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 .■^■■1
 

 
 SELECT POEMS OF 
 WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED 
 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 A. D. GODLEY 
 
 LONDON 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 1909
 
 'S^^C FOOT 
 
 OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
 
 p^ LIBRAUY 
 
 ■'/^9 UJNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 V . r?/ SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The selections in the present volume have been 
 taken, with the exception of those printed on pp. 118- 
 20, 146-53, from Praed's Toems (1864). I owe to 
 Sir George Yonng^s indication the verses from the 
 Brazen Head (p. 118), which were contributed to 
 Charles Knight^s periodical of that name, and have 
 not been since republished. Loves Eienniy and The 
 London University were first printed in the Morning 
 Chronicle (May, 1824), and subsequently in Praed's 
 Political and Occasional Poems. One More Quadrille 
 is here printed for the first time. I have to thank 
 Sir George Young for allowing me to use the MS. in 
 his possession. 
 
 A. D. G.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 
 
 7 
 
 From Thk Troubadouk .... 
 
 17 
 
 The Ked Fisherman .... 
 
 . 23 
 
 From Lidian's Love ..... 
 
 . 33 
 
 My First Folly ..... 
 
 39 
 
 From Lidian's Love 
 
 41 
 
 To 
 
 43 
 
 A Retrospect 
 
 46 
 
 A Preface ...... 
 
 49 
 
 Time's Song ...... 
 
 52 
 
 Arminius 
 
 53 
 
 Childhood and his Visitors . 
 
 . 57 
 
 Childhood's Criticism .... 
 
 60 
 
 Cassandra 
 
 63 
 
 The Covenanter's Lament for Bothwell Brigg 
 
 i 67 
 
 The County Ball 
 
 69 
 
 Laura ....... 
 
 93 
 
 The Vicar 
 
 102 
 
 Quince 
 
 106 
 
 The Belle of the Ball-Koom . 
 
 110 
 
 The Chaunt of the Brazen Head . 
 
 114 
 
 From The Brazen Head 
 
 118
 
 6 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Good Night to the Season 
 
 A Letter of Advice 
 
 The Talented Man . 
 
 Letters from Teignmouth : Ou 
 
 Palinodia .... 
 
 School and Schoolfellows 
 
 A Child's Grave 
 
 From Athens . 
 
 From Lucretius 
 
 Love's Eternity 
 
 The London University . 
 
 One More Quadrille 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 R Ba 
 
 PAGE 
 120 
 
 124 
 
 128 
 131 
 135 
 138 
 HI 
 142 
 144 
 146 
 149 
 152 
 
 155
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Every volume of selections from a poet ought, 
 I sujipose, to aim primarily at representing the poet^s 
 best work. This business of choosing is comparatively 
 easy when your author is permanently grave or 
 uniformly gay ; all that you have to do is to take 
 the best of his high seriousness or his agreeable 
 levity, charitably assuming — as a selector must not 
 forget what is characteristic as well — that his best 
 is also his most truly representative ; being that 
 which comes to him (f)va€i, by the highest of his 
 nature. But where the poet is sometimes grave and 
 sometimes in lighter vein, choice is a more complicated 
 matter. It can very rarely happen that his merit 
 in both kinds is equal ; yet they may both be 
 characteristic of his genius, and no selection may 
 be adequate that does not represent both. This is 
 especially true of Praed, who is admirable in one 
 manner of writing, while he is only pleasing in 
 another. Yet a selection which did not include 
 specimens of both would give a very inadequate 
 impression. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Praed deserves to be 
 and is most widely know n as a writer of social satire
 
 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and vers de societe. This i)art of his work is not 
 poetry. It is not even minor poetry — a thing difficult 
 to define, but as to which most people will agree that 
 its distinguishing mark is a difference in degree from 
 major poetry : no one seems to get much further in 
 definition than some such petitio principii. Praed^s 
 difference is not in degree, but in kind. In his lighter 
 mood he is not a poet at all, except by Aristotle's 
 definition as a writer of metrical compositions : he is 
 only a remarkably dexterous versifier, whose first aim 
 is ' lightness of touch '. If he strays into the region 
 of the higher emotions it is only for a moment ; his 
 function is, like that of all society versifiers, merely 
 to suggest that they are there, to be just glanced at 
 or adumbrated with a light ironic (not, of course, 
 a scoffing or cynical) manner. Praed was supreme 
 as the contemporary model for this kind of writing — 
 lyrics of the humorous side of life and social satire 
 of a genial Horatian kind — more whimsical, more 
 sentimental than Horace ; and probably his supremacy 
 among ' light ' English versifiers is unshaken. It is 
 all in the friendliest and cheerfullest vein of satire — 
 whether he is touching off the various characters at 
 17ie County Ball, or sketching The Vicar * Gulielmus 
 Brown, A^ir nulla non donandus lauru,' or chaffing 
 schoolgirl sentiment in the ever delightful Mi/ ow7i 
 Aratninfa, or recalling his schooldays at Eton. Here 
 is Praed at his best : by these and such as these he 
 will live. All that a selector can do is to register 
 and confirm the judgement of the general public.
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 But there is a great deal besides ; much of which, 
 it has to be acknowledged, might have had a shorter 
 life had it not been included in the same volumes as 
 My oion Araminta and The Vicar. For Praed was 
 also a serious poet, facile and fluent in the manner 
 of the Romantic school. * Byronism ' being the 
 fashion, young Praed, as well as his eight years' junior 
 contemporary, young Tennyson, fell much under the 
 influence of that poetic convention. The genius of 
 Tennyson turned the Byronic mood to its own uses 
 and created Maud, — which Tennyson himself, as well 
 as some of his critics, thought the best thing he had 
 ever written. Praed could not do anything like that. 
 He could express sentiment in the conventional style 
 of the day, with what critics used to call elegance 
 and propriety. No one would deny that there is 
 much real feeling in him, as well as grace of form. 
 Probably he himself would have acknowledged the 
 absence of the indefinable quality which makes 
 / major ' poetry. Most of his serious sentimental 
 lyrics are animated by the Byronic spirit (in its 
 gentler moods), and full of the Byronic stock-in- 
 trade — broken heart, blighted life, stormy past, and 
 all the rest of it — all the fuise en scene of so many 
 young singers of the early nineteenth century; the 
 manner which derives from Lara and Manfred and 
 ends in the minstrelsy of Haynes Bayley. The 
 characteristic young man a la Lord Byron — born 
 with a broken heart, which he wore habitually on 
 his sleeve — had an extraordinary vogue for a time.
 
 10 INTEODUCTION 
 
 But men and even women grew weary of him, as 
 they had wearied of the shepherds and shepherdesses 
 of the eighteenth century ; Dickens made fun of him, 
 and Carlyle called him a Dyspeptic Tailor ; and in one 
 way or another he came to an end. Fashions have 
 changed several times since the twenties, and our 
 poetic ideals have been complicated by a singularly 
 varied experience; and in this perhaps more fortunate 
 age, now that the 
 
 Billows and pillows and hours and flowers 
 And all the brave rhymes of an older day 
 
 have given place to strange esoteric symbolisms and 
 the * Celtic spirit in literature \ we do possibly scant 
 justice to a manner which, after all, had once the 
 charm of novelty, and was approved by quite respect- 
 able persons — being indeed a tribute to the undying 
 greatness of the model which it travestied. 
 
 Praed wrote poetry, or at least verses, almost as 
 soon as he could write at all. He was one to whom 
 rhyming was always ' no more difficile than to a 
 blackbird 'tis to whistle ^ This is how he lisps in 
 numbers On Pify in 1815, being then no more than 
 thirteen years old : 
 
 Whene'er the poor, worn out with woe. 
 Oppressed with trouble, years, and grief. 
 
 From breasts which feel compassion's glow 
 Solicit mild the kind relief,
 
 INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 Then Laura opes her ready hand : 
 
 The tear bedews EmiHa^s eye : 
 Sophia quits the selfish band 
 
 To soothe the pangs of poverty. 
 
 Gold can but present help afford ; 
 
 Emilia^s tear is wiped away ; 
 Sophia feels her just reward, 
 
 A bliss which never will decay : 
 This, the reward of virtue, this 
 
 Th' unfeeling heart will never know ; 
 It is the only earthly bliss 
 
 Which is not mixed with earthly woe. 
 
 These are not bad ' Primitiae '' for a schoolboy 
 of thirteen. Praed then, with this ready gift of 
 versification, naturally took the various moulds of the 
 Romantic school. He wrote lyrics like Byron and 
 romances like Scott (though in the sphere of romances, 
 although he is sometimes serious, he affects more 
 often a serio-comic treatment, as is proper to one 
 whose real wefier was the lighter vein : Lidian's Love 
 rather parodies than imitates D071 Jumi). He had 
 masters in plenty; and what was perhaps even more 
 necessary, a congenial environment. Inspiration and 
 the hope of immortality may do well enough for 
 poets ; verse-writers need an immediately appreciative 
 public. Praed would have rhymed on a desert island ; 
 it ' came natural ' to him ; and unpublished letters 
 of his, which have been shown to the present writer 
 by the courtesy of his ne]>hew, prove that his manner
 
 12 INTEODUCTION 
 
 was almost formed while lie was an undergraduate ; but 
 yet his talent must have owed its complete develop- 
 ment to the miliett in which he lived from early 
 boyhood. Clever schoolboys will still be scribbling 
 couplets and stanzas, even in our more enlightened 
 age, which is beginning to regard ' composition ' as 
 a mere impediment to Research and the Higher 
 Scholarship. In the Regency, schoolboys did not 
 research ; and teachers of the higher scholarship 
 were apt to lay more stress on form and style than on 
 matter. Eton first (which made Praed an excellent 
 classic, and where he was one of the founders of 
 the Etonian) and then Cambridge nurtured budding 
 scholars in an atmosphere of classical prolusions and 
 prize compositions ; a business to which so deft and 
 graceful a rhymester took very naturally ; and some 
 of his serious work [Anniniiis, for instance, admirably 
 spirited as it is) has something of a prize exercise 
 flavour about it. Afterwards, the social circles in 
 which he found himself — more exclusive than the 
 London society of to-day, and probably therefore 
 more appreciative of comments on their own par- 
 ticular interests — provided exactly the kind of gallery 
 for a society versifier to play to ; and when he entered 
 political life, the House of Commons was still com- 
 paratively speaking a close corporation, where also 
 persons were more prominent than they are now- 
 adays, relatively to political it^sues. Praed wrote a 
 great deal of political verse ; his luckless opponent 
 in a Cornish election was practically buried under an
 
 INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 avalanche of squibs ; and he contributed much to 
 journals and magazines. Most of his pieces have 
 been faithfully collected by Sir George Young — to 
 whom all lovers of Praed are much indebted for his 
 help in preparing the volume of Poems and his 
 editorship of the PoHfical and Occasional Poems 
 — and can be read by the curious in such matters. 
 It is proper to note that the biography prefixed 
 to the Poems states conscientiously that ' of this 
 species of composition he was a consummate 
 master^. But it must be admitted that these smart 
 journalistic personalities about celebrities of the day 
 are rather for an age than for all time. They throw 
 some light on the by-ways and side issues of legisla- 
 tion, and are useful to historians of the period : but for 
 the general reader such pasquinades have necessarily 
 rather lost their brilliance, and the great majority of 
 these pieces can hardly find a place in a volume of 
 selections. Even Aristophanes does not amuse every- 
 body nowadays. 
 
 But Praed's best-known verses have an enduring 
 vogue. Frederick Locker, who had a right to an 
 opinion, says (in Ah/ Confidences) ' Praed is the very best 
 of his school ; indeed, he has a unique position ; for 
 in his narrower vein of whimsical wit, vernacular 
 banter, and antithetical rhetoric, which may con*ectly 
 be called vers de societe in its most perfected form, 
 and its exactest sense, he has never been equalled '. 
 Locker went so far as to pay Praed the sincerest 
 compliment in his power by imitating him : ' I once
 
 14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tried/ he says, ^to write like Praed''; but 'anti- 
 thetical rhetoric ' was not Locker's real vein, and 
 it is interesting to see that in his later editions 
 he altered or omitted the epigrams which had first 
 pleased him; realizing either that they were foreign 
 to his style or that they had rather gone out of 
 fashion. The difference between Praed and Locker 
 is partly, no doubt, due to intervening years. It is 
 difficult to compare Georgians and Victorians. Life 
 was easier in some ways in the early part of the 
 nineteenth century ; people were less afraid of being 
 tedious and 'obvious'. They were sentimental in 
 the fearless old fashion, and the crude expression of 
 their loves and sorrows has too often made mere 
 sport for a generation more critical of itself; and 
 when they made a joke, there was no mistake about 
 it; the thing was labelled and exhibited as such, a 
 matter of patent and unashamed artifice, wdth the 
 Vimae lahcr fresh upon it. Latter-day sentimentalists 
 have certainly a very different manner; and our 
 humorists have realized that you must be unforced 
 and spontaneous, if you have to lie awake at night 
 for it. Whether from fashion or natural genius, 
 Praed, as a writer of vers de socieie, is ' epideictic \ 
 There is a certain 'hard brilliance' about his best 
 verses. Here, for instance, is a typically Praedian 
 passage : 
 
 Where are my friends? I am alone; 
 No playmate shares m v beaker :
 
 INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 Some lie beneath the churchyard stone, 
 And some — before the Speaker; 
 
 And some compose a tragedy, 
 And some compose a rondo ; 
 
 And some draw swoid for Liberty, 
 And some draw pleas for John Doe. 
 
 Tom Mill was used to blacken eyes 
 
 Without the fear of sessions; 
 Charles Medlar loathed false quantities 
 
 As much as false professions; 
 Now Mill keeps order in the land, 
 
 A magistrate pedantic ; 
 And Med]ar''s feet repose unscanned 
 
 Beneath the wide Atlantic. 
 
 The age tolerated and even admired puns, and Praed, 
 like Hood, was a great punster : 
 
 And Brown, who was but poor at Greek, 
 Is very rich at Canton. 
 
 Nothing can be neater, more admirably finished. 
 ' This ' (as has been said) ' is the art which does not 
 conceal itself. One may not be able to do the trick ; 
 but it is possible to see how the trick is done.^ Wit 
 and technique are Praed^s strong points. He has not 
 the peculiar gentle whimsical humour of Locker; 
 there is nothing in him at all like the lines To 
 My Grandmother or the Earliest Becotlection ; and 
 perhaps he had not Calverley's inimitable and un-
 
 16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 seizable ' lightness of touch '. But it is quite probable 
 that Praed will live longer than either Locker or 
 Calverley, in virtue of two great assets — his undeni- 
 able, if almost ostentatious, brilliance of style, and 
 his instinct for seizing upon what is generally inter- 
 esting in contemporary manners and customs. These 
 pleased his own society, and continue to please ours.
 
 From THE TROUBADOUR 
 
 Le Troubadour 
 Brulant d'aniour. 
 
 French ^axlad. 
 
 I 
 
 My motlier^s grave, my mother^s grave ! 
 
 Oh ! dreamless is her shimber there, 
 And drowsily the banners wave 
 
 O'er her that was so chaste and fair ; 
 Yea ! love is dead, and memory faded ! 
 
 But when the dew is on the brake, 
 And silence sleeps on earth and sea, 
 
 And mourners weep, and ghosts awake, 
 Oh ! then she cometh back to me, 
 In her cold beauty darkly shaded ! 
 
 I cannot guess her face or form ; 
 
 But what to me is form or face ? 
 I do not ask the weary worm 
 
 To give me back each buried grace 
 Of glistening eyes, or trailing tresses ! 
 
 I only feel that she is here, 
 
 And that we meet, and that we part 
 
 And that I drink within mine ear, 
 And that I clasp around my heart, 
 Her sweet still voice, and soft caresses !
 
 18 TALES 
 
 Not in the waking thought by day, 
 
 Not in the sightless dream by night, 
 Do the mild tones and glances play, 
 
 Of her who was my cradle's light ! 
 But in some twilight of calm weather 
 
 She glides, by fancy dimly wrought, 
 A glittering cloud, a darkling beam, 
 
 "With all the quiet of a thought, 
 And all the passion of a dream, 
 Linked in a golden spell together ! 
 
 II 
 
 SpiEiTS, that walk and wail to-night, 
 
 I feel, I feel that ye are near ; 
 There is a mist upon my sight. 
 There is a murmur in mine ear, 
 And a dark dark dread 
 Of the lonely dead. 
 Creeps through the whispering atmosphere ! 
 
 Ye hover o'er the hoary trees, 
 
 And the old oaks stand bereft and bare ; 
 Ye hover o'er the moonlight seas. 
 
 And the tall masts rot in the poisoned air; 
 Ye gaze on the gate 
 Of earthly state, 
 And the ban-dosr shivers in silence there.
 
 THE TROUBADOUR 19 
 
 Come hither to me upon your cloud, 
 And tell me of your bliss or pain, 
 And let me see your shadowy shroud, 
 And colourless lip, and bloodless vein ; 
 Where do ye dwell, 
 In heaven or hell ? 
 And why do ye wander on earth again ? 
 
 Tell to me where and how ye died, 
 
 Fell ye in darkness, or fell ye in day, 
 On lorn hill-side, or roaring tide, 
 In gorgeous feast, or rushing fray ? 
 By bowl or blow. 
 From friend or foe. 
 Hurried your angry souls away ? 
 
