through moor, — 
 
 The gallant behind and the lass before ; — 
 
 At last they came to a miry place, 
 
 And there the sad wooer gave up the chase. 
 
 Quoth he, " If my nag were better to ride, 
 
 I 'd follow her over the world so wide. 
 
 0, it is not my love that begins to fail. 
 
 But I 've lost the last glimpse of the gray mare's tail ! '' 
 
 AN OPEN QUESTION. 
 
 " It is the king's highway that we are in, and in this way it is that thor 
 ■last placed the lions." — Bunyan. 
 
 What ! shut the Gardens ! lock the latticed gate ! 
 
 Refuse the shilling and the fellow's ticket ! 
 And hang a wooden notice up to state, 
 
 " On Sundays no admittance at this wicket ! " 
 The Birds, the Beasts, and all the Reptile race. 
 
 Denied to friends and visitors till Monday ! 
 Now, really, this appears the common case 
 37* 
 
i38 AN OPEN QUESTION. 
 
 Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday — 
 But what is jour opinion, Mrs Grundy ] 
 
 The Gardens, — so unlike the ones vre dub 
 Of Tea, Tvherein the artisan carouses, — 
 
 Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub, — 
 
 Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses 1 
 
 No ale is vended at the wild Deer's Head, — 
 No rum — nor gin — not even of a Monday — 
 
 The Lion is not carved — or gilt — or red, 
 And does not send out porter of a Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ] 
 
 The Bear denied ! the Leopard under locks ! 
 
 As if his spots would give contagious fevers ! 
 The Beaver close as hat within its box ; 
 
 So different from other Sunday beavers ! 
 The Birds invisible — the Gnaw- way Rats — 
 
 The Seal hermetically sealed till Monday — 
 The Monkey tribe — the Family of Cats, — 
 
 We visit other families on Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What is the brute profanity that shocks 
 The super-sensitively serious feeling } 
 
 The Kangaroo — is he not orthodox 
 
 To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling 'i 
 
 Was strict Sir Andrew, in his Sabbath coat, 
 Struck all a-heap to see a Coatl mundi 7 
 
 Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note 
 The Pelicans presenting bills on Sunday 7 — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? 
 
 What feature has repulsed the serious set 1 
 What error in the bestial birth or breeding. 
 
 To put their tender fancies on the fi-et I 
 
 One thing is plain — it is not in the feeding ! 
 
AX OPEN QUESTION. 439 
 
 Some stiffish people think that smoking joints 
 Are carnal sins 'twixt Saturday and Monday — 
 
 But then the beasts are pious on these points, 
 For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday — 
 But -^'hat is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What change comes o'er the sjjirit of the place. 
 As if transmuted by some spell organic ? 
 
 Turns fell Hyena of the Ghoulish race ? 
 
 The Snake, pro tempore, the true Satanic? 
 
 Do L"ish minds, — (whose theory allows 
 
 That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday) — 
 
 Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows 
 
 Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday ? — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy '^ 
 
 There are some moody Fellows, not a few, 
 Who, turned by Nature with a gloomy bias, 
 
 Renounce black devils to adopt the blue. 
 
 And think when they are dismal they are pious : 
 
 Is 't possible that Pug's untimely fun 
 
 Has sent the brutes to Coventry till Monday — 
 
 Or perhaps some animal, no serious one, 
 Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 
 
 What dire offence have serious Fellows found 
 
 To raise their spleen against the Regent's spinney? 
 
 Were charitable boxes handed round. 
 
 And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea" 
 
 Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to moult 
 
 The feathers in her head — at least till Monday ; 
 
 Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt 
 
 A tract presented to be read on Sunday ? — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
140 AN OPEX QUESTION. 
 
 At ^vllom did Leo struggle to get loose ? 
 
 ^Mio mourns thi'ough Monkey tricks his damaged clothing 1 
 Who has been hissed by the Canadian Goose 1 
 
 On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing ? 
 Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell 
 
 To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, 
 Because he preyed extempore as well 
 
 As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 
 
 To me it seems that in the oddest way 
 
 (Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) 
 Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day 
 
 Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious — 
 As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk 
 
 About the grounds from Saturday till Monday, 
 As any harmless man to take a walk. 
 
 If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 1 
 
 In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, 
 
 As surely as I am a Christian scion, 
 I cannot think it is a mortal sin — 
 
 (Unless he 's loose) — to look upon a lion. 
 I really think that one may go, perchance. 
 
 To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday — 
 (That is, provided that he did not dance) — 
 
 Bruin 's no worse than bakin' on a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 [n spite of ail the fanatic compiles, 
 
 I cannot think the day a bit diviner. 
 Because no children, with forestalling smiles. 
 
 Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor — 
 It is not plain, to my poor faith at least. 
 
 That what we christen "Natural" on Monday, 
 
AN OPEN QUESTION. 441 
 
 The wondrous history of Bu-d and Beast, 
 Can be unnatural because it" s Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 Whereon is sinful fantasy to work 1 
 
 The Dove, the winged Columbus of man's haven'? 
 The tender Love-Bird — or the filial Stork 7 
 
 The punctual Crane — the providential Raven ] 
 The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young 7 
 
 Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday 
 That feathered marvel with a human tongue, 
 
 Because she does not preach upon a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 The busy Beaver — that sagacious beast ! 
 
 The Sheep that owned an Oriental Shepherd — 
 That Desert-ship, the Camel of the East, 
 
 The horned Rhinoceros — the spotted Leopard — 
 The Creatures of the Great Creator's hand 
 
 Are surely sights for better days than Monday — 
 The Elephant, although he wears no band, 
 
 Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday 1 — 
 
 But what is your opinion. Mrs. Grundy 1 
 
 "What harm if men who buro the midnight-oil, 
 Weary of frame, and worn and wan of feature, 
 
 Seek once a week theii' spirits to assoil. 
 
 And snatch a glimpse of " Animated jS'ature " 1 
 
 Better it were if , in his best of suits. 
 
 The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, 
 
 Should spend a leisure-hour amongst the brutes, 
 Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 
 
 "Why, zounds ! what raised so Protestant a fuss 
 (Omit the zounds ! for which I make apology) 
 
i42 MORNING MEDITATIONS. 
 
 But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus 
 
 Had somehow mixed up Dens with their Theology 1 
 
 Is Brahma" s Bull — a Hindoo god at home — 
 A Papal Bull to be tied up till Monday — 
 
 Or Leo, like his namesake, Pope of Bome, 
 
 That there is such a dread of them on Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 Spu'it of Kant ! have we not had enough 
 
 To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, 
 
 But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, 
 
 As vessels cant their ballast — rattling rubbish ! 
 
 Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, 
 Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, 
 
 And sure as fate they will deny us next 
 To see the Dandelions on a Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 
 
 MORNING MEDITATIONS. 
 
 Let Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, 
 How well to rise while nights and larks are flying- 
 For my part, getting up seems not so easy 
 By half as lying. 
 
 What if the lark does carol in the sky. 
 Soaring beyond the sight to find him out — 
 Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly 7 
 I 'm not a trout. 
 
 Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums. 
 The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime - 
 Only lie long enough, and bed becomes 
 A bed of time. 
 
MORNING MEDITATIONS. 448 
 
 To me Dan Phoebus and his car are naught; 
 His steeds that paw impatiently about, — 
 Let them enjoy, say I. as horses ought. 
 The fii'st turn-out ! 
 
 Right beautiful the dewy maids appear 
 Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl ; 
 "VMiat then, — if I prefer my pillow-beer 
 To early pearl ? 
 
 My stomach is not ruled by other men's, 
 
 And. grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs 
 Wherefore should master rise before the hens 
 Have laid their eggs 7 
 
 Why fi-om a comfortable pillow start 
 To see faint flushes in the east awaken 1 
 A fig, say I, for any streaky part, 
 Excepting bacon. 
 
 An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn. 
 Who used to haste the dewy gi-ass among, 
 " To meet the sun upon the upland lawn," — 
 Well — he died young. 
 
 With charwomen such early houi-s agree, 
 And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup ; 
 But I "m no climbing boy, and need not be 
 All up — all up ! 
 
 So here I lie, my morning calls deferring, 
 Till something nearer to the stroke of noon ; — 
 A man that "s fond precociously of stirring, 
 Must be a spoon. 
 
i44 A BLACK JOB. 
 
 A BLACK JOB. 
 
 " No doubt the pleasure is as great 
 Of being cheated as to cheat." — Hudibkas. 
 
 The history of human-kind to trace 
 
 Since Eve — the first of dupes — our doom unriddled, 
 A certain portion of the human race 
 
 Has certainly a taste for being diddled. 
 
 Witness the famous Mississippi dreams ! 
 
 A rage that time seems only to redouble — 
 The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, 
 
 For rolling in Pactolian streams, 
 That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. 
 No matter what, — to pasture cows on stubble, 
 
 To twist sea-sand into a solid rope, 
 To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble. 
 Or light with gas the whole celestial cope — 
 
 Only propose to blow a bubble. 
 And, Lord ! what hundreds will subscribe for soap ! 
 
 Soap ! it reminds me of a little tale, 
 
 Though not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory, 
 When rustic games and merriment prevail — 
 
 But here 's my story : 
 Once on a time — no matter when — 
 A knot of very charitable men 
 Set up a Philanthropical Society, 
 Professing on a certain plan 
 To benefit the race of man, 
 And in particular that dark variety, 
 Which some suppose inferior — as in vermin, 
 
 The sable is to ermine. 
 As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster. 
 
 As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, 
 
A BLACK JOB. 445 
 
 As blacking, or as ink to "milk below," 
 Or yet, a better simile to show, 
 As ragman's dolls to images in plaster ! 
 
 However, as is usual in our city, 
 
 They had a sort of managing Committee, 
 
 A board of grave, responsible Directors — 
 A Secretary, good at pen and ink — 
 A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink, 
 
 And quite an anny of Collectors ! 
 Not merely male, but female duns, 
 
 Young, old, and middle-aged — of all degrees — 
 "With many of those persevering ones. 
 
 Who mite by mite would beg a cheese ! 
 And what might be their aim ? 
 
 To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters — 
 To save their bodies from the burning shame 
 
 Of branding with hot letters — 
 Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, 
 
 Their necks from iron yokes 7 
 To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, 
 The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery? 
 To school the heathen negroes and enlighten 'em, 
 
 To polish up and brighten 'em, 
 And make them woj'thy of eternal bliss ? 
 Why, no — the simple end and aim was this — 
 Reading a well-known proverb much amiss — 
 To wash and whiten 'em ! 
 
 They looked so ugly in their sable hides ; 
 
 So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot 
 Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, 
 
 However the poor elves 
 
 Jklight wash themselves, 
 
446 A BLACK JOB. 
 
 Nobody knew if thej were clean or not — . 
 
 On Nature's fairness thej were quite a blot ! 
 Not to forget more serious complaints 
 That even while thej joined in pious hymn, 
 So black they were and grim, 
 In face and limb. 
 They looked like Devils, though they sang like Saints ! 
 
 The thing was undeniable ! 
 They wanted washing ! not that slight ablution 
 To which the skin of the white man is liable. 
 Merely removing transient pollution — 
 
 But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing 
 And scrubbing, 
 Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head 
 
 With stiff, strong saponaceous lather, 
 
 And pails of water — hottish rather, 
 But not so boiling as to turn 'em red ! 
 
 So spoke the philanthropic man 
 
 Who laid, and hatched, and nursed the plan — 
 
 And, ! to view its glorious consummation ! 
 The brooms and mops, 
 The tubs and slops, 
 
 The baths and brushes in full operation ! 
 To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, 
 Go in a raven and come out a swan ! 
 
 While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Kussels, 
 Black Venus rises from the soapy surge. 
 And all the little Niggerlings emerge 
 
 As lily-white as mussels. 
 
 Sweet was the vision — but, alas ! 
 
 However in prospectus bright and sunny, 
 To bring such visionary scenes to pass 
 
 One thing was requisite, and that was — money ! 
 
A BLACK JOB. i^T 
 
 Money, that pays the laundress and her bills, 
 For socks, and collars, shirts, and frills, 
 Cravats, and kerchiefs — money, without which 
 The Negroes must remain as dark as pitch ; 
 
 A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery. 
 To think of millions of immortal sovils 
 Dwelling in bodies black as coals. 
 
 And living — so to speak — in Satan's livery ! 
 
 j^Xoney — the root of evil — dross and stuff ! 
 
 But, ! how happy ought the rich to feel, 
 Whose means enabled them to give enough 
 
 To blanch an African from head to heel ! 
 How blessed — yea. thrice blessed — to subscribe 
 
 Enough to scour a tribe ! 
 While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one. 
 Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know 
 He helped to bleach a Hottentot's great toe, 
 Or little one ! 
 
 Moved by this logic, or appalled. 
 
 To persons of a certain turn so proper. 
 The money came when called. 
 In silver, gold, and copper. 
 
 Presents from "friends to blacks," or foes to whites, 
 "Trifles,"' and " offerings," and " widow's mites," 
 Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions. 
 With other gifts 
 And charitable lifts, 
 Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. 
 As thus — Elisha Brettel, 
 An iron kettle. 
 The DoAvager Lady Scannel, 
 A piece of flannel. 
 Rebecca Pope, 
 A bar of soap. 
 
448 A BLACK JOB. 
 
 The Misses Howels, 
 Half-a-dozen towels. 
 . The Master Rush's 
 Two scrubbing-brushes. 
 Mr. T. Groom, 
 A stable-broom, 
 And Mrs. Grubb, 
 A tub. 
 
 Great were the sums collected ! 
 
 And great results in consequence expected. 
 
 But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavor. 
 
 According to reports 
 
 At yearly courts, 
 The Blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever ! 
 
 Yes ! spite of all the water soused aloft, 
 Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, 
 Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand, 
 Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, 
 And scourers in the office strong and clever, 
 
 In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, 
 
 The routing and the grubbing. 
 The Blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever ! 
 
 In fact, in his perennial speech. 
 The Chairman owned the Niggers did not bleach, 
 As he had hoped, 
 From being washed and soaped, 
 A circumstance he named with grief and pity ; 
 But still he had the happiness to say, 
 For self and the Committee, 
 By persevering in the present way. 
 And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, 
 Although he could not promise perfect white. 
 From certain symptoms that had come to light. 
 He hoped in time to get them gray ! 
 
A BLACK JOB. 449 
 
 Lulled by this vague assurance, 
 
 The friends and patrons of the sable tribe 
 
 Continued to subscribe. 
 And vraited, waited on -with much endurance — 
 Manj a frugal sister, thrifty daughter — 
 Many a stinted widow, pinching mother — 
 With income by the tax made somewhat shorter, 
 Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter. 
 Only to hear, as every year came round. 
 That Mr. Treasurer had spent her pound ; 
 And as she loved her sable brother, 
 That Mr. Treasui'er must have another ! 
 
 But, spite of pounds or guineas, 
 
 Instead of giving any hint 
 
 Of turning to a neutral tint. 
 The plaguy Negroes and their piccaninnies 
 Were still the color of the bird that caws — 
 
 Only some very aged souls, 
 Showing a little gray upon their polls, 
 Like daws ! 
 
 However, nothing dashed 
 By such repeated failures, or abashed, 
 The Court still met ; — the Chairman and Directors, 
 The Secretary, good at pen and ink, 
 The worthy Treasurer, who kept the chink, 
 And all the cash Collectors ; 
 With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous, 
 Without whose help no charlatan alive 
 Or Bubble Company could hope to thrive. 
 Or busy Chevalier, however sedulous — 
 Those good and easy innocents, in fact. 
 
 Who, willingly recei\'ing chaff for corn, 
 As pointed out by Butler's tact, 
 38* 
 
450 A BLACK JOB. 
 
 Still find a secret pleasure in the act 
 Of being plucked and shorn ! 
 
 However, in long hundreds there they were. 
 Thronging the hot, and close, and dusty court, 
 To hear once more adch-esses from the Chair, 
 
 And regular Report. 
 Alas ! concludincr in the usual sti'ain. 
 
 That what with everlasting wear and tear, 
 
 The scrubbing-brushes had n"t got a hair — 
 The brooms — mere stumps — would never sei've again — 
 The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds, 
 
 The towels worn to threads, 
 The tubs and pails too shattered to be mended — 
 
 And what was added with a deal of pain. 
 
 But as accounts correctly would explain. 
 Though thirty thousand pounds had been expended — 
 
 The Blackamoors had still been washed in vain ! 
 
 " In fact, the Negroes were as black as ink. 
 
 Yet. still as the Committee dared to think, 
 
 And hoped the proposition was not rash, 
 
 A rather free expenditure of cash — "' 
 
 But ere the prospect could be made more sunny — 
 
 Up jumped a little, lemon-colored man. 
 
 And with an eager stammer, thus began. 
 In angry earnest, though it sounded funny : 
 " What ! More subscriptions ! Xo — no — no. — not I ! 
 You have had time — time — time enough to try ! 
 They won't come white! then why — why — why — why 
 — why, 
 
 More money?" 
 
 "Why ! " said the Chairman, with an accent bland, 
 
 And gentle waving of his dexter hand, 
 
 " Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust, 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. ^51 
 
 T^Iore filthy lucre, in a word more gold — 
 
 The why. sir, very easily is told, 
 Because Humanity declares we must ! 
 We "ve scrubbed the Negroes till we 've nearly killed 'em, 
 
 And, finding that we cannot wash them white. 
 
 But still their nigritude ofiends the sight. 
 We mean to gild 'em ! " 
 
 ODE TO RAE "WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 « Close, close your eyes with holy dread. 
 And weave a circle round him thrice ; 
 For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise ! "—Coleridge 
 
 " It 's yery hard them kind of men 
 Won't let a body be."— Old Ballad. 
 
 A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land, 
 
 Remote, Rae, from godliness and thee. 
 
 Where rolls between us the eternal sea, 
 
 Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,— 
 
 Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall ; 
 
 Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call ; 
 
 Across the wavy waste between us stretched, 
 
 A friendly missive warns me of a sti'icture, 
 
 Wherein my likeness you have darkly etched. 
 
 And though I have not seen the shadow sketched, 
 
 Thus I remark prophetic on the picture. 
 
 I guess the features : — in a line to paint 
 
 Their moral ugliness, I 'm not a saint. 
 
 Not one of those self-constituted saints, 
 
 Quacks — not physicians — in the cure of souls. 
 
 Censors who snifif out moral taints. 
 
 And call the de\nl over his own coals — 
 
 Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God, 
 
 Who wi-ite down judgments with a pen hard-nibbed ; 
 
452 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod, 
 Commending sinners not to ice thick-ribbed, 
 But endless flames, to scorch them like flax, — 
 Yet sure of heaven themselves, as if thej 'd cribbed 
 The impression of St. Peter's keys in wax ! 
 
 Of such a character no single trace 
 
 Exists, I know, in my fictitious face ; 
 
 There wants a certain cast about the eye ; 
 
 A certain lifting of the nose's tip ; 
 
 A certain curling of the nether lip, 
 
 In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky ; 
 
 In brief, it is an aspect deleterious, 
 
 A face decidedly not serious, 
 
 A face profane, that would not do at all 
 
 To make a face at Exeter Hall, — 
 
 That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray, 
 
 And laud each other face to face, 
 
 Till every farthing-candle ray 
 
 Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace ! 
 
 Well ! — be the graceless lineaments confest ! 
 I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth ; 
 
 And dote upon a jest 
 " Within the limits of becoming mirth; " — 
 No solemn sanctimonious face I pull, 
 Nor think I 'm pious when I 'm only bilious — 
 Nor study in my sanctum supercilious 
 To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull. 
 I i^ray for grace — repent each sinful act — 
 Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible ; 
 And love my neighbor, far too well, in fact, 
 To call and twit him with a godly tract 
 That 's turned by application to a libel. 
 My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven. 
 All creeds I view with toleration thorou<?h. 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 453 
 
 And have a horror of regarding heaven 
 As anybody's rotten borough. 
 
 What else 'I No part I take in party fray, 
 
 With tropes from Billingsgate's slang-whanging Tartars, 
 
 I fear no Pope — and let great Ernest play 
 
 At Fox and Goose with Fox's Martyrs ! 
 
 I own I laugh at over-righteous men, 
 
 I own I shake my sides at ranters, 
 
 And treat sham Abr'am saints with wicked banters, 
 
 I even own, that there are times — but then 
 
 It 's when I 've got my wine — I say d canters ! 
 
 I 've no ambition to enact the spy 
 
 On fellow-souls, a spiritual Pry — 
 
 'T is said that people ought to guard their noses 
 
 Who thrust them into matters none of theirs : 
 
 And, though no delicacy discomposes 
 
 Your saint, yet I consider faith and prayers 
 
 Amongst the privatest of men's afiairs. 
 
 I do not hash the Gospel in my books, 
 And thus upon the public mind intrude it. 
 As if I thought, like Otaheitau cooks. 
 No food was fit to eat till I h^4 chewed i*. 
 
 On Bible stilts I don't affect to staFk; 
 
 Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk, — 
 
 For man may pious texts repeat. 
 And yet religion have no inward seat ; 
 'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth, 
 A man has got his belly full of meat 
 Because he talks with victuals in his mouth ! 
 
 Mere verbiage, — it is not worth a carrot ! 
 Why, Socrates or Plato — where 's the odds? — 
 
454 ODE TO PvAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Ouce taught a Jay to supplicate the gods, 
 And made a Pollj-theist of a Parrot ! 
 
 A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is 
 Not a whit better than a Mantis, — 
 An insect, of what clime I can't determine, 
 That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence, 
 By simple savages — through sheer pretence — 
 Is reckoned quite a saint amongst the vermin. 
 But where 's the reverence, or where the nous 
 To ride on one's religion through the lobby. 
 
 Whether as stalking-horse or hobby, 
 To show its pious paces to " the house." 
 
 I honestly confess that I would hinder 
 The Scottish member's legislative rigs, 
 
 That spiritual Pindar, 
 Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs. 
 That must be lashed by law, wherever found, 
 And driven to church as to the parish pound. 
 I do confess, without reserve or wheedle. 
 I view that grovelling idea as one 
 Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, 
 A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle. 
 On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd 
 How much a man can differ from his neighbor - 
 One wishes worship freely given to God, 
 Another wants to make it statute-labor — 
 The broad distinction in a line to draw, 
 As means to lead us to the skies above. 
 You say — Sir Andi-ew and his love of law, 
 And I — the Saviour with his law of love. 
 
 Spontaneously to Grod should tend the soul, 
 Like the magnetic needle to the Pole; 
 
ODE TO KAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 456 
 
 But what Avere that intrinsic virtue worth, 
 
 Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, 
 
 Fresh from St. Andrew's college, 
 Should nail the conscious needle to the north ? 
 I do confess that I abhor and shrink 
 From schemes, with a religious willj-nillj. 
 That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blink 
 The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly — 
 My soul revolts at such bare hypocrisy, 
 And will not, dare not, fancy in accord 
 The Lord of Hosts with an exclusive lord 
 Of this world's aristocracy. 
 It will not own a notion so unholy. 
 As thinking that the rich by easy trips 
 May go to heaven, whereas the poor and lowly 
 Must work their passage, as they do in ships. 
 
 One place there is — beneath the burial-sod, 
 "Where all mankind are equalized by death ; 
 Another place there is — the Fane of God, 
 Where all are equal who draw living breath ; — 
 Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul, 
 Playing the Judas with a temporal dole — 
 He who can come beneath that awful cope, 
 In the dread presence of a Maker just, 
 "Who metes to every pinch of human dust 
 One even measure of immortal hope — 
 He who can stand within that holy door, 
 "With soul unbowed by that pure spirit-level, 
 And frame unequal laws for rich and poor, — 
 Might sit for Hell, and represent the Devil ! 
 
 Such are th(i solemn sentiments, Rae, 
 
 In your last journey-work, perchance, you ravage, 
 
 Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say 
 
 I 'm but a heedless, creedless, godless, savage ; 
 
156 ODE TO RAE WILSOX, ESQUIKE. 
 
 A verj Guj, deserving fire and fagots, — 
 
 A scofier, ahyajs on the grin, 
 And sadly given to the mortal sin 
 . Of liking Mawworms less than merry maggots ! 
 
 The humble records of my life to search, 
 
 I have not herded with mere pagan beasts ; 
 
 But sometimes I have "sat at good men's feasts," 
 
 And I have been " where bells have knolled to church." 
 
 Dear bells ! how sweet the sound of village bells 
 
 When on the undulating aii' they swim ! 
 
 Now loud as welcomes ! faint, now, as farewells ! 
 
 And trembling all about the breezy dells. 
 
 As fluttered by the wings of Cherubim. 
 
 Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn ; 
 
 And lost to sight the ecstatic lark above 
 
 Sings, like a soul beatified, of love. 
 
 With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon : — 
 
 pagans, heathens, infidels, and doubters ! 
 
 If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion, 
 
 Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters 1 
 
 A man may cry Church ! Church ! at every word, 
 With no more piety than other people — 
 A daw 's not reckoned a religious bird 
 Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple ; 
 The Temple is a good, a holy place, 
 But quacking only gives it an ill savor ; 
 While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, 
 And bring religion's self into disfavor ! 
 
 Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, 
 Who, binding up his Bible with his ledger. 
 
 Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, 
 A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSOX, ESQUIRE. 457 
 
 Wlio backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, 
 Against the wicked remnant of the week, 
 A saving bet against his sinful bias — 
 " Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, 
 " I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf, 
 But who on earth can say I am not pious ! " 
 
 In proof how over-righteousness reacts, 
 
 Accept an anecdote well based on focts ; 
 
 On Sunday morning — (at the day don't fret) — ■ 
 
 In riding with a friend to Ponder' s End 
 
 Outside the stage, we happened to commend 
 
 A certain mansion that we saw To Let. 
 
 "Ay," cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple, 
 
 •'You 're right ! no house along the road comes nigh it ' 
 
 'T was built by the same man as built yon chapel, 
 And master wanted once to buy it, — 
 
 But t' other driv the bargain much too hard, — 
 He axed suve-li/ a sum prodigious ! 
 
 But being so particular religious, 
 
 Why, that, you see, put master on his guard ! " 
 Church is " a little heaven below, 
 I have been there and still would go," — 
 
 Yet I am none of those who think it odd 
 
 A man can pray unbidden fi-om the cassock, 
 And, passing by the customary hassock 
 
 Kneel down remote upon the simple sod, 
 
 A.nd sue in forma pauperis to God. 
 
 As for the rest. — intolerant to none, 
 WTiatever shape the pious rite may bear. 
 Even the poor pagan's homage to the sun 
 I would not harshly scorn, lest even there 
 I spurned some elements of Christian prayer — 
 39 
 
458 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 An aim, though erring, at a " world ayont" — 
 Acknowledgment of good — of man's futility, 
 A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed 
 That very thing so many Christians want — 
 
 Humility. 
 
 Such, unto Papists, Jews or Turbaned Turks, 
 Such is my spirit — (I don't mean my wraith !) 
 Such, may it please you, is my humble faith ; 
 I know, full well, you do not like my ivorks ! 
 
 I have not sought, 't is true, the Holy Land, 
 As full of texts as Cuddie Hedrigg's mother. 
 
 The Bible in one hand. 
 And my own commonplace-book in the other — 
 But you have been to Palestine — alas ! 
 Some minds improve by travel — others, rather, 
 
 Besemble copper wire or brass. 
 Which gets the narrower by going further ! 
 
 Worthless are all such pilgrimages — very ! 
 If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive 
 The human heats and rancor to revive 
 That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. 
 A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, 
 To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, 
 Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, 
 Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, 
 At crippled Papistry to butt and poke. 
 Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull 
 Haunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak. 
 
 Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, 
 Scotland, renowned for sanctity of old. 
 Far distant Catholics to rate and scold 
 For — doing as the Romans do at Rome 7 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 459 
 
 With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit 
 The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers, 
 About the graceless images to flit, 
 And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, 
 Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops'? — 
 People who hold such absolute opinions 
 Should stay at home in Protestant dominions, 
 Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopes. 
 
 Gifted with noble tendency to climb, 
 Yet weak at the same time, 
 Faith is a kind of parasitic plant, 
 That grasps the nearest stem with tendril rings ; 
 And as the climate and the soil may grant. 
 So is the sort of tree to which it clings. 
 Consider, then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, 
 You aim your club at any creed on earth, 
 That, by the simple accident of birth, 
 You might have been High Priest to Mumbo Jumbo. 
 
 For me — through heathen ignorance perchance, 
 
 Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel 
 
 None of that griffinish excess of zeal, 
 
 Some travellers would blaze with here in France. 
 
 Dolls I can see in Yirgin-like array, 
 
 Nor for a scujHe with the idols hanker 
 
 Like crazy Quixotte at the puppet's play, 
 
 K their " offence be rank," should mine be rancor 7 
 
 Mild light, and by degrees, should be the plan 
 To cure the dark and erring mind ; 
 But who would rush at a benighted man. 
 And give him two black eyes for being blind 7 
 
 Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop 
 Around a cankered stem should twine. 
 
460 ODE TO RAE WILSOXj ESQUIRE. 
 
 What Kentish boor would tear away the prop 
 So roughlj as to wound, naj. kill the bine ? 
 
 The images, 't is true, are strangely dressed, 
 With gauds and toys extremely out of season ; 
 The carving nothing of the very best, 
 The whole repugnant to the eye of Reason, 
 Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason — 
 Yet ne'er o"erlook in bigotry of sect 
 One truly Catholic, one common form. 
 
 At which unchecked 
 All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm. 
 
 Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss. 
 
 One bright and balmy morning, as I went 
 
 From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, 
 
 If hard by the wayside I found a cross. 
 
 That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot — 
 
 While Xatui'e of herself, as if to trace 
 
 The emblem's use. had trailed around its base 
 
 The blue significant Forget-Me-Not 7 
 
 Methought. the claims of Charity to ui'ge 
 
 More forcibly along with Faith and Hope, 
 
 The pious choice had pitched upon the verge 
 
 Of a delicious slope. 
 Giving the eye much variegated scope ! — 
 " Look round," it whispered, "on that prospect rare, 
 Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue ; 
 Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair, 
 But " — (how the simple legend pierced me through ! ; 
 
 '•'Priez pour les Malheureux."' 
 
 With sweet kind natures, as in honeyed cells, 
 
 Religion lives, and feels herself at home ; 
 
 But only on a formal visit dwells 
 
 Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb. 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 461 
 
 Shun pride, Rae ! — whatever sort beside 
 You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride ! 
 A pride there is of rank — a pride of birth, 
 A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, 
 A London pride — in short, there be on earth 
 A host of prides, some better and some worse ; 
 But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint. 
 The proudest swells a self-elected Saint. 
 
 To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard, 
 Fancy a peacock in a poultry-yard. 
 Behold him in conceited circles sail. 
 Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff, 
 In all his pomp of pageantry, as if 
 He felt " the eyes of Europe " on his tail ! 
 As for the humble breed retained by man, 
 He scorns the whole domestic clan — 
 
 He bows, he bridles, 
 
 He wheels, he sidles, 
 As last, with stately dodgings in a corner, 
 He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her 
 Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan ! 
 
 " Look here," he cries, (to give him words,) 
 
 " Thou feathered clay, — thou scum of birds ! " 
 Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes, — 
 
 ' ' Look here, thou vile predestined sinner, 
 
 Doomed to be roasted for a dinner. 
 Behold these lovely variegated dyes ! 
 These are the rainbow colors of the skies, 
 That heaven has shed upon me con oinore — 
 A Bird of Paradise ? — a pretty story ! 
 / am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! 
 
 Look at my crown of glory ! 
 Thou dingy, dirty, dabbled, draggled jill ! " 
 39* • 
 
i62 ODE TO RAE WILSOX, ESQUIRE. 
 
 And off goes Partlett, wi-iggliug fi-om a kick, 
 With bleeding scalp laid open bj his bill ! 
 
 That little simile exactly paints 
 How sinnere are despised hj saints. 
 By saints ! — the Hypocrites that ope heaven's door 
 Obsequious to the sinful man of riches — 
 But put the wicked, naked, bare-legged poor. 
 In parish stocks, instead of breeches. 
 
 The Saints 7 — the Bigots that in public spout, 
 Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian, 
 And go like walking '-'Lucifers" about 
 Mere living bundles of combustion. 
 
 The Samts ! — the aping Fanatics that talk 
 All cant and rant and rhapsodies high flown — 
 
 That bid you balk 
 
 A Sunday walk, 
 And shun Grod's work as you should shun your own. 
 
 The Saints ! — the Formalists, the extra pious, 
 "Who think the mortal husk can save the soul. 
 By trundling, with a mere mechanic bias, 
 To church, just like a lignum-vitas bowl ! 
 
 The Saints ! — the Pharisees, whose beadle stands 
 
 Beside a stern coercive kirk. 
 
 A piece of human mason-work, 
 Calling all sermons contrabands, 
 In that great Temple that 's not made with hands ! 
 
 Thrice blessed, rather, is the man with whom 
 The gracious prodigality of nature. 
 The balm, the bhss, the beauty, and the bloom, 
 The bounteous providence in every feature. 
 Recall the good Creator to his creature. 
 Making all earth a fane, all heaven its dome ! 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIBB. 463 
 
 To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells 
 
 Ring Sabbath knells ; 
 The jubilate of the soaring lark 
 
 Is chant of clerk ; 
 For Choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ; 
 The sod's a cushion for his pious want; 
 And, consecrated by the heaven within it, 
 The sky-blue pool, a font. 
 Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar ; 
 
 An organ breathes in every grove ; 
 And the full heart 's a Psalter, 
 Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love ! 
 
 Sufficiently by stern necessitarians 
 Poor Nature, with her face begrimed by dust, 
 Is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked; but must 
 Religion have its own Utilitarians. 
 Labelled with evangelical phylacteries. 
 To make the road to heaven a railway trust, 
 ' And churches-that's the naked fact- mere factories '. 
 
 ! simply open wide the temple door. 
 And let the solemn, swelling organ greet, 
 
 With Voluntaries meet, 
 The 7iHUiJig advent of the rich and poor ! 
 And while to God the loud Hosannas soar. 
 With rich vibrations from the vocal throng — 
 From quiet shades that to the woods belong, 
 
 And brooks with music of their own. 
 Voices may come to swell the choral song 
 With notes of praise they learned in musmgs lone. 
 How strange it is, while on all vital questions. 
 That occupy the House and pul^lic mmd. 
 We always meet with some humane suggestions 
 Of gentle measures of a healing kind, 
 
464 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIKE. 
 
 Instead of harsh severity and vigor, 
 The saint alone his preference retains 
 For bills of penalties and pains, 
 And marks his narrow code with legal rigor ! 
 Why shun, as worthless of affiliation, 
 AVhat men of all political persuasion 
 Extol — and even use upon occasion — 
 That Christian principle, conciliation ? 
 But possibly the men who make such fuss 
 With Sunday pippins and old Trots infii-m, 
 Attach some other meaning to the term, 
 As thus : 
 
 One market morning, in my usual rambles. 
 Passing along WhitechapeFs ancient shambles, 
 Where meat was hung in many a joint and quarter, 
 I had to halt a while, like other folks. 
 
 To let a killino; butcher coax 
 A score of lambs and fatted sheep to slaughter. 
 A sturdy man he looked to fell an ox, 
 Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak 
 Of well-greased hair down either cheek. 
 As if he dee-dashed-dee'd some other flocks 
 Besides those woolly-headed stubborn blocks 
 That stood before him, in vexatious huddle — 
 Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers grouped, 
 While, now and then, a thirsty creature stooped 
 And meekly snufied, but did not taste the puddle. 
 
 Fierce barked the dog, and many a blow was dealt, 
 That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt. 
 Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it, — 
 And shunned the tainted door as if they smelt 
 Onions, mint-sauce, and lemon-juice behind it. 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 46b 
 
 At last there came a pause of brutal force ; 
 
 The cur was silent, for his jaws were full 
 
 Of tangled locks of tarr j wool ; 
 The man had whooped and bellowed till dead hoarse, 
 "The time was ripe for mild expostulation, 
 And thus it stammered from a stander-by — 
 '' Zounds ! — raj good fellow. — it quite makes me — why 
 It really — my dear fellow — do just tiy 
 Conciliation ! " 
 
 Stringing his nerves like flint, 
 The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint, — 
 At least he seized upon the foremost wether, — 
 And hugged and lugged and tugged him neck and crop 
 Just nolens volens through the open shop — 
 If tails come off he didn't care a feather, — 
 Then walking to the door, and smiling grim. 
 He rubbed his forehead and his sleeve together — 
 
 " There ! — I "ve conciliated him ! '' 
 
 Again — good-humoredly to end our quarrel — 
 (Good humor should prevail !) 
 I '11 fit you with a tale 
 "Whereto is tied a moral. 
 
 Once on a time a certain English lass 
 
 "Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline, 
 
 Cough, hectic flushes, every evil sign. 
 
 That, as their wont is at such desperate pass. 
 
 The doctors gave her over — to an ass. 
 
 Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk. 
 Each morn the patient quaffed a frothy bowl 
 
 Of assinuie new milk. 
 Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal 
 Wliich got proportionably spare and skinny — 
 
466 A TABLE or ERRATA. 
 
 Meanwhile the neighbors cried ' ' Poor Mary Ann ! 
 She can't get over it ! she never can ! " 
 When^ lo ! to prove each prophet was a ninny, 
 The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny. 
 
 To aggravate the case, 
 There were but two grown donkeys in the place ; 
 And, most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter, 
 The other long-eared creature was a male, 
 Who never in his life had given a pail 
 
 Of milk, or even chalk and water. 
 No matter : at the usual hour of eight 
 Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate. 
 With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back, — 
 "Your sarvant. INIiss, — a werry spring-like day, — 
 Bad time for hasses, though ! good lack ! good lack ! 
 Jenny be dead, Miss, — but I'ze brought ye Jack, — 
 He does n't give no milk — but he can bray." 
 
 So runs the story. 
 
 And, in vain self-glory, 
 Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness ; 
 But what the better are their pious saws 
 To ailing souls, than diy hee-haws. 
 Without the milk of human kindness 1 
 
 A TABLE OF ERRATA, 
 
 (^Hostess loquitur.) 
 
 Well ! thanks be to Heaven, 
 
 The summons is given ; 
 It 's only gone seven, 
 
 And should have been six ; 
 There 's fine overdoing 
 In roasting and stewing. 
 
A TABLE OF ERRATA. 
 
 And victuals past chewing 
 To rags and to sticks ! 
 
 How di-eadfullj cliilly ! 
 I shake, willy-nillj ; 
 That John is so silly. 
 
 And^ever will learn 
 This plate is a cold one, 
 That cloth is an old one, — 
 I wish they had told one 
 
 The lamp wouldn't bum. 
 
 Now then for some blunder 
 For nerves to sink under : 
 I never shall wonder, 
 
 TVliatever goes ill. 
 That fish is a riddle ! 
 It 's broke in the middle. 
 A Turbot ! a fiddle ! 
 
 It 's only a Brill ! 
 
 It "s quite over-boiled too, 
 The butter is oiled too, 
 The soup is all spoiled too, 
 
 It "s nothing but slop. 
 The smelts looking flabby. 
 The soles are as dabby, 
 It all is so shabby 
 
 That Cook shall not stop ' 
 
 As sure as the morning, 
 She gets a month's warning, 
 My orders for scorning — 
 There 's nothing to eat ! 
 I hear such a rushing, 
 I feel such a flushing, 
 
 467 
 
468 A TABLE OF ERRATA. 
 
 I know I am blushing 
 As red as a beet ! 
 
 Friends flatter and flatter, 
 I wish thej would chatter ; 
 What can be the matter 
 
 That nothing comes next ? 
 How very unpleasant ! 
 Lord ! there is the pheasant ! 
 Not wanted at present, 
 
 I 'm born to be vext ! 
 
 The pudding brought on too, 
 And aimmg at ton too ! 
 And where is that John too, 
 
 The plague that he is 7 
 He 's ofi'on some ramble : 
 And there is Miss Campbell, 
 Enjoying the scramble, 
 
 Detestable Quiz ! 
 
 The veal they all eye it, 
 But no one will try it, 
 An Ogre would shy it 
 
 So ruddy as that ! 
 And as for the mutton, 
 The cold dish it 's put on 
 Converts to a button 
 
 Each drop of the fat. 
 
 The beef without mustard ! 
 My fate 's to be flustered, 
 And there comes the custard 
 
 To eat with the hare ! 
 Such flesh, fowl, and fishing, 
 Such waiting and dishing. 
 
A TABLE OF ERRATA. 469 
 
 I cannot help wishing 
 A woman might swear ! 
 
 dear ! did I ever — 
 But no, I did never — 
 Well, come, that is clever, 
 
 To send up the brawn ! 
 That cook, I could scold her, 
 Gets worse as she 's older ; 
 
 1 wonder who told her 
 
 That woodcocks are drawn ' 
 
 It 's really audacious ! 
 I cannot look gracious : 
 Lord help the voracious 
 
 That came for a cram ! 
 There 's Alderman Fuller 
 Gets duller and duller. 
 Those fowls, by the color, 
 
 Were boiled with the ham ! 
 
 Well, where is the curry? 
 
 I 'm all in a flurry. 
 
 No, Cook 's in no hurry — 
 
 ...A stoppage again ! 
 And John makes it wider. 
 A pretty provider ! 
 By bringing up cider 
 Instead of champagne ! 
 
 My troubles come faster ! 
 There 's my lord and master 
 Detects each disaster, 
 
 And hardly can sit : 
 He cannot help seeing, 
 40 
 
470 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 
 
 All things disagreeing ; 
 If he begins d — ing 
 I 'm ofif in a fit ! 
 
 This cooking ? — it 's messing ! 
 The spinach wants pressing, 
 And salads in dressing 
 
 Are best with good eggs. 
 And John — yes, already — 
 Has had something heady, 
 That makes him unsteady 
 
 In keeping his legs. 
 
 How shall I get through it ? 
 
 I never can do it, 
 
 I 'm quite looking to it, 
 
 To sink by and by. 
 ! would I were dead now, 
 Or up in my bed now, 
 To cover my head now, 
 
 And have a good cry \ 
 
 A. ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 
 'Glorious Apollo from on high behold us." — Old Sons. 
 
 As latterly I chanced to pass 
 A Public House, from which, alas ! 
 The Arms of Oxford dandle ! 
 My ear was startled by a din, 
 That made me tremble in my skin, 
 A dreadful hubbub from within, 
 Of voices in a wrangle — 
 Voices loud, and voices high, 
 With now and then a party-cry, 
 Such as used in times gone by 
 
ir- 
 
 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 47l 
 
 To scare the British border : 
 
 When foes from North and South of Tweed — 
 
 Neighbors — and of Christian creed — 
 
 Met in hate to fight and bleed, 
 
 Upsetting Social Order. 
 
 Surprised, I turned me to the crowd. 
 
 Attracted bj that tumult loud, 
 
 And asked a gazer, beetle-browed, 
 
 The cause of such disquiet. 
 
 When, lo ! the solemn-looking man 
 
 First shook his head on Burleigh's plan, 
 
 And then, with fluent tongue, began 
 
 His version of the riot : 
 
 A row ! — why, yes, — a pretty row, you might hear from 
 
 this to Garmany, 
 And what is worse, it 's all got up among the Sons of Har- 
 mony, 
 The more 's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune, 
 And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June ! 
 Ah ! many a pleasant chant I've heard in passing here along, 
 When Swiveller was President a-knockino; down a sono; ; 
 But Dick 's resigned the post, you see, and all them shouts 
 
 and hollers 
 Is 'cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars, 
 Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers ! 
 
 Lord knows their names, I 'm sure I don't, no more than 
 
 any yokel, 
 But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal : 
 Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumor varies. 
 They 've no more warble in 'em than a pair of hen canaries : 
 Though that might pass if they were dabs at t' other sort of 
 
 thing, . 
 For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot 
 
 sinw; 
 
472 A RO^Y AT THE OXFOKD ARMS. 
 
 But, lork ! it"s many folks' belief they 're only good at prosing, 
 For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing ; 
 And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials, 
 If pop'lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials, 
 And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey, 
 It 's chanted like the " Dog's Meat Man," or " If I had a 
 
 Donkey." 
 Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither, 
 No ballad worth a ha'penny has ever come from either, 
 And him as writ "Jim Crow," he says, and got such lots 
 
 of dollars, 
 Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers. 
 
 Howsomever that 's the meaning of the squabble that arouses 
 This neighborhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of 
 
 Houses, 
 Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason. 
 In Christian peace and charity according to the season. 
 But from Number Thirty-Nine, since this electioneering job, 
 Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there 's an everlasting mob ; 
 Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by. 
 But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye ; 
 And a pretty noise there is ! — what with canvassers and 
 
 spouters. 
 For in course each side is furnished with its backers and its 
 
 touters ; 
 And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried, 
 You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married ; 
 Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms. 
 If you "re dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the 
 
 *" Arms : " 
 While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their 
 
 scholars, 
 To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Appollers. 
 
A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 473 
 
 Well, that, sir, is the racket ; and the more the sin and shame 
 Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same ; 
 Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup, — 
 Eut they '11 be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up, — 
 With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears, 
 While they 've damaged manj articles and broken lots of 
 
 stjuares, 
 And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and 
 
 smother, 
 By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, aiid Standards 
 
 at each other ; 
 Not to name the ugly language Gemmen ought n''t to repeat, 
 And the names they call each other — for I've heard 'em 
 
 in the street — 
 Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what 
 
 not, 
 For Pasley and his divers an't so blowing-up a lot. 
 And then such awful swearing ! — for there 's one of them 
 
 that cusses 
 Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses ; 
 For he cusses every member that 's agin him at the poll, 
 As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, though it hasn't got a soul; 
 And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob, or Jim, 
 To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him. 
 Whereby, although as yet they have not took to use their fives, 
 Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives, 
 I 'm bound there '11 be some milling yet, and shakings by 
 
 the collars. 
 Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers ! 
 
 To be sure, it is a pity to be blowing such a squall, 
 Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call — 
 And as if there was n't Whigs enough and Tories to fall out. 
 Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about — 
 40* 
 
i74 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 
 
 Why, a corn-field is suflBcient, sir, as anybody knows, 
 For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking cro^YS — - 
 Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews. 
 To agitate society and loosen all its screws ; 
 And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres, — - 
 But it 's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears. 
 And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach. 
 And I 've had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach, 
 And so knows the University, and all as there belongs. 
 And he says that Oxford 's famouser for sausages than songs, 
 And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant, 
 As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want, 
 Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to mind — 
 But it 's not the classic system for to propagate the kind. 
 Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars 
 May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers. 
 
 For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice, 
 It 's the best among the vocalists I 'd honor with the choice ; 
 Or a poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch ; 
 Or, at any rate, the surest hand at mixing of the punch ; 
 'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful 
 
 frolics — 
 And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec's. 
 But you see them there Initerants that preach so long and loud, 
 And always take advantage like the prigs of any crowd, 
 Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can 
 
 compass, 
 Have turned a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus. 
 And him as knows most hymns — although I can't see how 
 
 it follers — 
 They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Ajopollers ! 
 
 Well, that's the row — and who can guess the upshot after all? 
 Whether Harmony will ever make the '•' Arms " her House 
 of callj 
 
ETCHING MORALIZED. 475 
 
 Or whether this here mobbing — as some longish heads fore- 
 tell it, 
 Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it, 
 Howsomever, for the present, there 's no sign of any peace 
 For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the iS!^ew Police ; 
 But if I was in the Yestrj, and a leading sort of Man, 
 Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan. 
 Why, I "d settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle, 
 For I'd have another candidate — and that's the Parish 
 
 Beadle, 
 Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy. 
 And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy ; 
 Whereby — if folks was Avise — instead of either of them 
 
 Scholars, 
 And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers, 
 They '11 lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers, 
 Namely — Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious ApoUers ! 
 
 ETCfflNG MORALIZED. 
 
 TO A NOBLE LADT. 
 
 *' To point a moral." — Johnson. 
 
 Fairest Lady and Noble, for once on a time. 
 Condescend to accept, in the humblest of rhyme, 
 
 And a style more of Gay than of Milton, 
 A few opportune verses designed to impart 
 Some didactical hints in a Needlework Art, 
 
 Not described by the Countess of Wilton. 
 
 An Art not unknown to the delicate hand 
 Of the fairest and first in this insular land, 
 
 But in Patronage Royal delighting ; 
 And which now your own feminine fantasy wins. 
 Though it scarce seems a lady-like work that begins 
 
 In a scratching and ends in a biting ' 
 
476 ETCHING MORALIZED. 
 
 Yet, ! that the dames of the Scandalous School 
 Would but use the same acid, and sharp-pointed tool, 
 
 That are plied in the said operations — 
 ! would that our Candors on copper would sketch ! 
 For the first of all things in beginning to etch 
 
 Are — good grounds for our representations. 
 
 Those protective and delicate coatings of wax^ 
 Which are meant to re^st the corrosive attacks 
 
 That would ruin the copper completely ; 
 Thin cerements which whoso remembers the Bee 
 So applauded by Watts, the divine L.L.D., 
 
 Will be careful to spread very neatly. 
 
 For why ? like some intricate deed of the law, 
 Should the ground in the process be left with a flaw, 
 
 Aquafortis is far from a joker ; 
 And attacking the part that no coating protects 
 Will turn out as distressing to all your effects 
 
 As a landlord who puts in a broker. 
 
 Then carefully spread the conservative stuff". 
 Until all the bright metal is covered enough 
 
 To repel a destructive so active ; 
 For in Etching, as well as in Morals, pray note 
 That a little raw spot, or a hole in a coat, 
 
 Your ascetics find vastly attractive. 
 
 Thus the ground being laid, very even and flat. 
 And then smoked with a taper, till black as a hat, 
 
 Still from future disasters to screen it. 
 Just allow me, by way of precaution, to state. 
 You must hinder the footman from changing your j^^ate, 
 
 Nor yet suffer the butler to clean it. 
 
 Nay, the housemaid, perchance, in her passion to scrub, 
 May suppose the dull metal in want of a rub. 
 
ETCHING MORALIZED. 
 
 477 
 
 Like the Shield which Swift's readers remember — 
 Not to mention the chance of some other mishaps, 
 Such as having your copper made up into caps 
 
 To be worn on the First of September. 
 
 But aloof from all damage by Betty or John, 
 You secure the veiled surface, and trace thereupon 
 
 The design you conceive the most proper : 
 Yet gently, and not with a needle too keen. 
 Lest it pierce to the wax through the paper between, 
 
 And of course play Old Scratch with the copper. 
 
 So in worldly affairs, the sharp-practising man 
 Is not always the one who succeeds in his plan, 
 
 Witness Shylock's judicial exposui-e ; 
 Who, as keen as his knife, yet with agony found, 
 That while urging his 2^oint he was losing his ground, 
 
 And incurring a fatal disclosure. 
 
 But, perhaps, without tracing at all, you may choose 
 To indulge in some little extempore views. 
 
 Like the older artistical people ; 
 For example, a Corydon playing his pipe. 
 In a Low Country marsh, with a Cow after Cuyp, 
 
 And a Goat skipping over a steeple. 
 
 A wild Deer at a rivulet taking a sup, 
 With a couple of Pillars put in to fill up. 
 
 Like the columns of certain diurnals ; 
 Or a very brisk sea, in a very stiff gale. 
 And a very Dutch boat, with a very big sail — 
 
 Or a bevy of Retzsch's Lifernals. 
 
 Architectural study — or rich Arabesque — 
 Allegorical dream — or a view picturesque, 
 Near to Naples, or Venice, or Florence ; 
 Or " as harmless as lambs and as gentle as doves," 
 
1:78 ETCHIXG MORALIZED. 
 
 A sweet family cluster of plump little Loves, 
 Like the Chilch-en by Reynolds or Lawrence. 
 
 But whatever the subject, your exquisite taste 
 Will insure a design very charming and chaste, 
 
 Like yourself, full of nature and beauty — 
 Yet besides the good points you already reveal. 
 You will need a few others — of well-tempered steel, 
 
 And especially formed for the duty. 
 
 For suppose that the tool be imperfectly set. 
 
 Over many weak lengths in your line you will fret, 
 
 Like a pupil of Walton and Cotton 
 Who remains by the brink of the water, agape, 
 While the jack, trout, or barbel, effects its escape 
 
 Through the gut or silk line being rotten. 
 
 Therefore let the steel point be set truly and round. 
 That the finest of strokes may be even and sound, 
 
 Flowing glibly where fancy would lead 'em. 
 But, alas for the needle that fetters the hand. 
 And forbids even sketches of Liberty's land 
 
 To be dra^\Ti with the requisite freedom ! 
 
 ! the botches I 've seen by a tool of the sort, 
 Rather hitching, than etching, and making, in short, 
 
 Such stiflf, crabbed, and angular scratches, 
 That the figures seemed statues or mummies from tombs. 
 While the trees were as rigid as bundles of brooms. 
 
 And the herbage like bunches of matches ! 
 
 The stiff clouds as if carefully ironed and starched, 
 While a cast-iron bridge, meant for wooden, o'er-arched 
 
 Something more like a road than a river. 
 Prithee, who in such characteristics could see 
 Any trace of the beautiful land of the free — 
 
 The Free-Mason — Free-Trader — Free-Liver ! 
 
ETCHING MORALIZED. 479 
 
 But prepared by a hand that is skilful and nice, 
 The fine point glides along like a skate on the ice, 
 
 At the will of the Gentle Designer, 
 Who impelling the needle just presses so much, 
 That each line of her labor the copper may touch 
 
 As if done by a penny-a-liner. 
 
 And, behold ! how the fast-growing images gleam ! 
 Like the sparkles of gold in a sunshiny stream, 
 
 Till, perplexed by the glittering issue. 
 You repine for a light of a tenderer kind — 
 And in choosing a substance for making a blind, 
 
 Do not sneeze at the paper called tissue. 
 
 For, subdued by the sheet so transparent and white, 
 Your design will appear in a soberer light. 
 
 And reveal its defects on inspection. 
 Just as Glory achieved, or political scheme. 
 And some more of our dazzling performances, seem 
 
 Not so bright on a cooler reflection. 
 
 So the juvenile Poet with ecstasy views 
 
 His first verses, and dreams that the songs of his Muse 
 
 Are as brilliant as Moore's and as tender — 
 Till some critical sheet scans the fiiulty design, 
 And. alas ! takes tlie shine out of every line 
 
 That had formed such a vision of splendor. 
 
 Certain objects, however, may come in your sketch, 
 Which, designed by a hand unaccustomed to etch. 
 
 With a luckless result may be branded ; 
 Wherefore add this particular rule to your code. 
 Let all vehicles take the wrong side of the road, 
 
 And man, woman, and child, be left-handed. 
 
 Yet regard not the awkward appearance with doubt. 
 But remember how often mere blessings fall out, 
 
480 ETCHING MORALIZED. 
 
 That at first seemed no better than curses ; 
 So, till things take a turn, live in hope, and depend, 
 That whatever is wrong will come right in the end, 
 
 And console you for all your reverses. 
 
 But of errors why speak, when for beauty and truth 
 Your free, spirited Etching is worthy, in sooth, 
 
 Of that Club (may all honor betide it !) 
 Which, though dealing in copper, by genius and taste 
 Has accomplished a service of plate not disgraced 
 
 By the work of a Goldsmith beside it ! * 
 
 So your sketch superficially drawn on the plate 
 It becomes you to fix in a permanent state. 
 
 Which involves a precise operation. 
 With a keen-biting fluid, which eating its way — 
 As in other professions is common, they say — 
 
 Has attained an artistical station. 
 
 And it's ! that some splenetic folks I could name. 
 If they must deal in acids, would use but the same 
 
 In such innocent graphical labors ! 
 In the place of the virulent spirit wherewith — 
 Like the polecat, the weasel, and things of that kith — 
 
 They keep biting the backs of their neighbors ! 
 
 But beforehand, with wax or the shoemaker's pitch, 
 You must build a neat dyke round the margin, in which 
 
 You may pour the dilute aquafortis. 
 For if raw, like a dram, it will shock you to trace 
 Your design with a horrible froth on its face, 
 
 Like a wretch in articulo mortis. 
 
 Like a wretch in the pangs that too many endure. 
 From the use of strong loaters, without any pure, 
 A vile practice, most sad and improper ! 
 
 * The Deserted Village, illustrated by the Etching Club. 
 
ETCHING MORALIZED. 481 
 
 For, from painful examples, this warning is found. 
 That the raw burning spirit will take up the ground^ 
 In the church-yard, as well as on copper ! 
 
 But the Acid has duly been lowered, and bites 
 Only just where the visible metal invites. 
 
 Like a nature inclined to meet troubles ; 
 And, behold ! as each slender and glittering line 
 Effervesces, you trace the completed design 
 
 In an. elegant bead- work of bubbles ! 
 
 And yet, constantly, secretly, eating its way, 
 The shrewd acid is making the substance its prey, 
 
 Like some sorrow beyond inquisition, 
 Which is gnawing the heart and the brain all the while 
 That the face is illumed by its cheerfullest smile, 
 
 And the wit is in bright ebullition. 
 
 But still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff 
 Has corroded and deepened some portions enough — 
 
 The pure sky, and the water so placid — 
 And, these tenderer tints to defend from attack, 
 With some turpentine, varnish, and sooty lampblack, 
 
 You must stop out the ferreting acid. 
 
 But before with the varnishing brush you proceed, 
 Let the plate with cold water be thoroughly freed 
 
 From the other less innocent liquor — 
 After which, on whatever you want to protect. 
 Put a coat that will act to that very effect. 
 
 Like the black one that hangs on the Vicar. 
 
 Then the varnish well dried — urge the biting again, 
 But how long at its meal the eau forte may remain, 
 
 Time and practice alone can determine : 
 But of course not so long that the Mountain, and Mill, 
 41 
 
482 ETCHING MORALIZED. 
 
 The rude Bridge, and the Figures, whatever you will, 
 Are as black as the spots on your ermine. 
 
 It is true, none the less, that a dark-looking scrap, 
 With a sort of Blackheath, and Black Forest, mayhap. 
 
 Is considered as rather Rembrandty : 
 And that very black cattle, and very black sheep, 
 A black dog, and a shepherd as black as a sweep, 
 
 Ai'e the pets of some great Dilettante. 
 
 So with certain designers, one needs not to name, 
 All this life is a dark scene of sorrow and shame. 
 
 From our birth to our final adjourning — 
 Yea, this excellent earth and its glories, alack ! 
 What with ravens, palls, cottons, and devils, as black 
 
 As a Warehouse for Family Mourning ! 
 
 But before your own picture arrives at that pitch, 
 
 While the lights are still light, and the shadows, though rich, 
 
 More transparent than ebony shutters, 
 Never minding what Black-xlrted critics may say, 
 Stop the biting, and pour the green fluid away, 
 
 As you please, into bottles or gutters. 
 
 Then removing the ground and the wax at a heat^ 
 Cleanse the sui'face with oil, spermaceti, or sweet — 
 
 For your hand a performance scarce proper — 
 So some careful professional person secure — 
 For the Laundi-ess will not be a safe amateur — 
 
 To assist you in cleaning the copper. 
 
 And, in truth, 'tis a rather unpleasantish job. 
 To be done on a hot German stove, or a hob — 
 
 Though as sure of an instant forgetting 
 When — as after the dark clearing off of a storm — 
 The fair landscape shines out in a lustre as warm 
 
 As the glow of the sun in its setting ! 
 
ODE. 483 
 
 Thus your Etching complete, it remains but to hint, 
 That with certain assistance from paper and print, 
 
 Which the proper jMechanic will settle, 
 You may charm all youi- Friends — without any sad tale 
 Of such perils and ills as beset Lady Sale — 
 
 "With a fine India Proof of your Metal. 
 
 ODE 
 
 0>- A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMT. 
 
 Ah me ! those old familiar bounds ! 
 That classic house, those classic grounds, 
 
 My pensive thought recalls ! 
 What tender urchins now confine, 
 What little captives now repine. 
 
 Within yon irksome walls ! 
 
 Ay, that 's the very house ! I know 
 Its ugly windows, ten a-row ! 
 
 Its chimneys in the rear ! 
 And there 's the iron rod so high, 
 That drew the thunder from the sky 
 And turned our table-beer ! 
 
 There I was birched I there I was bred ! 
 There like a little Adam fed 
 
 From Learning's woful tree ! 
 The weary tasks I used to con ! — 
 The hopeless leaves I wept upon ! — 
 
 Most fruitless leaves to me ! — 
 
 The summoned class ! — the awful bow ! 
 I wonder who is master now 
 
 And wholesome anguish sheds ! 
 How many ushers now employs. 
 
i84 ODE. 
 
 How many maids to see the boys 
 Have nothing in their heads ! 
 
 f And Mrs. S * * * 7— Doth she abet 
 (Like Pallas in the palour) yet 
 
 Some favored two or three, — 
 The little Crichtons of the hour, 
 Her muffin-medals that devour, 
 
 And swill her prize — bohea? 
 
 Ay, there 's the playground ! there 's the lime, 
 Beneath whose shade in summer's prime 
 
 So wildly I have read ! — 
 Who sits there now^ and sMms the cream 
 Of young Romance, and weaves a dream 
 
 Of Love and Cottage-bread 7 
 
 Who struts the Randall of the walk 7 
 Who models tiny heads in chalk 7 
 
 Who scoops the light canoe 7 
 What early genius buds apace 7 
 Where 's Poynter 7 Harris 7 Bowers 7 Chase 7 
 
 Hal Baylis 7 bHthe Carew 7 i ! 
 
 Alack ! they 're gone — a thousand ways! 
 And some are serving in "the Grreys," 
 
 And some have perished young ! — j 
 
 Jack Harris weds his second wife ; | j 
 
 Hal Baylis drives the xcayne of life ; • j j 
 
 And blithe Carew — is hung! j 
 
 Grave Bowers teaches ABC | 
 
 To Savages at Owhyee ; 1 1 
 
 Poor Chase is with the worms ! — j j 
 
 All, all are gone — the olden breed ! — | i 
 New crops of mushroom boys succeed, 
 
 " And push us from our forms ! 
 
 t " 
 
ODE. 485 
 
 Lo ! -where they scramble forth, and shout, 
 And leap, and skip, and mob about, 
 
 At play where we have played ! 
 Some hop, some run, (some fall), some twine 
 Their crony arms; some in the shine, 
 
 And some are in the shade ! 
 
 Lo there what mixed conditions run ! 
 The orphan lad ; the widow's son ; 
 
 And Fortune's favored care — 
 The wealthy born, for whom she hath 
 Macadamized the future path — 
 
 The nabob's pampered heir ! 
 
 Some brightly starred — some evil born, — 
 For honor some, and some for scorn, — 
 
 For fair or foul renown ! 
 Good, bad, indifferent — none they lack ! 
 Look, here 's a white, and there 's a black ! 
 
 And there 's a Creole brown ! 
 
 Some laugh and sing, some mope and weep, 
 And wish their frugal sires would keep 
 
 Their only sons at home ; — 
 Some tease the future tense, and plan 
 The full-grown doings of the man, 
 
 And pant for years to come ! 
 
 A foolish wish ! There "s one at hoop ; 
 And four ?ii fives ! and five who stoop 
 
 The marble taw to speed ! 
 And one that curvets in and out, 
 Reining his fellow-cob about, 
 
 "Would I were in his steed ! 
 
 Yet he would gladly halt and drop 
 That boyish harness off. to swop 
 41* 
 
486 ODE. 
 
 With this world's heavy van — 
 To toil, to tug. little fool ! 
 While thou can be a horse at school 
 
 To wish to be a man ! 
 
 Perchance thou deem'st it were a thing 
 To wear a crown, — to be a king ! 
 
 And sleep on regal down ! 
 Alas! thou know'st not kingly cares; 
 Far happier is thy head that wears 
 
 That hat without a crown ! 
 
 And dost thou think that years acquire 
 New added joys 7 Dost think thy sire 
 
 More happy than his son? 
 That manhood's mirth? — 0, go thy ways 
 To Drury-lane when plciys, 
 
 And see ho^ forced our fun! 
 
 Thy taws are brave ! — thy tops are rare ! 
 Ow tops are spun with coils of care, 
 
 Our dumps are no delight ! — 
 The Elgin marbles are but tame, 
 And 'tis at best a sorry game 
 
 To fly the Muse s kite ! 
 
 Our hearts are dough, our heels are lead, 
 Our topmost joys fall dull and dead, 
 
 Like balls with no rebound ! 
 And often with a faded eye 
 We look behind, and send a sigh 
 
 Towards that merry ground ! 
 
 Then be contented. Thou hast got 
 The most of heaven in thy young lot ', 
 There's sky-blue in thy cup! 
 
1 1 
 
 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 487 
 
 Thou "It find tbj manhood all too fast — 
 Soon come, soon gone ! and age at last 
 A sorry breaking up ! 
 
 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 
 
 0, ■UUEX I Tvas a tiny boy 
 
 My days and nights were full of joy, 
 
 My mates were blithe and kind ! — 
 No wonder that I sometimes sigh, 
 And dash the tear-drop from my eye. 
 
 To cast a look behind ! 
 
 A hoop was an eternal round 
 
 Of pleasure. In those days I found 
 
 A top a joyous thing ; — 
 But now those past delights I drop ; 
 My head, alas ! is all my top, 
 
 And careful thouo-hts thestrincr ! 
 
 My marbles. — once my bag was stored,— 
 Now I must play with Elgin's lord, 
 
 With Theseus for a taw ! 
 My playful horse has slipt his string ! 
 Forgotten all his capering, 
 
 And harnessed to the law ! 
 
 My kite — how fast and far it flew ! 
 Whilst I. a sort of Franklin, drew 
 
 My pleasure from the sky ! 
 'T was papered o'er with studious themes, 
 The tasks I wrote — my present dreams 
 
 Will never soar so high ! 
 
 My joys are wingless all and dead ; 
 My dumps are made of more than lead ; 
 

 ! 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 488 
 
 A RETEOSPECTH'E REVIEW. 
 
 
 My flights soon find a fall ; 
 
 
 My fears prevail, my fancies droop. 
 
 
 Joy never cometh with a hoop, 
 
 
 And seldom with a call ! 
 
 
 My football 's laid upon the shelf; 
 
 
 I am a shuttlecock myself 
 
 
 The world knocks to and fro : — 
 
 
 My archery is all unlearned, 
 
 
 And grief against myself has turned 
 
 
 My arrows and my bow ! 
 
 
 No more in noontide sun I bask : 
 
 
 My authorship 's an endless task, 
 
 
 My head 's ne'er out of school : 
 
 
 My heart is pained with scorn and slight, 
 
 
 I have too many foes to fight, 
 
 
 And friends grown strangely cool !. 
 
 
 The very chum that shared my cake 
 
 
 Holds out so cold a hand to shake, 
 
 
 It makes me shrink and sigh : — 
 
 
 On this I will not dwell and hang, 
 
 
 The changeling would not feel a pang 
 
 
 Though these should meet his eye ! 
 
 
 No skies so blue or so serene j 
 
 
 As then : — no leaves look half so green 
 
 
 As clothed the play-ground tree ! 
 
 
 All things I loved are altered so, 
 
 1 
 
 Nor does it ease my heart to know 
 
 
 That change resides in me ! 
 
 
 0, for the garb that marked the boy, 
 
 
 The trousers made of corduroy, 
 
 
 TVell inked with black and red ! 
 
 
 The crownless hat, ne'er deemed an ill — 
 
 • 
 
A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 489 
 
 It only let the sunshine still 
 Repose upon my head ! 
 
 0, for the riband round the neck ! 
 The careless dog's-ears apt to deck 
 
 My book and collar both ! 
 How can this formal man be styled 
 Merely an Alexandrine child, 
 
 A boy of larger growth ? 
 
 0, for that small, small beer anew ! 
 
 And (heaven's own type) that mild sky-blue 
 
 That washed my sweet meals down ; 
 The master even ! — and that small Turk 
 That figged me ! — worse is now my work - 
 
 A fag for all the town ! 
 
 0, for the lessons learned by heart ! 
 Ay, though the very birch's smart 
 
 Should mark those hours again ; 
 I 'd " kiss the rod," and be resigned 
 Beneath the stroke, and even find 
 
 Some sugar in the cane ! 
 
 The Arabian Nights rehearsed in bed ! 
 The Fairy Tales in school-time read, 
 
 By stealth, 'twixt verb and noun ! 
 The angel form that always walked 
 In all my dreams, and looked and talked 
 
 Exactly like Miss Brown ! 
 
 The omue bene — Christmas come ! 
 The prize of merit, won for home — 
 
 Merit had prizes then ! 
 But now I write for days and days, 
 For fame — a deal of empty praise, 
 
 Witliout the silver pen ! 
 
490 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 
 
 Then home, sweet home ! the crowded coach 
 The joyous shout — the loud approach — 
 
 The winding horns like rams' ! 
 The meeting sweet that made me thrill, 
 The sweet-meats almost sweeter still, 
 
 No " satis " to the "jams ! " — 
 
 When that I was a tiny boy 
 
 My days and nights were full of joy, 
 
 My mates were blithe and kind ! 
 No wonder that I sometimes sigh, 
 And dash the tear-drop from my eye. 
 
 To cast a look behind ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Ltcus the Centaur. 
 Lycos was dedicated by the poet to his friend and connection, 
 J. H. Reynolds, Esq. 
 
 Ode to Rae Wilson. 
 This ode was first published in the London Athenmum, where it 
 appeared with the following introductory letter. 
 
 " To the Editor of the Atheneeum. 
 " My dear Sir : The following Ode was written anticipating the 
 tone of some strictures on my writings, by the gentleman to whom 
 it is addressed. I have not seen his book ; but I know by hearsay 
 that some of my verses are characterized as ' profaneness and 
 ribaldry,' — citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from 
 whose jaw a cabbage-sprout 
 
 ' Protruded as the dove so stanch 
 For peace supports an olive-branch.' 
 
 If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared me for any mis- 
 application of types, I should have been surprised by this misappre- 
 hension of one of the commonest emblems. In some cases the dove 
 unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit ; but the same bird is 
 also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, 
 has figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in 
 which it was used by me is plain from the context ; at least, it would 
 be plain to any one but a fisher for faults, predisposed to carp at 
 some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all. But I am pos- 
 sibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in 
 the eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking 
 their intolerance; and the spirit is certainly strong enough, in Mr. 
 W.'s works, to set up a creature as sacred, in sheer opposition to the 
 jMussulman, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It would 
 only be going the whole sow. 
 
 " I am, dear ear, yours very truly, 
 
 "Thos. Hood." 
 
THE 
 
 COMPLETE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
 THOMAS HOODs 
 
 WITH 
 
 % liiogntjjljiciil ^lietrl], ani Botes. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EPES SARGENT. 
 YOL. II. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLVII. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congiess, in the year 1855, by 
 
 EPES SAEGENT, 
 
 In the Cleri's Office of the District Court of the District of MassachusettB. 
 
 ELECTROTTPED BV" 
 THOMAS B. SMITH, 
 
 82&S4 Ceekman St. 
 
 N. Y. 
 
HUMOEOUS POEMS 
 
 Of 
 
 THOMAS HOOD, 
 
 CsCLUDIXG LOVE AXD LUNACY, BALLADS, TALES AND LEGENDS, ODES 
 
 AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE, AND illSCELLANEOCS 
 
 POEMS. NOW FIRST COLLECTED. 
 
 EDITED BT 
 
 EPES SAROENT 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON" A^D COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLVII. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In preparing, about a jear since, an edition of the Poems 
 of Thomas Hood, we thought that a single volume would 
 include all of his writings in verse that fell within the 
 plan of our series. That volume embraced all the poems 
 contained in the Moxon collections of the author's senti- 
 mental and humorous verse, with several additions from 
 other sources. It was the most complete collection that 
 had been made at the time of its appearance. 
 
 We soon ascertained, however, that it would not entirely 
 satisfy the demand for Hood's productions. ^Ye received 
 more than one letter suggesting that some favorite of the 
 writer's was omitted, which had originally appeared, per- 
 haps, in a magazine or annual, and had not been inserted 
 in any collection of the author's Poems. This deficiency, 
 to its full extent, we have hardly been able to supply 
 even by a second volume. 
 
Tl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The materials of the present volume have been chiefly 
 drawn from the collections of his humorous pieces, pub- 
 lished by the author under the title of Hood's Oivii, 
 W/mnsicaliiies, and Whims and Oddities. To these wo 
 have added a few poems from the London Magazine and 
 the Neio Monthly Magazine^ that appeared in those pe- 
 riodicals during Hood's editorial relations with them, and 
 are unquestionably from his pen. In one or two instances 
 verses rather of a sentimental than an humorous character 
 have found their way among the Miscellaneous Poems, but 
 we trust they will not be considered as unwelcome intruders. 
 
 We have reserved the first poems of Hood for the 
 last place in the book ; assigning them to a quasi-appen- 
 dix, for reasons that will obviously occur to the reader. 
 It is many years since the Odes and Addresses to Great 
 People have been reprinted, and some of the allusions in 
 them are to subjects of local and temporary notoriety, 
 which require the few annotations that we have annexed. 
 To us these very clever jeux d' esprit seem to merit the 
 high commendation that they received from Coleridge on 
 their first appearance. His letter to Lamb on their au- 
 thorship we have inserted among the Notes at the end of 
 the volume. 
 
 This work was the joint production of Hood and the 
 literary friend and connection to whom he afterward dedi- 
 cated the poem of Lycns. In Lord Byron's Journal, 
 under date of February 20, 1814, an entry is made of 
 his having acknowledged the receipt of young Reynolds's 
 
INTRODUCTION. Til 
 
 poem, entitled Sajie. " The lad is clever," his lordship 
 writes, "but much of his thoughts are borrowed — whence 
 the reviewers may find out. I hate discouraging a young 
 one ; and I think — though wild and more oriental than 
 he would be, had he seen the scenes where he has placed 
 his tale — that he has much talent, and, certainly, fire 
 enough."' This '-clever lad"' we next hear of among the 
 crack contributors of the London Magazim — for we pre- 
 sume that the author of Safie is the same John Ham- 
 ILTOX Eeyxolds described by Talfourd as one of that 
 remarkable corps, and as "lighting up the wildest eccen- 
 tricities and most striking features of many-colored life 
 with vivid fancy." 
 
 In the Reminiscences of Hood there is a lively sketch 
 of one of the dinners that occasionally brought together 
 the contributors to the Magazine, which serves him to in- 
 troduce some of the principal characters of the literary 
 " London in the Olden Time." After describhig Elia, and 
 Barry Cormvall, and the Opium Eater, and sundry others 
 of hardly less note, Hood writes — " That smart, active 
 person opposite, with a game-cock -looking head, and the 
 hair combed smooth, fighter fashion, over his forehead — 
 with one finger hooked round a glass of Champagne — not 
 that he requires it to inspirit him, for his wit bubbles up 
 of itself— is our Edward Herbert, the author of that true 
 piece of biography, the Life of Peter Corcoran. He is 
 'good with both hands,' like that Nonpareil Randall, at 
 a comic verse or a serious stanza — smart at a repartee — 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sliarp at a retort — and not averse to a bit of mischief. 
 '"Twas he who gave the runaway ring at Wordsworth's 
 Peter Bell. Generally, his jests, set off by a happy man- 
 ner, are only ticklesome, but now and then they are sharp- 
 flavored — like the sharpness of the pine-apple. Would I 
 could give a sample." 
 
 The allusions in the above paragraph enable us to fol- 
 low Reynolds into some of his Protean pseudonymes. Wo 
 know that he was the author of the poems published as 
 the Remains of Peter Corcoran, by Taylor and Hessey, who 
 afterwards became the publishers of the London Magazine^ 
 and this identifies him with the Edward Herbert whom 
 Hood describes. The reference to the Nonpareil Randall 
 is explained by the following sonnet, which is found 
 among Corcoran's Remains : 
 
 SONNET 
 
 ON THE NONPAREIL. 
 
 "With marble-colored shoulders, — and keen eyes, 
 
 Protected by a forehead broad and white, 
 
 And hair cut close lest it impede the sight, 
 
 And clenched hands, firm and of punishing size, 
 
 Steadily held, or motioned wary-wise, 
 
 To hit or stop — and kerchief too drawn tight 
 
 O'er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight 
 
 The inconstant wind, that all too often flies, — 
 
 The Nonpareil stands! — Fame, whose bright eyes run o'er 
 
 With joy to see a Chicken of her own, 
 
 Dips her rich pen in claret, and writes down 
 
 Under the letter E, first on the score, 
 
 "Randall — John — Irish parents, age not known — 
 
 Good with both hands, and only ten stone four I" 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 In 1821 a volume "was published in London -svith the 
 title of The Garden of Florence, and other Poems, hy 
 John Hamilton. This was also the work of Reynold.?. 
 He was the familiar friend and correspondent of the poet 
 Keats, and they had undertaken, in a sort of literary 
 copartnership, to versify some of the tales of Boccaccio. 
 The accomplishment of this plan was prevented for a time 
 by other engagements, and finally frustrated by death. 
 The Pot of Basil was the only story completed by 
 Keats, "and that is to me now,*' says his literary part- 
 ner, "the most pathetic story in existence." Two stories 
 were translated by Reynolds, and were printed in the 
 last-named volume. They possess a merit which induces 
 us to regret that he did not persevere in the enterprise. 
 His literary labors, however, seem to have been mere di- 
 versions. Hood speaks of him as having abandoned the 
 Muses for engrossing. He probably subsided from a very 
 promising poet into a highly respectable special-pleader or 
 conveyancer ; perhaps into a barrister of local eminence. 
 He does not seem, like his co-contributor Barry Cornwall, 
 to have maintained two separate existences — a professional 
 and a poetical entity — but to have suffered the latter to 
 be absorbed in the former, or only to appear abroad in a 
 mask. "We do not know where to trace him after the 
 suspension of the London Magazine, and publication of 
 the Odes and Addresses, to which it is quite time that 
 we should return. We must first, however, present our 
 readci-s with a specimen of Mr. Peter Corcoran' s sentimental 
 
 ll 
 
X INTKODUCTION. 
 
 verse, which may explain the indifference of Mr. Reynolds 
 to his poetical reputation : 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 I once had thought to have embalmed my name 
 
 With Poesy : — to have served the gentle Muses 
 
 With high sincerity: — but Fate refuses, 
 
 And I am now become most strangely tame, 
 
 And careless what becomes of Glory's game — 
 
 Who strives — who wins the wondrous prize — who loses I 
 
 Not that the heavy world my spirit bruises ; 
 
 But I have not the heart to rush at Fame. 
 
 Magnificent and mental images 
 
 Have visited me oftentimes, and given 
 
 My mind to proud delights; — but now it sees 
 
 Those visions going like the lights of even : 
 
 All intellectual grandeur dimly flees — 
 
 And I am quiet as the stars of heaven! 
 
 We are not quite certain that we could, in every case, 
 refer the compositions of the copartnership to their re- 
 spective authors, though, in our judgment, most of them 
 can be correctly assigned by internal evidence. The one 
 that Ave most hesitate about is the Address to Mr. Dy- 
 moke. There is a letter of Edward Herbert's in the Lryn- 
 don Magazine giving an account of the Coronation, and 
 mentioning the circumstances which are alluded to in the 
 address, and in the first study of it that may bo found 
 in the Notes ; but we are in doubt whether the verses arc 
 to be ascribed to Hood or Reynolds. Wc may better 
 leave this question for every reader to decide for himself, 
 without seeking to anticipate his judgment. Perhaps no 
 one will find much difficulty in coming to a correct deci- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XI 
 
 sion, for there is nothing more remarkable in IIood's verse 
 than it.-j entire originality. His imagmation is singularly 
 fertile. His invention is marvellous. Hence it is that 
 though he sometimes copies himself, he never mimics an- 
 other ; and though you can not always say that a poem is 
 not Hood's, a poem that is really his you AYould hardly 
 attribute to any one else. 
 