 Mute ye come, and mute ye pass. 
 
 Your tale untold, your shrift unshriven ; 
 But ye have blighted the pale grass, 
 
 And scared the ghastly stars from heaven; 
 And guilt hath known 
 Your voiceless moan, 
 And felt that the blood is unforgiven f 
 
 III 
 
 So glad a life was never, love, 
 As that which childhood leads, 
 
 Before it learns to sever, love, 
 The roses from the weeds ; 
 B 2
 
 20 TALES 
 
 AYheii to be very duteous, love, 
 
 Is all it has to do ; 
 And every flower is beauteous, love, 
 
 And every folly true. 
 
 And you can still remember, love, 
 
 The bvids that decked our play, 
 Though Destiny^s December, love. 
 
 Has whirled tliose buds away : 
 And you can smile through tears, love, 
 
 And feel a joy in pain, 
 To think upon those years, love. 
 
 You may not see again. 
 
 When we mimicked the Friar's howls, love, 
 
 Cared nothing for his creeds. 
 Made bonnets of his cowls, love, 
 
 And bracelets of his beads ; 
 And gray-beards looked not awful, love. 
 
 And grandames made no din. 
 And vows were not unlawful, love. 
 
 And kisses were no sin. 
 
 And do you never dream, love. 
 
 Of that enchanted well, 
 Where under the moon-beam, love. 
 
 The Fairies wove their spell ? 
 How oft we saw them greeting, love. 
 
 Beneath the blasted tree, 
 And heard their pale feet beating, love. 
 
 To their own minstrelsy !
 
 THE TEOUBADOUR 21 
 
 And do you never think, love, 
 
 Of the shallop, and the wave, 
 And the willow on the brink, love, 
 
 Over the poacher^s grave? 
 Where always in the dark, love, 
 
 We heard a heavy sigh, 
 And the dogs were wont to bark, love, 
 
 Whenever they went by ? 
 
 Then gaily shone the heaven, love, 
 
 On life's nntroubled sea. 
 And VidaFs heart was given, love, 
 
 In happiness to thee ; 
 The sea is all benighted, love. 
 
 The heaven has ceased to shine ; 
 The heart is seared and blighted, love, 
 
 But still the heart is thine ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Clotilda ! many hearts are light, 
 
 And many lips dissemble ; 
 But I am thine till priests shall fight, 
 
 Or Cceur de Lion tremble ! — 
 Hath Jerome burned his rosary, 
 
 Or Richard shrunk from slaughter? 
 Oh ! no, no. 
 Dream not so ! 
 But till you mean your hopes to die. 
 
 Engrave them not in water !
 
 22 TALES 
 
 Sweet Ida, on my lonely way 
 
 Those tears I will remember, 
 Till icicles shall cling to May, 
 
 Or roses to December ! — 
 Are snow-wreaths bound on Smnmer's brow ? 
 
 Is drowsy Winter waking? 
 Oh ! no, no. 
 Dream not so ! 
 But lances, and a lover's vow. 
 
 Were only made for breaking. 
 
 Lenora, I am faithful still. 
 
 By all the saints that listen, 
 Till this warm heart shall cease to thrill, 
 
 Or these wild veins to glisten ! — 
 This bosom, — is its pulse less high ? 
 
 Or sleeps the stream within it ? 
 Oh ! no, no. 
 Dream not so ! 
 But lovers find eternity 
 
 In less than half a minute. 
 
 And thus to thee I swear to-night, 
 
 By thine own lips and tresses. 
 That I will take no further flight, 
 
 Nor break again my jesses : 
 And wilt thou trust the faith I vowed, 
 And dream in spite of warning? 
 Oh ! no, no, 
 Dream not so !
 
 THE TROUBADOUR 23 
 
 But g-o and lure the midnight cloud, 
 Or chain the mist of morning". 
 
 These words of mine, so false and bland, 
 
 Forget that they were spoken ! 
 The ring is on thy radiant hand, — 
 
 Dash down the faithless token ! 
 And will they say that Beauty sinned, 
 
 That Woman turned a rover? 
 Oh ! no, no, 
 Dream not so ! 
 But lovei'^s vows are like the wind, 
 
 And Vidal is a Lover ! 
 
 (1823-1824.) 
 
 THE RED FISHERMAN 
 
 OR 
 THE devil's decoy 
 
 Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified ! 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 The Abbot arose, and closed his book. 
 
 And donned his sandal shoon, 
 And wandered forth, alone, to look 
 
 Upon the summer moon : 
 A starlight sky was o'er his head, 
 
 A quiet breeze around ; 
 And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed. 
 
 And the waves a soothing sound ;
 
 24 TALES 
 
 It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught 
 
 But love and calm delight ; 
 Yet the holy man had a cloud o£ thought 
 
 On his wrinkled brow that night. 
 He gazed on the river that gurgled by, 
 
 But he thought not of the reeds ; 
 He clasped his gilded rosary, 
 
 But he did not tell the beads ; 
 If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke 
 
 The SjDirit that dwelleth there; 
 If he opened his lips, the words they spoke 
 
 Had never the tone of prayer. 
 A pious priest might the Abbot seem, 
 
 He had swayed the crozier well ; 
 But what was the theme of the Abbotts dream. 
 
 The Abbot were loth to tell. 
 
 Companionless, for a mile or more, 
 
 He traced the windings of the shore. 
 
 Oh, beauteous is that river still, 
 
 As it winds by many a sloping hill, 
 
 And many a dim overarching grove, 
 
 And many a flat and sunny cove. 
 
 And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades 
 
 The honeysuckle sweetly shades, 
 
 And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers, 
 
 So gay they are with grass and flowers ! 
 
 But the Abbot was thinking of scenery 
 
 About as much, in sooth. 
 As a lover thinks of constancy, 
 
 Or an advocate of truth.
 
 THE RED FISHERMAN 25 
 
 He did not mark how the skies in wrath 
 
 Grew dark above his head; 
 He did not mark how the mossy path 
 
 Grew damp beneath his tread ; 
 And nearer he came, and still more near. 
 
 To a pool, in whose recess 
 The water had slept for many a year, 
 
 Unchang-ed and motionless ; 
 From the river stream it spread away 
 
 The space of a half a rood; 
 The surface had the hue of clay 
 
 And the scent of human blood ; 
 The trees and the herbs that round it grew 
 
 Were venomous and foul, 
 And the birds that through the bushes flew 
 
 Were the vulture and the owl ; 
 The water was as dark and rank 
 
 As ever a Company pumped. 
 And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank, 
 
 Grew rotten while it jumped ; 
 And bold was he who thither came 
 
 At midnight, man or boy, 
 For the place was cursed with an evil name, 
 
 And that name was ' The Devil's Decoy ! ' 
 
 The Abbot was weary as abbot could be, 
 
 And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree 
 
 When suddenly rose a dismal tone, — 
 
 Was it a song, or was it a moan ? —
 
 26 TALES 
 
 ^ O ho ! O ho ! 
 Above, — below, — 
 Lightly and brightly they glide and go ! 
 The hungry and keen on the top are leajiiDg, 
 The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping; 
 Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy, 
 Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy ! ' — 
 In a monstrous fright, by the murky light. 
 He looked to the left and he looked to the right, 
 And what was the vision close before him, 
 That flung such a sudden stupor o^er him? 
 'Twas a sight to make the hair uprise, 
 
 And the life-blood colder run : 
 The startled Priest struck both his thighs, 
 
 And the abbey clock struck one ! 
 
 All alone, by the side of the pool, 
 A tall man sat on a three-legged stool. 
 Kicking his heels on the dewy sod, 
 And putting in order his reel and rod ; 
 Red were the rags his shoulders wore. 
 And a high red cap on his head he bore; 
 His arms and his legs were long and bare; 
 And two or three locks of long red hair 
 Were tossing about his scraggy neck. 
 Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck. 
 It might be time, or it might be trouble. 
 Had bent that stout back nearly double. 
 Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets 
 That blazing couple of Congreve rockets.
 
 THE RED FISHERMAN 27 
 
 And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin, 
 
 Till it hardly covered the bones within. 
 
 The line the Abbot saw him throw 
 
 Had been fashioned and formed long* ages ago, 
 
 And the hands that worked his foreign vest 
 
 Long ages ago had gone to their rest : 
 
 You would have sworn, as you looked on them. 
 
 He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem ! 
 
 There was turning" of keys, and creaking of locks, 
 
 As he took forth a bait from his iron box. 
 
 Minnow or gentle, worm or fly, — 
 
 It seemed not such to the Abbotts eye; 
 
 Gaily it glittered with jewel and gem, 
 
 And its shape was the shape of a diadem. 
 
 It was fastened a gleaming hook about 
 
 By a chain within and a chain without ; 
 
 The Fisherman gave it a kick and a spin, 
 
 And the water fizzed as it tumbled in ! 
 
 From the bowels of the earth, 
 Strange and varied sounds had birth ; 
 Now the battle's bursting peal, 
 Neigh of steed, and clang of steel ; 
 Now an old man's hollow groan 
 Echoed from the dungeon stone; 
 Now the weak and wailing cry 
 Of a stripling's agony ! — 
 Cold by this was the midnight air;
 
 28 TALES 
 
 But the Abbot's blood mn colder, 
 "When he saw a gasping Knight lie there, 
 With a gash beneath his clotted hair, 
 
 And a hump upon his shoulder. 
 And the loyal churchman strove in vain 
 
 To mutter a Pater Xoster; 
 For he who writhed in mortal pain 
 Was camped that night on Bosworth plain- 
 
 The cruel Duke of Gloster ! 
 
 There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, 
 
 As he took forth a bait fi'om his iron box. 
 
 It was a haunch of princely size, 
 
 Filling with fragrance earth and skies. 
 
 The corpulent Abbot knew full well 
 
 The swelling form, and the steaming smell ; 
 
 Never a monk that wore a hood 
 
 Could better have guessed the very wood 
 
 Where the noble hart had stood at bay, 
 
 Weary and wounded, at close of day. 
 
 Sounded then the noisy glee 
 Of a revelling company, — 
 Sprightly story, wicked jest. 
 Rated servant, greeted guest. 
 Flow of wine, and flight of cork. 
 Stroke of knife, and thrust of fork : 
 But, where^'er the board was spread, 
 Grace, I ween, was never said ! —
 
 THE RED FISHERMAN 29 
 
 Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat ; 
 
 And the Priest was ready to vomit, 
 When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat, 
 With a belly as big as a brimming vat, 
 
 And a nose as red as a comet. 
 ' A capital stew,' the Fisherman said, 
 
 ' With cinnamon and sherry ! ' 
 And the Abbot turned away his head. 
 For his brother was lying before him dead, 
 
 The Mayor of St. Edmund's Bury ! 
 
 There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, 
 
 As he took forth a bait from his iron box. 
 
 It was a bundle of beautiful things, — 
 
 A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings, 
 
 A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl, 
 
 A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl. 
 
 And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold 
 
 Such a stream of delicate odours rolled. 
 
 That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted, 
 
 And deemed his spirit was half-way sainted. 
 
 Sounds seemed dropping from the skies, 
 Stifled whispers, smothered sighs. 
 And the breath of vernal gales. 
 And the voice of nightingales : 
 But the nightingales were mute. 
 Envious, when an unseen lute 
 Shaped the music of its chords 
 Into passion's thrilling words :
 
 30 TALES 
 
 ' Smile^ Lady, smile ! — I will not set 
 Upon my brow the coronet, 
 Till thou wilt gather roses white 
 To wear around its gems of light. 
 Smile, Lady, smile ! — I will not see 
 Rivers and Hastings bend the knee, 
 Till those bewitching lips of thine 
 Will bid me rise in bliss from mine. 
 Smile, Lady, smile ! — for who would win 
 A loveless throne through guilt and sin ? 
 Or who would reign o'er vale and hill, 
 If woman's heart were rebel still ? ' 
 
 One jerk, and there a lady lay, 
 
 A lady w^ondrous fair ; 
 But the rose of her lip had faded away, 
 And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay, 
 
 And torn was her raven hair. 
 ' Ah ha ! ' said the Fisher, in merry guise, 
 
 ' Her gallant was hooked before ; ' 
 And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs, 
 For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes, 
 
 The eyes of Mistress Shore ! 
 
 There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, 
 As he took forth a bait from his iron box. 
 Many the cunning sportsman tried, 
 Many he flung with a frown aside ; 
 A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest, 
 A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest,
 
 THE RED FISHERMAN 31 
 
 Jewels of lustre, robes of price, 
 
 Tomes of heresy, loaded dice, 
 
 And golden cups of the brightest wine 
 
 That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine. 
 
 There was a perfume of sulphur and nitre, 
 
 As he came at last to a bishop^s mitre ! 
 
 From top to toe the Abbot shook, 
 
 As the Fisherman armed his golden hook 
 
 And awfully were his features wrought 
 
 By some dark dream or wakened thought. 
 
 Look how the fearful felon gazes 
 
 On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises. 
 
 When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dry 
 
 With the thirst which only in death shall die : 
 
 Mark the mariner's frenzied frown 
 
 As the swaling wherry settles down, 
 
 When peril has numbed the sense and will. 
 
 Though the hand and the foot may struggle still : 
 
 Wilder far was the Abbot's glance, 
 
 Deeper far was the Abbot's trance : 
 
 Fixed as a monument, still as air, 
 
 He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer; 
 
 But he signed — he knew not why or how, — 
 
 The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow. 
 
 There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, 
 As he stalked away with his iron box. 
 
 ' O ho ! O ho ! 
 
 The cock doth crow ; 
 It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.
 
 3.2 TALES 
 
 Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine ! 
 
 He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line ; 
 
 Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the 
 
 south, 
 The Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth ! ' 
 
 The Abbot had preached for many years 
 
 With as clear articulation 
 As ever was heard in the House of Peers 
 
 Against Emancipation ; 
 His words had made battalions quake, 
 
 Had roused the zeal of martyrs, 
 Had kept the Court an horn* awake, 
 
 And the King himself three quarters : 
 But ever fi*om that hour, 'tis said. 
 
 He stammered and he stuttered, 
 As if an axe went through his head 
 
 With every word he uttered. 
 He stuttered o^er blessing, he stuttered o^er ban, 
 
 He stuttered, drunk or dry; 
 And none but he and the Fisherman 
 
 Could tell the reason why ! 
 
 (1827.)
 
 33 
 
 From LIDIAN'S LOVE 
 
 The gayest gallants of the Court 
 Oft fell in love, on mere report, 
 
 With eyes they had not seen ; 
 And knelt, and rhymed, and sighed, and frowned, 
 In talismanic fetters bound, 
 With flowers and sunshine all around — 
 
 And five-score leagues between. — MS. Poem. 
 
 Sir Lidian had attained his sixteenth year ; 
 
 The golden age of life, wherein are met 
 Boyhood^s last hope and Manhood^s earliest fear 
 
 In mingled bliss and beauty; — you forget 
 Your cradle's laughter, and your school-room's tear, 
 
 Your maiden medal, and your first gazette ; 
 But never, never, the bright dreams that blind you 
 When sixteen years are newly left behind you, 
 
 II 
 The daily longings to be very great, 
 
 The nightly studies to be very killing, 
 The blessed recklessness of human hate. 
 
 The sonnet-singing, and the sigh-distilling. 
 The chase of folly, and the scorn of fate, 
 
 Friendship's fresh throb, and Passion's April 
 thrilling 
 For some high lady, whom your elder brother 
 Declares is old enough to be your mother.
 
 34 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 III 
 
 Sir Lidian bad attained his sixteenth year, 
 And was the loveliest stripling in the land; 
 
 His small soft features and his colour clear 
 "Were like a budding girl's; his delicate hand 
 
 Seemed fitter for the distaff than the spear; 
 
 Locks of bright brown his spotless forehead fanned ; 
 
 And he had eyes as blue as summer's heaven, 
 
 And stood a little more than five feet seven, 
 
 IV 
 
 No gallant flung a lance so fleet and time 
 
 From the trained courser through the golden ring ; 
 
 No joyous harper at the banquet threw 
 
 A lighter touch across the sounding string; 
 
 Yet on his cheek there was the hectic hue 
 And in his eye the fitful wandering 
 
 Which chill our praise to pity, that a bloom 
 
 So fresh and fair is destined to the tomb ! 
 
 And though he danced and played, as I have hinted, 
 In dance and song he took but little pleasure ; 
 
 He looked contented, though his partner squinted. 
 And seldom frowned when minstrels marred the 
 measure ; 
 
 When the rich sky by evening's glow was tinted. 
 More glad was he to wander at his leisure, 
 
 Despising fogs, apostrophizing fountains. 
 
 Wasting the time, and worshipping the mountains.
 
 LIDTAN^S LOVE 35 
 
 VI 
 And yet he had not loved ! — his early fancies 
 
 Of love^ first love, the transport and the pain, 
 Had been extracted from the best romances, 
 
 And were, perhaps, of too sublime a strain ; 
 So when he woke from those delicious trances, 
 
 He shut his eyes and chose to sleep again. 
 Shunning realities for shades, and fleeing 
 From all he saw to all he dreamt of seeing. 
 
 VII 
 
 In starlit dells and zephyr-haunted bowers, 
 Moistened by rivulets whose milky foam 
 
 Murmured the sweetest music, where warm showers 
 That trickled fresh from Heaven's eternal dome 
 
 Watered bright jewels that sprung up like flowers, — 
 In such a scene his fancy found a home, 
 
 A Paradise of Fancy's fabrication, 
 
 Peopled by Houris of the heart's creation -, 
 
 VIII 
 
 Who never thrummed upon the virginals. 
 Nor tripped by rule, nor fortunately fainted, 
 
 Nor practised paying compliments and calls, 
 Looking satirical, or looking sainted. 
 
 Nor shrieked at tournaments, nor blushed at balls, 
 Nor lisped, nor sighed, nor drooped, nor punned, 
 nor painted ; 
 
 Nor wrote a book, nor traded in caresses, 
 
 Nor made remarks on other people's dresses.
 
 36 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 IX 
 
 These were his raptures ; — these have all been mine ; 
 
 I could have worshipped once a constellation. 
 Filled the fine air with habitants divine, 
 
 Found in the sea all sorts of inspiration ; 
 Gone out at noon-day with a Nymph to dine, 
 
 Held with an Echo charming- conversation. 
 Commenced intriguing with a star, and kissed, 
 Like old Ixion, a coquettish mist. 
 
 Now all is over ! passion is congealing. 
 The glory of the soul is pale and dim ; 
 
 I gaze all night upon a whitewashed ceiling, 
 And get no glimpses of the seraphim ; 
 
 Nothing is left of high and bnght revealing 
 But a weak longing and a wayward whim ; 
 
 And when Imagination takes the air, 
 
 She never wanders beyond Grosvenor-square. 
 
 XI 
 
 Not that Vve been more wicked in my day 
 
 Than some, perhaps, who call themselves my 
 betters ; 
 
 I liked to prattle better than to pray. 
 
 And thought that freedom was as sweet as fetters ; 
 
 Yet when my lip and lute are turned to clay. 
 The honest friend who prints my Life and Letters 
 
 Will find few stories of satanic arts, 
 
 Of broken promises or broken hearts.
 
 LIDIAN^S LOVE 37 
 
 XII 
 
 But I have moved too long in cold society, 
 Where it^s the fashion not to care a rush ; 
 
 Where girls are always thinking of propriety, 
 And men are laughed at if they chance to blush ; 
 
 And thus l'\e caught the sickness of sobriety, 
 Forbidden sighs to sound, and tears to gush ; 
 
 Become a great philosopher, and curled 
 
 Around my heart the poisons of the world, 
 
 XIII 
 
 And I have learnt at last the hideous trick 
 Of laughing at whatever is great or holy; 
 
 At horrid tales that turn a soldier sick, 
 At griefs that make a Cynic melancholy ; 
 
 At Mr. Lawless, and at Mr. Brie, 
 At Mr. Milman, and at Mr. Croly; 
 
 At Talma and at Young, Macbeth and Cinna, — 
 
 Even at you, adorable Corinna ! 
 
 XIV 
 
 To me all light is darkness ; — love is lust, 
 Painting soiled canvas, poetry soiled paper; 
 
 The fairest loveliness a pinch of dust, 
 
 The proudest majesty a breath of vapour ; 
 
 I have no sympathy, no tear, no trust, 
 
 No morning musing and no midnight taper 
 
 For daring manhood, or for dreaming youth, 
 
 Or maiden purity, or matron truth.
 
 38 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 XV 
 
 But sweet Sir Lidian was far more refined; 
 
 He shrank betimes from life and lifers defiling; 
 His step was on the earth, but oh ! his mind 
 
 Made for itself a heaven ! the fooFs reviling* 
 He did not seek, or shun ; and thus, enshrined 
 
 In g-lad and innocent thoug-hts, he went on smiling, 
 Alone in crowds, unhearing and unheeding, 
 Fond of the fields, and very fond of reading. 
 
 (1826.)
 
 39 
 
 MY FIRST FOLLY 
 
 STANZAS WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT 
 
 Peetty Coquette, the ceaseless play 
 
 Of thine unstudied wit, 
 And thy dark eye's remembered ray 
 
 By buoyant fancy lit, 
 And thy young forehead's clear expanse, 
 Where the locks slept, as through the dance, 
 
 Dreamlike, I saw thee flit, 
 Are far too warm and far too fair 
 To mix with aught of earthly care; 
 But the vision shall come when my day is done, 
 A frail and a fair and a fleeting one ! 
 
 And if the many boldly gaze 
 
 On that bright brow of thine, 
 And if thine eye's undying rays 
 
 On countless coxcombs shine, 
 And if thy wit flings out its mirth, 
 Which echoes more of air than earth, 
 
 For other ears than mine, 
 I heed not this; ye are fickle things, 
 And I like your very wanderings ; 
 I gaze, and if thousands share the bliss, 
 Pretty capricious ! I heed not this.
 
 40 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 In sooth I am a wayward youth^ 
 
 As fickle as the sea, 
 And very apt to sj^eak the truth, 
 
 Unpleasing though it be; 
 I am no lover ; yet as long 
 As I . have heart for jest or song, 
 
 An image, Sweet, of thee, 
 Locked in my hearths remotest treasures. 
 Shall ever be one of its hoarded pleasures ;- 
 This from the scoffer thou hast won. 
 And more than this he gives to none. 
 
 (20th December, 1821.)
 
 41 
 
 From LIDIAN'S LOVE 
 
 O Love ! O beauteous Love ! 
 
 Thy home is made for all sweet thing-s, 
 A dwelling" for thine own soft dove 
 
 And souls as spotless as her wings ; 
 There summer ceases never : 
 The trees are rich with luscious fruits. 
 
 The bowers are full of joyous throngs, 
 And gales that come from Heaven^s own lutes 
 
 And rivulets whose streams are songs 
 Go murmuring on for ever ! 
 
 O Love ! O wretched Love ! 
 
 Thy home is made for bitter care; 
 And sounds are in thy myrtle grove 
 
 Of late repentance, long despair, 
 Of feigning and forsaking : 
 Thy banquet is the doubt and fear 
 
 That come, we know not whence or why 
 The smile that hardly masks a tear, 
 
 The laughter that is half a sigh. 
 
 The heart that jests in breaking ! 
 
 O Love ! O faithless Love ! 
 
 Thy home is like the roving star 
 Which seems so fair, so far above 
 
 The world where woes and sorrows are ; 
 But could we wander thither.
 
 43 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 There's nothing but another earth. 
 As dark and restless as our own, 
 
 Where misery is child of mirth. 
 And every heart is born to groan. 
 And every flower to wither ! 
 
 (1826.)
 
 43 
 
 TO 
 
 As o^er the deep the seaman roves 
 
 With cloud and storm above him, 
 Far, far from all the smiles he loves, 
 
 And all the hearts that love him, 
 *Tis sweet to find some friendly mast 
 
 O^er that same ocean sailing, 
 And listen in the hollow blast 
 
 To hear the pilot's hailing-. 
 
 IT 
 
 On rolls the sea ! and brief the bliss. 
 
 And farewell follows greeting; 
 On rolls the sea ! one hour is his 
 
 For parting and for meeting ; 
 And who shall tell, on sea or shore. 
 
 In sorrow or in laughter. 
 If he shall see that vessel more. 
 
 Or hear that voice hereafter? 
 
 Ill 
 
 And thus, as on through shine and shower 
 
 My fickle shallop dances. 
 And trembles at all storms that lower, 
 
 And courts all summer glances,
 
 44 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 ■'TIS very sweet, when thoughts oppress 
 And follies fail to cheer me, 
 
 To find some looks of loveliness, 
 Some tones of kindness, near me. 
 
 IV 
 
 And yet I feel, while hearts are gay 
 
 And smiles are bright around me, 
 That those who greet me on my way 
 
 Must leave me as they found me. 
 To rove again, as erst I roved, 
 
 Through winter and rough weather, 
 And think of all the friends I loved. 
 
 But loved and lost together: 
 
 And scenes and smiles, so pure and glad. 
 
 Are found and worshipped only 
 To make our sadness seem more sad, 
 
 Our loneliness more lonely; — 
 It matters not ! a pleasant dream 
 
 At best can be but dreaming ; 
 And if the true may never beam, 
 
 Oh ! who would slight the seeming ? 
 
 VI 
 
 And o^er the world my foot may roam. 
 Through foreign griefs and pleasures. 
 
 And other climes may be my home, 
 And other hearts my treasures ;
 
 TO 45 
 
 But in the mist of memory 
 
 Shall time and space be cheated, 
 
 And those kind looks revived shall be, 
 And those soft tones repeated ! 
 
 VII 
 
 Believe, — if e'er this rhyme recall 
 
 One thought of him who frames it, — 
 Believe him one who brings his all 
 
 Where Love or Friendship claims it ; 
 Though cold the surface of his heart, 
 
 There 's warmth beneath the embers ; 
 For all it hopes, it would not part 
 
 With aught that it remembers !
 
 46 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 A RETROSPECT 
 
 The Lady of his love, oh, she was changed, 
 As by the sickness of the soul ! — Byron. 
 
 Cto thou, white in thy soul, to fill a throne 
 Of innocence and sanctity in Heaven. — Ford. 
 
 I KNEW that it must be ! 
 Yea, thou art changed — all worshipped as thou art — 
 Mourned as thou shalt be ! sickness of the heart 
 
 Hath done its work on thee ! 
 
 Thy dim eyes tell a tale — 
 A piteous tale of vigils; and the trace 
 Of bitter tears is on thy beauteous face^ — 
 
 Beauteous, and yet so pale. 
 
 Changed Love ! — but not alone ! 
 I am not what they think me; though my cheek 
 Wear but its last year's furrow, though I speak 
 
 Thus in my natural tone. 
 
 The temple of my youth 
 Was strong in moral purpose; once I felt 
 The glory of Philosophy, and knelt 
 
 In the pure shrine of Truth. 
 
 I went into the storm, 
 And mocked the billows of the tossing sea : 
 I said to Fate, ' What wilt thou do to me ? 
 
 I have not harmed a worm ! ' —
 
 A RETEOSPECT 47 
 
 Vainly the heart is steeled 
 In Wisdom's armour ; let her burn her books ! 
 I look upon them as the soldier looks 
 
 Upon his cloven shield. 
 
 Virtue and Virtue^s rest — 
 How have they perished ! through my onward course 
 Repentance dogs my footsteps : black Remorse 
 
 Is my familiar guest. 
 
 The glory and the glow 
 Of the world^s loveliness have past away; 
 And Fate hath little to inflict to-day, 
 
 And nothing to bestow. 
 
 Is not the damning line 
 0£ guilt and grief engraven on me now? 
 And the fierce passion which hath scathed thy brow — 
 
 Hath it not blasted mine? 
 
 No matter ! I will turn 
 To the straight path of Duty; I have wrought 
 At last my wayward spirit to be taught 
 
 What it hath yet to learn. 
 
 Labour shall be my lot : 
 My kindred shall be joyful in my praise; 
 And Fame shall twine for me in after days 
 
 A wreath I covet not :
 
 48 POEMS OF LOVE AND FANCY 
 
 And, if I cannot make, 
 Dearest, thy hope my hope, thy trust my trust, 
 Yet will I study to be good and just 
 
 And blameless, for thy sake. 
 
 Thou may'st have comfort yet ! 
 Whatever the source from which those waters glide, 
 Thou hast found healing mercy in their tide ; — 
 
 Be happy, and forget. 
 
 Forget me, and farewell; 
 But say not that in me new hopes and fears. 
 Or absence, or the lapse of gradual years. 
 
 Will break thy memory^s spell : 
 
 Indelibly, within. 
 All I have lost is written ; and the theme 
 Which silence whispers to my thought and dream 
 
 Is sorrow still, — and sin. 
 
 (1831.)
 
 49 
 
 A PREFACE 
 
 I HAVE a tale of Love to tell ; — 
 Lend me thy light lute^ L.E.L. 
 
 Lend me thy lute ! what other strings 
 
 Should speak of those delicious things, 
 
 Which constitute Lovers joys and woes 
 
 In pretty duodecimos ? 
 
 Thou knowest every herb and flower, 
 
 Of wondrous name, and wondrous power. 
 
 Which, gathered where white wood-doves nestle, 
 
 And beat up by poetic pestle, 
 
 Bind gallant knights in fancied fetters. 
 
 And set young ladies writing letters : 
 
 Thou singest songs of floods and fountains. 
 
 Of mounted lords and lordly mountains, 
 
 Of dazzling shields and dazzling glances, 
 
 Of piercing frowns and piercing lances. 
 
 Of leaping brands and sweeping willows, 
 
 Of dreading seas and dreaming billows, 
 
 Of sunbeams which are like red wine, 
 
 Of odorous lamps of argentine. 
 
 Of cheeks that burn, of hearts that freeze. 
 
 Of odours that send messages. 
 
 Of kingfishers and silver pheasants. 
 
 Of gems to which the Sun makes presents, 
 
 Of miniver and timeworn walls. 
 
 Of clairschachs and of atabals.
 
 50 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 Within thy passion-haunted pages 
 Throng- forward girls — and distant ages, 
 The hfeless learns at once to live, 
 The dumb grows strangely talkative, 
 Resemblances begin to strike 
 In things exceedingly unlike, 
 All nouns, like statesmen, suit all places, 
 And verbs, turned lawyers, hunt for cases. 
 
 Oh ! if it be a crime to languish 
 
 Over thy scenes of bliss or anguish, 
 
 To float with Raymond o'er the sea. 
 
 To sigh with dark-eyed Rosalie, 
 
 And sit in reverie luxurious 
 
 Till tea grows cold, and aunts grow furious, 
 
 I own the soft impeachment true. 
 
 And burn the Westminster Review. 
 
 Lend me thy lute ; I'll be a poet ; 
 
 All Paternoster Row shall know it ! 
 
 I'll rail in rhyme at cruel Fate 
 
 From Temple Bar to Tyburn Gate ; 
 
 Old Premium's daughter in the City 
 
 Shall feel that love is kin to pity, 
 
 Hot ensigns shall be glad to borrow 
 
 My notes of rapture and of sorrow, 
 
 And I shall hear sweet voices sighing 
 
 ' So young ! — and I am told he 's dying ! ' 
 
 Yes ! I shall wear a wreath eternal, 
 
 For. full twelve months, in Post and Journal, 
 
 Admired by all the Misses Brown 
 
 Who go to school at Kentish Town,
 
 A PREFACE 51 
 
 And worshipped by the fair Arachne 
 
 Who makes my handkerchiefs at Hackney ! 
 
 Vain, vain ! — take back the lute ! I see 
 
 Its chords were never meant for me. 
 
 For thine own song", for thine own hand, 
 
 That lute was strung in Fairy-land ; 
 
 And, if a stranger^s thumb should fling 
 
 Its rude touch o'er one golden string, — 
 
 Good night to all the music in it ! 
 
 The string would crack in half a minute. 
 
 Take back the lute ! I make no claim 
 
 To inspiration or to fame ; 
 
 The hopes and fears that bards should cherish, 
 
 I care not when they fade and perish; 
 
 I read political economy, 
 
 Voltaire and Cobbett, and gastronomy. 
 
 And, when I would indite a story 
 
 Of woman's faith or warrior's glory, 
 
 I always wear a night-cap sable, 
 
 And put my elbows on the table, 
 
 And hammer out the tedious toil 
 
 By dint of Walker, and lamp-oil. 
 
 I never feel poetic mania, 
 
 I gnaw no laurel with Urania, 
 
 I court no critic's tender mercies, 
 
 I count the feet in all my verses, 
 
 And own myself a screaming gander 
 
 Among the shrill swans of Mseander ! 
 
 (1824.) 
 
 D 2
 
 52 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 TIMERS SONG 
 
 O'er the level plains^ where mountains greet me as 
 
 I go, 
 O'er the desert waste, where fountains at my 
 
 bidding- flow, 
 On the boundless beam by day, on the cloud by night, 
 I am riding hence away : who will chain my flight ? 
 
 War his weary watch was keeping, — I have crushed 
 
 his spear; 
 Grief within her bower was weeping, — I have dried 
 
 her tear ; 
 Pleasure caught a minute's hold, — then I hurried by, 
 Leaving all her banquet cold, and her goblet dry. 
 
 Power had won a throne of glory : where is now 
 
 his fame ? 
 Genius said ' I live in story : ' who hath heard his 
 
 name ? 
 Love beneath a myrtle bough whispered 'Why so 
 
 fast?' 
 And the roses on his brow withered as I past. 
 
 I have heard the heifer lowing o'er the wild wave's 
 
 bed ; 
 I have seen the billow flowing where the cattle fed ; 
 Where began my wanderings ? Memory will not say ! 
 Where will rest my weary w^ngs? Science turns 
 
 away 
 
 (1826.)
 
 53 
 
 ARMINIUS 1 
 
 Cernebatui- contra minitabundus Arminius, praeliumque de- 
 nuntians. — Tacit. Annul, ii. 10. 
 
 I 
 Back, — back ! — he fears not foaming flood 
 
 Who fears not steel-clad line ! 
 No offspring this of German blood, — 
 
 No brother thou of mine ; 
 Some bastard spawn of menial birth, — 
 
 Some bound and bartered slave : 
 Back, — back ! — for thee our native earth 
 
 Would be a foreign grave ! 
 