 The Ode to Mr. Graham is the " runaway i^ing at 
 Wordsworth's Peter Bell" to which Hood alludes in the 
 paragraph we have quoted above ; and which Coleridge 
 commends in the letter to be found in our Notes. So the 
 authorship of that is fixed upon Reynolds. As Hood 
 does not give hun credit for the two other pieces favorably 
 mentioned by the poet, we think that the Ode to the Great 
 Unknown and the Address to Mrs. Fry may be reckoned 
 as Hoods Oivn by his silence in this regard. That the 
 Odes to Mr. Martin, Grimaldi, and Dr. Kitchener are his, 
 no one can doubt ; and the Addresses to Sylvanus Urban, 
 to Elliston, to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and 
 to Maria Darlington, are, we think, unequivocally the pro- 
 ductions of his partner. The Ode to Parry seems to bear 
 the marks of both of them, and the same may be said of 
 the Address to the Steam Washing Company and the Ode 
 to Mr. Bodkin. If any one can help us to a better guess 
 than we have made on the face of the poems, we will insert 
 it in our second edition. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LOVE AND LUNACY, 
 
 .... 47 
 
 BAILEY BALLADS ... 51 
 
 Lines to Mary, 53 
 
 No. II. " Love with a Witness," 
 
 No. III. " I 'd be a Parody," 
 
 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN, '' 
 
 Stanzas written under the Fear of Bailiffs, ^^ 
 
 Sonnet written in a Workhouse, ^^ 
 
 Sonnet— A Somnambulist, ^^ 
 
 Fugitive Lines on Pawning my Watch, 
 
 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS, • ^^ 
 
 The Broken Dish, g- 
 
 Ode to Peace, gg 
 
 A Few Lines on completing Forty-seven, ^^ 
 
 To Mary Housemaid, 
 
 BALLADS, SERIOUS, VERY SERIOUS, AND PATHETIC, ■ ■ ' ' 'll 
 
 Tlio Poaclier ^5 
 
 The Supper Superstition l^ 
 
 A Waterloo Ballad, gj 
 
 The Duel, g^ 
 
 The Ghost gg 
 
 Sally Simpkin's Lament ^^ 
 
 John Day, gg 
 
 Pompey's Ghost, 
 
 ODES TO DIVERS PERSONS AND FOR SUNDRY OCCASIONS, . . 05 
 
 To Mr. Brunei, „„ 
 
 To the Advocates for the Removal of Smithfield Market, ^^ 
 
 To the Camelopard, j^^ 
 
 To Dr. Hahnemann, „ 
 
 For St. Cecilia's Eve, jj^ 
 
 To Madame Hengler, j^g 
 
 To Mr. Malthus, 
 
 To St. Switliin, ^^ 
 
 For the Ninth of November, 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NOTES 131 
 
 TALES AND LEGENDS, 133 
 
 The Stag-Eyed Lady, 141 
 
 A Legend of Navarre, !-i7 
 
 The Jlermaid of Margate, 153 
 
 Our Lady's Chapel loS 
 
 The Knight and the Dragon, 1G2 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS OF WIT AND HUMOR, 173 
 
 Stanzas on Coming of Age, ITj 
 
 The Lost Heir, ISO 
 
 A Singular Exhibition at Somerset House, 165 
 
 I 'ra Going to Bombay, ISS 
 
 ' Sonnet to a Decayed Seaman, 191 
 
 A Blow-Up, 192 
 
 A True Storj-, 197 
 
 There 's No Romance in That ! . • 200 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Motto, 204 
 
 Huggins and Duggins, 206 
 
 A Storm at Hastings, and the Little Unknovra, 209 
 
 Lines to a Lady on her Departure for India, 217 
 
 Sonnet 213 
 
 December and May, 219 
 
 Moral Reflections on the Cross of St. Paul's, 220 
 
 A Valentme, 221 
 
 Sonnet on Steam, S23 
 
 A Recipe for Civiiizalion 224 
 
 Lines to a Friend at Cobham, 229 
 
 Miss Oliver's First Voyage, 230 
 
 Sonnet to Lord Wliarncliffe on his Game Bill, 232 
 
 A True Story, 233 
 
 Epigrams composed on Reading a Diary lately Published, 240 
 
 The Monkey-Martyr, 241 
 
 Craniology, • 24G 
 
 A Parthian Glance, 249 
 
 " Don't you smell Fire ?" 252 
 
 The Widow, 251 
 
 A Butcher, .... 253 
 
 The Double Knock, . . " S50 
 
 The Devil's Album, 260 
 
 Epigram on a late Cattle Show in Smithfield, 2G1 
 
 A Report from Below, 262 
 
 Epigram on the Depreciated Money, 265 
 
 An Ancient Concert, 260 
 
 The Drowning Ducks, 2G3 
 
 The Fall, 572 
 
 The Steam Service, 274 
 
 A Lay of Real Life, 278 
 
 The Angler's Farewell, 2S0 
 
 Sea Song. After Dibdin 2E2 
 
 The Apparition, 2£3 
 
CONTENTS. ^^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OKI 
 
 Litile 0. P.— An African Fact, ^^ 
 
 Conveyancing, 2gg 
 
 The Burning of the Love Letter ^^^ 
 
 Poem —From the Polish, ^^^ 
 
 French and English, .294 
 
 Our Village, 299 
 
 A Valentine, „Qg 
 
 To Fanny, 2(js, 
 
 The Boy at the Nore, ^^ 
 
 Shooting Pains, 2^. 
 
 Paired 7wt Matched, ^^^ 
 
 The Compass, with Variations 
 
 " Please to Ring the Belle," 
 
 The Lament of Toby, the Learned Pig, ^^^ 
 
 My Son and Heir, ^22 
 
 The Fox and the Hen.— A Fable, 
 
 The Comet.— An Astronomical Anecdote, 
 
 I cannot Bear a Gun, 
 
 Trimmer's Exercise for the Use of Children, ^^^ 
 
 To a Bad Rider, 22^ 
 
 Symptoms of Ossification, ^^5 
 
 Those Evening Bells, gjg 
 
 Rondeau, ^^7 
 
 Dog-grel Verses, by a Poor Blind, ^^^ 
 
 The Kangaroo.— A Fable ^^ 
 
 Sonnet, n,^ 
 
 The Sub-:XIarine g^_ 
 
 The Sweep's Complaint, ^.2 
 
 Cockle vs. Cackle, ^^ 
 
 On a Native Smger, ^. 
 
 The Undpng One, ' ^^ 
 
 A Custom-House Breeze, ^^^ 
 
 Pain in a Pleasure-Boat, 
 
 Quaker Sonnet, ^^ 
 
 Literary and Literal ggg 
 
 I 'm not a Single Man, 
 
 To C. Dickens, Esq., on his Departure for Amenca, ^^^ 
 
 A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme, ^_ 
 
 A Nocturnal Sketch, ^77 
 
 Up the Rhine, g.g 
 
 Love Language of a Merry Young Soldier, ^^ 
 
 Anacreontic, for the New Year, ^^ 
 
 More Hullahbaloo, g^g 
 
 Ode to the Printer's Devil, ! . 300 
 
 A Good Direction, ogj 
 
 To * * * * *, «-ith a Flask of Rhine Water, ^^^ 
 
 Sonnet, 393 
 
 !^;;:i?LS^orequest^-the Author to write someVerses in her ^^^ 
 
 SoM^eTJo a Scoich Girl washing Linen after her Country Fashion, . . 394 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE, . : 395 
 
 Preface to Third Edition, 31)5 
 
 Ode to Mr. Graham, the Aeronaut, 397 
 
 Ode lo Mr. M'Adam, . 405 
 
 A Friendly Address to Mrs. Fry, in Newgate, 410 
 
 Ode to Richard Martin, Esq., M.P. for Galway, 410 
 
 Ode to the Great Unknown, 4]g 
 
 Address to Mr. Dymoke, the Champion of England, 4;.s 
 
 Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, Senior, 43; 
 
 Address lo Sylvanus Urban, Esq., Editor of" The Gentleman's Magazine," 43'j 
 
 An Address to the Steam Washing Company, 430 
 
 Ode to Captain Parry^ 448 
 
 Address to R. W. Elliston, Esq., the Great Lessee, 455 
 
 Address to jMaria Darlmgton, on her return to the Stage, 459 
 
 Ode to W. Kitchener, M.D., 462 
 
 An Address to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 46i) 
 
 Ode to H. Bodiun, Esq., Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of 
 jMendicity, 474 
 
 KOTES 479 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 The IMoon — who does not love the silver moon, 
 In all her fantasies and all her phases ? 
 
 Whether fall-orhed in the nocturnal noon, 
 Shining in all the dcwdrops on the daisies, 
 To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes, 
 
 While stars are winking at the pranks of Puck ; 
 Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves she gazes ; 
 
 Or new and thin when coin is turned for luck ; — 
 
 Who will not say that Dian is a Duck ? 
 
 But. oh ! how tender, beautiful and sweet, 
 
 When in her silent round, serene, and clear, 
 By assignation loving fancies meet, 
 
 To I'ccompense the pangs of absence drear ! 
 
 So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear, 
 But distant from the city mapped by Mogg, 
 
 Still savr his image in that silver sphere, 
 Plain as the ]\Ian with lantern, bush, and dog, 
 That used to set our ancestors a-gog. 
 
 And so she told him in a pretty letter. 
 
 That came to hand exactly as Saint Meg's 
 
 Was striking ten — eleven had been better ; 
 For then he might have eaten six more eggs, 
 And both of the bedevilled turkey-legs, 
 
 i=ii 
 
20 
 
 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 With relishes from East, West, North, and South, 
 
 Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs. 
 Whereas a man whose heart is in his mouth, 
 Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth. 
 
 And so the Izidnejs, broiling hot, were wasted ; 
 
 The brawn — it never entered in his thought ; 
 The grated Parmesan remained untasted ; 
 
 The potted shrimps were left as they were bought, 
 
 The capclings stood as merely good for naught, 
 The German sausage did not tempt him better, 
 
 V/'hilst Juno, licking her poor lips was taught 
 There's neither bone nor skin about a letter, 
 Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter. 
 
 Heaven bless the man who first devised a mail ! 
 
 Heaven ])less that public pile which stands concealing 
 The Goldsmiths' front with such a solid veil ! 
 
 Heaven bless the Master, and Sir Francis Freeling, 
 
 The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeling, 
 The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet, 
 
 The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing ! 
 Heaven bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet, 
 That helps a Yv^'erter to a sigh from Cliarlotte. 
 
 So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet, 
 
 Where, first, the darling signature he kissed 
 
 And then, recurring to its contents sweet 
 With thirsty eyes, a phrase I must enlist, 
 He (jnlped the words, to hasten to their gist ; 
 
 In mortal ecstasy his soul Avas bound — 
 
 When, lo ! with features all nt once a-twist, 
 
 He gave a whistle, wild enough in sound 
 
 To summon Faustus's Infernal Hound ! 
 
LOVE AND LUXACY. 21 
 
 Alas ! what little miffs and tiffs in love, 
 
 A snubbish word, or pouting look misfciken, 
 "Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove, 
 
 Oh ! love, rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken, 
 
 A pettish breath will into huffs awaken, 
 To spit like hump-backed cats, and snarling Towzers ! 
 
 Till hearts are wrecked and foundered, and forsaken, 
 As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knoAvs how, sirs. 
 While heaven is blue enough for Dutchmen's trowsers ! 
 
 '" The moon's at full, love, and I think of you" — 
 
 Who would have thought that such a kind P.S. 
 Could make a man turn white, then red, then blue, 
 
 Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress 
 
 His teeth, as if about to effervesce 
 Like certain people when they lose at whist ! 
 
 So looked the chafed Lorenzo, ne'ertheless, 
 And, in a trice, the paper he had kissed 
 Yfas crumpled like a snowball in his fist ! 
 
 Ah ! had he been less versed in scientifics — 
 More ignorant, in short, of what is what — 
 
 He ne'er had flared up in such calorifics ; 
 But he woidd seek societies, and trot 
 To Clubs — Mechanics' Institutes — and got 
 
 With Birkbeck-Bartley— Combe -George Robins— Rennie, 
 And other lecturing men. And had he not 
 
 That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many, 
 
 The Copper-bottomed Magazine — or '"Penny?'' 
 
 But, of all learned pools whereon, or in, 
 
 Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim. 
 
 Some hardly damped, some Avetted to the skin. 
 
 Some drowned like pigs when they attempt to swim, 
 
22 LOVE AXD LUXACY. 
 
 Astronomy was most Lorenzo's whim, 
 ('Tis studied bj a Prince among the Burmans) ; 
 
 He loved those heavenly bodies which, the Hymn 
 Of Addison declares, preach solemn sermons, 
 While waltzing on their pivots like young Germans. 
 
 Night after night, with telescope in hand. 
 Supposing that the night Avas fair and clear, 
 
 Aloft, on the house-top, ho took his stand, 
 
 Till he obtained to know each twinkling sphere 
 Better, I doubt, than Milton's '■' Starry Vere;" 
 
 Thus, reading through poor Ellen's fond epistle, 
 He soon espied the flaw— the lapse so sheer 
 
 That made him raise his hair in such a bristle, 
 
 And like the Boatswain of the Storm-Ship, whistle. 
 
 " The moon 's at full, love, and I think of thee," — 
 " Indeed ! I'm very much her humble debtor, 
 
 But not the moon-calf she would have me be, 
 Zounds ! does she fancy that I know no better?" 
 Herewith, at either corner of the letter 
 
 He gave a most ferocious, rending, pull ; — 
 " woman ! woman ! that no vovrs can fetter, 
 
 A moon to stay for three weeks at the full ! 
 
 By Jove ; a very pretty cock-and-bull ? 
 
 " The moon at full ! 't was very finely reckoned I 
 Why so she wrote me word upon the first, 
 
 The twelfth, and now upon the twenty-second — 
 Full !— yes — it must be full enough to burst I 
 But let her go — of all vale jilts the worst" — 
 
 Here vritli his thumbs he gave contemptuous snaps, 
 Anon he blubbered like a child that 's nursed, 
 
 And then he hit the table frightful raps, 
 
 And stamped till he had broken both his straps. 
 
r— 
 
 LOVE AXD LUX ACT. 23 
 
 " The moon *s at full — and I nia in licr thought — 
 
 No uoubt : I do believe it in rcy soul i'' 
 Here lie threw up his iicad and gave a snort 
 
 Like a voung horse first harnessed to a pole; 
 
 " The moon ls full — aj, so is this d — d bowl !" 
 And, irrinninir like the sourest of curmudircons. 
 
 Globe — water — fishes — he dashed down the whole, 
 Strewing the carpet with the gasping gudgeons ; 
 Men do the stranirest things in such love-dudc«;eons. 
 
 '• I fill her thoughts — her memory's vice goront ? 
 
 No, no — some paltrj pup]:>y — three weeks old — 
 And round as Norval's shield"- — thus incoherent 
 
 His fancies grew as he went on to scold ; 
 
 So stormy waves are into breakers rolled, 
 Worked np at last to mere chaotic vrroth — 
 
 This — that — heads — tails — thoughts jumbled uncontrolled 
 As onionS; turnips, meat, in boiling broth. 
 By turns bob up, and splutter in the froth. 
 
 " Fool that I was to let a baby face — 
 
 A full one — like a hunter's — round and red — 
 Ass that I am, to give her more a place 
 
 Within this heart" — and here he struck his head. 
 
 '• "Sdeath are the almanac-compilers dead? 
 But no — "tis all an artifice — a trick. 
 
 Some newer, face — some dandy underbred — 
 Well — he it so — of all the sex I'm sick !"' 
 Here Juno wondered why she got a kick. 
 
 '• ' The moon is full' — where "s her infernal scrawl? 
 
 ■ And you are in my thought : tliat silver ray 
 Will ever your dear image thus recall" — 
 
 My image? Mine! She 'd barter it away 
 
24 LOVE AXD LrXACY. 
 
 For Pretty Poll's on an Italian's tray ! 
 Three weeks, full weeks — it is too plain — too bad — 
 
 Too gross and palpable ! Oh cursed day ! 
 Mj senses have not crazed — but if they had — 
 Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad ! 
 
 '• Oh Nature i wherefore did you frame a lip 
 
 So fair for falsehood ? "Wherefore have you dressed 
 
 Deceit so angel-like?"' With sudden rip 
 He tore six new buff buttons from his vest, 
 And groped with hand impetuous at his breast, 
 
 As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls 
 Had skipped to batten on a human chest. 
 
 But no — the hand comes forth, and down it hurls 
 
 A lady's miniature beset with pearls. 
 
 Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry, 
 
 Before another outrage could be planned : 
 Poor Juno, who had learned to fetch and carry. 
 
 Picked up and brought it to her master's hand. 
 
 Who seized it, and the mimic features scanned ; 
 Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth, 
 
 He only saw in that fair face, so bland, 
 Look how he would at it. East, West, North. South, 
 A moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth. 
 
 ■' I'll go to her,'' — herewith his hat he touched. 
 
 And gave his arm a most heroic brandish : 
 " But no — I'll write" — and here a spoon he clutched, 
 
 And rammed it with such fury in the standish, 
 
 A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish, 
 Came rushing forth — Oh Antics and Buffoons ! 
 
 Ye never danced a caper so ran-tan-dish ; 
 He jumped, thumped — tore — swore, more than ten dragoons 
 At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons ! 
 
LOVE AND LrXACT. 25 
 
 But soon ashamed, or weaiy. of such dancing, 
 Without a Collinot's or Woippeil's band, 
 
 His rampint arms and logs left oft" their prancing, 
 And doAvn he sat again, with pen in hand, 
 Xot fiddle-headed, or King's pattern grand. 
 
 But one of Bramalrs patent Caligraphics ; 
 
 And many a sheet it spoiled before he planned 
 
 A likelj letter. Used to pure seraphics. 
 
 Philippics sounded strangely after Sapphics. 
 
 Long while he rocked like Yankee in his chair, 
 
 Starino; as he would stare the wainscot through, 
 And then he thrust his fing;ers in his hair, 
 
 And set his crest up like a cockatoo ; 
 
 And trampled with his hoofs, a more Yahoo : 
 At last, with many a tragic frown and start, 
 
 He penned a billet, very far from doux, 
 'T was sour, severe — but think of a man's smart 
 Writinsi; with lunar caustic on his heart ! 
 
 GMie letter done and closed, he lit his taper. 
 And sealing, as it were, his other mocks, 
 
 He stamped a grave device upon the paper, 
 No Cupid toying with his Psyche's locks. 
 But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks — 
 
 Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets, 
 He dropped the bitter missive in a box. 
 
 Beneath the cakes, and tarts, and sugared treats, 
 
 In Mrs. Smelling' s window-full of sweets. 
 
 Soon sped the letter — thanks to modern plans, 
 Oui- English mails run little in the style 
 
 Of those great German wild-beast caravans, 
 
 .E/^-Avagens — though they do not "go like ?/e," — 
 3 
 
26 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 But take a good twelve minutes to the mile — 
 On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock, 
 
 As Ellen hummed "The Young May Moon" the while, 
 Her ear was startled by that double knock 
 Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock ! 
 
 Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning, 
 
 And down into the street it dropped, or flung, 
 Right on the hat and wig of ]Mr. Gunning, 
 
 The jug that o'er her ten-week-stocks had hung ; 
 
 Then down the stairs by twos and threes she sprung, 
 And through the passage like a burglar darted. 
 
 Alas ! how sanguine are the fond and young — 
 She little thought, when with the coin she parted, 
 She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted ! 
 
 Too dear at any price — had she but paid 
 
 Nothing and taken discount, it was dear ; 
 Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid 
 
 Oft kissed the letter in her brief career 
 
 Eetween the lower and the upper sphere, . 
 Vvhere, seated in a study bistre-brown. 
 
 She tried to pierce a mystery as clear 
 iVs that I once saw puzzling a young clown — 
 • • Reading Made Easy, ' ' but turned upside down. 
 
 Yet Ellen, like most misses in the land. 
 
 Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens, 
 At one of those establishments which stand 
 
 In highways, byways, squares, and village greens ; 
 
 'T was called " The Grove,"— a name that always means 
 Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate — 
 
 Each window had its close Venetian screens 
 And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state 
 The twenty-four Y'oung Ladies of Miss Bate. 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 27 
 
 But Avlien the screens were left unclosed by chance, 
 
 The blinds not down, us if Miss B. were dead.^ 
 Each upper windoAV to a passing glance 
 
 Revealed a little dimitj white bed ; 
 
 Each lower one a cropped or curly head ; 
 And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies, 
 
 Along the road the twenty-four were led, 
 Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies 
 With faces rather graver than jNIelpomene's. 
 
 And thus their studies they pursued :— On Sunday, 
 
 Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price ; 
 Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar — of a Monday ; 
 
 Tuesday — hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice ; 
 
 Wednesday — fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice) ; 
 Thursday — pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading; 
 
 Friday — beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice ; 
 Saturday — scraps, short lessons and short feeding. 
 Stocks, back-boards, hash, stccl-collars, and good breeding. 
 
 From this repertory of female learning 
 Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter ! 
 
 To gratify the eyes of parents yearning. 
 'T Avas evident in bolsters, beef, and batter, 
 Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, 
 
 But heartily, as Jenkins says, " demollidge;" 
 But as for any learning, not to flatter, 
 
 As often happens when girls leave their college, 
 
 She had done nothing but groAV out of knowledge. 
 
 At Long Division sums she had no chance, 
 
 And History was quite as bad a balk ; 
 Her French it was too small for Petty France, 
 
 And Priscian suffered in her English talk : 
 
28 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Her drawing might be done with cheese or chalk ; 
 As for the globes — the use of the terrestrial 
 
 She knew when she went out to take a walk. 
 Or take a ride ; but, touching the celestial, 
 Her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial. 
 
 Nothing she learned of Juno, Pallas, Mars ; 
 
 Georgium, for what she knew, might stand for Burgo, 
 Sidus, for Master : then, for northern stars, 
 
 The Bear she fancied did in sable fur go, 
 
 The Bull was Farmer Giles's bull, and, ergo, 
 The Ram the same that butted at her brother ; 
 
 As for the Twins, she oulj guessed that Virgo, 
 From coming after them, must be their mother ; 
 The Scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other. 
 
 As ignorant as donkeys in Gallicia, 
 
 She thought that Saturn, with his Belt, was but 
 A private, may be, in the Kent Militia ; 
 
 That Charles's Wain would stick in a deep rut, 
 
 That Venus was a real West End slut — 
 Oh, gods and goddesses of Greek Theogony ! 
 
 That Berenice's Hair would curl and cut. 
 That Cassiopeia's Chair Avas good Mahogany, 
 Nicely French-polished — such vras her cosmogony ! 
 
 Judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics 
 
 Lorenzo's letter came now to dispense; 
 A lizard, crawling over hieroglyphics. 
 
 Knows cjuite as much of tlieir Egyptian sense ; 
 
 A sort of London fog, opaque and dense, 
 Hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives. 
 
 In vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense, 
 As well is known to oyster-operatives, 
 Mere looking at the shells won't open natives. 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found 
 
 Some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers ; 
 Words giving tongue against her, like a hound 
 
 At picking out a fault — words speaking daggers. 
 
 The very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers. 
 To lash their tails, but not as horses do. 
 
 Nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle waggers, 
 But like a lion's, ere he tears in two 
 A black, to see if he is black all through. 
 
 "With open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch, 
 She gazed upon the paper sad and sorry. 
 
 No sound — no stir — quite petrified, poor vrretch ! 
 As when Apollo, in old allegory, 
 Down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry 
 
 Of Niobe, just turned to Purbeck stone ; 
 In fact, since Cupid got into a worry, 
 
 Judge if a suing lover, let alone 
 
 A lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone. 
 
 " Ellen, I will no longer call you mine, 
 That time is past, and ne'er can come again ; 
 
 However other lights undimmed may shine. 
 And undimuiishing, one truth is plain. 
 Which I, alas ! have learned — that lo^-e can wane. 
 
 The dream is passed away, the veil is rent, 
 Your heart was not intended for my reign ; 
 
 A sphere so full, I feel, was never mfeant 
 
 With one poor man in it to be content. 
 
 "It must, no doubt, be pleasant beyond measure, 
 To Avander underneath the whispering bough 
 
 With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure. 
 Nay, fear not — I absolve of every vow- - 
 
 29 
 
30 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Use — use your own celestial pleasure now, 
 Your apogee and perigee arrange. 
 
 Herschel might aptly stare and wonder lio"W, 
 To me that constant disk has nothing; strange — 
 A counterfeit is sometino; hard to chause. 
 
 " Oh Ellen ! I once little thought to write 
 Such words unto you, Avith so hai'd a pen ; 
 
 Yet outraged love will change its nature quite, 
 And turn like tiger hunted to its den — 
 How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men ! 
 
 And stands abashed, discovered, and forlorn ! 
 Had it been only cusped — but gibbous — then 
 
 It had gone down — but Faith drew l^ack in scorn, 
 
 And would not swallow it — without a horn ! 
 
 ' ' I am in occultation — that is plain : 
 
 My culmination's past — that 's (i[uite as clear. 
 But think not I will suffer your disdain 
 
 To hang a lunar rainboAv on a tear. 
 
 Whate'er my pangs, they shall be buried here; 
 No murmur — not a sigh — shall thence exhale : 
 
 Smile on — and for your own peculiar sphere 
 Choose some eccentric path — you can not fail, 
 And pray stick on a most portentous tail ! 
 
 " Farewell ! I hope you are in health and gay; 
 
 For me, I never felt so well and merry — 
 As for the bran-new idol of the day, 
 
 Monkey or man, I am indifferent — very ! 
 
 Nor even will ask who is the Happy Jerry ; 
 My jealousy is dead, or gone to sleep, 
 
 But let me hint that you will want a wherry, 
 Three weeks spring-tide, and not a chance of neap. 
 Your parlors will be flooded six feet deep ! 
 
LOVE AND LUXACY. 31 
 
 *' Oh Ellen ! how delicious was that light 
 
 "Wherein our plighted shadows used to blend, 
 Meanwhile the melancholy bird of night — 
 
 No more of that — the lover *s at an end. 
 
 Yet if I may advise jou. as a friend, 
 Before you next pen sentiments so fond, 
 
 Study your cycles — I would recommend 
 Our Airy — and let South be duly conned, 
 And take a dip, I beg, in the great Pond. 
 
 •• Farewell acjain ! it is farewell for ever ! 
 
 Before your lamp of mght be lit up thrice, 
 I shall be sailing, haply, for Swan River, 
 
 Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice, 
 
 Or Bootliia Felix — happy clime of ice ! 
 For Trebizond, or distant Scanderoon, 
 
 Ceylon, or Java redolent of spice, 
 Or settling, neighbor of the Cape baboon, - . 
 Or roamin<T o"er — The jvlountaiiis of the Moon ! 
 
 o 
 
 '"^Vhat matters where? my world no longer owns 
 
 That dear meridian spot from which I dated 
 Degrees of distance, hemispheres, and zones, 
 
 A j:1o^)0 all blank and liarren and belated. 
 
 What matters where my future life be fated ? 
 "With Lapland hordes, or Koords or Afi-ic peasant, 
 
 A squatter in the western woods located. 
 What matters where ? My bias, at the present, 
 Leans to the country that reveres the Crescent ! 
 
 •• Farewell ! and if for ever, fare thee v-,eil ! 
 
 As wrote another of my fellow-martyrs : 
 I ask no sexton for his passing-bell. 
 
 I do not ask vour tear-drops to be starters. 
 
32 LOVE AXD LUXACT. 
 
 However I may die, transfixed hj Tartars, 
 By Cobras poisoned, by Constrictors strangled, 
 
 By shark or cayman snapt above the garters, 
 By royal tiger or Cape lion mangled, 
 Or starved to death in the wild woods entangled, 
 
 " Or tortured slowly at an Indian stake, 
 Or smothered in the sandy hot simoon, 
 
 Or crushed in Chili by earth's awful quake, 
 Or baked in lava, a Vesuvian tomb. 
 Or dirged by syrens and the billows' boom. 
 
 Or stiffened to a stock mid Alpine snows, 
 
 Or stricken by the plague with sudden doom. 
 
 Or sucked by A^ampyres to a last repose. 
 
 Or self-destroyed, impatient of my woes. 
 
 "■ Still fare you well, however I may fare, 
 A fare perchance to the Lethean shore, 
 
 Caught up by rushing whirlwinds in the air, 
 Or dashed down cataracts with dreadful roar : 
 Nay, this warm heart, once yours unto the core, 
 
 This hand you should have claimed in church or minster. 
 Some cannibal may gnaw" — she read no more — 
 
 Prone on the carpet fell the senseless spinster, 
 
 Losing herself, as 'twere, in Kidderminster ! 
 
 Of course of such a fall the shock was great. 
 
 In rushed the father, panting from the shop, 
 In rushed the mother, without cap or tete. 
 
 Pursued by Betty Housemaid with her mop ; 
 
 The cook to change her apron did not stop. 
 The charwoman next scrambled up the stair — 
 
 All help to lift, to haul, to seat, to prop. 
 And then they stand and smother round the chair, 
 Exclaimuig in a chorus, " Give her air !" 
 
LOVE AXD LUNACY. 33 
 
 One sears her nostrils Avitli a burning feather, 
 
 Another rams a phial up her nose ; 
 A third crooks all her finger-joints together, 
 
 A fourth rips up her laces and her bows, 
 
 While all by turns keep trampling on her toes, 
 And, -when she gasps for breath, they pour in plump, 
 
 A sudden drench that down her thorax goes. 
 As if in fetching her — some wits so jump — 
 She must be fetched with water like a pump ! 
 
 No wonder that thus drenched, and wrenched, and galled, 
 
 As soon as possible, from syncope's fetter 
 Her senses had the sense to be recalled, 
 
 " I 'm better — that will do — indeed I 'm better," 
 
 She cried to each importunate besetter ; 
 Meanwhile escaping from the stir and smother. 
 
 The prudent parent seized the lover's letter, 
 (Daughters should have no secrets with a Mother,) 
 And read it through from one end to the other. 
 
 From first to last, she never skipped a word — 
 
 For young Lorenzo of all youths was one 
 So wise, so good, so moral she averred, 
 
 So clever, quite above the common run — 
 
 She made him sit by her, and called him son. 
 No matrimonial suit, e'en Duke's or Earl's, 
 
 So flattered her maternal feelings — none ! 
 For mothers always think young men are pearls 
 Who come and throw themselves before their girl8. 
 
 And now, at warning signal from her finger. 
 
 The servants most reluctantly Avithdrew, 
 But listening on the stairs contrived to linger ; 
 
 For Ellen, gazing round with eyes of blue, 
 
 2"* _^., ........ 
 
i LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 At last the features of her parent knew, 
 And, summoning her breath and vocal powers, 
 
 " Oh, mother !" she exclaimed — " Oh, is it true — 
 Our dear Lorenzo" — the dear name drew showers — 
 " Ours,^^ cried the mother, " pray don't call him ours 
 
 "I never liked him, never, in my days !" 
 
 ["Oh yes — you did" — said Ellen with a sob,] 
 
 " There always tvas a something in his ways — 
 ["So sweet — so kind," said Ellen, with a throb,] 
 " His very face was what I call a snob. 
 
 And, spite of Yv^est End coats and pantaloons, 
 He had a sort of air of the swell mob ; 
 
 I 'm sure when he has come of afternoons 
 
 To tea, I 've often thought — I '11 watch my spoons I" 
 
 "The spoons !" cried Ellen, almost with a scream, 
 " Oh cruel — false as cruel — and unjust ! 
 
 He that once stood so high in your esteem !" 
 "He !" cried the dame, grimacing her disgust, 
 " I like him ? — yes — as any body must 
 
 An infidel that scoffs at God and Devil : 
 Didn't he bring you Bonaparty's bust? 
 
 Lord ! when he calls I hardly can be civil — 
 
 My favorite was always Mr. Neville. 
 
 "Lorenzo? — I should like, of earthly thmgs, 
 
 To see him hanging forty cubits high ; 
 Does n't he write like Captain Kocks and Swings ? 
 
 Nay, in this very letter bid you try 
 
 To make yourself particular, and tie 
 A tail on — a prodigious tail ! — Oh, daughter ! 
 
 And don't he a,sk you down his area — fie ! 
 And recommend to cut your being shorter, ^ 
 
 .With brick-bats round your neck in ponds of water?" 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 35 
 
 Alas ! to think how readers thus may vary 
 
 A %yriter"s sense ! — What mortal would have thought 
 Lorenzo's hints about Professor Airy 
 
 And Pond to such a likeness could be brought ! 
 
 Who would have dreamed the simple way he taught 
 To make a comet of poor Ellen's moon, 
 
 Could furnish forth an image so distraught, 
 As Ellen, walking Regent Street at noon, 
 Tailed — like a flit Cape sheep, or a raccoon ! 
 
 And yet, whate'er absurdity the brains 
 
 May hatch, it ne'er wants wet-nurses to suckle it ; 
 Or dry ones, like a hen, to take the pains 
 
 To lead the nudity abroad, and chuckle it ; 
 
 No whim so stupid but some fool will buckle it 
 To jingle bell-like on his empty head, 
 
 No mentiil mud — but some will knead and knuckle it. 
 And fancy they are making fancy-bread ; — 
 No ass has written, but some ass has read. 
 
 No dolts could lead if others did not follow 'em. 
 
 No Hahnemann could give decillionth di'ops 
 If any man could not be got to swallow 'em ; 
 
 But folly never comes to such full stops. 
 
 As soon, then, as the Mother made such swaps 
 Of all Lorenzo's meanings, heads and tails, 
 
 The Father seized upon her malaprops — 
 '•'■ My girl down areas — of a night ! 'Ods nails ! 
 I "11 stick the scoundrel on his area-rails ! 
 
 '' I will ! — as sure as I was christened John ! 
 
 A girl — well born — and bred — and schooled at Ditton — 
 Accomplished — handsome — with a tail stuck on ! 
 
 And chucked — Zounds ! — chucked in horseponds like a 
 kitten ; 
 
36 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 I wish I had been by when that was written !" — 
 And doubling to a fist each ample hand, 
 
 The empty air he boxed with, u la Britton, 
 As if in training for a fight, long planned, 
 With Nobody — for love — at No Man's Land ! 
 
 " I '11 pond — I '11 tail him !' In a voice of thunder 
 
 He recommenced his fury and his fuss, 
 ■Loud, open-mouthed, and wedded to his blunder, 
 
 Like one of those great guns that end in buss. 
 
 '' I '11 teach him to write ponds and tails to us !" 
 But while so menacing this-that-and-t"others, 
 
 His wife broke in with certain truths, as thus : 
 " Men are not women — fathers can't be mothers — 
 Females are females" — and a few such othera. 
 
 So saying, Avith rough nudges, willy-nilly, 
 She hustled him outside the chamber-door, 
 
 Looking, it must be owned, a little silly ; 
 And then she did as the Carinthian boor 
 Serves (Goldsmith says) the traveller that 's poor : 
 
 Id est, she shut him in the outer space, 
 With just as much apology — no more — 
 
 As Boreas would present in such a case, 
 
 For slamming the street door right in your face. 
 
 And now the secrets of the sex thus kept. 
 
 What passed in that important tete-u-tete 
 'Twixt dam and daughter, nobody except 
 
 Paul Pry, or his Twin Brother, could narrate — 
 
 So turn we to Lorenzo, left of late 
 In front of Mrs. Snelling's sugared snacks, 
 
 In such a very waspish stinging state — 
 But now at the Old Dragon, stretched on racks, 
 Fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks : 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 37 
 
 Because that new fast four-inside — the Comet, 
 
 Instead of keeping its appointed time, 
 But deviated some feAv minutes fi'om it, 
 
 A thing with all astronomers a crime, 
 
 And he had studied in that lore sublime ; 
 Nor did his heat get any less or shorter 
 
 For pouring upon passion's unslacked lime 
 A well-grown glass of Cogniac and water, 
 Mixed stiff as starch bj the Old Dragon's daughter. ' 
 
 At length, •• Fair Ellen" sounding with a flom-ish, 
 The Comet came all bright, bran new, and smart : 
 
 Meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish 
 The hasty spirit in Lorenzo's heart. 
 And soon upon the roof he "topped his part,"' 
 
 "Wtich never had a more impatient man on, 
 "Wishing devoutly that the steeds would start 
 
 Like lightning greased — or, as at Ballyshannon 
 
 Sublimed, " greased lightning shot out of a cannon !" 
 
 For, ever since the letter left his hand. 
 His mind had been in vascillating motion, 
 
 Dodge-dodging like a flustered crab on land. 
 That can not ask its way, and has no notion 
 If riofht or left leads to the German Ocean — 
 
 Hatred and Love by tui-ns enjoyed monopolies, 
 Till, like a Doctor following his own potion, 
 
 Before a learned pig could spell Acropolis, 
 
 He went and booked himself for oiu' metropohs. 
 
 '• Oh, for a horse."' or rather four — •• with wings !" 
 For so he put his wish into the plural — 
 
 Xo relish he retained for country thiags, 
 He could not join felicity with iniral, 
 
38 LOVE AND LUXACY. 
 
 His thoughts were all -^ith London and the mural. 
 Where architects — not paupers — heap and j^ile stones : 
 
 Or -^ith the horses' muscles, called the crural, 
 How fast they could macadamize the milestones 
 ^\Tiich passed as tediously as gall or bile stones. 
 
 Blind to the picturest{ue, he ne'er perceived 
 
 In Natui'e one artistical fine stroke ; 
 For instance, how that purple hill reheved 
 
 The beggar-woman in the gipsy-poke, 
 
 And how the red cow carried off her cloak ; 
 Or how the aged horse, so gaunt and grey. 
 
 Threw off a noble mass of beech and oak ! 
 Or, how the tinker's ass, beside the way, 
 Came boldly out from a white cloud — to bray ! 
 
 Such things have no delight for worried men, 
 That travel full of care and anxious smart : 
 
 Coachmen and horses are your artists then ; 
 
 Just try a team of draughtsmen with the Dart, 
 Take Shee, for instance, Etty, Jones, and Hart, 
 
 Let every neck be put into its noose, 
 
 Then tip "em on the flank to make 'em start, 
 
 And see how they will draw ! — Four screws let loose 
 
 Would make a difference- — or I 'm a goose ! 
 
 Nor cared he more about the promised crops, 
 If oats were looking up, or wheat was laid, 
 
 For flies in turnips, or a blight in hops, 
 Or how the barley prosj^ered or decayed : 
 In short, no items of the firming trade. 
 
 Peas, beans, tares, "taters, could his mind beguile ; 
 Kor did he answer to the servant maid. 
 
 That always asked at every other mile, 
 
 "Where do we change, sir?" with her sweetest smile. 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Nor more lie listened to the Politician, 
 
 Wlio lectured on his left, a formal prig. 
 Of Belgium's, Greece's, Turkey's sad condition, 
 
 Not worth a cheese, an olive, or a fig ; 
 
 Nor yet unto the critic, fierce and big, 
 Who, holding forth, all lonelv, in his glory, 
 
 Called one a sad bad Poet — and a Whig, 
 And one, a first-rate proser — and a Tory ; 
 So critics judge, noAv, of a song or story. 
 
 Nay, when the coachman spoke about the "Leger, 
 Of Popsy, Mopsy, Bergamotte, and Civet, 
 
 Of breeder, trainer, owner, backer, hedger, 
 And nags as right, or righter than a trivet. 
 The theme his cracked attention could not rivet ; 
 
 Though leaning forward to the man of whips, 
 He seemed to give an ear — ^Ijut did not give it, 
 
 For Ellen's moon (that saddest of her slips) 
 
 Would not be hidden by a "new Eclipse." 
 
 If any thought e'er flitted in Ins head 
 
 Belonging to the sphere of Bland and Crocky, 
 
 It was to wish the team all thorough-bred, 
 And every buckle on their backs a jockey : 
 V>"hen spinning down a steep descent, or rocky, 
 
 He never watched the wheel, and longed to lock it, 
 He liked the bolters that set oif so cocky 
 
 Nor did it shake a single nerve or shock it. 
 
 Because the Comet raced against the Rocket. 
 
 Thanks to which rivalry, at last tlie journey 
 Finished an hour and a quarter under time, 
 
 Without a case for surgeon or attorney, 
 Just as St. James's rang its seventh chime, 
 
 39 
 
40 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And now, descending from his seat sublime, 
 Behold Lorenzo, weariest of wights, 
 In that great core of brick, and stone, and lime, 
 Called England's Heart — but which, as seen of nights, 
 Has rather more the appearance of its lights. 
 
 Awaj he scudded — elbowing, perforce, 
 
 Through cads, and lads, and many a Hebrew worrier, 
 With fruit, knives, pencils — all dirt cheap, of course. 
 
 Coachmen, and hawkers, of the Globe and "Currier;" 
 
 Away ! the cook maid is not such a skurrier, 
 When, fit to split her gingham as she goes. 
 
 With six just striking on the clock to hurry her, 
 She strides along with one of her three beaux, 
 To get well placed at " Ashley's"' — now Ducrow's. 
 
 " I wonder if her moon is full to-night !" 
 
 He muttered, jealous as a Spanish Don, 
 When, lo ! to aggravate that inward spite, 
 
 In glancing at a board he spied thereon 
 
 A play-bill for dramatic folks to con. 
 In letters such as those may read, who run, 
 
 " 'KING JOHN'— oh yes— I recollect King John ! 
 ' My Lord, they say five moons'— ^re moons ! well done 
 I wonder Ellen was content with one ! 
 
 " Five moons — all full ! and all at once in heaven ! 
 
 She should have lived in that prolific reign !" 
 Here he arrived in front of number seven. 
 
 The abode of all his joy and all his pain ; 
 
 A sudden tremor shot through every vein. 
 He wished he 'd come up by the heavy wagon, 
 
 And felt an impulse to turn back again. 
 Oh, that he ne'er liad quitted the Old Dragon ! 
 Then came a sort of longing for a flagon. 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 41 
 
 Ilis tongue and palate seemed so parched with drouth — 
 The very knocker filled his soul with dread, 
 
 Jis if it had a living lion's mouth, 
 
 With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red, 
 In which he had engaged to put his head. 
 
 The bell-pull turned his courage into vapor, 
 As though 'twould cause a shower-bath to shed 
 
 Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper — 
 
 He looked askance, and did not like the scraper. 
 
 " What business have I here ? (he thought) a dunce 
 A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster, 
 
 Instead of putting out its wick at once ; 
 
 She "s gone — it "s very evident I ' ve lost her — 
 And to the wanton wind I should have tossed her — 
 
 Pish ! I will leave her with her moon, at ease. 
 To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster, 
 
 Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese, 
 
 Or make a honey-moon, if so she please. 
 
 ^' Yes — here I leave her,'' and as thus he spoke, 
 
 He plied the knocker with such needless force, 
 It almost split the pannel of sound oak ; 
 
 And then he went as wildly through a course 
 
 Of ringing, till he made abrupt divorce 
 Between the bell and its dumbfounded handle ; 
 
 While up ran Betty, out of breath and hoarse, 
 And thrust into his face her blown-out candle. 
 To recognize the author of such scandal. 
 
 Who, presto ! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot. 
 
 Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair, 
 
 With other noise than his whose " very foot 
 Had music in 't as he came up the stair :" 
 
42 LOYE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And then with no more manners than a bear, 
 His hat upon his head, no matter how, 
 
 No modest tap his presence to declare, 
 He bolted in a room, without a bow. 
 And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow ! 
 
 Like fond Medora, watching at her window. 
 
 Yet not of any Corsair bark in search — 
 The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo, 
 
 '•The Cheapest House in Town"' of Todd and Sturch, 
 
 The private house of Reverend Doctor Bu'ch, 
 The public-house, closed nightly at eleven, 
 
 And then that house of prayer, the parish church, 
 Some roofs and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven, 
 Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven. 
 
 Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her, 
 
 She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream ; 
 
 As if her own beloved full moon still orbed her, 
 Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme. 
 With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme — 
 
 Yet when Lorenzo touched her on the shoulder. 
 She started up with an abortive scream, 
 
 As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder. 
 
 Had come within his bony arms to fold her. 
 
 ' ' Lorenzo ! "— " Ellen ! "—then came ' • Sir ! " and ' • Madam ! " 
 They tried to speak, but hammered at each word. 
 
 As if it were a flint for great Macx\.dam ; 
 Such broken English never else was heard, 
 For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirred, 
 
 A chilly tremor thrilled them through and through. 
 Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd. 
 
 They shook like jellies made Avithout a due 
 
 And proper share of common joiner's glue. 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 43 
 
 " Ellen ! I 'm come — to bid jou — fare — farewell" 
 They thus began to fight their verbal duel ; 
 
 '•' Since some more hap — hap — happy man must dwell — " 
 " Alas — Loren — Lorenzo ! — cru — cru — cruel !" 
 For so they split then- words like grits for gruel. 
 
 At last the Lover, as he long had planned. 
 Drew out that once inestimable jewel, 
 
 Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scanned, 
 
 And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand. 
 
 " There — take it. Madam — take it back I crave, 
 The face of one — but I must now forget her, 
 
 Bestow it on whatever hapless slave 
 
 Your art has last enticed into your fetter — 
 And there are your epistles — there ! each letter ! 
 
 I wish no record of your vow's infractions. 
 
 Send them to South — or Children — you had better — 
 
 They will be novelties — rare benefactions 
 
 To shine in Philosophical Transactions ! 
 
 " Take them — pray take them — I resign them quite ! 
 
 And there 's the glove you gave me leave to steal — 
 And there 's the handkerchief, so pure and white 
 
 Once sanctified by lears, when Miss O'Neill — 
 
 But no — you did not — cannot — do not feel 
 A Juliet's fiiith, that time could only harden ! 
 
 Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal ! 
 I should have led you — by your leave and pardon — 
 To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden ! 
 
 '• And here 's the birth-day ring — nor man nor devil 
 Should once have torn it from my living hand, 
 
 Perchance 't will look as well on Mr. Neville ; 
 And that — and that is all — and now I stand 
 
44 LOVE AND LUNACT. 
 
 Absolved of each dissevered tie and band — 
 And so farewell, till Time's eternal sickle 
 
 Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land 
 Some other may be found for truth to stickle 
 Almost as fair — and not so false and fickle !" 
 
 And there he ceased : as trulj it was time. 
 For of the various themes that left his mouth, 
 
 One half surpassed her intellectual climb : 
 
 She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth 
 About that " Children of a larger growth," 
 
 Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S/s; 
 
 Kit North, was just as strange to her as South, 
 
 Except the South the weathercock expresses, 
 
 Naj, Bartlej's Orrery defied her guesses. 
 
 Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift 
 She gathered from the simple outward fact 
 
 That her own lap contained each slighted gift ; 
 Though quite unconsious of his cause to act 
 So like Othello, with his face unblacked ; 
 
 " Alas !" she sobbed, " your cruel course I see 
 These faded charms no Ioniser can attract : 
 
 Your fancy palls, and you would wander free, 
 
 And lay your own apostacy on me ! 
 
 " /, false ! — unjust Lorenzo ! — and to you ! 
 
 Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline 
 The soul to truth, bear witness I am true ! 
 
 By all that lives, of earthly or divine — 
 
 So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine — 
 / filse ! — the world shall change its course as soon ? 
 
 True as the streamlet to the stars that shine — 
 True as the dial to the sun at noon, 
 True as the tide to ' yonder blessed moon' !" 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 45 
 
 And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, 
 Somewhere above the houses' distant tops, 
 
 Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo. 
 And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops 
 For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops ; — 
 
 Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian, 
 And ejes sufiused with scintillating drops, 
 
 Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds Venetian, 
 
 To see the sphere so troubled with repletion. 
 
 '■ The Moon ! " he cried, and an electric spasm 
 Seemed all at once his features to distort. 
 
 And fixed his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm — 
 His faculties benumbed and all amort — 
 At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, 
 
 Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock — 
 
 '• Speak ! — Ellen ! — is jour sight indeed so short ! 
 
 The Moon ! — Bmte ! savage that I am, and block ! 
 
 The Moon ! (0, ye Romantics, what a shock !) 
 
 Why that "s the new Illuminated Clock !" 
 
BAILEY BALLADS. 
 
 To anticipate mistake, the above title refers not to 
 Thomas Haynes — or F. V>". N. — or even to any Publishers 
 — but the original Old Bailey. It belongs to a set of Songs 
 composed during the courtly leisure of what is technically 
 called a Juryman in Waiting — that is, one of a coiys de 
 reserve, held in readiness to fill up the gaps which extra- 
 ordinary mental exertion — or sedentary habits — or starva- 
 tion, may make in the Council of Twelve. This wrong box 
 it was once my fortune to get into. On the 5th of Novem- 
 ber, at the 6th hour, leaving my bed and the luxurious 
 perusal of Taylor on Early Rising — I walked from a yel- 
 low fog into a black one. in my unwilling way to the New 
 Court, which sweet herbs even could not sweeten, for the 
 sole purpose of making criminals uncomfortable. A neigh- 
 bor, a retu-cd sea Captain with a wooden leg, now literally 
 a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the 
 same hanging errand — a personified Halter. Our legal drill 
 Corporal was Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster-roll 
 without butter was over, before breakfast, the uninitiated 
 can form no idea of the ludicrousness of the excuses of the 
 Y^-Quld-be Non-jurors — aggravated by the solemnity of a pre- 
 vious oath, the delivery from a witness-box like a pulpit, 
 
 3 
 
60 BAILEY BALLADS. 
 
 and the professional gravity of the Court. One weakly old 
 gentleman had been ordered by his physician to eat little, 
 but often, and apprehended even fatal consequences from 
 being locked up with an obstinate eleven ; another conscien- 
 tious demurrer desired time to make himself master of his 
 duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, 
 and Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men 
 who objected the hardness of their hearing criminal cases 
 was beyond belief. The Publishers of " Curtis on the Ear" 
 and " Wright on the Ear" — (two popular surgical works, 
 though rather suggestive of Pugilism) — ought to have sten- 
 torian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, 
 I was literally ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus 
 of muffled double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be 
 boxed with a common Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a 
 Judge's charge — an arraignment and evidence to match, with 
 great dexterity, but failing to catch the defence from the 
 left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister verdict. 
 The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I Avas only half deaf, 
 only half discharged me — committing me to the relay -box, 
 as a juror in Waiting — and from which I was relieved only 
 by his successor, Sir Thomas Denman, and to justify my 
 dullness, I made even his stupendous voice to repeat my 
 dismissal twice over ! 
 
 It was during this compelled attendance that the project 
 struck me of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin 
 and Sentiment in that melo-dramatic mixture which is so 
 congenial to the cholera morbid sensibility of the present 
 age and stage. The following are merely specimens, but a 
 hint from the Powers that be — in the Strand — will promptly 
 produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grate- 
 ful dedication to the learned Serjeant. 
 
BAILEY BALLADS- 
 LINES TO MARY. 
 
 (at XO. 1, NEWGATE, FAVORED BY SIR. WOKTNEB.) 
 
 Mary, I believed you true, 
 
 And I was blest in so believing ; 
 But till this hour I never knew — 
 
 That you were taken up for thieving ! 
 
 Oh ! when I snatched a tender kiss, 
 Or some such trifle when I courted, 
 
 You said, indeed, that love was bliss. 
 But never owned you were transported ! 
 
 But then to gaze on that fair face — 
 It would have been an unfair feeling. 
 
 To dream that you had pilfered lace — 
 
 And Flints had suffered from your stealing ! 
 
 Or when my suit I first preferred. 
 To bring your coldness to repentance, 
 
 Before I hammered out a word, 
 
 How could I dream you "d heard a sentence ! 
 
 Or when with all the warmth of youth 
 I strove to prove my love no fiction, 
 
 How could I guess I urged a truth 
 On one already past conviction ! 
 
 How could I dream that ivory part, 
 
 Your hand — where I have looked and lingered, 
 Altho' it stole away my heart, 
 
 Had been held up as one light-fingered ! 
 
 51 
 
52 BAILEY BALLADS. 
 
 In melting verse your charms I drew, 
 
 The charms in which my muse delighted — 
 
 Alas ! the lay, I thought was new, 
 Spoke only what had been indicted ! 
 
 Oh ! when that form, a lovely one, 
 
 Hung on the neck its arms had flown to, 
 
 I little thought that you had run 
 
 A chance of hanging on your own too. 
 
 You said you picked me from the world, 
 
 My vanity it now must shock it — 
 And down at once my pride is hurled, 
 
 You 've picked me — and you 've picked a pocket ! 
 
 Oh ! when our love had got so far. 
 
 The banns were read by Dr. Daly, 
 Who asked if there was any bm — 
 
 Why did not some one shout " Old Bailey?" 
 
 But when you robed your flesh and bones 
 In that pure white that angel garb is, 
 
 Who could have thought you, Mary Jones, 
 Among the Joans that link with Darbies ? 
 
 And when the parson came to say, 
 
 My goods were yours, if I had got any, 
 
 And you should honor and obey, 
 
 Who could have thought — " Bay of Botany." 
 
 But, oh — the worst of all your slips 
 
 I did not till this day discover — 
 That down in Deptford's prison-ships. 
 
 Oh, Mary ! you 've a hulking lover ! 
 
BAILEY BALLADS. 
 
 53 
 
 No. n. 
 
 "Love, with a witness!" 
 
 He has shaved off his Tvhiskers and blackened his brows, 
 
 Wears a patch and a wig of false hair — 
 But it 's him-Oh it's him !- we 've exchanged lovers' vows, 
 
 When I lived up in Cavendish Square. 
 
 He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same, 
 
 And his voice was as soft as a flute — 
 Like a Lord or a IMarquis he looked, when he came, 
 
 To make love in his master's best suit. 
 
 If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth, 
 
 I shall never forget what he told ; 
 How he loved me beyond the rich women of earth, 
 
 With their jewels and silver and gold ! 
 
 ^Mien he kissed me and bade me adieu with a sigh, 
 
 By the light of the sweetest of moons, 
 Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye 
 
 To my Missis's tea-pot and spoons ! 
 
 No. m. 
 
 " I 'd be a Parody."— Bailey. 
 
 We met — 't waa in a mob — and I thought he had done me— 
 
 I felt I could not feel— for no watch was upon me ; 
 
 He ran— the night was cold— and his pace was unaltered, 
 I too longed much to pelt— but my small-boned legs faltered, 
 I wore my bran new boots— au^l unrivalled their brightness. 
 They fit me to a hair— how I hated their tightness ! 
 I called, but no one came, and my stride had a tether 
 Oh tkou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather ! 
 
54 BAILEY BALLADS. 
 
 And once again we met — and an old pal was near him, 
 He swore a something low — ^but 't was no use to fear him ; 
 I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only, 
 And stept — as he deserved — to cells wretched and lonely : 
 And there he will be tried — but I shall ne'er receive her. 
 The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver; 
 The world may think me gay — heart and feet ache together, 
 Oh thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather. 
 
POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug. 
 
 The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug. 
 
 GoLDSiOTH. 
 
 Poetry and poverty begin with tlie same letter, and, in 
 more respects tlian one, are "as like each other as two P"s."' 
 Nine tailors are the making of a man. but not so the nine 
 Muses. Theii' votaries are notoriously only water-di-inkers, 
 eating mutton cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the 
 miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets. ' ■ But- 
 ler," says Mr. D" Israeli, '•lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith 
 in a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild — Chatterton was 
 carried on St. Augustine's Back like a young gipsy; and 
 his half-starved Rowley always said heigho, when he heard 
 of gammon and spinach. Gray's days were ode-ious, and 
 Gay^s gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked. 
 Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription 
 for him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the 
 poor-house, Spenser could n't afford a great-coat, and Milton 
 was led up and down by his daughters, to save the expense 
 of a dog." 
 
 It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circum- 
 stances. Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies 
 of Quality — and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Black- 
 more composed in his chariot. In a hay-cart he might have 
 sung like a Bums. 
 
 3* 
 
58 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 
 
 As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) -well 
 know, the truly poetical contributions which can be inserted, 
 are not those which come post free, iu rose-colored tinted 
 paper, scented with musk, and sealed with fancy wax. The 
 real article arrives by post unpaid, sealed with rosin, or 
 possibly with a dab of pitch or cobbler's wax, bearing the 
 impression of a halfpenny, or more frequently of a button — 
 the paper is dingy and scant — the hand- writing has evident- 
 ly come to the author by nature — there are trips in the 
 spelling, and Priscian is a little scratched or so — but a rill 
 of the true Castalian runs through the whole composition, 
 though its fountain-head was a broken tea-cup, instead of a 
 silver standish. A few years ago I used to be favored with 
 numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of 
 Fitz-Norman ; the crest on the seal had probably descended 
 from the Conquest, and the packets were invariably de- 
 livered by a Patagonian footman m green and gold. The 
 author was evidently rich, and the verses were as palpably 
 poor ; they were declined, with the usual answer to corre- 
 spondents who do not answer, and the communications ceased 
 — as I thought forever, but I was deceived ; a few days 
 back one of the dirtiest and raggedest of street urchins de- 
 livered a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, 
 which bore the impress of a thimble. The paper had more 
 the odor of tobacco than of rose leaves, and the writing ap- 
 peared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in 
 coffee-grounds ; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had 
 the honor to be my " very humble servant" at the foot of 
 the letter. It was too certain that he had fallen from afflu- 
 ence to indigence, but the adversity which had wrought 
 such a change upon the writing implements, had. as usual, 
 improved his poetry. The neat crowquill never traced on 
 the superfine Bath paper any thing so unaffected as the f j1- 
 lowinw : — 
 
POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 WRITTEN UNDEE THE FEAR OF BAILIFFS. 
 
 Alas ! of all the noxious things 
 
 That wait upon the poor, 
 Most cruel is that Felon-Fear 
 
 That haunts the '■ Debtor's Door !" 
 
 Saint Sepulchre's begins to toll, 
 The Sheriffs seek the cell : — 
 
 So I expect their officers, 
 And tremble at the bell ! 
 
 I look for beer, and yet I quake 
 With fright at every tap ; 
 
 And dread a double-knock, for oh ! 
 I've not a single rap! 
 
 59 
 
 SONNET 
 
 WKITTEN m A "WORKHOUSE. 
 
 Oh, blessed ease ! no more of heaven I ask : 
 The overseer is gone — that vandal elf — 
 And hemp, unpicked, may go and hang itself. 
 
 While I, untasked, except with Cowper"s Task, 
 
 In blessed literary leisure bask, 
 
 And lose the workhouse, saving in the works 
 Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes 
 
 Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask : 
 
 The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spense, 
 The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair — 
 
60 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Unlearned toil, unlettered labors hence ! 
 
 But, hark ! I hear the master on the stair 
 And Thomson's Castle, that of Indolence, 
 
 Must be to me a castle in the air. 
 
 SONNET.— A SOMNAMBULIST. 
 
 " A change came o'er the sphit of my dream." — Btbok. 
 
 Methought — for Fancy is the strangest gadder 
 
 "WTien sleep all homely mundane ties hath riven — 
 Methought that I ascended Jacob's ladder, 
 
 With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven : 
 
 Some bell, I know not whence, was sounding seven 
 When I set foot upon that long one-pair ; 
 
 And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven, 
 Nor yet of landing-place became aware ; 
 Step after step in endless flight seemed there ; 
 
 But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still, 
 To gain that blessed haven from all care, 
 
 Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill. 
 When, lo ! I wakened on a sadder stair — 
 
 Tramp — tramp — tramp — tramp — upon the Brixton Mill ! 
 
 FUGITrVE LINES ON PAWNING ^lY AVATCH. 
 
 " AuTUra pot-a-bile :'' — Gold hiles the pot. — Free Translation. 
 
 Farewell then, my golden repeater, 
 We *re come to my L^ncle's old shop ; 
 
 And hunger won't be a dumb-waiter, 
 The Cerberus growls for a sop. 
 
POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 
 
 To quit thee, mj comrade diurnal, 
 i\Iy feelings will certainly scotch ; 
 
 But oh ! there *s a riot internal, 
 
 And Famine calls out for the Watch ! 
 
 Oh ! hunger 's a terrible trial, 
 
 I really must have a relief — 
 So here goes the plates of your dial 
 
 To fetch me some Williams's beef ! 
 
 As famished as any lost seaman, 
 
 I ' ve fasted for many a dawn. 
 And now must play chess with the Demon, 
 
 And give it a check with a pawn. 
 
 I've fasted, since dining at Buncle's, 
 Two days with true Perceval zeal — 
 
 And now must make up at my Uncle's, 
 By getting a duplicate meal. 
 
 No Peachum it is, or young Lockit, 
 That rifles my fob with a snatch ; 
 
 Alas ! I must pick my own pocket, 
 And make gravy-soup of my watch ! 
 
 So long I have wandered a starver, 
 I 'm getting as keen as a hawk ; 
 
 Time's long hand must take up a carver, 
 His short hand lay hold of a fork. 
 
 Right heavy and sad the event is, 
 But oh ! it is Poverty's crime ; 
 
 I 've been such a Brownrigg's Apprentice, 
 I thus must be '• out of my Time." 
 
 61 
 
62 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Folks talk about dressing for dinner, 
 But I have for dinner undrest ; 
 
 Since Christmas, as I am a sinner, 
 I 've eaten a suit of my best. 
 
 I haven't a rag or a mummock 
 To fetch me a chop or a steak ; 
 
 I wish that the coats of my stomach 
 "Were such as mj Uncle would take ! 
 
 When dishes were ready with garnish 
 My watch used to warn with a chime — 
 
 But now my repeater must furnish 
 The dinner in lieu of the time ! 
 
 My craving will have no denials, 
 I can't fob it off. if you stay, 
 
 So go — and the old Seven Dials 
 Must tell me the time of the day. 
 
 Your chimes I shall never more hear 'em, 
 To part is a Tic Douloureux ! 
 
 But Tempus has his edax rerum, 
 And I have my Feeding-Time too ! 
 
 Farewell then, my golden repeater, 
 We "re come to my Uncle's old shop — 
 
 And Hunger won't be a dumb-waiter, 
 The Cerberus growls for a sop ! 
 
 Alas ! when in Brook Street the upper 
 In comfort I lived between walls, 
 
 I 've gone to a dance for my supper ; — 
 But now I must go to Three Balls ! 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS 
 
 BY AN OLD SERVANT. 
 
 It is not often when the Nine descend that they go so 
 low as into areas ; it is certain, nevertheless, that they were 
 in the habit of visiting John Humphreys, in the kitchen of 
 No. 189, Portland-Place, disguised, no doubt, from mortal 
 eye, as seamstresses or charwomen — at all events, as Wini- 
 fred Jenkins says, "they were never ketch'd in the fact." 
 Perhaps it was the rule of the house to allow no followers, 
 and they were obliged to come by stealth, and to go in the 
 same manner ; indeed, from the fragmental nature of John's 
 verses, they appear to have often left him very abruptly. 
 Other pieces bear witness of the severe distraction he suf- 
 fered between his domestic duty to the Umphravilles, twelve 
 in family, with their guests, and his own secret visitors from 
 Helicon. It must have been provoking, when seeking for a 
 simile, to be sent in search of a salt-cellar ; or when hunting 
 for a rhyme, to have to look for a missing teaspoon. By a 
 whimsical peculiarity, the causes of these lets and hindi'an- 
 cos are recorded in his verses, by way of parenthesis ; and 
 though John's poetry was of a decidedly serious and moral- 
 ising turn, these little insertions give it so whimsical a cha- 
 racter, as to make it an appropriate offering in the present 
 work. Poor John ! tlie grave has put a period to his di- 
 
66 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 dactics, and the publication of his lays in "Hood's Own," 
 therefore, cannot give him pain, as it certainly would have 
 done otherwise, for the MSS. were left by last will and 
 testament "to his very worthy master, Joshua Umphra- 
 ville, Esq., to be printed in Elegant Extracts, or Flowers 
 of English Poetry." The Editor is indebted to the kind- 
 ness of that gentleman for a selection from the papers; 
 which lie has been unable to arrange chronologically, as 
 John always wrote in too great a hurry to put dates. 
 Whether he ever sent any pieces to the periodicals is un- 
 known, for he kept his authorship as secret as Junius' s, till 
 his death discovered his propensity for poetry, and happily 
 cleared up some points in John's character, which had ap- 
 peared to his disadvantage. Thus when his eye was "in 
 fine frenzy rolling," bemused only with Castalian water, he 
 had been suspected of being "bemused with beer;" and 
 when he was supposed to indulge in a morning sluggishness, 
 he was really rising with the sun, at least with Apollo. 
 He was accused occasionally of shamming deafness, where- 
 as it was doubtless nothing but the natural difficulty of 
 hearing more than Nine at once. Above all, he was 
 reckoned almost wilfully unfortunate in his breakage ; but 
 it appears that when deductions for damage were made from 
 his wages, the poetry ought to have been stopped, and not 
 the money. The truth is, John's master was a classical 
 scholar, and so accustomed to read of Pegasus, and to as- 
 sociate a Poet with a horseman, that he never dreamed of 
 one as a Footman. 
 
 The Editor is too diffident to volunteer an elaborate criti- 
 cism of the merits of Humphreys as a Bard — but he pre- 
 sumes to say thus much, that there are several Authors, of 
 the present day, whom John ought not to walk behind. 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 67 
 
 THE BROKEX DISH. 
 
 What 's life but full of care and doubt, 
 With all its fine humanities, 
 
 With parasols we walk about, 
 Long pigtails and su-h vanities. 
 
 We plant pomegranite trees and thmgs, 
 And go in gardens sporting, 
 
 With toys and fons of peacock's wings, 
 To painted ladies courting. 
 
 We gather flowers of every hue, 
 And fish in boats for fishes, 
 
 Build summer-houses painted blue- 
 But life 's as frail as dishes. 
 
 Walking about their groves of trees, 
 Blue bridges and blue rivers, 
 
 How little thought them two Chinese, 
 They "d both be smashed to shivers. 
 
 ODE TO PEACE. 
 
 WRITTEN ON- THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS'S GRAND ROUT. 
 
 Oh Peace ! oh come with me and dwell — 
 
 But stop, for there 's the bell. 
 Oh Peace ! for thee I go and sit in churches. 
 On Wednesday, when there "s very few 
 In loft or pew — 
 Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's. 
 Oh Peace ! for thee I have avoided marriaofe — 
 Hush ! there 's a carriage. 
 
68 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the best of earthly goods — 
 
 The five Miss Woods. 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the Goddess I adore — 
 
 There come some more. 
 Oh Peace ! thou child of solitude and quiet — 
 That 's Lord Drum's footman, for he loves a riot. 
 Oh Peace ! 
 
 Knocks will not cease. 
 Oh Peace ! thou wert for human comfort planned- 
 
 That 's Weippert's band. 
 Oh Peace ! how glad I welcome thy approaches — 
 
 I hear the sound of coaches. 
 Oh Peace ! oh Peace ! — another carriage stops — 
 
 It 's early for the Blenkinsops. 
 
 Oh Peace ! with thee I love to wander, 
 
 But wait till I have showed up Lady Squander, 
 
 And now I "ve seen her up the stair. 
 
 Oh Peace ! — but here comes Captain Hare, 
 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the slumber of the mind, 
 
 Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken — 
 
 If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken, 
 
 Alderman Gobble won't be far behind ; 
 
 Oh Peace ! serene in worldly shyness — 
 
 Make way there for his Serene Highness ! 
 
 Oh Peace ! if you do not disdain 
 
 To dwell amongst the menial train, 
 
 I have a silent place, and lone. 
 
 That you and I may call our own ; 
 
 Where tumult never makes an entry — 
 
 Susan, what business have you in my pantry ? 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 Oh Peace ! but there is INIajor Monk, 
 At variance with his wife — Oh Peaxje ! 
 And that great German, Vander Trunk, 
 And that great talker, IVIiss Apreece ; 
 Oh Peace ! so dear to poets' quills — 
 They 're just beginning their quadrilles — 
 Oh Peace ! our greatest renovator ; — 
 I wonder where I put my waiter — 
 Oh Peace ! — but here my Ode I '11 cease ; 
 I have no peace to write of Peace. 
 
 69 
 
 A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN. 
 
 When I reflect with serious sense, 
 
 While years and years roll on. 
 How soon I may 1)6 summoned hence — 
 
 There 's cook a-calliug John. 
 
 Our lives are built so frail and poor, 
 
 On sand and not on rocks, 
 We 're hourly standing at Death's door — 
 
 There's some one double-knocks. 
 
 All human days have settled terms, 
 
 Our fates w^e cannot force ; 
 This flesh of mine will feed the worms — 
 
 They 're come to lunch of course. 
 
 And when my body "s turned to clay, 
 And dear friends hear my knell, 
 
 let them give a sigh and say — 
 I hear the upstairs bell.. 
 
70 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 TO MARY HOUSEMAID, 
 
 ON TALENTIXE'3 DAT. 
 
 Mary, you know I 've no love-nonsense, 
 And, though I pen on such a day, 
 
 I don't mean flirting, on my conscience, 
 Or writing in the courting way. 
 
 Though Beauty hasn"t formed your feature. 
 It saves you, p'rhaps. from being vain, 
 
 And many a poor unhappy creature . 
 May wish that she was half as plain. 
 
 Your virtues would not rise an inch, 
 
 Although your shape was two foot taller, 
 
 And wisely you let others pinch 
 
 Great waists and feet to make them smaller. 
 
 You never try to spare your hands 
 From getting red by household duty ; 
 
 But, doing all that it commands, 
 Their coarseness is a moral beauty. 
 
 Let Susan flourish her fair arms 
 
 And at your odd legs sneer and scoff, 
 
 But let her laugh, for you have charms 
 That nobody knows nothing o£ 
 
BALLADS: 
 
 SERIOUS, VERY SERIOUS, AND PATHETIC. 
 
BALLADS. 
 
 THE POACHER. 
 
 A SERIOUS BALLAD. 
 
 But a bold pheasaiiti-}-, thoir country's pride, 
 "When ouce destroyed c;ui never be supplied. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Bill Blossom \Yas a nice young man, 
 
 And drove the Bur j coach ; 
 But bad companions were his bane, 
 
 And egged him on to poach. 
 
 They taught him how to net the birds, 
 
 And how to noose the hare ; 
 And with a wiry terrier, 
 
 He often set a snare. 
 
 Each " shiny night" the moon was bright. 
 
 To park, preserve, and wood 
 He went, and kept the game alive. 
 
 By killing all he could. 
 
 Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore 
 
 That he had this demerit — 
 Give him an inch of warren, he 
 
 Would take a yard of ferret. 
 4 
 
74 THE rOACHER. 
 
 At partridges he was not nice ; 
 
 And many, large and small, 
 Without Hairs powder, without lead, 
 
 "Were sent to Leaden-Hall. 
 
 He did not fear to take a deer 
 From forest, park, or lawn ; 
 
 And without courting lord or duke, 
 Used frequently to faivn. 
 
 Folks who had hares discovered snares- 
 His course thej could not stop : 
 
 No barber he, and jet he made 
 Their hares a perfect crop. 
 
 To pheasant he Avas such a foe, 
 He tried the keeper's nerves ; 
 
 They swore he never seemed to have 
 Jam satis of preserves. 
 
 The Shooter went to beat, and found 
 
 No sporting worth a pin, 
 Unless he tried the covers made 
 
 Of silver, plate, or tin. 
 
 In Kent the game was little worth, 
 
 In Surrey not a button ; 
 The Speaker said he often tried 
 
 The Manors about Sutton. 
 
 No county from his tricks was safe ; 
 
 In each he tried his lucks. 
 But when the keepers were in Beds^ 
 
 He often was at Bucks. 
 
THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 75 
 
 And when he went to Bucks, alas ! 
 
 They always came to Herts ; 
 And even Oxoii used to wish 
 
 That he had his deserts. 
 
 But going to his usual Hants, 
 
 Old Cheshire laid his plots ; 
 He got entrapped by legal Berks, 
 
 And lost his life in Notts. 
 
 THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
 » Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou flshifled !"— Meecctio. 
 
 'T WAS twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes, 
 
 When all in hungry trim, 
 Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup 
 
 With wife, and Kate, and Jim. 
 
 Said he, '• Upon this dainty cod 
 How bravely I shall sup,"' — 
 
 When, whiter than the table-cloth, 
 A GHOST came rising up ! 
 
 "0, father dear, 0, mother dear, 
 Dear Kate, and brother Jim — 
 
 You know when some one went to sea — 
 Don't cry — but I am him ! 
 
 " You hope some day with fond embrace 
 
 To greet your absent Jack, 
 But oh. I am come here to say 
 
 I 'm never coming back ! 
 
76 THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 
 
 " From Alexandria we set sail, 
 With corn, and oil. and ficrs, 
 
 But steering ' too much Sow" we struck 
 Upon the Sow and Pigs ! 
 
 " The Ship we pumped till we could see 
 Old England from the tops : 
 
 When down she went Avith all our hands, 
 Right in the Channels Chops. 
 
 " Just give a look in Norej's chart, 
 
 The very place it tells ; 
 I think it says twelve fathom deep. 
 
 Clay bottom, mixed with shells. 
 
 "Well there we are till 'hands aloft,' 
 
 We have at last a call ; 
 The pug I had for brother Jim, 
 
 Kate"s parrot too. and all. 
 
 " But oh, my spirit cannot rest. 
 
 In Davy Jones's sod, 
 Till I 've appeared to you and said — 
 
 Don't sup on that 'ere Cod ! 
 
 " You live on land, and little think 
 
 TMiat passes in the sea ; 
 Last Sunday week, at 2 p.m. 
 
 That Cod was picking me ! 
 
 " Those oysters too. that look so plump, 
 
 And seem so nicely done. 
 They put my corpse in many shells, 
 
 Instead of only one. 
 

 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 77 
 
 "0, do not eat those oysters then, 
 
 And do not touch the shrimps ; 
 When I was in my briny grave, 
 
 They sucked my blood like imps ! 
 
 " Don't eat what brutes would never eat, 
 
 The brutes I used to pat. 
 They '11 know the smell they used to smell, 
 
 Just try the dog and cat !" 
 
 The Spirit fled — they wept his fate, 
 
 And cried, Alack, alack ! 
 At last up started brother Jim, 
 
 " Let 's try if Jack was Jack !" 
 
 They called the Dog, they called the Cat, 
 
 And little Kitten too, 
 And down they put the Cod and sauce, 
 
 To sec what brutes would do. 
 
 Old Tray licked all the oysters up, 
 
 Puss never stood at crimps. 
 But munched the Cod — and little Kit 
 
 Quite feasted on the shrimps ! 
 
 The thing was odd, and minus Cod 
 
 And sauce, they stood like posts ! 
 0, prudent folks, for fear of hoax, 
 
 Put no belief in Ghosts ! 
 
 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 
 
 To Waterloo, with sad ado. 
 And many a sigh and groan. 
 
 Amongst the dead, came Patty Head, 
 To look for Peter Stone. 
 
78 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 
 
 " prithee tell, good sentinel, 
 
 If I shall find him here ? 
 I "m come to weep upon his corse, 
 
 Mj Xinety-Second dear ! 
 
 "Into our town a serjeant came 
 
 With ribands all so fine, 
 A-flaunting in his cap — alas ; 
 
 His bow enlisted mine ! 
 
 " They taught him how to turn his toes, 
 And stand as stiif as starch : 
 
 I thought that it was love and May, 
 But it was love and March ! 
 
 " A sorry ^larch indeed to leave 
 The friends he might have kep' — 
 
 No March of Intellect it was, 
 But quite a foolish step. 
 
 " prithee tell, good sentinel, 
 
 If hereabout he lies ? 
 I want a corse with reddish hair, 
 
 And very sweet blue eyes." 
 
 Her sorrow on the sentinel 
 Appeared to deeply strike : — 
 
 "Walk in," he said, "among the dead, 
 And pick out which you like." 
 
 And soon she picked out Peter Stone, 
 
 Half turned into a corse ; 
 A cannon was his bolster, and 
 
 His mattrass was a horse. 
 

 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 7 
 
 " Peter Stone, Peter Stone, 
 
 Lord here has been a scrimmage ! 
 "What have they done to your poor breast 
 
 That used to hold my image?"' 
 
 '■ Patty Head, Patty Head, 
 
 You 're come to my last kissing ; 
 Before I "m set in the Gazette 
 
 As wounded, dead, and missing ! 
 
 " Alas ! a splinter of a shell 
 
 Right in my stomach sticks : 
 French mortars don't agree so well 
 
 With stomachs as French bricks. 
 
 " This very night a merry dance 
 
 At Brussels was to be ; — 
 Instead of oj^ning a ball, 
 
 A ball has opened me. 
 
 •• Its billet every bullet has, 
 
 And well it does fulfil it : — 
 I wish mine hadn't come so straight,^ 
 
 But been a • crooked billet.' 
 
 "And then there came a cuirassier 
 
 And cut me on the chest : — 
 He had no pity in his heart, 
 
 For he had steeled his breast. 
 
 '' Next thing a. lancer, with his lance, 
 
 Began to thrust away : 
 I called for quarter, .but, alas ! 
 
 9 
 
 
 It was not Quarter-day. 
 
 
80 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 
 
 " He ran his spear right through my arm, 
 Just here above the joint ; — 
 
 Patty dear, it was no joke, 
 Although it had a point. 
 
 " With loss of blood I fainted oflF, 
 
 As dead as women do — 
 But soon by charging over me, 
 
 The Coldstream brought me to. 
 
 " With kicks and cuts, and balls and bloTTS, 
 I throb and ache all over ; 
 
 1 'm quite convinced the field of Mars 
 
 Is not a field of clover ! 
 
 " why did I a soldier turn 
 
 For any royal Guelph ? 
 I might have been a butcher, and 
 
 In business for myself ! 
 
 " why did I the bounty take 
 (And here he gasped for breath) 
 
 My shilling's worth of 'list is nailed 
 Upon the door of death ! 
 
 " Without a coffin I shall lie 
 And sleep my sleep eternal : 
 
 Not ev"n a shell — my only chance 
 Of being made a Kernel ! 
 
 " Patty dear, our wedding bella 
 
 Will never ring at Chester ! 
 Here I must lie in Honor's bed. 
 
 That isn't worth a tester ! 
 
THE DUEL. 
 
 81 
 
 " Farewell, my regimental mates, 
 With Avhom I used to dress ! 
 
 My corps is changed, and I am now, 
 In quite another mess. 
 
 " Farewell, my Patty dear, I have 
 
 No dying consolations. 
 Except, when I am dead, you '11 go 
 
 And see th' Illuminations." 
 
 THE DUEL. 
 
 A SERIOUS BALLAD. 
 " Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay." 
 
 In Brentford town, of old renown, 
 
 There lived a Mr. Bray, 
 Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, 
 
 And so did Mr. Clay. 
 
 To see her ride from Hammersmith, 
 
 By all it was allowed. 
 Such fair outsides are seldom seen, 
 
 Such Angels on a Cloud. 
 
 Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, 
 
 You choose to rival me, 
 And court INIiss Bell, but there your court 
 
 No thoroughfare shall be. 
 
 Unless you now give up your suit. 
 
 You may repent your love ; 
 I who have shot a pigeon match, 
 
 Can shoot a turtle dove. 
 
82 THE DUEL. 
 
 So praj before you woo her more, 
 
 Consider what you do ; 
 If you pop aught to Lucy Bell — 
 
 I '11 pop it into you. 
 
 Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, 
 Your threats I quite explode ; 
 
 One who has been a volunteer, 
 Knows how to prime and load. 
 
 And so I say to you unless 
 
 Your passion quiet keeps, 
 I who have shot and hit bulls' eyes, 
 
 ]\Iay chance to hit a sheep's. 
 
 Now gold is oft for silver changed, 
 
 And that for copper red ; 
 But these two Avent away to give 
 
 Each other change for lead. 
 
 But first they sought a friend a-piece. 
 This pleasant thought to give — 
 
 When they were dead, they thus should have 
 Two seconds still to live. 
 
 To measure out the ground not long 
 
 The seconds then forbore. 
 And having taken one rash step 
 
 They took a dozen more. 
 
 They next prepared each pistol-pan 
 
 Against the deadly strife, 
 By putting in the prime of death 
 
 Against the prime of life. 
 
THE DUEL. 
 
 83 
 
 Now all was ready for the foes, 
 But when they took their stands, 
 
 Fear made them tremble so they found 
 They both were shaking hands. 
 
 Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., 
 
 Here one of us may fall, 
 And like St. Paul's Cathedral now, 
 
 Be doomed to have a ball. 
 
 I do confess I did attach 
 
 T^Iisconduct to your name ; 
 If I withdraw the charge, will then 
 
 Your ramrod do the same ? 
 
 Said Mr. B., I do agree — 
 But think of Honor's Courts ! 
 
 If we go off without a shot. 
 There will be strange reports. 
 
 But look, the morning now is bright, 
 
 Though cloudy it begun ; 
 Why can't we aim above, as if 
 
 We had called out the sun ? 
 
 So up into the harmless air. 
 Their bullets they did send ; 
 
 And may all other duels have 
 That upshot in the end ! 
 
84 THE GHOST. 
 
 THE GHOST. 
 
 A YERT SERIOUS BALLAD, 
 " I '11 be your second." — Libton, 
 
 In Middle Row, some years ago, 
 There lived one Mr. Brown ; 
 
 And many folks considered him 
 The stoutest man in town. 
 