 II 
 Away ! be mingled with the rest 
 
 Of that thy chosen tribe; 
 And do the tyrants high behest, 
 
 And earn the robber^s bribe ; 
 And win the chain to gird the neck. 
 
 The gems to hide the hilt, 
 And blazon honour^s hapless wreck 
 
 With all the gauds of guilt. 
 
 ^ Arminius, the assertor of the liberties of Gei-many, had 
 a brother who had been brought up and had risen to high rank 
 in the Roman service. Upon one occasion, when the two 
 armies were separated by the river Weser, the brothers, after 
 a colloquy which ended in reciprocal reproaches, were scarcely 
 prevented, says Tacitus, from rushing into the stream and 
 engaging hand to hand.
 
 54 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 III 
 
 And would'st thou have me share the prey ? 
 
 By all that I have done, 
 By Varus' bones, which day by day 
 
 Are whitening in the sun, — 
 The legion's shattered panoply, 
 
 The eagle's broken wing, 
 I would not be, for earth and sky, 
 
 So loathed and scorned a thing ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Ho ! bring me here the wizard, boy, 
 
 Of most surpassing skill. 
 To agonize, and not destroy, 
 
 To palsy, and not kill : 
 If there be truth in that dread art. 
 
 In song, and spell, and charm. 
 Now let them torture the base heart. 
 
 And wither the false arm ! 
 
 I curse him by our country's gods, 
 
 The terrible, the dark. 
 The scatterers of the Roman rods, 
 
 The quellers of the bark ! 
 They fill a cup with bitter woe, 
 
 They fill it to the brim ; 
 Where shades of warriors feast below, 
 
 That cup shall be for him !
 
 ARMINIUS 55 
 
 VI 
 
 I curse him by the gifts our land 
 Hath owed to him and Rome, — 
 
 The riving" axe and burning brand. 
 Rent forests, blazing home; — 
 
 may he shudder at the thought, 
 Who triumphs in the sight; 
 
 And be his waking terrors wrought 
 Into fierce dreams by night ! 
 
 VII 
 
 1 curse him by the hearts that sigh 
 In cavern, grove, and glen, — 
 
 The sobs of orphaned infancy, 
 
 The tears of aged men ; — 
 When swords are out, and spear and dart 
 
 Leave little space for prayer, 
 No fetter on man^s arm and heart 
 
 Hangs half so heavy there. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Oh misery, that such a vow 
 
 On such a head should be ! 
 Why comes he not, my brother, now, 
 
 To fight or fall with me, — 
 To be my mate in banquet bowl. 
 
 My guard in battle throng. 
 And worthy of his father's soul 
 
 And of his country^s song ?
 
 56 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 IX 
 
 But it is past : — where heroes press 
 
 And spoilers bend the knee, 
 Arminius is not brotherless, — 
 
 His brethren are the free ! 
 They come around ; one hour^ and light 
 
 Will fade from turf and tide; 
 Then onward, onward to the fight. 
 
 With darkness for our guide ! 
 
 X 
 
 To-night, to-night, — when we shall meet 
 
 In combat face to face, — 
 There only would Arminius greet 
 
 The renegade^'s embrace; 
 The canker of Rome's guilt shall be 
 
 Upon his Roman name, 
 And as he lives in slavery. 
 
 So shall he die in shame ! 
 
 (1827.)
 
 57 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS 
 
 OxcE on a time, when sunny May 
 
 Was kissing up the April showers, 
 I saw fair Childhood hard at play 
 
 Upon a bank of blushing* flowers : 
 Happy — he knew not whence or how, — 
 
 And smiling, — who could choose but love him ? 
 For not more glad than Childhood's brow, 
 
 Was the blue heaven that beamed above him. 
 
 II 
 
 Old Time, in most appalling wrath. 
 
 That valley's green repose invaded ; 
 The brooks grew dry upon his path, 
 
 The birds were mute, the lilies faded. 
 But Time so swiftly winged his flight. 
 
 In haste a Grecian tomb to batter. 
 That Childhood watched his paper kite, 
 
 And knew just nothing of the matter. 
 
 Ill 
 
 With curling lip and glancing eye 
 Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute; 
 
 But Childhood's glance of purity 
 Had such a holy spell within it,
 
 58 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 That the dark demon to the air 
 
 Spread forth again his baffled pinion, 
 
 And hid his envy and despair, 
 
 Self-tortured, in his own dominion. 
 
 IV 
 
 Then stepped a gloomy phantom up, 
 
 Pale, cypress-crowned, Night^s awful daughter, 
 And proffered him a fearful cup 
 
 Full to the brim of bitter water : 
 Poor Childhood bade her tell her name ; 
 
 And when the beldame muttered — ' Sorrow,' 
 He said, — 'Don't interrupt my game; 
 
 I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow/ 
 
 V 
 
 The Muse of Pindus thither came. 
 
 And wooed him with the softest numbers 
 That ever scattered wealth and fame 
 
 Upon a youthful poet's slumbers ; 
 Though sweet the music of the lay, 
 
 To Childhood it was all a riddle. 
 And * Oh,' he cried, ' do send away 
 
 That noisy woman with the fiddle ! ' 
 
 VI 
 
 Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball. 
 
 And taught him, with most sage endeavour. 
 
 Why bubbles rise and acorns fall. 
 And why no toy may last for ever.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS 59 
 
 She talked of all the wondrous laws 
 Which Nature^'s open book discloses, 
 
 And Childhood, ere she made a pause, 
 Was fast asleep among the roses. 
 
 VII 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on ! Oh ! Manhood^s dreams 
 
 Are all of earthly pain or pleasure. 
 Of Glory's toils. Ambition's schemes, 
 
 Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure : 
 But to the couch where Childhood lies 
 
 A more delicious trance is given. 
 Lit up by rays from seraph eyes. 
 
 And glimpses of remembered Heaven ! 
 
 (1829.)
 
 60 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 CHILDHOOD'S CRITICISM 
 
 TO MISS E S , ON HER REPEATING THE 
 
 PRECEDING LINES 
 
 You've only got to curtsey, whisp — 
 — er, hold your head up, laugh and lisp, 
 And then you're sure to take. 
 
 Rejected Addresses, 
 
 A Poet o'er his tea and toast 
 
 Composed a page o£ verse last winter, 
 Transcribed it on the best Bath post, 
 
 And sent the treasure to a printer. 
 He thought it an enchanting thing; 
 
 And, fancying no one else could doubt it. 
 Went out, as happy as a king, 
 
 To hear what people said about it. 
 
 II 
 
 Queen Fame was driving out that day ; 
 
 And, though she scarcely seemed to know him, 
 He bustled up, and tried to say 
 
 Something about his little poem ; 
 But ere from his unhappy lip 
 
 Three timid trembling words could falter. 
 The goddess cracked her noisy whip. 
 
 And went to call upon Sir Walter !
 
 CHILDHOOD'S CRITICISM 61 
 
 IIT 
 
 Old Criticism, whose g-lance observed 
 
 The minstrel's blushes and confusion. 
 Came uj) and told him he deserved 
 
 The rack at least for his intrusion : 
 The poor youth stared and strove to speak ; 
 
 His tyrant laughed to see him wincing, 
 And grumbled out a line of Greek, 
 
 Which Dullness said was quite convincing. 
 
 IV 
 
 Then stepped a gaunt and wrinkled witch, 
 
 Hight Avarice, from her filthy hovel; 
 And ' Rhyme,' quoth she, ' won't make you rich ; 
 
 Go home, good youth, and write a novel ! 
 Cut up the follies of the age; 
 
 Sauce them with puns and disquisitions; 
 Let Colburn cook your title-page, 
 
 And I'll ensure you six editions/ 
 
 Ambition met him next; — he sighed 
 
 To see those once- loved wreaths of laurel. 
 And crept into a bower to hide. 
 
 For he and she had had a quarrel. 
 The goddess of the cumbrous crown 
 
 Called after him, in tones of pity, 
 ' My son, you've dropped your wig and gown ! 
 
 And, bless me, how you've torn your Chitty ! '
 
 62 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 VI 
 
 'Twas all unheeded or unheard, 
 
 For now he knocked at Beauty's portal ; 
 One word from her, one golden word, 
 
 He knew, would make his lays immortal. 
 Alas ! he elbowed through a throng 
 
 Of danglers, dancers, catgut scrapers. 
 And found her twisting up his song 
 
 Into the sweetest candlepapers. 
 
 VII 
 
 He turned away with sullen looks 
 
 From Beauty, and from Beauty's scorning. 
 ' To-night/ he said, ' V\\ burn my books ; 
 
 I'll break my harpstrings in the morning.^^ — 
 "When lo, a laughing Fay drew near; 
 
 And with soft voice, more soft than Circe's, 
 She whispered in the poet's ear 
 
 The sounds the poet loved — his verses ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 He looked, and listened ; and it seemed 
 
 In Childhood's lips the lines grew sweeter : 
 Good lack ! till now he had not dreamed 
 
 How bright the thought, how smooth the metre. 
 Ere the last stanza was begun, 
 
 He managed all his wrath to smother ; 
 And when the little Nymph had done. 
 
 Said ' Thank you, Love ; — I'll write another ! ' 
 
 (October 1, 1829.)
 
 63 
 
 CASSANDRA 
 
 Xrtvai, arivw ae, Siaaa Kai rpivXa Sopos 
 AvOis irpbs dA/c7)c Kal Siapnayds S6ij.(uv 
 Kal TTvp evavyd^ovaav aiaTwrripiov. 
 
 Lycophron, Cassandra, 69. 
 
 They hurried to the feast^ 
 
 The warrior and the priest, 
 And the gay maiden with her jewelled brow ; 
 
 The minstrel's harp and voice 
 
 Said ^ Triumph and rejoice ! ' — 
 One only mourned ! — many are mourning now ! 
 
 II 
 
 ' Peace ! startle not the light 
 
 With the wild dreams of night ! ' — 
 
 So spake the Princes in their pride and joy, 
 When I in their dull ears 
 Shrieked forth my tale of tears, 
 
 ' Woe to the gorgeous city, woe to Troy ! ' — 
 
 III 
 
 Ye watch the dun smoke rise 
 
 Up to the lurid skies ; 
 Ye see the red light flickering on the stream ; 
 
 Ye listen to the fall 
 
 Of gate and tower and wall ; 
 Sisters, the time is come! — alas, it is no dream !
 
 64 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 TV 
 
 Through hall and court and porch 
 
 Glides on the pitiless torch ; 
 The swift avengers faint not in their toil : 
 
 Vain now the matron^s sighs^ 
 
 Vain now the infantas cries ; — 
 Look, sisters, look ! who leads them to the spoil ? 
 
 Not Pyrrhus, though his hand 
 
 Is on his father's brand ; 
 Not the fell f ramer of the accursed steed ; 
 
 Not Nestor^s hoary head. 
 
 Nor Teucer's rapid tread, 
 Nor the fierce wrath of impious Diomede. 
 
 VI 
 
 Visions of deeper fear 
 
 To-night are warring here; — 
 I know them, sisters, the mysterious Three : 
 
 Minerva's lightning frown, 
 
 And Juno's golden crown, 
 And him, the mighty Ruler of the sounding sea ! 
 
 VII 
 
 Through wailing and through woe 
 Silent and stern they go; 
 So have I ever seen them in my trance :
 
 CASSANDRA 65 
 
 Exultingly they guide 
 Destruction's fiery tide, 
 And lift the dazzling shield, and poise the deadly lance. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Lo, where the old man stands. 
 
 Folding his palsied hands, 
 And muttering, with white lips, his querulous 
 prayer : 
 
 'Where is my noble son, 
 
 My best, my bravest one — 
 Troy's hope and Priam's — where is Hector, where ? ' 
 
 IX 
 
 Why is thy falchion grasped ? 
 
 Why is thy helmet clasped ? 
 Fitter the fillet for such brow as thine! 
 
 The altar reeks with gore; 
 
 O sisters, look no more ! 
 It is our father's blood upon the shrine ! 
 
 And ye, alas ! must roam 
 
 Far from your desolate home. 
 Far from lost Ilium, o'er the joyless wave; 
 
 Ye may not from these bowers 
 
 Gather the trampled flowers 
 To wreathe sad garlands for your brethren's grave.
 
 66 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 XI 
 
 Away, away ! the gale 
 
 Stirs the white-bosomed sail ; 
 Hence ! look not back to freedom or to fame ; 
 
 Labour must be your doom, 
 
 Night-watchings, days of gloom, 
 The bitter bread of tears, the bridal couch of shame. 
 
 XII 
 
 Even now some Grecian dame 
 
 Beholds the signal flame, 
 And waits, expectant, the returning fleet ; 
 
 ' Why lingers yet my lord ? 
 
 Hath he not sheathed his sword ? 
 "Will he not bring my handmaid to my feet ? ' 
 
 XIII 
 
 Me, too, the dark Fates call : 
 
 Their sway is over all, 
 Captor and captive, prison-house and throne : — 
 
 I tell of others' lot ; 
 
 They hear me, heed me not ! 
 Hide, angry Phoebus, hide from me mine own 
 
 (1830.)
 
 67 
 
 THE COVENANTER'S LAMENT FOR 
 BOTHWELL BRIGG 
 
 The men of sin prevail ! 
 Once more the prince of this world lifts his horn ; 
 Judah is scattered, as the chaff is borne 
 
 Before the stormy gale. 
 
 Where are our brethren ? where 
 The good and true, the terrible and fleet? 
 They whom we loved, with whom we sat at meat, 
 
 With whom we kneeled in prayer? 
 
 Mangled and marred they lie 
 Upon the bloody pillow of their rest; 
 Stern Dalzell smiles, and Clavers with a jest 
 
 Spurs his fierce charger by. 
 
 So let our foes rejoice ; 
 We to the Lord, who hears their impious boasts. 
 Will call for comfort; to the God of hosts 
 
 We will lift up our voice. 
 
 Give ear unto our song ; 
 For we are wandering o'er our native land 
 As sheep that have no shepherd; and the hand 
 
 Of wicked men is strong. 
 
 Only to thee we bow : 
 Our lips have drained the fury of thy cup ; 
 And the deep murmurs of our hearts go up 
 
 To Heaven for vengeance now. 
 E 2
 
 68 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 Avenge, — oh ! not our years 
 Of pain and wrong-, the blood of martyrs shed, 
 The ashes heaped upon the hoary head. 
 
 The maiden's silent tears, 
 
 The babe's bread torn away, 
 The harvest blasted by the war steed's hoof, 
 The red flame wreathing o'er the cottage roof. 
 
 Judge not for these to-day ! — 
 
 Is not thine own dread rod 
 ]\Iocked by the proud, thy holy book disdained, 
 Thy name blasphemed, thy temple courts profaned ? — 
 
 Avenge thyself, O God ! 
 
 Break Pharaoh's iron crown ; 
 Bind with new chains their nobles and their kings ; 
 "Wash from thine house the blood of unclean things. 
 
 And hurl their Dagon down ! 
 
 Come in thine own good time ! 
 We will abide ; we have not turned from thee. 
 Though in a world of grief our portion be. 
 
 Of bitter grief, and crime. 
 
 Be thou our guard and guide ! 
 Forth from the spoiler's synagogue we go, 
 That we may worship where the torrents flow 
 
 And where the whirlwinds ride. 
 
 From lonely rocks and caves 
 We will pour forth our sacrifice of prayer. — 
 On, brethren, to the mountains ! Seek we there 
 
 Safe temples, quiet graves ! 
 
 (1830.)
 
 69 
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 
 
 Busy people, great and small, 
 Awkward dancers, short and tall. 
 Ladies, fighting which shall call. 
 Loungers, pertly quizzing all. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 This is a night of pleasure ! Care, 
 
 I shake thee from me ! do not dare 
 
 To stir from out thy murky cell, 
 
 Where in their dark recesses dwell 
 
 Thy kindred gnomes, who love to nip 
 
 The rose on Beauty's cheek and lip, 
 
 Until beneath their venomed breath 
 
 Life wears the pallid hue of death. 
 
 Avaunt ! I shake thee from me, Care ! 
 
 The gay, the youthful, and the fair. 
 
 From Lodge, and Court, and House, and Hall 
 
 Are hurrying to the County Ball. 
 
 Avaunt ! I tread on haunted ground ; 
 
 And giddy Pleasure draws around 
 
 To shield us from thine envious spite 
 
 Her magic circle ! nought to-night 
 
 Over that guarded barrier flies 
 
 But laughing lips and smiling eyes ; 
 
 My look shall gaze around me free. 
 
 And like my look my line shall be; 
 
 While fancy leaps in every vein, 
 
 While love is life, and thought is pain, 
 
 I will not rule that look and line 
 
 By any word or will of thine.
 
 70 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNEES 
 
 The Moon hath risen. Still and pale 
 Thou movest in thy silver veil. 
 Queen of the night ! the filmy shroud 
 Of many a mild transparent cloud 
 Hides, yet adorns thee; meet disguise 
 To shield thy blush from mortal eyes. 
 Full many a maid hath loved to gaze 
 Upon thy melancholy rays ; 
 And many a fond despairing youth 
 Hath breathed to thee his tale of truth ; 
 And many a luckless rhyming wight 
 Hath looked upon thy tender light, 
 And spilt his precious ink upon it, 
 In ode, or elegy, or sonnet. 
 Alas ! at this inspiring hour, 
 I feel not, I, thy boasted jjower. 
 Nor seek to gain thine approbation 
 By vow, or prayer, or invocation ; 
 I ask not what the vapours are 
 That veil thee like a white cymar, 
 Nor do I care a single straw 
 For all the stars I ever saw ! 
 I fly from thee, I fly from these, 
 To bow to earthly goddesses, 
 "Whose forms in mortal beauty shine. 
 As fair, but not so cold, as thine. 
 
 But this is foolish ! Stars and Moon, 
 You look quite beautiful in June ; 
 But when a bard sits down to sing, 
 Your beauty is a dangerous thing ;
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 71 
 
 To muse upon your placid beam 
 One wanders sadly from one's theme, 
 And when weak poets go astray, 
 ' The stars are more in fault than they.' 
 The moon is charming' ; so, perhaps, 
 Are pretty maidens in mob-caps ; 
 But, when a ball is in the case. 
 They're both a little out of place. 
 
 I love a ball ! there 's such an air 
 Of magic in the lustres' glare, 
 And such a spell of witchery 
 In all I hear and all I see, 
 That I can read in every dance 
 Some relic sweet of old romance : 
 As fancy wills I laugh and smile. 
 And talk such nonsense all the while 
 That when Dame Reason rules again. 
 And morning cools my heated brain, 
 Reality itself doth seem 
 Nought but the j)ageant of a dream ; 
 In raptures deep I gaze, as now. 
 On smiling lip and tranquil brow, 
 While merry voices echo round. 
 And music's most inviting sound 
 Swells on mine ear ; the glances fly, 
 And love and folly flutter high, 
 And many a fair romantic cheek, 
 Reddened with pleasure or with pique, 
 Glows with a sentimental flush 
 That seems a bright unfading blush ;
 
 72 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 And slender arms before my face 
 Are rounded with a statue's grace ; 
 And ringlets wave^ and beauteous feet, 
 Swifter than lightning, part and meet; 
 Frowns come and go ; white hands are pressed, 
 And sighs are heard, and secrets guessed, 
 And looks are kind, and eyes are bright. 
 And tongues are free, and hearts are light. 
 
 Sometimes upon the crowd I look. 
 Secure in some sequestered nook; 
 And while from thence I look and listen, 
 Though ladies' eyes so gaily glisten. 
 Though ladies' locks so lightly float, 
 Though music pours her mellowed note, 
 Some little spite will oft intrude 
 Upon my merry solitude. 
 
 By turns the ever-varying scene 
 Awakes within me mirth and spleen ; 
 By turns the gay and vain appear; 
 By turns I love to smile and sneer, 
 Mixing my malice with my glee. 
 Good humour with misanthropy ; 
 And while my raptured eyes adore 
 Half the bright forms that flit before, 
 I notice with a little laugh 
 The follies of the other half. 
 That little laugh will oft call down, 
 From matron sage, rebuke and frown ;
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 73 
 
 Little, in truth, for these I care : 
 By Momus and his mirth I swear, — 
 For all the dishes Rowley tastes, 
 For all the paper Courtenay wastes, 
 For all the punch his subjects quafP, 
 I would not change that little laugh ! ^ 
 Shall I not laugh, when every fool 
 Comes hither for my ridicule, — 
 When ev^ry face that flits to-night 
 In long review before my sight 
 Shows off, unasked, its airs and graces. 
 Unconscious of the mirth it raises? 
 
 Skilled to deceive our ears and eyes 
 
 By civil looks and civil lies, 
 
 Skilled from the search of men to hide 
 
 His narrow bosom's inward pride. 
 
 And charm the blockheads he beguiles 
 
 By uniformity of smiles, 
 
 The County Member, bright Sir Paul, 
 
 Is Primo Buffo at the Ball. 
 
 Since first he longed to represent 
 His fellow-men in Parliament, 
 Courted the cobblers and their spouses. 
 And sought his honours in mud houses, 
 Full thirty springs have come and fled; 
 And though from off his shining head 
 
 * Hoc ego opertum, 
 
 Hoc ridere meum, tarn nil, nulla tibi vendo 
 Iliade. Pers.
 
 74 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 The twin destroyers. Time and Care, 
 
 Begin to pluck its fading hair. 
 
 Yet where it grew, and where it grows, 
 
 Lie powder's never- varying snows, 
 
 And hide the havoc years have made 
 
 In kind monotony of shade. 
 
 Sir Paul is young in all but years; 
 
 And, when his courteous face appears, 
 
 The maiden wall- flowers of the room 
 
 Admire the freshness of his bloom, 
 
 Hint that his face has made him vain. 
 
 And vow ^he grows a boy again/ 
 
 And giddy girls of gay fifteen 
 
 Mimic his manner and his mien ; 
 
 And when the supple politician 
 
 Bestows his bow of recognition, 
 
 Or forces on th' averted ear 
 
 The flattery it affects to fear. 
 
 They look, and laugh behind the fan, 
 
 And dub Sir Paul ' the voung old man/ 
 
 Look ! as he paces round, he greets 
 With nod and simper all he meets : — 
 ' Ah, ha ! your Lordship ! is it you ? 
 Still slave to beauty and beaux yeuoe ? 
 Well, well ! and how 's the gout, my Lord ?- 
 My dear Sir Charles, upon my word, 
 Vavr de Paris, since last I knew you. 
 Has been Medea's cauldron to you. — 
 William, my boy ! how fast you grow ! 
 Yours is a light fantastic toe,
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 75 
 
 Winged with the wings of Mercury ! 
 
 I was a scholar once, you see ! 
 
 And how^s the mare you used to ride? 
 
 And who ^s the Hebe by your side ? — 
 
 Doctor ! I thought I heard you sneeze ? 
 
 How is my dear Hippocrates ? 
 
 What have you done for old John Oates, 
 
 The gouty merchant with five votes ? 
 
 What, dead ? well, well ! no fault of yours ! 
 
 There is no drug that always cures ! 
 
 Ah doctor ! I begin to break ; 
 
 And I'm glad of it, for yoiir sake ! ' 
 
 As thus the spruce M.P. runs on, 
 
 Some quiet dame, who dotes upon 
 
 His speeches, buckles, and grimace, 
 
 Grows very eloquent in praise. 
 
 ' How can they say Sir Paul is proud ? 
 
 I'm sure, in all the evening's crowd. 
 
 There 's not a man that bows so low ; 
 
 His words come out so soft and slow; 
 
 And when he begged me keep my seat. 
 
 He looked so civil and so sweet : ' 
 
 ' Ma'am,' says her spouse, in harsher tone, 
 
 ' He only wants to keep his own.' 
 
 Her Ladyship is in a huff ; 
 
 And Miss, enraged at il/a's rebuff, 
 
 Rings the alarm in t'other ear : 
 
 ^ Lord ! now Papa, you're too severe ; 
 
 Where in the country will you see 
 
 Manners so taking and so free?'
 
 76 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 ' His manners free ? I only know 
 Our votes have made his letters so ! ' — 
 ' And then he talks with so much ease. 
 And then he gives such promises ! ' 
 ' Gives promises ! and well he may, 
 You know they're all he gives away ! ' 
 ' How folks misrepresent Sir Paul I ' 
 ' 'Tis he misrepresents us all ! ' 
 ' How very stale ! — but you'll confess 
 He has a charming taste in dress, 
 And uses such delightful scent ! 
 And when he pays a compliment' — 
 ' Eh ! and what then, my pretty pet ! 
 What then ? — he never pays a debt ! ' 
 
 Sir Paul is skilled in all the tricks 
 
 Of politesse and politics ; 
 
 Long hath he learned to wear a mien 
 
 So still, so open, so serene, 
 
 That strangers in those features grave 
 
 Would strive in vain to read a knave. 
 
 Alas ! it is believed by all 
 
 There is more ' Sir" than ' Saint ' in Paul ; 
 
 He knows the value of a j^laee ; 
 
 Can give a promise with a grace ; 
 
 Is quite an adept at excuse; 
 
 Sees when a vote will be of use; 
 
 And, if the Independents flinch. 
 
 Can help his Lordship at a pinch. 
 
 Acutely doth he read the fate 
 
 Of deep intrigues and plans of state.
 
 THE COUNTY BALL n 
 
 And if perchance some powdered peer 
 
 Hath gained or lost the Monarches ear, 
 
 Foretells, without a shade of doubt. 
 
 The comings in and goings out. 
 
 When placemen of distinguished note 
 
 Mistake, mislead, misname, misquote. 
 
 Confound the Papist and the Turk, 
 
 Or murder Sheridan and Burke, 
 
 Or make a riddle of the laws. 
 
 Sir Paul grows hoarse in his applause : 
 
 And when in words of equal size 
 
 Some Oppositionist replies, 
 
 And talks of taxes and starvation 
 
 And Catholic Emancipation, 
 
 The Knight, in indolent repose. 
 
 Looks only to the Ayes and Noes. 
 
 Let youth say ^ Grand ! ' — Sir Paul says ' Stuff ! ' 
 
 Let youth take fire ! — Sir Paul takes snuff. 
 
 Methinks amid the crowded room 
 I see one countenance of gloom ; 
 Whence is young Edmund^s pain or pique? 
 Whence is the paleness of his cheek? 
 And whence the wrathful eye, that now 
 Lowers, like Kean^s, beneath the brow, 
 And now again on earth is bent, 
 'Twixt anger and embarrassment? 
 Is he poetical, or sad ? — 
 Really — or fashionably — mad ? 
 Are his young spirits colder grown 
 At Ellen's — or the Muse's frown ?
 
 78 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 He did not love in other days 
 
 To wear the sullens on his face 
 
 When merry sights and sounds were near 
 
 Nor on his unregarding ear 
 
 Unheeded thus was wont to fall 
 
 The music of the County Ball, 
 
 I pity all whom Fate unites 
 
 To vulgar belles on gala nights; 
 
 But chiefly him who haply sees 
 
 The day-star of his destinies — 
 
 The Beauty of his fondest dreaming — 
 
 Sitting in solitude^ and seeming 
 
 To lift her dark capricious eye 
 
 Beneath its fringe reproachingly. 
 
 Alas ! my luckless friend is tied 
 
 To the fair hoyden by his side, 
 
 Who opens^ without law or rule. 
 
 The treasures of the boarding-school ; 
 
 And she is prating learnedly 
 
 Of logic and of chemistry. 
 
 Describing chart and definition 
 
 With geographical precision, 
 
 Culling her words, as bid by chance, 
 
 From England, Italy, or France, 
 
 Until, like many a clever dunce. 
 
 She murders all the three at once. 
 
 Sometimes she mixes by the ounce 
 
 Discussions deep on frill and flounce ; 
 
 Points out the stains, that stick like burs 
 
 To ladies' gowns — or characters ;
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 79 
 
 Talks of the fiddles and the weather, 
 
 Of Laura's wreath, and Fannia's feather ; 
 
 All which obedient Edmund hears 
 
 With passive look, and open ears. 
 
 And understands about as much 
 
 As if the lady spoke in Dutch ; 
 
 Until, in indignation high, 
 
 She finds the youth makes no reply, 
 
 And thinks he's grown as deaf a stock 
 
 As Dido — or Marpesian rock.^ 
 
 Ellen, the lady of his love, 
 
 Is doomed the like distress to prove, 
 
 Chained to a Captain of the wars, 
 
 Like Venus by the side of Mars. 
 
 Hark! Valour talks of conquered towns; 
 
 See ! silent Beauty frets and frowns ; 
 
 The man of fights is wondering now 
 
 That girls won't speak M'hen dandies bow ; 
 
 And Ellen finds, with much surprise. 
 
 That beaux toill speak when belles despise. 
 
 * Ma'am,' says the Captain, * I protest 
 
 I come to ye a stranger guest, 
 
 Fresh from the dismal, dangerous land 
 
 Where men are blinded by the sand. 
 
 Where undiscovered things are hid 
 
 In owl-frequented pyramid, 
 
 And mummies with their silent looks 
 
 Appear like memorandum books 
 
 ' Dido — non magis — sermone movetur 
 Quaui si dura silex, aut stet Marpesia cautes. 
 
 ViRUIL.
 
 80 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNEES 
 
 Giving a hint of death, for fear 
 
 We men should be too happy here. 
 
 But if upon my native land 
 
 Fair ones as still as mummies stand, 
 
 By Jove^ — I had as lief be there ! ' — 
 
 (The Lady looks — ' I wish you were/) 
 
 ' I fear I'm very dull to-night ' — 
 
 (The Lady looks — ^You're very right/) 
 
 ' But if one smile — one cheering ray ' — 
 
 (The Lady looks another way — ) 
 
 ' Alas ! from some more happy man ' — 
 
 (The Lady stoops and bites her fan.) 
 
 ' Flattery, perhaps, is not a crime/- - 
 
 (The Lady dances out of time ;) 
 
 ' Perhaps e'en now within your heart, 
 
 Cruel ! you wish us leagues apart, 
 
 And banish me from Beauty's presence ! ' 
 
 The Lady bows in acquiescence, 
 
 With steady brow, and studied face. 
 
 As if she thought, in such a case, 
 
 A contradiction to her Beau 
 
 Neither polite — nor a propos. 
 
 Unawed by scandal or by sneer. 
 Is Reuben Nott the blunderer here? 
 What ! is he willing to expose 
 His erring brain to friends and foes? 
 And does he venturously dare, 
 'Midst grinning fop and spiteful fair, 
 In spite of all their ancient slips, 
 To open those unhappy lips?
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 81 
 
 Poor Reuben ! o'er his infant head 
 Her choicest bounties Nature shed ; 
 She gave him talent, humour, sense, 
 A decent face, and competence, 
 And then, to mar the beauteous plan. 
 She bade him be — an absent man. 
 Ever offending, ever fretting. 
 Ever explaining and forgetting. 
 He blunders on from day to day, 
 And drives his nearest friends away. 
 Do farces meet with flat damnation ? — 
 He^s ready with 'congratulation.' 
 Are friends in office not quife pure? — 
 He ' owns he hates a sinecure.' 
 
 Was Major in foreign strife 
 
 Not over prodigal of life ? — 
 
 He talks about ' the coward's grave : ' 
 
 And ' who so base as be a slave ? ' 
 
 Is some fair cousin made a wife, 
 
 In the full autumn of her life ? — 
 
 He's sure to shock the youthftd bride 
 
 With ' forty years, come Whitsuntide ! ' 
 
 He wanders round. I'll act the spy 
 Upon his fatal courtesy, 
 Which always gives the greatest pain. 
 Where most it strives to entertain : — 
 ' Edward, my boy ! an age has passed 
 Methinks, since Reuben saw you last; 
 How fares the Abbey? and the rooks? 
 Your tenants? and your sister's looks?
 
 82 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Lovely and fascinating still, 
 
 With lips that wound and eyes that kill? 
 
 When last I saw her dangerous face, 
 
 There was a lover in the case — 
 
 A pretty pair of epaulettes ! — 
 
 But then, there were some ugly debts ! — 
 
 A match ? — nay ! why so gloomy, boy ? 
 
 Upon my life I wish 'em joy ! ' 
 
 With arms enfolded o'er his breast, 
 
 And fingers clenched, and lips compressed, 
 
 And eye, whose every glance appears 
 
 To speak a threat in Reuben's ears. 
 
 That youth hath heard; 'tis brief and stern. 
 
 The answer that he deigns return; 
 
 Then silent on his homeward way. 
 
 Like Ossian's ghosts, he strides away. 
 
 Astonished at his indignation, 
 
 Reuben breaks out in exclamation. 
 
 ' Edward ! I mean — I really meant — 
 
 Upon my word ! — a compliment ; 
 
 You look so stern ! — nay, why is this ? 
 
 Angry because I flattered Miss? 
 
 What ! gone ? — the deuce is in the man ! 
 
 Explain, Sir Robert, if you can.' — 
 
 * Eh ! what ? perhaps you haven't heard, — 
 
 Excuse my laughing — how absurd ! 
 
 A slight fa?ix pas ! — a trifle merely ! 
 