 But Brown and stout will both wear out, 
 
 One Friday he died hard, 
 And left a widowed wife to mourn 
 
 At twenty pence a yard. 
 
 Now widow B. in two short months 
 Thought mourning quite a tax. 
 
 And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce, 
 To mamimit her blacks. 
 
 With Mr. Street she soon was sweet ; 
 
 The thing thus came about : 
 She asked him in at home, and then 
 
 At church he asked her out ! 
 
 Assurance such as this the man 
 
 In ashes could not stand ; 
 So like a Phoenix he rose up 
 
 Against the Hand in Hand. 
 
 One dreary night the angry sprite , 
 
 Appeared before our view ; 
 It came a little after one, 
 
 But she was after two ! 
 
THE GHOST. 85 
 
 *' Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B. ! 
 
 Are these jour sorrow's deeds, 
 Already getting up a flame 
 To burn jour widow's weeds ? 
 
 *' It 's not so long since I have left 
 
 For aje the mortal scene ; 
 Mj Memorj — like Rogers's, 
 
 Should still be bound in green ! 
 
 " Yet if mj face jou still retrace 
 
 I almost have a doubt — 
 I 'm like an old Forget-]\Ie-Not 
 
 AVith all the leaves torn out ! 
 
 *' To think that on that finger joint 
 Another pledge should cling ; 
 
 Oh Bess ! upon mj verj soul 
 It struck like ' Knock and Ring.' 
 
 " A ton of marble on mj breast 
 
 Can't hinder mj return ; 
 Your conduct, Ma'am, has set mj blood 
 
 A-boiling in mj urn ! 
 
 "Remember, oh ! remember, how 
 The marriage rite did run — 
 
 If ever we one flesh should be 
 'Tis now — when I have none ! 
 
 "And JOU, sir — once a bosom friend — 
 
 Of perjured faith convict, 
 As ghostlj toe can give no blow, 
 
 Consider jou are kicked. 
 
86 SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT. 
 
 " A hollow voice is all I have, 
 But this I tell you plain, 
 
 Marry come up ! — you marry Ma'am, 
 And I "11 come up again." 
 
 More he had said, but chanticleer 
 The sprightly shade did shock 
 
 With sudden crow, and off he went, 
 Like fowling-piece at cock ! 
 
 SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT; 
 
 OR, JOHN JONT:s'S Kir-CAT-ASTROPHE. 
 
 "He left his horly to the sea. 
 And made a shark his legatee.'' 
 
 Bbvax and Pebennk. 
 
 ■' Oh ! what is that comes gliding in, 
 
 And quite in middling haste ? 
 It is the picture of my Jones, 
 
 And painted to the waist. 
 
 " It is not painted to the life, 
 For where "s the trowsers blue? 
 
 Oh Jones, my dear ! — Oh dear ! my Jones, 
 What is become of you ?"' 
 
 " Oh ! Sally dear, it is too true — 
 
 The half that you remark 
 Is come to say my other half 
 
 Is bit off by a shark ! 
 
 " Oh ! Sally, sharks do things by halves, 
 
 Yet most completely do ! 
 A bite in one place seems enough, 
 
 But I 've been bit in two. 
 
SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT. 
 
 " You kno'R' I once was all your own 
 But now a shark must share ! 
 
 But let that pass — ^for now to you 
 I 'm neither here nor there. 
 
 " Alas ! death has a strange divorce 
 
 Effected in the sea, 
 It has divided me from you, 
 
 And even mo from me ! 
 
 87 
 
 "Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights 
 
 To haunt, as people say ; 
 My ghost can't walk, for, oh ! my legs 
 
 Are many leagues away ! 
 
 " Lord ! think when I am swimming round 
 And looking where the boat is, 
 
 A shark just snaps away a half^ 
 "Without ' a quarter s notice.' 
 
 " One half is here, the other half, 
 
 Is near Columbia placed ; 
 Oh ! Sally, I have got the whole 
 
 Atlantic for my waist. 
 
 " But now, adieu — a long adieu ! 
 
 I 've solved death's awful riddle, 
 And would say more, but I am doomed 
 
 To break off in the middle !" 
 
88 JOHN DAY. 
 
 JOHN DAY. 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
 "A Day after the Fair!" — Old Pbovirb. 
 
 John Day he was the bigcrest man 
 Of all the coachman-kind, 
 
 With back too broad to be conceived 
 By any narrow mind. 
 
 The very horses knew his weight 
 When he was in the rear, 
 
 And wished his box a Christmas-box 
 To come but once a year. 
 
 Alas ! against the shafts of love, 
 
 What armor can avail ? 
 Soon Cupid sent an arrow through 
 
 His scarlet coat of mail. 
 
 The bar-maid of the Crown he loved 
 From whom he never ranged. 
 
 For tho' he changed his horses there, 
 His love he never changed. 
 
 He thought her fairest of all fares, 
 
 So fondly love prefers ; 
 And often, among twelve outsides, 
 
 Deemed no outside like hers. 
 
 One day as she was sitting down 
 Beside the porter-pump — 
 
 He came, and knelt with all his fat, 
 And made an offer plump. 
 
JOHN DAY. 89 
 
 Said she, my taste will never lean 
 
 To like so huge a man, 
 So I must beg you will come here 
 
 As little as you can. 
 
 But still he stoutly urged his suit, 
 
 With vows, and sighs, and tears. 
 Yet could not pierce her heart, although 
 
 He drove the Dart for years. 
 
 In vain he wooed, in vain he sued ; 
 
 The maid was cold and proud. 
 And sent him off to Coventry, 
 
 While on his way to Stroud. 
 
 He fretted all the way to Stroud, 
 
 And thence all back to town, 
 The course of love was never smooth. 
 
 So his Avent up and down. 
 
 At last her coldness made him pine 
 
 To merely bones and skin ; 
 But still he loved like one resolved 
 
 To love through thick and thin. 
 
 Oh Mary, view my wasted back. 
 
 And see my dwindled calf; 
 Tho' I have never had a wife, 
 
 I've lost my better half. 
 
 Alas, in vain he still assailed. 
 
 Her heart withstood the dint ; 
 Though he had carried sixteen stone 
 
 He could not move a flint. 
 
90 pompey's ghost. 
 
 Worn out, at last he made a vow 
 
 To break his being's link ; 
 For he was so reduced in size 
 
 At nothing he could shrink. 
 
 . Now some will talk in water's praise,x 
 And waste a deal of breath, 
 But John, though he drank nothing else- 
 He drank himself to death. 
 
 The cruel maid that caused his love, 
 
 Found out the fatal close. 
 For looking in the butt, she saw, 
 
 The butt-end of his woes. 
 
 Some say his spirit haunts the Crown, 
 
 But that is only talk — 
 For after riding all his life. 
 
 His ghost objects to walk. 
 
 POMPEY'S GHOST. 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
 
 "Skins may diffor, liut affection 
 Dwells in white and black the same." 
 
 COWPEE. 
 
 'TWAS twelve o'clock, not twelve at nigh' 
 
 But twelve o'clock at noon ; 
 Because the sun was shining bright 
 
 And not the silver moon. 
 A proper time for friends to call, 
 
 Or Pots, or Penny Post ; 
 When, lo ! as Phoebe sat at work, 
 
 She saw her Pompey's Ghost ! 
 
pompet's ghost. 
 
 Now when a female has a call 
 
 From people that are dead ; 
 Like Paris ladies, she receives 
 
 Her visiters in bed. 
 But Pompej's spirit would not come 
 
 Like spirits that are white, 
 Because he was a Blackamoor, 
 
 And would n't show at night ! 
 
 But of all unexpected things 
 
 That happen to us here, 
 The most unpleasant is a rise 
 
 In what is verj dear. 
 So Phoebe screamed an awful scream 
 
 To prove the seaman's text ; 
 That after black appearances, 
 
 White squalls will follow next. 
 
 " Oh, Phoebe dear ! oh, Phoebe dear ! 
 
 Don't go to scream or faint; 
 You think because I 'm black I am 
 
 The Devil, but I ain"t ! 
 Behind the heels of Ladj Lambe 
 
 I walked while I had breath ; 
 But that is past, and I am now 
 
 A-walking after Death ! 
 
 "No murder, though, I come to tell 
 
 By base and bloody crime ; 
 So Phoebe dear, put off your fits 
 
 To some more fitting time. 
 No Coroner, like a boatswain's mate, 
 
 My body need attack. 
 With his round dozen to find out 
 
 Why I have died so black. 
 
 91 
 
92 pompey's ghost. 
 
 " One Sunday, shortly after tea, 
 
 My skin began to burn 
 As if I had in my inside 
 
 A heater, like the urn. 
 Delirious in the night I grew, 
 
 And as I lay in bed, 
 They say I gathered all the wool 
 
 You see upon my head. 
 
 " His Lordship for his Doctor sent, 
 
 My treatment to begin ; — 
 I wish that he had called him out, 
 
 Before he called him in ! 
 For though to physic he was bred, 
 
 And passed at Surgeon's Hall, 
 To make his post a sinecure 
 
 He never cured at all ! 
 
 " The Doctor looked about my breast, 
 
 And then about my back, 
 And then he shook his head and said 
 
 'Your case looks very black.' 
 And first he sent me hot cayenne 
 
 And then gamboge to swallow, 
 But still my fever would not turn 
 
 To Scarlet or to Yellow ! 
 
 "With madder and with turmeric. 
 
 He made his next attack ; 
 But neither he nor all his drugs 
 
 Could stop my dying black. 
 At last I got so sick of life, 
 
 And sick of being dosed, 
 One Monday morning I gave up 
 
 My physic and the ghost ! 
 
pompey's ghost. ^3 
 
 " Oh, Phoebe, dear, what pain it was 
 
 To sever every tie ! 
 You know black beetles feel as much 
 
 As giants when they die. 
 And if there is a bridal bed, 
 
 Or bride of little worth, 
 It 's lying in a bed of mould. 
 
 Along with Mother Earth. 
 
 "Alas; some happy, happy day, 
 
 In church I hoped to stand, 
 And like a muff of sable skin 
 
 Receive your lily hand. 
 But sternly with that piebald match, 
 
 ]My fate untimely clashes, 
 For now, like Pompe-double-i, 
 
 I 'm sleeping in my ashes ! 
 
 " And now farewell ! a last farewell ! 
 
 I 'm wanted down below, 
 And have but time enough to add 
 
 One word before I go — 
 In mourning crape and bombazine 
 
 Ne'er spend your precious pelf — 
 Don't go in black for me — for I 
 
 Can do it for myself. 
 
 " Henceforth within my grave I rest, 
 
 But Death wlio there inherits, 
 Allowed my spirit leave to come. 
 
 You seemed so out of spirits : 
 But do not sigh, and do not cry. 
 
 By grief too much engrossed. 
 Nor for a ghost of color, turn 
 
 The color of a ghost ! 
 
94 pompey's ghost. 
 
 " Again, farewell, my Phoebe dear ! 
 
 Once more a last adieu ! 
 For I must make myself as scarce 
 
 As swans of sable hue." 
 From black to gray, from gray to nought, 
 
 The shape began to fade — 
 And, like an egg, though not so white, 
 
 The Ghost was newly laid ! 
 
ODESs 
 
 TO DIVERS PERSONS AND FOR SUNDRY OCCASIONS. 
 
ODES. 
 
 ODE TO M. BRUXEL.' 
 
 " '^ell said, old Mole ! canst work i' the dark so fast ? a -svorthy pioneer ! — Hamt.'KT. 
 
 Well ! Monsieur Brunei, 
 
 Ho-vr prospers now tliy mightj undertaking, 
 To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends 
 Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping — 
 
 Never be stopping, 
 But poking, groping, in the dark keep making 
 An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons, 
 For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons 
 To cross the water in inverse proportion. 
 Walk under steam-boats imder the keel's ridge, 
 To keep down all extortion, 
 And without sculls to diddle London Bridge ! 
 In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry, 
 Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow, 
 Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey, 
 
 To give us the " View hollow." 
 In short it was thy aim, right north and south, 
 To put a pipe into old Thames's mouth ; 
 Alas ! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when 
 Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof, 
 
 5 
 
5 ODE TO M. BRUXEL. 
 
 Came, like "a tide in the afiairs of men;" 
 And with a mighty stormy kind of roar, 
 Reproachful of thy wrong, 
 Burst out in that old song 
 Of Incledon's, beginning " Cease, rude Bore*' — 
 Sad is it, worthy of one's tears, 
 
 Just when one seems the most successful, 
 To find one's self o'er head and ears 
 
 In difiiculties most distressful ! 
 Other great speculations have been nursed 
 
 Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf; 
 But thy concern was at the worst 
 
 When it began to liquidate itself ! 
 But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden, 
 And languishes thy Tunnel — so to paint — 
 Under a slow, incurable complaint, 
 
 Bed-ridden ! 
 Why, when thus Thames — bed-bothered — why repine ! 
 Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine ! 
 Yet let none think thee dazed, or crazed, or stupid ; 
 
 And sunk beneath thy own and Thames's craft ; 
 Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid 
 
 Pining and pouting o'er a broken shaft ! 
 I '11 tell thee with thy tunnel what to do; 
 Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two, 
 The wine does better than such water trades ; 
 
 Stick up a sign — the sign of the Bore's Head ; 
 
 I 've drawn it ready for thee in black lead. 
 And make thy cellar subterrane — Thy Shades ! 
 
ODE FOR THE REMOVAL OP SMITHFIELD MARKET. 09 
 
 ODE 
 
 TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REilOVAL OF SMITHFIELD MARKET. "•' 
 "Sweeping our flocks and herds." — Douglas. 
 
 PHILANTHROPIC men ! — 
 
 For this address I need not make apology — 
 
 Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen, 
 
 And planting further off its vile Zoology — ■ 
 
 Permit me thus to tell, 
 
 1 like your efforts well, 
 
 For routing that great nest of Hornithology ! 
 
 Be not dismayed, although repulsed at first. 
 And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts, 
 Charge on i — you shall upon their horn- works burst. 
 And carry all their ij«^/-warks and their i2a?/^-parts. 
 
 Go on, ye wholesale drovers ! 
 And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds ! 
 
 As wild as Tartar-Curds, 
 That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers. 
 Off with them all ! — those restive brutes, that vex 
 Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle ; 
 
 And save the female sex 
 From being cowed — like lo — by the cattle ! 
 
 Fancy — when droves appear on 
 The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top — 
 Your ladies — ready, as they own, to drop. 
 Taking themselves to Thomson's with a Fear-on! 
 
 Or, in St. Martin's Lane, 
 Scared by a Bullock, in a frisky vein — 
 Fancy the terror of your timid daughters, 
 
 While rushing souse 
 
 Into a coffee-house, 
 To find it— Slaughter's ! 
 
lOO ode for the removal of 
 
 Or fancy this : — 
 Walking along the street, some stranger Miss, 
 Her head \viLh no such thouojht of danger laden, 
 When suddenly "tis "Aries Taurus Virgo !" — 
 You don't know Latin, I translate it ergo, 
 Into your Areas a Bull throws the ]\Iaiden ! 
 
 Think of some poor old crone 
 Treated, just like a penny, with a toss ! 
 
 At that vile spot now grown 
 
 So generally known 
 For making a Cow Cross ! 
 
 Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall, 
 Or shed, or shop — and that an Ox infuriate 
 
 Just pins you to the wall, 
 Giving you a strong dose of Oxy-Muriate ! 
 
 Methinks I hear the neighbors that live round 
 
 The Market-ground 
 Thus make appeal unto their civic fellows — 
 '"Tis well for you that live apart — unable 
 
 To hear this brutal Babel, 
 But OMV firesides are troubled with their bellows.'^ 
 
 " Folks that too freely sup 
 
 Must e'en put up 
 With their own troubles if they can"t digest; 
 
 But we must needs regard 
 
 The case as hard 
 That others' victuals should disturb our rest, 
 That from our sleep your food should start and jump us 
 
 We like, ourselves, a steak. 
 
 But, Sirs, for pity's sake ! 
 We don't want oxen at our doors to rump-us ! 
 
SMITHFIELD MARKET. 101 
 
 If we do doze — it really is too l^ad ! 
 
 We constantly are roared awake or rung, 
 
 Through bullocks mad 
 That run in all the ' Night Thoughts' of our Young !" 
 
 Such are the woes of sleepers — now let 's take 
 The woes of those that wish to keep a Wake ! 
 Oh think ! when Wombwell gives his annual feasts, 
 Think of these '-Bulls of Basan' for from mild ones; 
 
 Such fierce tame beasts, 
 That nobod/ much cares to see the Wild ones ! 
 
 Think of the Show woman " what shows a Dwarf," 
 
 Seeing a red Cow come 
 
 To swallow her Tom Thumb, 
 And forced with broom of birch to keep her off! 
 
 Think, too, of Messrs. Richai'dson and Co., 
 When looking at their public private boxes, 
 
 To see in the back row 
 Three live sheep's heads, a porker's, and an Ox's ! 
 Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come 
 Through, to accompany the double drum ! 
 
 Or, in the midst of murder and remorses, 
 
 Just when the Ghost is certain, 
 
 A great rent in the curtain. 
 And enter two tall skeletons — of Horses ! 
 
 Great Philanthropies ! pray urge these topics ! 
 Upon the Solemn Councils of the Nation, 
 Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon. 
 The Bulls, a Bull of Excommunication ! 
 
 Let the old Fair have fiir-play as its right, 
 And to each show and sight 
 
102 
 
 ODE TO THE CA::I; 
 
 vV.J). 
 
 Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude, 
 To Richardson's Stage Dramas, 
 Dio — and Cosmo — ramas, 
 Giants and Indians wild, 
 Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child, 
 
 And that most rare of Shows — a Show of Gratitude ! 
 
 ODE TO THE CA^IELOPAEQ. 
 
 Welcome to Freedom's birthplace — ^and a den ! 
 
 Great Anti-climax, hail ! 
 So very lofty in thy front — but then 
 
 So dwindling at the tail ! — 
 In truth, thou hast the most unequal legs ! 
 Has one pair gallopped, whilst the other trotted, 
 Along Avith other brethren, leopard-spotted, 
 O'er Afric sand, where ostriches lay eggs ? 
 Sure thou wert causjht in some hard up-hill chase, 
 Those hinder heels still keeping thee in check ! 
 
 And yet thou seem'st prepared in any case, 
 
 Tho" they had lost the race, 
 To win it by a neck ! 
 
 That lengthy neck — how like a crane's it looks I 
 
 Art thou the overseer of all the brutes ? 
 
 Or dost thou browse on tip-top leaves or fruits — 
 
 Or go a-birdnesting among the rooks ? 
 
 How kindly nature caters for all wants ; 
 
 Thus givincr unto thee a neck that stretches, 
 
 And high food fetches — 
 To some a long nose, like the elephant's ! 
 
ODK TO THE CAJIELOPARD. 
 
 103 
 
 Oh ! Imdst tliou any organ to tliy bellows, 
 To turn thy breath to speech in human style. 
 
 What secrets thou mightst tell us, 
 Where now our scientific guesses fail ; 
 
 For instance, of the Nile, 
 Whether those Seven Mouths have any tail — 
 
 Mayhap thy luck too. 
 From that high head, as from a lofty hill, 
 Has let thee see the marvellous Timbuctoo — 
 Or drink of Niger at its infant rill ; 
 What were the travels of our Major Denham, 
 
 Or Clapperton to thine 
 
 In that same line, 
 If thou couldst only squat thee down and pen 'em ! 
 
 Strange sights, indeed, thou must have overlooked, 
 With eyes held ever in such vantage-stations ! 
 Hast seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cooked, 
 And then made free of negro corporations ! 
 Poor wretches saved from cast-away thrce-deckers- 
 
 By sooty wreckers — 
 From hungry waves to have a loss still drearier, 
 To far exceed the utmost aim of Park ! 
 And find themselves, alas ! beyond the mark, 
 In the insides of Africa's Interior ! 
 
 Live on, Giraffe 1 genteelest of raff kind ! 
 Admired by noble, and by royal tongues ! 
 
 May no pernicious wind, 
 Or English fog, blight thy exotic lungs ! 
 Live on in happy peace, altho' a rarity. 
 Nor envy thy poor cousin's more outrageous 
 
 Parisian popularity ; — »♦-• 
 
 Whose very leopard-rash is grown contagious, 
 
 « 
 
104 ODE TO DR. HAHXEMANN. 
 
 And worn on gloves and ribbons all about, 
 
 Alas ! the J "11 wear him out ! — 
 So thou shalt take thj sweet diurnal feeds — 
 When he is stuflfed with undigested straw, 
 Sad food that never visited his jaw ! 
 And staring round him with a brace of beads ! 
 
 ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN, THE HOMCEOPATHIST. 
 
 Well, Doctor, 
 Great concoctor 
 
 Of medicines to help in man's distress ; 
 Diluting down the strong to meek. 
 And making ev'n the weak more weak, 
 
 " Fine by degrees, and beautifully less" — 
 Founder of a new system economic. 
 To druggists any thing but comic ; 
 
 Framed the whole race of Ollapods to fret, 
 
 At profits, like thy doses, very small ; 
 
 To put all Doctors' Boys in evil case. 
 
 Thrown out of bread, of physic, and of place — 
 
 And show us old Apothecaries' Hall 
 " To Let." 
 
 How fare thy Patients ? are they dead or living, 
 Or, well as can expected be, with such 
 A style of practice, liberally giving 
 
 " A sum of more to that which had too much?" 
 
 Dost thou preserv^e the human frame, or turf it ? 
 
 Do thorough draughts cure thorough colds or not ? 
 Do fevers yield to any thing that 's hot ? 
 
 Or hearty dinners neutralize a surfeit ? 
 
ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 105 
 
 Is "t good advicG for gastronomic ills, 
 When Indigestion's face with pain is crumpling, 
 To cry, " Discard those Peristaltic Pills, 
 Take a hard dumpling?" 
 
 Tell me, thou German Cousin, 
 And tell me honestly without a diddle, 
 Does an attenuated dose of rosin 
 Act as a tonic on the old Scotch fiddle? 
 Tell me, when Anhalt-Coethen babies wriggle, 
 
 Like eels just caught by sniggle, 
 ]SIdrtyrs to some acidity internal. 
 
 That gives them pangs infernal. 
 Meanwhile the lip grows black, the eye enlarges ; 
 Say, comes there all at once a cherub-calm. 
 Thanks to that soothing homoeopathic balm. 
 The half of half, of half, a drop of '' vargesf 
 
 Suppose, for instance, upon Leipzig's plain, 
 A soldier pillowed on a heap of slain, 
 In urgent Avant both of a priest and proctor ; 
 When lo ! there comes a man m green and red, 
 A featherless cocked-hat adorns his head, 
 In short, a Saxon military doctor — 
 Would he, indeed, on the right treatment fix, 
 To cure a horrid gaping wound, 
 Made by a ball that weighed a pound, 
 If he well peppered it with number six ? 
 
 Suppose a felon doomed to swing 
 
 Within a rope^ 
 
 Might friends not hope 
 To cm'c him with a string? 
 
106 ODE TO DE. HAHXEMAXX. 
 
 Suppose his breath arrived at a full stop, 
 The shades of death in a black cloud before him. 
 Would a quintillionth dose of the Xew Drop 
 Restore him ? 
 
 Fancy a man gone rabid from a bite, 
 
 Snapping to left and right, 
 And giving tongue like one of Sebright's hounds. 
 
 Terrific sounds, 
 The pallid neighborhood with horror cowing. 
 To hit the proper homoeopathic mark ; 
 KoW; might not ■• the last taste in life" o^hnrk^ 
 
 Stop his bovj-wow-ing ? 
 Nay, with a well-known remedy to fit him, 
 "Would he not mend, if, with all proper care, 
 
 He took ■■ a hair 
 Of the dog that bit him?' 
 
 Picture a man — we "11 say a Dutch Meinheer — 
 
 In evident emotion. 
 Bent o'er the bulwark of the Bata\aer, 
 
 Owning those symptoms queer — 
 Some feel in a Sick Trajisit o'er the ocean, 
 Can any thing in life be more pathetic 
 Than when he turns to us his wretched face ? — 
 
 But would it mend his case 
 
 To be decillionth-dosed 
 
 With something like the ghost 
 Of an emetic? 
 
 Lo ! now a darkened room ! 
 
 Look through the dreary gloom, 
 And see that coverlet of wildest form, 
 Tost like the billows in a storm, 
 
ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 
 
 Where ever and anon, witli groans, emerges 
 
 A ghastly head ! — 
 While U'O impatient arms still beat the bed, 
 Like a strong swimmcr^s struggling with the surges 
 There Life and Death are on their 1)attle-plain, 
 With many a mortal ecstasy of pain — 
 What shall support the body in its trial, 
 Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin, 
 And tame the raging Malady withm— 
 A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial ? 
 
 Oh ! Doctor Hahnemann, if hero I laugh 
 
 And cry together, half and half. 
 Excuse me, 'tis a mood the subject brings, 
 To think, whilst I have crowed like chanticleer, 
 Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear 
 Hath gushed with my light levity at schism, 
 To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism : 
 Perchance, upon thy system, I have given 
 A pang, superfluous, to the pains of Sorrow, 
 Who weeps with Memory from morn till even ; 
 Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow. 
 
 Sighing to one sad strain, 
 
 " She will not come again. 
 To-morrow, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow !" 
 
 Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe 
 A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe, 
 Inserting a few serious words by stealth ; 
 
 Above all price of wealth 
 The Bodys Jewel— not for minds profane, 
 Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain- 
 Like to a Wo?7ian's Virtue is Mans Health. 
 
 107 
 
108 ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 
 
 A heavenly gift within a holy shi^ine ! 
 To be approached and touched with serious fear ^ 
 By hands Tnadepiwe^ and hearts of faith severe^ 
 Ev^n as the Priesthood of the ONE divine ! 
 
 But, zounds ! each fellow with a suit of black, 
 
 And, strange to fame, 
 
 With a diploma' d name. 
 That carries two more letters pick-a-back. 
 With cane, and snuffbox, powdered wig, and block. 
 Invents his dose, as if it were a chrism, 
 And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism 
 Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock ; 
 Yet, how would common sense esteem the man, 
 Oh how, mj unrelated German cousin, 
 Who having some such time-keeper on trial, 
 And finding it too fist, enforced the dial. 
 To strike upon the Homoeopathic plan 
 
 Of fourteen to the dozen ? 
 
 Take my advice, 'tis given without a fee. 
 
 Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep, 
 
 Like Prospero's, beneath the briny sea, 
 
 For spells of magic have all gone to sleep ! 
 
 Leave no decillionth fragment of your works 
 
 To help the interest of quacking Burkes ; 
 
 Aid not in murdering even widows' mites — 
 
 And now forgive me for my candid zeal, 
 
 I had not said so much, but that I feel 
 
 Should you take ill what here my Muse indites. 
 
 An Ode-ling more will set you all to rights. 
 
ODE FOR ST. CECILIA S EVE. 
 
 109 
 
 ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE.' 
 
 "Look out for sqnalis." — The Pilot. 
 
 COME, dear Barney Isaacs, come, 
 Punch for one night can spare his drum 
 
 As well as pipes of Pan ! 
 Forget not, Popkins, your bassoon. 
 Nor, Mister Bray, your horn, as soon 
 
 As you can leave the Van ; 
 Blind Billy, bring your violin ; 
 Miss Crow, you 're great in Cherry Ripe ! 
 And Chubb, your viol must drop in 
 Its bass to Soger Tommy's pipe. 
 
 Ye butchers, bring your bones : 
 An organ would not be amiss ; 
 If grinding Jim has spouted his. 
 
 Lend your's, good Mister Jones. 
 Do, hurdy-gurdy Jenny — do 
 Keep sober for an hour or. two, 
 Music's charms to help to paint 
 And, Sandy Gray, if you should not 
 Your bagpipes bring — tuneful Scot ! 
 Conceive the feelings of the Saint ! 
 
 Miss Strummel issues an in\4te. 
 
 For music, and turn-out to night 
 
 In honor of Cecilia's session ; 
 
 But ere you go, one moment stop, 
 
 And with all kindness let me drop 
 
 A hint to you and your profession. 
 
 Imprimis then : Pray keep within 
 
 The bounds to which your skill was bom : 
 
110 ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'.] EVE. 
 
 Let the one-banded let alone Troinbonej 
 Don't — Rheumatiz ! seize the violin, 
 
 Or Ashmy snatch the horn ! 
 
 Don't ever to such rows give birth, 
 
 As if jou had no end on earth 
 
 Except to " wake the lyre ;" 
 
 Don't " strike the harp," praj never do, 
 
 Till others long to strike it too, 
 
 Perpetual harping's apt to tire ; 
 
 Oh I have heard such flat-and-sharpers, 
 I *ve blest the head 
 Of good King Ned, 
 
 For scragging all those old Welsh Harpers ! 
 
 Pray, never, ere each tuneful doing, 
 Take a prodigious deal of wooing ; 
 And then sit down to thrum the strain, 
 As if you 'd never rise again — 
 The least Cecilia-like of things : 
 Remember that the Saint lias wings. 
 I've known Miss Stnimmel pause an hour, 
 Ere she could " Pluck the Fairest Flower," 
 Yet without hesitation, she 
 Plunged next into the '• Deep, Deep Sea," 
 And when on the keys she docs begin. 
 Such awful torments soon you share, 
 She really seems like Milton's '• Sin," 
 Holding the keys of — you know where ! 
 
 Never tweak people's ears so toughly, 
 That urchin-like they can't help saying — 
 ' ' dear ! dear — you call this playing, 
 But oh, it 's playing very roughly !" 
 Oft, in the ecstacy of pain, 
 
ODE TOW ST. Cecilia's eve. Ill 
 
 I • ve cursed :ill instrumental -svorkmcn, 
 V'l'isbed Broiulwood Tliurtelled iu a lane. 
 And Kirke Whites fate to every Kirkman — 
 I real 1 J once delighted spied 
 " Clementi Collard' in Cheapside. 
 
 Another word — don't be surprised, 
 Revered and ragged street Musicians, 
 You have been only half-baptised, 
 And each name proper, or improper. 
 Is not the value of a copper, 
 Till it has had the due additions, 
 Husky, Rusky, 
 Ninny, Tinny, 
 Hummel. Bummel, 
 Bowski. AVowski, 
 All these are very good selectables ; 
 But none of your plain pudding-and-tames — 
 Folks that are called the hardest names 
 Are music's most respectables. 
 Ev'ry woman, ev'ry man. 
 Look as foreign as you can, 
 Don't cut your hair, or wash your skin, 
 ]\Iake ugly faces and begin. 
 
 Each Dingy Orpheus gravely hears, 
 And now to show they understand it ! 
 Miss Crow her scrannel throttle clears, 
 And all the rest prepare to band it. 
 Each scraper ripe for concertante, 
 Rozins the hair of Rozinantc : 
 Then all sound A, if they know which, 
 That they may join like birds in June : 
 Jack Tar alone neglects to tunc, 
 For he 's all over concert-pitch. 
 
112 ODE roil ST. Cecilia's eve. 
 
 A little prelude goes before. 
 
 Like a knock and ring at music's door. 
 
 Each instrument gives in its name ; 
 
 Then sitting in 
 
 They all begin 
 To play a musical round game. 
 Scrapenberg, as the eldest hand, 
 Leads a first fiddle to the band, 
 
 A second follows suit ; 
 Anon the ace of Horns comes plump 
 On the tYTO fiddles with a trump ; 
 
 Puffindorf plays a flute. 
 This sort of musical revoke. 
 The grave bassoon begins to smoke, 
 And in rather grumpy kind 
 Of tone begins to speak its mind ; 
 The double drum is next to mix, 
 Playing the Devil on Two Sticks — 
 
 Clamor, clamor, 
 
 Hammer, hammer, 
 While now and then a pipe is heard, 
 Insisting to put in a word 
 
 "With all his shrilly best ; 
 So to allow the little minion 
 Time to deliver his opinion, 
 They take a few bars rest. 
 
 Well, little Pipe begins — with sole 
 And small voice going thro' the hole, 
 
 Beseeching. 
 
 Preaching, 
 
 Squealing, 
 
 Appealing, 
 
ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE. 
 
 113 
 
 Now as high as he can go, 
 
 Now in language rather low, 
 
 And having done — begins once more, 
 
 Verbatim what he said before. 
 
 This twiddling-twaddling sets on fire 
 
 All the old instrumental ire, 
 
 And fiddles, for explosion ripe, 
 
 Put out the little squeaker's pipe ; 
 
 This wakes bass viol — and viol for that 
 
 Seizing on innocent little E flat, 
 
 Shakes it like terrier shaking a rat — 
 
 They all seem miching malico ! 
 To judge from a rumble unawares, 
 The drum has had a pitch down stairs ; 
 And the trumpet rash. 
 By a violent crash, 
 Seems splitting somebody's calico ! 
 The viol too groans in deep distress, 
 As if he suddenly grew sick ; 
 And one rapid fiddle sets ofi" express — 
 
 Hurrying, 
 
 Scurrying, 
 
 Spattering, 
 
 Clattering, 
 To fetch him a Doctor of Music. 
 This tumult sets the Haut-boy crying 
 Beyond the Piano's pacifying, 
 
 The cymbal 
 
 Gets nimble. 
 
 Triangle 
 
 Must wrangle, 
 The band is becoming most martial of bands, 
 
114 ODE TO ST. CECILIA S EYE. 
 
 When just in the middle, 
 A quakerlj fiddle, 
 Proposes a general shaking of hands ! 
 Quaking, 
 Shaking, 
 Quivering, 
 Shivering, 
 Loner bow — short bovr — each bo-^ drawing : 
 
 Some like filing — some like sawing ; 
 At last these agitations cease, 
 And they all get 
 The flageolet, 
 To breathe '• a piping time of peace." 
 
 Ah, too deceitful charm. 
 Like lightning before death, 
 For Scrapenberg to rest his arm, 
 And Puffindorf get breath ! 
 Again without remorse or pity, 
 They play " The Storming of a City," 
 Miss S. herself composed and planned it — 
 When lo ! at this renewed attack. 
 Up jumps a little man in black — 
 " The very De-\nl cannot stand it !" 
 
 And with that, 
 
 Snatching hat, 
 
 (Not his own.) 
 
 Ofi" is flown, 
 
 Thro' the door, 
 
 In his black, 
 
 To come back, 
 Never, never, never, more ! 
 
ODE TO MADAME HEXGLER. 
 
 Oh Music ! praises thou hast had, 
 From Drjden and from Pope, 
 
 For thy good notes, jet none I hope, 
 But I. e'er praised the bad. 
 
 Yet are not saint and sinner even ? 
 
 Miss Strummel on Cecilia's level ? 
 
 One drew an anojel dovrn from heaven ! 
 
 The other scared away the Devil ! 
 
 115 
 
 ODE TO MADAI^IE HEXGLER, 
 
 FIEEWORK-IIAKER TO VAUXH-Ui. 
 
 Oh, Mrs. Hengler ! — ^Madame — I beg pardon, 
 Starry Enchantress of the Surrey Garden ! 
 Accept an Ode not meant as any scoff — 
 The Bard were bold indeed at thee to quiz, 
 Whose scj^uibs are far more popular than his ; 
 "WTiose works are much more certain to go off. 
 
 Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame ; 
 With many a bang the public ear it courts; 
 And yet thy arrogance we never blame. 
 But take thy merits from thy own reports. 
 Thou hast indeed the most uidulgent backers, 
 We make no doubtmg, nlisbelie^^ng comments, 
 Even in thy most bounceable of moments ; 
 But lend our ears implicit to thy crackers ! — 
 Strange helps to thy applause too arc not missing, 
 
 Thy Rockets raise thee, 
 
 And Serpents praise thee, 
 As none beside are ever praised — ^by hissing ! 
 
116 ODE TO MADAME HENGLEK. 
 
 Mistress of Hydropyrics, 
 Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics, 
 Professor of a Fiery Necromancy, 
 Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts 
 
 With midnight sports. 
 Partaking very much of flash and fancy ! 
 
 What thoughts had shaken all 
 In olden time at thy nocturnal revels — 
 
 Each brimstone ball 
 They would have deemed an eyeball of the Devil's ! 
 But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright ; 
 A modern Hubert to the royal ear. 
 Might whisper without fear, 
 " My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night !" 
 Nor would it raise one superstitious notion 
 To hear the whole description fairly out : — 
 " One fixed — which t'other four whirled round about 
 With wond'rous motion." 
 
 Such are the very sights 
 Thou workest, Queen of Eire, on earth and heaven, 
 Between the hours of midnight and eleven, 
 Turning our English to Arabian Nights, 
 With blazitg mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons. 
 
 Blue stars and white, 
 
 And bloou-red light. 
 And dazzling YvTieels fit for Enchanters" wagons. 
 Thrice lucky woman ! doing things that be 
 With other folks past benefit of parson ; 
 For burning, no Burn's Justice falls on thee, 
 Altho' night after night the public see 
 Thy Yauxhall palaces all end in Ai'son ! 
 
ODE TO MADAME HENGLER. 117 
 
 Sure thou wast never born 
 Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head, 
 
 Nor lectured night and morn 
 Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread, 
 Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire 
 
 To plaj with fire. 
 didst thou never, in those days gone by. 
 Go carrying about — no schoolboy prouder — 
 Instead of waxen doll a little Guy ; 
 Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein, 
 Up the parental pigtail lay a train. 
 
 To let off all his powder ! 
 
 Full of the wildfire of thy youth, 
 
 Did'st never in plain truth, 
 Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother's pots, 
 Turning the garden into powder plots ? 
 
 Or give the cook, to fright her, 
 Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre ? 
 Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping 
 A lighted cracker by thy sister's Dear, 
 
 So that she could not hear 
 
 The question he was popping ? 
 
 Go on, Madame ! Go on — be bright and busy 
 While hoaxed Astronomers look up and stare 
 From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy, 
 To see a Squib in Cassiopeia's Chair ! 
 A Serpent wriggling into Charles's Wain ! 
 A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear ! 
 A Rocket tangled in Diana's train, 
 And Crackers stuck in Berenice's Hair ! 
 
=q 
 
 118 ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 
 
 There is a King of Fire — Thou shouldst be Queen ! 
 Methinks a good connection might come from it • 
 Could' st thou not make him, in the garden scene, 
 Set oiit per Rocket and return per Comet ; 
 
 Then give him a hot treat 
 Of Pjrotechnicals to sit and sup, 
 Lord ! liow the world would throng to see him eat, 
 He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up ! 
 
 One solitary night — true is the story, 
 Watching those forms that Fancy will create 
 Within the bright confusion of the grate, 
 I saAY a dazzling countenance of glory ! 
 
 Oh Dei gratias ! 
 
 That fiery facias 
 'T was thine. Enchantress of the Sui'rey Grove ; 
 
 And ever since that night, 
 
 In dark and bright, 
 Thy face is registered within my stove ! 
 
 Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays 
 May no untimely blow its doom forestall ; 
 But when old age prepares the friendly pall, 
 When the last spark of all thy sparks decays, 
 Then die lamented by good people all. 
 
 Like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize ! 
 
 ODE TO MR. :MALTHUS.* 
 
 Mt dear, do pull the bell, 
 And pull it well. 
 And send those noisy children all up stairs, 
 Now playing here like bears — 
 
ODE TO MR. MALTIIU; 
 
 110 
 
 You George, aiid William, go into tlie grounds, 
 
 Charles, James, and Bob ai-e there — and take jour string, 
 
 Drive horses, or fly kites, or any thing. , 
 You "re quite enough to play at hare and hounds — 
 You little May, and Caroline, and Poll, 
 
 Take each your doll, 
 And go, my dears, into the two-back pair, 
 Your sister Margaret "s there — 
 Harriet and Grace, thank God. are both at school, 
 At for off Ponty Pool— 
 I want to read, but really can't go on — 
 Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew. Luke, and John, 
 Go — to their nursery — go — I never can 
 Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan ! 
 
 Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree 
 Li every thing I read with thee ! 
 The world's too full, there is no doubt, 
 And wants a deal of thinning out — 
 It's plain — as plain as Harrow's Steeple — 
 And I agree with some thus far, 
 "VMio say the Queen's too popular, 
 That is — she has too many people. 
 There are too many of all trades. 
 Too many bakers, 
 Too many every-thing makers, 
 But not too many undertakers — 
 
 Too many boys — 
 
 Too many hobby-de-hoys — 
 
 Too many girls, men, widows, wives, and maids — 
 
 There is a dreadful surplus to demolish. 
 
 And yet some Wrongheads. 
 
 With thick not loner heads, 
 
120 ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 
 
 Poor metaphysicians ! 
 Sign petitions 
 Capital punishment to abolish ; 
 And in the face of censuses, such vast ones, 
 New hospitals contrive, 
 For keeping life alive, 
 Laying first stones, the dolts ! instead of last ones !- 
 Others, again, in the same contrariety, 
 Deem that of all Humane Society 
 
 They really deserve thanks. 
 Because the two banks of the Serpentine, 
 By their design, 
 Are Saving Banks. 
 Oh ! were it given but to me to weed 
 The human breed, 
 And root out here and there some cumbering elf, 
 I think I could so through it. 
 And really do it 
 With profit to the world and to myself — 
 For instance, the unkind among the Editors, 
 My debtors, those I mean to sav 
 Who cannot or who will not pay, 
 
 And all my creditors, 
 These, for my own sake, I 'd destroy ; 
 But for the world's, and every one's, 
 I *d hoe up Mrs. G — "s two sons, 
 And ISIi-s. B — 's big Kttle boy. 
 Called only by herself an "only joy." 
 As Mr. L'ving's chapel "s not too full, 
 Himself alone I 'd pull — 
 But for the peace of years that have to run, 
 I 'd make the Lord ^Mayor's a perpetual station, 
 And put a period to rotation. 
 
ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 
 
 Bj rooting up all xVldermen but one — 
 These are but hints -what good might thus be done 
 But ah ! I fear the public good 
 Is little by the public understood — 
 For instance — if with flint, and steel, and tinder, 
 Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man, 
 Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan, 
 No doubt some busy fool would hinder 
 His burninci; all the Foundlino; to a cinder. 
 
 Or. if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday, 
 
 That wine and bun-da}^. 
 Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats, 
 Before they died by bit or sup, 
 Some meddling Marplot would blow up. 
 
 Just at the moment critical. 
 
 The economy political 
 Of saving their fi-esh yellow plush and new coats. 
 
 121 
 
 Equally "t would be undone, 
 Suppose the Bishop of London, 
 On that great day 
 Li June or May, 
 When all the lai-ge small family of charity, 
 
 Brown, black, or carrotty, 
 Walk in their dusty parish shoes, 
 In too, too many two-and-twos, 
 To sing together till they scare the walls 
 
 Of old St. Paul's, 
 Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white, 
 Some say a gratifying sight, 
 Tho' I think sad — ^but that 's a schism — 
 To witness so much pauperism — 
 C 
 
122 
 
 ODE TO ST. SAYITHIN. 
 
 Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make 
 In this poor overcrowded world more room, 
 
 Proposed to shake 
 Down that immense extinguisher, the dome — 
 Some humane Martin in the charity Gal-waj 
 
 I fear would come and interfere. 
 
 Save beadle, brat, and overseer, 
 
 To walk back in their parish shoes, 
 
 In too, too many two-and-twos, 
 Islington — Wapping — or Pall Mall way ! 
 
 Thus, people hatched from goose's egg, 
 
 Foolishly think a pest a plague. 
 
 And in its face their doors all shut, 
 
 On hmges oiled with cajeput — 
 
 Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven, 
 
 And turning pale as linen rags 
 
 At hoisting up of yellow flags. 
 While you and I are crying '• Orange Boven !" 
 Why should we let precautions so absorb us. 
 Or trouble shipping with a quarantine — 
 When if I understand the thing you mean, 
 We ought to import the Cholera Morbus ! 
 
 ODE TO ST. SWITHm.* 
 
 "The rain it raineth every day." 
 
 The Dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, 
 On ev'ry window -frame hang beaded damps 
 Like rows of small illumination lamps. 
 To celebrate the Jubilee of Showers ! 
 
ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 123 
 
 A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves, 
 The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers, 
 
 And from the Houses' eaves 
 
 Tumble eaves-droppers. 
 
 The hundred clerks that live along the street, 
 Bondsmen to mercantile and city schemers. 
 With squashing, sloshing, and galloshing feet, 
 Go paddling, paddling through the wet, like steamers, 
 Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend — 
 Umbrellas pass of every shade of green, 
 And now and then a crimson one is seen, 
 Like an Umbrella ripened. 
 
 Over the way a wagon 
 Stands with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking, 
 
 While in the George and Dragon 
 The man is keeping himself dry — and drinking ! 
 The Butcher's boy skulks underneath his tray. 
 
 Hats shine — shoes don't — and down droop collars, 
 And one blue Parasol cries all the way 
 
 To school, in company with four small scholars ! 
 
 Unhappy is the man to-day who rides, 
 Making his journey sloppier, not shorter ; 
 Ay, there they go, a dozen of outsides, 
 Performing on " a Stage with real water !" 
 A dripping Pauper crawls along the way, 
 
 The only real willing out-of-doorer. 
 
 And says, or seems to say, 
 " Well, I am poor enough — but here 's a jiourer V 
 
 The scene in water colors thus I paint, 
 Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint 
 
124 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 
 
 Mother of all the Family of Ramers ! 
 
 Saint of the Soakers ! 
 
 Making all people croakers, 
 Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers ! 
 And why you mizzle forty days together, 
 Giving the earth your water-soup to sup, 
 I marvel — Why such wet, mysterious weather ? 
 
 I wish you 'd clear it up ! 
 
 Why cast such cruel dampers 
 On pretty Pic Nics, and against all wishes 
 Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers, 
 And volunteer, unasked, to wash the dishes ? 
 Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot, 
 
 To cling like lady-l)irds around a tree — 
 
 Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea, 
 By throwing your cold water upon hot ? 
 
 Cannot a rural maiden, or a man, 
 
 Seek Hornsey-Wood by in\atation. sipping 
 
 Their green with Pan, 
 But souse you come, and show their Pan all dripping ! 
 Why upon snow-white table-cloths and sheets, 
 That do not wait or want a second washincr, 
 
 Come squashing ? 
 Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets, 
 As if there were no Water- Cart contractors. 
 No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys ruddy 
 
 Spooning out puddles muddy, 
 Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors ! 
 
 A Queen you are, raining in your own right, 
 Yet oh ! how little flattered by report ! 
 
 Even by those that seek the Court, 
 Pelted with every term of spleen and spite. 
 
ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 125 
 
 Folks rail and swear at jou in every place ; 
 They say you are a creature of no bowel ; 
 They say you 're always washing Nature's face, 
 And that you then supply her 
 
 With nothing drier 
 Than some old Avringing cloud by way of towel ! 
 The whole town wants you ducked, just as you duck it, 
 They wish you on your own mud porridge suppered, 
 They hope that you may kick your own big bucket, 
 Or in your water-butt go souse ! heels up'ard ! 
 They are, in short, so weary of your drizzle. 
 They 'd spill the water in your veins to stop it — 
 Be warned ! You are too partial to a mizzle — 
 
 Pray drop it ! 
 
 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER." 
 
 LuD ! Lud ! Lud ! 
 I mean, of course, that venerable town 
 Mentioned in stories of renown, 
 
 Built formerly of mud ; — 
 Lud, I say, why didst thou e'er 
 
 Invent the office of a jMayor, 
 An office that no useful purpose crowns, 
 But to set Aldermen against each other, 
 That should be Brother unto Brother — 
 Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns ? 
 
 But still if one must have a Mayor 
 To fill the Civic chair, 
 Lud, I say, 
 Was there no better day 
 
126 ODE FOE THE XIXTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 To fix on, than Xorember Ninth so shivery 
 And dull for showing off the Livery's livery? 
 Dimming, alas ! 
 The Brazier's brass, 
 Soiling th' Embroiderers and all the Saddlers, 
 Sopping the Furriers, 
 Draggling the Curriers. 
 And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers ; 
 Drenching the Skinners' Company to the skin, 
 Making the crusty Yintner chiller, 
 And turning the Distiller 
 To cold without instead of warm within ; — 
 Spoiling the bran-new beavers 
 Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers, 
 
 Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers, 
 Hearty Kovember-cursers — 
 And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers 
 Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers ; 
 Making the Grocer's company not fit 
 
 For company a bit ; 
 
 Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood. 
 
 Daubing incorporated Bakers, 
 
 And leading the Patten-makers, 
 
 Over their very pattens in the mud — 
 
 Lud ! Lud ! Lud ! 
 
 " This is a sorry sight," 
 To quote oNIacbeth — but oh, it grieves me quite, 
 To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes — 
 
 White plumes not white — 
 Sitting at open windows catching rheums, 
 
 Not " Angels ever bricrht and fair," 
 
 But angels ever brown and sallow, 
 
ODE FOR THE NIXTU OF NOVEMBER. 1-T 
 
 Ys'itli eyes — you cannot see above one pair, 
 
 For city clouds of black and yellow — 
 And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud, 
 
 Such sable lilies 
 
 And grim daffodilies 
 Drooping, but not for di'ougbt, Lud ! Lud ! 
 
 I may as well, while I "m inclined, 
 Just go through all the faults I find : 
 
 Oh Lud ! then, with a better air, say June, 
 Could" st thou not find a better tunc 
 To sound with trumpets, and Avith drums, 
 Than " See the Conquermg Hero comes," 
 
 "NYhen he who comes ne'er dealt in blood ? 
 Thy May'r is not a War Horse. Lud, 
 That ever charged on Turk or Tartar, 
 And yet upon a march you strike 
 That treats him like — 
 A little French if I may martyr — 
 Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter ! 
 
 Lud ! I say 
 
 Do change your day 
 
 To Eoinc time when your Show can really show ; 
 
 When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow. 
 Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May ! 
 Have it when there 's a sun to gild the coach, 
 And sparkle in tiara — bracelet — brooch — 
 
 Diamond — or paste — of sister, mother, daughter ; 
 Vrhcn grandeur really may be grand — 
 But if thy Pageant's thus obscured liy land — 
 
 Lud ! it 's ten times worse upon tlic water ! 
 Suppose, Lud, to show its plan, 
 I call, like Blue Beard's wife, to sister Anne, 
 
123 ODE FOR THE XINTII OF I;^OYEMBER. 
 
 Vrho "s gone to Beaufort "Wharf with niece and aunt. 
 To see what she can see — and what she can't ; 
 Chewing a saiFron bun bj way of cud, 
 To keep the fog out of a tender lung, 
 While perched in a verandah nicely hung 
 Over a margin of thy own black mud, 
 Lud ! 
 
 Now Sister Amie, I call to thee. 
 Look out and see : 
 Of course about the bridge you view them rally 
 
 And sally, 
 "With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter ; 
 The Fishmongers' grand boat, but not for butter, 
 
 The Goldsmiths' glorious galley — • 
 Of course you see the Lord Mayor's coach aquatic, 
 With silken banners that the breezes fan, 
 In gold all glowing, 
 And men in scarlet rowing, 
 Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic ; 
 Of course you see all this, Sister Anne ? 
 '• No, I see no such thing ! 
 I only see the edge of Beaufort "Wharf, 
 With two coal lighters fastened to a ring ; 
 
 And, dim as ghosts, 
 Two little boys are jumping over posts ; 
 
 ilnd something, farther off, 
 That 's rather like the shadow of a dog, 
 
 And all beyond is fog. 
 If there bo any thing so fine and bright. 
 To see it I must sec by second sight. 
 Call this a Show ? It is not worth a pin ! 
 I see no barges row, 
 No banners blow ; 
 
ODE FOR THE NIXTII OF NOVEMBER. 129 
 
 The Show is merely a gallanty-show, 
 Without a lamp or any candle in." 
 
 But sister Anne, my dear, 
 Although you cannot see, you still may hear ? 
 Of course you hear, I 'm very sure of that, 
 The ''■' Water parted from the Sea" in C, 
 Or '• "V\Tiere the Bee sucks," set in B ; 
 Or Huntsman's chorus from the Freyschutz frightful, 
 Or Handel's Water Music in A flat. 
 Oh music from the water comes delightful ! 
 It sounds as no where else it can : 
 You hear it first 
 In some rich burst, 
 Then faintly sighing, 
 Tenderly dying. 
 Away upon the breezes. Sister Anne. 
 
 " There is no breeze to die on ; 
 And all their drums and trumpeta, flutes and harps, 
 Could never cut their way with ev'n thrt 3 sharps 
 
 Through such a fog as this, you may rely on. 
 I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum, 
 
 Like a very muffled double di'um. 
 
 And then a something faintly shrill, 
 
 Like Bartlemy Fau-'s old buz at Pentonville. 
 
 And now and then hear a pop. 
 
 As if from Pedley's Soda Water shop. 
 I 'm almost ill with the strong scent of mud, 
 
 And. not to mention sneezing, 
 
 My cough is, more than usual, teasing ; 
 I really fear that I have chilled my blood, 
 Lud ! Lud ! Lud ! Lud ! Lud !" 
 
 6* 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (1.) Ode to M. Brunel. 
 
 Mr. Brunel was an engineer who had been very successful in contriv- 
 ing the machinery for the manufacture of blocks for the Royal Navy, 
 at Portsmouth ; and in the bubble-time of 1825, or thereabouts, got up 
 a company for tunnelling the Thames. The plan was ingeniously de- 
 vised, and in the course of some ten years was executed. It was a very 
 expensive operation, however, and as a speculation an entire failure. 
 At one time during the progress of the work, the water found its way 
 through an unexpected breach in the bottom of the river, when Brunei 
 the younger (now an eminent engineer) barely escaped with his life. 
 He owed his safety entirely to his great skill in swimming. 
 
 (2.) Ode to the Advocates for the Removal of Smithfield 
 Market. 
 
 Smithfield was made the seat of the sole cattle market for the city 
 of London by Edward III. in the year 1327, and has remained such till 
 the present day. The market is an open area, in the form of an irregu- 
 lar polygon ; containing only about three and a half acres, for the accom- 
 modation of the largest city in the world, in its supplies of sheep, horses, 
 cattle and hay. An attempt was made some years ago to I'emove it to 
 the outskirts of London, but it cost the opulent projector an hundred 
 thousand pounds, and failed. The city itself was foiled in two efforts 
 to make the removal — one of which probably inspired the ode above 
 entitled. The annual cattle show of the Smithfield Club is still held, 
 and the horse market still enjoys the same reputation as in Shak- 
 speare's time, and for centuries before. 
 
 Smithfield is famous in history for its jousts, tournaments, executions 
 
134 NOTES. 
 
 and burnings. Here Wallace and Mortimer were executed, and Wat 
 Tyler was slain. 
 
 Smithfield was the seat of the long-famous Bartholomew Fair, which 
 was proclaimed by the Lord Mayor annually on the 3d of September, 
 unless the 3d fell on Sunday, and continued for three days, exclusive of 
 the day of proclamation. In Ben Jonson's celebrated play of that 
 name, there is a picture of what Bartholomew Fair was in 1614 ; and 
 in Hone's Every-Day Book we have a very detailed report of the 
 editor's personal observation of the same scene in 1825. It had its 
 origin in a grant of King Henry II. to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, 
 which had teen founded in Smithfield, in connection with a church and 
 hospital, about the year 1102, by one Rahere, a minstrel of the King, 
 and a " pleasant-witted gentleman," who was the first Prior of his 
 monastery. 
 
 The royal privilege extended to three days at the Bartholomew-tide 
 for a fair, " to the which," says Stow, '•' the clothiers of England and 
 the drapers of London repaired, and had their bootlis and standings 
 within the churchyard of this priory, closed in with walls and gates 
 locked every night, and watched for safety of men's goods and wares ; 
 a Court of Piepowders was daily during the fair holden for debts and 
 contracts." This was the origin of this famous fair, over which the 
 charter of Henry H. gave the Mayor and Aldermen criminal jurisdic- 
 tion during its continuance. 
 
 All sorts of cheap shows and entertainments, dramatic, pictorial and 
 zoological — dwarfs, fat boys and giants — learned pigs and horses — ^lions 
 and elephants — feats of skill, strength and dexterity —jugglers and 
 music-grinders — Punch and Judy — mermaids and wild Indians — ^beau- 
 tiful dolphins and cannibal chiefs — harlequins and circus-riders — have 
 for hundreds of years entertained our Anglo-Saxon brethren at Bartho- 
 lomew Fair. Before the commencement of the last century it had 
 l:>ecome, however, a nuisance, and of late years it is described as a mere 
 scene of annual debauchery. 
 
 (3.) Ode for St. Cecilia's Eve (Xov. 22). 
 
 Saint Cecilia is in the Church of England calendar and in the alma- 
 nacs. She is a saint of the Eomish Church, and a patroness of church 
 music. Butler gives her life, from which we learn that she was mar- 
 ried to a nobleman named Valerian, whom, with her brother Tibertius, 
 she converted, and with them she was martyred. Various legends and 
 
NOTES. 
 
 135 
 
 pictures represent her as engaged in music, or listening to it from celes- 
 tial performei-s. Hence the conclusion of the celebrated ode of Drydeu 
 (who was a Catholic) — 
 
 " She drew an Angel down." 
 The legend is that her husband, allured bj the harmonious sounds, 
 entered a room where she was sitting, and found a young man playing 
 on the organ. Cecilia introduced the visitor as an angel, and from that 
 time she received ■• anarels' visits." 
 
 (4.) Ode to Mr. M.axthcs. 
 
 ilr. Malthus was distinguished for the development of two new dis- 
 coveries in Political Economy, those relating to population and rent. 
 He published his Essay on Population in 1803, and his Principles of 
 Political Economy in 1820. His favorite theory on population is ex- 
 pressed in the formula that the prudential restraint upon marriage, 
 fi'om the fear of a family, is the most powerful check which in modern 
 Europe " keeps down the population to the level of the means of sub- 
 sistence."' In other words, it is thus expressed by the Edinburgh 
 Revieiv — " A man has no more right to set up a wife, unless he can 
 afford it, than to set up a coach." 
 
 (5.) Ode to St. Swithix. 
 
 Swithin is stiU retained in the English almanacs, and his day (July 
 15) at some public offices is a holiday. The saint was of noble parent- 
 age, and became a monk in the old monastery at Winchester, of which 
 he was afterwards priest and provost, and finally bishop, by the favor 
 of his sometime jiupil. King Ethelwolf, in 852. It was through his 
 influence that tithes were established in England. He died in 862. An 
 hundred years afterwards marvellous cures were wrought by his relics. 
 
 There is an old adage — " If it rain on St. Swithin's day, there will 
 be rain the next forty days afterwards." The tradition is, that the 
 bishop desired to be buried in the open churchyard, and not in the 
 chancel of the minster, and his request was complied with ; but the 
 monks, on his being canonized by the Pope, thought it would not an- 
 swer for a saint to lie in the open air, and resolved to remove the body 
 into the choir, which was to have been done on the 15th of July. It 
 rained so hard, however, on that day, and for forty days succeeding, 
 that they abandonal their design as heretical, and erected a chapel over 
 his firravc. 
 
136 NOTES. 
 
 Rain on St. Swithin's day is noticed in some places by the saying— 
 " St. Swithin is cliristeniug tlie apples." 
 
 Ben Jonson, Gay, Churchill, and other English poets, allude to the 
 popular tradition connected with St. Swithin. 
 
 In Poor Robin's Almanac for 1697, the saying and one of the mkacles 
 ascribed to the saint are thus alluded to : — 
 
 " In this month is St. Swithin's day; 
 On which, if that it rain, they say 
 Full forty days after it will. 
 Or more or less, some rain distil. 
 This Swithin was a saint, I trow, 
 And Winchester's bishop also; 
 Who in his time did many a feat, 
 As Popish legends do repeat : 
 A woman having broke her eggs, 
 By stumbling at another's legs, 
 For which she made a, woful cry ; 
 St. Swithin chanced for to come by, 
 Who made them all as sound, or more, 
 Than that they ever were before. 
 But whether they were so or no, 
 'Tis more than you or I do know. 
 Better it is to rise betime, 
 And to make hay while the sun doth shine. 
 Than to believe in tales and lies. 
 Which idle monks and friars devise." 
 
 (6.) Ode for the Ninth of November — Lord ^Iayor's Day. 
 
 On this day there is a procession of the Mayor and Aldermen elect 
 of London, from Guildhall to Westminster, to be sworn, and thence back 
 to Guildhall to diuuer. In old times it was an occasion of great splen- 
 dor and pageantry. On Sir Thomas Middleton's mayoralty, in 1G13, 
 the solemnity is described as unparalleled for the art and magnificence 
 of its pageantry and shows. The printed descriptions of these London 
 Pageants, or Triumphs of the old time, are now extremely rare, and are 
 sold at the rate of two or three guineas for a single leaf. 
 
 In 1575, William Smythe, citizen and haberdasher of London, ^vrote 
 a " breffe description" of that royal city, Avhich gives us an account of 
 the ceremonies on the Lord Mayor's day in early times. " The day of 
 St. Simon and St. Jude," he says, " the Mayor enters into his state and 
 ofiBce. The next day he goes by water to Westminster in most triumph- 
 ant-like manner, his barge being garnished with the arms of the city ; 
 and near it a ship-boat of the Queen's Majesty, being trimmed up and 
 
NOTES. 
 
 137 
 
 rigged like a ship of war, with clivers pieces of ordnance, standards, 
 pennons, and targets of the proper arms of the said Mayor, of his com- 
 pany, and of the merchants' adventurei*s, or of the staple, or of the com- 
 pany of the new trades ; next before him goeth the barge of the livery 
 of his own company, decked with their own proper arms ; then the 
 bachelors' barge ; and so all the companies in London, in order, every 
 one ha-\-ing their own proper barge, with the arms of their company. 
 And so passing along the Thames he landeth at Westminster, where he 
 taketh his oath in the Exchequer before the Judge there ; which done, 
 he returneth by water as aforesaid, and landeth at Paul's wharf, where 
 he and the rest of the Aldermen take their horses, and in great pomp 
 
 pass through the city to the Guildhall, where they dine that 
 
 day to the number of 1,000 persons, all at the charge of the Mayor 
 and the two Sheriff. The feast costeth £400, whereof the Mayor payeth 
 £200, and each of the Sheriffs £100." 
 
 In the procession were some sixty or seventy poor men marching 
 two and two, iu blue gowns, with red sleeves and caps, every one bear- 
 ing a pike and target, on which were painted the arms of all them that 
 had been Mayors of the same company that the new Mayor was of. 
 
 "Immediately after dinner they go to St. Paul's Church, every one 
 of the aforesaid poor men bearing staff, torches and targets, which 
 torches are lighted when it is late, before they come from evening 
 prayer." 
 
 In 1655, the city pageants, after a discontinuance of about fifteen 
 years, were revived ; and Edward Gayton, the author of the description 
 for that year, says, that '■ our metropolis for these planetary pageants 
 was as famous and renowned in foreign nations as for faith, wealth, and 
 valor." On Lord Mayor's day, 1671, the King, Queen, Duke of York, 
 and most of the nobUity, being present, there were " sundry shows, 
 shapes, scenes, speeches, and son^ in parts ;" and the like iu 1672 and 
 1673, when the King again '• graced the triumphs." Again, the great 
 persons of the realm were present in 1674, when there were " emblema- 
 tical figures, artful pieces of architecture, and rural dancing, with pieces 
 spoken in each pageant." 
 
 The speeches in the pageants were usually composed by the official 
 city poet, who also provided a printed programme for the members of 
 the corporation. Settle was the last corporation poet, and wrote the 
 last programme, intended for the show of 1708, which was prevented 
 by the death of the Prince of Denmark. 
 
138 NOTES. 
 
 The modern exhibitions on Lord Mayor's day do not vie with those 
 of the olden time. All that remains of the antique show is in the first 
 part of the procession, where the poor men of the company to which 
 the Lord Mayor belongs, or persons hired to represent them, are habited 
 in long gowns and close caps of the company's color, and bear painted 
 shields on their arms, but without javelins. So many of these head 
 the show as there are years in the Lord Mayor's age. " Their obsolete 
 costume and hobbling walk," says the author of the Every-Day Book, 
 " are sport for the unsedate, who, from improper tradition, year after 
 year, are accustomed to call them ' old bachelors' — tongues less polite 
 call them ' old fogeys.' The numerous band of gentlemen-ushers, in 
 A'elvet coats, wearing chains of gold, and bearing white staves, is re- 
 duced to half a dozen full-dressed footmen, carrying umbrellas in their 
 hands." 
 
 
*cs^ 
 
TALES AND LEGENDS, 
 
 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 
 
 A MOORISH TALE. 
 Scheherazade immediately began the following story. 
 
 Ali Ben Ali (did you never read 
 
 His wondrous acts that chronicles relate — 
 
 How there was one in pity might exceed 
 The sack of Troy ?) Magnificent he sate 
 
 Upon the throne of greatness — great indeed, 
 For those that he had under him were great — 
 
 The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails, 
 
 Was a Bashaw — Bashaws have horses' tails. 
 
 Ali was cruel — a most cruel one ! 
 
 'Tis rumored he had strangled his own mother — 
 Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done, 
 
 'Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother 
 And sister too — but happily that none 
 
 Did live within A«rw's length of one another, 
 Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze 
 To endless night, and shortened the Moon's days. 
 
 Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit. 
 
 And makes a bad man — absolutely bad, 
 Made Ali wicked — to a fault: — 'tis fit 
 
 Monarchs should have some check-strings ; but he had 
 
142 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 
 
 No curb upon his will — no, not a hit — 
 
 AVherefore he did not reign well — and full glad 
 His slaves had been to hang him — but they faltered, 
 And let him live unhanged — and still unaltered. 
 
 Until he mi a sage bush of a beard. 
 
 "WTierein an Attic owl might roost — a trail 
 Of bristly hair — that, honored and unsheared 
 
 Grew downward like old women and cow "s tail : 
 Being a sign of age — some gray appeared, 
 
 iMingling with duskier brown its warnings pale ; 
 But yet not so poetic as when Time 
 Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime. 
 
 Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex 
 
 His royal bosom that he had no son, 
 No li^dng child of the more noble sex, 
 
 To stand in his Morocco shoes — not one 
 To make a negro-pollard — or tread necks 
 
 When he was gone — doomed, when his days were done, 
 To leave the very city of his fame 
 Without an Ali to keep up his name. 
 
 Therefore he chose a lady for his love. 
 
 Singling from out the herd one stag -eyed dear; 
 
 So called, because her lustrous eyes, above 
 All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear : 
 
 Then, through his Muftis piously he strove. 
 
 And di'ummed with proxy-prayers Mohammed's ear. 
 
 Knowing a boy for certain must come of it, 
 
 Or else he was not praying to his Profit. 
 
 Beer will grow mothery^ and ladies fair 
 
 "Will grow like beer ; so did that stag-eyed dame : 
 
THE STAG-EYED LADY. 143 
 
 Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir, 
 
 Boyed up his hopes, and even chose a name 
 
 Of mighty hero that his child should bear ; 
 He made so certain ere his chicken came : 
 
 But oh ! all worldly wit is little worth, 
 
 Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth. 
 
 To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun 
 
 A little daughter to this world of sins ; 
 il/is5-fortunes never come alone — so one 
 
 Brought on another, like a pair of twins : 
 Twins ! female twins ! — it was enough to stun 
 
 Their little wits and scare them from their skins, 
 To hear their father stamp, and curse and swear, 
 Pulling his beard because he had no heir. 
 
 Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down 
 This his paternal rage, and thus addrest : 
 
 Oh ! Most Serene ! Avhy dost thou stamp and frown. 
 And box the compass of thy royal chest ? 
 
 Ah ! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own 
 I love to gaze on ! — Pr'ythee, thou hadst best 
 
 Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin 
 
 Your beard, you '11 want a wig ixpon your chin ! 
 
 But not her words, or e'en her tears, could slack 
 The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew : 
 
 He called his slaves to bring an ample sack 
 Wherein a woman might be poked — a few 
 
 Dark grimly men felt pity and looked black 
 At this sad order; but their slaveships knew 
 
 V>Tien any dared demur, his sword so bending 
 
 Cut off the '-'head and front of their offendinff." 
 
144 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 
 
 For Ali had a sword, much like himself, 
 A crooked blade, guilty of human gore — 
 
 The trophies it had lopped from many an elf 
 Were stuck at his ^ea^-c^uarters by the score — 
 
 Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf, 
 But jested with it, and his wit cut sore ; 
 
 So that (as they of Public Houses speak) 
 
 He often did his dozen butts a week. 
 
 Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears, 
 Came with the sack the lady to enclose ; 
 
 In vain from her stag-eyes ' ' the big round tears 
 Coursed one another down her innocent nose;" 
 
 In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears ; 
 Though there were some felt willing to oppose, 
 
 Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute. 
 
 Though 'twas a piteous case, they put her in it. 
 
 And when the sack was tied, some two or three 
 Of these black undertakers slowly brought her 
 
 To a kind of Moorish Serpentine ; for she 
 
 Was doomed to have a winding sheet of water. 
 
 Then farewell, earth — farewell to the green tree — 
 Farewell, the sun — the moon — each little daughter ! 
 
 She "s shot from off the shoulders of a black, 
 
 Like a bag of Wall's End from a coalman's back. 
 
 The waters oped, and the wide sack full-filled 
 All that the waters oped, as down it fell ; 
 
 Then closed the wave, and then the surface rilled 
 A ring above her, like a water-knell ; 
 
 A moment more, and all its face was stilled, 
 And not a guilty heave was left to tell 
 
 That underneath its calm and blue transparence 
 
 A dame lay drowned m her sack, like Clarence. 
 
THE STAG-EYED LADY. 
 
 But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore, 
 The moon in black eclipse deceased that night, 
 
 Like Desdemona smothered by the Moor ; 
 The lady's natal star with pale affi-ight 
 
 Fainted and fell — and what were stars before 
 Turned comets as the tale was brought to light ; 
 
 And all looked downward on the fatal wave, 
 
 And made their own reflections on her grave. 
 
 Next night, a head — a little ladj head, 
 
 Pushed through the waters a most glassy face. 
 
 With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread, 
 Combed by 'live ivory, to show the space 
 
 Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed 
 A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace 
 
 Over their sleepy lids — and so she raised 
 
 Her aqualine nose above the stream, and gazed. 
 
 She oped her lips — lips of a gentle blush, 
 So pale it seemed near drowned to a white — 
 
 She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush 
 Of music bubbling through the surface light ; 
 
 The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush 
 To listen to the air — and through the night 
 
 There came these words of a most plaintive ditty. 
 
 Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity : 
 
 145 
 
 THE WATER PERIS SONG. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter. 
 The child that she Avet-nursed is lapped in the waye 
 
 The M){ssidma.n coming to fish in this water, 
 
 Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. 
 
146 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 
 
 This sack is her coffin, this water's her bier, 
 This grayish bath cloak is her funeral pall, 
 
 And, stranger, stranger ! this song that you hear 
 Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all ! 
 
 Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, 
 
 INIy mother's own daughter — the last of her race — 
 
 She 's a corpse, the poor body ! and lies in this basin^ 
 And sleeps in the water that washes her face. 
 
A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 
 
 'T WAS ill the reign of Lewis, called the Great, 
 As one may read on his triumphal arches, 
 
 The thing befell I 'm going to relate, 
 
 Li course of one of those "pomposo'* marches 
 
 He loved to make, like any gorgeous Persian, 
 
 Partly- for war, and partly for diversion. 
 
 Some wag had put it in the royal brain 
 
 To drop a visit at rai old chateau, 
 Quite unexpected, with his courtly train ; 
 
 The monarch liked it — but it happened so, 
 That Death had got before them by a post, 
 And they were ■• reckoning without their Aos^." 
 
 Who died exactly as a child should die, 
 "Without one groan or a convulsive breath, 
 
 Closing without one pang his quiet eye, 
 Slichng composedly from sleep — to death ; 
 
 A corpse so placid ne'er adorned a bed. 
 
 He seemed not quite— but only rather dead. 
 
 All night the widowed Baroness contrived 
 To shed a widow's teai'S ; but on the morrow 
 
 Some news of such unusual sort arrived. 
 
 There came strange alteration in her sorrow ; 
 
 From mouth to mouth it passed, one common humming 
 
 Throuo-hout the house— the King ! the King is coming ! 
 
148 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 
 
 The Baroness, with all her soul and heart, 
 A loyal woman (now called ultra royal), 
 
 Soon thrust all funeral concerns apart. 
 And only thought about a banquet loyal ; 
 
 In short, by aid of earnest preparation, 
 
 The visit quite dismissed the visitation. 
 
 And, spite of all her grief for the ex-mate, 
 There was a secret hope she could not smother. 
 
 That some one, early, might replace "the late" — 
 It was too soon to think about another ; 
 
 Yet let her minutes of despair be reckoned 
 
 Against her hope, which was but for a second. 
 
 She almost thought that being thus bereft 
 
 Just then, was one of time's propitious touches; 
 
 A thread in such a nick so nicked, it left 
 Free opportunity to be a duchess : 
 
 Thus all her care was only to look pleasant. 
 
 But as for tears — she dropped them — for the present. 
 
 Her household, as good servants ought to try. 
 Looked like theii- lady — any thing but sad. 
 
 And giggled even that they might not cry, 
 To damp fine company : in truth they had 
 
 No time to mourn, through choking turkeys' thi-ottles, 
 
 Scouring old laces, and reviewing bottles. 
 
 Oh what a hubbub for the house of wo ! 
 
 All, resolute to one irresolution. 
 Kept tearing, swearing, plunging to and fro, 
 
 Just like another French mob-revolution. 
 There lay the corpse that could not stir a muscle, 
 But all the rest seemed Chaos in a bustle. 
 
A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 
 
 The Monarch came : oh ! who could ever guess 
 The Baroness had been so late a weeper ! 
 
 The kingly grace and more than graciousness, 
 Buried the poor defanct some fathoms deeper— 
 
 Could he have had a glance— alas, poor Being ! 
 
 Seeing would certainly have led to D — ing. 
 
 For casting round about her eyes to find 
 Some one to whom her chattels to endorse, 
 
 The comfortable dame at last inclined 
 
 To choose the cheerful Master of the Horse ; 
 
 He was so gay — so tender — the complete 
 
 Nice man — the sweetest of the monarch's suite. 
 
 He saw at once and entered in the lists — 
 Glance unto glance made amorous replies ; 
 
 They talked together like two egotists, 
 In conversation all made up of eyes : 
 
 No couple ever got so right consort-ish 
 
 Within two hours — a courtship rather shortish. 
 
 At last, some sleepy, some by wine opprest, 
 The courtly company began "nid noddin;" 
 
 The King fii'st sought his chamber, and the rest 
 Instanter followed by the course he trod in. 
 
 I shall not please the scandalous by showing 
 
 The order, or disorder of their going. 
 
 The old Chateau, before that night, had never 
 Held half so many underneath its roof; 
 
 It tasked the Baroness's best endeavor, 
 And put her best contrivance to the proof. 
 
 To give them chambers up and down the stairs 
 
 In twos and threes, by singles, and by pairs. 
 
 149 
 
150 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 
 
 She had just lodging for the whole — jet barely : 
 And some, that were both broad of back and tall, 
 
 Lay on spare beds that served them very sparely ; 
 However, there were beds enough for all ; 
 
 But living bodies occupied so many. 
 
 She could not let the dead one take up any ! 
 
 The act was, certainly, not over decent : 
 
 Some small respect, e'en after death, she owed him, 
 Considering his death had been so recent ; 
 
 However, by command, her servants stowed him, 
 (I am ashamed to think how he was slubbered,) 
 Stuck bolt upright within a corner cupboard ! 
 
 And there he slept as soundly as a post, 
 With no more pillow than an oaken shelf; 
 
 Just like a kind accommodatino; host. 
 Taking all inconvenience on himself ; 
 
 None else slept in that room, except a stranger, 
 
 A decent man, a sort of Forest Ranger. 
 
 Who, whether he had gone too soon to bed, 
 
 Or dreamt himself into an appetite, 
 Howbeit, he took a longing to be fed, 
 
 About the hungry middle of the night ; 
 So getting forth, he sought some scrap to eat, 
 Hopeful of some stray pastry, or cold meat. 
 
 The casual glances of the midnight moon, 
 
 Brightening some antique ornaments of brass, 
 
 Guided his gropings to that corner soon, 
 Just where it stood, the coffin-safe, alas ! 
 
 He tried the door — then shook it — and in course 
 
 Of time it opened to a little farce. 
 
A LEGEND OF XAVARRE. 151 
 
 He put one hand in. and began to grope : 
 
 The place was very deep, and quite as dark as 
 
 The middle night ; — when lo ! beyond his hope, 
 He felt a something cold — in fact, the carcase ; 
 
 Right overjoyed, he laughed and blest his luck 
 
 At finding, as he thought, this haunch of buck ! 
 
 Then striding back for his couteau de chasse, 
 Determined on a little midnight lunchins:. 
 
 He came again and probed about the mass, 
 As if to find the fattest bit for mimching ; 
 
 Not meaning wastefully to cut it all up, 
 
 But only to abstract a little collop. 
 
 But just as he had struck one greedy stroke, 
 His hand fell down quite powerless and weak ; 
 
 For when he cut the haunch it plainly spoke 
 As haunch of ven'son never ought to speak ; 
 
 No wonder that his hand could go no further — 
 
 Whose could ! — to carve cold meat that bellowed 
 •• murther !"' 
 
 Down came the Body with a bounce, and down 
 The Ranger sprang, a staircase at a spring, 
 
 And bawled enough to waken up a town : 
 
 Some thought that they were murdered, some, the King, 
 
 And. like Macduif. did nothing for a season, 
 
 But stand upon the spot and bellow, " Treason !" 
 
 A hundred nightcaps gathered in a mob. 
 
 Torches drew torches, swords brought swords together. 
 It seemed so dark and perilous a job ; 
 
 The Baroness came trembling like a feather 
 Just in the rear, as pallid as a corse, 
 Leaning against the Master of the Horse. 
 
152 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 
 
 A dozen of the bravest up the stair, 
 
 Well lighted and well watched, began to clamber ; 
 They sought the door — they found it — they were there, 
 
 A dozen heads went poking in the chamber ; 
 And lo ! with one hand planted on his hurt, 
 There stood the Body bleeding thro' his shirt, — 
 
 No passive corse — but like a duellist 
 
 Just smarting from a scratch — in fierce position, 
 
 One hand advanced, and ready to resist ; 
 In fact, the Baron doffed the apparition, 
 
 Swearing those oaths the French delight in most, 
 
 And for the second time ''gave up the ghost?" 
 
 A living miracle ! — for why ? — the knife 
 
 That cuts so many off from grave gray hairs, 
 
 Had only carved him kindly into life : 
 
 How soon it changed the posture of affairs ! 
 
 The difference one person more or less 
 
 Will make in families, is past all guess. 
 
 There stood the Baroness — no widow yet : 
 Here stood the Baron — " in the body" still : 
 
 There stood the Horses' Master in a pet, 
 Choking with disappointment's bitter pill, 
 
 To see the hope of his reversion fail, 
 
 Like that of riding on a donkey's tail. 
 
 The Baron lived — "t was nothing but a trance : 
 The lady died — 't was nothing but a death : 
 
 The cupboard-cut served only to enhance 
 
 This postscript to the old Baronial breath : — 
 
 He soon forgave, for the revival's sake, 
 
 A little cliop intended for a steak ! 
 
THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 
 
 "Alas I what perils do environ 
 That man who niediUes wilh a tircn:"' 
 
 IIUDIBRAS. 
 
 On Margate beach, Avhere the sick one roams, 
 
 And the sentimental reads ; 
 Where the maiden flirts, and the widow comes- 
 
 Like the ocean — to cast her weeds ; — 
 
 Where urchins wander to pick up shells, 
 And the Cit to spj at the ships — 
 
 Like the water gala at Sadler's Yfells — 
 And the Chandler for waterj dips ; — 
 
 There's a maiden sits by the ocean brim, 
 
 As lovely and fair as sin ! 
 But woe, deep water and woe to him, 
 
 That she snareth like Peter Fin ! 
 
 Her head is crowned with pretty sea-wares. 
 And her locks are golden and loose : 
 
 And seek to her feet, like other folks' heirs, 
 To stand, of course, in hei' slioes ! 
 
 And, all day long, she combeth them well. 
 
 With a sea-shark's prickly jaw ; 
 And her mouth is just like a rose-lipped shell, 
 
 The fairest that man e'er saw ! 
 
1-34 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 
 
 And the Fishmonger, humble as love may be, 
 Hath planted his seat bj her side ; 
 
 " Good even, fair maid ! Is thy lover at sea. 
 To make thee so watch the tide?" 
 