 Ha ! ha ! — egad, you touched him nearly ! '
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 88 
 
 All blunderers, when they chance to make 
 In colloqviy some small mistake, 
 Make haste to make a hundred more 
 To mend the one they made before. 
 'Tis thus with Reuben; through the throng 
 With hurried steps he hastes along; 
 Thins, like a pest, the crowded seats. 
 And runs a muck at all he meets, 
 Rich in his unintended satire. 
 And killing where he meant to flatter. 
 He makes a College Fellow wild 
 By asking for his wife and child; 
 Puts a haught Blue in awful passion 
 By disquisitions on the fashion; 
 Refers a knotty case in whist 
 To Morley the philanthropist; 
 Quotes to a sportsman from St. Luke; 
 Bawls out plain ' Bobby ' to a Duke ; 
 And while a barrister invites 
 Our notice to the Bill of Rights, 
 And fat Sir John begins to launch 
 Into the praises of a haunch, 
 He bids the man of quibbles pause 
 By eulogizing ' Spartan Laws,' 
 And makes the epicure quite wroth 
 By eulogising ' Spartan broth.' 
 Error on error grows and swells; — 
 For, as a certain proverb tells, 
 'When once a man has lost his way,^ — 
 But you have read it, — or you may. 
 F 2
 
 84 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Girt with a crowd of listening Graces, 
 With expectation on their faces, 
 Chattering, and looking all the while 
 As if he strove to hide a smile 
 That fain would burst Decorum's bands, 
 Alfred Duval, the hoaxer, stands. 
 Alfred ! the eldest born of Mirth ; 
 There is not on this nether earth 
 So light a spirit, nor a soul 
 So little used to all control. 
 Frolic and fun and jest and glee 
 Burst round him unremittingly. 
 And in the glances of his eyes 
 Ever his heart's good humour flies. 
 Mild as the breezes of the South ; 
 And while from many a wiser mouth 
 We drink the fruits of education, 
 The solid Port of conversation. 
 From Alfred's lips we seem to drain 
 A ceaseless flow of bright Champagne. 
 In various shapes his wit is found ; 
 But most it loves to send around 
 O'er half the town, on Rumour's gale, 
 Some marvellously fashioned tale, 
 And cheat the unsuspecting ear 
 With groundless hope, or groundless fear. 
 To speak in civil words, his bent 
 Lies sadly to — embellishment. 
 ' Sir,' says Morality, ' you know 
 You shouldn't flatter Falsehood so :
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 85 
 
 The nurse that rocked you in your crib 
 
 Taught you to loathe and scorn a fib ; 
 
 And Shakspeare warns you of the evil, 
 
 Saying — " Tell truth, and shame the devil ! " 
 
 I like, as well as you, the glances 
 
 Where gay good humour brightly dances; 
 
 But when a man tells horrid lies, — 
 
 You shouldn^t talk about his eyes/ 
 
 Madam ! you^ll think it rather odd, 
 
 That, while I bow me to the rod, 
 
 And make no shadow of defence, 
 
 I still persist in my offence : 
 
 And great and small may join to blame 
 
 The echo of the hoaxer's fame ; 
 
 But, be it known to great and small, — • 
 
 I can't write sermons at a ball. 
 
 'Tis Alfred fills the public prints 
 With all the sly ingenious hints 
 That fly about, begirt with cares. 
 And terrify the Bulls and Bears. 
 Unrivalled statesman ! war and peace 
 He makes and breaks with perfect ease ; 
 Skilful to crown and to depose. 
 He sets up kings, and overthrows ; 
 As if apprenticed to the work. 
 He ties the bowstring round the Turk, 
 Or makes the Algerine devout, 
 Or plagues his Holiness with gout. 
 Or drives the Spaniard from Madrid 
 As quick as Bonaparte did.
 
 86 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Sometimes at home his plots he lays, 
 And wildly still his fancy plays ; 
 He pulls the Speaker from the chair, 
 Murders the Sheriffs, or the Mayor, 
 Or drags a Bishop through the mire. 
 Or sets the theatres on fire. 
 Or brings the weavers to subjection. 
 Or prates of mobs and insurrection. 
 One dash of his creative pen 
 Can raise a hundred thousand men : 
 They march ! he wills, and myriads fall ; 
 One dash annihilates them all ! 
 
 And now, amid that female rout, 
 What scandal doth he buzz about ? 
 What grand affair or mighty name 
 Entrusts he to the gossip Fame? 
 Unchecked, unstayed, he hurries on 
 With wondrous stories of the Ton ; 
 Describes how London ladies lose 
 Their heads in helmets — like the Blues, 
 And how the highest circles meet 
 To dance with pattens on their feet ! 
 And all the while he tells his lie 
 With such a solemn gravity, 
 That many a Miss parades the room 
 Dreaming about a casque and plume. 
 And vows it grievously must tire one 
 To waltz upon a pump of iron.
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 87 
 
 Jacques, the Cantab ! I see him brood, 
 
 Wrapt in his mental solitude. 
 
 On thoughts that lie too deep, I wis, 
 
 For such a scene and hour as this. 
 
 Now shall the rivers freeze in May, 
 
 Coquettes be silent at the play ; 
 
 Old men shall dine without a story, 
 
 And mobs be civil to a Tory ! 
 
 All miracles shall well befall, 
 
 When Youth is thoughtful at a ball. 
 
 From thoughts that grieve, and words that vex, 
 
 And names invented to perplex ; 
 
 From latent findings, never found. 
 
 And mystic figures, square and round ; 
 
 Shapes, from whose labyrinthine toil 
 
 A Daedalus might well recoil. 
 
 He steals one night — one single night — 
 
 And gives its moments to delight. 
 
 Yet still upon his struggling soul 
 
 The muddy wave of Cam will roll, 
 
 And all the monsters grim, that float 
 
 Upon that dark and murky moat. 
 
 Come jabbering round him, — dark equation, 
 
 Subtle distinction, disputation ; 
 
 Notion, idea, mystic schism, 
 
 Assumption, proof, and syllogism. 
 
 And many an old and awful name 
 
 Of optic or mechanic fame. 
 
 Look ! in the van stern Euclid shows 
 
 The Asses'-Bridge upon his nose ;
 
 88 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Bacon comes forward, sage austere. 
 And Locke and Paley both are there; 
 And Newton, with a spiteful hiss, 
 Points to his ' De Prmcipiis.' 
 Yet often with his magic wand 
 Doth Mirth dispel that hideous band ; 
 And then in strange confusion lost 
 The mind of Jacques is tempest-tossed: 
 By turns around it come and flee 
 The dnlce and the idile ; 
 By turns, as Thought or Pleasure wills, 
 Quadratics struggle with quadrilles; 
 And figures sour and figures sweet, 
 Of problems — and of dances — meet ; 
 Bisections fight with ' down the middle 's, 
 And chords of arcs with chords of fiddles; 
 Vain are the poor musician's graces ; 
 His bass gives way to given bases — 
 His studied trill to shapely trine — 
 His mellowed shake to puzzling sine : 
 Each forming set recalls a vision 
 Of some enchanting proposition, 
 And merry ' C/iassez-croises liuit ' 
 Is little more than Q. E. D. 
 Ah Stoic youth ! before his eye 
 Bright beauties walk unheeded by 
 And, while his distant fancy strays 
 Remote through Algebraic maze. 
 He sees in whatsoe'er he views 
 The very object he pursues;
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 89 
 
 And fairest forms, from heel to head, 
 Seem crooked as his cc and z. 
 Peace to the man of marble ! — 
 
 Hush ! 
 Whence is the universal rush ? 
 Why doth confusion thus affright 
 The peaceful order of the night, 
 Thwart the musicians in their task, 
 And check the schoolboy's pas de basque ? 
 The Lady Clare hath lost a comb ! — 
 If old Queen Bess from out her tomb 
 Had burst, with royal indignation. 
 Upon our scandalous flirtation. 
 Darted a glance immensely chilling 
 Upon our waltzing and qiiadrilling, 
 Flown at the fiddlers in a pet. 
 And bade them play her minuet; 
 Her stately step and angry eye. 
 Her waist so low, her neck so high, 
 Her habit of inspiring fear, 
 Her knack of boxing on the ear. 
 Could ne'er have made the people stare 
 Like the lost comb of Lady Clare ! 
 The tresses it was wont to bind 
 Joy in their freedom ! unconfined 
 They float around her, and bedeck 
 The marble whiteness of her neck 
 With veil of more resplendent hue 
 Than ever Aphrodite threw
 
 90 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Around her, when unseen she trod 
 Before the sight of man or god. 
 Lookj how a blush of burning red 
 O'er bosom and o'er forehead spread 
 Glances like lightning ! and aside 
 The Lady Clare hath turned her head, 
 As if she strove in vain to hide 
 That countenance of modest pride, 
 Whose colour many an envying fair 
 Would give a monarch's crown to wear. 
 Persuasion lurks on woman's tongue : 
 In woman's smile, oh ! raptures throng ; 
 And woman's tears compassion move, — 
 But, oh ! 'tis woman's blush we love ! 
 
 Now gallantry is busy round : 
 
 All eyes are bent upon the ground; 
 
 And dancers leave the cheerful measure 
 
 To seek the Lady's missing treasure. 
 
 Meanwhile, some charitable Miss, 
 
 Quite ignorant what envy is, 
 
 Sends slowly forth her censures grave. 
 
 * How oddly beauties will behave ! 
 
 Oh ! quite an accident ! — last year 
 
 I think she spmned her ankle here ; 
 
 And then there w^ere such sudden halts, 
 
 And such a bringing out of salts.' — 
 
 ' You think her vain ? ' — ' Oh gracious, no ! 
 
 She has a charming foot, you know ; 
 
 And it's so pretty to be lame; — 
 
 I don't impute the slightest blame, —
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 91 
 
 Only, that very careless braid ! — 
 The fault is with the waiting-maid : 
 I merely mean, since Lady Clare 
 Was flattered so about her hair, 
 Her comb is always dropping out — 
 Oh ! quite an accident ! — no doubt ! ' 
 
 The sun hath risen o'er the deep. 
 
 And fathers, more than half asleep, 
 
 Begin to shake the drowsy head. 
 
 And hint — ' It 's time to be in bed.' 
 
 Then comes chagrin on faces fair; 
 
 Soft hands are clasped in mimic prayer ; 
 
 And then the warning watch is shown, 
 
 And answers in a harsher tone 
 
 Reply to look of lamentation. 
 
 And argument, and supplication : 
 
 In vain sweet voices tell their grief, 
 
 In speeches long, for respite brief; 
 
 Bootless are all their ' Lord ! 's and ' La ! 's. 
 
 Their ' Pi-ay, Papa ! 's and ' Do, Papa ! 's ; 
 
 ' Ladies,' quoth Gout, ' I love my rest ; ' 
 
 The carriage waits ! — enndnm est.^ 
 
 This is the hour for parting bow. 
 
 This is the hour for secret vow; 
 
 For weighty shawl, and hooded cloak, 
 
 Half-uttered tale, and whispered joke : 
 
 This is the hour when ladies bright 
 
 Relate the adventures of the night. 
 
 And fly by turns from tnith to fiction. 
 
 From retrospection to prediction :
 
 92 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 They regulate with unbought bounty 
 The destinies of half the county ; 
 With gipsy talent they foretell 
 How Miss Duquesne will marry w^ell, 
 And how 'tis certain that the Squire 
 Will be more stupid than his sire, 
 And how the girl they cried up so, 
 Only two little months ago, 
 Falls off already, and will be 
 Really quite plain at twenty-three. 
 
 Now Scandal hovers, laughing, o'er them, 
 While pass in long review before them, 
 ' The lady that my lord admires ' — 
 'The gentleman that moves on wires' — 
 The youth ' with such a frightful frown ! '- 
 And ' that extraordinary gown ! ' 
 Now characters are much debated. 
 And witty speeches are narrated; 
 And Criticism delights to dwell 
 On conquests won by many a belle. 
 On compliments that ne'er were paid. 
 On offers that were never made, 
 Refusals — Lord knows when refused, 
 Deductions — Lord knows how deduced; 
 Alas ! how sweetly scandal falls 
 From lips of beauties — after balls ! 
 The music stops — the lights expire — 
 The dance is o'er — the crowds retire. 
 And all those smiling cheeks have flown ! 
 Away ! — the Rhymer is alone.
 
 THE COUNTY BALL 93 
 
 Thou too, the fairest and the best, 
 Hast fleeted from him with the rest; 
 Thy name he will not, love ! unite 
 To the rude strain he pours to-night ; 
 Yet often hath he turned away 
 Amidst his harsh and wandering' lay, 
 And often hath his earnest eye 
 Looked into thine delightedly, 
 And often hath his listening ear — 
 
 But thou art gone ! — what doth he here ? 
 
 LAURA 
 
 For she in shape and beauty did excel 
 All other idols that the heathen do adore : 
 
 And all about her altar scattered lay 
 Great sorts of lovers piteously complaining, 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 A LOOK as blithe, a step as light. 
 As fabled nymph or fairy sprite; 
 A voice, whose every word and tone 
 Might make a thousand hearts its own; 
 A brow of fervour, and a mien 
 Bright with the hopes of gay fifteen ; 
 These, loved and lost one ! these were thine, 
 When first I bowed at Beauty's shrine. 
 But I have torn my wavering soul 
 From woman^s proud and weak control ;
 
 94 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 The fane where I so often knelt. 
 
 The flame my heart so truly felt. 
 
 Are visions of another time, 
 
 Themes for my laughter — and my rhyme. 
 
 She saw and conquered ; in her eye 
 
 There was a careless cruelty 
 
 That shone destniction, while it seemed 
 
 Unconscious of the fire it beamed. 
 
 And oh ! that negligence of dress, 
 
 That wild infantine playfulness. 
 
 That archness of the trifling brow 
 
 That could command — we knew not how — 
 
 Were links of gold, that held me then 
 
 In bonds I may not bear again ; 
 
 For dearer to an honest heart 
 
 Is childhood^s mirth than woman's art. 
 
 Already many an aged dame, 
 
 Skilful in scandalizing fame. 
 
 Foresaw the reign of Laura's face, 
 
 Her sway, her folly, and disgrace : 
 
 Minding the beauty of the day 
 
 More than her partner, or her play, — 
 
 ' Laura a beauty ? — flippant chit ! 
 
 I vow I hate her forward wit ! ' — 
 
 ('I lead a club') — 'Why, ma'am, between us, 
 
 Her mother thinks her quite a Venus ; 
 
 But every parent loves, you know, 
 
 To make a pigeon of her crow.' —
 
 LAURA 95 
 
 Some folks are apt to look too high : 
 She has a dukedom in her eye/ — 
 ' The girl is straight/ — {' we call the ace ') — 
 
 * But that ^s the merit of her stays/ — 
 
 * I'm sure I loathe malicious hints — 
 But — only look, how Laura squints ! ' — 
 
 'Yet Miss, forsooth/ — ('who played the ten?') — 
 'Is quite perfection with the men, — 
 The flattering fools — they make me sick ! ' — 
 (' Well — four by honours, and the trick ! ') 
 
 While thus the crones hold high debate 
 On Laura's charms and Laura's fate, 
 A few short years have rolled along, 
 And — first in pleasure's idle throng — 
 Laura, in ripened beauty proud, 
 Smiles haughty on the flattering crowd; 
 Her sex's envy. Fashion's boast, 
 An heiress, and a reigning toast. 
 
 The circling waltz and gay quadrille 
 Are in, or out, at Laura's will ; 
 The tragic bard and comic wit 
 Heed not the critic in the pit, 
 If Laura's undisputed sway 
 Ordains full houses to the play; 
 And fair ones of a humbler fate, 
 That envy, while they imitate. 
 From Laura's whisper strive to guess 
 The changes of inconstant dress.
 
 96 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNEES 
 
 Where'er her step in beauty moves. 
 Around her fly a thousand loves ; 
 A thousand graces go before, 
 While striplings wonder and adore : 
 And some are wounded by a sigh, 
 Some by the lustre of her eye; 
 And these her studied smiles ensnare. 
 And these the ringlets of her hair. 
 
 The first his fluttering heart to lose 
 
 Was Captain Piercy, of the Blues ; 
 
 He squeezed her hand, he gazed, and swore 
 
 He never was in love before : 
 
 He entertained his charmer^s ear 
 
 With tales of wonder and of fear ; 
 
 Talked much and long of siege and fight, 
 
 Marches by day, alarms by night : 
 
 And Laura listened to the story, 
 
 AVhether it spoke of love or glory; 
 
 For many an anecdote had he 
 
 Of combat, and of gallantry. 
 
 Of long blockades and sharp attacks, 
 
 Of bullets and of bivouacs, 
 
 Of towns overcome — and ladies too, — 
 
 Of billet — and of billet-doux, 
 
 Of nunneries — and escalades. 
 
 And damsels — and Damascus blades. 
 
 Alas ! too soon the captain found 
 
 How swiftly Fortune^s wheel goes round :
 
 LAUEA 97 
 
 Laura at last began to doze 
 
 Even in the midst of Badajoz, 
 
 And hurried to a game at loo 
 
 From Wellington and Waterloo. 
 
 The hero, in heroics left, 
 
 Of fortune and a wife bereft, 
 
 With nought to cheer his close of day 
 
 But celibacy and half pay, 
 
 Since Laura and his stars were cruel. 
 
 Sought his quietus in a duel. 
 
 He fought and perished : Laura sighed 
 To hear how hapless Piercy died. 
 And wiped her eyes, and thus expressed 
 The feelings of her tender breast : — 
 ' What ? dead ! — poor fellow — what a pity ! 
 He was so handsome, and so witty : 
 Shot in a duel too ! — good gracious ! 
 How I did hate that man's mustachios ! ' 
 
 Next came the interesting beau, 
 The trifling youth, Frivolio ; 
 He came to see and to be seen, 
 Grace and good breeding in his mien ; 
 Shone all Delcroix upon his head; 
 The West-end spoke in all he said ; 
 And in his neckcloth's studied fold 
 Sat Fashion on a throne of gold. 
 He came, impatient to resign 
 What heart he had at Laura's shrine :
 
 98 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Though deep in self-conceit encased, 
 He learnt to bow to Laura's taste ; 
 Consulted her on new quadrilles. 
 Spot waistcoats, lavender, and gills : 
 As willed the proud and fickle fair 
 He tied his cloth and curled his hair; 
 Varied his manners — or his clothes, 
 And changed his tailor — or his oaths. 
 