 She turned about with her pearly brows, 
 
 And clasped him by the hand ; 
 " Come, love, with me; I've a bonny house 
 
 On the golden Goodwin Sand." 
 
 And then she gave him a siren kiss. 
 No honeycomb e'er was sweeter ; 
 
 Poor wretch ! how little he dreamt for this 
 That Peter should be salt- Peter : 
 
 And away with her prize to the wave she leapt, 
 
 Not walking, as damsels do, 
 With toe and heel, as she ought to have stept, 
 
 But she hopt like a Kangaroo ; 
 
 One plunge, and then the victim was blind, 
 Whilst they galloped across the tide ; 
 
 At last, on the bank he waked in his mind, 
 And the beauty was by his side. 
 
 One half' on the sand, and half in the sea. 
 But his hair all began to stiffen ; 
 
 For when he looked where her feet should be, 
 She had no more feet than Miss Biffen ! 
 
 But a scaly tail, of a dolphin's growth, 
 
 In the dabbling brine did soak ; 
 At last she opened her pearly mouth. 
 
 Like an oyster, and thus she spoke : 
 
THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 
 
 " You crimpt mj fother, who was a skate ; — 
 And my sister you sold — a maid ; 
 
 So here remain for a fish'ry fate, 
 For lost you are, and betrayed !'' 
 
 And away she went, with a sea-gull's scream, 
 
 And a splash of her saucy tail : 
 In a moment he lost the silvery gleam 
 
 That shone on her splendid mail ! 
 
 The sun went down with a blood-red flame, 
 And the sky grew cloudy and black. 
 
 And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came, 
 Each over the other's back ! 
 
 155 
 
 Ah, me ! it had been a beautiful scene. 
 
 With the safe terra-fii-ma round ; 
 But the green water hillocks all seemed to him, 
 
 Like those in a churchyard ground ; 
 
 And Christians love in the turf to lie, 
 
 Not in watery graves to be ; 
 Nay, the very fishes will sooner die 
 
 On the land than in the sea. 
 
 And whilst he stood, the watery strife 
 
 Encroached on every hand, 
 And the ground decreased — his moments of life 
 
 Seemed measured, like Time's, by sand : 
 
 And still the waters foamed in, like ale, 
 
 In front, and on either flank, 
 He knew that Goodwin and Co. must fail, 
 
 There vras siuh a run on the bank. 
 
156 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 
 
 A little more, and a little more, 
 
 The surges came tumbHng in : 
 He sang the evening hymn twice o'er, 
 
 And thought of every sin ! 
 
 Each flounder and plaice lay cold at his heart. 
 
 As cold as his marble slab ; 
 And he thought he felt in every part, 
 
 The pincers of scalded crab. 
 
 The squealing lobsters that he had boiled. 
 
 And the Kttle potted shrimps, 
 All the horny prawns he had ever spoiled, 
 
 Gnawed into his soul, like imps ! 
 
 And the billows were wandering to and fro. 
 And the glorious sun was sunk, 
 
 And Day. getting black in the face, as though 
 Of the nightshade she had di'unk ! 
 
 Had there been but a smuggler's cargo adrift, 
 
 One tub, or keg, to be seen ; 
 It might have given his spirits a lift, 
 
 Or an ankci' where Hope might lean ! 
 
 But there was not a box or a beam afloat. 
 To raft him from that sad place : 
 
 Not a skifi", nor a yawl, or a mackerel boat, 
 Nor a smack upon Neptune's face. 
 
 At last, his lingering hopes to buoy, 
 
 He saw a sail and a mast, 
 And called " Ahoy !" — but it was not a hoy, 
 
 And so the vessel went past. 
 
THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 157 
 
 And with saucj -wing that flapped in his face, 
 
 The wild bu'd about him flew 
 With a shrilly scream, that twitted his case, 
 
 '• Why, thou art a sea-gull too !" 
 
 And lo ! the tide was over his feet ; 
 
 ! his heart began to freeze, 
 And slowly to pulse : — in another beat 
 
 The wave was up to his knees ! 
 
 He was deafened amidst the mountain tops, 
 
 And the salt spray blinded his eyes, 
 And washed away the other salt di'ops 
 
 That grief had caused to arise : — 
 
 But just as his body was all afloat, 
 
 And the surges above him broke, 
 He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat 
 
 Of Deal— (but builded of oak). 
 
 The skipper gave him a di-am, as he lay. 
 
 And chafed his shiverino- skin : 
 And the Angel returned that was flying away 
 
 With the spirit of Peter Fin ! 
 
OUR LADY'S CHAPEL, 
 
 A LEGEND OF COBLENTZ. 
 
 Whoe'er has crossed the Musel Bridge. 
 
 And mounted bj the fort of Kaiser Franz, 
 Has seen, perchance, 
 Just on the summit of St. Peter's ridge, 
 A little open chapel to the right, 
 Wherein the tapers aye are burning bright ; 
 So popular, indeed, this holy shrine, 
 At least among the female po^-ulation, 
 By night, or at high noon, jou see it shine, 
 A very Missal for Ulinjiination ! 
 
 Yet, when you please, at morn or eve, go by 
 All other Chapels, standing in the fields, 
 Whose mouldy, wifeless husbandi-y but yields 
 Beans, peas, potatoes, mangel-wurzel, rye. 
 And lo ! the Virgin, lonely, dark, and hush, 
 Without the glimmer of a farthing rush ! 
 
 But on Saint Peter's Hill 
 The lights are burning, burnino-, burnincr still. 
 In fact, it is a pretty retail trade 
 To furnish forth the candles ready made ; 
 
OUR LADY S CHAPEL. 
 
 And close beside the chapel and the way, 
 A chandler, at her stall, sits day by day. 
 And sells, both long and short, the waxen tapers, 
 Smartened with tinsel-foil and tinted papers. 
 
 To give of the mysterious truth an inkling, 
 Those who in this bright chapel breathe a prayer 
 To " Unser Frow,*' and burn a taper there. 
 Are said to get a husband in a twinkling : 
 Just as she-glow-worms, if it be not scandal. 
 Catch partners with their matrimonial candle. 
 
 159 
 
 How kind of blessed saints m heaven — 
 Where none in marriage, we are told, are given- 
 To interfere below in making matches, 
 And help old maidens to connubial catches ! 
 The truth is, that instead of looking smugly 
 
 (At least, so whisper wags satirical) 
 The votaries are all so old and ugly. 
 
 No man could foil in love but by a miracle. 
 However, that such waxen gifts and vows 
 Are sometimes for the purpose efficacious 
 
 In helping to a spouse, 
 Is vouched for by a story most veracious. 
 
 A certain Woman, though in name a wife, 
 
 Yet doomed to lonely life. 
 Her truant husband having been away 
 Nine years, two months, a week, and half a day- 
 Without remembrances by words or deeds — 
 Began to think she had sufficient handle 
 To talk of widowhood and burn her weeds, 
 Of course with a wax-candle. 
 
luO OUR LADY S CHAPEL, 
 
 Sick, single-handed with the world to grapple, 
 TTeary of solitude, and spleen, and vapors, 
 Away she hurried to Our Ladj's Chapel, 
 
 Full-handed with tico tapers — 
 And prayed, as she had never prayed before, 
 To be a bona, fide wife once more. 
 '•' Oh Holy Virgin ! listen to my prayer ! 
 And for sweet mercy, and thy sex's sake. 
 Accept the vows and offerings I make — 
 Others set up one light, but here *s a pair /" 
 
 Her prayer, it seemed, was heard ; 
 For in three little weeks, exactly reckoned. 
 
 As blithe as any bii'd. 
 She stood before the Priest with Hans the Second; — ■ 
 A fact that made her gratitude so hearty, 
 To " Unser Frow,"' and her propitious shrine, 
 She sent two waxen candles superfine. 
 Long enough for a Lapland evening party ! 
 
 Rich was the Wedding Feast and rare — 
 ^Miat sausages were there ! 
 Of sweets and sours there was a perfect glut : 
 With plenteous liquors to wash down good cheer 
 Brantwein, and Rhum, Kirsch-wasser, and Krug Bier. 
 And wine so sharp that every one was cut. 
 Rare was the feast — ^but rarer was the quality 
 Of mirth, of smoky -joke, and song, and toast — 
 When just in all the middle of their jollity — 
 With bumpers filled to Hostess and to Host. 
 And all the unborn branches of their house, 
 Unwelcome and unasked, like Banquo's Ghost, 
 
 Li walked the long-lost Spouse ! 
 
OUR lady's chapel. 
 
 161 
 
 What pen could ever paint 
 The hubbub when the Hubs were thus confronted ! 
 The bridesmaids fitfully began to faint ; 
 The bridesmen stared — some whistled, and some grunted : 
 Fierce Hans the First looked like a boar that 's hunted, 
 Poor Hans the Second like a suckling calf: 
 Meanwhile, confounded bj the double miracle, 
 The two-fold bride sobbed out, with tears hysterical, 
 " Oh Holy Virgin, you're too good — by half P^ 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 Ye Coblentz maids, take warning by the rhyme, 
 And as our Christian laws forbid polygamy 
 
 For fear of bigamy, 
 Only light up one taper at a time. 
 
 r- 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAaON. 
 
 In the famous old times, 
 
 (Famed for cbivalrous crimes,) 
 
 As the legends of Rhineland deliver, 
 
 Once there flourished a Knight, 
 
 Who Sir Otto -svas hight, 
 
 On the banks of the rapid green river ! 
 
 On the Drachenfels' crest 
 
 He had built a stone nest, 
 
 From which he pounced down like a vultiire, 
 
 And with talons of steel 
 
 Out of every man's meal 
 
 Took a very extortionate multure. 
 
 Yet he lived in good fame, 
 
 "With a nobleman's name, 
 
 As '■ Your High-and- Well-Born" ■ addi'essed daily- 
 
 Tho' Judge Park in his wig 
 
 "Would have deemed hun a prig, 
 
 Or a craksman, if tried at th' Old Bailey. 
 
 It is strange — very strange ! 
 How opinions will change ! — 
 How Antiquity blazons and hallows 
 
THE KXiailT AND TUE DRAGON. 163 
 
 Both the man and the crime 
 
 That a less lapse of time 
 
 Would commend to the hulks or the gallows ! 
 
 Thus enthralled by Romance, 
 
 In a mystified trance, 
 
 E'en a young, mild, and merciful Woman 
 
 Will recall with delight 
 
 The wild Keep, and its Knight, 
 
 Who was cjuite as much Tiger as Human ! 
 
 Now it chanced on a day 
 
 In the sweet month of IMay, 
 
 From his casement Sir Otto was gazing, 
 
 With his sword in the sheath, 
 
 At that prospect beneath, 
 
 Which our Tourists declare so amazing ! 
 
 Yes — he gazed on the Rhine, 
 
 And its banks, so di^dne ; 
 
 Yet with no admiration or wonder, 
 
 But the gout of a thief. 
 
 As a more niDdern Chief 
 
 Looked on London, and cried "What a plunder !" 
 
 From that river so fast, 
 
 From that champaign so vast, 
 
 He collected rare tribute and presents ; 
 
 Water-rates from ships' loads. 
 
 Highway-rates on the roads, 
 
 And hard Poor-rates from all the poor Peasants ! 
 
 ^Yhen behold ! round the base 
 
 Of his strong dwelling-place, 
 
 Only gained by most toilsome progression, 
 
1G4 THE KXIGIIT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 He perceived a full score 
 
 Of the rustics, or more, 
 
 Winding up in a sort of procession ! 
 
 " Keep them out !" the Knight cried 
 
 To the "Warders outside — 
 
 But the Hound at his feet gave a grumble ! 
 
 And in scrambled the knaves. 
 
 Like Feudality's slaves, 
 
 With all forms that are servile and humbl 
 
 " Now for boorish complaints ! 
 
 Grant me patience, ye Saints!" 
 
 Cried the KJnight, turning red as a mullet j 
 
 When the baldest old man 
 
 Thus his story began, 
 
 With a guttural croak in his gullet ! 
 
 " Lord Supreme of our lives, 
 
 Of our daughters, our -^vives, 
 
 Our she-cousins, our sons, and their spouses. 
 
 Of our sisters and aunts. 
 
 Of the babies God grants, 
 
 Of the handmaids that dwell in our houses ! 
 
 " Mighty master of all 
 
 We possess, great or small. 
 
 Of our cattle, our sows, and their farrows • 
 
 Of our mares and their colts. 
 
 Of our crofts, and our holts. 
 
 Of our ploughs, of our wains, and our harrows ! 
 
 " Noble Lord of the soil. 
 
 Of its corn and its oil, 
 
 Of its wine, only fit for such gentles ! 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 165 
 
 Of our carp and sauer-kraut, 
 
 Of our carp and our trout, 
 
 Our black bread, and black puddings, and lentils ! 
 
 '• SoYi'an Lord of our cheese, 
 
 And -whatever you please — 
 
 Of our bacon, our eggs, and our butter, 
 
 Of our backs and our polls, 
 
 Of our bodies and souls — 
 
 give ear to the tyocs that we utter ! 
 
 " "We are truly perplexed, 
 
 We are frighted and vexed, 
 
 Till the strings of our heart are all twisted; 
 
 We are ruined and curst, 
 
 By the fiercest and worst 
 
 Of all Robbers that ever existed 1" 
 
 '• Kow by Heaven and this light !" 
 
 In a rage cried the Knight, 
 
 " For this speech all your bodies shall stiffen! 
 
 What ! by Peasants miscalled !" 
 
 Quoth the man that was bald, 
 
 " Not your honor we mean, but a Griffin. 
 
 " For our herds and our flocks 
 
 He lays wait in the rocks, 
 
 And jumps forth without giving us warning ; 
 
 Two poor wethers, right fat. 
 
 And foui- lambs after that, 
 
 Did he swallow this very May morning !" 
 
 Then the High-and-Well-Born 
 
 Gave a laugh as in scorn, 
 
 " Is the Griffin indeed such a glutton? 
 
166 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 Let him eat up the rams, 
 
 And the lambs, and their dams — 
 
 If I hate any meat it is mutton !" 
 
 " Nay, your Worship," said then 
 
 The most bald of old men, 
 
 " For a sheep we -svould hardly thus cavil. 
 
 If the merciless Beast 
 
 Did not oftentimes feast 
 
 On the Pilgrims, and people that travel." 
 
 " Feast on what?" cried the Knight, 
 
 While his eye glistened bright 
 
 With the most diabolical flashes — 
 
 " Does the Beast dare to prey 
 
 On the road and highway ? 
 
 With our proper diversion that clashes 1" 
 
 " Yea, 'tis so, and far worse," 
 
 Said the Clown, " to our curse : 
 
 For by way of a snack or a tifiin, 
 
 Every week in the year 
 
 Sure as Sundays appear, 
 
 A young Virgin is thrown to the Griffin 1'' 
 
 "Ha! Saint Peter I Saint Mark!" 
 
 Iloar'd the Knight, frowning dark, 
 
 With an oath that was awful and bitter : 
 
 " A young maid to his dish ! 
 
 Why, what more could he wish, 
 
 If the Beast were High-Born and a Bitter I 
 
 " Now by this our good brand. 
 
 And by this our right hand. 
 
 By the badge that is borne on our banners. 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 If wc can but once meet 
 
 With the jNIonster's retreat, 
 
 "VVe will teach him to poach on our Manors 1" 
 
 Quite content "with this voav, 
 
 With a scrape and a bow 
 
 The glad Peasants went home to their flagons., 
 
 Where thej tippled so deep, 
 
 That each clown in his sleep 
 
 Dreamt of killing; a legion of Drao-ons ! 
 
 Thus eno;ao;ed, the bold Knirfit 
 
 Soon prepared for the flght 
 
 With the wily and scaly marauder ; 
 
 But ere battle began, 
 
 Like a good Christian man, 
 
 First he put all his household in order. 
 
 " Double bolted and barred 
 
 Let each gate have a guard" — 
 
 (Thus his rugged Lieutenant was bidden) 
 
 "And be sure, without fault. 
 
 No one enters the vault 
 
 Where the Church's gold vessels are hidden. 
 
 " In the dark Oubliette, 
 
 Let yon Merchant forget 
 
 That he e'er had a bark richly laden — 
 
 And that desperate youth. 
 
 Our own rival, forsooth ! 
 
 Just indulge with a Kiss of the Maiden I 
 
 " Crush the thumbs of the Jew 
 
 With the vice and the screw. 
 
 Till he tells where he buried his treasure ; 
 
 167 
 
168 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 And deliver our word 
 
 To jon sullen caged Bird, 
 
 That to-night she must sing for our pleasure !" 
 
 Thereupon, cap-a^pee, 
 
 As a Champion should be, 
 
 With the bald-headed Peasant to guide him, 
 
 On his War-horse he bounds, 
 
 And then, •whistling his hounds. 
 
 Prances off to ^vhat fate may betide him ! 
 
 Nor too long do they seek 
 
 Ere a horrible reek. 
 
 Like the fumes from some villanous tavern. 
 
 Sets the dogs on the snuff. 
 
 For they scent "well enough 
 
 The foul Monster coiled up in his cavern ! 
 
 Then alighting -with speed 
 
 Prom his terrified steed, 
 
 Which he ties to a tree for the present, 
 
 With his sword ready drawn, 
 
 Strides the Ritter High-born, 
 
 And along with him drags the scared peasant ! 
 
 '■ Sir Knight, good Sir Knight! 
 
 I am near enough qmte — 
 
 I have shown you the Beast and his grotto :" 
 
 But before he can reach 
 
 Any farther in speech. 
 
 He is stricken stone-dead by Sir Otto ! 
 
 Who, withdrawinor himself 
 
 To a high rocky shelf. 
 
 Sees the Monster his tail disentansle 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 From each tortuous coil, 
 
 "With a sudden turmoil, 
 
 And rush forth the dead Peasant to mangle. 
 
 With his terrible claws, 
 
 And his horrible jaws, 
 
 He soon moulds the warm corse to a jelly ; 
 
 Which he quickly sucks in 
 
 To his own wicked skin 
 
 And then sinks at full stretch on his belly. 
 
 Then the Knight softly goes. 
 
 On the tips of his toes, 
 
 To the greedy and slumbering Savage, 
 
 And with one hearty stroke 
 
 Of his sword, and a poke, 
 
 Kills the Beast that had made such a ravage. 
 
 So, extended at length. 
 
 Without motion or strength, 
 
 That gorged Serpent they call the Constrictor, 
 
 After dinner, while deep 
 
 In lethargical sleep, 
 
 Falls a prey to his Hottentot victor. 
 
 " 'Twas too easy by half!"' 
 
 Said the Knight, with a laugh ; 
 
 '•But as nobody witnessed the slaughter, 
 
 I will swear, knock and knock, 
 
 By Saint Winifred's clock. 
 
 We were at it three hours and a quarter !" 
 
 Then he chopt off the head 
 Of the Monster so dread, 
 "Which he tied to his horse as a trophy ; 
 8 
 
 169 
 
170 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 And, with Hounds, by the same 
 
 Ragged path that he came. 
 
 Home he jogged proud as Sultan or Sophy ! 
 
 Blessed Saints ! what a rout 
 
 When the news jflew about. 
 
 And the carcase was fetched in a wagon ; 
 
 What an outcry rose wild 
 
 From man, woman, and child — 
 
 "Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the Dragon!" 
 
 All that night the thick walls 
 
 Of the Knight's feudal halls 
 
 Kang with shouts for the wine-cup and flagon ; 
 
 'WTiilst the Vassals stood by, 
 
 And repeated the cry — 
 
 "Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the Dragon!" 
 
 The next night, and the next, 
 
 Still the fight was the text, 
 
 'T was a theme for the Minstrels to brag on! 
 
 And the Vassals' hoarse throats 
 
 Still re-echoed the notes — 
 
 "Live Sir Otto who vanquished the Dragon!" 
 
 There was never such work 
 
 Since the days of King Stork, 
 
 When he lived with the Frogs at free quarters ! 
 
 Not to name the invites 
 
 That were sent down of nights, 
 
 To the \'illagers' wives and their daughters ! 
 
 It was feast upon feast, 
 
 For good cheer never ceased. 
 
 And a foray replenished the flagon: 
 
THE KXIGHT AXD TEE DRAGON. 171 
 
 And the A^'assals stood by, 
 
 But more Aveak was the cry — 
 
 "Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the dragon 1" 
 
 Down again sank the sun, 
 
 Nor were revels yet done — 
 
 But as if every mouth had a gag on, 
 
 Tho' the Vassals stood round. 
 
 Deuce a word or a sound 
 
 Of '• Sir Otto who vanquished the Dragon!" 
 
 There was feasting aloft. 
 
 But, thro' pillage so oft 
 
 Down below there was wailing and hunger ; 
 
 And affection ran cold, 
 
 And the food of the old, 
 
 It was wolfishly snatched by the younger ! 
 
 Mad with troubles so vast. 
 
 Where 's the wonder at last 
 
 If the Peasants quite altered their motto ? — 
 
 And with one loud accord 
 
 Cried out " Would to the Lord 
 
 That the Dragon had vanquished Sir Otto!" 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 WIT AND HUMOR^ 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 STANZAS OX COMING OF AGE. 
 
 " Twiddle'em, Twaddle'em, Twenty-one." 
 
 Nurse. O woe ! O woeful, woeful day ! 
 
 Most lamentable day I most woeful day ! 
 
 That ever, ever, I did yet behold ! 
 
 O day! day ! O day ! O hateful day! 
 
 Never was seen so black a day as this ! 
 
 O woeful day 1 O woeful day ! 
 
 ***** 
 Musician. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone. 
 Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah ! put up, put up ! 
 
 For well you know this is a pitiful case. 
 
 Romeo akd Juliet. 
 
 To-DAT it is my natal day, 
 
 Three 'prenticeships have past away, 
 
 A part in work, a part in play, 
 
 Since I was bound to life ! 
 This first of ^Nlay I come of age, 
 A man, I enter on the stage 
 Where human passions fret and rage, 
 
 To mingle in the strife. 
 
 It ought to he a happy date, 
 My friends, they all congratulate 
 That I am come to " Man's Estate," 
 To some, a grand event ; 
 
176 STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 
 
 But ah ! to me descent allots 
 No acres, no maternal spots 
 In Beds, Bucks, Herts, Wilts, Essex, Notts, 
 Hants, Oxon, Berks, or Kent. 
 
 From John o'Groat's to Land's End search, 
 I have not one rod, pole, or perch, 
 To pay my rent, or tithe to church, 
 
 That I can call my own. 
 Not common-right for goose or ass ; 
 Then what is Man's Estate ? Alas ! 
 Six feet by two of mould and grass 
 
 "\ATien I am dust and bone. 
 
 Reserve the feast ! The board forsake ! 
 Ne'er tap the wine — don't cut the cake, 
 No toasts or foolish speeches make, 
 
 At which my reason spurns. 
 Before this happy term you praise, 
 And prate about returns and days, 
 Just o'er my vacant rent-roll gaze, 
 
 And sum up my retrurns. 
 
 I know where great estates descend 
 That here is Boyhood's legal end, 
 And easily can comprehend 
 
 How " Manors make the Man." 
 But as for me, I was not born 
 To quit-rent of a peppercorn. 
 And gain no ground this blessed mom 
 
 From Beersheba to Dan. 
 
 No barrels broach — no bonfii-es make ! 
 To roast a bullock for my sake. 
 
STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 177 
 
 Who in the countiy have no stake, 
 
 Would be too like a quiz ; 
 No banners hoist — let off no gun — 
 Pitch no marquee — devise no fun — 
 But think Tvhen man is Twenty-One 
 
 What new delights are his ! 
 
 What is the moral legal fact — 
 Of age to-day, I 'm free to act 
 For self — free, namely, to contract 
 
 Engagements, bonds, and debts ; 
 I 'm free to give my I U, 
 Sign, draw, accept, as majors do ; 
 And free to lose my fi-eedom too 
 
 For want of due assets. 
 
 I am of age to ask Miss Ball, 
 
 Or that great heiress. Miss Duval, 
 
 To go to church, hump, squint, and all, 
 
 And be my own for life. 
 But put such reasons on their shelves, 
 To tell the truth between ourselves, 
 I 'm one of those contented elves 
 
 Who do not want a wife. 
 
 "What else belongs to ]\Ianhood still ? 
 I 'm old enough to make my will 
 With valid clause and codicil 
 
 Before in turf I lie. 
 But I have nothing to bequeath 
 In earth, or waters underneath. 
 And in all candor let me breathe, 
 
 I do not want to die. 
 
178 STA^^ZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 
 
 Away! if this be Manhood's forte, 
 Put by the sherry and the port — 
 No ring of bells — no rustic sport — 
 
 No dance — no merry pipes ! 
 No flowery garlands — no bouquet — 
 No Birthday Ode to sing or say — 
 To me it seems this is a day 
 
 For bread and cheese and swipes. 
 
 To justify the festive cup 
 
 What horrors here are conjured up ! 
 
 What things of bitter bite and sup, 
 
 Poor wretched Twenty-One's ! 
 No landed lumps, but frumps and humps, 
 (Discretion's Days are far from trumps,) 
 Domestic discord, dowdies, dumps, 
 
 Death, dockets, debts, and duns ! 
 
 If you must drink, oh drink '• the King," 
 Reform — the Church — the Press — the Ring, 
 Drink Aldgate Pump — or anything, 
 
 Before a toast like this ! 
 Nay, tell me, coming thus of age. 
 And turning o'er this sorry page, 
 Was young Nineteen so far from sage ? 
 
 Or young Eighteen from bliss ? 
 
 Till this dull, cold, wet, happy morn — 
 No sign of May about the thorn — 
 Were Love and Bacchus both unborn ? 
 
 Had Beauty not a shape ? 
 Make answer, sweet Kate Finnerty ! 
 Make answer, lads of Trinity ? 
 Who sipped with me Divinity, 
 
 And quaffed the ruby grape ! 
 
STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 1T9 
 
 Xu (lunimerj then from flowery lips, 
 No throe times three and hip-hip-hips, 
 Because I "m ripe and full of pips — 
 
 I like a little green. 
 To put me on my solemn oath, 
 If sweep-like I could stop my growth 
 I would remain, and nothing loth, 
 
 A boy — about nineteen. 
 
 I^Iy friends, excuse me these rebukes ! 
 Were I a monarch's son, or duke's. 
 Go to the A^atican of Meux 
 
 And broach his Ijiggest barrels — 
 Impale whole elephants on spits — 
 Ring Tom of Lincoln till he splits, 
 And dance into St. Vitus" s fits, 
 
 And break your winds with carols ! 
 
 But ah ! too well you know my lot, 
 Ancestral acres greet me not. 
 My freehold "s in a garden-pot. 
 
 And barely worth a pin. 
 Away then with all festive stuff ! 
 Let Robins advertise and puff 
 My " Man's Estate/' I'm sure enough 
 
 I shall not buy it in. 
 
180 THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 " Oh where, and oh where 
 Is my bonnle laddie gone ?" — Old Sono. 
 
 One day, as I was going by 
 
 That part of Holborn christened High, 
 
 I heard a loud and sudden cry 
 
 That chill'd my very blood; 
 And lo ! from out a dirty alley, 
 Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, 
 I saw a crazy woman sally, 
 
 Bedaubed with grease and mud. 
 She turned her East, she turned her West, 
 Staring like Pythoness possest, 
 With streaming hair and heaving breast, 
 
 As one stark mad with grief 
 This way and that she wildly ran. 
 Jostling with woman and with man — 
 Her right hand held a frying-pan, 
 
 The left a lump of beef 
 At last her frenzy seemed to reach 
 A point just capable of speech, 
 And with a tone, almost a screech, 
 
 As wild as ocean birds, 
 Or female Ranter mov.ed to preach. 
 
 She gave her " sorrow words." 
 
 " Lord! dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick 
 
 stark staring wild ! 
 Has ever a one seen any thing about the streets like a 
 
 crying lost-looking child? 
 
THE LOST HEIR. ISl 
 
 Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I 
 
 only knew which way — 
 A Qiild as is lost about London streets, and especially 
 
 Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. 
 I am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do. you wretch. 
 
 you little Kitty M'Xab ! 
 You promised to have half an eye to him. you know you 
 
 did, you ditty deceitful young drab. 
 The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my 
 
 own blessed ^lotherly eyes, 
 Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making 
 
 little dirt pies. 
 I wonder he left the court, where he was better off than all 
 
 the other young boys, 
 With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead 
 
 kitten by way of toys. 
 When his Father comes home, and he always comes home 
 
 as sure as ever the clock strikes one, 
 He '11 be rampant, he will, at his child being lost ; and the 
 
 beef and the inguns not done ! 
 La bless you. good folks, mind your own concarns. and 
 
 don't be making a mob in the street; 
 Serjeant M 'Far lane ! you have not come across my poor 
 
 little boy, have you. in your beat ? 
 Do, good people, move on ! don't stand staring at me like a 
 
 parcel of stupid stuck pigs ; 
 Saints forbid ! but he 's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a 
 
 court for the sake of his clothes by the priggs : 
 He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it my sell 
 
 for a shilling one day in Rag Fair ; 
 And his trowsers considering not very much patched, and 
 
 red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. 
 
— I 
 
 182 THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 His shirt, it "s very luckj I "d got washing in the tub, or 
 
 that might have gone -with the rest ; 
 But he \1 got on a verj good pinafore Tvith onlj two slits 
 
 and a Imrn on the breast. 
 He 'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew'd in, and 
 
 not quite so much jagged at the brim. 
 Yuth one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a 
 
 fit, and jou "11 know by that if it 's him. 
 Except being so well dressed, my mind would misgive, some 
 
 old beggar woman in want of an orphan 
 Had borrowed the child to go a begging with ; but I"d rather 
 
 see him laid out in his coffin ! 
 Do, good people, move on; such a rabble of boys! I'll 
 
 break every bone of 'em I come near ; 
 Go home — ^you 're spilling the porter — go home — Tommy 
 
 Jones, go along with your beer. 
 This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my 
 
 name was Betty ^Morgan, 
 Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all along 
 
 of following a Monkey and an Organ : 
 my Billy — my head will turn right round — if he "s got 
 
 kiddy napp'd with them Italians 
 They "11 make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, 
 
 the outlandish tatterdemalions. 
 Billy — where are you, Billy ? — I 'm as hoarse as a crow, 
 
 with screaming for ye. you young sorrow ! ' 
 And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan"t. for crvin-]: 
 
 fresh herrings to-morrow. 
 Billy, you 're bui'sting my heart in two, and my life 
 
 won"t be of no more vally, 
 If I "m to see other folks darlins, and none of mine, play- 
 ing like angels in our alley, 
 
r--— — 
 
 THE LOST HEIR. 183 
 
 And what shall I Jo Ijut cry out my eyes, when I looks at 
 
 the old three-le^rrred chair 
 As Billy used to make coach and horses of. and there a" n't 
 
 no Billy there ! 
 I would run all the wide world over to find him. if I only 
 
 knowed where to run ; 
 Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month 
 
 through stealing a penny-bun — 
 The Lord forbid of any child of mine ! I think it would 
 
 kill me raily 
 To find my Bill holdin' up his little innocent hand at the 
 
 Old Bailey. 
 For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say. you may 
 
 search for miles and mileses 
 And not find one better brought up, and more pretty be- 
 haved, from one end to t' other of St. Giles's. 
 And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but only as a 
 
 Mother ought to speak ; 
 You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it has n't 
 
 been washed for a week ; 
 As for hair, tho' its red, its the most nicest hair when I "ve 
 
 time to just show it the comb ; 
 I '11 owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only 
 
 bring him safe and sound home. 
 He 's blue eyes, and not to be called a squint, though a little 
 
 cast he 's certainly got ; 
 And his nose is still a good un, tho' the bridge is broke, 1)y 
 
 his falling on a pewter pint pot ; 
 He 's got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and 
 
 very lars^e teeth for his asre ; 
 And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid 
 
 on the Drury Lane Stage. 
 And then he has got such dear winning ways — but I 
 
 never never shall see him no more ! 
 
184 THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 dear ! to think of losing him just after nussing him back 
 from death's door ! 
 
 Onlj the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, 
 
 was at twenty a penny ! 
 And the threepence he 'd got by grottoing was spent in 
 
 plums, and sixty for a child is too many. 
 And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all and, drat 
 
 him, made a seize of our hog. — 
 It 's no use to send the Cryer to cry him about, he 's such a 
 i blunderin' drunken old dog ; 
 
 The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he was 
 
 guzzling with his bell at the Crown, 
 And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted 
 
 Mother and Father about Town. 
 Billy — where are you, Billy, I say ? come Billy, come home, 
 
 to your best of Mothers ! 
 
 1 'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, 
 they 'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. 
 
 Or may be he 's stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to 
 
 stick fast in narrow flues and what not, 
 And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when 
 
 the soot has ketched, and the chimbly" s red hot. 
 Oh I 'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, 
 
 to clap my two longin' eyes on his face. 
 For he's my darlin of darlins, and if he don't soon come 
 
 back, you '11 see me drop stone dead on the place. 
 I only wish I 'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, 
 
 and would n't I hug him and kiss him ! 
 Lauk ! I never knew what a precious he was — but a child 
 
 don't not feel like a child till you miss him. 
 V\liy there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the young 
 
 wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin ! 
 But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and 
 
 I 'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin ! 
 
A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE. 185 
 
 A SINCtUL.1R EXHIBmOX AT SOMEESET HOUSE. 
 
 "Our Crummie is a dainty cow."— Scotch Song. 
 
 Ox that fii-st Saturday in Maj. 
 
 When Lords and Ladies, great and grand, 
 
 Repair to see what each R. A. 
 
 Has done since last thej sought the Strand 
 
 Li red, brown, jellow, green, or blue, 
 
 In short, what "s called the private ^-iew, 
 
 Amongst the guests — the deuce knows how 
 
 She got in there without a row — 
 
 There came a large and vulgar dame 
 
 With arms deep red, and face the same. 
 
 Showing in temper not a Saint ; 
 
 No one could guess for why she came, 
 
 Unless perchance to "' scour the Paint." 
 
 From wall to wall she forced her way. 
 Elbowed Lord Durham — poked Lord Grey — 
 Stamped Staflord's toes to make him move, 
 And Devonshire's Duke received a shove ; 
 The great Lord Chancellor felt her nudge, 
 She made the Vice, his Honor, bud^e. 
 And gave a pmch to Park the Judge. 
 As for the ladies, in this stir, 
 The highest rank gave way to her. 
 
 From number one and number two, 
 
 She searched the pictures through and throut^h, 
 
 On benches stood, to inspect the high ones. 
 
 And squatted down to scan the shy ones. 
 
 And as slie went from part to part, 
 
 A deeper red each cheek became, 
 
186 A SINGULAR EXHIBITION 
 
 Her very eyes lit up in flame, 
 
 That made each looker-on exclaim, 
 
 '• Really an ardent love of art !" 
 
 Alas, amidst her inquisition, 
 
 Fate brought her to a sad condition ; 
 
 She might have run against Lord Milton, 
 
 And still have stared at deeds in oil, 
 
 But ah ! her picture-joy to spoil, 
 
 She came full butt on Mr. Hilton. 
 
 The Keeper mute, -with staring eyes, 
 Like a lay-figure for surprise. 
 At last thus stammered out "Ho"V7 now? 
 Woman — where, woman, is your ticket, 
 That ought to let you through our wicket?" 
 Says woman, '-AYhere is David's Cow?" 
 
 Said Mr. H . with expedition, 
 
 There 's no Cow in the Exhibition. 
 
 " No Cow !"' — but here her tongue in verity, 
 
 Set off with steam and rail celerity — 
 
 " No Cow ! there an't no Cow, then the more 's the shame 
 
 and pity 
 Hang you and the R. A.'s, and all the Hanging Committee ! 
 No cow — but hold your tongue, for you needn't talk to me — 
 You can't talk up the Cow, you can"t, to where it ought 
 
 to be — 
 I have n't seen a picture high or low, or any how. 
 Or in any of the rooms to be compared with David's Cow? 
 You may talk of your Landseers, and of your Coopers, and 
 
 your "Wards, 
 Why hanging is too good for them, and yet here they are 
 
 on cords \ 
 
AT SOMEKSET HOrSE. 187 
 
 They "re only fit for -syindow frames, and shutters, and street 
 
 doors, 
 David Avill paint "em any day at Red Lions or Blue Boars — 
 ^\}lJ Morland was a fool to him, at a little pig or sow- 
 It "s really hard it an't hung up— I could cry about the 
 
 Cow! 
 But I know well what it is, and why— they're jealous of 
 
 David's fame, 
 But to vent it on the Cow, poor thing, is a cruelty and a 
 
 shame. 
 Do you think it might hang by and by, if you cannot hang 
 
 it now? 
 David has made a party up to come and see his Cow. 
 If it only hung three days a week, for an example to the 
 
 learners, 
 \Vb.j can't it hang up, turn about, with that picture of Mr. 
 
 Turner's? 
 Or do you think from Mr. Etty, you need apprehend a row ? 
 If now and then you cut him down to hang up David's Cow ? 
 I can t thmk where their tastes have been, to not have such 
 
 a creature. 
 Although I say, that should not say, it was prettier than 
 Nature ; 
 
 It must be hung — and shall be hung, for Mr. H , I 
 
 vow, 
 I dare n't take home the catalogue, unless it 's got the Cow I 
 As we only want it to be seen, I should not so much care, 
 If it was only round the stone man's neck, a-coming up the 
 
 stair. 
 Or down there in the marble room where all the figures 
 
 stand. 
 'Where one of them three Graces might just hold it in her 
 hand — 
 
188 I'm going to bombat. 
 
 Or maybe Bailey's Charity the favor would allo-w. 
 It would really be a charity to hang up David's cow. 
 We have n"t no where else to go if you don"t hang it here, 
 The Water- Color place allows no oilman to appear — 
 And the British Gallery sticks to Dutch, Teniers, and Ger- 
 
 rard Douw, 
 And the Suffolk Gallery will not do — it 's not a Suffolk Cow : 
 I wish you "d see him painting her, he hardly took his meals 
 Till she was painted on the board correct from head to heels; 
 His heart and soul was in his Cow, and almost made him 
 
 shabby, 
 He hardly whipped the boys at all, or helped to nurse the 
 
 babby. 
 And when he had her all complete and painted over red, 
 He got so grand, I really thought him going off his head. 
 Now hang it, Mr. Hilton, do just hang it any how, 
 Poor David, he will hang himself, unless you hang his 
 
 Cow — 
 And if it "s unconvenient and drawn too big by half — 
 David shan't send next year except a very little calf. 
 
 I'M GOING TO BO^IBAY. 
 
 "Nothing venture, nothins have." — Old Peovteb. 
 "Every Indiaman has at least two mates." — 
 
 Falconee's Maeini GrTDE. 
 
 My hau' is brown, my eyes are blue, 
 And reckoned rather bright ; 
 I 'm shapely, if they tell me true, 
 And just the proper height; 
 
I 'M going to BOMBAY. 189 
 
 My skin has been admired in verse, 
 And called as fair as day — 
 If I am fair, so much the worse, 
 I 'm gomg to Bombay ! 
 
 At school I passed with some eclat ; 
 I learned my French in France ; 
 De Wint gave lessons how to draw, 
 And D'Egville how to dance — 
 Crevelli taught me how to sing, 
 And Cramer how to play — 
 It really is the strangest thing — 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 I "ve been to Bath and Cheltenham Wells, 
 
 But not their springs to sip — 
 
 To Ramsgate — not to pick up shells — 
 
 To Brighton — not to dip, 
 
 I "ve toured the Lakes, and scoured the coast 
 
 From Scarboro' to Torquay — 
 
 But tho' of time I 've made the most, 
 
 I "m going to Bombay ! 
 
 By Pa and Ma I 'm daily told 
 
 To marry now 's my time, 
 
 For though I 'm very for from old, 
 
 I 'm rather in my prime. 
 
 They say while we have any sun 
 
 We ought to make our hay — ■ 
 
 And India has so hot an one, 
 
 I "m going to Bombay ! 
 
 My cousin writes from Hyderapot, 
 My only cliance to snatch. 
 
190 I \m GOINJ to BOMBAY. 
 
 And says the climate is so hot, 
 
 It 's sure to light a match — 
 
 She 's married to a son of Mars 
 
 With very handsome pay, 
 
 And swears I ought to thank my stars 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 She says that I shall much delight 
 
 To taste their Indian treats, 
 
 But what she likes may turn me quite, 
 
 Their strange outlandish meats — . 
 
 If I can eat rupees, who knows ? 
 
 Or dine, the Indian way, 
 
 On doolies and on bungalows — ■ 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 She says that I shall much enjoy — > 
 
 I don't know what she means — 
 
 To take the air and buy some toy 
 
 In my own palankeens — 
 
 I like to drive my pony-chair, 
 
 Or ride our daj^ple gray — 
 
 But elephants are horses there — 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay I 
 
 Farewell, farewell, my parents dear, 
 
 My friends, farewell to them I 
 
 And oh, what costs a sadder tear 
 
 Good-bye, to Mr. M. ! — 
 
 If I should find an Indian vault, 
 
 Or fall a tiger's prey. 
 
 Or steep in salt, it 's all his fault, 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 191 
 
 That fine new teak-built ship, the Fox, 
 
 A. 1. — Commander Bird, 
 
 Now lying in the London Docks, 
 
 Will sail on ^laj the Third ; 
 
 Aj^ply for passage or for freight, 
 
 To Nichol, Scott, and Gray — 
 
 Pa has applied and sealed my fate — 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 I\Iy heart is full— my trunks as well ; 
 
 ISIy mind and caps made up, 
 
 My corsets, shaped by Mrs. Bell, 
 
 Are promised ere I sup ; 
 
 With boots and shoes, Rivarta's best, 
 
 And Dresses by Duce, 
 
 And a special license in my chest — 
 
 I 'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 
 
 Hail ! seventy-four cut down ! Hail, Top and Lop ! 
 
 L'nless I 'm much mistaken in my notion, 
 Thou wast a stirring Tar, before that hop 
 
 Became so fatal to thy locomotion : — 
 Now, thrown on shore, like a mere weed of ocean, 
 
 Thou readest still to men a lesson good, 
 To King and Country showing thy devotion 
 
 By kneeling thus upon a stump of wood ! 
 Still is thy spirit strong as alcohol ; 
 
 Spite of that limb, begot of acorn-egg — 
 Methinks — thou Kaval History in one Vol. — 
 
 A virtue shines, «'en in that timber leg, 
 For unlike others that desert their Poll. 
 
 Thou walkest ever with thy '• Constant Peg!" 
 
192 A BLOW-UP. 
 
 A BLOW-UP. 
 
 " Here we go up, np, up." — ^The Lat of the Fiest Mjnstbei. 
 
 Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker 
 
 Was Powder-maker, 
 Not Alderman Flower's flour — the white that puffs 
 And primes and loads heads bald, or grey, or chowder, 
 Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filbj — Crowder, 
 Not vile a,pothecary's pounded stuffs. 
 But something blacker, bloodier and louder — 
 
 Gun-powder ! 
 
 This stuff, as people know, is setnpe?' 
 Eadejii ; very hasty in its temper — 
 Like Honor that resents the gentlest taps, 
 Mere semblances of blows, however slight ; 
 So powder fires, although you only p'rhaps 
 
 Strike light. 
 To make it, therefore, is a ticklish business, 
 And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness. 
 For as all human flash and fancy minders. 
 Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know, 
 There seldom is a mill without a blow 
 Sometimes upon the grinders. 
 But then — the melancholy phrase to soften, 
 ]Mr. B.'s mill transpired so very often ! 
 And advertised — then all Price Currents louder, 
 " Fragments look up — there is a rise in Powder," 
 So frequently, it caused the neighbors' wonder — 
 And certain people had the inhumanity 
 To lay it all to ]Mr. Baker's vanity. 
 That he might have to say — " That was my thunder !"^ 
 
A BLOW-UP. 
 
 193 
 
 One daj — so goes the tale, 
 
 "VMiether, vrith iron hoof 
 
 Not sparkle-proof, 
 Some ninnj-hammer struck upon a nail — 
 Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp, 
 Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp — 
 One day this mill that had by water ground, 
 Became a sort of windmill and blew round. 
 With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it 
 Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky ; 
 Besides some visitors who gained thereby 
 ■\Yhat they had asked — permission •• to go over it I'" 
 Of coui-se it was a very hard and high blow. 
 And somewhat tliffered from what "s called a flyblow. 
 At Cowes" Regatta, as I once observed, 
 A pistol-shot made twenty vessels start : 
 If such a sound could terrify oak's heart. 
 Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved. 
 In fact, it was a very awful thing — 
 As people know that have been used to battle, 
 In springing either mine or mill, you spring 
 
 A precious rattle ! 
 The dunniest heard it — poor old 'Sir. F. 
 Doubted for once if he was ever deaf: 
 Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms, 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fogg, 
 
 Who lived like cat and dog, 
 Were shocked for once into each other's arms. 
 Miss M. the milliner, her fi-ight so strong, 
 :Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long ; 
 The veriest quakers quaked against their wish : 
 The •• Best of Sons"' was taken unawares, 
 And kicked the •• Best of Parents"' down the stairs : 
 
194 A BLOW-UP. 
 
 The steadiest servant dropped the China dish ; 
 A thousand started, though there was but one 
 Fated to win, and that was Mister Dunn, 
 Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish ! 
 
 Miss Wiggins, with some grass upon her fork, 
 Tossed it just like a ha-j-maker at work ; 
 Her sister not in any better case, 
 
 For taking wine, 
 
 With nervous Mr. Pjne, 
 He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face. 
 
 Poor Mistress Davy, 
 Bobbed off her bran-new turban in the gravy ; 
 While Mr. Davy at the lower end. 
 Preparing for a Goose a carver's labor, 
 Darted his two-pronged weapon in his neighbor, 
 As if for once he meant to help a friend. 
 
 The nurse-maid telling little " Jack-a-Norey, " 
 " Bo-peep" and " Blue-cap" at the house's top. 
 Screamed, and let Master Jeremiah drop 
 
 From a fourth story ! 
 Nor yet did matters any better go 
 With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below • 
 As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning, 
 Expressing faintness and her fear by fits 
 And starts — she came at last but to her wits 
 By falling in the ale that John left running. 
 
 Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind, 
 Struck all at once, deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind. 
 Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse, 
 
 Then coming to his mind, 
 
 Was shocked to find 
 
A BLOW-UP. 195 
 
 Only a pair ot shafts without a horse. 
 
 Out scrambled all the jNlisses from Miss Joy's ! 
 
 From Prospect House, for urchins small and big, 
 Hearing the awful noise, 
 Out rushed a flood of boys, 
 
 Floatinor a man in black, without a wio- : — 
 
 Some carried out one treasure, some another — 
 Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry, 
 Same saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Murray — 
 
 But little Tiddy carried his big brother ! 
 
 Sick of such terrors, 
 The Tunbridge folks resolved that truth should dwell 
 No longer secret in a Tunbridcre Well, 
 But to warn Baker of his dangerous errors ; 
 Accordingly, to bring the point to pass, 
 They called a meeting of the broken glass, 
 The shattered chimney-pots, and scattered tiles, 
 
 The damage of each part, 
 
 And packed it in a cart 
 Drawn by the horse that ran from ISIr. ISIiles ; 
 WTiile Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector, 
 And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex, 
 And some few more, whose names would only vex, 
 Went as a deputation to the Ex- 
 Powder-proprietor and Mill-director. 
 
 Now Mr. Baker's dwelling-house had pleased 
 
 Along with mill-materials to' roam. 
 
 And for a time the deputies were teased 
 
 To find the noisy gentleman at home ; 
 
 At last they found him with undamaged skin. 
 
 Safe at the Tunbridge Arms — not out — but Inn. 
 
196 A BLOW-UP. 
 
 The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal, 
 Soon put his spoke in for the common weal — 
 A grave old gentlemanly kind of Urban — 
 The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded, 
 
 And then unfolded, 
 By way of climax, Mrs. Davy's turban ; 
 He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding 
 
 Knocked down a lot without a bidding — 
 How Mr. Miles, in a fright, had given his mare 
 
 The whip she would n't bear — 
 At Prospect House, how Doctor Gates, not Titus, 
 
 Danced like St. Vitus — 
 And Mr. Beak, thro' Powder's misbehaving, 
 
 Cut off his nose whilst shaving ; — 
 When suddenly, with words that seemed like swearing, 
 Beyond a Licenser's belief or bearing — 
 Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage — 
 Who is to pay us. Sir — he argued thus, 
 "For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus — 
 Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-dam-damage ?" 
 
 Now many a person had been ftiirly puzzled 
 By such assailants, and completely muzzled ; 
 Baker, however, was not dashed with ease — 
 But proved he practised after their own system, 
 And with small ceremony soon dismissed 'em. 
 Putting these words into their ears like fleas ; 
 " If I do have a blow, well, where 's the oddity? 
 I merely do as other tradesmen do. 
 
 You, Sir — and you — and you I 
 I 'm only puffing off my own commodity !'* 
 
A TRUE STORY. 197 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 Whoe'er has seen upon the human face 
 The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black. 
 May form a notion of old Colonel Case 
 "With nigger Pompey waiting at his back. 
 
 Case — as the case is, many times with folks 
 From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay, 
 Had tmt his tint, as Scottish tongues would say, 
 And showed two cheeks as yellow as eggs' yolks. 
 Pompey. the chip of some old ebon block, 
 In hue was like his master's stiff cravat, 
 And might indeed have claimed akin to that, 
 Coming, as he did, of an old black stock. 
 
 Case wore the liver's livery that such 
 Must wear, their past excesses to denote. 
 Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much, 
 And then do penance in a yellow coat. 
 Pompey's, a deep and permanent jet dyej 
 A stain of nature's staining — one of those 
 AVe call fast colors — merely, I suppose. 
 Because such colors never ffo or Jli/. 
 
 Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow, 
 Pompey's black husk, and the old Colonel's yellow. 
 
 The Colonel, once a pennyless beginner, 
 From a long Indian rubber rose a winner, 
 With plenty of pagodas in his pocket. 
 And homeward turning his Hibernian thought. 
 Deemed Wickhw was the very place that ought 
 To harbor one whose ivick was in the socket. 
 
198 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 Unhappily for Case's scheme of quiet, 
 Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot, 
 A fact recorded in each day's diumals, 
 Things Case was not accustomed to peruse, 
 
 Careless of news ; 
 But Pompey always read these bloody journals, 
 Full of Killmany and of Killmore work, 
 The freaks of some O'Shaunessy's shillaly. 
 Of mornings frays by some O'Brien Burke, 
 Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly ; 
 How scums deserving of the Devil" s ladle, 
 Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it, 
 And if he found an infant in the cradle, 
 Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it ; — 
 In feet, he read of burner and of killer, 
 And Irish ravage, day after day, 
 Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say 
 That -'Pompey could not sleep on Pompeifs Pillar J"* 
 
 Judge then the horror of the nigger's face 
 
 To find — with such impressions of that dire land — 
 
 That Case — his master — was a packing case 
 
 For Ireland ! 
 He saw, in fearful reveries arise, 
 Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men 
 WTiose fame associate with Irish plots is, 
 Fitzge raids — Tones — 0' Connors — Hares — and then 
 " Those Emmets,'^ not so " little in his eyes" 
 
 As Doctor Watts' s ! 
 He felt himself piked, roasted — carved and hacked, 
 His big black burly body seemed in fact 
 A pmcushion for Terror's pins and needles — 
 Oh, how he wished himself beneath the sun 
 
A TRUE STORY. 199 
 
 Of Afric — or m far Barljadoes — one 
 
 Of Bishop Coleridge's new black beadles. 
 
 Full of his fright, 
 With broken peace and broken English choking, 
 As black as any raven, and as croaking, 
 Pompej rushed in upon his master's sight, 
 Plumped on his knees, and clasped his sable digits, 
 Thus stirring Curiosity's sharp fidgets — 
 " Massa ! — Massa! — Colonel !— Ma ssa Case : — 
 Not go to Ireland ! — Ireland dam bad place ; 
 Dem take our bloods — dem Irish — every drop — 
 Oh why for Massa go so far a distance 
 
 To have him life '?"" Here Pompey made a stop 
 
 Putting an awful period to existence. 
 
 " Not go to Ireland — not to Ireland, fellow. 
 
 And murdered — why should I be murdered. Sirrah?" 
 
 Cried Case, with anger's tinge upon his yellow — ; 
 
 Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mm-or 
 
 The Colonel's saffron, and his own japan, — 
 
 ""Well, what has that to do — quick — speak outright, 
 
 boy?"' 
 " Massa" — (so the explanation ran) 
 " Massa be killed — 'cause Massa Orange Man, 
 And Pompey killed — 'cause Pompey not a White 
 
 Boy r 
 
200 THERE 'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 
 
 THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT! 
 
 " 80 while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered myself 
 that I should outwit and incense them all; behold, my hopes are to be crushed at once, 
 by my aunt's consent and approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But here, Sir, 
 — here is the picture!" — Lydia Langcisu. 
 
 DAYS of old, days of Knights, 
 Of tourneys and of tilts, 
 
 Wherulove was balked and valor stalked 
 
 On high heroic stilts — 
 Where are ye gone ? — adventures cease, 
 r The world gets tame and flat — 
 
 We 've nothing now but New Police — 
 There 's no Romance in that ! 
 
 1 wish I ne'er had learned to read, 
 Or Radcliffe how to write ; 
 
 That Scott had been a boor on Tweed, 
 
 And Lewis cloistered quite ! 
 Would I had never drank so deep 
 
 Of dear Miss Porter's vat ; 
 I only turn to life, and weep — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 No Bandits lurk — no turbaned Turk 
 
 To Tunis bears me off — 
 I hear no noises in the night 
 
 Except my mother's cough — 
 No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house, 
 
 No shape — but owl or bat, 
 Come flitting after moth or mouse — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
THERE 'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 
 
 I have not any grief profound, 
 
 Or secrets to confess, 
 My story would not fetch a pound 
 
 For A. K. Newman's press ; 
 Instead of looking thin and pale, 
 
 I 'm growing red and fat, 
 As if I lived on beef and ale — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 It 's very hard, by land or sea 
 
 Some strange event I court, 
 But nothing ever comes to me 
 
 That 's worth a pen's report : 
 It really made my temper chafe. 
 
 Each coast that I was at, 
 I vowed, and railed, and came home safe — 
 
 There 's no Romance in that ! 
 
 The only time I had a chance 
 
 At Brighton one fine day. 
 My chestnut mare began to prance, 
 
 Took fright, and ran away ; 
 Alas ! no Captain of the Tenth 
 "To stop my steed came pat ; 
 A Butcher caught the rein at length — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 Love — even love — goes smoothly on 
 A railway sort of track — 
 
 No flinty sire, no jealous Don ! 
 No hearts upon the rack ; 
 
 No Polydore, no Theodore — 
 His ugly name is Mat, 
 
 Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more- 
 There 's no Romance in that ! 
 9* 
 
 201 
 
202 THERE "S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 
 
 He is not dark, he is not tall — 
 
 His forehead 's rather lo-^. 
 He is not pensive — not at all, 
 
 But smiles his teeth to sho-vr ; 
 He comes from Wales and yet in size 
 
 Is really but a sprat ; 
 With sandy hair and greyish eyes — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks, 
 
 Or long sword hanging down ; 
 He dresses much like other folks, 
 
 And commonly in brown ; 
 His collar he will not discard, 
 
 Or give up his cravat, 
 Lord Byron-like — he "s not a Bard — 
 
 There 's no Romance in that ! 
 
 He 's rather bald, his sight is weak. 
 
 He "s deaf in either drum ; 
 Without a lisp he cannot speak, 
 
 But then — he "s worth a plum. 
 He talks of stocks and three per cents, 
 
 By way of private chat, 
 Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 I sing — no matter what I sing, 
 
 Di Tanti — or Crudel, 
 Tom Bowling, or God save the King, 
 
 Di piacer — All's well : 
 He knows no more about a voice 
 
 For singing than a gnat — 
 And as to Music •■ has no choice" — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
TIIEr.E 
 
 XD rvOr.iAxcE ix that. 
 
 203 
 
 Of llijliL guitar I cannot boast, 
 
 • He never serenades ; 
 
 He writes, and sends it by the post, 
 
 He does n't bribe the maids : 
 No stealth, no hempen ladder — no I 
 
 He comes with loud rat-tat 
 That startles half of Bedford Row — 
 
 There's no Romance in that ! 
 
 He comes at nine in time to choose 
 His coffee — just two cups, 
 
 And talks with Pa about the news, 
 Repeats debates, and sups. 
 
 John helps him with his coat aright, 
 And Jenkins hands his hat ; 
 
 My lover bows and says good night- 
 There 's no Romance in that! 
 
 I 've long had Pa's and Ma's consent, 
 
 My aunt she quite approves, 
 My Brother wishes joy from Kent, 
 
 None try to thwart our loves ; 
 On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace 
 
 Will make me Mrs. Pratt, 
 Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place — - 
 
 There '.s no Romance in that." 
 
204 THE schoolmaster's motto. 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MOTTO. 
 
 "The Admiral compelled them all to strike."— Life of Neison. 
 
 Hush ! silence in School — not a noise ! 
 
 You shall soon see there 's nothing to jeer at. 
 Master Marsh, most audacious of boys ! 
 
 Come ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 So this morn, in the midst of the Psalm, 
 The Miss Siflfkins's school you must leer at. 
 
 You 're complained of — Sir ! hold out your palm- 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 You Avilful young rebel, and dunce ! 
 
 This offence all your sins shall appear at, 
 You shall have a good caning at once— 
 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat .'" 
 
 You are backward, you know, in each verb. 
 And your pronouns you are not more clear at, 
 
 But you 're forward enough to disturb — 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !' 
 
 P' 
 
 You said Master Twigg stole the plums. 
 When the orchard he never was near at, 
 
 I '11 not punish wrong fingers or thumbs — 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 You make Master Taylor your butt. 
 
 And this morning his face you threw beer at, 
 
 And you struck him — do you like a cut? 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 
 
THE schoolmaster's MOTTO. 205 
 
 Little Biddle jou likewise distress, 
 
 You are always his hair, or his ear at — 
 
 He 's mj Opt^ Sir, and you are my Pess : 
 There I — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 
 
 Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous, 
 
 An offence I am always severe at ! 
 You discredit to Cicero-House ! 
 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 
 
 You have made, too, a plot in the night 
 
 To run off from the school that you rear at I 
 
 Come, your other hand, now. Sir — the right, 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 
 
 I '11 teach you to draw, you young dog I 
 
 Such pictures as I 'm looking here at ! 
 " Old Mounsecr making soup of a frog," 
 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 You have run up a hill at a shop 
 
 That in paying you '11 be a whole year at — 
 
 You 've but twopence a week. Sir, to stop I 
 There! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 
 
 Then at dinner you 're quite cock-a-hoop, 
 And the soup you are certain to sneer at — 
 
 I have sipped it — it 's very good soup — 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 T' other day, when I fell o'er the form. 
 Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at? 
 
 Well for you that my temper 's not warm — • 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
206 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 
 
 Why, you rascal I you insolent brat ! 
 
 All my talking you don't shed a tear at, 
 There — take that, Sir ! and that ! that ! and that I 
 
 There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 
 
 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 
 
 A PASTORAL AFTER POPE. 
 
 Two swains or clowns — but call them swains — 
 
 Wliile keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains, 
 
 For all that tend on sheep as drovers 
 
 Are turned to songsters, or to lovers, 
 
 Each of the lass he called his dear 
 
 Began to carol loud and clear. 
 
 First Huggins sang, and Duggins then, • 
 
 In the way of ancient shepherd men ; 
 
 Who thus alternate hitched in song, 
 
 " All things by turns, and nothing long." 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 Of all the girls about our place, 
 There's one beats all in form and face ; 
 Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead, 
 You '11 only find one Peggy Plumstead, 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 To groves and streams I tell my flame, 
 I make the clifis repeat her name : 
 When I 'm inspired by gills and noggins. 
 The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins ! 
 
HUGGIXS AND DUGGINS. 207 
 
 HUGGIXS. 
 
 ^Micn I am walking in the grove, 
 I think of Peggj as I rove. 
 I 'd carve her name on every tree, 
 But I don't know my A, B, C. 
 
 DUGGIXS. 
 
 Whether I walk in hill or valley, 
 I think of nothing else but Sally. 
 I 'd sing her praise, but I <mn sing 
 No song, except " God save the King." 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 My Peggy does all nymphs excel, 
 And all confess she bears the bell : — 
 Wherever she goes swains flock together, 
 Like sheep that follow the bellwether. 
 
 DUGGIXS. 
 Sally is tall and not too straight — 
 Those very poplar shapes I hate ; 
 But something twisted like an S — 
 A crook becomes a shepherdess. 
 
 IIUGGIXS. 
 
 When Peggy's dog her arms emprison, 
 I often wish my lot was hisn : 
 How often I should stand and turn, 
 To get a pat from hands like hern. 
 
 DUGGIXS. 
 
 I tell SalVs lambs how blest they be, 
 
 To stand about and stare at she ; 
 
 But when I look, she turns and shies. 
 
 And won't lear none but their sheep's-eyes 1 
 
208 HUGGINS AND DUGQINS. 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 Love goes with Peggy where she goes — 
 Beneath her smile the garden grows ; 
 Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts, 
 'Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts ! 
 
 DUG GINS. 
 
 Where Sally goes it "s always Spring, 
 Her presence brightens every thing ; 
 The sun smiles hj'ight, but where her grin is, 
 It makes brass farthings look like guineas. 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 For Peggy I can have no joy. 
 She 's sometimes kind, and sometimes coy, 
 And keeps me, by her wayward tricks, 
 As comfortless as sheep with ticks. 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Sally is ripe as June or ]May, 
 And yet as cold as Christmas day ; 
 For when she "s asked to change her lot, 
 Lamb's wool — but Sally, she wool not. 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 Only with Peggy and with health, 
 I 'd never wish for state or wealth ; 
 Talking of having health and more pence, 
 I 'd drink her health if I had fourpence. 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Oh, how that day would seem to shine. 
 If Sally's banns were read with mine : 
 She cries, when such a wish I carry, 
 " Marry come up !" but will not marry. 
 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS, 
 
 AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN. 
 
 'T WAS August — Hastings every day was filling — 
 Hastings, that " greenest spot on memory's waste !' 
 With crowds of idlers willing or unwilling 
 To be bedipped — be noticed — or be braced, 
 And all things rose a penny in a shilling. 
 Meanwhile, from window and from door, in haste 
 '' Accommodation bills" kept coming down. 
 Gladding " the world of letters" in that town. 
 
 Each day poured in new coach-fulls of new cits, 
 Flying from London smoke and dust annoying, 
 Umnarried Misses hoping to make hits. 
 And new- wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying. 
 Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits, 
 And quakers of both sexes, much enjoying 
 A morning's reading by the ocean's rim, 
 That sect delightmg in the sea" s broad brim. 
 
 And lo ! amongst all these appeared a creature 
 So small, he almost might a twin have been 
 With r.Iiss Crachami — dwarfish quite in stature, 
 Yet well proportioned — neither fat nor lean, 
 
210 
 
 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 His face of marvellously pleasant feature, 
 So short and sweet a man was never seen — 
 All thought him charming at the first beginning — 
 Alas, ere long they found him far too winning ! 
 
 He seemed in love with chance — and chance repaid 
 
 His ardent passion with her fondest smile. 
 
 The sunshine of good luck, without a shade. 
 
 He staked and won — and won and staked — the bile 
 
 It stirred of many a man and many a maid, 
 
 To see at every venture how that vile 
 
 Small gambler snatched — and how he won them too— 
 
 A living Pam, omnipotent at loo ! 
 
 Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box, 
 
 'T was handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass. 
 
 And dreamt three times she garnished it with stocks 
 
 Of needles, silks, and cottons — hut alas ! 
 
 She lost it wide awake. — "We thought Miss Cox 
 
 Was lucky — but she saw three caddies pass 
 
 To that small imp : — no lidng luck could loo him ! 
 
 Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him ! 
 
 And so he climbed — and rode, and won — and walked^ 
 The wondi-ous topic of the curious swarm 
 That haunted the Parade. Many were balked 
 Of notoriety by that small form 
 Pacino- it up and down : — some even talked 
 Of ducking him — when lo ! a dismal storm 
 Stepped in — one Friday, at the close of day — 
 And every head was turned another way — 
 
 Watching the grander guest. It seemed to rise 
 Bulky and slow upon the southern brink 
 
A STOBM AT HASTINGS. 211 
 
 Of the horizon — fanned by sultry sighs — 
 So black and threatening, I cannot think 
 Of any simile, except the skies 
 jNIiss Y\ io;o;ins sometime shades in Indian ink — 
 i):/iss-shapen blotches of such heavy vapor, 
 They seem a deal more solid than her paper. 
 
 As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave, 
 And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on 
 The stony-hearted beach ; — some bards would have 
 It always rampant, in that idle fashion — 
 ^"^Tiereas the waves rolled in, subdued and grave, 
 Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion, 
 Who meekly settle in and take their places, 
 With a very quiet awe on all their faces. 
 
 Some love to draw the ocean with a head, 
 Like troubled table-beer — and make it bounce. 
 And froth, and roar, and fling — but this, I 've said, 
 Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce : — 
 But then, a grander contrast thus it bred 
 With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce 
 Something more awful in the serious ear. 
 As one v>'ould whisper that a lion's near — 
 
 TMio just begins to roar : so the hoarse thunder 
 Growled long — but low — a prelude note of death, 
 As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under ; 
 But still it muttered to the sea beneath 
 Such a continued peal, as made us wonder 
 It did not pause more oft to take its breath, 
 Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather. 
 And hardly cared to wed two words together, 
 
212 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 But watched the surly advent of the storm, 
 Much as the brown-cheeked planters of Barbadoes 
 Must Tvatch a risino; of the Negro swarm : — 
 Meantime it steered, like Odin"s old Armadas, 
 Right on our coast ; — a dismal, coal-black form ; — 
 Blany proud gaits were quelled — and all bravadoes 
 Of folly ceased — and sundry idle jokers 
 Went home to cover up theu' tongs and pokers. 
 
 So fierce the lightning flashed. — In all their days 
 The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing, 
 And they are used to many a pretty blaze, 
 To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing 
 With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays : — 
 And truly one could think, without much lashing 
 The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful 
 And black, were fraught with spuits as unlawful. 
 
 The gay Parade grew thin — all the fair crowd 
 Vanished — as if they knew their own attractions — 
 For now the lightning through a near hand cloud 
 Began to make some very crooked fractions — 
 Only some few remained that were not cowed, 
 A few rough sailors, who had been in actions, 
 And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's. 
 Lest it should blon- — were pulling up the Rose : 
 
 (No flower, but a boat) — some more hauling 
 The Regent by the head : — another crew 
 With that same cry peculiar to their calling — 
 Were hea\ang up the Hope : — and as they knew 
 The very gods themselves oft get a mauling 
 In their own realms, the seamen wisely di'ew 
 The Neptune rather higher on the beach, 
 That he might lie beyond his billows' reach. 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS- 213 
 
 And now the storm, "vrith its despotic power, 
 Had all usurped the azure of the skies, 
 Making our daylight darker by an houi", 
 And some few drops — of an unusual size — 
 Few and distinct — scarce twenty to the shower, 
 Fell like huge tear-drops from a Giant's eyes — 
 But then this sprinkle thickened in a trice 
 And rained much Itarder — in good solid ice. 
 
 Oh ! for a very stoim of words to show 
 How this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us ! 
 Handel would make the gusty organs blow 
 Grandly, and a rich storm in music score us ; — 
 But even his music seemed composed and low 
 ^Yhen we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus ; 
 A^Tiilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound. 
 And frozen comfits rolled along the ground — 
 
 As big as bullets : — Lord ! how they did batter 
 Our crazy tiles : — And now the lightning flashed 
 Alternate with the dark, until the latter 
 Was rarest of the two : — the gust too dashed 
 So terribly, I thought the hail must shatter 
 Some panes — and so it did— and first it smashed 
 The very square where I had chose my station 
 To watch the general illumination. 
 
 Another, and another, still came in, 
 
 And fell in jingling ruin at my feet, 
 
 Making ti-ansparent holes that let me win 
 
 Some samples of the storm : — Oh ! it was sweet 
 
 To think I had a shelter for my skin. 
 
 Culling them through these '" loopholes of retreat" — 
 
 "Which in a little we began to glaze — 
 
 Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize ! 
 
214 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 Bj which, the cloud had passed o'erhead, but played 
 
 Its crooked fires in constant flashes still, 
 
 Just in our rear, as though it had arrayed 
 
 Its heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill, 
 
 So that it lit the town, and grandly made 
 
 The ruo;a;ed features of the Castle Hill 
 
 Leap, like a birth, from chaos, into light, 
 
 And then relapse into the gloomy night — 
 
 As parcel of the cloud : — the clouds themselves, 
 Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting, 
 Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves. 
 That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting. — 
 We could e'en fancy Satan and his elves 
 Busy upon those crags, and ever casting 
 Huge fragments loose— and that viofelt the sound 
 They made in falling to the startled ground. 
 
 And so the tempest scowled away— and soon 
 Timidly shining through its skirts of jet. 
 We saw the rim of the pacific moon, 
 Like a bright fish entangled in a net, 
 Flashing its silver sides — how sweet a boon 
 Seemed her sweet light, as though it would beget, 
 With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas — : 
 Peace in the sky — and coolness in the breeze ! 
 
 Meantime the hail had ceased : — and all the brood 
 Of glaziers stole abroad to count their gains ; — • 
 At every window, there were maids who stood 
 Lamenting o'er the glass's small remains — 
 Or with coarse linens made the fractions good, 
 Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes — 
 Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubt : 
 The wind resolved — blowing- the candles out. 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. 215 
 
 No house was whole that had a southern front — 
 No green-house but the same mishap befell ; — 
 £o2^7-"windoTvs and 6e/Z-glasses bore the brunt — 
 
 No sex in glass Tvas spared ! For those who dwell 
 
 On each hill-side, jou might have swam a punt 
 In any of then* parlors ; — Mrs. Snell 
 Was slopped out of her seat ; and Mr. Hitchin 
 Had a ^o?r<?/'-garden washed into a Kitchen. 
 
 But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaimed 
 The recent violence. — Each after each 
 The gentle waves a gentle murmur fi-amed. 
 Tapping, like Woodpeckers, the hollow beach. 
 Howbeit his weather eye the seaman aimed 
 Across the calm, and hinted by his speech 
 A gale next morning — and when morning broke 
 There was a gale — "quite equal to bespoke." 
 
 Before high Avater — (it were better far 
 To christen it not water then, but icaiier, 
 For then the tide is servitiff at the bar^ 
 Rose such a swell — I never saw one greater ! 
 Black, jagged billows rearing up in war 
 Like rattled, roarino; bears against the baiter, 
 "With lots of froth upon the shingle shed, 
 Like stout poured out with a fine beachy head. 
 
 No open boat was open to a fare, 
 Or launched that morn on seven-shilling trips, 
 No bathing-woman waded — none would dare 
 A dipping in the wave — ^but waived their dips, 
 No sea-gull ventured on the stormy air, 
 And all the di'eary coast was clear of ships ; 
 For two lea shores upon the river Lea 
 Are not so perilous as one at sea. 
 
216 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene 
 Before us in such horrid hurlj-burlj — 
 A boiling ocean of mixed black and green, 
 A sky of copper-color, grim and surly — 
 When lo, in that vast hollow scooped between 
 Two rolling Alps of water — white and curly ! 
 We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming, 
 Much like a first or last attempt at swimming ! 
 
 Sometimes a hand — sometimes a little shoe — 
 Sometimes a skirt — sometimes a hank of hair 
 Just like a dabbled seaweed rose to view ; 
 Sometimes a knee, sometimes a back was bare — 
 At last a frightful summerset he threw 
 Right on the shingles. Any one could swear 
 The lad was dead — without a chance of perjury, 
 And battered by the surge beyond all surgery ! 
 
 However, we snatched up the corse thus thrown, 
 Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it, 
 And after venting Pity's sigh and groan, 
 Then Curiosity began with her fit ; 
 And lo ! the features of the Small Unknown ! 
 'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit ! — 
 And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies, 
 We found a contract signed Mephistophiles ! 
 
 A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave 
 
 His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion. 
 
 Providing in this world he was to have 
 
 A lordship over luck, by whose exertion 
 
 He might control the course of cards, and brave 
 
 All throws of dice — but on a sea excursion 
 
 The juggling Demon, in his usual vein, 
 
 Seized the last cast — and Nicked him in the main ! 
 
LINES. 217 
 
 LINES. 
 
 TO A LADY ON HER DEPAETTRE FOR IXDIA. 
 
 Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly, 
 And tempests make a soda-water sea, 
 Ahnost as rough as our rough Piccadilly, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the mild Madeira ripens her juice — 
 A wine more praised than it deserves to be ! 
 Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth, 
 Making a midnight meal of he and she ; 
 Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth. 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the serpent dangerously coileth, 
 Or lies along at full length like a tree, 
 Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth 
 In mono-/Jo//y-logue with tongue as free, 
 And like a woman, all she can revealeth. 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go to the land of muslin and nankeening, 
 And parasols of straw where hats should be, 
 Go to the land of slaves and palankeening. 
 And think of me ! 
 10 
 
218 SONNET. 
 
 Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills, 
 And tall bamboos — may none bamboozle thee ! 
 Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where a cook must always be a currier, 
 And parch the pepper'd palate like a pea, 
 Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier. 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, 
 Consigned for wedlock to Calcutta's quay. 
 Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the sun is very hot and fervent, 
 Go to the land of pagod an<i rupee, 
 Where every black will be your slave and servant, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 SONNET. 
 Along the Woodford road there comes a noise 
 Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding's neat postchaise 
 Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays, 
 With Rev. Mr. Crow and six small Boys ; 
 Who ever and anon declare their joys. 
 With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas. 
 At going home to spend their Christmas days, 
 At changing Learning's pains for Pleasure's toys. 
 Six weeks elapse, and down the Woodford way, 
 A heavy coach drags six more heavy souls, 
 But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray ; 
 The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls. 
 And little Boys walk in as dull and mum 
 As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb. 
 
DECEMBER AND MAY. 219 
 
 DECEMBER A^TD IMAY. 
 
 "Crabbed Ago and Youth cannot live together." 
 
 Shakspeaee. 
 
 Said Nestor, to liis pretty wife, quite sorrowful one day, 
 "Why, dearest, will you shed in pearls those lovely eyes 
 
 away? 
 You ought to be more fortified;" — '"Ah, brute, be quiet, 
 
 do, 
 I know I 'm not so forty fied, nor fiftyfied, as you ! 
 
 " Oh, men are vile deceivers all, as I have ever heard. 
 You 'd die for me, you swore, and I — I took you at your 
 
 word. 
 I was a tradesman's widow then — a pretty change I've 
 
 made ; 
 To live, and die the wife of one, a widower by trade !" 
 
 " Come, come, my dear, these flighty airs declare, in sober 
 
 truth, 
 You want as much in age, indeed, as I can want in youth ; 
 Besides, you said you liked old men, though now at me you 
 
 huff." 
 " Why, yes," she said, " and so I do — but you 're not old 
 
 enough !" 
 
 " Come, come, my dear, let 's make it up, and have a quiet 
 
 hive ; 
 I "11 be the best of men — I mean — I '11 be the best alive ! 
 Your grieving so will kill me, for it cuts me to the core." — 
 " I thank ye, sir, for telling me — for now I '11 grieve the 
 
 more !" 
 
220 MORAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 MORAL REFLECTIONS OX THE CROSS OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 The man that pays his pence, and goes 
 
 Up to thy lofty cross, St. Paul, 
 Looks over London's naked nose, 
 
 Women and men : 
 
 The world is all beneath his ken, 
 He sits above the Ball. 
 He seems on Mount Olympus' top, 
 Among the Gods, by Jupiter ! and lets drop 
 His eyes from the empyreal clouds 
 
 On mortal crowds. 
 Seen from these skies, 
 How small those emmets in our eyes ! 
 
 Some carry little sticks — and one 
 His eggs — to warm them in the sun : 
 
 Dear ! what a hustle, 
 
 And bustle ! 
 And there 's my aunt. I know her by her waist, 
 
 So long and thin. 
 
 And so pinched in, 
 Just in the pismu'e taste. 
 Oh ! what are men ? — Beings so small, 
 
 That, should I fall 
 Upon their little heads, I must 
 Crush them by hundreds into dust ! 
 And what is life ? and all its ages — 
 
 There 's seven stages ! 
 Turnham Green ! Chelsea ! Putney ! Fulham ! 
 
 Brentford ! and Kew ! 
 
 And Tooting, too ! 
 And oh ! what very little nags to pull 'em. 
 
A VALENTINE. 221 
 
 Yet each would seem a horse indeed, 
 If here at Paul's tip-top we 'd got 'em ; 
 
 Although, like Cinderella's breed, 
 They "re mice at bottom. 
 
 Then let me not despise a horse, 
 Though he looks small from Paul's high-cross ! 
 Since he would be — as near the sky — 
 
 Fourteen hands high. 
 What is this world Avith London in its lap ? 
 
 Mogg's Map. 
 The Thames, that ebbs and flows in its broad channel ? 
 
 A tidy kennel. 
 The bridges stretching from its banks ? 
 
 Stone planks. 
 Oh me ! hence could I read an admonition 
 
 To mad Ambition ! 
 But that he would not listen to my call, 
 Though I should stand upon the cross, and ball! 
 
 A VALENTINE. 
 
 Oh ! cruel heart ! ere these posthumous papers 
 Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath ; 
 
 Those cruel eyes, like tAvo funereal tapers. 
 Have only lighted me the Avay to death. 
 
 Perchance, thou wilt extinguish them in vapors, 
 When I am gone, and green grass covereth 
 
 Thy lover, lost ; but it will be in vain — 
 
 It will not bring the vital spark again. 
 
 Ah ! when those eyes, like tapers, burned so blue, 
 It seemed an omen that we must expect 
 
 The sprites of lovers : and it boded true, 
 For I am half a sprite — a ghost elect ; 
 
222 A VALENTINE. 
 
 Wherefore I write to thee this last adieu, 
 With my last pen — before that I effect 
 My exit from the stage ; just stopped before 
 The tombstone steps that lead us to death's door. 
 
 Full soon these living eyes, now liquid bright, 
 Will tui-n dead dull, and wear no radiance, save 
 
 They shed a dreary and inhuman light, 
 
 Illumed within by glow-worms of the grave ; 
 
 These ruddy cheeks, so pleasant to the sight, 
 These lusty legs, and all the limbs I have, 
 
 Will keep Death's carnival, and, foul or fresh, 
 
 Must bid farewell, a long farewell to flesh ! 
 
 Yea, and this very heart, that dies for thee. 
 As broken victuals to the worms will go ; . 
 
 And all the world will dine again but me — 
 For I shall have no stomach ; — and I know, 
 
 When I am ghostly, thou wilt sprightly be 
 As now thou art : but will not tears of woe 
 
 Water thy spirits with remorse adjunct, 
 
 When thou dost pause, and thmk of the defunct ? 
 
 And when thy soul is buried in a sleep, 
 In midnight solitude, and little dreaming 
 
 Of such a spectre — what, if I should creep, 
 Within thy presence in such dismal seeming ? 
 
 Thine eyes will stare themselves awake, and weep, 
 And thou wilt cross thyself with treble screammg 
 
 And pray with mingled penitence and dread 
 
 That I were less alive — or not so dead. 
 
 Then will thy heart confess thee, and reprove 
 This wilful homicide which thou hast done : 
 
SONNET ON STEAM. 223 
 
 And tlic sad epitaph of so much love 
 Will eat into my heart, as if in stone : 
 
 And all the lovers that around thee move, 
 Will read my fate and tremble for their ovrn: 
 
 And strike upon their heartless breasts, and sigh, 
 
 " Man, born of woman, must of woman die ! ' 
 
 ISIine eyes grow dropsical— I can no more— 
 And what is written thou may"st scorn to read, 
 
 Shutting thy tearless eyes.— 'Tis done— -tis o'er— 
 My hand is destmed for another deed. 
 
 But one last word wrung from its aching core, 
 And my lone heart m silentness will bleed ; 
 
 Alas ! it ought to take a life to tell 
 
 That one last word-that fare-fare-fare thee well ! 
 
 SO^^NET ON STEAM. 
 
 BT AN rXDER-OSTLEE, 
 
 I WISH I livd a Thowsen year Ago 
 
 Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers 
 And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo 
 
 The Orsis cum ui Them days to the Bilers 
 But Now by meens of Powers of Steem forces 
 
 A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels 
 The Bilers seam a Gumming to the Orses 
 
 And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels 
 Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv 
 
 When sutch a change of Orses is our Paits 
 No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv 
 
 May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates 
 And Theaves of Osiers crib the Coles and Giv 
 Their blackgard Haunimuls a Feed of Slaits ! 
 
224 A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 
 
 A EECIPE— FOR CIVILIZATION. 
 
 The following Poem— is from the pen of DOCTOR KITCHE^TER !— the most het«- 
 rogeneous of authors, but at the same time — in the Sporting Latin of Mr. Egan — a real 
 Romo-genius, or a Genius of a Man I In the Poem, his CULINARY ENTHUSIASM, 
 as usual — boils over ! and makes it seem written, as he describes liimself (see The 
 Cook's Oracle; — with the Spit in one hand! — and the Frying Pan in the other — while 
 in the style of the rhymes it is Hudibrastic — as if in the ingredients of VersLficalion 
 he had been assisted by his BUTLEPv ! 
 
 As a Head Cook, Optician — Physician, Music Master — ^Domestic Economist and 
 Death-bed Attorney! — I have celebrated The Author elsewhere wilh approbation; — 
 and cannot now place him upon the Table as a Poet — without st.U being bis LAUDEE. 
 a phrase which those persons whose course of classical reading recalls the INFAMOUS 
 FORGERY on the Immortal Bard of Avon /—will find easy to understand. 
 
 SrRELY, those sages err who teach 
 
 That man is known from brutes by speech, 
 
 TMiich hardly severs man fi'om woman, 
 
 But not th' mhuman from the human — 
 
 Or else might parrots claim affinity, 
 
 And dogs be doctors by latinity — 
 
 Not t' insist (as might be shown) 
 
 That beasts have gibberish of their own, 
 
 "Which once was no dead tongue, tho' we 
 
 Since Esop's days have lost the key ; 
 
 Nor yet to hint dumb men — and. still, not 
 
 Beasts that could gossip though they will not. 
 
 But play at dummy like the monkeys, 
 
 For fear mankind should make them flunkies. 
 
 Neither can man be known by feature 
 
 Or form, because so like a creature, 
 
 That some grave men could never shape 
 
 "WTiich is the aped and which the ape, 
 
 Nor by his gait, nor by his height, 
 
 Nor yet because he 's black or white, 
 
 But rational — for so we call 
 
 The only Cooking Animal ! 
 
A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 
 
 The only one who brings his bit 
 Of dinner to the ^Dot or spit ; 
 For where 's the lion e'er was hasty 
 To put his ven'son in a pasty? 
 Ergo, by logic, we repute 
 That he who cooks is not a brute — 
 But Equus brutum est, which means, 
 If a horse had sense he 'd boil his beans, 
 Nay, no one but a horse would forage 
 On naked oats instead of porridge. 
 Which proves, if brutes and Scotchmen vary, 
 The difference is culinary. 
 Further, as man is known by feeding 
 From brutes— so men from men, in breeding 
 Are still distinguished as they eat, 
 And raw in manners, raw in meat — 
 Look at the polished nations, hight 
 The civilized — the most polite 
 Is that which bears the praise of nations 
 For dressing eggs two hundi-ed fashions, 
 "Whereas, at savage feeders look — 
 The less refined the less they cook ; 
 From Tartar grooms that merely straddle 
 Across a steak and warm their saddle, 
 Down to the Abyssinian squaw 
 That bolts her chops and collops raw. 
 And, like a wild beast, cares as little 
 To dress her person as her victual — 
 For gowns, and gloves, and caps, and tippets. 
 Are beauty's sauces, spice, and sippets, 
 And not by shamble bodies put on, 
 But those who roast and Iwil their mutton ; 
 So Eve and Adam wore no dresses 
 10* 
 
 226 
 
 J\ 
 
226 A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Because they lived on water cresses, 
 
 And till they learned to cook their crudities, 
 
 Went blind as beetles to their nudities. 
 
 For niceness comes from th' inner side, 
 
 (As an ox is drest before his hide.) 
 
 And when the entrail loathes vulgarity 
 
 The outward man will soon cull rarity, 
 
 For 'tis th' effect of what we eat 
 
 To make a man look like his meat, 
 
 As insects show their food's complexions ; 
 
 Thus fopling clothes are like confections. 
 
 But who, to feed a jaunty coxcomb, 
 
 "Would have an Abyssinian ox come ? 
 
 Or serve a dish of fricassees. 
 
 To clodpoles in a coat of frize ? 
 
 "WTiereas a black would call for buffalo 
 
 Alive — and, no doubt, eat the offal too. 
 
 Now (this premised), it follows then 
 
 That certain culinary men 
 
 Should first go forth with pans and spits 
 
 To bring the heathens to their wits, 
 
 (For all wise Scotchmen of our century 
 
 Know that first steps are alimentary ; 
 
 And, as we have proved, flesh pots and saucepans 
 
 Must pave the way for Wilberforce plans ;) 
 
 But Bunyan erred to think the near gate 
 
 To take man's soul, was battering Ear gate. 
 
 When reason should have worked her course 
 
 As men of war do — when their force 
 
 Can't take a town by open courage, 
 
 They steal an entry with its forage. 
 
 What reverend bishop, for example, 
 
 Could preach horned Apis from his temple ? 
 
■ A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 227 
 
 "Whereas a cook vrould soon unseat him, 
 
 And make his own churchvrardens eat him. 
 
 Not Irving could convert those vermin 
 
 Th' Anthropophages, by a sermon ; 
 
 TMiereas your Osborne,* in a trice. 
 
 Would '• take a shin of beef and spice," — 
 
 And raise them such a savory smother, 
 
 No negro ■would devour his brother, 
 
 But turn his stomach round as loth 
 
 As Persians, to the old black broth — 
 
 For knowledge oftenest makes an entry, 
 
 As well as true love, thro' the pantry, 
 
 TMiere beaux that came at first for feeding 
 
 Grow gallant men and get good breeding ; — - 
 
 Exem])li gratia — in the West, 
 
 Ship-traders say there swims a nest 
 
 Lined with black natives, like a rookery, ; 
 
 But coarse as carrion crows at cookery. — 
 
 This race, though now called 0. Y. E. men, 
 
 (To show they are move than A. B. C. men,) 
 
 Was once so ignorant of our knacks 
 
 They laid their mats upon their backs. 
 
 And grew their quartern loaves for luncheon 
 
 On trees that baked them in the sunshine. 
 
 As for their bodies, they were coated, 
 
 (For painted things are so denoted;) 
 
 But, the naked truth is stark primevals, 
 
 That said their prayers to timber devils. 
 
 Allowed polygamy — dwelt in wig-wams — 
 
 And, when they meant a feast, ate big yams. — 
 
 And why ? — because their savage nook 
 
 * Cook to the late Sir John Banks. 
 
228 A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. • 
 
 Had ne'er been visited by Cook — 
 And so they fared till our great chief, 
 Brought them, not ^Methodists, but beef 
 In tubs— and taught them how to live, 
 Knowing it was too soon to give, 
 Just then, a homily on their sins, 
 (For cooking ends ere grace begins.) 
 Or hand his tracts to the untractable 
 Till they could keep a more exact table — 
 For nature has her proper courses, 
 And wild men must be backed like horses, 
 Which, jockeys know, are never fit 
 For riding till they 've had a bit 
 I ' the mouth ; but then, with proper tackle, 
 You may trot them to a tabernacle. 
 Ergo (I say) he first made changes 
 In the heathen modes, by kitchen ranges, 
 And taught the king's cook, by convincing 
 Process, that chewing was not mincing. 
 And in her black fist thrust a bundle 
 Of tracts abridged from Glasse and Rundell, 
 V>Tiere, ere she had read beyond Welsh rabbits, 
 She saw the spareness of her habits. 
 And round her loins put on a striped 
 Towel, where fingers might be wiped, 
 And then her breast clothed like her ribs, 
 (For aprons lead of course to bibs,) 
 And, by the tune she had got a meat- 
 Screen, veiled her back, too, from the heat — 
 As for her gravies and her sauces, 
 (Tho' they reformed the royal fauces.) 
 Her forcemeats and ragouts — I praise not. 
 Because the legend further says not, 
 
LINES. 
 
 Except, she kept each Christian high-day, 
 And once upon a fat gootl Fry-day 
 Ran short of logs, and told the Pagan, 
 That turned the spit, to chop up Dagon ! — 
 
 229 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO A FRIEND AT COBHAif. 
 
 'Tis pleasant, when we 've absent friends. 
 Sometimes to hob and nob 'em 
 
 With Memory's glass — at such a pass 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 Have pigs you will, and sometimes kill, 
 
 But if you sigh and sob 'em. 
 And cannot eat your home-grown meat, 
 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 Of hen and cock, you '11 have a stock. 
 And death will oft unthrob 'em — 
 
 A country chick is good to pick — 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 Some orchard trees of course you '11 lease. 
 And boys will sometimes rob 'em, 
 
 A friend (you know) before a foe — 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 You '11 sometimes have wax-lighted rooms, 
 And friends of course to mob 'em. 
 
 Should you be short of such a sort. 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
230 MISS Oliver's first voyage. 
 
 MISS OLH^ER^S FIRST VOYAGE. 
 
 A MEDLEY. 
 
 "All possible marine difficulties and tlisasters were huddled, like an auction 
 medley, in one lot, Into her apprehension." 
 
 Cables entangliiiD; her, 
 Ship-spars for mangling her, 
 Ropes, sure of strangling her ; 
 Blocks over-dancfling her : 
 Tiller to batter her, 
 Topmast to shatter her, 
 Tobacco to spatter her ; 
 Boreas blustering, 
 Boatswain quite flustering, 
 Thunder-clouds musterino; 
 To blast her with sulphur — 
 If the deep don't engulf her : 
 Sometimes fear's scrutiny 
 Pries out a mutiny, 
 Snifis conflagration, 
 Or hints at starvation : — ^ 
 
 All the sea dangers, 
 Buccaneers, rangers. 
 Pirates, and Saliee-men, 
 Algerine galleymen, 
 Tornadoes and typhous, 
 And horrible syphons, 
 And submarine travels 
 Thro" roaring sea-navels; 
 Every thing wrong enough, 
 Long-boat not long enouorh. 
 Vessel not strong enough ; 
 
MISS OLIVER S FIRST VOYAGE. 
 
 231 
 
 Pitch marring frippery, 
 
 The deck very slippery, 
 
 And the cabin — built sloping, 
 
 The Captain a-toping, 
 
 And the Mate a blasphemer 
 
 That names his Redeemer — 
 
 "With inward uneasiness ; 
 
 The cook, known by his greasiness, 
 
 The victuals beslubbered, 
 
 Her bed — in a cupboard ; 
 
 Things of strange christening, 
 
 Snatched in her listening. 
 
 Blue lights and red lights. 
 
 And mention of dead lights. 
 
 And shrouds made a theme of, 
 
 Things horrid to di'eam of — 
 
 And buoys in the water 
 
 To fear all exhort her ; 
 
 Her friend no Leander ; 
 
 Herself no sea gander, 
 
 And ne"er a cork jacket 
 
 On board of the packet ; 
 
 The breeze still a-stiffening, 
 
 The trumpet quite deafening; 
 
 Thoughts of repentance, 
 
 And doomsday and sentence ! 
 
 Every thing sinister. 
 
 Not a church minister — 
 
 Pilot a blunderer. 
 
 Coral reefs under her, 
 
 Ready to sunder her ; 
 
 Trunks tipsy-topsy, 
 
 The ship in a dropsy; 
 
232 SONNET. 
 
 Waves oversurging her. 
 Sirens a dirgeing her, 
 Sharks all expecting her, 
 Sword-fish dissecting her, 
 Crabs with their hand- vices 
 Punishmg land vices; 
 Sea-dogs and unicorns. 
 Things with no puny horns, 
 Mermen carnivorous — 
 " Good Lord deliver us I" 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 TO LORD WUAR\CLIFFE, ON HIS GAME-BILI,, 
 
 I 'm fond of partridges, I 'm fond of snipes, 
 
 I'm fond of black cocks, for they're very good cocks- 
 
 I'm fond of wild ducks, and I'm fond of woodcocks, 
 
 And grouse that set up such strange moorish pipes. 
 
 I'm fond of pheasants with their splendid stripes — 
 
 I'm fond of hares, whether from Whig or Tory — 
 
 I'm fond of capercailzies in their glory — 
 
 Teal, widgeons, plovers, birds in all their types : 
 
 All these are in your care, LaAv-giving Peer, 
 
 And when you next address your Lordly Babel, 
 
 Some clause put in your Bill, precise and clear, 
 
 With due and fit provision to enable 
 
 A man that holds all kinds of game so dear 
 
 To keep, like Crockford, a good Gaming Table. 
 
A TRUE STORY. 
 
 233 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 Of all our pains, since man was curst, 
 I mean of body, not the mental, 
 To name the worst, among the worst, 
 The dental sure is transcendental ; 
 Some bit of masticating bone, 
 That ought to help to clear a shelf. 
 But let its proper work alone. 
 And only seems to gnaw itself; 
 In fact, of any grave attack 
 On victuals there is little danger, 
 "Tis so like coming to the rack^ 
 As well as gomg to the manger. 
 
 Old Hunks — it seemed a fit retort 
 
 Of justice on his grinding ways — 
 
 Possessed a grinder of the sort, 
 
 That troubled all his latter days. 
 
 The best of friends fall out, and so 
 
 His teeth had done some years ago. 
 
 Save some old stumps, with ragged root. 
 
 And they took turn about to shoot ; 
 
 If he drank any chilly liquor 
 
 They made it quite a point to throb ; 
 
 But if he warmed it on the hob, 
 
 Why then they only twitched the quicker. 
 
 One tooth — I wonder such a tooth 
 Had never killed him in his youth — 
 One tooth he had with many fangs. 
 That shot at once as many pangs, 
 
23-4 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 It had an universal sting ; 
 
 One touch of that extatic stump 
 
 Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump, 
 
 Just like a puppet on a string ; 
 
 And what was worse than all, it had 
 
 A way of making others bad. 
 
 There is, as many know, a knack, 
 
 With certam farming undertakers. 
 
 And this same tooth pursued their track, 
 
 By adding ackers still to ackers ! 
 
 One way there is, that has been judged 
 A certain cure, but Hunks was loth 
 To pay the fee, and quite begrudged 
 To lose his tooth and money both ; 
 In fact, a dentist and the wheel 
 Of Fortune are a kindred cast. 
 For after all is drawn, you feel 
 It 's paying for a blank at last ; 
 So Hunks went on from week to week, 
 And kept his torment in his cheek ; 
 Oh ! how it sometimes set him rocking, 
 With that perpetual gnaw — gnaw — gnaw, 
 His moans and groans were truly shocking 
 And loud — altho' he held his jaw. 
 Many a tug he gave his gum, 
 And tooth, but still it would not come, 
 Tho' tied by string to some firm thing, 
 He could not draw it, do his best, 
 ^ By drawl's, altho' he tried a chest. 
 
 At last, but after much debating. 
 
 He joined a score of mouths in waiting. 
 
A TRUE STORY. 235 
 
 Like his, to have their troubles out. 
 
 And sight it was to look about 
 
 At twenty faces making faces, 
 
 "With many a rampant trick and antic, 
 
 For all were very horrid cases, 
 
 And made their owners nearly frantic. 
 
 A little wicket now and then 
 
 Took one of these unhappy men, 
 
 And out again the victim rushed, 
 
 While eyes and mouth together gushed ; 
 
 At last arrived our hero's turn, 
 
 Who plunged his hands in both his pockets, 
 
 And down he sat, prepared to learn 
 
 How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets. 
 
 Those who have felt such operations, 
 Alone can guess the sort of ache, 
 When his old tooth began to break 
 The thread of old associations ; 
 It touched a string m every part, 
 It had so many tender ties ; 
 One chord seemed wrenching at his heart, 
 And two were tugging at his eyes ; 
 " Bone of his bone," he felt of course. 
 As husbands do in such divorce ; 
 At last the fangs gave way a little, 
 Hunks gave his head a backward jerk. 
 And lo ! the cause of all this work, 
 Went — where it used to send his victual ! 
 
 The monstrous pain of this proceeding 
 
 Had not so numb'd his miser wit, 
 
 But in this slip he saw a hit 
 
 To save, at least, his purse from bleeding ; 
 
236 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 So when the dentist sought his fees, 
 
 Quoth Hunks, " Lefs finish, if you please." 
 
 " How finish? why it "s out !"'— " Oh ! no— 
 
 I 'm none of your beforehand tippers, 
 
 'Tis you are out, to argue so; 
 
 My tooth is in my head no doubt, 
 
 But as you say you pulled it out. 
 
 Of course it's there — between your nippers." 
 
 ." Zounds ! sir, d' ye think I 'd sell the truth 
 
 To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it." 
 
 But Hunks still asked to see the tooth, 
 
 And swore by gum ! he had not drawn it. 
 
 His end obtained, he took his leave, 
 
 A secret chuckle in his sleeve ; 
 
 The joke was worthy to produce one, 
 
 To think, by favor of his wit, 
 
 How well a dentist had been bit 
 
 By one old stump, and that a loose one ! 
 
 The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth 
 Is still the frailest thing on earth : 
 Alas ! how often when a joke 
 Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough, 
 There comes some unexpected stroke, 
 And hangs a weeper on the cuiF! 
 Hunks had not vrliistled half a mile, 
 When, planted right against a stile. 
 There stood his foeman, Mike Mahoney. 
 A vagrant reaper, Irish-born, 
 That helped to reap our miser's corn. 
 But had not helped to reap his money, 
 A fact that Hunks remembered quickly ; 
 His whistle all at once was quelled, 
 
A TRUE STORY. 
 
 23T 
 
 And -when lie saw how Michael held 
 His sickle, he felt rather sickly. 
 
 Nine souls in ten, with half his fright, 
 Would soon have paid the bill at sight, 
 But misers (let observers watch it) 
 "Will never part with their delight 
 Till well demanded by a hatchet — 
 They live hard — and they die to match it. 
 Thus Hunks prepared for Mike's attacking, 
 Resolved not yet to pay the debt, 
 But let him take it out in hacking 5 
 However, ISlike l>egan to stickle 
 In word before he used the sickle ; 
 But mercy was not long attendant : 
 From words at last he took to blows 
 And aimed a cut at Hunks's nose ; 
 That made it what some folks are not — 
 A member very independent. 
 
 Heaven knows how far this cruel trick 
 
 Might still have led, but for a tramper 
 
 That came in danger's very nick, 
 
 To put Mahoney to the scamper. 
 
 But still compassion met a damper ; 
 
 There lay the severed nose, alas ! 
 
 Beside the daisies on the grass, 
 
 "Wee, crimson-tipf as well as they, 
 
 Accordmg to the poet's lay : 
 
 And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter ! 
 
 Away ran Hodge to get assistance, 
 
 With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after, 
 
 But somewhat at unusual distance. 
 
 In many a little country place 
 
238 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 It is a very common case 
 
 To have but one residing doctor, 
 
 Whose practice rather seems to be 
 
 No practice, but a rule of three. 
 
 Physician — surgeon — drug-decoctor ; 
 
 Thus Hunks was forced to go once more 
 
 Where he had ta'en his tooth before. 
 
 His mere name made the learned man hot — 
 
 " What ! Hunks again within my door ! 
 
 I'll pull his nose ;" quoth Hunks, " You cannot." 
 
 The doctor looked and saw the case 
 
 Plain as the nose not on his face. 
 
 " ! hum — ha — yes — I understand." 
 
 But then arose a long demur, 
 
 Por not a finger would he stir 
 
 Till he was paid his fee in hand ; 
 
 That matter settled, there they were, 
 
 With Hunks well strapped upon his chair. 
 
 The opening of a surgeon's job — 
 
 His tools, a chestful or a drawerful — 
 
 Are always something very awful, 
 
 And give the heart the strangest throb ; 
 
 But never patient in his funks 
 
 Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks, 
 
 Or surgeon half so like a devil 
 
 Prepared for some infernal revel : 
 
 His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling, 
 
 Just like a bolus in a box, 
 
 His fury seemed above controling, 
 
 He bellowed like a hunted ox : 
 
 " Now, swindling wretch, I '11 show thee how 
 
 We treat such cheatino; knaves as thou ; 
 
A TRUE STORY. 239 
 
 Oh ! sweet is this revenge to sup ; 
 I have thee bj the nose — it "s now 
 My turn — and I will turn it up." 
 
 Guess how the miser liked the scurvy 
 
 And cruel way of venting passion ; 
 
 The snubbing folks in this new fashion 
 
 Seemed quite to turn him topsy-turvy ; 
 
 He uttered pray'rs, and groans, and curses, 
 
 For things had often gone amiss 
 
 And wrong with him before, but this 
 
 Would be the worst of all reverses ! 
 
 In fancy he beheld his snout 
 
 Turned upward like a pitcher's spout ; 
 
 There was another grievance yet, 
 
 And fancy did not fail to show it. 
 
 That he must throw a summerset, 
 
 Or stand upon his head to blow it. 
 
 And was there then no argument 
 
 To change the doctor's vile intent, 
 
 And move his pity ? — yes, in truth, 
 
 And that was — paying for the tooth, 
 
 " Zounds! pay for such a stump ! I 'd rather — " 
 
 But here the menace went no farther. 
 
 For with his other ways of pinching. 
 
 Hunks had a miser's love of snuff, 
 
 A recollection strong enough 
 
 To cause a very serious flinching ; 
 
 In short, he paid and had the feature 
 
 Replaced as it was meant by nature ; 
 
 For tho' by this 't was cold to handle, 
 
 (No corpse's could have felt more horrid,) 
 
 And white just like an end of candle- 
 
240 EPIGKAMS. 
 
 The doctor deemed and proved it too, 
 That noses from the nose ■R'ill do 
 As well as noses from the forehead ; 
 So, fixed by dmt of rag and Imt, 
 The part was bandaged up and muffled. 
 The chair unfastened. Hunks arose, 
 And shuffled out, for once unshuffled : 
 And as he went these words he snuffled — 
 " Well, this is -paying through the nose.' " 
 
 EPIGRAMS 
 
 COMPOSED ON HEADING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED. 
 
 That flesh is grass is now as clear as day. 
 To any but the merest purblind pup, 
 
 Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay, 
 My Lady B comes and rakes it up. 
 
 THE LAST WISH, 
 
 "When I resign this world so briary. 
 
 To have across the Styx my ferrying, 
 O, may I die without a diary ! 
 
 And be interred without a BuRY-ing I 
 
 The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain, 
 Turned into cash, they are laid out again ! 
 
THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 241 
 
 THE MOXKEY-MAETYR. 
 
 '• God help thee, said L but I 'II let thee out, cost what it ■will : so I tnmed aboat 
 the cage to get to the door.'" — Steexk. 
 
 "Tis strange, "^liat awkwai\l figures and odd capers 
 Folks cut. •o'ho seek their doctrine from the papers ; 
 But there are many shaliO"W politicians 
 Who take then- bias fi'om bewildered journals — 
 
 Turn state-physicians, 
 And make themselves fools" -cap of the diurnals. 
 
 One of this kind, not human, but a monkey, 
 Had read himself at last to this sour creed — 
 That he was nothing but Oppression's flunkey, 
 And man a tyrant over all his breed. 
 
 He could not read 
 Of niggers -svhipt. or orer-trampled weavers. 
 But he applied their wrongs to his own seed, 
 And nourished thoushts that threw him into fevers. 
 His veiy dreams were full of martial beavei^. 
 And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious, 
 
 To sever chains vexatious : 
 In fact, he thought that all his injured line 
 Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop 'em 
 Till they had cleared a road to Freedom's shrine — 
 Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop "em. 
 
 Full of this rancor, 
 Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes. 
 
 It came into his brains 
 To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor ; 
 11 
 
242 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 
 
 Where certain solemn sages of the nation 
 
 Vv'ere at that moment in deliberation 
 
 How to relieve the wide world of its chains, 
 
 Pluck despots down, 
 
 And thereby crown 
 Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. 
 Pug heard the speeches with great approbation, 
 And gazed Avith pride upon the Liberators ; 
 
 To see mere coal-heavers 
 
 Such perfect Bolivars — 
 Waiters of inns subhmcd to innovators, 
 And slaters dignified as legislators- 
 Small publicans demanding (such their high sense 
 Of liberty) an universal license — 
 And pattern-makers easing Freedom's clogs — 
 
 The whole thing seemed 
 
 So fine, he deemed 
 The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs ! 
 
 Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle. 
 Walked out at last, and turned into the Strand, 
 
 To the left hand, 
 Conning some portion of the previous twaddle, 
 And striding with a step that seemed designed 
 To represent the mighty March of Mind, 
 
 Instead of that slow waddle 
 Of thought, to which our ancestors inclined — 
 No wonder, then, that he should quickly find 
 He stood in front of that intrusive pile, 
 
 Where Cross keeps many a kind 
 
 Of bird confined, 
 And free-born animal, in durance vile — 
 A thought that stirred up all the monkey-bile I 
 
THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 
 
 The Trindow stood ajar — 
 
 It was not far, 
 Nor. like Parnassus, very hard to climb — 
 The hour was verging on the supper-time, 
 And many a growl was sent through many a bar. 
 ISIeanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar, 
 
 And soon crept in, 
 
 Unnoticed in the din 
 Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring ^ 
 With all the- harshest notes that they could bring; 
 
 For like the Jews, 
 
 Wild beasts refuse 
 In midst of their capti\aty— to sing. 
 
 Lord ! how it made him chafe, 
 Full of his new emancipating zeal. 
 To look around upon this brute-bastille, 
 And see the king of creatures in — a safe ! 
 The desert's denizen in one small den, 
 Swallowing slavery's most bitter pills — 
 A bear in bars unbearable. And then 
 The fretful porcupine, with all its quills, 
 
 Imprisoned in a pen I 
 A tiger limited to four feet ten ; 
 And, still worse lot, 
 A leopard to one spot, 
 An elephant enlarged, 
 But not discharged ; 
 (It was before the elephant was shot ;) 
 A doleful wanderow, that wandered not ; 
 An ounce much disproportioned to his pound. 
 
 Pug's wrath waxed hot 
 To o-aze upon these captive creatures round ; 
 
 243 
 
244 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 
 
 Whose claws— all scratching — gave him full assurance 
 They found theu' durance vile of vile endurance. 
 
 He Tvent above — a solitary mounter 
 
 Up gloomy stairs — and saw a pensive group 
 
 Of hapless fowls — 
 
 Cranes, vultures, owls, 
 In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter, 
 Where feathered prisoners were doomed to droop : 
 Here sat an eagle, forced to make a stoop, 
 Not from the skies, but his unpendmg roof; 
 
 And there aloof, 
 A pining ostrich, moping in a coop : 
 With other samples of the buxl creation, 
 All caged against their powers and their wills, 
 And cramped in such a space, the longest bills 
 Were plainly bills of least accommodation. 
 In truth, it was a very ugly scene 
 To fall to any liberator's share, . 
 To see those winged fowls, that once had been 
 Free as the wind, no freer than fixed air. 
 
 His temper little mended, 
 Pug from this Bh'd-cage Walk at last descended 
 
 Unto the lion and the elephant, 
 
 His bosom in a pant 
 To see all nature's Free List thus suspended. 
 And beasts deprived of what she had intended. 
 
 They could not even prey 
 
 In their own way ; 
 A hardship always reckoned quite prodigious. 
 
 Thus he revolved — 
 
 And soon resolved 
 To give them freedom, civil and religious. 
 
THE MONKEY-MARTYK. 245 
 
 That night, there were no country cousins, raw 
 
 From Wales to view the lion and his kin : 
 
 The keeper's eyes were fixed upon a saw ; 
 
 The saw was fixed upon a bullock's shin : 
 ISIeanwhile with stealthy paw, 
 Pug hastened to withdraw 
 
 The bolt that kept the kmg of brutes withm. 
 
 Now, monarch of the forest ! thou shalt win 
 
 Precious enfranchisement— thy bolts are undone ; 
 
 Thou art no longer a degraded creature, 
 
 But loose to roam with liberty and nature ; 
 
 And free of all the jungles about London — 
 All Hampstead's healthy desert lies before thee ! 
 Methinks I see thee bound from Cross's ark, 
 Full of the native instinct that comes o'er thee, 
 
 And turn a ranger 
 Of Hounslow Forest, and the Regent's Park- 
 Thin Rhodes" s cows— the mail-coach steeds endanger— 
 And gobble parish watchmen after dark : — 
 ISIethinks I see thee, with the early lark. 
 Stealing to Merlin's cave— (My cave)— Alas, 
 That such bright visions should not come to pass! 
 Alas for freedom, and for freedom's hero! 
 
 Alas, for liberty of life and limb ! 
 For Pug had only half unbolted Nero, 
 When Nero bolted him ! 
 
246 CRANIOLOGY. 
 
 CRANIOLOGY. 
 
 'TiS strange how like a very dunce, 
 
 Man — with his bumps upon his sconce, 
 
 Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he 
 
 Has had, till lately, of Phrenology — 
 
 A science that by simple dint of 
 
 Head-combing he should find a hint of, 
 
 "When scratching o'er those little pole-hills, 
 
 The faculties throw up like mole-hills ; — 
 
 A science that, in very spite 
 
 Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light, 
 
 For tho' he knew his skull had grindei'S^ 
 
 Still there turned up no organ finders, 
 
 Still sages wrote, and ages fled, 
 
 And no man's head came in his head — 
 
 Not even the pate of Erra Pater, 
 
 Knew aught about its pia mater. 
 
 At last orreat Dr. Gall bestirs him — 
 
 I don't know but it might be Spurzheim — 
 
 Tho' native of a dull and slow land, 
 
 And makes partition of our Poll-land : 
 
 At our Acquisitiveness guesses, 
 
 And all those necessary nesses 
 
 Indieative of human habits, 
 
 All buiTOwing in the head like rabbits. 
 
 Thus Veneration he made known, 
 
 Had jrot a lods-ino: at the Crown : 
 
 And Music (see Deville's example) 
 
 A set of chambers in the Temple : 
 
 That Language taught the tongues close by, 
 
 And took in pupils thro' the eye, 
 
CRANIOLOGY. 
 
 247 
 
 Close by his neighbor Computation, 
 Who taught the eyebrows numeration. 
 
 The science thus— to speak in fit 
 
 Terms— having struggled from its nit, 
 
 Was seized on by a swarm of Scotchmen, 
 
 Those scientifical hotch-potch men, 
 
 Who have at least a penny dip 
 
 And wallop in all doctorship, 
 
 Just as in makmg broth they smatter 
 
 By bobbing twenty things in water ; 
 
 These men, I say, made quick appliance 
 
 And close, to phrenologic science : 
 
 For of. all learned themes whatever 
 
 That schools and colleges deliver. 
 
 There's none they love so near the bodies, . 
 
 As analyzing then- own noddles, 
 
 Thus in a trice each northern blockhead 
 
 Had got his fingers in his shock head, 
 
 And of his bumps was babbling yet worse 
 
 Than poor Miss Capulefs dry wet-nui-se; 
 
 Till having been sufficient rangers 
 
 Of theh' own heads, they took to strangers'. 
 
 And found m Presbyterians' poUs 
 
 The things they hated in thek souls ; 
 
 For Presbyterians hear with passion 
 
 Of organs joined with veneration. 
 
 Ko khid there was of human pumpkin 
 
 But at its bumps it had a bumpkin ; 
 
 Down to the very lowest gullion, 
 
 And oiliest scull of oily scullion. 
 
 No great man died but this they did do, 
 
 They begged his cranium of his widow : 
 
248 CKAXIOLOGY. 
 
 No murderer died hj law disaster, 
 But thej took off his sconce in plaster ; 
 For thereon they could show depending 
 '• The head and front of his offending," 
 How that his philanthropic bump 
 Was mastered by a baser lump ; 
 Tor every bump (these wags insist) 
 Has its direct antagonist, 
 Each striving stoutly to prevail, 
 Like horses knotted tail to tail ; 
 And many a stiff and sturdy battle 
 Occurs between these adverse cattle, 
 The secret cause, beyond all question, 
 Of aches ascribed to indigestion — 
 Whereas 'tis but two knobby rivals 
 Tugging together like sheer devils, 
 Till one gets mastery, good or sinister. 
 And comes in like a new prime-minister. 
 
 Each bias in some master node is : — 
 AYhat takes M'Adam Avhere a road is, 
 To hammer little pebbles less ? 
 Eas organ of Destructiveness. 
 What makes, great Joseph so encumber 
 Debate ? a lumping lump of Number : 
 Or Malthus rail at babies so? 
 The smallness of his Philopro — 
 YVhat severs man and wife ? a simple 
 Defect of the Adhesive pimple : 
 Or makes weak women go astray ? 
 Their bumps are more in fault than they. 
 These facts being found and set in order 
 By grave M.D.'s beyond the Border. 
 
A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 249 
 
 To make them for some feAY months eternal, 
 Were entered monthly in a journal, 
 That many a northern sage still writes in. 
 And throws his little Northern Lights in, 
 And proves and proves about the phrenos, 
 A great deal more than I or he knows. 
 How Music suiFers, par exemple^ 
 By wearing tight hats round the temple ; 
 "What ills great boxers have to fear 
 From blisters put behind the ear : 
 And how a porter's Veneration 
 Is hurt by porter's occupation : 
 Whether shillelahs in reality 
 May deaden Individuality : 
 Or tongs and poker bo creative 
 Of alterations in the Amative : 
 If falls from scaifolds make us less 
 Inclined to all Constructiveness : 
 With" more such matters, all applying 
 To heads — and therefore AeatZifying. 
 
 A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 
 
 "Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, 
 Oft up the stream of time I tuiu my sail." 
 
 ROGKES. 
 
 Come, my Crony, let 's think upon far-away days, 
 
 And lift up a little Oblivion's veil ; 
 Let 's consider the past with a lingering gaze. 
 
 Like a peacock whose eyes are inclined to his tail. 
 11* 
 
250 A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 
 
 Ay, come, let us turn our attention behind. 
 
 Like those critics whose heads are so heavy, I fear, 
 
 That they can not keep up with the march of "the mind. 
 And so turn face about for reviewing the rear. 
 
 Looking over Time's crupper and over his tail, 
 Oh, what ages and' pages there are to revise ! 
 
 And as farther our back-searchmg glances prevail. 
 Like the emmets, '• how little we are in our eyes !" 
 
 "WTiat a sweet pretty innocent, half-a-yard long. 
 
 On a dimity lap of true nursery make ! 
 I can fancy I hear the old lullaby song 
 
 That was meant to compose me, but kept me awake. 
 
 Methinks I still suffer the infantine throes, 
 
 "When my flesh was a cushion for any long pin — 
 
 "Whilst they patted my body to comfort my woes. 
 
 Oh ! how little they dreamt they were driving them in ! 
 
 Infant sorrows are strong — infant pleasures as weak — 
 But no grief was allowed to indulge in its note ; 
 
 Did you ever attempt a small " bubble and squeak," 
 Thro' the Dalby's Carminative down in your throat ? 
 
 Did you ever go up to the roof with a bounce ? 
 
 Did you ever come down to the floor with the same ? 
 Oh ! I can't but agree with both ends, and pronounce 
 
 '• Head or tails," with a child, an unpleasantish game ! 
 
 Then an urchin — I see myself urchin, indeed, 
 
 "With a smooth Sunday face for a mother's delight ; 
 
 Why should weeks have an end ? — I am sure there was need 
 Of a Sabbath, to follow each Saturday -night. 
 
A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 251 
 
 Was your face ever sent to the housemaid to scrub ? 
 
 Have you ever felt huckaback softened Avith sand ? 
 Had you ever your nose to"\velled up to a snub, 
 
 And your eyes knuckled out with the back of the hand ? 
 
 Then a school-boy — my tailor -was nothing in fault, 
 For an urchin -will grow to a lad by degrees — 
 
 But how well I remember that '-pepper and salt"' 
 That was down to the elbows, and up to the knees ! 
 
 AVhat a figure it cut when as Korval I spoke ! 
 
 "With a lanky right leg duly planted before ; 
 "Whilst I told of the chief that was killed by my stroke. 
 
 And extended my arms as '• the arras that he wore I" 
 
 Xext a Lover — Oh ! say, were you ever m love ? 
 
 With a lady too cold — and your bosom too hot ? 
 Have you bowed to a shoe-tie, and knelt to a glove ? 
 
 Like a beau that desired to be tied in a knot? 
 
 With the Bride all in white, and your body in blue, 
 Did you walk up the aisle — the genteelest of men ? 
 
 ^^^len I think of that beautiful vision anew, 
 Oh ! I seem but the biffin of what I was then ! 
 
 I am withered and worn by a premature care, 
 
 And my wrinkles confess the decline of my days ; 
 
 Old Time's busy hand has made free with my hair, 
 And I 'm seeking to hide it — by writing for bays ! 
 
252 '-dox't you smell fire?" 
 
 "DON'T YOU SMELL FERET 
 
 Run ! — run for St. Clement's engine ! 
 
 For the Pawnbroker's all in a blaze, 
 And the pledges are frying and singing — 
 
 Oh ! how the poor pawners will craze ! 
 Now where can the turncock be drinking ? 
 
 Was there ever so thirsty an elf? — 
 But he still may tope on, for I "m thinking 
 
 That the plugs are as diy as himself. 
 
 The engines ! — I hear them come rumbhng ; 
 
 There 's the Phcenis ! the Globe ! and the Sun! 
 What a row there will be, and a grumbling, 
 
 When the water don't start for a run ! 
 See ! there they come racing and tearing. 
 
 All the street with loud voices is filled ; 
 Oh ! it 's only the firemen a-swearing 
 
 At a man they 've run over and killed ! 
 
 How sweetly the sparks fly away now, 
 
 And twinkle like stars in the sky ; 
 It's a wonder the engines don't play now. 
 
 But I never saw water so shy ! 
 VHij there is n't enough for a snipe, 
 
 And the fire it is fiercer, alas ! 
 Oh! instead of the New Eiver Pipe, 
 
 They have gone — that they have — to the gas. 
 
 Only look at the jwor little P- 
 
 On the roof — is there any thing sadder ? 
 My dears, keep fast hold, if you please, 
 
 And they won't be an hour with the ladder ! 
 
"don't you smell fire?" 253 
 
 But if any one 's hot in their feet, 
 
 And in very great haste to be saved, 
 Here 's a nice easy bit in the street, 
 
 That M'Adam has lately unpaved ! 
 
 There is some one — I sec a dark shape 
 
 At that -window, the hottest of all — 
 My good woman, why don't you escape ? 
 
 Never think of your bonnet and shawl : 
 If your dress is n't perfect, what is it 
 
 For once in a way to your hurt ? 
 When your husband is paying a visit 
 
 There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirt I 
 
 Only see how she throws out her chaneij ! 
 
 Her basins, and tea-pots, and all 
 The most brittle of her goods — or any, 
 
 But they all break in breaking their fall : 
 Such things are not surely the best 
 
 From a tAvo-story window to throw — 
 She might save a good iron-bound chest, 
 
 For there 's plenty of people below ! 
 
 dear I what a beautiful flash ! 
 
 How it shone thro' the windovv' and door ; 
 We shall soon hear a scream and a crash, 
 
 When the woman flills thro' with the floor ! 
 There ! there ! what a volley of flame, 
 
 And then suddenly all is obscured ! — 
 Well— I 'm glad in my heart that I came ; — 
 
 But I hope the poor man is insured ! 
 
254 THE WIDOW. 
 
 THE WIDOW. 
 
 One widow at a grave will sob 
 A little while, and weep, and sigh I 
 If two should meet on such a job, 
 They '11 have a gossip bj and bj. 
 If three should come together — why, 
 Three widows are good company ! 
 If four should meet by any chance, 
 Four is a number very nice. 
 To have a rubber in a trice — 
 But five will up and have a dance ! 
 
 Poor Mrs. C (why should I not 
 
 Declare her name ? — her name was Cross) 
 
 Was one of those the " common lot" 
 
 Had left to weep '• no common loss :" — 
 
 For she had lately buried then 
 
 A man, the " very best of men," 
 
 A lingering truth, discovered first 
 
 Whenever men " are at the worst." 
 
 To take the measure of her woe, 
 
 It was some dozen inches deep — 
 
 I mean in crape, and hung so low, 
 
 It liid the drops she did 7iot weep ; 
 
 In fact, what human life appears. 
 
 It was a perfect " veil of tears." 
 
 Though ever since she lost "her prop 
 
 And stay" — alas ! he wouldn't stay — 
 
 She never had a tear to mop, 
 
 Except one little angry drop, 
 
 From Passion's eye, as Moore would say ; 
 
THE WIDOW. 
 
 Because, wlicn Mister Cross took flight, 
 
 It looked so very like a spite — 
 
 He died upon a washing-day ! 
 
 Still Widow Cross went twice a week, 
 
 As if " to wet a widow's cheek," 
 
 And soothe his grave with sorrow's gravy — 
 
 'T was nothing but a make-believe, 
 
 She might as well have hoped to grieve 
 
 Enough of brine to float a navy ; 
 And yet she often seemed to raise 
 
 A cambric kerchief to her eye — 
 
 A duster ought to be the phrase, 
 
 Its work was all so very dry. 
 
 The springs were locked that ought to flow — 
 
 In England or in widow-woman — 
 
 As those that watch the weather know, 
 
 Such "backward Springs" are not uncommon. 
 
 255 
 
 But why did Widow Cross take pains, 
 
 To call upon the "dear remains" — 
 
 Remains that could not tell a jot. 
 
 Whether she ever wept or not. 
 
 Or how his relict took her losses ? 
 
 Oh ! my black ink turns red for shame^ 
 
 But still the naughty world must learn. 
 
 There was a little German came 
 
 To shed a tear in " Anna's Urn," 
 
 At the next grave to Mr. Cross's ! 
 
 For there an angel's virtues slept, 
 
 " Too soon did Heaven assert its claim !" 
 
 But still her painted fiicc he kept, 
 
 " Encompassed in an angel's frame." 
 
256 THE WIDOW. 
 
 He looked quite sad and quite deprived, 
 His liead was nothing but a bat-band ; 
 He looked so lone and so ?//nvived, 
 That soon the Widow Cross contrived 
 To fall in love with even that band ; 
 And all at once the brackish juices 
 Came gushing out through sorrow's sluices — 
 Tear after tear too fist to wipe, 
 Tho' sopped, and sopped, and sopped again — 
 No leak in sorrow's private pipe, 
 But like a bursting on the main ! 
 Whoe'er has watched the window-pane — 
 I mean to say in showery weather — 
 Has seen two little drops of rain, 
 Like lovers very fond and fain. 
 At one another creeping, creeping, 
 Till both, at last, embrace together : 
 So fared it with that couple's weeping, 
 The principle was quite as active — 
 Tear unto tear 
 Kept drawing near, 
 Their very blacks became attractive. 
 To cut a shortish story shorter, 
 Conceive them sitting tete-a-tete — 
 Two cups — hot muffins on a plate — 
 With " Anna's Urn" to hold hot water I 
 The brazen vessel for a while 
 Had lectured in an easy song, 
 Like Abernethy — on the bile — 
 The scalded herb was getting strong ; 
 All seemed as smooth as smooth could be, 
 To have a cosy cup of tea ; 
 Alas ! how often human sippers 
 
THE WIDOW. 257 
 
 With unexpected bitters meet, 
 
 And buds, the sweetest of the sweet, 
 
 Like sugar, only meet the nippers ! 
 
 The Widow Cross, I should have told, 
 Had seen three husbands to the mould ; 
 She never sought an Indian pyre, 
 Like Hindoo wives that lose their loves, 
 But with a proper sense of fire, 
 Put up, instead, with " three removes :" 
 Thus, when with any tender words 
 Or tears she spoke about her loss. 
 The dear departed, Mr. Cross, 
 Came in for nothing but his thirds ; 
 For, as all widows love too well, 
 She liked upon the list to dwell, 
 And oft ripped up the old disasters- 
 She might, indeed, have been supposed 
 A great ship-o\mer, for she prosed 
 Eternally of her Three Masters ! 
 Thus, foolish woman ! while she nursed 
 Her mild souchong, she talked and reckoned 
 What had been left her by her first. 
 And by her last, and by her second. 
 Alas ! not all her annual rents 
 Could then entice the little German — 
 Not Mr. Cross's Three Per Cents, 
 Or Consols, ever make him her man ; 
 He liked her cash, he liked her houses. 
 But not that dismal bit of land 
 She always settled on her spouses. 
 So taking up his hat and band, 
 
258 A BUTCHER. 
 
 Said he, " You '11 think my conduct odd — 
 But here my hopes no more may linger ; 
 I thought you had a wedding-finger, 
 But oh ! — it is a curtain-rod I" 
 
 A BUTCHEE. 
 
 Whoe'er has gone thro" London Street, 
 Has seen a butcher gazing at his meat, 
 
 And how he keeps 
 
 Gloating upon a sheep's 
 Or bullock's personals, as if his otth ; 
 
 How he admires his halves 
 
 And quarters — and his calves, 
 As if in truth upon his own legs grown ; — 
 
 His fat I his suet ! 
 His kidneys peeping elegantly thro' it ! 
 
 His thick flank ! 
 
 And his thin ! 
 His shank ! 
 His shin ! 
 Skin of his skin, and bone too of his bone ! 
 
 With what an air 
 He stands aloof across the thoroughfare, 
 Gazing — and will not let a body by, 
 Tho' buy ! buy I buy ! be constantly his cry ; 
 Meanwhile with arms akimbo, and a pair 
 Of Rhodian legs, he revels in a stare 
 At his Joint Stock — for one may call it so, 
 
 Howbeit. without a Co. 
 The dotage of self-love was never fonder 
 Than he of his brute bodies all a-row; 
 
THE DOUBLE KNOCK. 259 
 
 Narcissus in the -wave did never ponder 
 
 "With love so strong 
 
 On his " portrait cliarmant," 
 As our vain Butcher on his carcass yonder. 
 
 Look at his sleek round skull! 
 How bright his cheek, how rubicund his nose is I 
 
 His visage seems to be 
 
 Ripe for beef-tea ; 
 Of brutal juices the whole man is full — 
 In fact, fulfilling the metempsychosis, 
 The butcher is already half a Bull. 
 
 THE DOUBLE KNOCK. 
 
 Rat-tat it went upon the lion's chin, 
 
 " That hat, I know it!" cried the joyful girl; 
 
 " Summer's it is, I know him by his knock, 
 
 Comers like him are welcome as the day ! 
 
 Lizzy ! go down and open the street-door, 
 
 Busy I am to any one but him. 
 
 Know him you must — he has been often here ; 
 
 Show him up stairs, and tell him I 'm alone." 
 
 Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair ; 
 Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat ; 
 " Sure he has brought me tickets for the play — 
 Drury — or Covent Garden — darling man ! — 
 Kemble will play — or Kean who makes the soul 
 Tremble : in Richard or the frenzied Moor — 
 Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce 
 Barren beside — or Liston, Laughter's Child — 
 Kelly the natural, to witness whom 
 
260 THE devil's album. 
 
 Jelly is nothing in the puljlic's jam — 
 Cooper, the sensible — and Walter Knowles 
 Super, in William Tell — now rightly told. 
 Better— perchance, from Andrews, brings a box, 
 Letter of boxes for the Italian stage — 
 Brocard ! Donzelli ! Taglioni ! Paul ! 
 No card— thank heaven — engages me to-night ! 
 Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque — 
 Weather 's against it, but I "11 go in curls. 
 Dearly I dote on white — my satin dress. 
 Merely one night — it won't be much the worse — 
 Cupid — the New Ballet I long to see — 
 Stupid ! why don't she go and ope the door !" 
 
 Glistened her eye as the impatient gh'l 
 Listened, low bending o'er the topmost stair. 
 Vainly, alas ! she listens and she bends. 
 Plainly she heai-s this question and reply : 
 " Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d' ye want ?" 
 " Taxes," says he, " and shall not call again !" 
 
 THE DEVIL'S ALBUM, 
 
 It will seem an odd whim 
 
 For a Spu'it so grim 
 As the Devil to take a delight in ; 
 
 But by common renown 
 
 He has come up to town 
 With an Album for people to write in I 
 
 On a handsomer book 
 Mortal never did look, 
 Of a flame-color silk is the binding, 
 
EPIGRAM. 261 
 
 With a border superb, 
 "Where, through floweret and herb, 
 The old Serpent goes brilliantly winding I 
 
 By gilded grotesques. 
 
 And embossed arabesques, 
 The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded ; 
 
 But, alas ! in a taste 
 
 That betrays they were traced 
 At the will of a Spirit degraded ! 
 
 As for paper — the best, 
 
 But extremely hot-pressed. 
 Courts the pen to luxui'iate upon it, 
 
 And against every blank 
 
 There 's a note on the Bank, 
 As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet. 
 
 ^yho will care to appear 
 
 In the Fiend's Souvenir, 
 Is a question to morals most vital ; 
 
 But the very first leaf. 
 
 It "s the public belief, 
 Will be filled by a Lady of Title ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 OK A LATE CATTLE-SHOW Ds' SMITHFIELI). 
 
 Old Farmer Bull is taken sick. 
 Yet not with any sudden trick 
 
 Of fever, or his old dyspepsy ; 
 But having seen the foreign stock, 
 It gave his system such a shock 
 
 He 's had a fit of cattle-epsy ! 
 
262 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 
 
 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 
 
 "Blow high, blow low." — Sea Song. 
 
 As Mister B. and Mistress B. 
 
 One night were sitting down to tea, 
 
 With toast and muffins hot — 
 
 They heard a loud and sudden bounce, 
 
 That made the very china flounce, 
 
 They could not for a time pronounce 
 
 If they were safe or shot — 
 
 For Memory brought a deed to match 
 
 At Deptford done by night — 
 
 Before one eye appeared a Patch 
 
 In t' other eye a Blight ! 
 
 To be belabored out of life, 
 Without some small attempt at strife, 
 Our nature will not grovel ; 
 One impulse moved both man and dame. 
 He seized the tongs — she did the same, 
 Leaving the ruffian, if he came, 
 The poker and the shovel. 
 Suppose the couple standing so, 
 When rushing footsteps from below 
 Made pulses fast and fervent ; 
 And first burst in the frantic cat, 
 All steaming like a brewer's rat, 
 And then — as white as my cravat — 
 Poor Mary May, the servant ! 
 
 Lord, hoAV the couple's teeth did chatter, 
 
 Master and Mistress both flew at her, 
 
 " Speak! Fire? or Murder? What's the matter?" 
 
r- 
 
 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 263 
 
 Till Mary getting breath, 
 
 Upon her tale began to touch 
 
 With rapid tongue, full trotting, such 
 
 As if she thought she had too much 
 
 To tell before her death : — 
 "We Tvas both. Ma'am, in the wash-house, Ma'am, a-stand- 
 
 ing at our tubs, 
 And Mi-s. Round was seconding what little things I rubs ; 
 ' Mary,' says she to me, ' I say"— and there she stops for 
 
 coughin,' 
 ' That dratted copper flue has took to smokin' very often, 
 But please the pigs,'— for thafs her way of swearing in a 
 
 passion, 
 ' I '11 blow it up, and not be set a coughin' in this fashion !' 
 Well, down she takes my master's horn— I mean his horn 
 
 for loading, 
 And empties every grain alive for to set the flue explodmg. 
 Lawk, :Mrs. Round ! says I, and stares, that quantum is 
 
 improper. 
 I'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper ; 
 You '11 powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its 
 
 puff, 
 But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pmch of 
 
 snuff. 
 Well, when the pinch is over—' Teach your grandmother 
 
 to suck 
 A powder horn,' says she— Well, says I, I ^^ish you luck. 
 Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her 
 
 hips, 
 ' Come,' says she, quite in a huff, ' come, keep your tongue 
 
 inside your lips : 
 Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like 
 
 these ; 
 
264 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 
 
 I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up bj degrees. 
 
 So in it goes, and Bounce — Lord 1 it gives us such a 
 rattle, 
 
 I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle ! 
 
 Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs, 
 
 And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks. 
 
 Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut 
 shorter. 
 
 But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding 
 water. 
 
 I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a dis- 
 tance, 
 
 As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in exist- 
 ence; 
 
 All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the 
 copper slap 
 
 Bight on her head, for all the world like a percussion cop- 
 per cap. 
 
 Well, I crooks her httle fingers, and crumps them well up 
 together, 
 
 As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a 
 feather. 
 
 But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality, 
 
 She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality. 
 
 Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late de- 
 parted mother. 
 
 Well, she '11 wash no more in this world, whatever she does 
 in t' other. 
 
 So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute, 
 
 Lawk, sich a shirt ! thinks I, it "s well my master wasn't 
 in it ; 
 
 Oh ! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so 
 shockin' : 
 
EPIGRAM. 265 
 
 Here lays a leg, and there a leg — I mean, you know, a 
 
 stocking — 
 Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt, 
 And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and 
 
 black with dirt ; 
 But as nobody was in 'em — none but — nobody was hurt ! 
 Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump, 
 When, mercy on us ! such a groan as makes my heart to 
 
 jump. 
 And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye, 
 A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky : 
 Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I 
 
 reaches. 
 And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches, 
 For, poor soul ! she has a husband and young orphans, as I 
 
 knew ; 
 Well, Ma'am, you won't believe it, but it 's Gospel fact and 
 
 true. 
 But these words is all she whispered — ' Why, where is the 
 
 powder blew?' " 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON THE DEPRECIATED MOKEY. 
 
 They may talk of the plugging and sweating 
 
 Of our coinage that 's minted of gold. 
 But to me it produces no fretting 
 
 Of its shortness of weight to be told : 
 All the sov' reigns I 'm able to levy 
 
 As to lightness can never bo wrong, 
 But must surely be some of them heavy, 
 
 For I never can carry them long. 
 
266 AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 
 
 AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 
 
 BY A TENERABLE DIRECTOR. 
 
 " Give me old music — let me hear 
 The songs of dai/s gone by !" — H. F. Choeley. 
 
 ! COME, all ye who love to hear 
 
 An ancient song in ancient taste, 
 To Yrhom all bygone ISIusic's dear 
 
 As verdant spots in jMemory's waste ! 
 Its name "The Ancient Concert" wrongs, 
 
 And has not hit the proper clef, 
 To wit, Old Folks to sing Old Songs, 
 
 To Old Subscribers rather deaf. 
 
 Away, then, Hawes ! with all your band 
 
 Ye beardless boys, this room desert ! 
 One youthfal voice, or youthful hand, 
 
 Our concert-pitch would disconcert ! 
 No Bird must join our '• vocal throng," 
 
 The present age beheld at font : 
 Away, then, all ye " Sons of Song," 
 
 Your Fathers are the men we want ! 
 
 Away, Miss Birch, you "re in your prime ! 
 
 Miss Komer, seek some other door ! 
 Go, Mrs. Shaw ! till, counting time. 
 
 You count you 're nearly fifty-four ! 
 Go, Miss Novello, sadly young ! 
 
 Go, thou composing Chevalier, 
 And roam the county towns among, 
 
 No Newcome will be welcome here ! 
 
AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 261 
 
 Our Concert aims to give at night 
 
 The music that has had its day ! 
 So, Rooke, for us you can not ^vrite 
 
 Till time has made you Raven grey. 
 Your score may chann a modern ear, 
 
 Xay. ours, when three or fourscore old, 
 But in this Ancient atmosphere, 
 
 Fresh au's like yours Tvould give us cold ! 
 
 Go, HaTves, and Cawse, and Woodyat go ! 
 
 Hence, Shirreflf, with those native curls ; 
 And ]\Iaster Coward ought to know 
 
 This is no place for boys and girls ! 
 Ko Massons here we wish to see ; 
 
 Nor is it Mrs. Seguin's sphere, 
 And Mrs. B ! Oh ! Mrs. B , 
 
 Such Bishops are not reverend here ! 
 
 What 1 Grisi, l^right and beaming thus ! 
 
 To sing the songs gone grey with age ! 
 No, Grisi. no — ^l3ut come to us 
 
 And welcome, when you leave the stage ! 
 Off. Ivanhoff ! — till weak and harsh ! — 
 
 Rubini, hence ! Avith all the clan ! 
 But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache 
 
 A little shrivelled thin old man. 
 
 Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please ! 
 
 Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch ; 
 You "d run us out of breath with Glees, 
 
 And Catches that we could not catch. 
 Away, ye Leaders all. who lead 
 
 "With violins, quite modern things ; 
 To guide our Ancient band we need 
 
 Old fiddles out of leading strings'; 
 
268 AN AXCIEXT CONCERT. 
 
 But come, ye Songsters, over-ripe, 
 
 That into "cliildish trebles break!" 
 And bring, ^Miss Winter, bring the pipe 
 
 That can not sing -without a shake ! 
 Naj, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin 
 
 A slender thread of ancient voice, 
 Old notes that almost seem called in ; 
 
 At such as you -sve sJiall rejoice ! 
 
 No thundering Thalbergs here shall baulk, 
 
 Or ride your pet D-cadence o'er. 
 But fingers with a little chalk 
 
 Shall, moderato, keep the score ! 
 No Broadvroods here, so full of tone, 
 
 But Harpsichords assist the strain : 
 No Lincoln's pipes, we have our own 
 
 Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Caua. 
 
 And welcome ! St. Cecilians, now 
 
 Te willy-nilly, ex-good fellows, 
 Who will strike up, no matter how, 
 
 With organs that survive their bellows ! 
 And bring, brmg, your ancient styles 
 
 In which our elders loved to roam. 
 Those flourishes that strayed for miles. 
 
 Till some good fiddle led them home ! 
 
 come, ye ancient London Cries, 
 
 When Christmas Carols erst were sung ! 
 Come, Nurse, who droned the lullabies, 
 
 "When Music, heavenly Maid, was young I" 
 No matter how the critics treat, 
 
 AYhat modern sins and faults detect. 
 The Copy-Book shall still repeat, 
 
 These Concerts must '•' Coimnand respect!" 
 
THE DriOWXING DUCKS. 269 
 
 THE DROWXIXG DUCKS. 
 
 Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond 
 
 Enjojed yet grieved at more than others, 
 
 Were little ducklings in a pond, 
 
 Swimming about beside their mothers — 
 
 Small things like living water lilies, 
 
 But yellow as the daffo-dillies. 
 
 "It's very hard," she used to moan, 
 ' ' That other people have their ducklings 
 
 To grace their waters — mine alone 
 Have never any pretty chucklings." 
 
 For why ! — each little yellow navy 
 
 Went down — all downy— to old Davy ! 
 
 She had a lake — a pond I mean — 
 
 Its wave was rather thick than pearly — 
 
 She had two ducks, their napes were green- 
 She had a drake, his tail was curly — 
 
 Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond, 
 
 No little ducks liad Mrs. Bond ! 
 
 The birds were both the best of mothers — 
 The nests had eggs — the eggs had luck — 
 
 The infant D.'s came forth like others — 
 But there, alas ! the matter stuck ! 
 
 They might as well have all died addle 
 
 As die when they 1)egan to paddle ! 
 
 For when, as native instinct taught her, 
 The mother set her brood afloat, 
 
270 THE DROWNING DUCKS. 
 
 They sank ere long right under water, 
 
 Like any over-loaded boat ; 
 They were web-footed too to see, 
 As ducks and spiders ought to be ! 
 
 No peccant humor in a gander 
 
 Brought havoc on her little folks — 
 
 No poaching cooks — a frying pander 
 To appetite — destroyed their yolks — 
 
 Beneath her very eyes, Od' rot 'em ! 
 
 They went, like plummets, to the bottom, 
 
 The thing was strange — a contradiction 
 It seemed of nature and her works ! 
 
 For little ducks, beyond conviction, 
 Should float without the help of corks : 
 
 Great Johnson it bewildered him ! 
 
 To hear of ducks that could not swim. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Bond ! what could she do 
 
 But change the breed — and she tried divers 
 
 Which dived as all seemed born to do ; 
 No little ones were e'er survivors — 
 
 Like those that copy gems, I'm thinking, 
 
 They all were given to die-sinking ! 
 
 In vain their downy coats were shorn ; 
 
 They floundered still! — Batch after batch went! 
 The little fools seemed only born 
 
 And hatched for nothing but a hatchment! 
 Whene'er they launched — sight of wonder! 
 Like fires the water "got them under!" 
 
 No woman ever gave their lucks 
 
 A better chance than Mrs. Bond did; 
 
THE DROWNING DUCKS. 271 
 
 At last quite out of heart and ducks, 
 
 She gave her pond up, and desponded; 
 For Death among the water-lilies. 
 Cried " Due ad me"' to all her dillies! 
 
 But though resolved to breed no more, 
 
 She brooded often on this riddle — 
 Alas! 'twas darker than before! 
 
 At last about the summer's middle, 
 What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did, 
 
 To clear the matter up the Sun did ! 
 
 The thirsty Sirius, dog-like drank 
 
 So deep, his furious tongue to cool. 
 The shallow waters sank and sank, 
 
 And lo, from out the wasted pool. 
 Too hot to hold them any longer. 
 There crawled some eels as big as conger 1 
 
 I wish all folks would look a bit, 
 
 In such a case below the surface ; 
 But when the eels were caught and split 
 
 By Mrs. Bond, just think of her face, 
 In each inside at once to spy 
 A duckling turned to giblet-pie ! 
 
 The sight at once explained the case, 
 
 Making the Dame look rather silly, 
 The tenants of that Eebj Place 
 
 Had found the way to Pick a d'lUy, 
 And so ]jy under-water suction. 
 Had wrought the little ducks' abduction. 
 
272 THE FALL. 
 
 THE FALL. 
 
 " Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep." — CotrNT Fathom. 
 
 Who does not know that dreadful gulf, wliere Niagara 
 
 falls, 
 Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls ; 
 Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness 
 
 grope, 
 And upward, on the foam there shines a rainbow witliout 
 
 Hope ; 
 While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning 
 
 wave 
 Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave : 
 And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or 
 
 bliss ; 
 One— only one — hath ever lived to rise from that abyss ! 
 Oh, Heav'n ! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear 
 
 extreme, 
 To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream ! 
 In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and 
 
 and light, 
 I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current's might : 
 On — on — still on — direct for doom, the river rushed in force. 
 And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its 
 
 course. 
 My eyes I closed — I dared not look the way towards the 
 
 goal; 
 But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my 
 
 soul. 
 Plainly, as iLioigh transparent lids, I saw the fleeting 
 
 shore, 
 And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by for evermore ; 
 
THE FALL. 273 
 
 Plainly — but "^ith no prophet sense — I heard the sullen 
 
 sound, 
 The torrent's voice — and felt the mist, like death-sweat 
 
 gathering round. 
 
 agony ! life ! My home ! and those that made it sweet : 
 Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet. 
 With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the 
 
 dizzy edge. 
 Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge 
 
 to ledge, 
 From crag to crag — in speechless pam — -from midnight deep 
 
 to deep ; 
 
 1 did not die — ^but anguish stunned my senses into sleep. 
 How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to 
 
 find: 
 At last the gradual light of life came dawning o"er my 
 
 mind; 
 And through my brain there thrilled a cry — a cry as shrill 
 
 as birds' 
 Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words : — 
 '•It's Edgar Huntley in his cap and night-gown, I declares I 
 He 's been a walkmg in his sleep, and pitched all down the 
 
 stairs !" 
 
 12* 
 
THE STEAM SERTICE 
 
 " Life is but a kittle cast." — Buess. 
 
 The time is not yet come — but come it -will — when the 
 masts of our Royal Navy shall be unshipped, and huge 
 unsightly chimneys be erected in their place. The trident 
 will be taken out of the hand of Neptune, and replaced by 
 the effigy of a red-hot poker; the Union Jack will look 
 like a smoke-jack ; and Lambtons, Russels, and Adairs will 
 130 made Admirals of the Black ; the forecastle will be 
 called the Newcastle, and the cock-pit will be termed the 
 coal-pit ; a man-of-war's tender will be nothing but a 
 Shields' collier ; first-lieutenants will have to attend lec- 
 tures on the steam-engine, and mid-shipmen must take 
 lessons as climbing-boys in the art of sweeping flues. In 
 short, the good old tune of '■ Rule Britannia"' Avill give 
 way to " Polly put the Kettle on;" while the Victory, the 
 jMajestic, and the Thunderer of Great Britain will "paddle 
 in the burn,"' like the Harlequin, the Dart, and the Mag- 
 net of Margate. 
 
 It will be well for our song-writers to bear a wary eye to 
 the Fleet, if they would prosper as Marine Poets. Some 
 sea Gurney may get a seat at the Admiralty Board, and 
 then farewell, a long farewell, to the old ocean imagery : 
 marine metaphor will requu-e a new figure-head. Flowing 
 
THE STEAM SERVICE. 
 
 275 
 
 sheets, snowy wings, and the old comparison of a ship to a 
 bird, will become obsolete and out of date ! Poetical top- 
 sails will be taken aback, and all such things as reefs and 
 double-reefs will be shaken out of song. For my own part, 
 I cannot be sufficiently thankful that I have not sought a 
 Helicon of salt water ; or canvassed the Nine Muses as a 
 writer for their Marine Library ; or made Pegasus a sea- 
 horse, when sea-horses as well as land-horses are equally 
 likely to be superseded by steam. After such a consumma- 
 tion, when the sea service, like the tea service, will depend 
 chiefly on boiling water, it is very doubtful whether the 
 Fleet will be worthy of any thing but plaui prose. I have 
 tried to adapt some of our popular blue ballads to the 
 boiler, and Dibdin certainly does not steam quite so well as 
 a potatoe. However, if his Sea Songs are to be in immor- 
 tal use, they will have to be revised and corrected in future 
 editions thus : — 
 
 I steamed from the Downs in the Nancy, 
 
 My jib how she smoked through the breeze. 
 She 's a vessel as tight to my fancy 
 
 As ever boiled through the salt seas. 
 
 ***** 
 When up the flue the sailor goes 
 
 And ventures on the ^jo^, 
 The landsman, he no better knows, 
 
 But thinks hard is his lot. 
 
 Bold Jack with smiles each danger meets, 
 
 Weighs anchor, lights the log ; 
 Trims up the fire ^ picks out the slates, 
 
 And di'inks his can of grog. 
 
 ***** 
 
276 THE STEAM SERVICE. 
 
 Go patter to lubbers and swabs do you see, . 
 
 "Bout danger, and fear, and tlie like ; 
 But a Boiiltoii and Watt and good Wall' s-end give me ; 
 
 And it ain't to a little I "11 strike. 
 
 Though the tempest our chimney smack smooth shall down 
 smite, 
 
 AxA shiver each bundle of wood ; 
 Clear the wreck, stir the fire, and stow every thmg tight. 
 
 And hoiVuKj a gallop we '11 scud. 
 
 I have cooked Stevens's, or rather Incledon's Storm in 
 the same way ; but the pathos does not seem any the ten- 
 derer for stewing. 
 
 Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawling, 
 
 By shovel, tongs, and poker, stand ; 
 Down the scuttle quick be hauling, 
 
 Down your bellows, hand, boys, hand. 
 Now it freshens — blow like blazes ; 
 
 Now unto the coal-hole go ; 
 Stir, boys, stir, don t mind black faces, 
 
 Up your ashes nimbly throw. 
 
 Ply your bellows, raise the wind, boys, 
 
 See the valve is clear, of course ; 
 Let the paddles spin, don't mind, boys, 
 
 Thouo-h the weather should be worse. 
 Fore and aft a proper draft get. 
 
 Oil the encrines., see all clear ; 
 Hands up, each a sack of coal get, 
 
 Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer. 
 
 Now the dreadful thunder 's roaring, 
 Peal on peal contending clash ; 
 
THE STEAM SERVICE. 277 
 
 On our heads fierce rain falls pouring, 
 
 In our eyes the paddles splash. 
 One Avide water all around us, 
 
 All above one smoke-black sky : 
 Different deaths at once surround us ; 
 
 Hark ! what means that dreadful cry ? 
 
 The funnel "s gone ! cries ev'ry tongue out, 
 
 The engineer 's washed off the deck ; 
 A leak beneath the coal-hole 's sprung out, 
 
 Call all hands to clear the wreck. 
 Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces ; 
 
 Come, my hearts, be stout and bold ; 
 Plumb the boiler, speed decreases, 
 
 Four feet water getting cold. 
 
 While o"er the ship wild waves are beating, 
 
 "We for wives or children mourn ; 
 Alas ! from hence there 's no retreating ; 
 
 Alas ! to them there "s no return. 
 The fire is out — we 've burst the bellows, 
 
 The tinder-box is swamped below ; 
 Heaven have mercy on poor fellows, 
 
 For only that can serve us now ! 
 
 Devoutly do I hope that the kettle, though a great voca- 
 list, will never thus appropriate the old Sea Songs of Eng- 
 land. In the words of an old Greenwich pensioner— 
 •• Steaming and biling does very well for Urn Bay, and the 
 likes ;" but the craft does not look regular and shipshape to 
 the eye of a tar who has sailed with Duncan, Howe, and 
 Jar^^s— and who would rather even go without port than 
 have it through sl funnel. 
 
278 A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 
 
 A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 
 
 "Some are born ■with a wooden spoon In their mouths, and some with a golden 
 ladle." — Goldsmith. 
 
 " Some arc born with tin rings in their noses, and some with silver ones." — Silter- 
 
 SMITn. 
 
 Who ruined me ere I was born, 
 Sold every acre, grass or corn, 
 And left the next heir all forlorn ? 
 
 My Grandfather. 
 
 Who said my mother was no nurse, 
 And physicked me and made me worse, 
 Till infancy became a curse ? 
 
 My Grandmother. 
 
 Who left me in my seventh year, 
 A comfort to my mother dear. 
 And Mr. Pope, the overseer ? 
 
 My Father. 
 
 Who let me starve to buy her gin, 
 
 Till all my bones came through my skin, 
 
 Then called me '• ugly little sin ?"' 
 
 ]My Mother. 
 
 Who said my mother was a Turk 
 And took me home — and made me work. 
 But managed half my meals to shirk ? 
 
 ISIy Aunt. 
 
 Who "of all earthly things'' would boast, 
 " He hated others' brats the most," 
 And therefore made me feel my post ? 
 
 My Uncle. 
 
A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 279 
 
 Who got in scrapes, an endless score, 
 And always laid them at my door, 
 Till many a bitter bang I bore ? 
 
 My Cousin. 
 
 Vlho took me home Avhen mother died, 
 Again with father to reside, 
 Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide ? 
 
 My Stepmother. 
 
 Who marred my stealthy urchin joys. 
 
 And when I played cried " What a noise !" — 
 
 Girls always hector over boys — 
 
 My Sister. 
 
 Who used to share in what w\as mine, 
 Or took it all, did he incline, 
 'Cause I was eight, and he was nine? 
 
 My Brother. 
 
 Who stroked my head, and said " Good lad," 
 And gave me sixpence, '• all he had;" 
 But at the stall the coin was bad ? 
 
 My Godfather. 
 
 Who, gratis, shared my social glass, 
 But when misfortune came to pass 
 Referred me to the pump ? Alas ! 
 
 My Friend. 
 
 Through all this weary world, in brief. 
 Who ever sympathized with grief, 
 Or shared my joy — my sole relief? 
 
 Myself. 
 
280 THE angler's farewell. 
 
 THE ANGLER'S FARE^VELL. 
 
 "Eesigned, I kissed the rod." 
 
 Well ! I think it is time to put up ! 
 For it does not accord with my notions, 
 
 Wrist, elbow, and chine, 
 
 Stiff fi'om throwing the Ime, 
 To take nothing at last by my motions ! 
 
 I ground-bait my way as I go, 
 And dip at each watery dimple ; 
 
 But however I wish 
 
 To inveigle the fish. 
 To my gentle they will not play simple I 
 
 Though my float goes so swimmingly on, 
 !i\Iy bad luck never seems to diminish ; 
 
 It would seem that the Bream 
 
 Must be scarce in the stream. 
 And the Chuh^ tho' it 's chubby, be thinnish ! 
 
 Ixot a Trout there can be in the place, 
 Kot a Grayling or Rud worth the mention, 
 
 Ajid although at my hook 
 
 With attention I look, 
 I can ne'er see my hook with a Tench on ! 
 
 At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape, 
 But they seem upon different terms now ; 
 
 Have they taken advice 
 
 Of the " Council of Nice,'' 
 And rejected their ^'- Diet of Worms,'' now? 
 
THE angler's farewell. 281 
 
 In vain my live minnow I spin, 
 
 Not a Pike seems to tliink it worth snatching ; 
 
 For the gut I have brought, 
 
 I had better have bought 
 A good Tope that was used to Jack-ketching ! 
 
 Not a nibble has ruffled my cork. 
 It is vain in this river to search then ; 
 
 I may wait till it 's night. 
 
 Without any bite. 
 And at roost-time have never a Perch then ! 
 
 No Roach can I meet with — no Bleak, 
 Save what in the air is so sharp now ; 
 
 Not a Dace have I got, 
 
 And I fear it is not 
 " Carpe diem," a day for the Carp now .. 
 
 Oh ! there is not a one pound prize 
 To be got in this fresh-water lottery ! 
 
 What then can I deem 
 
 Of so fishless a stream 
 But that 'tis— like St. Mary's — Otteryl 
 
 For an Eel I have learned hoAv to try. 
 By a method of Walton's own showing — 
 
 But a fisherman feels 
 
 Little prospect of Eels, 
 In a path that's devoted to towing! 
 
 I have tried all the water for miles. 
 Till I 'm weary of dipping and casting 
 
 And hungry and fxint — 
 
 Let the Fancy just paint 
 What it is, without F'ish, to be Fasting ! 
 
282 SEA SONG. 
 
 « 
 
 And the rain drizzles down very fast, ■ 
 While mj dinner-time sounds from a far-bell- 
 
 So, wet to the skin, 
 
 I '11 e'en back to my Inn, 
 Where at least I am sure of a Bar-bell! 
 
 SEA SONG. 
 
 AFTER DIBDIN. 
 
 Pure water it plays a good part in 
 
 The swabbing the decks and all that — 
 And it finds its own level for sartin — 
 
 For it sartinly drinks very flat :— 
 For my part a drop of the creatur 
 
 I never could think was a fault, 
 For if Tars should swig water by natur, 
 
 The sea would have never been salt !- 
 Then off with it into a jorum 
 
 And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet, 
 For if I 've any sense of decorum 
 
 It never was meant to be neat ! — 
 
 One day when I was but half sober — 
 
 Half measures I always disdain — 
 I walked into a shop that sold Soda, 
 
 And ax'd for some Water Champagne : — 
 Well, the lubber he dre-w and he drew, boys. 
 
 Till I 'd shipped my six bottles or more. 
 And blow off my last limb but it 's true, boys, 
 
 Why, I warn't half so drunk as afore ! — 
 Then off with it into a jorum. 
 
 And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet, 
 For if I 've any sense of decorum, 
 
 It never was meant to be neat. 
 
THE APPARITION. 283 
 
 THE APPARITION. 
 
 In the dead of the night, when from beds that are turfy, 
 
 The spirits rise up on old cronies to call, 
 Came a shade from the Shades on a visit to jMurphy, 
 
 AVho had not foreseen such a visit at all. 
 
 " Don't shiver and shake," said the mild Apparition, 
 '• I 'm come to your bed with no evil design ; 
 
 I "m the Spirit of Moore, Francis Moore the Physician, 
 Once great like yourself in the Almanack line. 
 
 '• Like you I was once a great prophet on weather, 
 And deemed to possess a more prescient knack 
 
 Than- dogs, frogs, pigs, cattle, or cats, all together, 
 The donkeys that bray, and the dillies that quack. 
 
 '' Witii joy, then, as ashes retain former passion, 
 I saw my old mantle lugged out from the shelf, 
 
 Turned, trimmed, and brushed up, and again brought in 
 foshion, 
 I seemed to be almost reviving myself ! 
 
 " But, oh ! from my joys there was soon a sad cantle — 
 As too many cooks make a mull of the broth — 
 
 To find that two Prophets were under my mantle, 
 And pulling two ways at the risk of the cloth. 
 
 '• Unless you would meet with an awkwardish tumble, 
 Oh ! join like the Siamese twins in your jumps ; 
 
 Just fancy if Faith on her Prophets should stumble, 
 The Olio in hi? clogs, and the other in pumps ' 
 
284 LITTLE O'P. AX AFRICAN FACT. 
 
 ■ • But think how tlie people vrould worship and wonder, 
 To j&nd you ' hail fellows, well met,' in your hail, 
 
 In one tune with your rain, and your wind, and your thunder, 
 ' 'Fore God.' they would cry, ' they are both in a tale' !" 
 
 LITTLE OT.— AN AFRICAN FACT. 
 
 It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth 
 
 "Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south. 
 
 And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork, 
 
 Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork. 
 
 Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name, 
 
 And little 0' Patrick was mate of the same; 
 
 For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope. 
 
 They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast. 
 
 Only little O'P. made a swim to the coast ; 
 
 And when he revived from a sort of a trance, 
 
 He saw a big Black with a very long lance. 
 
 Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue 
 
 " Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gomborry bung !" 
 
 Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf, 
 
 Ajid down came a hundred as black as himself 
 
 They brought with them (juaitul. and pieces of klarn^ 
 
 The first was like beef, and the second like lamb ; 
 
 '• Don't I know," said O'P., " what the wretches are at ? 
 
 •• They 're intending to eat me as soon as I 'm fat !" 
 
 In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot. 
 
 His rations of jarhul he suffered to rot ; 
 
 He would not touch purrij or doolberry-lUx', 
 
 But kept himself ^ro?':"/;/^ as thin as a stick. 
 
LITTLE O'P. — AX AFRICAN FACT. 285 
 
 Thouo-li hroiling the climate, and parching with drouth, 
 
 He would not let chobbery enter his mouth, 
 
 But kicked down the hrug shell, tho' sweetened with natt- 
 
 '• I an't to be pisoned the likes of a rat !" 
 
 At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage, 
 
 And cried, '• O mi pitticum damballj nage ! 
 
 The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf, 
 
 Or give mc the knig shell, I "11 drmk it myself! 
 
 The doolberry-Uk is the best to be had, 
 
 And the jmrry (I chewed it myself) is not bad; 
 
 The jarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out, 
 
 And the Bok that it came from is grazmg about. 
 
 ISljjumho! but run off to Billery Nang, 
 
 And tell her to put on hevjif/ger and tang, 
 
 And go with the BIoss to the man of the sea, 
 
 And say that she comes as his Wulicid from me." 
 
 Kow Billery Xang was as Black as a sweep. 
 
 With thick cuidj hair like the wool of a sheep, 
 
 And the moment he spied her, said little OT., 
 
 " Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow 's at me !" 
 
 But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms. 
 
 She came to accept hmi for life in her ai-ms, 
 
 And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love, 
 
 A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove, 
 
 With a soul full of dread he declmed the grim bliss, 
 
 Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss ; 
 
 At last fairly foiled, she gave up the attack, 
 
 And Jeddry began to look blacker than black ; 
 
 "By ]Mumbo ! by Jumbo I — why here is a man, 
 
 That won't be made happy do all that I can ; 
 
 lie will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed, 
 
 Let the Rham take his shangwang and chop off his head !"' 
 
286 CONVEYANCING. 
 
 CONVEYANCING. 
 
 0, London is the place for all 
 
 In love with loco-motion ! 
 Still to and fro the people go 
 
 Like billows of the ocean ; 
 Machine or man, or caravan, 
 
 Can all be had for paying, 
 When great estates, or heavy weights, 
 
 Or bodies want conveying. 
 
 There 's always hacks about in packs, 
 
 Wherein you may be shaken, 
 And Jarvis is not always drunk, 
 
 Tho' always overtaken; 
 Jn racmg tricks he '11 never mix. 
 
 His nags are in their last days, 
 And slow to go, altho' they show 
 
 As if they had their fast days ! 
 
 Then if you like a single horse, 
 
 This age is quite a cab-age, 
 A car not quite so small and light 
 
 As those of our Queen Mab age ; 
 The horses have been broken loell, 
 
 All danger is rescinded. 
 For some have broken both their knees 
 
 And some are broken winded. 
 
 If you 've a friend at Chelsea end, 
 The stages are worth knowing — 
 
 There is a sort, we call 'em short, 
 Although the longest going — 
 
CONVEYANCING. 287 
 
 For some Avill stop at Hatchett's shop, 
 
 Till jou grow faint and sicky, 
 Perched up behind, at last to find, 
 
 Your dinner is all dickey ! 
 
 Long stages run from every yard ; 
 
 But if you 're wise and frugal, 
 You "11 never go with any Guard 
 
 That plays upon the bugle, 
 "Ye banks and braes," and other lays 
 
 And ditties everlasting, 
 Like miners going all your way, 
 
 With boring and with blasting. 
 