 Oh ! how did Laura love to vex 
 
 The fair one of the other sex ! 
 
 For him she practised every art 
 
 That captivates and plagues the heart. 
 
 Did he bring tickets for the play ? 
 
 No — Laura had the spleen to-day. 
 
 Did he escort her to the ball? 
 
 No — Laura would not dance at all. 
 
 Did he look grave ? — ' The fool was sad." 
 
 Was he jocose? — 'The man was mad.' 
 
 E'en when he knelt before her feet, 
 
 And there, in accents soft and sweet, 
 
 Laid rank and fortune, heart and hand, 
 
 At Laura's absolute command, — 
 
 Instead of blushing her consent. 
 
 She ' wondered what the blockhead meant.' 
 
 Yet still the fashionable fool 
 Was proud of Laura's ridicule ; 
 Though still despised, he still pursued. 
 In ostentatious servitude ;
 
 LAUEA 99 
 
 Seeming, like lady's lap-dog, vain 
 
 Of being led by Beauty's chain. 
 
 He knelt, he gazed, he sighed and swore, 
 
 While 'twas the fashion to adore; 
 
 When years had passed, and Laura's frown 
 
 Had ceased to terrify the town. 
 
 He hurried from the fallen Grace 
 
 To idolize a newer face. 
 
 Constant to nothing was the ass, 
 
 Save to his follies, and his glass. 
 
 The next to gain the beauty's ear 
 
 Was William Lisle, the sonnetteer; 
 
 Well deemed the prince of rhyme and blank ; 
 
 For long and deeply had he drank 
 
 Of Helicon's poetic tide, 
 
 Where nonsense flows, and numbers glide. 
 
 And slumbered on the herbage green 
 
 That decks the banks of Hippocrene. 
 
 In short — his very footmen know it — 
 
 William is mad — or else a poet.^ 
 
 He came and rhymed; he talked of fountains, 
 
 Of Pindus, and Pierian mountains, 
 
 Of wandering lambs, of gurgling rills. 
 
 And roses, and Castalian hills ; 
 
 He thought a lover's vow grew sweeter 
 
 When it meandered into metre. 
 
 And planted every speech with flowers 
 
 Fresh blooming from Aonian bowers. 
 
 * Aut insanit homo, — aut versus facit. — Horace. 
 G 2
 
 100 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 ' Laura, I perish for your sake ! ' 
 
 (Here he digressed about a lake) — 
 
 ' The charms thy features all disclose ' — 
 
 (A simile about a rose) — 
 
 ' Have set my very soul on fire ; ' 
 
 (An episode about his lyre) — ' 
 
 ' Thoug-h you despise, I still must love ; ' 
 
 (Something about a turtle dove) — 
 
 ' Alas ! in death^s unstartled sleep ' — 
 
 (Just here he did his best to weep) — 
 
 ' Laura, the willow soon shall wave 
 
 Over thy lover's lowly grave/ 
 
 Then he began with pathos due 
 
 To speak of cypress and of rue : 
 
 But fortune's unforeseen award 
 
 Parted the beauty from the bard ; 
 
 For Laura, in that evil hour 
 
 When unpropitious stars had power, 
 
 Unmindful of the thanks she owed. 
 
 Lighted her taper with an ode ! 
 
 Poor William all his vows forgot. 
 
 And hurried from the fatal spot 
 
 In all the bitterness of quarrel. 
 
 To write lampoons, and dream of laurel. 
 
 Years fleeted by, and every grace 
 
 Began to fade from Laura's face ; 
 
 Through every circle whispers ran. 
 
 And aged dowagers began 
 
 To gi-atify their secret spite : — 
 
 ' How shockinsT Laura looks to-nig-ht !
 
 LAUEA 101 
 
 We know her waiting-maid is clever, 
 But rouge won't make one young for ever ; 
 Laura should think of being sage, 
 You know she's of a certain age.' 
 
 Her wonted wit began to fail^ 
 
 Her eyes grew dim, her features pale, 
 
 Her fame was past, her race was done ; 
 
 Her lovers left her one by one ; 
 
 Her slaves diminished by degrees, 
 
 They ceased to fawn, as she to please. 
 
 Last of the gay deceitful crew 
 
 Chremes, the usurer, withdrew ; 
 
 By many an art he strove to net 
 
 The guineas of the rich coquette. 
 
 But (so the adverse fates decreed) 
 
 Chremes and Laura disagreed ; 
 
 For Chremes talked too much of stocks. 
 
 And Laura of her opera-box. 
 
 Unhappy Laura ! sadness marred 
 
 What tints of beauty time had spared ; 
 
 For all her wide extended sway 
 
 Had faded like a dream away. 
 
 And they that loved her passed her by 
 
 With altered or averted eye. 
 
 That silent scorn, that chilling air, 
 
 The fallen tyrant could not bear; 
 
 She could not live when none admired, 
 
 And perished, as her reign expired.
 
 102 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 I gazed upon that lifeless form 
 So late with hope and fancy warm, — 
 That pallid brow, — that eye of jet 
 Where lustre seemed to linger yet, 
 Where sparkled through an auburn tress 
 The last dim light of loveliness, 
 Whose trembling ray was only seen 
 To bid us sigh for what had been. 
 Alas ! I said my wavering soul 
 Was torn from woman's weak control ; 
 But when, amid the evening's gloom, 
 I looked on Laura's early tomb, 
 And thought on her, so bright and fair. 
 That slumbered in oblivion there, 
 That calm resolve I coiild not keep, 
 And then I wept, — as now I weep. 
 
 EVERY DAY CHARACTERS 
 I 
 
 THE VICAR 
 
 Some years ago, ere time and taste 
 
 Had turned our parish topsy-turvy. 
 When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, 
 
 And roads as little known as scurvy, 
 The man who lost his way, between 
 
 St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, 
 Was always shown across the green. 
 
 And guided to the Parson's wicket.
 
 THE VICAR 103 
 
 Back flew the bolt of lissom lath ; 
 
 Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtk^, 
 Led the lorn traveller up the path, 
 
 Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; 
 And Don and Saneho^ Tramp and Tray, 
 
 Upon the parlour steps collected, 
 Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say — 
 
 ' Our master knows you — you're expected/ 
 
 Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown, 
 
 Uprose the Doctor's winsome marrow ; 
 The lady laid her knitting down, 
 
 Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow ; 
 Whatever the stranger's caste or creed, 
 
 Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner, 
 He found a stable for his steed. 
 
 And welcome for himself, and dinner. 
 
 If, when he reached his journey's end, 
 
 And warmed himself in Court or College, 
 He had not gained an honest friend 
 
 And twenty curious scraps of knowledge, — 
 If he departed as he came. 
 
 With no new light on love or liquor, — 
 Good sooth, the traveller was to blame. 
 
 And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar. 
 
 His talk was like a stream, which runs 
 With rapid change from rocks to roses : 
 
 It slipped from politics to puns. 
 
 It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
 
 104 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Beginning with the laws which keep 
 The planets in their radiant courses, 
 
 And ending with some precept deep 
 For dressing eels, or shoeing horses. 
 
 He was a shrewd and sound Divine, 
 
 Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; 
 And when, by dint of page and line. 
 
 He Established Truth, or startled Error, 
 The Baptist found him far too deep; 
 
 The Deist sighed with saving sorrow ; 
 And the lean Levite went to sleep. 
 
 And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow. 
 
 His sermon never said or showed 
 
 That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, 
 Without refreshment on the road 
 
 From Jerome, or from Athanasius : 
 And sure a righteous zeal inspired 
 
 The hand and head that penned and planned them. 
 For all who understood admired, 
 
 And some who did not understand them. 
 
 He wrote, too, in a quiet way. 
 
 Small treatises, and smaller verses, 
 And sage remarks on chalk and clay, 
 
 And hints to noble Lords — and nurses ; 
 True histories of last year's ghost, 
 
 Lines to a ringlet, or a turban. 
 And trifles for the Morning Post, 
 
 And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.
 
 THE VICAR 105 
 
 He did not think all mischief fair, 
 
 Although he had a knack of joking; 
 He did not make himself a bear, 
 
 Although he had a taste for smoking ; 
 And when religious sects ran mad, 
 
 He held, in spite of all his learning, 
 That if a man's belief is bad, 
 
 It will not be improved by burning. 
 
 And he was kind, and loved to sit 
 
 In the low hut or garnished cottage, 
 And praise the farmer's homely wit, 
 
 And share the widow's homelier pottage : 
 At his approach complaint grew mild ; 
 
 And when his hand unbarred the shutter. 
 The clammy lips of fever smiled 
 
 The welcome which they could not utter. 
 
 He always had a tale for me 
 
 Of Julius Caesar, or of Venus ; 
 From him I learnt the rule of three. 
 
 Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quae genus: 
 I used to singe his powdered wig, 
 
 To steal the staff he put such trust in, 
 And make the puppy dance a jig. 
 
 When he began to quote Augustine. 
 
 Alack the change ! in vain I look 
 
 For haunts in which my boyhood trifled, — 
 
 The level lawn, the trickling brook, 
 The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled :
 
 106 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 The church is larger than before; 
 
 You reach it by a carriage entry; 
 It holds three hundred people more, 
 
 And pews are fitted up for gentry. 
 
 Sit in the Vicar's seat : you^ll hear 
 
 The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, 
 Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, 
 
 Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. 
 Where is the old man laid? — look down. 
 
 And construe on the slab before you, 
 ^Hic jucet GvLiELMvs Bbown, 
 
 Fir null& non donandus laiiru.' 
 
 (1829.) 
 
 II 
 
 QUINCE 
 Fallentis semita vitae. — Hor. 
 
 Near a small village in the West, 
 
 Where many very worthy people 
 Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best 
 
 To guard from evil Church and steeple 
 There stood — alas ! it stands no more ! — 
 
 A tenement of brick and plaster, 
 Of which, for forty years and four. 
 
 My good friend Quince was lord and master.
 
 QUINCE 107 
 
 Welcome was he in hut and hall 
 
 To maids and matrons, peers and peasants; 
 He won the sympathies of all 
 
 By making puns, and making" presents. 
 Though all the parish were at strife, 
 
 He kept his counsel, and his carriage, 
 And laughed, and loved a qiiiet life. 
 
 And shrank from Chancery suits — and marriage. 
 
 Sound was his claret — and his head ; 
 
 Warm was his double ale — and feelings; 
 His partners at the whist club said 
 
 That he was faultless in his dealings : 
 He went to church but once a week ; 
 
 Yet Dr. Poundtext always found him 
 An upright man, who studied Greek, 
 
 And liked to see his friends around him. 
 
 Asylums, hospitals and schools. 
 
 He used to swear, were made to cozen ; 
 All who subscribed to them were fools, — 
 
 And he subscribed to half-a-dozen : 
 It was his doctrine, that the poor 
 
 Were always able, never willing; 
 And so the beggar at his door 
 
 Had first abuse, and then — a shilling. 
 
 Some public principles he had. 
 
 But was no flatterer, nor fretter; 
 He rapped his box when things were bad. 
 
 And said ' I cannot make them better ! '
 
 108 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 And much he loathed the patriot^s snort, 
 
 And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle; 
 
 And cut the fiercest quarrels short 
 
 With — ' Patience, gentlemen — and shuffle ! ' 
 
 For full ten years his pointer Speed 
 
 Had couched beneath her master's table; 
 For twice ten years his old white steed 
 
 Had fattened in his master's stable; 
 Old Quince averred, upon his troth, 
 
 They were the ugliest beasts in Devon ; 
 And none knew why he fed them both. 
 
 With his own hands, six days in seven. 
 
 Whene'er they heard his ring or knock. 
 
 Quicker than thought, the village slatterns 
 Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock, 
 
 And took up Mrs. Glasse, and patterns ; 
 Adine was studying baker's bills; 
 
 Louisa looked the queen of knitters ; 
 Jane happened to be hemming frills; 
 
 And Bell, by chance, was making fritters. 
 
 But all was vain; and while decay 
 
 Came, Hke a tranquil moonlight, o'er him. 
 And found him gouty still, and gay. 
 
 With no fair nurse to bless or bore him, 
 His rugged smile and easy chair, 
 
 His dread of matrimonial lectures, 
 His wig, his stick, his powdered hair. 
 
 Were themes for very strange conjectures.
 
 QUINCE 109 
 
 Some sages thought the stars above 
 
 Had crazed him with excess of knowledge; 
 Some heard he had been crost in love 
 
 Before he came away from College; 
 Some darkly hinted that his Grace 
 
 Did nothing, great or small, without him ; 
 Some whispered, with a solemn face, 
 
 That there was 'something odd about him'/ 
 
 I found him, at threescore and ten, 
 
 A single man, but bent quite double; 
 Sickness was coming on him then 
 
 To take him from a world of trouble : 
 He prosed of slipping down the hill. 
 
 Discovered he grew older daily ; 
 One frosty day he made his will, — 
 
 The next, he sent for Doctor Bailey. 
 
 And so he lived, — and so he died ! — 
 
 When last I sat beside his pillow 
 He shook my hand, and ' Ah ! ' he cried, 
 
 'Penelope must wear the willow. 
 Tell her I hugged her rosy chain 
 
 While life was flickering in the socket ; 
 And say, that when I call again, 
 
 Fll bring a licence in my pocket. 
 
 ' I've left my house and grounds to Fag, — 
 I hope his master's shoes will suit him ; 
 
 And I've bequeathed to you my nag, 
 
 To feed him for my sake, — or shoot him.
 
 no POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 The Vicar's wife will take old Fox, — 
 She'll find him an uncommon mouser, — 
 
 And let her husband have my box, 
 My Bible, and my Assmanshauser. 
 
 'Whether I ought to die or not, 
 
 My Doctors cannot quite determine; 
 It's only clear that I shall rot, 
 
 And be, like Priam, food for vermin. 
 My debts are paid: — but Nature's debt 
 
 Almost escaped my recollection : 
 Tom ! — we shall meet again ; — and yet 
 
 I cannot leave you my direction ! ' 
 
 (1829.) 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM 
 
 II faut juger des femmes depuis la chaussure jusqu'a la coiffure 
 exclusivement, a peu prfes comme on mesure le poisson entre 
 queue et teto. — La Bruyere. 
 
 Years — years ago, — ere yet my dreams 
 
 Had been of being wise or witty, — 
 Ere I had done with writing themes, 
 
 Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty; — 
 Years — years ago, — while all my joy 
 
 Was in my fowling-piece and filly, — 
 In short, while I was yet a boy, 
 
 I fell in love with Laura Lily.
 
 THE BELLE OF THE BALL-EOOM 111 
 
 I saw her at the County Ball: 
 
 There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle 
 Gave signal sweet in that old hall 
 
 Of hands across and down the middle, 
 Hers was the subtlest spell by far 
 
 Of all that set young hearts romancing; 
 She was our queen, our rose, our star ; 
 
 And then she danced — O Heaven, her dancing ! 
 
 Dark was her hair, her hand was white ; 
 
 Her voice was exquisitely tender; 
 Her eyes were full of liquid light; 
 
 I never saw a waist so slender ! 
 Her every look, her every smile, 
 
 Shot right and left a score of arrows; 
 I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, 
 
 And wondered where she'd left her sparrows. 
 
 She talked, — of politics or prayers, — 
 
 Of Southey's prose or Wordsworth's sonnets, — 
 Of danglers — or of dancing bears, 
 
 Of battles — or the last new bonnets, 
 By candlelight, at twelve o'clock, 
 
 To me it mattered not a tittle; 
 If those bright lips had quoted Locke, 
 
 I might have thought they murmured Little. 
 
 Through sunny May, through sultry June, 
 
 I loved her with a love eternal; 
 I spoke her praises to the moon, 
 
 I wrote them to the Sunday Journal :
 
 112 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 My mother laughed; I soon found out 
 That ancient ladies have no feeling: 
 
 My father frowned; but how should gout 
 See any happiness in kneeling ? 
 
 She was the daughter of a Dean, 
 
 Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic; 
 She had one brother, just thirteen, 
 
 Whose colour was extremely hectic; 
 Her grandmother for many a year 
 
 Had fed the parish with her bounty; 
 Her second cousin was a peer. 
 
 And Lord Lieutenant of the County. 
 
 But titles, and the three per cents., 
 
 And mortgages, and great relations. 
 And India bonds, and tithes, and rents. 
 
 Oh what are they to love's sensations? 
 Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks — 
 
 Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses ; 
 He cares as little for the Stocks, 
 
 As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. 
 
 She sketched ; the vale, the wood, the beach, 
 
 Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading : 
 She botanized; I envied each 
 
 Young blossom in her boudoir fading : 
 She warbled Handel; it was grand; 
 
 She made the Catalani jealous : 
 She touched the organ ; I could stand 
 
 For hours and hours to blow the bellows.
 
 THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM 113 
 
 She kept an album, too, at home, 
 
 Well filled with all an album's glories ; 
 Paintings of butterflies, and Rome, 
 
 Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories; 
 Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, 
 
 Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter, 
 And autographs of Prince Leboo, 
 
 And recipes for elder-water. 
 
 And she was flattered, worshipped, bored ; 
 
 Her steps were watched, her dress was noted; 
 Her poodle dog was quite adored, 
 
 Her sayings were extremely quoted ; 
 She laughed, and every heart was glad, 
 
 As if the taxes were abolished; 
 She frowned, and every look was sad, 
 
 As if the Opera were demolished. 
 