 Instead oi journeys, people now 
 
 May go upon a Guruey, 
 With steam to do the horses' work. 
 
 By -powers of attorney ; 
 Tho' with a load it may explode, 
 
 And you may all be ?<«-done ! 
 And find you 're going np to Heaven^ 
 
 Listead of np to London ! 
 
 To speak of every kind of coach 
 
 It is not my intention ; 
 But there is still one vehicle 
 
 Deserves a little mention ; 
 The world a sage has called a stage, 
 
 With all its living lumber, 
 And IMalthus swears it always bears 
 
 Above the proper number. 
 
 The law will transfer house or land 
 For ever and a day hence, 
 
288 THE BURNIXG OF THE LOVE LETTER. 
 
 For lighter things, "watch, brooches, rings, 
 You "11 never want conveyance ; 
 
 Ho! stop the thief ! my handkerchief ! 
 It is no sight for lauo-hter — ■ 
 
 Away it goes, and leaves my nose 
 To join in running after ! 
 
 THE BURNING OF THE LOVE LETTER. 
 
 " Sometimes they were put to the proof, hy what was called the Fiery Ordeal.' 
 
 HiSTOET OF EXGLA>1). 
 
 No morning ever seemed so long ! — 
 I tried to read with all my might ! 
 
 In my left hand '• My Landlord's Tales,'' 
 And threepence ready in my right. 
 
 'Twas twelve at last — my heart beat high ! — 
 The Postman rattled at the door ! — 
 
 And just upon her road to church, 
 I dropt the '• Bride of Lammermoor!" 
 
 I seized the note — I flew up stairs — 
 Flung-to the door, and locked me in — 
 
 With panting haste I tore the seal — • 
 And kissed the B in Benjamin ! 
 
 'T was fiill of love — to rhyme with dove — 
 And all that tender sort of thino- — 
 
 Of sweet and meet — and heart and dart — 
 But not a word about a rino; ! — 
 
 In doubt I cast it in the flame. 
 
 And stood to watch the latest spark — 
 
 And saw the love all end in smoke — 
 Without a Parson and a Clerk ! 
 
POEM — FROM THE POLISH. 289 
 
 POEM— FRO^r THE POLISH. 
 
 Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving from the Captain 
 of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the form of a letter, and duly sealed. 
 At last, recollecting the nature of the sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a 
 toasting-fork, and after holding it to the fire for a minute or two succeeded in thawing 
 out the following verses; 
 
 From seventy-two North latitude, 
 
 Dear Kitty, I indite ; 
 But first I "d have you understand 
 
 How hard it is to write. 
 
 Of thoughts that breathe and words that bum, 
 
 My Kitty, do not think — 
 Before I wrote these very lines, 
 
 I had to melt my ink. 
 
 Of mutual flames and lover's warmth. 
 
 You must not be too nice ; 
 The sheet that I am writing on 
 
 Was once a sheet of ice ! 
 
 The Polar cold is sharp enough 
 
 To freeze with icy gloss 
 The genial current of the soul, 
 
 E'en in a '• Man of Boss.'' 
 
 Pope says that letters waft a sigh 
 
 From Indus to the Pole ; 
 But here I really wish the post 
 
 "Would only " post the coaV 
 
 So chilly is the Northern blast. 
 
 It blows me through and through : 
 A ton of Wallsend in a note 
 
 Would be a billet-doux ! 
 13 
 
290 POEM — FROM THE POLISH. 
 
 In such a frigid latitude 
 
 It scarce can be a sin, 
 Should Passion cool a little, where 
 
 A Fury was iced in. 
 
 I 'm rather tired of endless snow, 
 
 And lon^f for coals ao;ain; 
 And would give up a Sea of Ice, 
 
 For some of Lambton's Main. 
 
 I 'm sick of dazzling ice and snow, 
 
 The sun itself I hate ; 
 So very bright, so very cold, 
 
 Just like a summer grate. 
 
 For opodeldoc I would kneel, 
 My chilblains to anoint; 
 
 Kate, the needle of the north 
 Has got a freezing point. 
 
 Our food is solids — ere we put 
 
 Our meat into our crops, 
 "We take sledge-hammers to our steaks 
 
 And hatchets to our chops. 
 
 So very bitter is the blast. 
 So cutting is the air, 
 
 1 never have been warm but once, 
 When hugging with a bear. 
 
 One thing I know you '11 like to hear, 
 Th' effect of Polar snows, 
 
 I 've left off snuff — one pinching day — 
 From lea\dng off my nose. 
 
POEM — FROM THE POLISH. 
 
 I have no ear for music now ; 
 
 ISIy ears both left together ; 
 And as for dancing, I have cut 
 
 My toes — it 's cutting weather. 
 
 I 've said that you should have my hand, 
 
 Some happy day to come ; 
 But, Kate, you only now can wed 
 
 A finger and a thumb. 
 
 Don't fear that any Esquimaux 
 Can wean me from my own ; 
 
 The Girdle of the Queen of Love 
 Is not the Frozen Zone. 
 
 At wives with large estates of snow 
 
 My fancy does not bite ; 
 I like to see a Bride — ^but not 
 
 In such a deal of white. 
 
 Give me for home a house of brict. 
 
 The Kate I love at Kew ! 
 A hand unchopped— a merry eye, 
 
 And not a nose, of blue ! 
 
 To think upon the Bridge of Kew, 
 
 To me a bridge of sighs ; 
 Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles 
 
 Are standing in my eyes 1 
 
 God knows if I shall e'er return, 
 
 In comfort to be lulled ; 
 But if I do get back to port, 
 
 Pray let me have it mulled. 
 
 291 
 
292 FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 
 
 FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 
 
 'Good heaven! Why even the little children iu France speak French 1" 
 
 Addibok. 
 
 Never go to France 
 
 Unless you know the lingo, 
 If you do, like me, 
 
 You will repent by jingo. 
 Staring like a fool, 
 
 And silent as a mummy, 
 There I stood alone, 
 
 A nation with a dummy : 
 
 Chaises stand for chairs. 
 
 They christen letters Billies^ 
 They call their mothers mares, 
 
 And all their daughters ^//«es ; 
 Strange it was to hear, 
 
 I '11 tell you what 's a good 'un, 
 They call their leather queer, 
 
 And half their shoes are wooden. 
 
 Signs I had to make. 
 
 For every little notion. 
 Limbs all going like 
 
 A telegraph in motion. 
 For wine I reeled about. 
 
 To show my meaning fully 
 And made a pair of horns. 
 
 To ask for " beef and bully." 
 
 Moo ! I cried for milk ; 
 
 I got my sweet things snugger, 
 
FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 293 
 
 When I kissed Jeannette, 
 
 "T was understood for sugar. 
 If I wanted bread, 
 
 My jaws I set a-going, 
 And asked for new-laid eggs. 
 
 By clapping hands and crowing ! 
 
 If I wished a ride, 
 
 I "11 tell 3^ou how I got it; 
 On my stick astride, 
 
 I made believe to trot it ; 
 Then their cash was strange, 
 
 It bored me every minute, 
 Kow here 's a hog to change, 
 
 How many sows are in it ! 
 
 Never go to France, 
 
 Unless you know the lingo; 
 If you do, like me, 
 
 You will repent, by jingo; 
 Staring like a fool, 
 
 And silent as a mununy. 
 There I stood alone, 
 
 A nation with a dummy ! 
 
OUR VILLAGE. 
 
 "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." — Goldsmith. 
 
 I HAVE a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I 
 do not know that I can make an easier commencement of 
 the character, than bj attempting a description of our vil- 
 lage. It will be found, as mj friend the landlord over the 
 waj sajs, that " things are drawn mildy 
 
 I live opposite the Green ]\Ian. I know that to be the 
 sign, in spite of the picture, because I am told of the fact 
 in large gilt letters, in three several places. The whole- 
 length portrait of '" I'honmie vercl'^ is rather imposing. He 
 stands plump before you, in a sort of wrestling attitude, the 
 legs standing distinctly apart, in a brace of decided boots, 
 with dun tops, joined to a pair of creole-colored leather 
 breeches. The rest of his dress is peculiar ; the coat, a 
 two-flapper, green and brown, or, as they say at the tap, 
 half-and-half ; a cocked hat on the half cock ; a short belt 
 crossing the breast like a flat gas-pipe. The one hand stuck 
 on the greeny -brown hip of my friend, in the other a gim 
 with a barrel like an entire butt, and the butt like a brewer's 
 whole stock. On one side, looking up at the vanished vision 
 of his master, is all that remains of a liver-and-white 
 pointer — seeming now to be some old dog from India, for 
 his white complexion is turned yellow, and his liver is 
 more than half gone ! 
 
pr:^=Tz 
 
 OUR VILLAGE. 295 
 
 The inn is reallj a very quiet, cozj, comfortable inn, 
 though the hmdlord announces a fact in larger letters, mc- 
 thinks, than liis information warrants, viz., that he is " Li- 
 censed to deal in Foreign Wines and &'pirifs.^' All inn- 
 keepers, I trust, are so licensed; there is no occasion to 
 make so brazen a brag of this sinecure permit. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters 
 of the Green Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt ; and on 
 looking upwards, I perceived that a sort of sky-light had 
 been opened in the clouds, giving entrance to a bright gleam 
 of sunshine, which glowed with remarkable effect on a yel- 
 low post-chaise in the stable-yard, and brought the ducks 
 out beautifully white from the black horse-pond. Tempted 
 by the appearance of the weather, I put down my pen, and 
 strolled out for a quarter of an hour before dinner to inhale 
 that air, without Avhich, like the chameleon, I cannot feed. 
 On my return, I found, with some surprise, that my papers 
 were a good deal discomposed ; but, before I had time for 
 much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most 
 obliging curtesys, and observed that she had seen me writ- 
 ing in the morning, and it had occurred to her by chance, 
 that I might by jDossibility have been writing a description 
 of the village. I told her that I had actually been engaged 
 on tliat very subject. "If that is the case, of course, sir, 
 you would begin, no doubt, about the Green ]Man, being so 
 close by ; and I dare say, you would say something about 
 the sign, and the Green Man with his top boots, and his gun, 
 and his Indian liver-and-white pointer, though his white to 
 be sure is turned yellow, and his liver is moi*e than half 
 gone." " You are perfectly right, Mrs. Ledger," I re- 
 plied, "and in one part of the description, I think I have 
 used almost your OAvn very words." " Well that is curious, 
 
296 OUR VILLAGE. 
 
 sir," exclaimed Mrs. L., and physicallj, not arithmetically, 
 casting up all her hands and eyes. ' ' Moreover, "what I 
 mean to say, is this ; and I only say that to save trouble. 
 There 's a young man lodges at the Green Grocer's over the 
 Avay, who has writ an account of the village already to your 
 hand. The people about the place call him the Poet, but, 
 anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beautiful ; and, 
 as I said before, has made the whole village out of his own 
 head. Now, it might save trouble, sir, if you was to write 
 it out, and I am sure I have a copy, that, as far as the loan 
 goes, is at your service, sir." My curiosity induced me to 
 take the offer ; and as the poem really forestalled what I 
 had to say of the Hamlet, I took my landlady's advice and 
 transcribed it — and here it is : 
 
 OUR VILLAGE.— BY A YILLAGER. 
 
 Our village, that 's to say not Miss Mitford's village, but 
 
 our village of Bullock Smithy, 
 Is come into by an avenue of trees, tlii-ee oak pollards, two 
 
 elders, and a withy ; 
 And in the middle, there 's a green of about not exceeding 
 
 an acre and a half; 
 It's common to all, and fed off by nineteen coavs, six ponies, 
 
 three horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf! 
 Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of 
 
 common law lease. 
 And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two 
 
 dead dogs, four drowned kittens, and twelve geese. 
 Of course the green's crept very close, and does famous for 
 
 bowling when the little village-boys play at cricket ; 
 Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure 
 
 to come and stand right before the wicket. 
 
OUR VILLAGE. 
 
 29T 
 
 There's fiftj-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops, 
 
 and pig-styes, and poultrj-huts, and such like sheds ; 
 AVith plenty of public houses — two Foxes, one Green Man, 
 three Bunch of Grapes, oneCroAvn, and six King'sHeads. 
 The Green Man is reckoned the best, as the only one that 
 
 for love or money can raise 
 A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame Avhitc horses, 
 
 and a ramshackled " neat post-chaise." 
 There 's one parish-church for all the people, whatsoever 
 
 may be their ranks in life or their degrees, 
 Except one very damp, small, dark, freezmg-cold, little 
 
 Methodist chapel of Ease ; 
 And close by the church-yard, there's a stone-mason's yard, 
 
 that when the time is seasonable *' 
 Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and 
 
 cherubims very low and reasonable. 
 There 's a cage, comfortable enough ; I 've been in it with 
 
 Old Jack Jeffrey and Tom Pike ; 
 For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or 
 
 any thing else you like. 
 I can't speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but 
 
 the upright post ; 
 But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob's horse, 
 
 as is always there almost. 
 There 's a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap 
 
 in his way. Old Joe Bradley, 
 Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and 
 
 shoes horses very badly. 
 There 's a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by 
 
 the widow of Mr. Task ; 
 But when you go there, it 's ten to one she 's out of every 
 
 thing you ask. 
 
 13* 
 
 ^1 
 
298 OUR VILLAGE. 
 
 You '11 know lier house bj the swarm of boys, like flies. 
 
 about the old sugaiy cask : 
 There are six empty houses, and not so well papered in.-ido 
 
 as out, 
 For bill-stickers won't beware, but sticks notices of sale.i 
 
 and election placards all about. 
 That's the Doctor's with a green door, where the garden 
 
 pots in the windows is seen ; 
 A weakly monthly rose that don't blow, and a dead geranium. 
 
 and a tea-plant with five black leaves and one green. 
 As for hollyhocks at the cottage-doors, and honeysuckles 
 
 and jasmines, you may go and whistle ; 
 But the tailor's front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a 
 
 ha'porth of pennyi'oyal, two dandelions, and a thistle. 
 There are three small orchards — ]\lr. Busby's the school- 
 master's is the chief — 
 With two pear-trees that don't bear ; one plum and an apple, 
 
 that every year is stripped by a thief. 
 There's another small day-school too, kept by the respectable 
 
 Mrs. Gaby; 
 A select establishment, for six little boys and one l^ig. and 
 
 four little girls and a baby. 
 There 's a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd 
 
 chimneys that never smokes. 
 For the rector don't live on his living like other Christian 
 
 sort of folks ; 
 There 's a barber's, once a-week well filled with rough 
 
 black-bearded, shock-headed churls. 
 And a window with two feminine men's heads, and two 
 
 masculine ladies in false curls ; 
 There 's a butcher's, and a carpenter's, and a plumber's, and 
 
 a small green-grocer's, and a baker, 
 
A VALENTINE. 299 
 
 Hut lie won't bake on a Sunday, and there 's a sexton that 's 
 
 a coal-merchant besides, and an undertaker ; 
 And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can't 
 
 compare with the London shops ; 
 One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, batts, Clout's 
 
 balls, and the other sells malt and hops. 
 And ]\Irs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit 
 
 behind her betters, 
 Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a 
 
 cobler, lives in it herself, and it's the post oflBce for letters. 
 Novr I 've gone through all the village — ay, from end to end, 
 
 save and except one more house. 
 But I liave n't come to that^and I hope I never shall — and 
 
 that 's the Village Poor-House ! 
 
 A VALENTINE. 
 
 THE WEATHER. To P. Murphy, Esq., M.N.S. 
 These, properly speaking, being esteemed the three arms of Meteoric action. 
 
 Dear Murphy, to improve her charms, 
 
 Your servant humbly begs ; 
 She thanks you for her leash of arms. 
 
 But wants a brace of legs. 
 
 Moreover, as you promise folks, 
 
 On certain days a drizzle ; 
 She thinks, in case she cannot rain, 
 
 She should have means to mizzle. 
 
 Some lightning too may just fall due, 
 
 When woods begin to moult ; 
 And if she cannot "fork it out," 
 
 She '11 wish to make a bolt ! 
 
300 '^^ FANNY. 
 
 TO FANNY. 
 
 " Gay being, born to flutter !"'— Sale's Glek. 
 
 Is this your faith, then, Fanny ? 
 
 What, to chat with every Dun ! 
 I 'm the one, then, but of many, 
 
 Not of many, but the One ! 
 
 Last night you smiled on all, Ma am, 
 That appeared in scarlet dress ; 
 
 And your Regimental Ball, Ma'am, 
 Looked a little like a Mess. 
 
 I thought that of the Sogers 
 
 (As the Scotch say) one might do, 
 
 And that I, slight Ensign Rogers, 
 Was the chosen man and true. 
 
 But 'Sblood ! your eye was busy 
 With that ragamuffin mob ; — 
 
 Colonel Buddcll — Colonel Dizzy — 
 And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb. 
 
 General Joblin, General Jodkin, 
 Colonels — Kelly, Felly, with 
 
 Majors — Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin, 
 And the Quarter-master Smith. 
 
 Major Powderum — Major Dowdrum— 
 Major Chowdrum — Major Bye — ■ 
 
 Captain Tawney — Captain Fawney, 
 Captain Any-one — but I ! 
 
TO FAXNY. 
 
 Deuce take it ! when the regiment 
 You so praised, I only thought 
 
 That you loved it in abridgment, 
 But I no^Y am better taught I 
 
 I went, as loving man goes. 
 To admire thee in quadrilles ; 
 
 But Fan, you dance fandangoes 
 With just any fop that m\h 1 
 
 I went with notes before us, 
 On the lay of Love to touch ; 
 
 But with all the Corps in chorus, 
 Oh ! it is indeed too much ! 
 
 You once — ere you contracted 
 For the Army— seemed my own ; 
 
 But now you laugh with all the Staff, 
 And I may sigh alone ! — 
 
 I know not how it chances, 
 When my passion ever dares, 
 . But the warmer my advances. 
 Then the cooler are your airs. 
 
 I am, I dont conceal it. 
 
 But I am a little hurt : 
 You 're a Fan, and I must feel it, 
 
 Fit for nothing but a Flirt ! 
 
 I dreamt thy smiles of beauty 
 On myself alone did fall ; 
 
 But alas! "CosiFanTutti!" 
 It is thus. Fan, thus with all ! 
 
 301 
 
302 THE BOY AT THE J^ORE. 
 
 You have taken quite a mob in 
 Of new military flames ; — 
 
 They would make a fine Round Robin 
 If I gave you all their names ! 
 
 THE BOY AT THE NORE. 
 
 "Alone I did it! — Boy!" — Coeiolaxcs. 
 
 I SAT, little Boy at the Nore, 
 
 Do you come from the small Isle of Man ? 
 Why, your history a mystery must be — 
 
 Come tell us as much as you can, 
 
 Little Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 You live it seems wholly on water. 
 
 Which your Gambier calls living in clover ; — 
 But how comes it, if that is the case, 
 
 You 're eternally half seas over — 
 
 Little boy at the Nore ? 
 
 While you ride — while you dance — while you float- 
 Never mind your imperfect orthography ; — 
 
 But give us as well as you can, 
 Your watery auto-biography, 
 
 Little Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 LITTLE BOY AT THE XORE LOQUITUR. 
 
 I 'm the tight little Boy at the Nore, 
 
 In a sort of sea negus I dwells ; 
 Half and half 'twixt salt-water and Port, 
 
 I 'm reckoned the first of the swells — 
 
 I 'm the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
THE BOY AT THE XORE. 303 
 
 I lives with my toes to tlie flounders. 
 
 And watches through long days and nights ; 
 Yet, cruelly eager, men look — 
 
 To catch the first glimpse of my lights — 
 I'm the Boy at the Xore. 
 
 I never gets cold in the head, 
 
 So my life on salt water is sweet — 
 I think I owes much of my health, 
 
 To being well used to wet feet — 
 
 As the Boy at the Nore. 
 
 There 's one thing, I "m never in debt : 
 
 Nay I — I liquidates more than I ouffhier ;* 
 
 So the man to beat Cits as goes by. 
 In keeping the head above water, 
 
 Is the Boy at the Nore. 
 
 I 've seen a good deal of distress 
 
 Lots of Breakers in Ocean's Gazette ; 
 They should do as I do — rise o'er all ; 
 
 Ay, a good floating capital get, 
 
 Like the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 I 'm a'ter the sailor's own heart, 
 
 And cheers him, in deep water rolling ; 
 
 And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk, . 
 Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling, 
 Is the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 Could I e'er but grow up, I 'd be off 
 
 For a week to make love to my wheedles ; 
 If the tight little Boy at the Nore 
 
 Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles, 
 AYe 'd have tn-o at the Nore ! 
 * A word caught from some American Trader in pa.ssing. 
 
304 SHOOTING PAIXS. 
 
 They thinks little of sizes on water, 
 On big waves the tinj one skulks — 
 
 Wliile the river has ]Men of War on it — 
 
 Yes — the Thames is oppressed with Great Hulks, 
 And the Boy's at the Nore ! 
 
 But I ' ve done — for the water is heaving 
 Round my body, as though it would sink it ! 
 
 And I *ve been so long pitching and tossing, 
 That sea-sick — ^you "d hardly now think it — 
 Is the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 SHOOTIXO PAIXS. 
 
 "The charge is prepared." — MACHEAxn. 
 
 If I shoot any more I "11 be shot, 
 
 For ill-luck seems determined to star me, 
 
 I have marched the whole day 
 
 "With a gun — for no pay — 
 Zounds, I 'd better have been in the army 1 
 
 "Wliat matters Sii' Christopher's leave ; 
 To his manor I "m sorry I came yet ! 
 
 With confidence fraught, 
 
 My two pointers I brought, 
 But we are not a point towards game yet ! 
 
 And that gamekeeper too, with advice ! 
 Of my course he has been a nice chalker, 
 
 Not far, were his words, 
 
 I could go without birds : 
 If my legs could cry out, they'd cry "Walker!" 
 
SHOOTING PAINS. 805 
 
 Kot Hawker could find out a flaw — 
 
 My appointments are modern and INIantony, 
 
 And I 've brought my own man, 
 
 To mark down all he can, 
 But I can't find a mark for my Antony ! 
 
 The partridges — where can they lie ? 
 I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas, 
 
 As the least I could do ; 
 
 But without even two 
 To brace me — I 'm getting quite nervous ! 
 
 To the pheasants — how well they 're preserved ! 
 My sport 's not a jot more beholden. 
 
 As the birds are so shy, 
 
 For my friends I must buy, 
 And so send " silver pheasants and golden." 
 
 I have tried ev'ry form for a hare. 
 
 Every patch, every furze, that could shroud her, 
 
 With toil unrelaxed, 
 
 Till my patience is taxed. 
 But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder, 
 
 I 've been roaming for hours in three flata 
 In the hope of a snipe for a snap at ; 
 
 But still vainly I court 
 
 The percussioning sport, 
 I find nothing for " setting my cap at !" 
 
 A woodcock — this month is the time — 
 Right and left I 've made ready my lock for, 
 
 With well-loaded double, 
 
 But spite of my trouble. 
 Neither barrel can I find a cock for I 
 
306 SHOOTING PAINS. 
 
 A rabbit I sbould not despise, 
 
 But tbej lurk in their burrows so lowly, 
 
 This day 's the eleventh, 
 
 It is not the seventh, 
 But they seem to be keeping it hole-y. 
 
 For a mallard I 've waded the marsh, 
 
 And haunted each pool, and each lake — oh ! 
 
 Mine is not the luck. 
 
 To obtain thee, Duck, 
 Or to doom thee, Drake, like a Draco ! 
 
 For a field-fare I 've fared far a-field, 
 Large or small I am never to sack bird, 
 
 Not a thrush is so kind 
 
 As to fly, and I find 
 I may whistle myself for a black-bird ! 
 
 I am angry, I 'm hungry, I 'm dry, 
 Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded. 
 
 And so weary an elf, 
 
 I am sick of myself. 
 And with Number One seem overloaded. 
 
 As well one might beat round St. Paul's, 
 And look out for a cock or a hen there ; 
 
 I have searched round and round 
 
 All the Baronet's ground, 
 But Sir Christopher has n't a wren there ! 
 
 Joyce may talk of his excellent caps. 
 But for nightcaps they set me desiring. 
 
 And it 's really too bad. 
 
 Not a shot I have had 
 With Hall's Powder, renowned for " quick firing." 
 
PAIRED XOT MATCHED. 
 
 If this is what people call sport, 
 Oh ! of sporting I can't have a high sense, 
 And there still remains one 
 More mischance on my gun — 
 '' Fined for shooting without any license." 
 
 307 
 
 PAIRED KOT iLlTCHED. 
 
 Op wedded bliss 
 
 Bards sing amiss, 
 I cannot make a song of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 My wife is tall. 
 And that 's the short and long of it ; 
 
 When we debate 
 
 It is my fate 
 To always have the wrong of it ; 
 
 For I am small 
 
 And she is tall, 
 And that "s the short and loner of it ! 
 
 And when I speak 
 
 'Mj voice is weak, 
 But hers — she makes a gong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall. 
 And that "s the short and long of it; 
 
 She has. in brief, 
 
 Command in Chief, 
 And I 'm but Aide-de-camp of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall. 
 And that 's the short and long of it ! 
 
308 PAIRED xTCr MATCHED. 
 
 She gives to me 
 
 The weakest tea, 
 And takes the whole Souchong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall, 
 And that 's the short and long of it; 
 
 She '11 sometimes grip 
 
 My buggy whip, 
 And make me feel the thong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall. 
 And that 's the short and long of it ! 
 
 Against my life 
 
 She '11 take a knife. 
 Or fork, and dart the prong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 
 
 And she is tall. 
 And that 's the short and long of it ! 
 
 I sometimes think 
 
 I '11 take to drink. 
 And hector when I 'm strong of it 
 
 For I am small. 
 
 And she is tall. 
 And that 's the short and long of it ! 
 
 0, if the bell 
 
 Would ring her knell, 
 I 'd make a gay ding-dong of it ; 
 
 For I am small. 
 
 And she is tall, 
 And that 's the short and long of it ! 
 
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 309 
 
 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 
 
 'The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners." — PicmjBE or Isle of 'WiGnT. 
 
 OxE close of day — 't-was in the bay 
 
 Of Naples, bay of glory ! 
 
 While light was hanging cro-wns of gold 
 
 On mountains high and hoary, 
 
 A gallant bark got under way. 
 
 And with her sails my story. 
 
 For Leghorn she was bound direct. 
 With wine and oil for cargo, 
 Her crew of men some nine or ten, 
 The captain's name was lago ; 
 A good and gallant bark she was, 
 La Doima (called) del Lago. 
 
 Bronzed mariners were her's to view, 
 With brown cheeks, clear or muddy, 
 Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black hair. 
 Meet heads for painter's study ; 
 But 'midst their tan there stood one man, 
 "Wliose cheek was fair and ruddy ; 
 
 His brow was high, a loftier brow 
 Ne'er shone in song or sonnet. 
 His hair a little scant, and when 
 He doffed his cap or bonnet. 
 One saw that Grey had gone beyond 
 A premiership upon it ! 
 
 His eye — a passenger was he. 
 The cabin he had hired it — 
 
310 THE COMPASS, WITH YARIATIONS. ^ 
 
 His eye was grey, and when he looked 
 Around, the prospect fired it — 
 A fine poetic light, as if 
 The Apple-Nine inspked it. 
 
 His frame was stout, in height about < 
 Six feet — well made and portly ; 
 Of dress and manner just to give 
 A sketch, but very shortly, 
 His order seemed a composite 
 Of rustic with the courtly. 
 
 He ate and quafied, and joked and laughed. 
 And chatted with the seamen, , 
 And often tasked their skill and asked 
 " What weather is *t to be, man?" 
 No demonstration there appeared 
 That he was any demon. 
 
 No sort of sign there was that he 
 Could raise a stormy rumpus, 
 Like Prospero make breezes blow, 
 And rocks and billows thump us — 
 But little we supposed ^vhat he 
 Could with the needle compass ! 
 
 Soon came a storm — the sea at first 
 Seemed lying almost fallow — 
 "When lo ! full crash, with billowy dash, 
 From clouds of black and yellow, 
 Came such a gale, as blows but once 
 A cent"ry, like the aloe ! 
 
 Our stomachs we had just prepared 
 To vest a small amount in : 
 
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 311 
 
 When, gush ! a flood of brine came down 
 The skylight — quite a fountain, 
 And right on end the table reared. 
 Just like the Table Mountain. 
 
 Down rushed the soup, down gushed the wine, 
 
 Each roll, its role repeating, 
 
 Rolled down — the round of beef declared 
 
 For parting — not for meating ! 
 
 Off flew the fowls, and all the game 
 
 Was " too far gone for eating !'' 
 
 Down knife and foi'k — down went the pork, 
 
 The lamb too broke its tether ; 
 
 Down mustard went — each condiment — 
 
 Salt — pepjjer — all together ! 
 
 Down every thing, like craft that seek 
 
 The Downs in stormy weather. 
 
 Down plunged the Lady of the Lake, 
 Her timbers seemed to sever ; 
 Down, down, a dreary derry down, 
 Such lurch she had gone never ; 
 She almost seemed about to take 
 A bed of down forever ! 
 
 Down dropped the captain's nether jaw, 
 
 Thus robbed of all its uses, 
 
 He thought he saw the Evil One 
 
 Beside Vesuvian sluices. 
 
 Playing at dice for soul and ship, 
 
 And throwing IS ink and Deuces. 
 
 Down fell the steward on his face. 
 To all the Saints commending ; 
 
312 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 
 
 And candles to the Virgin vowed, 
 As save-alls 'gainst his ending. 
 Down fell the mate, he thought his fate, 
 Check-mate, was close impending ! 
 
 Down fell the cook — the cabin boy, 
 Their beads with fervor telling, 
 While alps of serge, with snowy verge, 
 Above the yards came yelling. 
 Down fell the crew, and on then- knees 
 Shuddered at each white swelling ! 
 
 Down sunk the sun of bloody hue, 
 
 TTis crimson light a cleaver 
 
 To each red rover of a wave : 
 
 To eye of fancy-weaver, 
 
 Neptune, the God, seemed tossing in 
 
 A raging scarlet fever! 
 
 Sore, sore afraid, each papist prayed 
 
 To Saint and Virgin jNIary ; 
 
 But one there was that stood composed 
 
 Amid the waves' vagary ; 
 
 As staunch as rock, a true game-cock 
 
 '^Mid chicks of Mother Gary ! 
 
 His ruddy cheek retained its streak, 
 Ko danger seemed to shrink him ; 
 His step still bold — of mortal mould 
 The crew could hardly think him : 
 The Lady of the Lake, he seemed 
 To know, could never sink him. 
 
 Relaxed at last the furious gale 
 Quite out of breath with racing; 
 
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 313 
 
 The boiling flood in milder mood, 
 "With gentler billows chasing ; 
 From stem to stern, with frequent turn, 
 The Stranger took to pacing. 
 
 And as he Avalked to self he talked, 
 
 Some ancient ditty thrumming, 
 
 In under tone, as not alone — 
 
 l^ow whistling, and now humming — 
 
 " You 're welcome, Charlie," " Cowdenknowes," 
 
 "Kenmure," or ''Campbells' Coming." 
 
 Down went the wind, down went the wave, 
 
 Fear quitted the most finical ; 
 
 The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot. 
 
 And Hope was at the pinnacle : 
 
 When rose on high, a frightful cry — 
 
 " The Devil" s in the binnacle !" 
 
 " The Saints be near," the helmsman cried, 
 
 His voice with quite a falter — 
 
 •'' Steady 's my helm, but every look 
 
 The needle seems to alter ; 
 
 God only knows where China lies, 
 
 Jamaica, or Gibraltar!"' 
 
 The captain stared aghast at mate, 
 
 The pilot at th' apprentice ; 
 
 Xo fincy of the German Sea 
 
 Of Fiction the event is : 
 
 But when they at the compass looked, 
 
 It seemed non compass mentis. 
 
 Now nonh, now south, now east, now west, 
 The wavering point was shaken, 
 14 
 
)14 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 
 
 'T was past the whole philosophy 
 Of Newton, oi- of Bacon ; 
 Never by compass, till that hour 
 Such latitudes were taken ! 
 
 With fearful speech, each after each 
 Took turns in the inspection ; 
 They found no gun — no iron — none 
 To vary its direction ; 
 It seemed a new anagnetic case 
 Of Poles in Insurrection ! 
 
 Farewell to wives, farewell their lives, 
 
 And all their household riches ; 
 
 Oh ! while they thought of girl or boy, 
 
 And dear domestic niches, 
 
 All down the side which holds the heart. 
 
 That needle gave them stitches. 
 
 "With deep amaze, the Stranger gazed 
 To see them so white-livered : 
 And walked abaft the binnacle, 
 To know at what they shivered ; 
 But when he stood beside the card, 
 St. Josef! how it quivered! 
 
 No fancy-motion, brain-begot, 
 In eye of timid dreamer — 
 The nervous finger of a sot 
 Ne'er showed a plainer tremor ; 
 To every brain it seemed too plain, 
 There stood th' Infernal Schemer I 
 
 Mixed brown and blue each visage grew, 
 Just like a pullet's gizzard ; 
 
" PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE." 315 
 
 Meamvliile the captain's wandering Avit, 
 From tacking like an izzard, 
 Bore down in this plain course at last, 
 " It 's Michael Scott— the Wizard !" 
 
 A smile past o'er the ruddy face, 
 
 " To see the poles so falter 
 
 I 'm puzzled, friends, as much as you, 
 
 For with no fiends I palter ; 
 
 Michael I 'm not — although a Scott — 
 
 My Christian name is Walter." 
 
 Like oil it fell, that name, a spell 
 
 On all the fearful faction ; 
 
 The captain's head (for he had read) 
 
 Confessed the Needle's action, 
 
 And bowed to Him in whom the North 
 
 Has lodged its main attraction 1 
 
 "PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE." 
 
 I "11 tell you a story that 's not in Tom Moore : — 
 Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door : 
 So he called upon Lucy — 'twas just ten o'clock — 
 Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock. 
 
 Now a hand-maid, whatever her fingers be at, 
 Will run like a puss when she hears a ra/-tat : 
 So Lucy ran up — and in two seconds more 
 Had questioned the stranger and answered the door. 
 
 The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe: 
 For the moment will come when such comers must go ; 
 So she kissed him, and Avhispered— poor innocent thing — 
 '■The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring." 
 
316 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 
 
 THE LAMENT OF TOBY, 
 
 THE LEARNED PIG. 
 
 " A little learning is a dangerous thing." — Pope. 
 
 HEAVY day ! oh day of woe ! 
 
 To misery a poster, 
 Why was I ever farrowed — why 
 
 Not spitted for a roaster ? 
 
 In this world, pigs, as well as men, 
 Must dance to fortune's fiddlings, 
 
 But must I give the classics up, 
 For barley-meal and middlings ? 
 
 Of what avail that I could spell 
 And read, just like my betters, 
 
 If I must come to this at last, 
 To litters, not to letters ? 
 
 0, why are pigs made scholars of? 
 
 It baffles my discerning, 
 What griskins, fry, and chitterlings, 
 
 Can have to do with learning. 
 
 Alas ! my learning once drew cash, 
 But public fame 's unstable, 
 
 So I must turn a pig again, 
 And fatten for the table. 
 
 To leave my literary line 
 My eyes get red and leaky ; 
 
 But Giblett does n't want me bhie, . 
 But red and white, and streaky. 
 
THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 
 
 Old I^Iullins used to cultivate 
 My learning like a gaixVner ; 
 
 But Giblett only thinks of lard, 
 And not of Dr. Lardner ! 
 
 He does not care aljout my brain 
 
 The value of two coppers, 
 AH that he thinks about my head 
 
 Is, how I "m off for choppers. 
 
 Of all my literary kin 
 A farewell must be taken, 
 
 Good-bye to the poetic Hogg I 
 The philosophic Bacon ! 
 
 Day after day my lessons fade, 
 ISIy intellect gets muddy ; 
 
 A trough I have, and not a desk, 
 A sty — and not a study ! 
 
 Another little month, and then 
 Mj progress ends, like Bunyan's ; 
 
 The seven sages that I loved 
 Will be chopped up with onions ! 
 
 Then over head and ears in brine 
 They "11 souse me, like a salmon, 
 
 llj mathematics turned to brawn, 
 ]My logic into gammon. 
 
 My Hebrew will all retrograde, 
 Now I 'm put up to fatten ; 
 
 My Greek, it will all go to grease ; 
 The Dogs will have my Latin ! 
 
 317 
 
318 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 
 
 Farewell to Oxford ! — and to Bliss ! 
 
 To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop — 
 I now must be content with chats, 
 
 Instead of learned gossip ! 
 
 Farewell to '• Town !"' farewell to " Gown !" 
 I 've quite outgrown the latter — 
 
 Instead of Trencher-cap my head 
 Will soon be in a platter ! 
 
 O why did I at Brazen-Nose 
 
 Rout up the roots of knowledge ? 
 
 A butcher that can"t read will kill 
 A pig that 's been to college ! 
 
 For sorrow I could stick myself, 
 But conscience is a dasher; 
 
 A thing that would be rash in man, 
 In me would be a rasher ! 
 
 One thing I ask — when I am dead 
 And past the Stygian ditches — 
 
 And that is, let my schoolmaster 
 Have one of my two flitches : 
 
 'T was he who taught my letters so 
 I ne'er mistook or missed 'em; 
 
 Simply by ringing at the nose, 
 According to Belts system. 
 
MY SON A^■]J HEIR. 319 
 
 MY SON AXD HEIR. 
 
 My mother bids me bind my heir, 
 
 But not the trade vrhere I should bind ; 
 
 To place a boy — the how and where — 
 It is the plague of parent-kind ! 
 
 She does not hint the slightest plan, 
 Nor what indentures to indorse ; 
 
 Whether to bind him to a man — 
 Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse. 
 
 What line to choose of likely rise, 
 To something in the Stocks at last — • 
 
 " Fast bind, fast find." the proverb cries 
 I find I cannot bind so fast ! 
 
 A Statesman James can never be ; 
 
 A Tailor ? — there I only learn 
 His chief concern is cloth, and he 
 
 Is always cutting his concern. 
 
 A Seedsman ? — I "d not have him so ; 
 
 A Grocer's plum might disappoint ; 
 A Butcher ?— no, not that — although 
 
 I hear '• the times are out of joint I" 
 
 Too many of all trades there be, 
 
 Like Pedlars, each has such a pack ; 
 
 A merchant selling coals ? — we see 
 The buyer send to cellar back. 
 
320 MY SON AND HEIR. . 
 
 A Hardware dealer ? — that might please, 
 But if his trade's foundation leans 
 
 On spikes and nails, he won't have ease 
 When he retires upon his means. 
 
 'A Soldier ? — there he has not nerves, 
 A Sailor seldom lays up pelf : 
 
 A Baker ? — no, a leaker serves 
 His customer before himself. 
 
 Dresser of hair ?— that 's not the sort ; 
 
 A joiner jars with his desire — 
 A Churchman ? — James is very short, 
 
 And cannot to a church aspire. 
 
 A Lawyer ? — that 's a hardish term ! 
 
 A Publisher might give him ease. 
 If he could into Longman's firm, 
 
 Just plunge at once " in medias Reea." 
 
 A shop for pot, and pan, and cup, 
 Such brittle Stock I can't advise ; 
 
 A Builder running houses up, 
 
 Their gains are stories — may be lies I 
 
 A Coppersmith I can't endure — 
 Nor petty Usher A, B, C-ing ; 
 
 A Publican no father sure, 
 
 Would be the author of his being ! 
 
 A Paper-maker ? — come he must 
 To rags before he sells a sheet — 
 
 A Miller ?— all his toil is just 
 To make a meal — he does not eat. 
 
MY SON AND HEIR. 321 
 
 A Currier ? — that by favor goes — 
 
 A Chandler gives me great misgiving — 
 
 An Undertaker ? — one of those 
 
 That do not hope to get their living ! 
 
 Three Golden Balls ? — I like them not j 
 
 An Auctioneer I never did — 
 The victim of a slavish lot, 
 
 Obliged to do as he is bid ! 
 
 A Broker -R-atching fall and rise 
 
 Of Stock ? — I 'd rather deal in stone — 
 
 A Printer ? — there his toils comprise 
 Another's work beside his own. 
 
 A Cooper ? — neither I nor Jem 
 
 Have any taste or turn for that — 
 A Fish retailer ? — but with him 
 
 One part of trade is always flat. 
 
 A Painter ? — long he would not live — 
 
 An Artist 's a precarious craft — 
 In trade Apothecaries give, 
 
 But very seldom take, a draught. 
 
 A Glazier ? — what if he should smash ! 
 
 A Crispin he shall not be made — 
 A Grazier may be losing cash, 
 
 Although he drives '-a roaring trade." 
 
 Well, something must be done ! to look 
 
 On all my little works around — 
 James is too big a boy, like book, 
 
 To leave upon the shelf unbound. 
 
322 THE FOX AXD THE HEN. 
 
 But "what to do ? — my temples ache 
 
 From evening's dew till morning's pearl, 
 
 "WTiat course to take my boy to make — 
 Oh could I make my boy — a girl ! 
 
 THE FOX AXD THE HEN. 
 
 Speaking witliin compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to Korthcat^ 
 
 PiGBOGROMITUS. 
 
 OxE day, or night, no matter where or when, 
 Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad 
 Right on the body of a speckled Hen, 
 Determined upon taking all she had ; 
 And like a very bibber at his bottle, 
 Began to di'aw the claret from her throttle : 
 Of course it put her in a pretty pucker. 
 And with a scream as high 
 As she could cry. 
 She called for help — she had enough of sucker. 
 
 Dame Partlet's scream 
 "Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream, 
 
 And. vrith a savage growl 
 
 In answer to the fowl, 
 He bounded forth against the prowling sinner, 
 And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner. 
 
 Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom. 
 
 Thought, self-deceived, 
 
 He should not be perceived, 
 HidinfT his brush within a neighboring bi'oom ; 
 But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare. 
 
THE FOX AND THE HEN. 323 
 
 And caught in copper noose, 
 
 And looking like a goose, 
 Found that his fate had " hung upon a hare f 
 His ti'icks and turns ■s\-ere rendered of no use to him, 
 And, -worst of all, he saw old surly Tray 
 
 Coming to play 
 
 Tray-Deuce with him. 
 
 Tray, an old jMastiff bred at Dunstable, 
 Under his Master, a most special constable, 
 Instead of killing Reynard in a fury, 
 Seized him for legal trial by a Jury ; 
 But Juries — iEsop was a sheriff then — 
 Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men. 
 
 But first the Elephant sat on the body — 
 
 I mean the Hen — and proved that she was dea^ 
 
 To the veriest fool's head 
 
 Of the Booby and the Noddy. 
 
 Acordingly, the Stork brought in a bill 
 
 Quite true enough to kill ; 
 And then the Owl was called — for, mark, 
 The Owl can witness m the dark. 
 To make the evidence more plain. 
 The Lynx connected all the chain. 
 In short there was no quirk or quibble 
 At which a legal Rat could nibble ; 
 The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds 
 As if the Jury had been j)acked—o? hounds, 
 Reynard, however, at the utmost nick, 
 Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick ; 
 
324 THE FOX AND THE HEN. 
 
 Accordingly our cunning Fox, 
 Through certain influence, obscurely channeled. 
 A fi'iendly Camel got into the box. 
 "\Mien "gainst his life the Jury -svas impaneled. 
 
 Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law, 
 
 K Jurors should -withdraw, 
 They are to have no eating and no drinking 
 Till all are starved into one way of thinking. 
 
 Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree, 
 Were locked up strictly, without bit or mummock. 
 Till every Beast that only had one stomach, 
 Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three. 
 To do them justice, they debated 
 From four till ten, while dinner waited, 
 When thirst and hunger got the upper, 
 And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper : 
 '■ Not guilty" was the word, and Master Fox 
 Was freed to murder other hens and cocks. 
 
 MOEAL. 
 
 What moral gi'eets us by this tale's assistance 
 But that the Solon is a sorry Solon, 
 
 Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence 
 Depend upon a Colon ? 
 
THE COMET. 325 
 
 THE CO^^IET. 
 
 AX ASTROXOinCAL AXECDOTE. 
 ' I cannot fill up a blank better tban vrith a short history of this self-same /S^iarling." 
 
 STEEh-E's SEXTIilKXTAL JOUB^*Ey. 
 
 Amoxgst professors of astronomy, 
 Adepts in the celestial economy, 
 
 The name of H* *****! 's very often cited, 
 And justly so, for he is hand and glove 
 With every bright intelligence above ; 
 Indeed, it -^vas his custom so to stop, 
 Watching the stars upon the house's top, 
 
 That once upon a time he got be-knighted. 
 
 In his observatory thus coquetting 
 
 With Venus — or vrith Juno gone astray, 
 All sublunary matters quite forgetting 
 In his flirtations with the winking stars, 
 Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars — 
 
 A new Andre ; 
 Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping 
 At Dian sleeping ; 
 Or ogling thro' his glass 
 Some heavenly lass 
 Tripping with pails along the ]\Iilky Way ; 
 Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's : — 
 
 Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky, 
 When lo ! a something with a tail of flame 
 
 Made him exclaim, 
 ^'My stars !"' — he always puts that stress on my — 
 " My stars and garters !" 
 
326 THE COMET. 
 
 " A comet, sure as I 'm alive ! 
 A noble one as I should wish to view ; 
 It can't be Hallej's though, that is not due 
 
 Till eighteen thirtj-five. 
 Magnificent 1 — how fine his fiery trail ! 
 Zounds ! 'tis a pity, though, he comes unsought — 
 Unasked — unreckoned — iu no human thought — 
 
 He ought — he ought — he ought 
 
 To have been caught 
 With scientific salt upon his tail ! 
 
 " I looked no more for it, I do declare, 
 Than the Great Bear ! 
 
 As sure as Tjcho-Brahe is dead, 
 It really entered in my head 
 No more than Berenice's Hair !" 
 Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor 
 Sat gazing on the unin\-ited "sasitor 
 Till John, the ser\ang-man, came to the upper 
 Regions, with " Please your Honor, come to supper." 
 
 " Supper ! good John, to-night I shall not sup 
 Except on that phenomenon — look up !" 
 "Not sup !" cried John, thinking with consternation 
 That supping on a star must be starxvLiharv^ 
 
 Or ev'n to batten 
 On Isnes Fatui would never flitten. 
 His visage seemed to say — that very odd is — 
 But still his master the same tune ran on, 
 '• I can't come down — go to the parlor, John, 
 And say I 'm supping with the heavenly liodies. 
 
 " The heavenly bodies !" echoed John, " Ahem !" 
 His mind still full of famishin"; alarms, 
 
THE COMET. 
 
 327 
 
 " 'Zooks, if your Honor sups with them, 
 In lielping, somebody must make long anus !" 
 He thought his master's stomach was in danger, 
 But still in the same tone replied the Knight, 
 
 '• Go down, John, go, I have no appetite, 
 Say I "m engaged with a celestial stranger. ' — 
 Quoth John, not much au fait in such aflfairs, 
 "Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs?" 
 "No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder, 
 
 At such a blunder, 
 " The stranger is not quite the thing you thmk, 
 He wants no meat or di'ink. 
 And one may doubt quite reasonably whether 
 
 He has a mouth, 
 Seeing his head and tail are joined together, 
 Behold him— there he is, John, in the South."- 
 
 John looked up with his portentous eyes, 
 Each rolling like a marble in its socket, 
 At last the fiery tad-pole spies. 
 And, full of ^^auxhall reminiscence, cries, 
 '• A rare good rocket !" 
 
 " A what ? A rocket, John ! Far from it ! 
 
 What you behold, John, is a comet ; 
 One of those most eccentric things 
 
 That in all ages 
 
 Have puzzled sages 
 
 And frightened kings ; 
 With fear of change that flaming meteor, John, 
 Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range' 
 
 •• Do he?" cried John; 
 '• Well, let him flare on, 
 /have n't got no sovereigns to change !'' 
 
328 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 
 
 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 
 
 "Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and thi3 absurd 
 notion gives rise to more false starts than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, 
 tits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at 
 wasps, sawce qui j)eut at the sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is 
 made a branch of education at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would 
 only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, iu a 
 month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small-arms." 
 
 HiSTS BY A COEPOEAL. 
 
 It can't be minced, I 'm quite convinced 
 
 All girls are full of flam, 
 Their feelings fine and feminine 
 
 Are nothing else but sham. 
 On all their tricks I need not fix, 
 
 I '11 only mention one, 
 How many a Miss will tell you this, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 There 's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell 
 
 Of powder — horrid stuff! 
 A single pop will make her drop, 
 
 She shudders at a puff. 
 My INIanton near, with asj^en fear 
 
 Will make her scream and run ; 
 "It's always so, you brute, you know 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 About my flask I must not ask, 
 
 I must not wear a belt, 
 I must not take a punch to make 
 
 My pellets, card or felt ; 
 And if I just allude to dust. 
 
 Or speak of number one, 
 " I beg you '11 not — don't talk of shot, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 329 
 
 Percussion cap I dare not snap, 
 
 I may not mention Hall, 
 Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce, 
 
 His wadding to recall ; 
 At Hawker's book I must not look, 
 
 All shooting I must shun, 
 Or else — •■ It 's hard, you "ve no regard, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 The very di'ess I wear no less 
 
 Must suit her timid mind, 
 A blue or black must clothe my back, 
 
 With swallow-tails behind ; 
 Bj fustian, jean, or velveteen, 
 
 Her nerves are overdone ; 
 " Oh do not, John, put gaiters on, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 Even little James she snubs, and blames 
 
 Plis Lilliputian train. 
 Two inches each from mouth to breech,' 
 
 And charged with half a grain — 
 His crackers stopped, his squibbing dropped. 
 
 He has no fiery fun. 
 And all thro' her " How dare you, sir? 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 Yet Major Flint— the Devil's in 't ! 
 
 ]\Iay talk from morn to night. 
 Of springing mines, and twelves and nines. 
 
 And volleys left and right, 
 Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs. 
 
 And bullets by the ton : 
 She never dies of fright, or cries 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
330 I CAXNOT BEAR A GUN. ^ 
 
 It Stirs mj bile to see her smile 
 
 At all his bang and whiz, 
 But if I talk of morning walk, 
 
 And shots as good as his, 
 I must not name the fallen game : 
 
 As soon as I 've begun, 
 She 's m her pout, and crying out, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun !"' 
 
 Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth 
 
 Are false, to match her tongue : 
 Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares, 
 
 Or pheasants, old or young — 
 On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal, 
 
 And yet objects to none ; 
 " What have I got, it 's full of shot ! 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 At pigeon-pie she is not shy. 
 
 Her taste it never shocks, 
 Though they should be from Battersea, 
 
 So famous for blue rocks ; 
 Yet when I bring the very thing 
 
 My marksmanship has won, 
 She cries '• Lock up that horrid cup, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !"' 
 
 Like fool and dunce I got her once 
 
 A box at Drury Lane, 
 And by her side I felt a pride 
 
 I ne"er shall feel again ; 
 To read the bill it made her ill, 
 
 And this excuse she spun, 
 " Der Freyschiitz, oh. seven shots ! you know, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 331 
 
 Yet at a hint from Major Flint, 
 
 Her very hands she rubs, 
 And quickly drest in all her best, 
 
 Is oflf to WorniAVOod Scrubbs. 
 The whole review she sits it through, 
 
 With noise enough to stun, 
 And never winks, or even thinks, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 She thus may blind the Major's mind 
 
 In mock-heroic strife, 
 But let a bout at war break out. 
 
 And where 's the soldier's wife, 
 To take his kit and march a bit 
 
 Beneath a broiling sun ? 
 Or will she cry, " My dear, good-bye, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
 If thus she doats on army coats, 
 
 And regimental cuffs. 
 The yeomanry might surely be 
 
 Secure from her rebuffs ; 
 But when I don my trappings on, 
 
 To follow Captain Dunn, 
 ]\Iy carbine's gleam provokes a scream, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun, " 
 
 It can't be minced, I 'm quite convinced, 
 
 All girls are full of flam. 
 Their feelings fine, and feminine. 
 
 Are nothing else but sham ; 
 On all their tricks I need not fix, 
 
 I'll only mention one. 
 How many a ]\Iiss will tell you this, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun !" 
 
332 trimmer's exercise. 
 
 TRIMMER'S EXERCISE, 
 
 FOR THE rSE OF CHILDREX. 
 
 Here, come, Master Timothy Todd, 
 
 Before we have done jou '11 look grimmer; 
 
 You've been spelling some time for the rod, 
 And your jacket shall know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 You don't know your A from your B, 
 So backward you are in your Primer : 
 
 Don't kneel — you shall go on my knee. 
 For I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 This morning you hindered the cook, 
 
 By melting your dumps in the skimmer ; 
 
 Instead of attending your book — 
 
 But I "11 have you to know I "m a Trimmer. 
 
 To-day, too, you went to the pond, 
 
 And bathed, though you are not a swimmer ; 
 
 And with parents so doting and fond — 
 
 But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 After dinner you went to the wine. 
 
 And helped yourself — yes, to a brimmer ; 
 
 You could n't walk straight in a line, 
 
 But I "11 make you to know I "m a Trimmer. 
 
 You kick little Tomkins about. 
 
 Because he is slighter and slimmer : 
 
 Are the weak to be thumped by the stout ? 
 But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
TO A BAD EIDER. 333 
 
 Then jou have a slj pilfering trick, 
 
 Your school-fellows call jou the nimmer — 
 
 I -will cut to the bone i£ you kick ! 
 
 For I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 To-day you made game at my back : 
 
 You think that my eyes are grown dimmer, 
 
 But I watched you, I 've got a sly knack ! 
 And I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 Don't think that my temper is hot. 
 
 It 's never beyond a slow simmer ; 
 I '11 teach you to call me Dame Trot, 
 
 But I "11 have you to know I "m a Trimmer. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, or Mi's. Chapone, 
 
 JNIight melt to behold your tears glimmer ; 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone, 
 
 But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 
 
 TO A BAD RIDER. 
 
 Why, Mr. Rider, why 
 
 Your nag so ill endorse, man ? 
 To make observers cry. 
 
 You 're mounted, but no horseman? 
 
 With elbows out so far 
 
 This thought you can't debar me — 
 Though no Drao;oon — Hussar — 
 
 You 're surely of the army ! 
 
 I hope to turn ISI.P. 
 
 You have not any notion, 
 How awkward you would be 
 
 At " seconding a motion !" 
 
334 
 
 SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 
 
 SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 
 
 "An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to 
 ft Boney-parte." — Life of Napoleon. 
 
 Time was, I always had a drop 
 
 For any tale or sigh of sorrow ; 
 My handkerchief I used to sop 
 
 Till often I Avas forced to borrow ; 
 I don't know how it is, but now 
 
 My eyelids seldom want a drying ; 
 The doctors, p'rhaps, could tell me how — 
 
 I fear my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 O'er Goethe how I used to weep, 
 
 With turnip checks and nose of scarlet, 
 When Werter put himself to sleep 
 
 With pistols kissed and cleaned by Charlotte; 
 Self-murder is an awful sin, 
 
 No joke there is in bullets flying, 
 But now at such a tale I grin — 
 
 I fear my heart is ossifymg ! 
 
 The Drama once could shake and thrill 
 
 ]My nerves, and set my tears a stealing, 
 The Siddons then could turn at will 
 
 Each plug upon the main of feeling ; 
 At Belvidera now I smile. 
 
 And laugh while Mrs. Haller's crying ; 
 'Tis odd, so great a change of style — 
 
 I fear my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 That heart was such — some years ago. 
 To see a beggar quite would shock it, 
 
THOSE EVENING BELLS. 
 
 And in his hat I used to throw 
 
 The quarter's savings of my pocket : 
 
 I never wish — as I did then ! — 
 
 The means from my own purse supplying, 
 
 To turn them all to gentlemen — 
 I fear my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 We 've had some serious things of late, 
 
 Our sympathies to beg or borrow, 
 New melo-drames, of ti'agic fate, 
 
 And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow ; 
 Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt. 
 
 And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing ; 
 But Lord !— so little have I felt, 
 
 I 'm sure my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 THOSE EVENING BELLS. 
 
 "i'd be a parody." 
 
 Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells, 
 How many a tale their music tells. 
 Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, 
 And letters only just in time ! — 
 
 The Muffin-boy has passed away. 
 The Postman gone — and I must pay, 
 For down below Deaf j\Iary dwells, 
 And does not hear those Evening Bells. 
 
 And so "t will be when she is gone. 
 That tunefal peal will still ring on, 
 And other maids with timely yells 
 Forget to stay those Evening Bells. 
 
836 RONDEAU. 
 
 RONDEAU. 
 
 [EXTBAOTED from a TTELL-KNOWIf AXNTJAL.] 
 
 CURIOUS reader, didst thou ne'er 
 Behold a worshipful Lord May'r 
 Seated in his great civic chair 
 
 So dear ? 
 
 Then cast thy longing ejes this way, 
 It is the ninth November day, 
 And in his new-born state survey 
 
 One here ! 
 
 To rise from little into great 
 Is pleasant : but to sink in state 
 From high to lowly is a fate 
 
 Severe. 
 
 Too soon his shine is overcast, 
 Chilled by the next November blast ; 
 His blushing honors only last 
 
 One year ! 
 
 He casts his far and sheds his chains, 
 And moults till not a plume remains — 
 The next impending May'r distrains 
 
 His gear. 
 
 He slips like water through a sieve — 
 Ah, could his little splendor li^'e 
 Ajiother twelvemonth — he would give 
 
 One ear ! 
 
DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 337 
 
 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 
 
 " Hark I hark ! the dogs do bark. 
 The beggars are coming . . ." — Old Baixas. 
 
 Oh what shall I do for a dos: ? 
 Of sight I have not got a particle, 
 
 Globe, Standard, or Sun, 
 
 Times, Chronicle — none 
 Can give one a good leading article. 
 
 A Mastiff once led me about. 
 
 But people appeared so to fear him — 
 
 I might have got pence 
 
 Without his defence. 
 But Charity would not come near him. 
 
 A Blood-hound was not much amiss, 
 But instinct at last got the upper ; 
 And tracking Bill Soames, 
 And thieves to theLr homes, 
 
 I never could get home to supper. 
 
 A Fox-hound once served me as guide, 
 A good one at hill and at valley ; 
 
 But day after day 
 
 He led me astray. 
 To follow a milk- woman's tally. 
 
 A turnspit once did me good turns 
 At going and crossing, and stopping ; 
 Till one day his breed 
 Went off at full speed, 
 To spit at a great fii'e in Wapping. 
 15 
 
338 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 
 
 A Pointer once pointed my waj, 
 
 But did not turn out quite so pleasant, 
 
 Each hour I 'd a stop 
 
 At a Poulterer's shop 
 To point at a very high pheasant. 
 
 A Pug did not suit me at all, 
 The feature unluckily rose up ; 
 
 And folks took offence 
 
 When offering pence, 
 Because of his turnmg his nose up. 
 
 ^ Butcher once gave me a dog, 
 That turned out the worse one of any j 
 
 A Bull dog's own pup, 
 
 I got a toss up 
 Before he had brought me a penny. 
 
 jSIy next was a Westminster Dog, 
 From Aistrop the regular cadger; 
 
 But, sightless, I saw 
 
 He never would draw 
 A blind man so well as a badger. 
 
 A greyhound I got by a swop. 
 
 But, Lord ! we soon came to divorces : 
 
 He treated my strip 
 
 Of cord like a slip. 
 And left me to go my own courses. 
 
 A poodle once towed me along, 
 
 But always we came to one harbor: 
 To keep his curls smart. 
 And shave his hind part. 
 He constantly called on a barber. 
 
DO(-}-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 
 
 My next was a Newfoundland brute, 
 As big as a calf fit for slaughter ; 
 But my old cataract 
 So truly he backed, 
 I always fell into the water. 
 
 I once had a sheep-dog for guide. 
 His worth did not value a button ; 
 
 I found it no go. 
 
 A Smithfield Ducrow, 
 To stand on four saddles of mutton. 
 
 My next was an Esciuimaux dog, 
 
 A dofT that my bones ached to talk on. 
 
 For picking his ways 
 
 On cold frosty days 
 He picked out the slides for a walk on. 
 
 Bijou was a lady-like dog. 
 
 But vexed me at night not a little, 
 "When tea-time was come 
 She would not go home, 
 Her tail had once trailed a tin kettle. 
 
 I once had a sort of a Shock, 
 
 And kissed a street post like a brother. 
 
 And lost every tooth 
 
 In learning this truth — 
 One blind cannot well lead another. 
 
 A terrier was far from a trump. 
 
 He had one defect, and a thorough, 
 I never could stir, 
 "Od rabbit the cur ! 
 "Without jroinc^ into the Borough. 
 
 339 
 
340 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 
 
 My next was Dalmatian, the dog ! 
 And led me in danger, oh crikey ! 
 
 By chasing horse heels, 
 
 Between carriage wheels, 
 Till I came upon boards that were spiky. 
 
 The next that I had was from Cross, 
 And once was a favorite spaniel 
 With Nero, now dead. 
 And so I was led 
 Right up to his den like a Daniel. 
 
 A mongrel I tried, and he did. 
 As far as the profit and lossing. 
 Except that the kind 
 Endangers the blind. 
 The breed is so fond of a crossing. 
 
 A setter was quite to my taste. 
 
 In alleys or streets broad or narrow, 
 
 Till one day I met 
 
 A very dead set, 
 At a very dead horse in a barrow. 
 
 I once had a dog that went mad, 
 And sorry I was that I got him ; 
 
 It came to a run. 
 
 And a man with a gun 
 Peppered me when he ought to have shot him. 
 
 My profits have gone to the dogs, 
 My trade has been such a deceiver, 
 I fear that my aim 
 Is a mere losing game. 
 Unless I can find a Retriever. 
 
THE KANGAROOS. 341 
 
 THE KANGAROOS. 
 
 A PAIR of married kangaroos 
 
 (The case is oft a human one too) 
 Were greatly puzzled once to choose 
 
 A trade to put their eldest son to : 
 A little brisk and busy chap, 
 
 As all the little K.'s just then are — 
 About some two months off the lap — 
 
 They 're not so long in arms as men are. 
 
 A twist in each parental muzzle 
 Betrayed the hardship of the puzzle — 
 
 So much the flavor of life's cup 
 Is framed by early wrong or right, 
 And Kangaroos we know are quite 
 
 Dependent on their '• rearing up." 
 The question, with its ins and outs, 
 Is intricate and full of doubts ; 
 
 And yet they had no squeamish carings 
 For trades unfit or fit for gentry, 
 Such notion never had an entry. 
 
 For they had no armorial bearings, 
 Howbeit they 're not the last on earth 
 That might indulge in pride of birth ; 
 
 Whoe'er has seen their infant young 
 Bob in and out their mother's pokes, 
 
 Would own, with very ready tongue. 
 They are not born like common folks. 
 Well, thus the serious subject stood, 
 
 It kept the old pair watchful nightly, 
 
342 THE KANGAROOS. 
 
 Debating for young hopeful's good, 
 That he might earn his livelihood, 
 
 And go through life (like them) uprightly. 
 Arms would not do at all ; no, marrj, 
 In that Ime all his race miscarry ; 
 
 And agriculture was not proper, 
 Unless they meant the lad to tarry 
 
 For ever as a mere clod-hopper. 
 He was not well cut out for preaching, 
 
 At least in any striking style : 
 
 And as for being mercantile — 
 He was not formed for over-reaching. 
 The law — why there still fate ill-starred him, 
 And plainly from the bar debarred him : 
 A doctor — who would- ever fee him ? 
 
 In music he could scarce engage, 
 
 And as for going on the stage 
 In trao;ic socks I think I see him ! 
 
 He would not make a rigging -mounter j 
 
 A haberdasher had some merit, 
 But there the counter still ran counter, 
 For just suppose 
 A lady chose 
 To ask him for a yard of ferret ! 
 
 A gardener digging up his beds, 
 
 The puzzled parents shook then- heads. 
 
 '• A tailor would not do because — " 
 They paused and glanced upon his paws. 
 
 Some parish post — though fate should place it 
 Before him. how could he embrace it ? 
 
SONNET. 343 
 
 In short, each anxious Kangaroo 
 Discussed the matter through and through ; 
 Bj day thej seemed to get no nearer, 
 
 'Ti.vas posing quite — 
 
 And in the night 
 Of course they saw their way no clearer ! 
 At last thus musing on their knees — 
 Or hinder elbows if you please — 
 It came — no thought was ever brighter ! 
 In weighing every why and whether, 
 They jumped upon it both together — 
 " Let "s make the imp a short-hand icriter !'^ 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 I wish all human parents so 
 
 'Would argue what their sons are fit for; 
 Some would-be critics that I know 
 
 Would be in trades they have more wit for. 
 
 SOXXET. 
 The sky is glowing in one ruddy sheet ; — 
 A cry of fire I resounds from door to door ; 
 And westward still the thi'onging people pour ; — 
 The turncock hastens to F. P. 6 feet, 
 And quick unlocks the fountains of the street ; 
 While rumbling engines, with increasing roar, 
 Thunder along to luckless Xumber Four. 
 Where Mr. Dough makes bread for folks to eat. 
 And now through blazing frames, and fiery beams, 
 The Globe, the Sun, the Phoenix, and what not, 
 With gushing pipes throw up abundant streams, 
 On burning bricks, and twists, on rolls — too hot — 
 And scorching loaves — as if there were no shorter 
 And cheaper way of making toast-and-water ! 
 
 L- 
 
344 THE SUB-MARINE, 
 
 THE SUB-MARINE. 
 
 It was a brave and jolly wight, 
 His cheek was baked and brown, 
 
 For he had been in many climes 
 With captains of renown, 
 
 And fought with those who fought so well 
 At Nile and Camperdown. 
 
 His coat it was a soldier coat. 
 
 Of red with yellow faced, 
 But (merman-like) he looked marine 
 
 All downward from the waist ; 
 His trowsers were so wide and blue, 
 
 And quite in sailor taste ! 
 
 He put the rummer to his lips, 
 
 And drank a jolly draught ; 
 He raised the rummer many times — 
 
 And ever as he quaiFed. 
 The more he drank, the more the ship 
 
 Seemed pitching fore and aft ! 
 
 The ship seemed pitching fore and aft, 
 
 As in a heavy squall ; 
 It gave a lurch and down he went, 
 
 Head-foremost in his fall ! 
 Three times he did not rise, alas ! 
 
 He never rose at all ! 
 
 But down he went, right down at once. 
 Like any stone he dived. 
 
THE SUB-MARINE. 
 
 345 
 
 He could not see, or hear, or feel — 
 
 Of senses all deprived ! 
 At last he gave a look around 
 
 To see where he arrived ! 
 
 And all that he could see was green, 
 
 Sea-green on every hand ! 
 And then he tried to sound beneath, 
 
 And all he felt was sand ! 
 There he was fain to lie, for he 
 
 Could neither sit nor stand ! 
 
 And lo I above his head there bent 
 A strange and starino; lass ! 
 
 One hand was in her yellow hair, 
 The other held a glass ; 
 
 A mermaid she must surely be, 
 If ever mermaid was ! 
 
 Her fish-like mouth was opened wide, 
 Her eyes were blue and pale, 
 
 Her dress was of the ocean green, 
 When ruffled by the gale ; 
 
 Thought he '•' beneath that petticoat 
 She hides a salmon- tail !" 
 
 She looked as siren ought to look, 
 
 A sharp and bitter shrew, 
 To sing deceiving lullabies 
 
 For mariners to rue — 
 But when he saw her lips apart, 
 
 It chilled him through and through ! 
 
 With either hand he stopped his ears 
 Against her evil cry ; 
 15* 
 
346 THE SUB-MARINE. 
 
 Alas, alas, for all his care. 
 His doom it seemed to die, 
 
 Her voice went ringing through his head 
 It was so sharp and high ! 
 
 He thrust his fingers farther in 
 
 At each unwilling ear, 
 But still, in ver j spite of all. 
 
 The words were plain and clear ; 
 " I can't stand here the whole day long, 
 
 To hold your glass of beer !'' 
 
 With opened mouth and opened eyes, 
 
 Up rose the Sub-marine, 
 And gave a stare to find the sands 
 
 And deeps where he had been : 
 There was no siren with her glass ! 
 
 No waters ocean-green ! 
 
 The wet deception from his eyes 
 Kept fading more and more, 
 , He only saw the bar-maid stand 
 
 With pouting lips before — 
 
 The small green parlor of The Ship, 
 And little sanded floor ! 
 
THE sweep's complaint. 347 
 
 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 " I like to meet a sweep — such as come forth vrith the dawn, or somewhat earlier, 
 ^\■ith their little professional notes, sounding like the 2)eep, peep, of a young sparrow." 
 — Essays of Elia. 
 
 " A voice cried Sweep no more ! 
 
 Macbeth hath murdered sweep."— Su.ikspeake. 
 
 One morning ere mj usual time 
 I rose, about the seventh chime, 
 y>lien little stunted boys that climb 
 
 Still linger in the street ; 
 And as I walked, I saw indeed 
 A sample of the sootj breed, 
 Though he was rather run to seed, 
 
 In height above five feet. 
 A mongrel tint he seemed to take, 
 Poetic simile to make, 
 Day through his Martin 'gan to break. 
 
 White overcoming jet. 
 From side to side he crossed oblique, 
 Like Frenchman who has friends to seek, 
 And yet no English word can speak, 
 
 He walked upon the fret : 
 And while he sought the dingy job. 
 His laboring breast appeared to throb, 
 And half a hiccup half a sob 
 
 Betrayed internal woe. 
 To cry the cry he had by rote 
 He yearned, but law forbade the note, 
 Like Chanticleer with roupy throat, 
 
 He gaped — but not a crow ! 
 I watched him, and the glimpse I snatched 
 Disclosed his sorry eyelids patched 
 With red, r.s if the soot had catclied 
 
348 THE sweep's complaint. 
 
 That hung about the lid ; 
 And soon I saw the tear-di-op stray, 
 He did not care to brush away ; 
 Thought I the cause he will betray — 
 
 And thus at last he did. 
 
 Well, here 's a pretty go ! here 's a Gagging Act, if ever 
 
 there was a gagging ! 
 But I 'm bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had 
 
 plenty of magging. 
 They had better send us all off, they had, to the School for 
 
 the Deaf and Dumb, 
 To unlarn us our mother .tongues, and to make signs and be 
 
 regularly mum. 
 But they can't undo natur — as sure as ever the morning 
 
 begins to peep. 
 Directly I open my eyes, I can't help calling out Sweep 
 As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that 
 
 say Cheep ! 
 For my own part I find my suppressed voice very uneasy, 
 And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt 
 
 when you are sneezy. 
 Well, it 's all up with us ! tho' I suppose we must n't cry 
 
 all up. 
 Here 's a precious merry Christmas, I 'm blest if I can earn 
 
 either bit or sup ! 
 If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness's 
 
 border, 
 Them as pretends to be fond of silence ouglitn't to cry 
 
 hear, hear, and order, order. 
 I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we 've sut-on too, don't sympathise 
 
 with us 
 As a Speaker what don't speak, and that 's exactly our own 
 
 cus. 
 
THE sweep's complaint. 
 
 849 
 
 God help us if wc don't not cry, Low arc we to pursue our 
 
 callings ? 
 I *m sure we 're not half so bad as other businesses with 
 
 their bawlings. 
 For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go 
 
 about ringing. 
 And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just 
 
 got to sleep with singing. 
 Greens ought n't to be cried no more than blacks — to do the 
 
 unpartial job. 
 If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought 
 
 in a Dusty Bob. 
 Is a dustman's voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes 
 
 a seeking arter the cinders. 
 Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing 
 
 merrily under your windows ? 
 There 's the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps 
 
 calling out Bank and City ; 
 Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is 
 
 not just as pretty. 
 I can't see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old 
 
 Close thro' their hooky noses. 
 And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the 
 
 old stone laws of Moses, 
 Why is n't the mouths of the muffin-men compelled to be 
 
 equally shut? 
 Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they 
 
 never eat no sut. 
 ISext year there vron't be any May-day at all, we shan't 
 
 have no heart to dance. 
 And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning f a- 
 
 our mischance ; 
 If we live as long as May, that 's to say, through the hard 
 
 winter and pinching weather, 
 
850 THE sweep's complaint. 
 
 For I don't see how we're to earn enough to keep body and 
 
 soul together. 
 I only wish Mr. Wilberforce, or some of them that pities the 
 
 niggers, 
 Vrould take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our 
 
 miserable starving fio;ures, 
 A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each 
 
 other, 
 And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-break- 
 ing Father and Mother. 
 They have n't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had 
 
 thread and needles. 
 But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm 
 
 of common black beadles. 
 If they "d only inquired before passing the Act and taken a 
 
 few such peeps, 
 I don't think that any real gentleman would have set his 
 
 face against sweeps. 
 Climbing 's an ancient respectable art, and if History 's of 
 
 any vally, 
 '\Vas recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir 
 
 Walter Raleigh, 
 '\Mien he wrote on a pane of glass how I 'd climb, if the 
 
 way I only knew, 
 And she writ beneath, if your heart "s afeared, don't venture 
 
 up the flue. 
 As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that 
 
 are higher. 
 But how can I now say God save the King, if I an't to be 
 
 a Cryer? 
 There 's London milk, that 's one of the cries, even on Sun- 
 day the law allows. 
 But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser 
 
 off than black cows ? 
 
THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 351 
 
 Do we go calling about, when it 's cliureli time, like the 
 
 noisy Billingsgate vermin, 
 And disturb the parson with " All alive !" in the middle 
 
 of a funeral sermon? 
 But the fish won't keep, not the mackarel won't, is the crj 
 
 of the Parliament elves. 
 Every thing, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to 
 
 keep themselves ! 
 Lord help us! what's to become of us if we mustn't cry 
 
 no more? 
 ■\Ve shan't do for black mutes to go a standing at a death's 
 
 door. 
 And we shan't do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot 
 
 nations, 
 For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think 
 
 of our situations ! 
 And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to 
 
 serve ladies of quality nimbly. 
 For when we were drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large 
 
 frills, all clean and neat", and white silk stockings, if 
 
 they pleased to desire us to sweep the hearth, we 
 
 could n't resist the chimbley. 
 
352 
 
 COCKLE VS. CACKLE. 
 
 COCKXE vs. CACKLE. 
 
 Those who much read advertisements and bill^ 
 Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills, 
 
 Called Anti-bilious — 
 Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious. 
 But which we are assured, if timely taken. 
 
 May save your liver and bacon ; 
 Whether or not they really give one ease, 
 
 I, who have never tried, 
 
 Will not decide ; 
 But no two things in union go like these — 
 Yiz. — Quacks and Pills — save Ducks and Peast. 
 Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow, 
 Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow, 
 And .friends portended was preparing for 
 
 A human Pate Perigord ; 
 She was, indeed, so very far from well. 
 Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box 
 Of those said pellets to resist Bile's shocks. 
 And — tho' upon the ear it strangely knocks — 
 To save her by a Cockle from a shell ! 
 But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth, 
 "VMio very vehemently bids us " throw 
 Bark to the Bow-wows," hated physic so, 
 It seemed to share •' the bitterness of Death :"' 
 Rhubarb — ^Magnesia — Jalap, and the kind — 
 genua — Steel — Assafoetida, and Squills — 
 Powder or Draught — but least her throat inclined 
 To give a course to Boluses or Pills ; 
 Xo — not to save her life, in lung or lobe, 
 
COCKLE VS. CACKLE. 
 
 353 
 
 For all lier lights "s or all her liver's sake, 
 "Would her con^'ulsive thorax undertake, 
 Only one little uncelestial globe ! 
 
 'Tis not to "wonder at, in such a case. 
 If she put by the pill-box in a place 
 For linen i-ather than for di'ugs intended — 
 Yet for the credit of the pills let "s say 
 
 After they thus were stowed away, 
 
 Some of the linen mended ; 
 But ]SIrs. W. by disease's dint, 
 Kept getting still more yellow in her tint, 
 "WTien lo ! her second son, like elder brother, 
 Marking the hue on the pai-ental gills. 
 Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills, 
 To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother — 
 Who took them — in her cupboard — like the other. 
 
 " Deeper and deeper, still." of course. 
 
 The fatal color daily grew in force ; 
 Till daughter W., newly come from Rome, 
 Acting the self-same filial, pilial, part. 
 To cure Mama, another dose brought home 
 Of Cockles ;— not the Cockles of her heart ! 
 
 These going where the others went before. 
 
 Of course she had a very pretty store : 
 And then — some hue of health her cheek adorning, 
 
 The ^ledicine so good must be. 
 
 They brought her dose on dose, which she 
 Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, •• night and morning.'' 
 Till wanting room at last, for other stocks. 
 Out of the window one fine day she pitched 
 The pillage of each box, and quite enriched 
 The feed of Mr. Burrell's hens and cocks— 
 
354 COCKLE vs. CACKLE. 
 
 A little Barber of a by-gone day, 
 Over the "svaj, 
 Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops, 
 Was one great head of Kemble — that is, John, 
 Staring in plaster, -^ith a Bnitiis on. 
 And twenty little Bantam fowls — with arjps. 
 
 Little Dame W. thought when through the sash 
 
 She gave the physic wings, 
 
 To find the very things 
 So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash, 
 For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet ! 
 But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles, 
 Each pecked itself into a peck of troubles. 
 And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet. 
 They might as well have addled been, or ratted, 
 For long before the night — ah, woe betide 
 The Pills ! — each suicidal Bantam died 
 Unfatted ! 
 
 Think of poor Burrel's shock. 
 Of Nature's debt to see his hens all payers. 
 And laid in death as Everlastingr Lavers, 
 "With Bantam's small Ex-Emperor, the Cock. 
 In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle. 
 Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle ! 
 To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock, 
 It really was enough to move his block. 
 Down on the floor he dashed, with horror bier, 
 Mr. Beirs third wife's mother's coachman's wig ; 
 And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble, 
 Burst out with natural emphasis enough, 
 
 And voice that grief made tremble, 
 Into that very speech of sad IMacduff — 
 
COCKLE VS. CACKLE. 355 
 
 '' "\^Tiat! — all mj pretty chickens and their dam, 
 
 At one fell swoop ! — 
 
 Just when I 'd bought a coop 
 To see the poor lamented creatures cram !"' 
 
 After a little of this mood, 
 And brooding over the departed brood, 
 With razor he began to ope each craw, 
 Already turning black, as black as coals ; 
 When lo ! the undigested cause he saw — 
 '• Pisoned by goles!" 
 
 To Mrs. W."s luck a contradiction, 
 Ilcr window still stood open to conviction ; 
 And by short course of circumstantial labor, 
 He fixed the guilt upon his adverse neighbor ; — 
 Lord ! how he railed at her : declaring now. 
 He 'd bring an action ere next Term of Hilary, 
 Then, in another moment, swore a vow, 
 He 'd make her do pill-penance in the pillory ! 
 She, meanw^hile distant from the dimmest dream 
 Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard. 
 Lapped in a paradise of tea and cream ; 
 When up ran Betty with a dismal scream — 
 '• Here 's Mr. Burrell, ma'am, with all his farm-yard !" 
 Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending. 
 With all the warmth that iron and a barber 
 Can harbor ; 
 To dress the head and front of her offending. 
 The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking ; 
 In short, he made her pay him altogether. 
 In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather, 
 Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking ; 
 Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple. 
 
 / 
 
356 ON A NATIVE SINGER. 
 
 So the sad dame unpocketing her loss, 
 
 Had nothing left but to sit hands across, 
 
 And see her poultry " going do'^'n ten couple." 
 
 No^y birds by poison slain, 
 
 As venomed dart from Indian's hollow cane, 
 
 Are edible; and Mrs. W.'s thrift — 
 
 She had a thrifty vein — 
 Destined one pair for supper to make shift — 
 Supper as usual at the hour of ten : 
 But ten o'clock arrived and quickly passed, 
 Eleven — twelve — and one o'clock at last, 
 Without a sign of supper even then ! 
 At length, the speed of cookery to quicken, 
 Betty was called, and with reluctant feet, 
 
 Came up at a white heat — 
 " Well, never I see chicken like them chicken ! 
 My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in 'em ! 
 Enough to stew them, if it comes to that, 
 To flesh and bones, and perfect rags ; but drat 
 Those Anti-bilincr Pills ! there is no bile in 'em!" 
 
 ON A NATIVE SINGER. 
 
 AFTER HEAMXG MISS ADELAIDE KEJIBLE. 
 
 As sweet as the Bird that by calm Bendemeer, 
 Pours such rich modulations of tone — 
 
 As potent, as tender, as brilliant, as clear — 
 Still her voice has a charm of its own. 
 
 For lo ! like the skylark, when after its song 
 It drops down to its nest from above, 
 
 She reminds us her home and her music belong 
 To the very same soil that we love. 
 
THE UNDYING ONE. 357 
 
 THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 "He shall not die."— Uxcle Toby. 
 
 Of all the verses, grave or gay, 
 
 That ever wiled an hour, 
 I never kuevr a mingled lay 
 
 At once so sweet and sour 
 As that by Ladye Xorton spun, 
 And christened '• The Undying One." 
 
 I 'm very certain that she drew 
 
 A portrait.* when she penned 
 That picture of a perfect Jew, 
 
 "^Tiose days will never end : 
 I "m sure it means my Uncle Lunn, 
 For he is an Undying One. 
 
 These twenty years he 's been the same 
 
 And may be twenty more ; 
 But Memory's Pleasures only claim 
 
 His features for a score ; 
 Yet in that time the change is none — 
 The image of th' Undying One ! 
 
 They say our climate's damp and cold, 
 
 And luno;s are tender things ; 
 My uncle's much abroad and old. 
 
 But when '• King Cole'' he sings, 
 A Stentor's voice, enough to stun, 
 Declares him au Undying One. 
 
 Others have died from needle-pricks, 
 And very slender blows ; 
 
358 THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 From accidental slips or kicks, 
 
 Or bleeding at the nose ; 
 Or choked bj grape-stone, or a bun— 
 But he is the Undying One ! 
 
 A soldier once, he once endured 
 
 A bullet in the breast — 
 It might have killed — but only cured 
 
 An asthma in the chest ; 
 He Avas not to be slain Avith gun. 
 For he is the Undying One. 
 
 In water once too long he dived, 
 
 And all supposed him beat. 
 He seemed so cold — but he revived 
 
 To have another heat. 
 Just when we thought his race was run. 
 And came in fresh — th' Undying One I 
 
 To look at Meux's once he went, 
 
 And tumbled in the vat — 
 And greater Jobs their lives have spent 
 
 In lesser boils than that — 
 He left the beer quite underdone. 
 No bier to the Undying One ! 
 
 He 's been from strangulation black, 
 
 From bile, of yellow hue, 
 Scarlet from fever's hot attack, 
 
 From cholera morbus blue ; 
 Yet with these dyes — to use a pun — 
 He still is the Undying One. 
 
 He rolls in wealth, yet has no wife 
 His Three per Cents, to share ; 
 
A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 359 
 
 Ho never married in his life, 
 
 Or flirted with the fair ; 
 The sex he made a point to shun. 
 For beauty an Undjing One. 
 
 To judge him by the present signs, 
 
 The future bj the past, 
 So quick he lives, so slow declines. 
 
 The Last ]Man won't be last, 
 But buried underneath a ton 
 Of mould bj the Undjang One ! 
 
 Next Friday week, his birth-day boast, 
 
 His ninetieth year he spends, 
 And I shall have his health to toast 
 
 Amongst expectant fi'iends, 
 And wish — it really sounds like fun — 
 Long life to the Undying One ! 
 
 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 
 
 One day — no matter for the month or year, 
 
 A Calais packet, just come over, 
 And safely moored within her pier, 
 
 Began to land her passengers at Dover ; 
 All glad to end a voyage long and rough. 
 And during which 
 Through roll and pitch, 
 The Ocean-King had s/cA"ophants enough ! 
 
 Away, as fast as they could walk or run. 
 Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals, 
 With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels, 
 
 Away the passengers all went, but one. 
 
360 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 
 
 A female, who from some mysterious check, 
 Still lingered on the steamer's deck, 
 As if she did not care for land a tittle, 
 For horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual — 
 Or nervously afraid to put 
 Her foot 
 Into an Isle described as "tight and little." 
 
 In vain commissioner and touter, 
 Porter and waiter thronged about her; 
 Boring, as such officials only bore — 
 
 In spite of rope and barrow, knot, and truck, 
 Of plank and ladder, there she stuck. 
 She couldn't, no she wouldn't go on shore. 
 
 " But, ma'am," the steward interfered, 
 " The wessel must be cleared. 
 You musn't stay aboard, ma'am, no one don't ! 
 It 's quite agin the orders so to do — 
 And all the passengers is gone but you." 
 Says she, " I can not go ashore, and won't!", 
 " You ought to !" 
 " But I can't !" 
 "You must!" 
 "I shan't!" 
 
 At last, attracted by the racket 
 'Twixt gown and jacket. 
 The captain came himself, and, cap in hand. 
 
 Begged very civilly to understand 
 Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet. 
 
 " "WTiy then," the lady whispered with a shiver, 
 That made the accents quiver, 
 
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. . 861 
 
 " I 've got some foreign silks about me pinned, 
 In short so many things, all contraband, 
 To tell the truth I am nfraid to land, 
 
 In such a search'iiuj wind !" 
 
 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 
 
 A SEA ECLOGUE. 
 
 " I apprehend you !" — School of IlEFORjr. 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Shove off there ! — ship the rudder, Bill — cast off— she "s 
 under weigh ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 She "s under what ? — I hope she 's not ! good gracious, what 
 a spray ! 
 
 BOATxMAN. 
 
 Run out the jib, and rig the boom ! keep clear of those two 
 brigs ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft— she 's rather out of trim! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 Great bags of stones ! they 're pretty things to help a boat 
 to swim ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it 's not the breeze's 
 fliult ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt ! 
 
 16 
 
362 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and 
 
 nuts ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 If seas have roads, they 're very rough — I never felt sueli 
 
 ruts! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 It's neap, ye see, she 's heavy lade, and could n't. pass the 
 bar. 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 The bar ! what ! roads with turnpikes too ? I wonder where 
 they are ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Ho ! brigh ahoy ! hard up ! hard up ! that lubber cannot 
 steer ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 Yes, yes — hard up upon a rock ! I know some danger 's 
 
 near ! 
 Lord, there 's a wave ! it 's coming in ! and roaring like a 
 
 bull! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop ! go large. Bill ! keep her 
 full! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 What, keep her full ! what daring work ! when full, she 
 must do down ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 "Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease off a bit — it 's coming off the town ! 
 Steady your helm! we'll clear the Pint! lay right for 
 
 yonder pink! 
 
 MRS. P. 
 Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they 've got a pint 
 
 of drink ! 
 
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 363 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 Bill, give that sheet another haul — she '11 fetch it up this 
 reach. 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 I 'm getting rather pale, I know, and thej see it by that 
 
 speech ! 
 I -wonder what it is, now, but 1 never felt so queer ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Bill, mind your luff — why Bill, I say, she 's yawing — keep 
 her near ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 Keep near ! we 're going further off; the land 's behind our 
 
 backs. 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 Be easy, Ma'am, it's all correct, that's only 'cause we 
 
 tacks : 
 We shall have to beat about a bit — Bill, keep her out to 
 
 sea. 
 
 MRS. F. 
 Beat who about ? keep who at sea ? — how black they look 
 at me ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 It 's veerincr round — I knew it would ! off with her head ! 
 
 stand by ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 Off with her head ! whose ? where ? with what ! — an axe I 
 
 seem to spy ! 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 She can't not keep her own, you see : we shall have to pull 
 her in ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 They "11 drown me, and take all I have ! my life 's not worth 
 a pin ! 
 
364 QUAKEE SONXET 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Look out, you know, be ready, Bill— just when she takes 
 the sand ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 The sand — Lord I to stop my mouth ! how every thing is 
 planned ! 
 
 BOATMAX. 
 
 The handspike. Bill — C|uick, bear a hand ! now Ma'am, just 
 
 step ashore ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 What ! an't I going to be killed — and weltered in my gore? 
 "Well, Heaven be praised ! but I '11 not go a sailing any 
 
 more ! 
 
 QUAKER SONNET. 
 
 A GEXTEvE EROWX STUDY AFTER XATTRE, BY xi. If. 
 
 How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's mellow Tone, 
 With serious Eye, the russet Scene to view ! 
 No Yerdure decks the Forest, save alone 
 The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew. 
 The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue. 
 Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool, 
 Reflected show their slaty Shades anew 
 In the drab Waters of the clayey Pool. 
 Meanwhile yon Cottage Maiden wends to School, 
 In Garb of Chocolate so neatly drest. 
 And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool, 
 And chastened Pigments, of our Brother West ; 
 Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool, 
 Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast. 
 
LITERARY AND LITERAL. 365 
 
 LITERARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 The ;Marcli of ^lind upon its mighty stilts, 
 (A spirit by no means to fasten mocks on, ) 
 In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts, 
 
 Hants — Bucks, Herts, Oxon, 
 Got up a thing our ancestors ne'er thought on, 
 A thing that, only in our proper youth, 
 We should have chuckled at — in sober truth, 
 A Conversazione at Hog"s Norton ! 
 
 A place whose native dialect, somehow, 
 Has always by an adage been affronted, 
 And that it is all gutturals, is now 
 Taken for grunted. 
 
 Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine. 
 The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth — 
 If you have ever heard such creature dine — 
 ^^tl — for Hog"s Norton, make a mix of both ! — 
 
 shades of Shakspeare ! Chaucer '. Spenser ! 
 
 Milton! Pope! Gray! Warton ! 
 Coleman ! Kenny ! Planche ! Poole ! Peake 1 
 
 Pocock! Keynolds! Morton! 
 Grey ! Peel ! Sadler ! Wilberforce ! Burdett ! 
 
 Hume ! Wilmot ! Horton ! 
 Think of your prose and verse, and worse — delivered in 
 Hocr's Norton ! — 
 
 The founder of Hog"s Norton Athenseum 
 
 Framed her society 
 
 "With some variety 
 From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum ; 
 
366 LITERARY AND LITERAL, 
 
 Not a mere pic-nic for the mind's repast, 
 But tempting to the solid knife-and-forker, 
 It hekl its sessions in a house that kast 
 Had killed a porker. 
 
 It chanced one Friday, 
 One Farmer Grayley stuck a very big hog, 
 A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog, 
 
 Which made of course a literary high day 
 
 Not that our Farmer was a man to go 
 
 With literary tastes — so far from suiting 'em, 
 
 When he heard mention of Professor Crowe^ 
 
 Or Lalla-i?ooA7i, he always was for shooting 'em ! 
 
 In fact in letters he was quite a log, 
 
 With him great Bacon 
 
 Was literally taken, 
 And Hogg — the Poet — nothing but a Hog ! 
 As to all others on the list of Fame, 
 Although they were discussed and mentioned daily. 
 He only recognized one classic name, 
 And thought that she had hung herself — Miss Baillie ! 
 
 To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter 
 Had a great taste for the Castalian water — 
 A Wordsworth worshipper — a Southcy wooer — 
 (Though men that deal in water-color cakes 
 May disbelieve the fact — ^yet nothing 's truer) 
 
 She got the bluer 
 The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes. 
 The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver, 
 At future Authorship was apt to hint, 
 Producing what some call the Type-us Fever, 
 Which means a burning to be seen in print. 
 
LITERARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 367 
 
 Of learning's laurels— Miss Joanna Baillie— 
 Of Mrs. Hemans— Mrs. Wilson— daily 
 Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley ; 
 And Fancy hinting that she had the better 
 Of L.E.L. by one initial letter, 
 She thought the world would quite enraptured see 
 
 "Love Lays and Lyrics 
 
 BY 
 
 A. P. L G." 
 
 Accordingly, with very great propriety, 
 She joined the H. N. B., and double S., 
 That is— Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society; 
 And saving when her Pa his pigs prohibited, 
 
 Contributed 
 Her pork and poetry towards the mess. 
 
 This feast, we said, one Friday was the case, 
 When Farmer Grayley— from Macbeth to quote- 
 Screwing his courage to the " sticking-place,' 
 Stuck a large knife mto a grunter's throat:— 
 A kind of murder that the law's rebuke 
 Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke, 
 Sho\NTng the little sympathy of hig-icigs 
 With pig-wigs ! 
 
 The swine— poor wretch '.—with nobody to speak for it, 
 And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it ; 
 So— like the fabled swan— died smging out. 
 And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard 
 A note that notified without a card, 
 An invitation to the evening rout. 
 
S68 LITERARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 And when the time came duly — " At the close of 
 The daj," as Beattie has it, " when the ham — " 
 Bacon, and pork were ready to dispose of, 
 And pettitoes and chit' lings too, to cram — 
 Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s, 
 All in appropriate and swinish dresses. 
 For lo ! it is a fact, and not a joke, 
 Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it. 
 They came — each " Pig-faced Lady," in that bonnet 
 
 We call a j)oke. 
 The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman 
 At pork and poetry was chosen chalnvoman ; — 
 In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey, 
 Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy, 
 She always named the authoress of " Psyche'^ — 
 
 As ]\Irs. Tiggey ! 
 
 And now arose a question of some moment — 
 
 What author for a lecture was the richer, 
 
 Bacon or Hogg ? there were no votes for Beaumont, 
 
 But some for FUtcher ; 
 While others, with a more sagacious reasoning, 
 
 Proposed another work. 
 
 And thought their pork 
 Would prove more relishing from Thomson's Season-ing ! 
 But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily — 
 ! Miss Macaulay ! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton ! — 
 Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley 
 Selected hitn that evenino; to snort on. 
 In short, to make our story not a big tale, 
 
 Just fancy her exerting 
 
 Her talents, and converting 
 The Winter's Tale to something like a pig-tale ! 
 
I 'm not a single man. 369 
 
 Her sister auditory, 
 All sitting round, with grave and learned faces, 
 
 Were very plauditorj, 
 Of course, and clapped her at the proper places ; 
 Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse, 
 She thought herself the blessedest of Blues. 
 But Happiness, alas ! has blights of ill. 
 
 And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode ; 
 
 There is no travelling through life but still 
 The heart will meet with breakers on the road ! 
 
 With that peculiar voice 
 Heard onlj from Hog's Norton throats and noses, 
 Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice 
 Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies, 
 When coming to that line, where Proserpine 
 Lets fall her flowers from the wain of Dis ; 
 
 Imagine this — 
 Up rose on his hind legs old Farmer Graylej, 
 Grunting this question for the club's digestion, 
 " Do Dis's Wagon go from the Quid Baaley?" 
 
 I 'M NOT A SINGLE MAN. 
 
 "Double, single, and the rub."— Hotle. 
 " This, this is Solitude."— BvEoy. 
 
 Well, I confess, I did not guess 
 
 A simple marriage vow 
 Would make me find all womenkind 
 
 Such unkind women now ! 
 They need not, sure, as distant be 
 
 As Java or Japan — 
 Yet every i\Iis3 reminds me this — 
 
 I "m not a single man ! 
 16* 
 
370 I'm not a single man. 
 
 Once thej made choice of mj bass voice 
 
 To share in each duett ; 
 So well I danced, I somehow chanced 
 
 To stand in every set : 
 They now declare I cannot sing, 
 
 And dance on Bruin^s plan ; 
 Me dravf ! — me paint ! — me anything ! — 
 
 I "m not a single man ! 
 
 Once I was asked advice, and tasked 
 
 What works to buy or not. 
 And " would I read that passage out 
 
 I so admired in Scott?" 
 They then could bear to hear one read ; 
 
 But if I now began, 
 How they would snub, ' ' My pretty page," 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 One used to stitch a collar then, 
 
 Another hemmed a frill ; 
 I had more purses netted then 
 
 Than I could hope to fill. 
 I once could get a button on, 
 
 But now I never can — 
 My buttons then were Bachelor's — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 Oh how they hated politics 
 
 Thrust on mo by papa : 
 But now my chat — they all leave that 
 
 To entertain mama. 
 Mama, Avho praises her own self, 
 
 Instead of Jane or Ann, 
 And lays "her girls" upon the shelf — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
I 'm not a single man. 
 
 Ah me, how strange it is the change, 
 
 In parlor and in hall, 
 Thej treat me so, if I but go 
 
 To make a morning call. 
 K they had hair in papers once, 
 
 Bolt up the stairs they ran ; 
 They now sit still in dishabille — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 Miss ilary Bond was once so fond 
 
 Of Romans and of Greeks ; 
 She daily sought my caljinet 
 
 To study my antiques. 
 Well, now she does n't care a dump 
 
 For ancient pot or pan, 
 Her taste at once is modernized — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 My spouse is fond of homely life, 
 
 And all that sort of thing ; 
 I go to balls without my wife, 
 
 And never wear a ring : 
 And yet each Miss to whom I come. 
 
 As strange as Genghis Khan, 
 Knows by some sign, I cau"t divine — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 Go where I will, I but intrude, 
 
 I 'm left in crowded rooms, 
 Like Zimmerman on Solitude, 
 
 Or Hervey at his Tombs. 
 From head to heel, they make me feel, 
 
 or quite another clan ; 
 Compelled to own, though left alone, 
 
 I 'm not a sins-le man ! 
 
 371 
 
372 I'm not a single man. 
 
 Miss Towne the toast, though she can boast 
 
 A nose of Roman line, 
 Will turn up even that in scorn 
 
 Of compliments of mine : 
 She should have seen that I have been 
 
 Her sex's partisan, 
 And really married all I could — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 'Tis hard to see how others fare, 
 
 Whilst I rejected stand — 
 Will no one take my arm because 
 
 They cannot have my hand? 
 Miss Parry, that for some would go 
 
 A trip to Hindostan, 
 With me don't care to mount a stair — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 Some change, of course, should be in force, 
 
 But, surely, not so much — 
 There may be hands I may not squeeze, 
 
 But must I never touch ? — 
 Must I forbear to hand a chau'. 
 
 And not pick up a fan ? 
 But I have been myself picked up — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 Others may hint a lady's tint 
 
 Is purest red and white — 
 May say her eyes are like the skies. 
 
 So very blue and bright — 
 / must not say that she has eyes, 
 
 Or if I so began, 
 I have my fears about my ears — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
TO C. DICKENS, ESQ. 
 
 I must confess I did not guess 
 
 A simple marriage vow, 
 Would make me find all womenkind 
 
 Such unkind women now ; — 
 I miglit be hashed to death, or smashed. 
 
 By Mr. Pickford's van. 
 Without, I fear, a single tear — 
 
 I 'm not a single man ! 
 
 373 
 
 TO C. DICKENS, ESQ., 
 
 ox HIS DEPARXrRE FOR AMERICA.^ 
 
 Pshaw ! away with leaf and berry, 
 
 And the sober-sided cup ! 
 Brmg a goblet, and bright sherry, 
 
 And a bumper fill me up ! 
 Though a pledge I had to shiver, 
 
 And the longest ever was ! 
 Ere his vessel leaves our river, 
 
 I would drink a health to Boz ! 
 
 Here 's success to all his antics, 
 
 Since it pleases him to roam. 
 And to paddle o'er Atlantics, 
 
 After such a sale at home ! 
 May he shun all rocks whatever. 
 
 And each shallow sand that lurks, 
 And his passage be as clever 
 
 As the best among his works. 
 
374 BLANK VERSE IX EHYME. 
 
 A PLAN FOR 
 
 WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME. 
 
 IN' A LETTER TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Respected Sir, — In a morning paper justly celebrated 
 for the acuteness of its reportei-s, and their almost prophetic 
 insio-ht into chai-acter and motives — the Rhodian length of 
 their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their in- 
 ferences, bevond the di'awing of Meux's dray-horses — there 
 appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph : 
 
 '• Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall, emaciated being, in 
 a brown coat, indicating his age to be about forty-five, and 
 the raggedness of which gave a great air of mental ingenuity 
 and intelligence to his countenance, wais introduced by the 
 officei"s to the Lord Mayor. It was evident, from his pre- 
 liminary bow. that he had made some discoveries in the art 
 of poetiy, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but 
 the Lord !Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had al- 
 ready submitted his project to several of the leading Pub- 
 lishers, referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the 
 unfortunate ^'otary of the jNIuses withdrew, declaring by 
 another bow, that he should offer bis plan to the Editor of 
 the Comic Annual." 
 
 The unfortunate above referred to, Sii", is myself, and 
 with regard to the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a 
 <£10 one, if the (qualification depends on my pocket — ^but for 
 the idea of addressing myself to the editor of the Comic 
 Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gen- 
 tlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true, 
 in common with Hervey. and Herschell, and Galileo, and 
 Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus — my 
 
BLANK VERSE IN lUIYME. 375 
 
 invention concerning a whole hemisphere, as it were, in tlio 
 world of poetry— in short, the whole continent of blank 
 verse. To an immense number of readers this literarj 
 land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from 
 one sole reason— the want of that harmony which makes thj 
 close of one Imc chime with the end of another. They have 
 no relish for numbers that turn up blank, and wonder ac- 
 cordingly at the epithet of " Prize" prefixed to Poems of^tho 
 kind which emanate in— I was going to say from— the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members of 
 society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, 
 the Chase, or the Seasons— the Winter especially— without 
 rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in ciuestion, but 
 with a limited enjoyment; as certain persons can admire 
 the architectural beauties of Salisbury steeple, but would 
 like it better with a ring of bells. Por either of these tastes 
 my discovery will provide, without a&onting the palate of 
 any other ; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a 
 prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank 
 verse°will not suffer in the least, but each line will '" do as 
 it likes with its own," and sound as independently of the 
 next as, -milk-maid," and "water-carrier." 1 have the 
 honor to subjoin a specimen— and if, through your publicity, 
 llx. :^Iurray should be induced to make me an offer for an 
 Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family 
 Library, it will be an eternal obligation on, 
 
 Respected Sir, your most obliged, and humble servant, 
 ^ ******* 
 
 A NOCTURXAL SKETCH. 
 Even is come ; and from the dark Park, hark, 
 The signal of the setting smi — one gun ! 
 And six is sounding from the chime, prime time 
 To go and see the Drury-Laue Dane slain — 
 
376 BLANK VERSE IX RHYME. 
 
 Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out — 
 Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, 
 Denying to his frantic clutch much touch ; — 
 Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride 
 Four horses as no other man can span ; 
 Or in the small Olympic Pitt, sit split 
 Laughing at Listen, -while you quiz his phiz. 
 
 Anon Xio;ht comes, and with her wins-s brino-s things 
 Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung ; 
 The gas up-blazes with its bright white light, 
 And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl, 
 About the streets and take up Pall-]Mal Sal, 
 Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. 
 
 Now thieves to enter for j-our cash, smash, crash, 
 Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep, 
 "But fr-ightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, 
 And while they "re going, whisper low, '• Xo go !"' 
 
 Kow puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads. 
 And sleepers waking, grumble^- Drat that cat !" 
 Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls 
 Some feline foe. and screams in shrill ill-v>'ill. 
 
 Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise 
 In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor 
 Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly ; — 
 But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed, 
 Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, 
 And that she hears — what fiith is man's — Ann's banns 
 And his, from Reverend 'Mv. Rice, twice, thrice ; 
 ^Yhite ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out, 
 That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes ! 
 
UP THE RHINE, 
 
 377 
 
 UP THE RHINE. 
 
 "WHAT MR. GRUNDY SATS OF THE XATTTES. 
 
 Ye Tourists and Travellers, bound to the Rhine, 
 Provided with passport, that requisite docket, 
 
 First listen to one little -whisper of mine — 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of vour pocket ! 
 
 Don't wash or be shaved — go like hairy wild men. 
 
 Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap, and smock-frock it, 
 
 But if you speak English, or look it, why then 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You "11 sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds 
 Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket, 
 
 With thirty per cent, as a tax on your heads. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You "11 see old Cologne — not the sweetest of towns — 
 Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it ; 
 
 And you "11 pay your three dollars to look at three crowns. 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You 11 count seven Mountains, and see Roland's Eck, 
 Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett ; 
 
 But oh ! to the tone of romance what a check. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 Old Castles you "11 see on the vine-covered hill — 
 Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its socket — 
 
 Once haunts of Baronial Banditti — and still 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket . 
 
378 UP THE RHINE. 
 
 You '11 stop at Coblentz, with its beautiful views, 
 But make no long stay with your money to stock it, 
 
 "Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews, 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 A Fortress you "11 see, which, as people report, 
 
 Can never be captured, save famine should block it — 
 
 Ascend Ehrenbreitstein — but that's not their /o7Vc, 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You '11 see an old man who "11 let off an old gun. 
 And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it ; 
 
 But think that the words of the echo thus run. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You '11 gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine ! 
 
 Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it — 
 P'raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine — 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket! 
 
 Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths — 
 Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it ; 
 
 But still mind the warning, wherever your paths. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 And Friendships you '11 swear most eternal of pacts. 
 Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket ; 
 
 But still, in the most sentimental of acts. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 In short, if you visit that stream or its shore, 
 Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it, 
 
 And where Schinderhannes was Robber of yore. 
 
 Take care of your pocliet ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
LOVE LANGUAGE OF A MERRY YOUXG SOLDIER. 
 
 379 
 
 LOVE LANGUAGE OF A IklERRY YOUXG SOLDIER. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN". 
 
 " Ach, Gretcben, meia taubchen." 
 
 Gretel, nij Dove, mj heart's Trumpet. 
 Mj Cannon, mj Big Drum, and also mj jSIusket. 
 hear me, my mild little Dove, 
 In your still little room. 
 
 Your portrait, my Gretel, is always on guard. 
 Is always attentive to Love's parole and watchword; 
 Your picture is always going the rounds, 
 My Gretel, I call at every hour ! 
 
 My heart's Knapsack is always full of you ; 
 My looks, they are quartered with you ; 
 And when I l^ite off the top end of a cartridge, 
 Then I think that I give you a kiss. 
 
 Y"ou alone are my Word of Command and orders. 
 Yea, my Right-face, Left-face, Brown Tommy, and wine, 
 And at the word of command '• Shoulder Arms !'' 
 Then I think you say " Take me in your arms." 
 
 Your eyes sparkle like a Battery, 
 Yea, they wound like Bombs and Grenades ; 
 As black as Gunpowder is your hair, 
 Y'our hand as white Parading breeches ! 
 
 Yes, you are the Match and I am the Cannon ; 
 Have pity, my love, and give quarter, 
 And give the word of command " Wheel round 
 Into my heart's Barrack Y'ard." 
 
380 
 
 AXACREOXTIC. 
 
 ANACREOXTIC, 
 
 FOR THE NKW TEAR. 
 
 Come, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass 
 
 Found a proper excuse or fit season. 
 For toasts to be honored, or pledges to pass. 
 
 Sure, this hour brings an exquisite reason : 
 For, hark ! the last chime of the dial has ceased, 
 
 And Old Time, who has leisure to cozen, 
 Had finished the months, like the flasks at a feast, 
 
 Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen ! 
 
 Hip I Hip ! and Hurrah ! 
 
 Then fill, all je Happy and Free, unto whom 
 
 The past Year has been pleasant and sunny ; 
 Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom 
 
 Of the thyme whence the bee gathers honey — 
 Days ushered by dew-drops, instead of the tears. 
 
 Maybe, wrung from some wretcheder cousin — 
 Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers 
 
 That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen ! 
 
 Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! 
 
 And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast, 
 
 And been bowed to the earth by its fury ; 
 To whom the Twelve ]\Ionths, that have recently passed, 
 
 Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury — 
 Still, fill to the future ! and join in our chime, 
 
 The regrets of remembrance to cozen. 
 And having obtained a Kew Trial of Time, 
 
 Shout, in hopes of a kindlier dozen ! 
 
 Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! 
 
MORE HULLAIIBALOO. 
 
 381 
 
 I^IORE HULLAHBALOO. 
 
 " Loud as from numbers without number." — Milton. 
 
 " You may Jo it cstemporo, for it '3 nothing but roaring." — Quince. 
 
 Amoxgst the great inventions of this age, 
 
 Which every other century surpasses, 
 Is one — just now the rage — 
 
 Called " Singing for all Classes" — 
 That is, for all the British millions, 
 And billions, 
 And quadrillions, 
 Not to name QidntiUans, 
 That now, alas ! have no more car than asses, 
 To learn to warble like the birds in June, 
 In time and tune, 
 Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses ! 
 
 In fact, a sort of plan, 
 Including gentleman as well as yokel, 
 
 Public or private man, 
 To call out a militia — only Vocal, 
 
 Instead of Local, 
 And not designed for military follies, 
 
 But keeping still within the civil border, 
 To form Avith mouths m open order, 
 And sing in volleys. 
 Whether this grand Harmonic scheme 
 Will ever get beyond a dream. 
 
 And tend to British happiness and glory, 
 Maybe no, and maybe yes. 
 Is more than I pretend to guess — 
 However, here 's my story. 
 
382 MORE HULLAHBALOO. 
 
 In one of those small, quiet streets, 
 
 TMiere business retreats 
 To shun the daily bustle and the noise 
 
 The shoppy Strand enjoys, 
 But Law, Joint Companies, and Life Assurance, 
 
 Find past endurance — 
 Is one of those back streets, to Peace so dear. 
 
 The other day, a ragged wight. 
 
 Began to sing with all his might, 
 
 " I have a silent sorroio here!"' 
 The place was lonely, not a creature stirred, 
 Except some little dingy bird ; 
 Or vagrant cur that sniffed along, 
 Indifferent to the Son of Song ; 
 No truant errand-boy, or doctor's lad, 
 No idle Filch, or lounging cad, 
 
 No pots encumbered with diurnal beer, 
 No printer's devil with an author's proof, 
 Or housemaid on an errand far aloof, 
 
 Lino-ered the tattered ]Melodist to hear — 
 Who yet, confound him ! bawled as loud 
 As if he had to charm a London crowd, 
 
 Singing beside the public way, 
 Accompanied- — instead of violin, 
 Flute, or piano, chiming in — 
 
 By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray, 
 A van with iron bars to play staccato, 
 
 Or engine ohligato — 
 In short, without one instrument vehicular 
 (Not even a track, to be particular), 
 
 There stood the rogue and roared. 
 
 Unasked and unencored. 
 Enough to split the organs called auricular ! 
 
MORE nULLAHBALOO. 383 
 
 Heard iu that quiet place, 
 
 Devoted to a still and studious race, 
 
 The noise was quite appalling ! 
 To seek a fitting simile and spin it, 
 
 Appropriate to his calling, 
 Hjs voice had all Lablache's body in it; 
 But oh ! the scientific tone it lacked. 
 
 And was in fact, 
 Only a fortj-boatswain power of bawling ! 
 
 'Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal nouSj 
 
 The stage had banished him, when he attempted it, 
 For tho' his voice completely filled the house, 
 It also emptied it. 
 However, there he stood 
 Vociferous — a ragged don ! 
 And with his iron pipes laid on 
 
 A row to all the neighborhood. 
 
 In vain were sashes closed, 
 
 And doors against the persevering Stentor, 
 Though l3rick, and glass, and solid oak opposed, 
 
 Th' intruding voice would enter, 
 Heedless of ceremonial or decorum. 
 Den, ofiice, parlor, study, and sanctorum ; 
 Where clients and attorneys, rogues and fools. 
 Ladies, and masters who attended schools, 
 Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools, 
 "Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools, 
 With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before 'em- 
 How it did bore 'em ! 
 
 Louder, and louder still 
 The fellow sang with horrible goodwill, 
 
384 MOKE HULLAHBALOO. 
 
 Curses both loud and deep, his sole gratuities, 
 From scribes bewildered making many a flaw, 
 In deeds of law 
 Thej had to draw ; 
 With di'eadml incongruities 
 In posting ledgers, making up accounts 
 To large amounts, 
 Or casting up annuities — 
 Stunned by that voice, so loud and hoarse, 
 Aaiainst whose overwhelming force 
 No invoice stood a chance, of course ! 
 
 The Actuary "pshawed and '• pished," 
 And knit his calculating brows, and wished 
 The singer '• a bad life"' — a mental murther ! 
 The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder, 
 Yvlshed the musician further, 
 Poles distant — and no wonder ! 
 For Law and Harmony tend far asunder — 
 The lady could not keep her temper calm, 
 Because the sinner did not sing a psalm — 
 The Fiddler in the very same position 
 As Hogarth" s chafed musician 
 (Such prints require but cursory reminders) 
 Came and made faces at the wretch beneath, 
 And wishing for his foe between his teeth, 
 (Like all impatient elves 
 That spite themselves) 
 Ground his own grinders. 
 
 But still with unrelenting note, 
 
 Though not a copper came of it, in verity, 
 The horrid fellow with the ragged coat, 
 And iron throat, 
 
MORE HULLAHBALOO. 
 
 Heedless of present honor and prosperity, 
 Sang like a Poet singing for posterity, 
 In penniless reliance — 
 And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme 
 Never set Time 
 More thoroughly at defiance ! 
 
 From room to room, from floor to floor, 
 
 From Number One to Twenty-four, 
 
 The Nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost, 
 
 Down came Miss Frost, 
 Expostulating at her open door — 
 " Peace, monster, peace ! 
 "Where is the New Police ? 
 I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray, 
 
 Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't ! 
 You really send my serious thoughts astray, 
 Do — there 's a dear good man — do, go away." 
 Says he, "I won't !'*' 
 
 The spinster pulled her door to with a slam, 
 That sounded like a wooden d — n, 
 For so some moral people, strickly loth 
 To swear in words, however up, 
 "Will crash a curse in setting down a cup, 
 Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath — 
 In fact, this sort of physical transgression 
 Is really no more difiicult to trace 
 Than in a given face 
 A very bad expression. 
 
 However in she went 
 Leaving the subject of her discontent 
 To Mr. Jones's Clerk at Number Ten ; 
 
 IT 
 
 =J 
 
386 
 
 MORE HULLAHBALOO. 
 
 Who, throwing up the sash, 
 With ax3cents rash, 
 Thus hailed the most vociferous of men : 
 *' Come, come, I say old fellow, stop your chant! 
 I cannot write a sentence — no one can't ! 
 So just pack up your trumps, 
 And stu' your stumps — " 
 Says he, " I shan't !" 
 
 Down went the sash 
 As if devoted to " eternal smash" 
 (Another illustration 
 Of acted imprecation). 
 While close at hand, uncomfortably near. 
 
 The independent voice, so loud and strong, 
 
 And clanging like a gong. 
 Roared out again the everlasting song, 
 *• I have a silent sorrow here." 
 
 The thing was hard to stand ! 
 
 The Music-master could not stand it — 
 But rushed forth with fiddle-stick in hand, 
 
 As savage as a bandit, 
 Made up directly to the tattered man. 
 And thus in broken sentences began — 
 But playing first a prelude of grimaces, 
 
 Twisting his features to the strangest shapes. 
 So that to guess his subject from his faces. 
 
 He meant to give a lecture upon apes. 
 
 " Com — com — I say ! 
 
 You go away ! 
 Into two parts my head you split — 
 My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit, 
 
 When I do play — 
 
MORE HULLAHBALOO. 387 
 
 You have no bis'ncss in a place so still ! 
 Can you not come another day?" 
 Says he—" I will." 
 
 " No —no — you scream and bawl ! 
 You must not come at all ! 
 You have no rights, by rights, to beg — 
 You have not one off leg — 
 
 You ought to work — you have not some complaint — . 
 You are not cripple in your back or bones — 
 Your voice is strong enough to break some stones — " 
 Says he—" It am't." 
 
 " I say you ought to labor ! 
 You are in a young case, 
 You have not sixty years upon your face. 
 
 To come and beg your neighbor ! 
 And discompose his music with a noise. 
 More worse than twenty boys — 
 Look what a street it is for quiet ! 
 No cart to make a riot, 
 
 No coach, no horses, no postilion. 
 If you will sing, I say, it is not just 
 To sing so loud." — Says he, 'I must ! 
 
 I'm SINGING FOR THE MILLION!" 
 
388 ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL. 
 
 ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL 
 
 WHO BROUGHT ME A PROOF TO BE CORRECTED, AND "WHO FELL ASLEEP 
 WHILE IT WAS UNDERGOING CORRECTION: BEING AN ODE FOUNDED 
 
 ON fact! 
 
 " Fallen Cherub 1" — Milton's Paeadibe Lost. 
 
 Oh bright and blessed hour ; — 
 
 The Devil 's asleep ! — I see his little lashes 
 
 Lying in sable o'er his sable cheek ; 
 
 Closed are his wicked little window sashes, 
 
 And tranced is Evil's power ! 
 
 The world seems hushed and dreaming out-a-doors, 
 
 Spirits but speak ; 
 And the heart echoes, while the Devil snores. 
 
 Sleep, Baby of the damned ! 
 
 Sleep, when no press of trouble standeth by ! 
 
 Black wanderer amid the wandering, 
 
 How quiet is thine eye ! 
 Strange are thy very small pernicious dreams — 
 With shades of printers crammed. 
 And pica, double pica, on the wing ! 
 Or in cold sheets thy sprite perchance is flying 
 
 The world about — 
 Dying — and yet, not like the Devil dying — 
 
 Dele, — the Evil out ! 
 
 Before sweet sleep drew down 
 
 The blinds upon thy Day c^* Martin eyes. 
 
ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL. 389 
 
 Thou did'st let slip thy slip of mischief on me, 
 
 "With weary, weary sighs ; 
 
 And then, outworn with demoning o"er town, 
 
 Oblivion won thee ! 
 Best of compositors ! thou didst compose 
 Thy decent little wicked self, and go 
 A Devil-cruiser round the shores of sleep — 
 I hear thee fathom many a slumber-deep, 
 
 In the waves of woe ; 
 
 Dropping thy lids of lead 
 
 To sound the dead ! 
 
 Heaven forgive me ! I 
 
 Have wicked schemes about thee, wicked one ; 
 
 And in my scheming, sigh 
 
 And stagger under a gigantic thought ; 
 
 '■' TMiat if I run my pen mto thine eye. 
 
 And put thee out ? 
 
 Killing the Devil will be a noble deed, 
 
 A deed to snatch perdition from mankind — 
 
 To make the Methodist's a stingless creed — 
 
 To root out terror from the Brewer's mind — 
 
 And break the bondage which the Printer presses — 
 
 To change the fate of Lawyers — 
 Confirm the Parson's holy sinecure — 
 Make worthless sin's approaches — 
 To justify the bringing up addresses 
 To me, in hackney coaches. 
 From operative Sawyers !" 
 
 " To murder thee'' — 
 Methiuks — " will never harm my precious head" — 
 For what can chance me, when the Devil is dead ? 
 
390 A GOOD DIRECTIOX. 
 
 But wlien I look on tlij serene repose, 
 Hear the small Satan dying through thy nose, 
 My thoughts become less dangerous and more deep ; 
 I can but wish thee everlasting sleep ! 
 
 Sleep free from dreams 
 Of type, and mk, and press, and dabbing-ball — 
 
 Sleep free from all 
 That would make shadowy, devilish slumber darker, 
 Sleep free from Mr. Baldwin's Mr. Parker ! 
 
 Oh ! fare thee well ! 
 Farewell, black bit of breathing sin ! Farewell, 
 Tiny remembrancer of a Printer's Hell ! 
 
 Young thing of darkness, seeming 
 A small, poor type of wickedness set up ! 
 
 Full is thy little cup 
 Of misery in the waking world ! So dreaming 
 Perchance may now nndemomze thy fate 
 And bear thee, Black-boy, to a whiter state ! 
 Yet mortal evil is, than thine, more high ; — 
 Thou art vpr'ight in sleep ; men sleep — and lie I 
 And from thy lids to me a moral peeps. 
 For I correct my errors — while the Devil sleeps! 
 
 A GOOD DIRECTION. 
 
 A CERTAIN gentleman, whose yellow cheek 
 Proclaimed he had not been in living quite 
 
 An Anchorite — 
 Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day j 
 At last, by friends' advice, was led to seek 
 A. surgeon of great note — named Aberfeldie. 
 
TO 
 
 ***** 391 
 
 A very famous Author upon Diet, 
 Who, better starred than Alchemists of old, 
 By dint of turning mercury to gold, 
 Had settled at Lis country house in quiet. 
 
 Our Patient, after some impatient rambles 
 Thro" Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles, 
 Ai last, to make inquiry had the nous — 
 '•Here, my good man, 
 Just tell me if you can, 
 Pray ^vhich is ^Mr. Aberfeldie's house ?" 
 The man thus stopped — perusing for a ^hile 
 The yellow visage of the man of bile. 
 At last made answer, vrith a broadish grin : 
 "Why, turn to right— and left— and right agin, 
 The road's direct— you cannot fail to go it." 
 
 '• But stop ! my woithy fellow ! — one word more — 
 From other houses how am I to know it I 
 
 ' How !— whv vou "11 see blue pillars at the door !" 
 
 TO * * * ^ =" 
 
 •mTH A FLASK OF EHrST: WATEE. 
 
 The old Catholic City was still 
 
 In the Minster the vespers were sung, 
 And, re-echoed in cadences shrill, 
 
 The last call of the trumpet had rung ; 
 ^Miile across the broad stream of the Ehine, 
 
 The full :Moon cast a silvery zone ; 
 And, methought, as I gazed on its shine, 
 
 '•Surely, that is the Eau de Cologne." 
 
392 soxxET. 
 
 I inquired the place of its source, 
 
 If it ran to the east or the west ; 
 But my heart took a note of its course, 
 
 That it flowed towards Her I love best — 
 That it flowed towards Her I love best, 
 
 Like those wandering thoughts of my own, 
 And the fancy such sweetness possessed, 
 
 That the Rhine seemed all Eau de Cologne ! 
 
 Allegory — A moral Tehicle. — Dictioxakt. 
 
 I HAD a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure, 
 
 Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt. 
 He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure ; 
 
 Although he sometimes kicked, and shied aslant. 
 I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, 
 
 With yellow body, and the wheels of red. 
 Because 't was only used for one employment, 
 
 Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led. 
 I had a wife, her nickname was Delight : 
 
 A son called Frolic, who was never still : 
 Alas ! how often dark succeeds to bright ? 
 
 Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill. 
 Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite. 
 
 And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine' s Hill ! 
 
ANSWER TO A LADY. 393 
 
 SONNET TO VAUXHALL. 
 
 "The English Garden." — Masox. 
 
 The cold transparent ham is on my fork — 
 
 It hardly rains — and hark the bell ! — ding-dingle — 
 A^yay ! Three thousand feet at gravel work, 
 
 Mocking a Vauxhall shower ! — Married and Single 
 Crush — rush ; — Soaked Silks Avith wet white Satin mingle. 
 
 Hengler ! Madame ! round whom all bright sparks lurk. 
 Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle 
 
 To study the Sumblime, &c. — (vide Burke) 
 All Noses are upturned ! — Wish — ish ! — On high 
 
 The rocket rushes — trails — just steals in sight — 
 Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light — 
 
 And Darkness reigns — Then balls flare up and die — 
 Wheels whiz — smack crackers — serpents twist — and then 
 
 Back to the cold transparent ham again ! 
 
 ANSWER 
 
 TO A LADY WHO REQUESTED THE AUTHOR TO WRITE SOME VERSES 1^! 
 ,HER ALBUM, DECLARATORY OF WHAT HE LIKED AND WHAT HE DIS- 
 LIKED. 
 
 You bid me mention what I like, 
 
 And, gaily smiling, little guess 
 How deeply may that question strike 
 
 The chords of solemn thankfulness. 
 
 I like my friends, my children, wife — 
 The home they make so blessed a spot ; 
 
 I like my fortune — calling — life — 
 In every thing I like my lot ; 
 17* 
 
394 SONNET. 
 
 And feeling thus, my heart 's imbued 
 With never-ceasing gratitude. 
 
 What I dislike, you next demand. 
 
 A puzzling query^ — for in me 
 Nought that proceeds from Nature's hand 
 
 Awakens an antipathy. 
 
 But what I like the least are those 
 Who nourish an unthankful mind, 
 
 Quick to discern imagined woes, 
 To all their real blessings blind, 
 
 For that is double want of love, 
 
 To man below, and God above. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 TO A SCOTCH GIRL, -n-ASHIXG LIXEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION. 
 
 Well done and wetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth, 
 Thou makest a washing picture well deserving 
 The pen and pencilling of Washington Ir\dng : 
 
 Like dripping Naiad, pearly from her birth, 
 
 Dashing about the water of the Firth, 
 To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving, 
 And never from thy dance of duty swerving 
 
 As there were nothing else than dirt on earth ! 
 
 Yet what is thy reward ? Nay, do not start ! 
 I do not mean to give thee a new damper. 
 
 But while thou fillest this industrious part 
 
 Of washer, wearer, mangier, presser, stamper. 
 
 Deserving better character — thou art 
 
 What Bodkin would but call — " a common tramper." 
 
ODES Ax\D ADDRESSES 
 
 TO 
 
 GREAT PEOPLE 
 
 '•CATCHING ALL THE ODDITIES, THE WHIMSIES, THE ABSURDITIES, AND THB 
 LITTLENESSES OF CONSCIOUS GREATNESS BY THE WAV " 
 
 Citisen of ike World. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 From the kindness with which this httle volume has been received, the 
 Authors have determined uj^on presenting to the Public "more last Bax- 
 terish words ;" and the Reader will be pleased therefore to consider this 
 rather as a Preface or Advertisement to the volume to come, than a third 
 Address in prose, explanatory or recommendatory of the present portion 
 of the Work It is agamst etiquette to mtroduce one gentleman to 
 another thrice ; and it must be confessed, that if these few sentences were 
 to be billeted upon the first volume, the Public might overlook the Odes, 
 but would have great reason to complain of the Addresses. 
 
 So many Great Men stand over, like the correspondents to a periodical, 
 ■ that they must be " continued m our next." These are certainly bad 
 times for paying debts; but all persons having any claims upon the 
 Authors, may rest assured, that they will ultimately be paid in full. 
 
 No material alterations have been made in this third Edition — with the 
 exception of the introduction of a few new commas, which the lovers of 
 punctuation will immediately detect and duly appreciate ; — and the omis- 
 sion of the three puns, which, in the opinion of all friends and reviewers, 
 were detrimental to the correct humor of the pubUcation, 
 
ODES AND ADDRESSES.' 
 
 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 THE AERON'AUT. 
 
 "Fp with me! — up ^vith me into the sky I" 
 
 ■WoBDSwoKxn — on a Lark t 
 
 Dear Graham, whilst the busj crowd, 
 The vain, the wealthy, and the proud, 
 
 Their meaner flights pursue, 
 Let wi cast off the foolish ties 
 That bind us to the earth, and rise 
 
 And take a bird's-eye view I — 
 
 A few more whiffs of my segar 
 And then, in Fancy's airy car, 
 
 Have with thee for the skies : — 
 How oft this fragrant smoke upcurled 
 Hath borne me from this little world, 
 
 And all that in it lies ! — 
 
 Away I — away ! — the bubble fills — 
 Farewell to earth and all its hills ! — 
 
 TTe seem to cut the wind ! — 
 So high we mount, so swift we go, 
 The chimney tops are far below, 
 
 The Eade's left behind!— 
 
)98 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 Ah me ! my brain begins to swim ! — 
 The world is growing rather dim ; 
 
 The steeples and the trees — 
 My wife is getting very small ! 
 I cannot see my babe at all ! — 
 
 The DoUond, if you please ! 
 
 Do, Graham, let me have a quiz, 
 Lord ! what a Lilliput it is, 
 
 That little world of Mogg's ! — 
 Are those the London Docks ? — that channel, 
 The mighty Thames ? — a proper kennel 
 
 For that small Isle of Dogs ! — 
 
 What is that seeming tea-urn there ? 
 That fairy dome, St. Paul's ! — I swear, 
 
 Wren must have been a Wren ! — 
 And that small stripe ? — it cannot be 
 The City Eoad ! — Good lack ! to see 
 
 The little ways of men ! 
 
 Little, indeed ! — my eyeballs ache 
 To find a turnpike. — I must take 
 
 Their tolls upon my trust ! — 
 And where is mortal labor gone ? 
 Look, Graham, for a little stone 
 
 INIac Adamized to dust ! 
 
 Look at the horses ! — less than flies ! — 
 Oh, what a waste it was of sighs 
 
 To wish to be a Mayor ! 
 What is the honor ? — none at all, 
 One's honor must be very small 
 
 For such a civic chair ! — . 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 And there *s Guildhall !— "tis far aloof— 
 Methiiiks, I foncy through the roof 
 
 Its little guardian Gogs, 
 Like penny dolls— a tiny show !— 
 -^Yell—I must say they "re ruled below 
 
 By very little logs ! — 
 
 Oh ! Graham, how the upper air 
 Alters the standards of compare ; 
 
 One of our silken flags 
 Would cover London all about — 
 Nay, then— let's even empty out 
 
 Another brace of bags ! 
 
 Now for a glass of bright Champagne 
 Above the clouds !— Come, let us drain 
 
 A bumper as we go ! — 
 But hold '.—for God's sake do not cant 
 The cork away— unless you want 
 
 To brain your friends below. 
 
 Think ! what a mob of little men 
 Are crawling just within our ken, 
 
 Like mites upon a cheese I — 
 Pshaw '.—how the foolish sight rebukes 
 Ambitious thoughts !— can there be Dukes 
 
 Of Gloster such as these !— 
 
 Oh ! what is glory ? — what is fame ? 
 Hark to the little mob's acclaim, 
 
 'T is nothing but a hum 1— 
 A few near gnats would trump as loud 
 As all the shouting of a crowd 
 
 That has so far to come ! — 
 
 S99 
 
400 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 Well — they are wise that choose the near, 
 A few small buzzards in the ear, 
 
 To organs ages hence ! — 
 Ah me ! how distance touches all ; 
 It makes the true look rather small. 
 
 But murders poor pretence. 
 
 " The world recedes ! — it disappears I 
 Heaven opens on my eyes — my ears 
 
 With buzzing noises ring !" — 
 A fig for Southey's Laureat lore ! — - 
 What 's Rogers here? — Who cares for Moore 
 
 That hears the Angels sing ! — 
 
 A fig for earth, and all its minions ! — 
 We are above the world's opinions, 
 
 Graham ! we '11 have our own ! — 
 Look what a vantage height we've got — 
 Now do you think Sir Walter Scott 
 
 Is such a Great Unknown ? 
 
 Speak up ! — or hath he hid his name 
 To crawl thro' ' ' subways' ' unto fame, 
 
 Like Williams of Cornhill? — 
 Speak up, my lad ! — when men run small 
 We '11 show v\^hat 's little in them all, 
 
 Receive it how they will ! — 
 
 Think now of Irving ! — shall he preach 
 The princes down — shall he impeach 
 
 The potent and the rich, 
 Merely on ethic stilts — and I 
 Not moralize at two miles high 
 
 The true didactic pitch ! 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAUAM. 401 
 
 Come : — ^ivliat cV ye think of Jeflfrey, sir ? 
 Is GifforJ such a Gulliver 
 
 In Lilliput's Review, 
 That like Colossus he should stride 
 Certain small brazen inches wide 
 
 For poets to pass through ? 
 
 Look down ! the world is but a spot. 
 Now say — Is Blackwood's low or not, 
 
 For all the Scottish tone ? 
 It shall not weigh us here — not where 
 The sandy bui-den's lost in air — 
 
 Our lading — where is "t flown ? 
 
 Now — like you Croly's verse indeed — 
 In heaven — where one cannot read 
 
 The "Warren" on a wall? 
 What think you here of that man's fame ? 
 Tho* Jerdan magnified his name. 
 
 To me 'tis very small ! 
 
 And, truly, is there such a spell 
 In those three letters, L. E. L., 
 
 To witch a world with sons; ? 
 On clouds the Byron did not sit, 
 Yet dared on Shakspeare's head to spit, 
 
 And say the Avorld was wrong ! 
 
 And shall not we ? Let 's thmk aloud ! 
 Thus being couched upon a cloud, 
 
 Graham, we "11 have our eyes ! 
 We felt the great when we were less, 
 But we '11 retort on littleness 
 
 Now Vt'o are in the skies. 
 
402 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 Graham, Graham ! how I blame 
 The bastard blush — the petty shame 
 
 That used to fret me quite — 
 The little sores I covered then, 
 No sores on earth, nor sorrows when 
 
 The world is out of sight ! 
 
 My name is Tims. — I am the man 
 That North's unseen, diminished clan 
 So scurvilj abused ! 
 
 1 am the very P. A. Z. 
 
 The London Lion's small pin's head 
 So often hath refused ! 
 
 Campbell — (you cannot see him here) — 
 Hath scorned my lays : — do his appear 
 
 Such great eggs from the sky ? — 
 And Longman, and his lengthy Co. 
 Long, only, in a little Row, 
 
 Have thrust my poems by ! 
 
 What else ? — I 'm poor, and much beset 
 With damned small duns — that is — in debt 
 
 Some grains of golden dust ! 
 But only worth, above, is worth. — 
 What 's all the credit of the earth ! 
 
 An nich of cloth on trust ! 
 
 What 's Rothschild here, that wealthy man ! 
 Nay, worlds of wealth? — Oh, if you can 
 
 Spy out — the Golden Ball! 
 Sure as we rose, all money sank : 
 What 's gold or silver now ? — the Bank 
 
 Is gone — the 'Change and all ! 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 403 
 
 What "s all the ground-rent of the globe ? — 
 Oh, Graham, it would worry Job 
 
 To hear its landlords prate ! 
 But after this survey, I think 
 I '11 ne'er be bullied more, nor shrink 
 
 From men of large estate ! 
 
 And less, still less, Avill I submit 
 To poor mean acres' worth of wit — 
 
 I that have heaven's span — 
 I that like Shakspeare's self may dream 
 Beyond the very clouds, and seem 
 
 An Universal Man ! 
 
 Mark, Graham, mark those gorgeous crowds ! 
 Like Birds of Paradise the clouds 
 
 Are winging on the wind ! 
 But what is grander than their range? 
 More hvalj than their sun-set change ? — 
 
 The free creative mind I 
 
 Well ! the Adults' School 's in the air ! 
 The greatest men are lessoned there 
 
 As Avell as the Lessee ! 
 Oh could Earth's EUistons thus small 
 Behold the greatest stage of all, 
 
 How humbled they would be ! 
 
 " Oh would some Power the giftie gie 'em, 
 To see themselves as others see 'em," 
 
 'T would much abate their fuss! 
 If they could think that from the skies 
 They are as little in our eyes 
 
 As they can think of us ! 
 
404 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 
 
 Of US ? are we gone out of sight ? 
 Lessened ! diminished ! vanished quite I 
 
 Lost to the tiny town ! 
 Beyond the Eagle's ken — the grope 
 Of Dolland's longest telescope ! 
 
 Graham ! we 're going down ! 
 
 Ah me ! I 've touched a string that opes 
 The airy valve ! — the gas elopes — 
 
 Down goes our bright Balloon ! — 
 Farewell the skies ! the clouds ! I smell 
 The lower world ! Graham, farewell, 
 
 Man of the silken moon ! 
 
 The earth is close ! the City nears — 
 Like a burnt paper it appears, 
 
 Studded with tiny sparks ! 
 Methinks I hear the distant rout 
 Of coaches rumbling all about — 
 
 We 're close above the Parks ! 
 
 I hear the watchmen on their beats, 
 Hawking the hour about the streets. 
 
 Lord ! what a cruel jar 
 It is upon the earth to light ! 
 Well — there 's the finish of our flight ! 
 
 I 've smoked my last segar ! 
 
ODE 
 
 TO MR. M'ADAM.* 
 
 " Let us take to the road 1" — Beggab's Opera. 
 
 M'Adam, hail ! 
 Hail, Roadian ! hail, Colossus ! who dost stand 
 Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land ! 
 
 Oh universal Leveler ! all hail ! 
 To thee, a good, yet stony-hearted man, 
 
 The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going — 
 To thee — how much for thy commodious plan, 
 
 Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing ! 
 The Bristol mail 
 Gliding o'er ways, hitherto deemed invincible, 
 
 "When carrying Patriots now shall never fail 
 Those of the most " unshaken public principle." 
 Hail to thee, Scot of Scots ! 
 
 Thou northern light, amid those heavy men I 
 Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside. 
 Thou scatterest flints and favors far and wide, 
 From palaces to cots ; — 
 
 Dispenser of coagulated good ! 
 
 Distributor of granite and of food ! 
 Long may thy fame its even path march on 
 
 E'en when thy sons are dead ! 
 Best benefactor ! though thou giv'st a stone 
 
 To those who ask for bread .' 
 
406 ODE TO MR. M-ADAM. 
 
 Thy fii'st great trial in this mightj town 
 Was, if I rightly recollect, upon 
 That gentle hill which goeth 
 Down from •• the County'" to the Palace gate. 
 
 And, like a river, thanks to thee, now iioweth 
 Past the Old Horticultural Society — 
 The chemist Cobb"s, the house of Howell and James, 
 "VMiere ladies play high shawl and satm games — 
 
 A little Hell of lace ! 
 And past the Athenaeum, made of late, 
 
 Severs a sweet variety 
 Of millmers and booksellers who grace 
 
 Waterloo Place, 
 ^Making division, the ]Muse fears and guesses, 
 'Twixt Mr. Rivmgton's and Mr. Hessey's. 
 Thou stood'st thy trial, Mac ! and shaved the road 
 From Barber Beaumont's to the King's abode 
 So well; that paviors threw their rammers by, 
 Let down their tucked shirt-sleeves, and with a sigh 
 Prepared themselves, poor souls, to chip or die I 
 
 Next, from the palace to the prison, thou 
 
 Didst go, the highway's watchman, to thy beat — 
 Preventing though the rattling in the street, 
 Yet kicking up a row 
 Upon the stones — ah ! truly watchman-like, 
 Encouraging thy victims all to strike. 
 
 To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily ; — 
 Thou hast smoothed, alas, the path to the Old Bailey ! 
 And to the stony bowers 
 Of Newgate, to encourage the approach, 
 By caravan or coach — 
 Hast strewed the way with flints as soft as flowers. 
 
r"=^ 
 
 ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 407 
 
 "SYho shall dispute tbj name ! 
 Insculpt ill stone in every street, 
 
 We soon shall greet 
 Thy trodden down, jet all unconquered fame ! 
 Where'er we take, even at this time, our way. 
 Nought see we, but mankind in open air, 
 Hammering thy fVime, as Chantrey would not dare ; — 
 
 And with a patient care 
 Chipping thy immortality all day ! 
 Demosthenes, of old — that rare old man — 
 Prophetically foUou-ed, Mac ! thy plan : — 
 
 For he, we know, 
 
 (History says so,) 
 Put pebbles in his mouth when he would speak 
 
 The smoothest Greek ! 
 
 It is "impossible, and cannot be," 
 But that thy genius hath. 
 Besides the turnpike, many another path 
 
 Trod, to arrive at popularity, 
 O'er Pegasus, perchance, thou hast throAvn a thigh, 
 Nor ridden a roadster only ; mighty ]Mac ! 
 And "faith I 'd swear, when on that Avinged hack. 
 Thou hast observed the highways in the sky ! 
 Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep. 
 
 And •' hard to climb," as Dr. B. would say? 
 Dost think it best for Sons of Song to keep 
 
 The noiseless tenor of their way ? (see Gray.) 
 What line of road should poets take to bring 
 
 Themselves unto those waters, loved the first ! — 
 Those waters which can wet a man to sing ! 
 
 Which, like thy fiime, " from granite basins burst. 
 
 Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thii'st?" 
 
408 ODE TO MR. M-ADAM. 
 
 That thou "rt a proseP; even thj birth-place might 
 Vouchsafe ; — and Mr. Cadell may. God wot, 
 Have paid thee manj a pound for many a blot — 
 Cadell "s a wayward wight ! 
 Although no Walter, still thou art a Scot, 
 And I can throw, I think, a little lio-ht 
 Upon some works thou hast written for the town — 
 And published, like a Lilliput Unknown ! 
 
 ■'• Highways and Byeways,'" is thy book, no doubt, 
 (One Avhole edition "s out.) 
 And next, for it is fail- 
 That Fame, 
 Seeing her children, should confess she had 'em : — 
 " Some Passages from the life of Adam Blair"' — 
 
 (Blair is a Scottish name.) 
 What are they, but thy own good roads, M^Adam? 
 
 ! indefatigable laborer 
 In the paths of men ! when thou shalt die, ''t will be 
 A mark of thy surpassing industry. 
 
 That of the monument, which men shall rear 
 Over thy most inestimable bone, 
 Thou didst thy very self lay the fii'st stone I — 
 Of a right ancient line thou comest — through 
 Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue. 
 Until we see thy sii-e before our eyes — 
 Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise ! 
 But he, our great Mac Parent, erred, and ne'er 
 
 Have our walks since been fair 1 
 Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on "Change, 
 For ever varying, through his varying range, 
 
 Time maketh all thincrs even ! 
 In this strange world, tm-ning beneath high heaven ! 
 
ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 400 
 
 He hath redeemed the Adams, and contrived — 
 
 (How are Time's wonders hived !) 
 In pity to mankind and to befriend 'em — 
 (Time is above all praise) 
 That he, who first did make our evil ways^ 
 Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend 'em! 
 
 18 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS 
 
 TO MRS. FRY, IN NEWGATE.^' 
 
 " Sermons in stones." — As tott Like It. 
 "Out! out! damned spot!" — Macbeth. 
 
 I LIKE you, Mrs. Fry ! I like your name ! 
 
 It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing 
 In daily act round Charity's great flame — 
 
 I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing 
 Good Mrs. Fry ! I like the placid claim 
 
 You make to Christianity — professing 
 Love, and good woi^ks — of course you buy of Barton, 
 Beside the young fry' s booksellers, Friend Darton ! 
 
 I like good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute — 
 Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport — 
 
 I should have said, that 2vear, the sober suit 
 
 Shaped like a court dress — but for heaven's court. 
 
 I like your sisters too — sweet Rachel's fruit — 
 Protestant nuns ! I like their stiff support 
 
 Of virtue — and I like to see them clad 
 
 With such a difference — just like good from bad ! 
 
 I like the sober colors — not the west ; 
 
 Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow — 
 
A FraENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 411 
 
 Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet — 
 
 In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go — 
 
 The others are a chaste, severer set, 
 
 In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go — 
 
 They 're moral standards, to know Chri.stians hy — 
 
 In short, they are your colors, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 As for the naughty tinges of the prism — 
 
 Crimson's the cruel uniform of war — 
 Blue — hue of brimstone ! minds no catechism ; 
 
 And green is young and gay — not noted for 
 Goodness, or gravity, or quietism, 
 
 Till it is saddened down to tea-green, or 
 Olive — and purple 's given to wine, I guess ; 
 And yelloAY is a convict by its dress ! 
 
 They 're all the devil's liveries, that men 
 
 And women wear in servitude to sin — 
 But how v>-ill they come oif, poor motleys, when 
 
 Sin's wages are paid down, and they stand in ' 
 The Evil presence ! You and I know, then 
 
 How all the party colors will begin 
 To part — the Pittite hues will sadden there, 
 Whereas the Foxite shades will all show fair ! 
 
 Witness their goodly labors one by one ! 
 
 Russet makes garments for the needy poor-^ 
 Dove-color preaches love to all — and dun 
 
 Calls every day at Charity's street-door — 
 Brown studies Scripture, and bids women shuu 
 
 All gaudy furnishing — olive doth pour 
 Oil into wounds : and drab and slate supply 
 Scholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
412 A FRIEXDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 
 
 Well ! Heaven forbid that I should discommend 
 
 The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavor ! 
 When all persuasions in your praises blend — 
 
 The Methodist's creed and cry are. Fry forever ! 
 No — I will be your friend — and, like a friend. 
 
 Point out your very worst defect — Nav, never 
 Start at that word ! But I iniist ask you why 
 You keep your school in Newgate, Mrs. Fry ? 
 
 Too well I know the price our mother Eve 
 
 Paid for her schoolmg : but must all her daughters 
 
 Commit a petty larceny, and thieve — 
 
 Pay down a crime for '• entrance'' to your '■• quarter s?'"' 
 
 Your classes may increase, but I must grieve 
 Over your pupils at their bread and waters ! 
 
 Oh, tho' it cost you rent — (and rooms run high) 
 
 Keep your school out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 save the vulgar soul before it 's spoiled ! 
 
 Set up your mounted sign without the gate — 
 And there inform the mind before 'tis soiled ! 
 
 'Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate ! 
 Nay, if you would not have your labors foiled, 
 
 Take it inclining towards a virtuous state, 
 Not prostrate and laid flat — else, woman meek ! 
 The upright pencil Avill ])ut hop and shriek ! 
 
 Ah, who can tell how hard it is to drain 
 The evil spirit from the heart it preys in — 
 
 To bring sobriety to life again. 
 
 Choked with the vile Anacreontic raisin — 
 
 To wash Black Betty when her black's ingrain — 
 To stick a moral lacquer on ^loll Brazen, 
 
 Of Suky Tawdry's habits to deprive her ; 
 
 To tame the wild-fowl ways of Jenny Diver ! 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 413 
 
 Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teach 
 Miss Nancy DaAvson on her bed of straw — 
 
 To make Long Sal sew up the endless breach 
 
 She made in manners — to write heaven's own law 
 
 On hearts of granite. — Nay, how hard to preach, 
 In cells, that are not memory's — to draw 
 
 The moral thread, thro' the immoral eye 
 
 Of blunt Whitechai^el natures, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 In vain you teach them baby-work within : 
 
 'Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime : 
 'Tis but a tedious darning of old sin — 
 
 Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time — 
 It is too late for scouring to begin 
 
 TMien virtue 's ravelled out, when all the prime 
 Is worn away, and nothing sound remains ; 
 You "11 fret the fabric out before the stains I 
 
 I like your chocolate, good Mistress Fry ! 
 
 I like your cookery in every way ; 
 I like your shrove-tide service and supply ; 
 
 I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play ; 
 I like the pity in your full-brimmed eye ; 
 
 I like your carriage, and your silken gray, 
 Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaxjhing ; 
 But I don't like your Newgatory teaching. 
 
 Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! Repair 
 xibroad, and find your pupils in the streets. 
 
 0, come abroad into the wholesome air, 
 
 And take your moral place, before Sin seats 
 
 Her wicked self in the Professor's chair. 
 
 Suppose some morals raw ! the true receipt 's 
 
 To dress them in the pan, but do not try 
 
 To cook them in the fii'e, good ^Irs. Fry ! 
 
■114 A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 
 
 Put on jour decent bonnet, and come out ! 
 
 Good lack ! the ancients did not set up schools 
 In jail^3ut at the Porch ! hinting, no doubt, 
 
 That Vice should have a lesson in the rules 
 Before 't Tvas whipt by law. — O come about, 
 
 Good Mrs. Frj ! and set up forms and stools 
 All down the Old Bailej, and thro' Newgate-street, 
 But not in Mr. "VVontner's proper seat ! 
 
 Teach Lady Barrjmore, if, teaching, you 
 
 That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolor ; 
 
 Teach her it is not virtue to pursue 
 Ruin of blue, or any other color ; 
 
 Teach her it is not Virtue's crown to rue, 
 
 JMonth after month, the unpaid drunken dollar ; 
 
 Teach her that " flooring Charleys" is a game 
 
 Unworthy one that bears a Christian name. 
 
 come and teach our children — that ar'n't ours — 
 That heaven's straight pathway is a narrow way, 
 
 Not Broad St. Giles's, where fierce Sin devours 
 Children, like Time — or rather they both prey 
 
 On youth together — meanwhile Newgate low'rs 
 Even like a black cloud at the close of day, 
 
 To shut them out fi'om any more blue sky : 
 
 Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 You are not nice — go into their retreats, 
 
 And make them Quakers, if you will. — 'Twere best 
 They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats ; 
 
 That they had hats u^ith brims — that they were drest 
 In garbs without lappels — ^chan shame the streets 
 
 With so much raggedness. — You may invest 
 Much cash this way — but it will cost its price, 
 To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice ! 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 41- 
 
 In brief — Oh teach the child its moral rote, 
 
 Xot in the way from which "t will not depart — 
 
 But out — out — out ! Oh, bid it walk remote ! 
 And if the skies are closed against the smart. 
 
 Even let him wear the single-breasted coat, 
 For that ensureth singleness of heart. — 
 
 Do what jou will, his every want supply, 
 
 Keep him — but out of Newgate, ^Irs. Fry ! 
 
ODE 
 
 TO EICHAED MAETIX, ESQUIEE, 
 
 M.P. FOB GAL-^-AT.* 
 "Jiartm, in this, has proved himself a very good Mau!" — Boxiaxa. 
 
 How many sing of vars, 
 
 Of Greek and Trojan jars — 
 
 The butcheries of men 1 
 The Muse hath a •• Perpetual Ruby Pen !"' 
 Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill : 
 
 But no one sings the man 
 
 That, like a pelican. 
 Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill! 
 
 Thou Wilberforce of hacks ! 
 
 Of whites as well as blacks, 
 
 Pyebald and dapple grey, 
 
 Chestnut and bay — 
 
 No poet's eulogy thy name adorns !• 
 
 But oxen, from the fens, 
 
 Sheep — in their pens. 
 Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns ! 
 Thou art sung on brutal pipes ! 
 
 Drovers may curse thee, 
 
 Knackers asperse thee, 
 
ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQ. 
 
 417 
 
 And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel -wipes ; 
 But the old horse neighs thee, 
 And zebras praise thee, 
 Asses, I mean — that have as many stripes ! 
 
 Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear, 
 In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ — 
 Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air ! 
 Bullocks don't wear 
 Oxide of iron ! 
 The cruel Jarvy thou hast summoned oft, 
 Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo, 
 That thought his horse the courser of the two — 
 
 Whilst Swift smiled down aloft ! — 
 worthy pair ! for this, when ye inhabit 
 Bodies of birds — (if so the spirit shifts 
 From flesh to feather) — when the clown uplifts 
 His hands against the sparrows nest, to grab it — 
 He shall not harm the ]\Iartins and the Swifts! 
 
 Ah ! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanced 
 The horse ! — and humbled biped man like Plato ! 
 But now he "s dead, the charger is mischanced — 
 Gone backward in the world — and not advanced — 
 
 Remember Cato! 
 Swift was the horse's champion — not the King's 
 
 Whom Southey sings, 
 
 Mounted on Pegasus — would he were thrown ! 
 
 He '11 wear that ancient hackney to the bone, 
 
 Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things ! 
 
 Ah well-a-day ! the ancients did not use 
 
 Their steeds so cruelly ! — let it debar men 
 
 From wonted rowelling and whip's abuse — 
 
 Look at the ancients' Muse ! 
 
 Look at their Carmen ! 
 18* 
 
418 
 
 ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQ. 
 
 0, Martin ! how thine eye — 
 That one would think had put aside its lashes — 
 
 That can't bear gashes 
 Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy 
 That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane — 
 For there 's a nag the crows have picked for victual, 
 Or some man painted in a bloody vein — 
 Gods ! is there no Horse-spital ! 
 That such raw shows must sicken the humane ! 
 Sure Mr. Whittle 
 Loves thee but little. 
 To let that poor horse linger in his /jane ! 
 
 l3uikl a Brookes's Theatre for horses ! 
 wipe away the national reproach — 
 
 And find a decent Vulture for their corses ! 
 And in thy funeral track 
 Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach ! 
 
 Steeds that confess "the luxury of ?ro/"' 
 True mourning steeds, in no extempore black, 
 
 And many a wretched hack 
 Shall sorrow for thee— sore vrith kick and blow 
 And bloody gash — it is the Indian knack — 
 (Save that the savage is his ovrn tormentor) — 
 Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf — 
 The biped woe the quadruped shall enter, 
 
 And ISIan and Horse go half and half, 
 As if their griefs met in a common Centaur ! 
 
ODE 
 TO THE GREAT UXKN0WI7. 
 
 " breathe not his name !" — Mooee. 
 
 Thou Great Unknown ! 
 I do not mean Eternity, nor Death, 
 
 That vast incog ! 
 For I suppose thou hast a living breath, 
 Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown, 
 
 Thoa man of fug ! 
 Parent of many children — child of none ! 
 
 Nobody's son I 
 Nobody's daughter — but a parent still ! 
 Still but an ostrich parent of a batch 
 Of orphan eggs — left to the world to hatch. 
 
 Superlative Nil I 
 A vox and nothing more — yet not Vauxhall ; 
 A head in papers, yet without a curl ! 
 
 Not the Invisible Girl ! 
 No hand — but a hand-writing on a wall — 
 
 A popular nonentity, 
 Still called the same — without identity ! 
 
 A lai-k, heard out of sight — ■ 
 A nothing shined upon — in^^sibly bright, 
 
 " Dark with excess of light!" 
 
420 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKIfOWN. 
 
 Constable's literary John-a-nokes — 
 The real Scottish wizard — and not which, 
 Nobodj — in a niche ; 
 Every one's hoax ! 
 Maybe Sir "Walter Scott— 
 Perhaps not ! 
 Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks ? 
 
 Thou — whom the second-sighted never saw, 
 The Master Fiction of fictitious history ! 
 
 Chief Xong tong paw ! 
 No mister in the world — and yet all mystery ! 
 The '-tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane — 
 A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain — 
 A man of Magic — yet no talisman ! 
 A man of clair obscure — not he o' the moon ! 
 
 A star — at noon. 
 A non-descriptus in a caravan, 
 A private — of no corps — a northern light 
 In a dark lantern — Bogie in a crape — 
 A figure — but no shape ; 
 A vizor — and no knight : 
 The real abstract hero of the ao-e ; 
 The staple Stranger of the stage ; 
 A Some One made in every man's presumption. 
 Frankenstein's monster — but instinct with gumption ; 
 Another strange state captive in the north, 
 Constable-guarded in an iron mask — 
 Still let me ask. 
 Hast thou no silver-platter, 
 No door-plate, or no card — or some such matter, 
 To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth ? 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 421 
 
 Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger 
 Of Curiosity with airy gammon ! 
 Thou mystery-monger, 
 Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon, 
 This people buy and can't make head or tail of it ; 
 (Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it ;) 
 Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical, 
 That lay their proper bodies on the shelf — 
 Keeping thyself so truly to thyself. 
 
 Thou Zimmerman made practical ! 
 Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style, 
 
 That, like the Nile, 
 Hideth its source wherever it is bred, 
 
 But still keeps disemboguing 
 
 (Not disembroguing) 
 Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head ! 
 Thou disembodied author — not yet dead — 
 The whole world's literary Absentee ! 
 
 Ah ! wherefore hast thou fled. 
 Thou learned Nemo — wise to a degree, 
 
 Anonymous L. L. D. ! 
 
 Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang 
 That do — and inquests cannot say who did it ! 
 
 Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang ? 
 Hast thou made gravy of Weare's watch — or hid it? 
 Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber ? Heaven forbid it ! 
 
 I should be very loth to see thee hang ! 
 I hope thou hast an alibi well planned, 
 An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand. 
 
 Tho' thou hast newly turned thy private bolt on 
 The curiosity of all invaders — 
 
 I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton, 
 
422 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 
 
 ^Mio knows a little of the Holy Laiul^ 
 
 Writing thj next new novel — The Crusaders ! 
 
 Perhaps thou wert even born 
 To be Unknown. — Perhaps hung, some foggj mom, 
 At Captain Coram' s charitable wicket, 
 
 Pinned to a ticket 
 That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing 
 The future great unmentionable being. — 
 
 Perhaps thou hast ridden 
 A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back, 
 Like Chatterton, and found a dustj pack 
 
 Of Rowlej novels in an old chest hidden ; 
 A little hoard of clever simulation, 
 
 That took the town — and Constable has bidden 
 Some hundred pounds for a continuation — 
 To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation. 
 
 I liked thy "Waverlej — first of thy breeding ; 
 
 I liked its modest '"sixty years ago,"' 
 As if it was not meant for ases' readings. 
 
 I dont like Ivanhoe, 
 Tho' Dymoke does — it makes him think of chattering 
 
 In ii'on overalls before the king. 
 Secure from battering, to ladies flattering. 
 
 Tuning his challenge to the gauntlet's ring — 
 Oh better far than all that anvil clano; 
 
 It was to hear thee touch the famous strino- 
 Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang, 
 Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan, 
 Like Sagittarian Pan ! 
 
 I like Guy }*Iannering — but not that sham son 
 Of Brown. — I like that literary Sampson, 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 423 
 
 Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Person. 
 I like Dirk Ilatteraick, that rough sea Orson 
 
 That slew the Guager : 
 And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major ; 
 And [Nlerrilies, young Bertram's old defender, 
 
 That Scottish Witch of Endor, 
 That doomed thy fame. She was the Witch. I take it, 
 To tell a crreat man's fortune — or to make it ! 
 
 I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on, 
 
 He makes me think of Mr. Britton, 
 AMio has — or had — within his garden wall, 
 A miniature Stone Henge, so A'ery small 
 
 The sparrows find it difiicult to sit on ; 
 And Dousterswivel, like Poyais' M"Gregor ; 
 And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar, 
 
 Painted so cleverly, 
 I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly ! 
 I like thy Barber — him that fii'ed the Beacon — 
 But that 's a tender subject now to speak on! 
 
 I like long-armed Rob Roy. — His very channs 
 Fashioned him for renown ! — In sad sincerity, 
 
 The man that robs or writes must have long arms, 
 If he "s to hand his deeds down to posterity ! 
 Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity, 
 Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more) 
 
 Bearing the name she bore, 
 A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy ! 
 But Roys can never die — why else, in verity, 
 Is Paris echoing with •• Vive le Roy !" 
 
 Av. Rob shall live a<z;ain. and deathless Di 
 
424 ODE TO THE GREAT TXKXOWN. 
 
 Vernon, of course, shall often live again — 
 WMlst there 's a stone in Newgate, or a chain, 
 
 Who can pass bj 
 Nor feel the Thief's in prison and at hand? 
 There be Old Bailey Jarvjs on the stand ! 
 
 I like thj Landlord's Tales ! — I like that Idol 
 Of love and Lammermoor — the blue-eyed maid 
 That led to church the mounted cavalcade, 
 
 And then pulled up with such a bloody bridal ! 
 Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches — 
 I like the family (not silver) branches 
 That hold the tapers 
 
 To light the serious legend of Montrose. — 
 I like ]M-Aulay's second-sighted vapors, 
 As if he could not walk or talk alone. 
 Without the De\al — or the Great Unknown — 
 
 Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows ! 
 
 I like St. Leonard's Lily — cbenched with dew .' 
 I like thy Vision of the Covenanters, 
 That bloody-minded Graham shot and slew. 
 I like the battle lost and won ; 
 The hurly burly 's bravely done, 
 The warlike gallops and the warlike canters ! 
 I like that girded chieftain of the ranters, 
 Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple, 
 With one eye on his sword, 
 And one upon the Word — 
 How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel ! 
 I like stern Claverhouse, though he doth dapple 
 His raven steed with blood of many a corse — 
 I like dear ]\Irs. Headrigg, that unravels 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UXKNOAVN. 425 
 
 Her texts of Scrijiture on a trotting horse — 
 She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels ! 
 
 I like thj Kenil-worth — but I 'm not going 
 
 To take a Retrospective Re-Review 
 Of all thy dainty novels — merely showing 
 
 The old familiar faces of a few, 
 The question to renew, 
 How thou canst leave such deeds without a name, 
 Forego the unclaimed dividends of fame, 
 Forego the smiles of literary houris — 
 Mid Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise, 
 
 And all the Carse of Gowi-ie's, 
 ^Vhen thou might'st have thy statue in Cromarty — 
 
 "Or see thy image on Italian trays, 
 Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparte, 
 
 Be painted by the Titian of R. A.'s, 
 Or vie in sign-boards with the Royal Guelph ! 
 
 P'rhaps have thy bustset cheek by jowl withHomer's, 
 P'rhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself 
 
 To other Englands Avith Australian roamers — 
 ISIayhap, in Literary Owhyhee 
 Displace the native wooden gods, or be 
 The China-Lar of a Canadian shelf ? 
 
 It is not modesty that bids thee hide — 
 She never wastes her 1>lushes out of sight : 
 It is not to innate 
 The world's decision, for thy fame is tried — 
 And tliy fair deeds are scattered far and wide, 
 Even royal heads are with thy readers reckoned — 
 From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars 
 In crimson collai's, 
 
426 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 
 
 And learned Serjeants in the Forty- Second ! 
 Whither bj land or sea art thou not beckoned ?~ 
 Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth, 
 Defying distance and its dim control ; 
 
 Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckoned worth 
 A brace of Miltons for capacious soul — 
 
 Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north, 
 And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole ! 
 
 Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp, 
 With such a giant genius at command, ■ 
 
 For ever at thy stamp, 
 To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land, 
 When haply thou might' st ask the pearly hand 
 Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter, 
 
 Tho' princes sought her. 
 And lead her in procession hymeneal. 
 Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal ! 
 Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf, 
 Enveloped in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs ? 
 Why, but because thou art some puny Dwarf, 
 Some hopeless Imp, like Riquet Avith the Tuft, 
 Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuffed. 
 Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs ? 
 
 What in this masking age 
 Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy ? 
 
 What but the critic's page ? 
 One hath a cast, he hides from the workVs eye; 
 Another hath a wen — he won't show where ; 
 
 A third has sandy hair, 
 A hunch upon his back, or legs awry. 
 Things for a vile reviewer to espy ! 
 Another has a mangel-wurzel nose — 
 
ODE TO THE OIIEAT UNKNOWN. 427 
 
 Finallj, this is dimpled, 
 Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled, 
 Things for a monthly critic to expose — 
 Xaj, what is thy own case — that being small, 
 Thou chooscst to be nobody at all ! 
 
 AVell, thou art prudent, with such puny bones — 
 E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf, 
 That shadowy revelation of thyself — 
 To build thee a small hut of haunted stones — 
 For certainly the first pernicious man 
 That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee 
 In some vile literary caravan — 
 Shown for a shilling 
 Would be thy killing. 
 Think of Crachami's miserable span ! 
 No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in 
 
 Than there it fell in — 
 But when she felt herself a show, she tried 
 To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf ! and died ! 
 
 since it was thy fortune to be born 
 A dwarf on some Scotch Inch, and then to flinch 
 From all the Gog-like jostle of great men, 
 
 Still with thy small crow pen 
 Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn — 
 Still Scottish story daintily adorn. 
 
 Be still a shade — and when this age is fled. 
 When we poor sons and daughters of reality 
 
 Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead, 
 And Time destroys our mottoes of morality — 
 The lithographic hand of Old Mortality 
 Shall still restore thy eml)lem on the stone, 
 
 A featureless death's head. 
 And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown ! 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO MR. DYMOKE,' 
 
 THE CHAMPIOX OF ENGLAND. 
 " Anna Tirumque cano!" — Yikgil. 
 
 Mr. Dymoke ! Sir Knight ! if I may be so bold — 
 (I 'm a poor simple gentleman just come to town.) 
 
 Is your armor put by, like the sheep in a fold ? — 
 
 Is your gauntlet ta'en up, which you lately flung down? 
 
 Are you — ayIio that day rode so mailed and admired, 
 
 Now sitting at ease in a library chair ? 
 Have you sent back to Astley the war-horse you hired, 
 
 With a cheque upon Chambers to settle the fare ? 
 
 What's become of the cup? Great tin-plate worker ? say? 
 
 Cup and ball is a game which some people deem fiin ! 
 Oh ! three fjolden balls have n't lured you to play 
 
 Rather false, Mr. D., to all pledges but one? 
 
 How defunct is the show that w-as chivalry's mimic ! 
 
 The breast-plate — the feathers — the gallant array ! 
 So fades, so grows dim, and so dies, Mr. Dymoke ! 
 
 The day of brass breeches ! as Wordsworth would say ! 
 
 Perchance in some village remote, with a cot, 
 
 And a cow, and a pig, and a barn-door, and all ; — 
 
 You show to the parish that peace is your lot, 
 
 And plenty — tho' absent from Westminster Hall ! 
 
ODE TO MR. DY.MOKE. 420 
 
 And of course you turn every accoutrement now 
 
 To its separate use, that your wants may be well met : — 
 
 You toss in your breast-plate your pancakes, and grow 
 A salad of mustard and cress in your helmet. 
 
 And you delve the fresh earth with your falchion, less bright 
 Smce hung up in sloth fi-om its "Westmmster task ; — 
 
 And you bake your own bread in your tin ; and, Sir Knight, 
 Instead of your brow, put your beer in the casque 1 
 
 How delightful to sit by your beans and your peas. 
 
 With a goblet of gooseberry gallantly clutched, 
 And chat of the blood that had deluged tlie Pleas. 
 
 And drenched the King's Bench— if the glove had been 
 touched ! 
 
 If Sir Columbine Daniel, with knightly pretensions, 
 
 Had snatched your •'• best doe,'"— he "d have flooded the 
 floor ; — 
 
 Nor would even the best of his crafty inventions, 
 
 •'• Life Preservers," have floated him out of his gore ! 
 
 Oh, you and yotir horse ! what a couple was there ! 
 
 The man and his backer — to win a great fight ! 
 Thotigh the trumpet was loud — you "d an undisturbed air ! 
 
 And the nag snuffed the feast and the fray sans affright 1 
 
 Yet strange was the course which the good Cato bore 
 Vrhen he waddled tail-wise with the cup to his stall :— 
 
 For though his departure was at the front door. 
 
 Still he went the back way out of Westmmster Hall. 
 
 Ho went — and 't would puzzle historians to say. 
 
 When they trust Time's conveyance to carry your mail— 
 
 "\^'hether caution or courage inspired him that day, 
 For, though he retreated, he never turned tail. 
 
430 ODE TO MR. DYMOKE. 
 
 By my life, lie 's a wonderful charger '.—The best ! 
 
 Though not for a Parthian corps '.—yet for you ! — 
 Distinguished alike at a fray and a feast, 
 
 What a Horse for a grand Retrospective Review ! 
 
 A\liat a creature to keep a hot warrior cool 
 
 ^Vhen the sun's in the face, and the shade's far aloof! 
 
 What a tail-piece for Bewick !— or pyebald for Poole, 
 To bear him in safety from Elliston"s hoof! 
 
 Well ; hail to Old Cato ! the hero of scenes ! 
 
 May Astley or age ne'er his comforts abridge ; — 
 Oh, long may he munch Amphitheatre beans, 
 
 W^ell " pent up in Utica" over the Bridge ! 
 
 And to you, Mr. Dymoke, Cribb's rival, I keep 
 
 Wishing all country pleasures, the bravest and best ! 
 
 And oh ! when you come to the Hummums to sleep, 
 May you lie " like a warrior taking his rest!" 
 
ODE 
 TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SEXIOR.' 
 
 "This fellows wise enough to play the fool, 
 And to do that weU craves a kind of wit,"' 
 
 Joseph 1 they say thou "st left the stage, 
 
 To toddle down the hill of life, 
 And taste the flannelled ease of age. 
 
 Apart from pantomimic strife — 
 "Retired — (for Young ^vould call it so) — 
 The Tvorld shut out"' — in Pleasant Row 1 
 
 And hast thou really washed at last 
 
 From each white cheek the red half moon ! 
 
 And all thy public Clownship cast, 
 To play the private Pantaloon? 
 
 All youth— all ages— yet to be 
 
 Shall have a heavy miss of thee ! 
 
 Thou didst not preach to make us wise — 
 Thou hadst no finger in our schooling — 
 
 Thou didst not "lure us to the skies" "- 
 Thy simple, simple trade was — Fooling ! 
 
 And yet, Heaven knows ! we could— we can 
 
 Much •• better spare a l^etter man I"' 
 
432 ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 
 
 Oh, tad it pleased the gout to take 
 The reverend Crolj from the stage. 
 
 Or Southej, for our quiet's sake, 
 Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage. 
 
 Or, damme ! namby pamby Poole — 
 
 Or any other clown or fool ! 
 
 Go, Dibdin — all that bear the name. 
 Go Byway Highway man ! go ! go ! 
 
 Go, Skeffy — man of painted fame, 
 But leave thy partner, painted Joe ! 
 
 I could bear Kirby on the wane, 
 
 Or Signer Paulo with a sprain ! 
 
 Had Joseph AVilfred Parkins made 
 
 His gray hairs scarce in private peace — 
 
 Had "Waithman sought a rural shade — 
 Or Cobbett ta'en a turnpike lease — 
 
 Or Lisle Bowles gone to Balaam Hill — 
 
 I think I could be cheerful still ! 
 
 Had jMedwin left off, to his praise. 
 Dead lion kicking, like — a friend ! — 
 
 Had long, long Irving gone his ways. 
 To muse on death at Ponder' s End — 
 
 Or Lady ISIorgan taken leave 
 
 Of Letters — still I might not grieve ! 
 
 But, Joseph — every body's Jo ! — 
 Is gone — and grieve I will and must ! 
 
 As Hamlet did for Yorick, so 
 
 Will I for thee, (tho' not yet dust,) 
 
 And talk as he did when he missed 
 
 The kissincr-crust that ho had kissed ! 
 
ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 
 
 Ah, where is now thj rolling head ! 
 
 Thy winking, reeling, drunken ejes, 
 (As old Catullus would have said,) 
 
 Thy oven-mouth, that swallowed pies — 
 Enormous hung-er — monstrous drouth ! 
 Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth ! 
 
 Ah, where thy ears, so often cuffed ! — 
 Thy funny, flapping, filching hands ! — 
 
 Thy partridge body, always stuffed 
 
 With waifs, and strays, and contrabands ! — 
 
 Thy foot — like Berkeley's Foote — for why? 
 
 'T was often made to wipe an eye ! 
 
 Ah, where thy legs — that witty pair 
 
 For " great wits jump"— and so did they.-; 
 
 Lord ! how they leaped in lamp-light air ! 
 Capered — and bounced — and strode away !— .' 
 
 That years should tame the legs — alack I 
 
 I 're seen spring thro' an Almanack ! 
 
 But bounds will have their bound — the shocks 
 Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes ; 
 
 And those that frisked in silken clocks 
 May look to limp in fleecy hose — 
 
 One only — (Champion of the ring) 
 
 Could ever make his Wintei' — SjDring ! 
 
 And gout, that owns no odds between 
 The toe of Czar and toe of Clo^vn, 
 
 "Will visit — but I did not mean 
 To moralize, though I am grown 
 
 Thus sad— Thy going seemed to beat 
 
 A mufiled drum for Fun's retreat ! 
 19 
 
 433 
 
434 ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 
 
 And, may be — "tis no time to smother 
 A sigh, when two prime wags of London, 
 
 Are gone — thou, Joseph, one — the other 
 A Joe ! — " sic transit gloria Mundenr'' 
 
 A third departure some insist on — 
 
 Stage-apoplexy threatens Liston I — 
 
 Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep 
 "With ancient '• Dozey'- to the dregs — 
 
 Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep, 
 And put a hatchment o'er her eggs ! 
 
 Let Farley weep — for ^Magics man 
 
 Is gone — his Christmas Caliban ! 
 
 Let Kemble, Forbes, and "Willet rain. 
 As tho' they walked behind thy bier — 
 
 For since thou wilt not play again. 
 What matters — if in heaven or here ! 
 
 Or in thy grave, or in thy bed I — 
 
 There's Quick, might just as well Ije dead! 
 
 Oh, how will thy departure cloud 
 The lamp-light of the little breast ! 
 
 The Christmas child will grieve aloud 
 To miss his broadest friend and best — 
 
 Poor urchin ! what avails to him 
 
 The cold New Monthly's Ghost of Grimmi 
 
 For who like thee could ever stride 
 Some dozen paces to the mile I — 
 
 The motley, medley coach provide — 
 Or like Joe Frankenstein compile 
 
 The vegetable man complete ! — 
 
 A proper Cocent Garden feat ! 
 
ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 435 
 
 Oh, who like thee could ever drink. 
 
 Or eat — swill — swallow — bolt — and choke! 
 Nod, weep, and hiccup — sneeze and wink? — 
 
 Thj very yawn Avas quite a joke ! 
 Tho' Joseph Junior acts not ill, 
 " There 's no Fool like the old Fool" still I 
 
 Joseph, farewell ! dear funny Joe ! 
 
 We met Avith mirth — Ave part in pain ! 
 For many a long, long year must go, 
 
 Ere Fun can see thy like again — 
 For Nature does not keep great stores 
 Of perfect Clowns — that are not Boors ! 
 
 J 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO SYLVA^X'S URBAX, ESQUIRE/ 
 
 EDITOR OF THE GEXTLEIIAX'S MAGAZINT:. 
 
 "Dost thou not suspect ray rears?" 
 
 Mccu Ado About Nothin&. 
 
 Oh ! Mr. Urban ! never must thou lurch 
 A sober age made serious drunk bj thee ; 
 
 Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church, 
 And nurse thy little bald Biography. 
 
 Oh, my Sylvanus I vrhat a heart is thine ! 
 
 And what a page attends thee ! Long may I 
 Hang in demure confrision oer each line 
 
 That asks thy little C|uestions with a sigh ! 
 
 Old tottering years have nodded to their falls, 
 Like pensioners that creep about and die ; — 
 
 But thou, Old Parr of periodicals, 
 Livest in monthly immortality I 
 
 ■jHow sweet ! — as Byron of his infant said — 
 '• Knowledge of objects"" in thine eye to trace; 
 
 To see the mild no-meanings of thy head. 
 Taking a quiet nap upon thy face ! 
 
 How dear through thy Obituary to roam. 
 
 And not a name of any name to catch ! 
 To meet tr.y Critic-ism walking home. 
 
 Averse from rows, and never callins; ■• Watch I" 
 
ADDRESS TO SYLVAXUS VRBAX, ESQ. 437 
 
 Rich is thj page in soporific thing? — 
 Composing compositions — lulling men — 
 
 Faded old posies of unburied rings — 
 
 Confessions dozing from an opiate pen : — 
 
 Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived — 
 Deaths of good people that have really died — 
 
 Parishioners — hatched — husbanded — and wived, 
 Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side bj side ! 
 
 The sacred query —the remote response — 
 
 The march of serious minds, extremely slow — 
 
 The graver's cut at some right aged sconce, 
 Famous for nothing many years ago 1 
 
 B. asks of C. if Milton e'er did write 
 
 '' Comus," obscured beneath some Ludlow lid;— 
 And C, next month, an answer doth indite, 
 
 Informing B. that Mr. ]SIilton did ! 
 
 X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea, 
 Caught upon !\Iartin Luther years agone ; 
 
 And ]Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, 
 Long dead, that gathered honey for King John. 
 
 There is no end of thee — there is no end, 
 
 Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C. D-merits ! 
 Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend, 
 
 And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets ! 
 
 Go on, Sylvanus ! — Bear a wary eye, 
 
 The churches cannot yet be quite run out ! 
 
 Some parislies must yet have been passed by — 
 There 's Bullock-Smithy has a church no doubt ! 
 
 i_ 
 
438 ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ. 
 
 Go on — and close the eyes of distant ages ! 
 
 Nourish the names of the undoubted dead ! 
 So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages, 
 
 Heavy and lively, though but seldom red. 
 
 Go on ! and thrive ! Demurest of odd fellows ! 
 
 Bottling up dullness in an ancient binn ! 
 Still live ! still prose ! continue still to tell us 
 
 Old truths ! no strangers, though we take them in ! 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY." 
 
 "Archer. IIow many arc tbero, Scrub T 
 Scrub. Five and forty, Sir." — Beaux Steatagem. 
 "For shame — let the linen alone !"" — Mercy Wives of 'Windsob. 
 
 Mr. Scrub — INIr. Slop — or whoever jou be ! 
 
 The Cock of Steam Laundries — the head Patentee 
 
 Of Associate Cleansers — Chief founder and prime 
 
 Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime — 
 
 Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety — 
 
 That make washing public— and wash in society — 
 
 lend me your ear ! if that ear can forego, 
 
 For a moment, the music that bubbles below — 
 
 From your new Surrey Geisers all foaming and hot — 
 
 That soft " simmer s sang" so endeared to the Scot — 
 
 If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger- 
 
 If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger, 
 
 Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub — 
 
 wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub — 
 
 And lend me your ear— Let me modestly plead 
 
 For a race that your labors may soon supersede — 
 
 For a race that, now washing no living aifords — 
 
 Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards, 
 
 Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease, 
 
 Not with bread in the funds — or investments of cheese — 
 
440 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 
 
 But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream. 
 
 Which the sun has sucked up into vapor and steam. 
 
 Ah, look at the Laundress, before jou begrudge 
 
 Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge — 
 
 "When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins, 
 
 She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens, 
 
 And beginneth her toil while the morn is still gray, 
 
 As if she was washing the night into day — 
 
 Not with sleeker or rosier finoicrs Aurora 
 
 Beginneth to scatter the dew-drops before her ; 
 
 Not Venus that rose from the billow so early, 
 
 Looked down on the foam with a forehead more pearly — 
 
 Her head is involved in an aerial mist, 
 
 And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist ; 
 
 Her visage glows warm with the ardor of duty ; 
 
 She 's Industry's moral — she 's all moral beauty ! 
 
 Growing brighter and brighter at every ruli — 
 
 Would any man ruin her ? — No, JSIr. Scrub ! 
 
 No man that is manly would work her mishap — 
 
 No man that is manly would covet her cap — 
 
 Nor her apron— her hose— nor her gown made of stufif — 
 
 Nor her gin — nor her tea— nor her wet pinch of snuff! 
 
 Alas ! so she thought — but that slippery hope 
 
 Has betrayed her — as tho' she had trod on her soap ! 
 
 And she — whose sujjport— like tho fishes that fly, 
 
 Was to have her fins v/et, must now drop from her sky — 
 
 She whose living it was, and a part of her fare, 
 
 To be damped once a day, like the great white sea bear, 
 
 With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop — 
 
 Quite a living absorbent that revelled in slop — 
 
 She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand. 
 
 And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land ! 
 
ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 441 
 
 Lo, then, the poor Laundress, all wretched she stands, 
 Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands ! 
 All haggard and pinched, going down in life's vale, 
 "With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-dalc ! 
 No smoke from her flue — and no steam from her pane, 
 There once she watched heaven, fearing God and the rain — 
 Or gazed o'er her bleach-field so foirlj engrossed, 
 Till the lines wandered idle from pillar to post ! 
 Ah, where are the playful young pinners — ah, -where 
 The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air — 
 The brisk waltzing stockings — the white and the black, 
 That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack — 
 The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinned. 
 That blew into shape, and embodied the wind ! 
 There was white on the grass — there was white on the spray — - 
 Her garden — it looked like a garden of ^-lay ! 
 But now all is dark — not a shirt 's on a shrub — 
 You 've ruined her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub ! 
 You 've ruined her custom — now families drop her — 
 From her silver reduced — nay, reduced from her copper ! 
 The last of her washing is done at her eye, 
 One poor little kerchief that never gets dry ! 
 From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth, 
 And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth — 
 But her children come round her as victuals grow scant, 
 And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want — 
 When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed, 
 And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead. 
 And even its pearlashes laid in the grave — 
 Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave, 
 And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub 
 Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub — 
 Need you wonder she curses your bones, jNlr. Scrub ? 
 19* 
 
442 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 
 
 Need you wonder, when steam has deprived her of bread, 
 If she prays that the evil may visit your head — 
 Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee — 
 If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city — 
 In short, not to mention all plagues without number, 
 If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber ! 
 
 Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drouth and despair, 
 When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare — 
 When the sum of her suds might be summed in a bowl, 
 And the rusty cold iron quite entered her soul — 
 When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye 
 Had caught " 'he C^cV Laundresses' Coach" going by, 
 Or her lines that iiuug idle, to waste the fine weather, 
 And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together, 
 In a lather of passion that frothed as it rose, 
 Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose. 
 On her sheet — if a &neet were still left her — to write. 
 Some remonstrance like this then, p*^- ' ^ 'Ce, saw the light — 
 
 LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE 
 
 FROM BRIDGET JONES 
 
 TO THE NOBLKMKJT AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COiOOnXS, 
 
 It 's a shame, so it is — men can't Let alone 
 
 Jobs as is Woman's right to do — and go about there 
 
 Own — 
 Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools 
 Eor washing to sit Up — and push the Old Tubs from their 
 
 stools ! 
 But your just like the Raddicals — for upsetting of the 
 
 Sudds 
 
ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 443 
 
 When the world wagged well enufF — and Wommen washed 
 
 your old dirty duds, 
 I 'm Certain sure Enuft'your Ann Sisters had no steem In-, 
 
 dians. that's Flat — i 
 
 But I warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentle- 
 
 manny for all that — 
 I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle 
 I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable 
 
 period back when I were little, 
 And they Said it went with Stecm — But that was a joke ! 
 For I never see none come of it — that "s out of it — but only 
 
 sum Smoak — 
 And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you 
 
 never had luit Two 
 In my time to draw you About to Fairs — and hang you, 
 
 you know that 's true ! 
 And for All your fine Perspectuses — howsomever you be- 
 
 which 'em, 
 Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at 
 
 Mitchum, 
 Thof I cant sea What Prospectivcs and washing has with 
 
 one another to Do — 
 It ant as if a Birdseye Ilankicher could take a Birdshigh 
 
 view ! 
 But Thats your look out — I 've not much to do with that — 
 
 But pleas God to hold up fine, 
 Id show you caps and pmners and small things as lilliwhit 
 
 as Ever crosst the Line 
 Without going any Father off then Little Parodies Place, 
 And Thats more than you Can — and 111 say it behind your 
 
 fiice — 
 But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you to Speak — 
 As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak ! 
 
444 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WABHIXQ COMPANY. 
 
 Thinks I, when I heard it — WelL tlievc 's a pretty go ! 
 That comes o' not marking of things or washing out the 
 
 marks, and Huddling 'cm ixp so ! 
 Till Their friends comes and owns them, like drownded 
 
 corpeses in a Vault, 
 But may Hap you liaviut Larned to spcl — and That ant 
 
 your Fault, 
 Only you ought to leafc the Linnins to them as has Larned — 
 For if it wai-nt for Washing — and whare Bills is concarned 
 What "s the YusO; of all the world, for a Wommans Headi- 
 
 cation, 
 And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays — fit for any 
 
 Cityation. 
 
 Well, what I siys is This—when every Kittle has its 
 
 spout. 
 Theirs no nead for Companys to puif steem about ! 
 To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind 
 For blowing up Boats with — but not to hurt human kind 
 Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that's loaded 
 
 with hot water, 
 Thof a X Slierrif might knovr Better, than make things for 
 
 slaughtter, 
 As if War w^anit Cruel cnuii — wherever it befalls. 
 Without shooting poor sogers, vath sich scalding hot balls — 
 But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs 
 As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Steem rubbing 
 
 Clubs, 
 Forv/ashing Dirt Cheap — and eating other Peple's grubs! 
 Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea, 
 Bat I wonders How Poor "Wommen is to get Their Beau-He ! 
 They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there 
 
 will be !) 
 
ADDKESS TO THE STEAM \YASHING COMPANY. 445 
 
 And their Little drop of Somethings as thoy takes for their 
 
 Goods, 
 When you and your Steem has ruined (G— d forgive mce) 
 
 their lively Hoods, 
 Poor Wonimen as was born to Washing in their youth ! 
 And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth ! 
 But if so be They leave their Lines v.hat are they to go at — > 
 They won't do for Angell's — nor any Trade like That, 
 Nor we cant Sow Babby Work — for that 'B all Bespoke — 
 For the Queakers in Bridle ! and a vast of the confined 
 
 Folk 
 Do their own of Themselves — even the bettermost of em — 
 
 aye, and evn them of middling degrees — 
 Why Lauk help you Babby Linen ant Bread and Cheese ! 
 Xor we can't go a hammering the roads into Dust, 
 But Ave must all go and be Bankers— like Mr. Marshes and 
 
 Mr. Chamberses — and that 's what wc must ! 
 God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects, 
 When you nose you have sucked us and hanged round our 
 
 Mu^^herly necks, 
 And remembers what you Owes to Vrommen Besides wash- 
 
 You ant, blame you ! like T^Ien to go a slushing and sloshing 
 
 In mop caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labors 
 
 And prettily jeared At you great Horse God Meril things, 
 
 ant you now by your next door naybors — 
 Lawk I thinks I see you v/ith your Sleaves tuckt up 
 Iso more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp, 
 And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round 
 They '11 scruntch your Bones some day — I '11 be bound 
 And no more nor be a gudgement — for it cant come to good 
 To sit up agin Providince, Avhich your a doing — nor not iit 
 
 It should. 
 
446 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM "WASHING COMPANY. 
 
 For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation, 
 
 Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of the Creation — 
 
 And cant be dun without in any Country But a naked 
 
 Hottinpot Xation. 
 Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs 
 And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs — 
 But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) 
 
 nyther Bybills or Good Tracks, 
 Or youd no better than Taking the close off one's Backs — 
 And let your neighbors oxin an Asses alone — 
 And every Thing thats hern — and give every one their 
 
 Hone! 
 
 Well, its God for us Al , and every Washer Wommen for 
 
 herself. 
 And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf, 
 But if you warnt Noddis you Let wommen abe 
 And pull off Your Pattins — and leave the washing to we 
 That nose what "s what — Or mark what I say, 
 Toul make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day — 
 When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their ant nun 
 
 at all, 
 And Cris mass cum — and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall, 
 Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare 
 Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite to do good 
 
 in his Hann-Chare — 
 Besides ]Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for 
 
 you not to wash (for you dont wash) but to stew 
 And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew 
 With a vast more like That — and all along of Steem 
 Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam — 
 But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good, 
 And I cant say I "m Sorry afore God if you shoud, 
 
ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 447 
 
 For men mouglit Get their Bread a great many ways 
 
 Without taking ourn — aye, and Moor to your Prays 
 
 You might go and skim the creme off Mr. Muck- Adam's 
 
 milky ways — that 's what you might, 
 Or bete Carpets — or get into Parleamint — or drive Crabro- 
 
 lays from morning to night, 
 Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchmen, and slepe 
 
 upon a poste ! 
 (Which is an od way of sleping, I must say — and a very 
 
 hard pillow at most.) 
 Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I 'm 
 
 awares, 
 Or be Watermen now. (not Water- wommen) and roe peple 
 
 up and down Hungerford stares, 
 Or if You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry siftincj Dirt ! 
 But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt ! 
 Yourn with Anymocity, 
 
 Bridget Jones. 
 
ODE 
 
 TO CAPTAIN PARRY." 
 
 "Bvthe North Tole, I do challenge thee I" 
 
 Lote'8 Laboe's Lost. 
 
 Parry, my man ! has thj brave leg 
 Yet struck its foot against the peg 
 
 On which the world is spun ? 
 Or hast thou found ^o Thoroughfare 
 Writ by the hand of Nature there 
 
 Where man has never run ! 
 
 Hast thou yet traced the Great Unknown 
 Of channels in the Frozen Zone, 
 
 Or held at Icy Bay, 
 Hast thou still missed the proper track 
 For homeward Indian men that lack 
 
 A bracing by the way ? 
 
 Still hast thou wasted toil and trouble 
 On nothing but the North-Sea Bubble 
 
 Of geographic scholar ? 
 Or found new Avays for ships to shape, 
 Instead of winding round the Cape, 
 
 A short cut thro' the collar ! 
 
 Hast found the way that sighs were sent to* 
 The Pole — tho' God knows whom they went to ! 
 
 * ''And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." 
 
 Eloisa to Ahelard. 
 
ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY, 449 
 
 That track revealed to Pope — 
 Or if the Arctic waters sally, 
 Or terminate in some blind alley, 
 
 A chilly path to grope ? 
 
 Alas ! tho' Ross, in love with snows, 
 Has painted them coukiir de rose, 
 
 It is a dismal doom, 
 As Claudio saith, to Winter thrice, 
 " In regions of thick-ribbed ice" — 
 
 All bright — and yet all gloom ! 
 
 'Tis well for Gheber souls that sit 
 Before the fire and worship it 
 
 With pecks of Wallsend coals, 
 With feet upon the fender's front. 
 Roasting their corns — like Mr. Hunt — 
 
 To speculate on poles. 
 
 'Tis easy for our Naval Board — 
 'Tis easy for our Civic Lord 
 
 Of London and of ease. 
 That lies in ninety feet of down, 
 With fur on his nocturnal gown. 
 
 To talk of Frozen Seas ! 
 
 'Tis fine for Monsieur Ude to sit, 
 And prate about the mundane spit, 
 
 And babble of Cook's track — 
 He 'd roast the leather off his toes, 
 Ere he would trudge thro' polar snows. 
 
 To plant a British Jack ! 
 
 Oh, not the proud licentious great, 
 That travel on a carpet skate, 
 
450 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 
 
 Can value toils like thine ! 
 What 'tis to take a Hecla range, 
 Through ice unknoAvn to Mrs. Grange, 
 
 And alpine lumps of brine ! 
 
 But we, that mount the Hill o' Rhyme, 
 Can tell how hard it is to climb 
 
 The lofty slippery steep. 
 Ah ! there are more Snow Hills than that 
 Which doth black Newgate, like a hat. 
 
 Upon its forehead keep. 
 
 Perchance thou 'rt now — while I am writing- 
 Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting 
 
 About thy frozen spine ! 
 Or thou thyself art eating whale, 
 Oily, and underdone, and stale, 
 
 That, haply, crossed thy line ! 
 
 But I '11 not dream such dreams of ill — 
 Rather will I believe thee still 
 
 Safe cellared in the snow — 
 Reciting many a gallant story, 
 Of British kings and British glory. 
 
 To crony Esquimaux — 
 
 Cheering that dismal game where Night 
 Makes one slow move from black to white 
 
 Thro' all the tedious year — 
 Or smitten by some fond frost fair. 
 That combed out crystals from her hair, 
 
 Wooing a seal-skin Dear ! 
 
 So much a long communion tends. 
 As Byron says, to make us friends 
 
ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 
 
 "With what Tve daily vic"vr — 
 God knows the daintiest taste may come 
 To love a nose that "s like a plum 
 
 In marble, cold and blue ! 
 
 To dote on hair, an oily fleece ! 
 
 As tho" it hung from Helen o' Greece — 
 
 They say that love prevails 
 Ev'n in the veriest polar land — 
 And surely she may steal thy hand 
 
 That used to steal thy nails ! 
 
 But ah, ere thou ?.rt fixt to marry, 
 And take a polar Mrs. Parry, 
 
 Think of a six months' gloom — 
 Think jof the wintry waste, and hers, 
 Each furnished with a dozen furs^ 
 
 Think of thine icy dome ! 
 
 Think of the childi-en born to blubber ! 
 Ah me ! hast thou an Indian rubber 
 
 Inside ! — to hold a meal 
 For months — about a stone and half 
 Of whale, and part of a sea calf — 
 
 A fillet of salt veal ! — 
 
 Some walrus ham — no trifle but 
 A decent steak — a solid cut 
 
 Of seal — no wafer slice ! 
 A reindeer's tongue and drink beside \ 
 Gallons of Sperm — not rectified ! 
 
 And pails of water-ice ! 
 
 Oh, canst thou fast and then feast thus ? 
 Still come away, and teach to us 
 
 451 
 
452 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 
 
 Those blessed alternations — 
 To-daj to run our dinners fine, 
 To feed on air and then to dine 
 
 With Civic Corporations — 
 
 To save th' Old Bailej daily shilling, 
 And then to take a half year's filling 
 
 In P. N.'s pious Row — 
 When asked to Hock and haunch o' ven'son, 
 Thro' something we have worn our pens on 
 
 For Longman and his Co. 
 
 O come and tell us what the Pole is — 
 Whether it singular and sole is — 
 
 Or straight, or crooked bent — 
 If very thick or very thin — 
 Made of what wood — and if akin 
 
 To those there be in Kent. 
 
 There 's Combe, there 's Sjiurzheim, and there 's Gall, 
 Have talked of poles — yet, after all, 
 
 What has the public learned? 
 And Hunt's account must still defer — 
 He sought the poll at Westminster — 
 
 And is not yet returned I 
 
 Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul, 
 
 Is played in snow-storms near the Pole, 
 
 And how the fur-man deals? 
 And Eldon doubts if it be true, 
 That icy Chancellors really do 
 
 Exist upon the seals ! 
 
 Barrow, by well-fed ofiice grates. 
 Talks of his own bechristened Straits, 
 
ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 453 
 
 And longs that he were there ; 
 And Croker, in his cabriolet, 
 Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his Bay, 
 
 And pants to cross the mer ! 
 
 come away, and set us right, 
 And, haply, throw a northern light 
 
 On questions such as these : — 
 Whether, when this drowned world was lost, 
 The surflux waves were locked in frosr, 
 
 And turned to Icy Seas ! 
 
 Is Ursa Major white or black ? 
 Or do the Polar tribes attack 
 
 Their neighbors — and what for? 
 Whether they ever play at cuflfe, 
 And then, if they take off their muffs 
 
 In pugilistic war ? 
 
 Tell us, is Winter champion there, 
 As in our milder fighting air ? 
 
 Say, what are Chilly loans ? 
 What cures they have for rheums beside, 
 And if their hearts gets ossified 
 
 From eating bread of bones ? 
 
 Whether they are such dwarfs — the quicker 
 To circulate the vital liquor — 
 
 And then, from head to heel — 
 How short the Methodists must choose 
 Their dumpy envoys not to lose 
 
 Their toes in spite of zeal ? 
 
 Whether 'twill soften or sublime it 
 To preach of Hell in such a climate — 
 
454 ODE TO CAPTAIX PARRY. 
 
 Whether may "Weslej hope 
 To vrin their souls — or that old function 
 Of seals — with the extreme of unction — 
 
 Bespeaks them for the Pope ? 
 
 Whether the lamps will e'er be '• learned" 
 "WTiere six months' " midnight oil" is burned, 
 
 Or Letters must defer 
 With people that have never conned 
 An A. B, C, but live beyond 
 
 The Sound of Lancaster ! 
 
 O come away at any rate — 
 
 Well hast thou earned a downier state — 
 
 With all thy hardy peers — ■ 
 Good lack, thou must be glad to smell dock, 
 And rub thy feet with opodeldock, 
 
 After such frosty years. 
 
 Mayhap, some gentle dame at last, 
 Smit by the perils thou hast passed, 
 
 However coy before, 
 Shall bid thee now set up thy rest 
 In that Brest Harbor. Woman's breast, 
 
 And tempt the Fates no more. 
 

 ADDRESS 
 
 TO E. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE, 
 
 TOE GREAT LESSEE I 
 
 '• T)o vou know you Tillain, that I am at this moment the greatest man living?" 
 ' Wild Oats. 
 
 On ! Great Lessee ! Great Manager ! Great IMan ' 
 Oh, Lord High Elliston ! Immortal Pan 
 Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane ! 
 Macready's master! Westminster's high Dane! 
 (As Galway Martin, in the House's walls, 
 Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls !) 
 Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring ! 
 Magician of the lamp and prompter's rmg ! 
 Drury's Aladdin ! Whipper-in of Actors ! 
 Kicker of rebel-preflice-malefactors I 
 Glass-blowers' corrector! King of the cheque-taker I 
 At once Great Leamington and Winston-lMaker ! 
 Dramatic Bolter of plain B^mns and Cakes ! 
 Li silken hose the most reformed of Rakes ! 
 Oh, Lord High Elliston I lend me an ear I 
 (roolc is away, and Williams shall keep clear) 
 While I, in little slips of prose, not verse, 
 Thy splendid course, as pattern-worker, rehearse ! 
 
 Bright was thy youth— thy manhood brighter still— 
 The greatest Romeo upon Holborn IIill— 
 
456 ADDEESS TO R. TT. ELLISTOX, ESQ. 
 
 Lightest comedian of the pleasant daj, 
 
 When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a plaj ! 
 
 TMien fair Thalia held a merry reign, 
 
 And "Wit was at her Court in Drurj Lane ! 
 
 Before the day when Authors wrote, of course, 
 
 The '• Entertainment not for Man but Hoi'se." 
 
 Yet these, though happy, were but subject times, 
 
 And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs — 
 
 Far from my wish it is to stifle down 
 
 The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crovv'n ! 
 
 Tho' now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields, 
 
 Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields. 
 
 Dibdin was Premier — and a golden ctfje 
 
 For a short time enriched the subject stage. 
 
 Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty ,• 
 
 Ours but one Bench could boast, whilst thou hadst twenty ; 
 
 But the times changed — and Booth-acting no more 
 
 Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery-door. 
 
 Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence, 
 
 Repentant, like thy neighbor Magdalens ! 
 
 Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat 
 
 Practised, the most bewitching in Wych Street. 
 
 Rochester there in dirty ways again 
 
 Revelled — and lived once more in Drury Lane : 
 
 But thou, R. W. ! kept'st thy moral ways, 
 
 Pit-lecturing 'twixt the forces and the plays, 
 
 A lamplight L'ving to the butcher boys 
 
 That soiled the benches and that made a noise : — 
 
 Rebuking— Half a Robert, Half a Charles — 
 
 The well-billed ]\Lm that called for promised Carles ; 
 
 " Sir ! — Have you yet to know ! Hush— hoar me out ! 
 
 A Tvlan — pray silence ! — may be down with gout, 
 
ADDRESS TO R. AV.. ELLISTUX, ESQ. 457 
 
 Or Avant — or Sir — aw ! — listen I— may be fated, 
 
 Being in debt, to be incarcerated ! 
 
 You — in the back ! — can scarcely hear a line I 
 
 Down from those benches — butchers — they arc mine!'' 
 
 Lastly — and thou wert built for it hj nature ! — 
 Crowned was thy head in Drury Lane Theatre ! 
 Gentle George Robins saw that it was good. 
 And Renters clucked around thee in a brood. 
 King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean ! 
 Of many a lady and of many a Quean ! 
 AVith Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun — 
 But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun, 
 Hook 's in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt, 
 And Colman lives to cut the damnlets out ! 
 
 Oh, worthy of the house ! the King's commission ! 
 Isn't thy condition '■ a most blessed condition ?"' 
 Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all. 
 The very lofty and the very small — 
 Showest the plunibless Bunn the way to kick — 
 Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick — 
 Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments, 
 Without the danger of newspaper comments — 
 Tellest Macready, as none dared before, 
 Thine open mind from the half-open door I — 
 (Alas ! I fear he has left ^lelpomene's crown. 
 To be a Boniface in Buxton town !) — 
 Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know, 
 And callest to them, to a moment — " Go !"' 
 Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing — 
 Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing — ■ 
 
 20 
 
458 ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTOX, ESQ. 
 
 (To prove, no doubt, the endless free list ended, 
 And all, except the public press, suspended) 
 Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot — and kissed 
 The pearly whiteness of a Stephens' wrist — 
 Kissing and pitying — tender and humane ! 
 " By Heaven she loves me ! Oh, it is too plain!" 
 A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips, 
 Dimpling the warm JNIadeira at thy lips ! 
 
 Go on, Lessee ! Go on, and prosper well ! 
 Fear not, though forty Glass-blowers should rebel — 
 Show them how thou hast lonsr befriended them, 
 And teach Dubois their treason to condemn ! 
 Go on ! addressing pits in prose and Avorse ! 
 Be long, be slow, be any thing but terse — 
 Kiss to the gallery the hand that 's gloved — 
 Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved, 
 Ask the two shilling Gods for leave to dun 
 With words the cheaper Deities in the One ! 
 Kick Mr. Poole unseen from scene to scene, 
 Cane Yulliams still, and stick to Mr. Kean, 
 Warn from the benches all the rabble rout ; 
 Say, those are mine — '' In parliament, or out !" 
 Swing cats — for in thy house there 's surely space — 
 Oh Beasley, for such pastime, planned the place ! 
 Do any thing ! — Thy fame, thy fortune, nourish ! 
 Laugh and grow fat ! be eloquent, and flourish ! 
 Go on — and but in this reverse the thiuo;. 
 Walk backward with wax lio-hts before the King — 
 Go on ! Spring ever in thine eye ! Go on ! 
 Hope's favorite child ! ethereal Elliston ! 
 
ADDRESS 
 TO MAEIA DARLINGTON," 
 
 ox HER RETtTEX TO THE STAGE. 
 
 " It was Maria ! — 
 
 And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid 
 
 She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Eome, and walked round St. Pe- 
 ter's once — and returned back " 
 
 See the ijchole Story, in Sterile and tTve Xeicspapers. 
 
 Thou art come back again to the stage, 
 
 Quite as blooming as -when thou didst leave it ; 
 And 'tis well for this fortunate age 
 
 That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it ! 
 It is pleasant to see thee again — 
 
 Right pleasant to see thee, by Hercle, 
 Unmolested by pea-colored Hayne ! 
 
 And fi'ee from that thou-and-thee Berkeley ! 
 
 Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light 
 
 (Not my Foote — I speak by correction) 
 As the snow on some mountain at night, 
 
 Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone. 
 The pit is in raptures to free thee, 
 
 The Boxes impatient to gi-eet thee, 
 The Galleries quite clam'rous to see thee, 
 
 And thy scenic relations to meet thee ! 
 
460 ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON. 
 
 Ah, -where -was thy sacred retreat ? 
 
 Maria ! ah, where hast thou been, 
 With thy two little wandering Feet, 
 
 Far away from all peace and pea-green I 
 Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold, 
 
 Far away from himself and his lot ! 
 I envy the place thou hast strolled, 
 
 If a stroller thou art — which thou "rt not ! 
 
 Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing, 
 
 Methinks, at the close of the day — 
 When thy Billy had just slipped his string. 
 
 And thy little dog quite gone astray — 
 He bade thee to sorrow no more — 
 
 He wished thee to lull thy distress 
 In his bosom — he could n't do more, 
 
 And a Christian could hardly do less ! 
 
 Ah, me ! for thy small plaintive pipe, 
 
 I fear Ave must look at thine eye — • 
 I would it were my task to wipe 
 
 That hazel orb thoroughly dry ! 
 Oh sure 'tis a barbarous deed 
 
 To give pain to the feminine mind — 
 But the Avooer that left thee to bleed 
 
 Was a creature more killing than kind ! 
 
 The man that could tread on a worm 
 
 Were a brute — and inhuman to boot ; 
 But he merits a much harsher term 
 
 That can Avantonly tread on a Foote ! 
 Soft mercy and gentleness blend 
 
 To make up a Quaker — but he 
 That spurned thee could scarce be a Frie?id, 
 
 Tho' he dealt in that Thou-imr of thee ! 
 
ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTOX, 
 
 They that loved thee, Maria, have floTvn ! 
 
 The friends of the midsummer hour ! 
 But those friends now in anguish atone. 
 
 And mourn o'er thy desolate bower. 
 Friend Hajne, the Green Man, is quite out, 
 
 Yea. utterly out of his bias ; 
 And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt, 
 
 Is counting his Ave ^Marias ! 
 
 Ah, where wert thou diiven away. 
 
 To feast on thy desolate woe ? 
 We have witnessed thy weeping in play, 
 
 But none saw the earnest t.ears flow — 
 Perchance thou wert truly forlorn — 
 
 Tho' none but the fairies could mark 
 "Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn, 
 
 Or the thistles in Burderop Park ! 
 
 Ah. perhaps, when old age's white snow 
 
 Has silvered the crown of Hayne"s nob — 
 For even the greenest will grow 
 
 As hoary as '• "VMiiteheaded Bob'' — 
 He "11 wish, in the days of his prime, 
 
 He had been rather kinder to one 
 He hath left to the malice of Time — 
 
 A woman — so weak and undone ! 
 
 461 
 
ODE 
 
 TO W. KITCHENER, M.D." 
 
 AUTHOR OP THE COOK'S ORACLE — OBSERyATIOXS ON VOCAL MUSIC — THE 
 ART OP INVIGORATIXG- AND PROLONGING LIFE — PRACTICAL OBSERVA- 
 TIONS ON TELESCOPES, OPERA GLASSES, AND SPECTACLES — THE HOUSE- 
 KEEPER'S LEDGER — AND THE PLEASURE OF MAKING A AVILL. 
 
 " I rule the roast, as Milton says !'" — Caleb Ql'otem. 
 
 On ! multifarious man ! 
 Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitclien Crichton ! 
 
 Born to enlighten 
 The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking — 
 Master of the Piano — and the Pan — 
 As busj with the kitchen as the skies ! 
 
 Now looking 
 At some rich stew thro' Galileo's eyes — 
 Or boiling eggs — timed to a metronome — 
 
 As much at home 
 In spectacles as in mere isinglass — 
 In the art of frying brown— as a digression 
 On music and poetical expression — 
 Whereas, how few of all our cooks, alas ! 
 Could tell- Calliope from " Calliopec !'' 
 
 How few there be 
 Could leave the lowest for the highest stories, 
 
 (Observatories,) 
 And turn, like thee, Diana's calculator, 
 However cook's synonymous with Kater !* 
 
 •"■ Captain Kater, the Moou's Surveyor. 
 
ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 463 
 
 Alas ! still let me say, 
 How few could lay 
 The carving knife beside the tuning-fork, 
 Like the proverbial Jack ready for any work ! 
 
 Oh, to behold thy features in thy book ! 
 Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate. 
 
 How it would look ! 
 With one raised eye watching the dial's date, 
 And one upon the roast, gently cast down — 
 Thy chops — done nicely brown — 
 The garnished brow — with '' a few leaves of bay" — 
 
 The hair — '• done W-iggy's way F' 
 And still one studious finger near thy brains. 
 As if thou wert just come 
 From editing some • 
 
 New soup — or hashing Dibdm's cold remains ! 
 Or, Orpheus-like— fresh from thy dying strains 
 Of music — Epping luxuries of sound, 
 
 As Milton says, "in many a bout 
 Of Imked sweetness long drawn out," 
 Whilst all thy tame stuffed leopards listened round ! 
 
 Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal, 
 Standing like Fortune — on the jack— thy wheel. 
 (Thou art, like Fortune, full of chops and changes, 
 Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye !) 
 Scanning our kitchen and our vocal ranges, 
 As tho' it were the same to sing or fry — 
 Nay, so it is — hear how Miss Paton's throat 
 
 flakes " fritters" of a note ! 
 And how Tom Cook (Fryer and Singer born 
 '^-j name and nature) oh ! how night and morn 
 
464 ODE TO W. KITCHE^'ER, M.D. 
 
 He for the nicest public taste cloth dish up 
 The good things from that Pati of music, Bishop ! 
 And is not reading near akin to feedino-, 
 Or why should Oxford Sausages be fit 
 
 Receptacles for wit ? 
 Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart, 
 Minced brains into a Tart? 
 Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts. 
 
 Book-treats, 
 Equally to instruct the Cook and cram her — 
 Receipts to be devoured, as well as read, 
 The Culinary Art in gingerbread — 
 The Kitchen's Eaten Grammar ! 
 
 Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page — 
 Ay, very pleasant in its chatty vein — 
 So — in a kitchen — would have talked Montaigne, 
 That merry Gascon — humorist, and sage ! 
 Let slender minds with single themes engao-e, 
 
 Like I\Ir. Bowles with his eternal Pope — 
 Or Haydon on perpetual Haydon— or 
 
 Hume on "Twice three make four," 
 Or Lovelass upon Wills — Thou goest on 
 Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson ! 
 
 Thy brain is like a rich Kaleidoscope, 
 Stuffed with a brilliant medley of odd bits. 
 
 And ever shifting on from change to change, 
 Saucepans — old Songs — Pills — Spectacles— and Spits ! 
 
 Thy range is wider than a Rumford Range ! 
 Thy grasp a miracle ! — till I recall 
 Th' indubitable cause of thy variety — 
 Thou art, of course, th' Epitome of all 
 That spying — frying — singing — mixed Society 
 
ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 465 
 
 Of Scientific Friends, "wlio used to meet 
 
 Welch Rabbits — and thyself — in Warren Street ! 
 
 Oh, hast thou still those Conversazioni, 
 Where learned visitors discoursed — and fed ? 
 
 There came Belzoni, 
 Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead — 
 
 And gentle Poki — and that Rojal Pair, 
 Of -uhom thou didst declare — 
 " Thanks to the greatest Cooke we ever read — 
 They were — what Sandwiches should be — half 6rec?/" 
 There famed M'Adam from his manual toil 
 Relaxed— and freely owned he took thy hints 
 
 On '"making Broth with Flints'' — 
 There Parry came, and showed thee polar oil 
 For melted butter — Combe with his medullary 
 
 Motions about the Skullery^ 
 And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil — 
 There witty Rogers came, that punning elf ! 
 "Who used to swear thy book 
 Would really look 
 A Delphic '' Oracle,"' if laid on Delf — 
 There, once a month, came Campbell and discussed 
 His own — and thy own — " Magazine of Taste'^—y 
 
 There Wilberforce the Just 
 Came, in his old black suit, till once he traced 
 Thy sly advice to Poachers of Black Folks, 
 That '■ do not break their yolks,'' — 
 "Which huffed him home, in grave disgust and haste ! 
 
 There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore 
 Thy Patties — thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore, 
 Who called thee " Kitchen Addison' — for why? 
 20* 
 
466 ODE TO AV. KITCHEXER, M.D. 
 
 Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills, 
 Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills, 
 •• Teaching us how to live and how to die /" 
 There came thj Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry — 
 There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on 
 
 His sine Q.uay non — - 
 There IMartin "svould drop in on Monday eves. 
 Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath 
 
 'Gamst cattle days and death — 
 Answered by jNIellish, feeder of fat beeves, 
 
 "Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager 
 
 For fighting on soup meagre — • 
 " And yet (as thou would' st add), the French have seen 
 
 A Marshal Tureen /" 
 
 Great was thy Evening Cluster ! — often graced 
 With DoUond — Burgess — and Sir Humphry Davy! 
 'T was there M'Dermot fii-st inclined to Taste — 
 There Colburn learned the art of making paste 
 For pufis — and Accum analyzed a gravy, 
 Colman — the Cutter of Coleman Street, 'tis said 
 Came there — and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head, 
 (Plis claim to letters) — Kater, too, the Moon's 
 Crony — and Graham, lofty on balloons — 
 There Croly stalked with holy humor heated, 
 Who wrote a light horse play, which Yates completed — 
 
 And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ. 
 And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons — 
 ^ladame Valbreque thrice honored thee, and came 
 With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle — 
 The Dibdins — Tom, Charles, Frognall — came with tuns 
 Of poor old books, old puns ! 
 And even Irving spared a night from fame-— 
 
ODE TO "W. KITCHENER, M.D. 467 
 
 And talkeil — till thou didst stop him in the middle, 
 To serve round Tew all- diddle ! * 
 
 Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye ! 
 So let them : — thou thyself art still a Host ! 
 
 Dibdin — Cornaro — Newton — Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec I — Lovelass — and Weber, 
 
 Matthews in Quot'em — ^Moore's fire-worshippmg 
 Gheber— 
 Thrice-worthy "Worthy, seem by thee engrossed ! 
 Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast, 
 Potent to hush all ventrilocpial snarling — ■ 
 And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion ! 
 
 Thou art, sans question, 
 The Corporation's love — its Doctor Darling ! 
 Look at the Cine Palate — nay. the Bed 
 
 Which set dear ]\Irs. Opie on supplying 
 " Elustrations of Lnjing !'' 
 Ninety square feet of down from heel to head 
 
 It measured, and I di-ead 
 Was haunted by that terrible night Mare^ 
 A monstrous burthen on the corporation ! — 
 Look at the Bill of Fare, for one day's share, 
 Sea-turtles by the score— Oxen by droves, 
 Geese, turkeys, by the flock — fishes and loaves 
 
 Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation 
 Was making up the huge man-mountain's ration I 
 
 C)h ! worthy Doctor ! surely thou hast driven 
 
 The squatting Demon from great Garratfs breast — 
 
 (His honor seemed to rest ! — ) 
 And what is thy reward ? — Hath London given 
 
 * The Doctor's composition for a night-cap. 
 
468 ODE TO W. KITCHENEK, M.D. 
 
 Thee public thanks for thy important service ? 
 
 Alas ! not even 
 The tokens it bestowed on Howe and Jervis ! — 
 Yet could I speak as Orators should speak 
 Before the worshipful the Common Council, 
 (Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill,) 
 Thou should' st not miss thy Freedom, for a week, 
 Richly engrossed on vellum : — Reason urges 
 That he who rules our cookery — that he 
 Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be 
 A Citizen^ where sauce can make a Burgess ! 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE VERY REVEREXD JOHX IRELAND, D.D 
 
 CHAELE3 FrSES CLi:STON, LL.D. 
 
 THOMAS CArSTOX, D.D. 
 
 IIOWEL HOLLAND EDWAKD3, ICA. 
 
 JOSEPH ALLEN, M.A. 
 
 LORD HENBT FITZBOY, M.A. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF EXETEE. 
 
 ■Vnl. n. EDWABD BENTTXCK, 
 JAMES \rEBBEP., B.D. 
 WILUAM SHOET, D.D 
 JAMES TOUENAT, D.D. 
 AXDEE\r BELL, D.D. 
 GEOKGE UOLCOMBB, D.D. 
 
 THE DEAN AXD CHAPTEK OF WESTMINSTER.'' 
 
 "Sure the Guardians of the Temple can never think they get enough." 
 
 Citizen of the ■World. 
 
 Oh, very reverend Dean and Chapter, 
 
 Exhibitors of giant men, 
 Hail to each surplice-backed Adapter 
 
 Of England's dead, in her Stone den ! 
 Ye teach us properly to prize 
 
 Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and Handels, 
 And, to throw light upon our eyes. 
 
 Deal in Wax Queens like old wax candles. 
 
 Oh, reverend showmen, rank and file, 
 
 Call in your shillings, two and two ; 
 March with them up the middle aisle. 
 
 And cloister them from public view. 
 Yours surely are the dusty dead. 
 
 Gladly ye look from bust to bust, 
 Setting a price on each great head. 
 
 To make it come, down with the dust. 
 
470 THE DEAN AND CHAPTER 
 
 Oh, as I see you walk along 
 
 In ample sleeves and ample back 
 A pursj and well-ordered throng, 
 
 Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black ! 
 In vain I strive me to be dumb — 
 
 You keep each bard like fatted kid, 
 Grind bones for bread like Fee faw ftim 1 
 
 And drink from sculls as Byron did I 
 
 The profitable Abbey is 
 
 A sacred 'Change for stony stock, 
 Not that a speculation 'tis — 
 
 The profit 's founded on a rock. 
 Death, Dean, and Doctors, in each nave 
 
 Bony investments have inurned ! 
 And hard 't would be to find a grave 
 
 From which " no money is returned !'* 
 
 Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought 
 
 By reverence for those learned bones, 
 Shall often come and walk your short 
 
 Two-shilling* fare upon the stones. — 
 Ye have that talisman of Wealth, 
 
 Which puddling chemists sought of old, 
 Till ruined out of hope and health ; — 
 
 The Tomb 's the stone that turns to gold I 
 
 Oh, licensed cannibals, ye eat 
 
 Your dinners from your own dead race. 
 
 Think Gray, preserved, a '' funeral meat," 
 And Dryden, deviled, after grace, 
 
 * Since this poem -u-as Tvritten, Doctor Ireland and those in authority 
 under him have reduced the flares. It is gratifying to the Enghsh People 
 to know, that while butcl^ers' meat is rising, tombs are falling. 
 
OF WESTMINSTER. 471 
 
 A relish ; — and you take your meal 
 
 From Rare Ben Jonson underdone, 
 Or, vrliet your liolj'' knives on Steele, 
 
 To cut away at Addison ! 
 
 Oh say, of all this famous age, 
 
 Whose learned bones your hopes expect, 
 Oh have ye numbered Rydal's sage, 
 
 Or Moore among your Ghosts elect ? 
 Lord Byron was not doomed to make 
 
 You richer by his final sleep — 
 "Why don't ye warn the Great to take 
 
 Their ashes to no other heap ? 
 
 Southey's reversion have ye got ? 
 
 With Coleridge, for his body, made 
 A bargain ? — has Sir Walter Scott, 
 
 Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade ? 
 Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold 
 
 His features for your marble shows, 
 Or Campbell bartered, ere he 's cold, 
 
 All interest in his " hone repose?" 
 
 Rare is your show, ye righteous men ! 
 
 Priestly Politos — rare, I ween 
 But should ye not outside the Den , 
 
 Paint up what in it may be seen ? 
 A long green Shakspeare, with a deer 
 
 Grasped in the many folds it died in — 
 A Butler stuffed from ear to ear, 
 
 Wet White Bears weeping o'er a Dry-den I 
 
 Paint Garrick up like ]Mr. Paap, 
 A Giant of some inches high ; 
 
472 THE DEAN AND CHAPTER 
 
 Paint Handel up, that organ chap, 
 With you, as grinders, in his eye ; 
 
 Depict some plaintive antique thino-, 
 And saj th' original may be seen ; — 
 
 Blind Milton with a dos and string 
 May be the Beggar o' Bethnal Green I 
 
 Put up in Poet's Corner, near 
 
 The little door, a platform small ; 
 Get there a monkey — never fear. 
 
 You '11 catch the gapers one and all ! 
 Stand each of ye a Body Guard, 
 
 A Trumpet under either fin, 
 And yell away in Palace Yard 
 
 "All dead! All dead! Walk in! Walkiu! 
 
 (But when the people are inside. 
 
 Their money paid — I pray you, bid 
 The keepers not to mount and ride 
 
 A race around each coffin lid. — 
 Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought last year. 
 
 That it was hard — the woman clacks — 
 To have so little in her ear — 
 
 And be so hurried through the Wax ! ) 
 
 " Walk in ! two shillings only ! come ! 
 
 Be not by country grumblers funked ! — 
 Walk in, and see th' illustrious dumb ! 
 
 The Cheapest House for the defunct!" 
 Write up, 't will breed some just reflection, 
 
 And every rude surmise 't Avill stop — 
 Write up, that you have no connexion 
 
 (In large) — with any other shop ! 
 
OF WESTMINSTER. 473 
 
 And still, to catch the Clowns the more, 
 
 With samples of your shows in Wax, 
 Set some old Harry near the door 
 
 To answer queries with his axe. — 
 Put up some general begging-trunk — 
 
 Since the last broke by some mishap, 
 You 've all a bit of General Monk, 
 
 From the respect you bore his Cap 1 
 
ODE 
 
 TO H. BODKIX, ESQ.," 
 
 SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY FOE THE SUPPRESSION OF ME>rDICnY. 
 
 "TMs is your charge — you shall comprehend all vagrom men." — 
 
 MucE Ado About Nothixg. 
 
 Hail, King of Shreds and Patches, hail, 
 
 Disperse!' of the Poor ! 
 Thou Dog in office, set to bark 
 
 All beo-gars from the door ! 
 
 Great overseer of overseers. 
 
 And Dealer in old rags ! 
 Thy public duty never fails, 
 
 Thy ardor never flags ! 
 
 Oh, -when I take my walks abroad, 
 
 How many Poor I miss ! 
 Had Doctor Watts walked now-a-days 
 
 He would have wi'itten this ! 
 
 So well thy Vagrant catchers prowl, 
 
 So clear thy caution keeps 
 The path — 0, Bodkin, sure thou hast 
 
 The eye that never sleeps ! 
 

 1 
 
 ODE TO H. BODKIN, ESQ. 475. | 
 
 
 No Belisarius pleads for alms, 
 No Benbovr lacketh legs ; 
 
 The pious man in black is now 
 The onlj man that begs ! 
 
 
 Street-Handels are disorganized, 
 
 Disbanded every band ! — ' 
 The silent scraper at the door 
 
 Is scarce allowed to stand ! 
 
 
 The Sweeper brushes with his broom, 
 The Carstairs with his chalk 
 
 Retires — the Cripple leaves his standi 
 But cannot sell his walk. 
 
 
 The old Wall-blind resigns the wall, 
 The Camels hide theii- humps, 
 
 The Witherington without a leg 
 Mayn't beg upon his stumps ! 
 
 1 
 
 Poor Jack is gone, that used to doff 
 His battered tattered hat, 
 
 And show his dangling sleeve, alas ! 
 There seemed no arm in that ! 
 
 ■ 
 
 Oh ! it was such a sin to air 
 His true blue naval rags, 
 
 Glory's own trophy, like St. Paul, 
 Hung round with holy flags ! 
 
 1 
 
 Thou knowest best. I meditate, 
 
 ]\Iy Bodkin, no offence ! 
 Let us, henceforth, but guard our pounds, 
 
 Thou dost protect oui- pence I 
 
 • 
 
-176 ODE TO H. BODKIN, ESQ. 
 
 "U ell art thou pointed 'gainst the Poor, 
 For, when the Beggar Crew 
 
 Bring their petitions, thou art paid, 
 Of course, to "run them through." 
 
 Doubtless thou art what Hamlet meant 
 To wretches the last friend : 
 
 What ills can mortals have, they can't 
 " With a bare Bodkin'' end ? 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (1.) Odes and Addresses. 
 
 Hood tells us, in his Literary Reminiscences, that on tiio publication 
 of the Odes and Addresses, presentation copies were sent to Mr. Canning 
 and Sir "Walter Scott. " The minister," he adds, " took no notice of 
 the little volume ; but the novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An 
 eccentric friend, in writing to me, once made a number of colons, semi- 
 colons, &c., at the bottom of the paper, adding : 
 
 ' And these are my points that I place at the foot 
 That you may put stops that I can't stop to put.' 
 
 It will surprise no one to observe that the author of Waverley had a3 
 little leisure for punctuation." 
 
 " Sir Walter Scott has to make thankful acknowledgments for the 
 copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was favored and more 
 particularly for the amusement he has received fi-om the perusal. He 
 wishes the unknown author good health good fortune and Avhutcver 
 other good things can best support and encourage his lively vein of in- 
 offensive and humorous satire 
 
 '■^ Abbot gf or d Melrose ith Maif 
 
 Coleridge also was favorably impressed with tlio Odes, and cf his 
 second meeting with Hood at Colebrookc, the following anecdote i.3 
 related. The author of Ch"istahel was attended l^y one of his sons, and 
 made some remark which drew from the lad (who had not been intro- 
 duced to Hood) the remark — " Ah! that's just like your crying up those 
 foolish Odes and Addresses!" "Coleridge" (Hood adds) "was highly 
 amused with this mal-d-propos, and without explaining, looked slyly 
 
4S0 NOTES. 
 
 around at me with the sort of suppressed laugh one may suppose to 
 belong to the Bey of Tittenj. The truth was, he felt naturally partial 
 to a book he had attributed in the first instance to the dearest of his 
 friends, as appears from the following letter to Lamb," 
 
 " My dear Charles : — This afternoon, a little, thin, mean-looking 
 sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on very dingy outsides, 
 lay on the table, which the cover informed me was circulating in our 
 book-club, so very Grub Strcetish in all its appearance, internal as well 
 as external, that I cannot explain hj what accident of impulse (assuredly 
 there was no motive in play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the 
 title, Odes and Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my 
 head with Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook 
 squad. But, my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under 
 you, or una cum you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious 
 and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you so 
 honestly, supposing you had left youreelf in pledge in his lock-up house. 
 Gillman, to whom I read the spirited parody on the introduction to 
 Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknown, and to Mrs. Fry ; he speaks 
 doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and Basil 
 Montagu. 
 
 "TJiursday night, 10 o'clock. — Xo! Charles, it is you. I have read 
 them over again, and I understand why you have anon'd the book. The 
 puns are nine in ten good — many excellent — the Newgatorij transcen- 
 dent. And then the exemplum sine exemplo of a volume of personali- 
 ties and contemporaneities, without a single line that could inflict the 
 infinitesimal of an unpleasance on any man in his senses ; saving and 
 except perhaps in the envy-addled bram of the despiser of your Lays. 
 If not a triumph over him, it is at least an ovation. Then, moreover, 
 and besides, to speak with becoming modesty, excepting my own self, 
 who is there but you who could write the musical lines and stanzas that 
 are intermixed ? 
 
 " Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and driven back by the guar- 
 dian spirits of four huge flower-holders of omnigenous roses and lionev- 
 suckles — (Lord have mercy on his hysterical olfactories! what will he 
 do in Paradise ? I must have a pah* or two of nostril-plugs, or nose- 
 goggles, laid in his coffin) — stands at the door, reading that to M'Adam. 
 and the washerwoman's letter, and he admits the facts. Tou are found 
 in the manner, as the lawyers say ! so, Mr. Charles ! hang yourself up, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 481 
 
 and send me a line, by way of token and acknowledgment. ^ly dear 
 love to Mary. God bless you and your Unsbamabraniizcr, 
 
 S. T. Coleridge." 
 
 It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling " the infinitesimal 
 of an unpleasauce" at being Addressed in the Odes the once celebrated 
 Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors a bottle of his best " Permanent 
 Ink," and the eccentric Doctor Kitchener sent an invitation to dinner. 
 
 (2.) Ode to Mr. MAdam. 
 :Mr. M'Adam was the inventor of a new mode of paving streets, 
 which caused in its day more newspaper discussion than the Russ pave- 
 ment in ours. AVe copy au amusing paragraph on this subject from 
 the Johii Bull : 
 
 " "\iVe perceive a strong disposition in certain quarters to run down 
 the system of 3Iacadamization ; and we think when its demerits are pro- 
 perly pointed out and enumerated, there will be no opinion but one on 
 the matter. In the first place, it appears quite clear that Macadamized 
 streets will not keep dry in wet weather ; this is a fact for which we were 
 hardly prepared. In the second place, if incessant rain for nearly three 
 months pours down in torrents upon the coat before the substratum has 
 time to settle, it seems the materials subsequently deposited upon that 
 substratum will not bind— but on the contrary, form a disagreeable mud, 
 unlike in its color and appearance that beautiful black mud in which 
 the paved streets of London are so happily fertile. But in the third 
 place, we discover that those streets which ' never dry' will [u-hen theij 
 do) become so dusty as to powder the heads of lounging dandies, cover 
 the furniture of adjacent houses, and not only put out the eyes of the 
 passengers, but absolutely ruin Lundy Foot's trade in Irish snuif, by fill- 
 ing the noses of the cockneys gratis, with a mixture strongly resemblmg 
 that popular article in color, flavor, and pungency. 
 
 '• "With respect to the quietude, some of the wags in the city say that 
 Mr. M'Adam has falsified his own name in the process of producing it. 
 ' For how,' says Mr. Alderman Thorpe, ' can this man call himself 
 Louden- Macadam, when his object avowedly is to do away a noise?' '' 
 
 For these reasons and others equally cogent, the John Bull declares 
 that it had quitted the ]\Iac.u)amite3 and joined the PREADAJtiTES, 
 " v\-ho richly deserve the name, for their rigid adherence to primeval | 
 
 notions and obsolete doctrines upon this particular subject." j 
 
 This mode of constructing roads has not been adopted to much extent 
 
482 NOTES. 
 
 ia the United States, but still prevails in England. A recent traveller 
 says that Lord Street and some of the finest thoroughfares of Liverpool, 
 are splendid specimens of Macadamization, and that during a fortnight's 
 time he had not seen dust or mud on any of them. 
 
 (3.) Odk to Mrs. Fry. 
 
 The address to Mrs. Fry is happily conceived, and justly exposes the 
 fjUj of compelling persons to qualify themselves for the Refuge for the 
 Destitute, and similar charities, by being committed to prison for crime. 
 The ode advocates prevention as superior to cure in its advantages. — 
 John Bull. 
 
 (4.) Ode to Rich.vrd Martix, Esquire. 
 
 ^[r. Martin distinguished himself by his exertions in Parliament for 
 the passage of a biUto prevent cruelty to animals. Hook said that the 
 only persons dissenting from the general approbation he met with were 
 buUock-drivei?, hackney coachmen, bull-baiters, dog-fighters, and Gentle- 
 men of the Opposition. Lord Ei-skine was the originator of the measure, 
 wiiich was merely revived by the kind-hearted member for Galway. 
 
 (5.) Address to Mr. Dymoke, the Champion of England. 
 
 The following extract from a description of the Coronation of George 
 FT., from the London Magazins for August, 1821, will serve as an ex- 
 planation of this Address: 
 
 •■ At the end of this course the gates of the HaU were again thrown 
 open, and a noble flourish of trumpets announced to aU eager hearts 
 that the Champiox was about to enter. He advanced under the gate- 
 way, on a fine piebald charger (an ill color), and clad in complete steel. 
 Tlie plumes on his head were tri-colored, and extremely magnificent ; 
 and he bore in his hand the loose steel gauntlet, ready for the challenge. 
 The Duke of "Wellington was on his right hand, the Marquis r f 
 Anglesea on his left. "\^Tien he had come within the limits of the Ha'l. 
 h } was about to throw down his glove at once, so eager was he for t -io 
 fray, but the Herald distinctly said, • "Wait till I have read the chal- 
 1 nge,' and read it accordingly, the Champion husbanding his valor Tt 
 a few minutes : 
 
 " ' If any person, of what degree soever, high or low, shall dor.y or 
 gainsay our Sovereign Lord King George the Fourth of the United 
 
r---- 
 
 NOTES. 4S3 
 
 Kingdom of Great Britain ami Ireland, Defender of tlie Faitb, son and 
 next heir to our Sovereign Lord King George the Third, the last King 
 deceased, to be right heir to the Imperial crown of the United King- 
 dom, or that he ouglit not to enjoy the same, here is his Champion who 
 saith that he lieth, and is a false traitor ; being ready in person to com- 
 bat with him, and in this quarrel vs-ill adventure his life against him on 
 what day soever he shall be appointed.' 
 
 "■ At the conclusion of this awful challenge, the Champion hurled down 
 his gauntlet, which fell with a solemn clash upon the floor. It rang in 
 most hearts! He then stuck his wrist against his steeled side, as though 
 to show how indifferent he was to the consequence of his challenge. 
 This certainly had a very pleasing and gallant effect. The Herald, in a 
 few seconds, took up the glove, delivered it to the squire, who kissed it 
 and handed it to the Champion. In the middle of the Hall the same 
 i I ceremony was performed ; and at the foot of the royal platform, it was 
 
 ! j a third time gone through. The King then drank his health, and me- 
 
 i 1 thinks with real pleasure, for the Champion had right gallantly cou- 
 
 j! ducted himself. His ^Majesty then sent the cup to him ; and he, taking 
 
 I { it, drank to the King, but in so low a tone that I could only catch the 
 
 i J meaning by the tumultuous shouts of the people. The noise seemed to 
 
 I i awaken the courage of his horse, but he mastered his steed admirably. 
 
 j j The ceremony of backing out of the Hall was then again performed, 
 
 ij and successfully, with the exception of the Marquis of Anglesea's 
 
 Arabian, whose doubts were not yet satisfied, and he was literally shown 
 out by the pages." 
 i ; In Hairs Account of the Coronation of Henry Till, and Katherine 
 
 j j of Arragon, it is mentionetl that Sir Henry Dimmoke appeared as 
 
 i i '• Champion of the King by tenour of his inheritance." The office 
 
 1 ! seems to have remained in the Dunmoke family till the time of our 
 
 I i author. 
 
 ! } The germ of this cvhlrcss is in an ode which wo find in the London 
 
 li Magazine of September, 1821. and which is worth preserving. 
 
 TUE CHAMPIOX'S FAREWELL. 
 
 ij Otium cum Dignitate. 
 
 \ I Here I bring me my breeches, my armor is over ; 
 
 li Farewell for some tune to my tin pantaloons ; 
 
 I ! Doulile-milled kerseymere is a kind of leg clover, 
 
 ' I Good luck to broad cloth for a score or two moons ! 
 
m 
 
 iSi NOTES. 
 
 Here ! hang up my lielmet, and reach me my beaver, 
 
 This avoirdupois weight of glory must fall ; 
 I think on my life that again I shall never 
 
 Take my head in a sauce-pan to "Westminster Hall. 
 
 Oh, why was my family born to be martial ? 
 
 'Tis a mercy this grand show-ofF-fight-day is up ! 
 I do not think Cato was much over-partial 
 
 To back through the dishes, with me and my cup. 
 
 By the blood of the Dymokes, 111 sit in my lodgings. 
 And the gauntlet resign for " neat gentleman's doe ;" 
 
 If I ride I will ride, and no longer be dodging 
 My horse's own tail "twixt Duke, Marquis & Co. 
 
 No more at my horsemanship folks shall make merry. 
 
 For I'll ship man and horse, and " show oQ'"' not on shore ; 
 
 Ko funnies for me ! I will ride in a wherry ; 
 
 They feathered my skull, but I'll feather my oar. 
 
 So, Thomas, take Cato and put on his halter. 
 And give him some beans, since I now am at peace ; 
 
 If a Champion is wanted, pray go to Sir "Walter, 
 And he'll let you out Marmions at sovereigns apiece. 
 
 The ladies admired the piebald nag vastly, 
 
 And clapped his old sober-sides into the street ; 
 
 Here's a cheque upon Child, so, my man, go to Astley, 
 Pay the charge of a charger, and take a receipt. 
 
 (6.) Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, Senior. 
 
 Grimaldi, the King of Clowns, resigned the sovereignty of panto~ 
 mime in July, 1828, and took leave of the public at Drury Lane, 
 nincss, induced by over-exertion in his fun, was the cause of his 
 retreat. He was only in his 48th year. The house was crowded to 
 the roof. A gentleman who was present on the occasion informs us 
 that after having gone through some of the most surprising feats of 
 agility ever witnessed, when Grimaldi appeared in citizen's dress before 
 the curtain, to make his acknov/lcdgmeuts, he was so exhausted and 
 enfeebled as to be hardly able to stand. In a prose sketch, Hood has 
 given an account of his last interview with Grimaldi. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 485 
 
 Quick, " one of the old actor?," says a foot-note to the author's 
 edition, " is still a performer (but in private) of Old Rapid,'' (182G.) 
 As Mackliu, when he was eighty years of age. played lago, it may well 
 be that this performer in private of Old Rapid, in 182G, was the same 
 Quick who more than half a century before played the Post Boy in 
 Goldsmith's comedy of the Good-Natured Man, and Tony Lumpkin in 
 S!ie Stoops to Conquer, on its first night. Goldsmith was so much 
 pleased with his success in the latter character, that he adapted a 
 farce from the French, and permitted it to be played with his name for 
 Quick's benefit before the season closed. 
 
 (7.) Ode to Sylvaxcs Urbax. 
 
 The Ode to Sylvanus Urban contains more humor and less quibbling 
 than any other portion of the book, and surprises us that a man able to 
 write as the following quaint verses are written, should let his fancy 
 run riot, and have recourse to the worst of all apologies for wit — pun- 
 ning. Even m this, the fatal propensity here and there appears, but 
 much subdued ; we presume by the seriousness of the subject. — John 
 Bull. 
 
 (8.) Address to the Steam Washixg Compant. 
 
 The Patent Steam Washing Company, established at Phipps' Bridge, 
 Merton, Surrey, proved, by " actual experime4it," at the Company's 
 works, that " nothing less powerful than action by steam will extract 
 from linen all its impurities." Further experiment, we believe, has 
 demonstrated that " washing by hand " will answer all practical pur- 
 poses, or washerwomen would long since have been abolished. 
 
 (9.) Ode to Captain* Parry. 
 Captain W. E. Parry sailed from London in the Hecla. accompanied 
 by the Fury, on his third voyage of discovery to th2 Xorth Pole, on 
 the 9th of May, 1824. It was the least successful of his strenuous and 
 meritorious efforts to* effect a northwest passage from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific, and left it precisely where it wa5 at the conclusion of his 
 first voyage. The British Government had offered a reward of five 
 thousand pounds sterling to the first vessel that should approach within 
 one degree of the Xorth Pole ; but no one yet has " stood on the pivot 
 on which this globe of ours turn?, and hoisted the British flag on the 
 most remarkable point on the earth's surface." This has been a favor- 
 ite enterprise of bold navigators from the time of Sir Martin Frobisher, 
 who replied to his friend, when seeking to dissuade him from the at- 
 
 I 
 
486 NOTES. 
 
 tempt — " It is the only thing in the -world that is left yet undone, 
 ■whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate." 
 
 (10.) Address to Maria Darlingtox. 
 The allusions in this Address may be explained, by stating that in 
 December, 1824, an action was brought by Miss Foote, the celebrated 
 actress, against Mr. Hayne, a gentleman of fortune, for a breach of pro- 
 mise of marriage. Distinguished counsel were employed on both sides ; 
 among others, the Attorney-General for the plaintiff, and Brougham 
 and Scarlett for the defendant. It was proved on the trial that she had 
 lived for five years under the protection of Colonel Berkeley, who had 
 seduced her under a promise of marriage, and by whom she had two 
 children. It was also proved that the Colonel communicated these 
 facts to Mr. Hayne, and that the proposed marriage was broken off in 
 consequence. Subsequently, however, Mr. Hayne renewed his atten- 
 tions and his promise of marriage, which he refused to fulfil. A ver- 
 dict was found for the plaintiff. Damages, £3,000. Miss Foote in 
 April, 1831, became the Countess of Harrington. 
 
 (11.) Ode to "W. Kitchener, M.D. 
 In the London Magazine for October, 1821, is a review of the 
 Cook's Oracle, which was doubtless from Hood's pen. In the Xovem- 
 ber number of the same work is the first conception of the Qde io the 
 text. 
 
 ODE TO DR. KITCHENER. 
 
 Ye Muses nine inspire. 
 
 And stir up my poetic fire ; 
 
 Teach my burning soul to speak 
 
 With a bubble and a squeak ! 
 Of Dr. Kitchener I fain would sing, 
 TUl pots, and pans, and mighty kettles ring. 
 
 culinary Sage ! 
 (I do not mean the herb in use. 
 That always goes along with goose,) 
 
 How have I feasted on thy page ! 
 '• When like a lobster boiled the morn 
 
 From black to red began to turn," 
 Tin midnight, when I went to bed, 
 And clapped my tcwah-diddle* on my head. 
 
 * The Doctor's composition for a night-cap. 
 
KOTES. ^S'' 
 
 "Vnio is tliere caunct tell 
 Thou lead's! a life of living \rell ? 
 " TVliat baron, or squire, or knight of the shire, 
 Lives half so well as a holv Fry-er?" 
 In doing -well thou must be reckon"d 
 The first, and Mrs. Fry the second ; 
 And twice a Job — for in thy feverish toils, 
 Thou wast all over roasts, as well as boils. 
 
 Thou wast indeed no dunce, 
 
 To treat thy subjects and thyself at once. 
 
 Many a hungry poet eats 
 His brains like thee, 
 But few there be 
 
 Could live so long on their receipts. 
 
 TMiat li\-ing soul or sinner 
 
 Would slight thy invitation to a dinner, 
 Ought with the Danaides to dwell. 
 
 Draw gravy in a cullender, and hear 
 
 For ever in his ear 
 The pleasant tinklmg of thy dinner bell. 
 
 Immortal Kitchener ! thy fame 
 
 Shall keep itself when Time makes game 
 Of other men's. Yea, it shall keep all weathers, 
 And thou shalt be upheld by thy pen-feathers. 
 Tea, by the sauce of Michael Kelly, 
 
 Thy name shall perish never. 
 
 But be magnified for ever, 
 By all whose eyes are bigger than their belly ! 
 
 Tea, till the world is done 
 To a turn, and Tune puts out the Sun, 
 Shall live the endless echo of thy name. 
 But as for thy more fleshy frame, 
 Ob, Deaths carnivorous teeth will tittle 
 Thee out of breath, and eat it for cold victual 
 But still thy fame shall be among the nations 
 Preserved to the last course of generations. 
 
!r 
 
 488 KOTES. 
 
 Ah, me ! my soul is touclioJ with sorro-w 
 
 To think how flesh must pass away ; 
 
 So mutton that is warm to-day 
 Is cold and turned to hashes on the morrow ! 
 
 Farewell ! I would say more, but I 
 
 Have other fish to fry. 
 
 (12.) Address to the Deax and Chapter of Westmin-ster. 
 
 The " very reverend " managers of ^Ycstmiuster Abbey have grown 
 but little more liberal in their notions since this address was written, 
 though they have " reduced the fores." The ashes of Campbell were 
 deposited in the centre of the Poet's Corner in 1844, but many years 
 elapsed before his friends were able to meet the demands of the Dean 
 and Chapter for the admission of his statue. On May-day evening, in 
 1855, it was erected in the presence of William C. Marshall, the sculp- 
 tor, and Dr. Beattie, Campbell's biographer and friend. In mentioning 
 this fact, on the authority of a letter of Dr. Beattie, Mr. Willis adds, 
 in a paragraph in the Home Journal : " It will be recollected that not 
 long since wc mentioned the delay and difficulty of procuring the admis- 
 sion of this statue to the ' Poet's Corner,' the Dean of Westminster 
 refusing the formal authorization till his sacerdotal fee (of two hundred 
 pounds) was first paid. Dr. Beattie finally saw this fat churchman 
 satisfied, and the statue (the subscriptions for the carving and placing 
 of which Dr. B. had also procured) was then admitted to this sanctuary 
 of England's immortals." 
 
 (13.) Ode to H. Bodkin, Esq. 
 Mr. Bodkin became notorious by an action against the Times news- 
 paper, for a libel touching his relations to the Mendicity Society. 
 Scarlett, for the defence, contended that the Society was mainly pro- 
 moted by the interference and assiduity of Mr. B., and was kept before 
 the public eye by means of pamphlets, pug's, and anniversary dinners. 
 He compared him to the servant of Don Manuel Dordona, immortalized 
 by Gil Bias, who throve on his master's reputation for charity, by col- 
 lecting money to be distributed by him among the poor, and putting it 
 in his own pocket. Bodkin collected money from all quarters for the 
 support of the Society, and received £500 a year for his own services. 
 The jury found fi verdict for the plaintiff— SOs. damages, and 40s. costs. 
 
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