 She smiled on many, just for fun, — 
 
 I knew that there was nothing in it; 
 I was the first — the only one 
 
 Her heart had thought of for a minute. — 
 I knew it, for she told me so. 
 
 In phrase which was divinely moulded ; 
 She wrote a charming hand, — and oh ! 
 
 How sweetly all her notes were folded ! 
 
 Our love was like most other loves ; — 
 
 A little glow, a little shiver, 
 A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves. 
 
 And ' Fly not yet ' — upon the river ;
 
 114 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Some jealousy of some one^s heir, 
 Some hopes of dying- broken-hearted, 
 
 A miniature, a lock of hair, 
 
 The usual vows, — and then we parted. 
 
 We parted; months and years rolled by; 
 
 We met again four summers after : 
 Our parting was all sob and sigh ; 
 
 Our meeting was all mirth and laughter 
 For in my heart's most secret cell 
 
 There had been many other lodgers ; 
 And she was not the ball-room's Belle, 
 
 But only — Mrs. Something Rogers ! 
 
 (1830.) 
 
 THE CHAUNT OF THE BRAZEN HEAD 
 
 Brazen companion of my solitary hours 1 do you, while I re- 
 cline, pronounce a prologue to those sentiments of wisdom and 
 virtue, which are hereafter to he the oracles of statesmen, and 
 the guides of philosophers. Give me to-night a proem of our 
 essaj', an opening of our case, a division of our subject. Speak ! 
 — {alow m uslc. TJie Friar falls asleep. The Head chaunts as follows.) — 
 The Brazen Head. 
 
 I THixK^ whatever mortals crave, 
 
 With impotent endeavour, — 
 A wreath, a rank, a throne, a grave, — 
 
 The w^orld goes round for ever :
 
 CHAUNT OF THE BRAZEN HEAD 115 
 
 I think that life is not too long ; 
 
 And therefore I determine, 
 That many people read a song 
 
 Who will not read a sermon. 
 
 I think you've looked through many hearts, 
 
 And mused on many actions. 
 And studied Man's component parts. 
 
 And Nature's compound fractions : 
 I think you've picked up truth by bits 
 
 From foreigner and neighbour; 
 I think the world has lost its wits. 
 
 And you have lost your labour. 
 
 I think the studies of the wise, 
 
 The hero's noisy quarrel. 
 The majesty of Woman^s eyes, 
 
 The poet^s cherished laurel. 
 And all that makes us lean or fat. 
 
 And all that charms or troubles, — 
 This bubble is more bright than that. 
 
 But still they all are bubbles. 
 
 I think the thing you call Renown, 
 
 The unsubstantial vapour 
 For which the soldier burns a town, 
 
 The sonnetteer a taper, 
 Is like the mist which, as he flies, 
 
 The horseman leaves behind him ; 
 He cannot mark its wreaths arise. 
 
 Or if he does they blind him. 
 H 2
 
 116 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNEES 
 
 I think one nod o£ Mistress Chance 
 
 Makes creditors of debtors^ 
 And shifts the funeral for the dance, 
 
 The sceptre for the fetters : 
 I think that Fortune^s favoured guest 
 
 May live to gnaw the platters. 
 And he that wears the purple vest 
 
 May wear the rags and tatters. 
 
 I think the Tories love to buy 
 
 ' Your Lordship ^s and ' your Grace ^s, 
 By loathing common honesty, 
 
 And lauding commonplaces : 
 I think that some are very wise, 
 
 And some are very funny, 
 And some grow rich by telling lies, 
 
 And some by telling money. 
 
 I think the Whigs are wicked knaves — 
 
 (And very like the Tories) — 
 Who doubt that Britain rules the waves. 
 
 And ask the price of glories : 
 I think that many fret and fume 
 
 At what their friends are planning, 
 And Mr. Hume hates Mr. Brougham 
 
 As much as Mr. Canning. 
 
 I think that friars and their hoods. 
 Their doctrines and their maggots. 
 
 Have lighted up too many feuds, 
 And far too many faggots :
 
 CHAUNT OF THE BRAZEN HEAD 117 
 
 I think, while zealots fast and frown, 
 
 And fight for two or seven. 
 That there are fifty roads to Town, 
 
 And rather more to Heaven. 
 
 I think that, thanks to Paget^s lance. 
 
 And thanks to Chester's learning. 
 The hearts that burned for fame in France 
 
 At home are safe from burning : 
 I think the Pope is on his back; 
 
 And, though 'tis fun to shake him, 
 I think the Devil not so black 
 
 As many people make him. 
 
 I think that Love is like a play, 
 
 "Where tears and smiles are blended. 
 Or like a faithless April day, 
 
 Whose shine with shower is ended : 
 Like Colnbrook pavement, rather rough. 
 
 Like trade, exposed to losses, 
 And like a Highland plaid, — all stuff. 
 
 And very full of crosses. 
 
 I think the world, though dark it be, 
 
 Has aye one rapturous pleasure 
 Concealed in life's monotony, 
 
 For those who seek the treasure; 
 One planet in a starless night. 
 
 One blossom on a briar, 
 One friend not quite a hypocrite, 
 
 One woman not a liar !
 
 118 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 I think poor beggars court St. Giles, 
 
 Rich beggars court St, Stephen; 
 And Death looks down with nods and smiles, 
 
 And makes the odds all even : 
 I think some die upon the field, 
 
 And some upon the billow. 
 And some are laid beneath a shield, 
 
 And some beneath a willow. 
 
 I think that very few have sighed 
 
 When Fate at last has found them, 
 Though bitter foes were by their side. 
 
 And barren moss around them : 
 I think that some have died of drought, 
 
 And some have died of drinking; 
 I think that nought is worth a thought, — 
 
 And I^m a fool for thinking ! 
 (1826.) 
 
 FROM THE BRAZEN HEAD 
 
 A MAN should be tall, a man should be strong. 
 His shoulders be broad, his limbs be long; 
 He should not be mincing, pretty and petty, 
 A booted Miss Molly, a breeched Lady Betty ;- 
 His brow should be open, his forehead high. 
 And beneath them should beam a brilliant eye. 
 Softened in love, but oh, in its ire 
 Flashing and burning with fearful fire !
 
 THE BRAZEN HEAD 119 
 
 His hair should be black ; his beard should be blue ; 
 
 And his voice deep, but musical too; 
 
 His lip should be slightly and proudly curled, 
 
 As though his spirit defied the world ; 
 
 And yet, with this, the radiant light 
 
 Of a kindly nature should still unite, 
 
 Grace should be his, but not the grace 
 
 Which moves with a tutored dancing pace, 
 
 But the free, unstudied open air 
 
 Which seems as Nature had stamped it there. 
 
 On such are turned the fairest eyes, 
 
 For such are breathed the softest sighs, 
 
 For such the softest words are spoken. 
 
 For such the softest hearts are broken; 
 
 For such is the billet of curious fold; 
 
 Such is the ' angel of green and gold ' 
 
 Whose form appears in the vision of bliss 
 
 Which floats o'er the sleep of the maiden miss, 
 
 When the charmed cake is hers to dream on, 
 
 To call up the shape of her own Philemon ! 
 
 With such a form does the lonely student — 
 
 Beware ! beware ! it is too imprudent — 
 
 Invest the hero of dear romance, 
 
 A Conde of Spain, a chevalier of France ; 
 
 Such the saint — Adam Blair ; such the sinner — Don 
 
 Juan ; 
 Such the modern Sir Charles, and the ancient SirHuon; 
 Such do poets write a book on ; 
 Such do ladies love to look on;
 
 120 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Such do limners love to paint ; 
 
 For such beat pulses fast and faint; 
 
 For such do young maids lime their twigs; 
 
 For such do old maids curl their wigs; 
 
 Such both maid and mistress covet; 
 
 The young heart dies, that such may love it; 
 
 For such both fair and foul endeavour — 
 
 Both young and old — both dull and clever; 
 
 For such both ink and tears are shed 
 
 By each and all— quoth THE BRAZEN HEAD. 
 
 GOOD NIGHT TO THE SEASON 
 
 So runs the world away. — Hamlet. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! ^Tis over ! 
 
 Gay dwellings no longer are gay; 
 The courtier, the gambler, the lover, 
 
 Are scattered like swallows away : 
 There ^s nobody left to invite one 
 
 Except my good uncle and spouse; 
 My mistress is bathing at Brighton, 
 
 My patron is sailing at Cowes ; 
 For want of a better enjoyment, 
 
 Till Ponto and Don can get out, 
 I'll cultivate rural enjojinent, 
 
 And angle immensely for trout.
 
 GOOD NIGHT TO THE SEASON 121 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the lobbies, 
 
 Their changes, and rumours of change, 
 Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies, 
 
 And made all the Bishops look strange; 
 The breaches, and battles, and blunders, 
 
 Performed by the Commons and Peers; 
 The Marquises eloquent blunders, 
 
 The Baronet's eloquent ears ; 
 Denouncings of Papists and treasons, 
 
 Of foreign dominion and oats ; 
 Misrepresentations of reasons. 
 
 And misunderstandings of notes. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the buildings 
 
 Enough to make Inigo sick ; 
 The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings 
 
 Of stucco, and marble, and brick; 
 The orders deliciously blended. 
 
 From love of effect, into one ; 
 The club-houses only intended, 
 
 The palaces only begun ; 
 The hell, where the fiend in his glory 
 
 Sits staring at putty and stones, 
 And scrambles from story to story. 
 
 To rattle at midnight his bones. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the dances. 
 
 The fillings of hot little rooms. 
 The glancings of rapturous glances, 
 
 The fancyings of fancy costumes;
 
 122 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 The pleasures which fashion makes duties, 
 
 The praisings of fiddles and flutes, 
 The luxury of looking- at Beauties, 
 
 The tedium of talking to mutes ; 
 The female diplomatists, planners 
 
 Of matches for Laura and Jane; 
 The ice of her Ladyship^s manners. 
 
 The ice of his Lordship's champagne. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the rages 
 
 Led off by the chiefs of the throng, 
 The Lady Matilda's new pages. 
 
 The Lady Eliza's new song; 
 Miss Fennel's macaw, which at Boodle's 
 
 Was held to have something to say; 
 Mrs. Splenetic's musical poodles, 
 
 Which bark ' Batti BatW all day; 
 The pony Sir Araby sported. 
 
 As hot and as black as a coal. 
 And the Lion his mother imported. 
 
 In bearskins and grease, from the Pole. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the Toso, 
 
 So very majestic and tall ; 
 Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so. 
 
 And Pasta, divinest of all ; 
 The labour in vain of the ballet, 
 
 So sadly deficient in stars ; 
 The foreigners thronging the Alley, 
 
 Exhaling the breath of cigars ;
 
 GOOD NIGHT TO THE SEASON 123 
 
 The loge where some heiress (how killing !) 
 
 Environed with exquisites sits. 
 The lovely one out of her drilling", 
 
 The silly ones out of their wits. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the splendour 
 
 That beamed in the Spanish Bazaar ; 
 Where I purchased — my heart was so tender — 
 
 A card-case, a pasteboard guitar, 
 A bottle of perfume, a girdle, 
 
 A lithographed Riego, full-grown. 
 Whom bigotry drew on a hurdle 
 
 That artists might draw him on stone ; 
 A small panorama of Seville, 
 
 A trap for demolishing flies, 
 A caricature of the Devil, 
 
 And a look from Miss Sheridan's eyes. 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — the flowers 
 
 Of the grand horticultural fete. 
 When boudoirs were quitted for bowers, 
 
 And the fashion was — not to be late; 
 When all who had money and leisure 
 
 Grew rural o'er ices and wines. 
 All pleasantly toiling for pleasure. 
 
 All hungrily pining for pines. 
 And making of beautiful speeches. 
 
 And marring of beautiful shows. 
 And feeding on delicate peaches. 
 
 And treading on delicate toes.
 
 124 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Good night to the Season ! — Another 
 
 Will come, with its trifles and toys, 
 And hurry away, like its brother, 
 
 In sunshine, and odour, and noise. 
 Will it come with a rose or a briar ? 
 
 Will it come with a blessing or curse? 
 Will its bonnets be lower or higher ? 
 
 Will its morals be better or worse? 
 Will it find me grown thinner or fatter. 
 
 Or fonder of wrong or of right, 
 Or married — or buried? — no matter: 
 
 Good night to the Season — good night ! 
 
 (August, 1827.) 
 
 A LETTER OF ADVICE 
 
 FROM MISS MEDORA TREVILIAN, AT PADUA, TO MISS 
 ARAMINTA VAVASOUR, IN LONDON. 
 
 Enfin, monsieur, un liomme aimable ; 
 
 Voila pourquoi je ne saiirais I'airaer. — Scribe. 
 
 You tell me you're promised a lover. 
 
 My own Araminta, next week ; 
 Why cannot my fancy discover 
 
 The hue of his coat and his cheek ? 
 Alas ! if he look like another, 
 
 A vicar, a banker, a beau. 
 Be deaf to your father and mother. 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! '
 
 A LETTER OF ADVICE 125 
 
 Miss Laue^ at her Temple of Fashion^ 
 
 Taught us both how to sing and to speak, 
 And we loved one another with passion, 
 
 Before we had been there a week : 
 You gave me a ring for a token ; 
 
 I wear it wherever I go; 
 I gave you a chain, — is it broken ? 
 
 My own Araminta, say ^ No ! ' 
 
 O think of our favourite cottage, 
 
 And think of our dear Lalla Rookh ! 
 How we shared with the milkmaids their pottage, 
 
 And drank of the stream from the brook; 
 How fondly our loving lips faltered 
 
 ^ What further can grandeur bestow ? ' 
 My heart is the same; — is yours altered? 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 Remember the thrilling romances 
 
 We read on the bank in the glen ; 
 Remember the suitors our fancies 
 
 Would picture for both of us then. 
 They wore the red cross on their shoulder, 
 
 They had vanquished and pardoned their foe — 
 Sweet friend, are you wiser or colder? 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 You know, when Lord Rigmarole's carriage 
 Drove off with your cousin Justine, 
 
 You wept, dearest girl, at the marriage. 
 And whispered ' How base she has been ! '
 
 126 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 You said you were sure it would kill you, 
 If ever your husband looked so ; 
 
 And you will not apostatize, — will you ? 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 When I heard I was going abroad, love, 
 
 I thought I was going to die; 
 We walked arm in arm to the road, love, 
 
 We looked arm in arm to the sky; 
 And I said ' When a foreign postilion 
 
 Has hurried me off to the Po, 
 Forget not Medora Trevilian : 
 
 My own Araminta, say " No ! " ' 
 
 We parted ! but sympathy's fetters 
 
 Reach far over valley and hill; 
 I muse o'er your exquisite letters, 
 
 And feel that your heart is mine still ; 
 And he who would share it with me, love, — 
 
 The richest of treasures below, — 
 If he 's not what Orlando should be, love. 
 
 My own Araminta, say ^ No ! ' 
 
 If he wears a top-boot in his wooing, 
 
 If he comes to you riding a cob. 
 If he talks of his baking or brewing. 
 
 If he puts up his feet on the hob. 
 If he ever drinks port after dinner. 
 
 If his brow or his breeding is low. 
 If he calls himself ^ Thompson ' or ^ Skinner,' 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! '
 
 A LETTER OF ADVICE 127 
 
 If he studies the news in the papers 
 
 While you are preparing- the tea, 
 If he talks of the damps or the vapours 
 
 While moonlight lies soft on the sea, 
 If he's sleepy while you are capricious, 
 
 If he has not a musical ' Oh ! ' 
 If he does not call Werther delicious, — 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 If he ever sets foot in the City 
 
 Among the stockbrokers and Jews, 
 If he has not a heart full of pity, 
 
 If he don't stand six feet in his shoes. 
 If his lips are not redder than roses. 
 
 If his hands are not whiter than snow, 
 If he has not the model of noses, — 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 If he speaks of a tax or a duty. 
 
 If he does not look grand on his knees, 
 If he 's blind to a landscape of beauty. 
 
 Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees. 
 If he dotes not on desolate towers. 
 
 If he likes not to hear the blast blow, 
 If he knows not the language of flowers, — 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 He must walk — like a god of old story 
 Come down from the home of his rest ; 
 
 He must smile — like the sun in his glory 
 On the buds he loves ever the best :
 
 128 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 And oh ! from its ivory portal 
 
 Like music his soft speech must flow ! — ■ 
 If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal. 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 Don't hsten to tales of his bounty, 
 
 Don^t hear what they say of his birth, 
 Don't look at his seat in the county, 
 
 Don't calculate what he is worth ; 
 But give him a theme to write verse on, 
 
 And see if he turns out his toe ; 
 If he's only an excellent person, — 
 
 My own Araminta, say ' No ! ' 
 
 (1828.) 
 
 THE TALENTED MAN 
 
 A LETTER FROM A LADY IN LONDON TO A LADY AT 
 LAUSANNE 
 
 Dear Alice ! you'll laugh when you know it, — 
 
 Last week, at the Duchess's ball, 
 I danced with the clever new poet, — 
 
 You've heard of him,— Tully St. Paul. 
 Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic ; 
 
 I wish you had seen Lady Anne ! 
 It really was very romantic, 
 
 He is such a talented man !
 
 THE TALENTED MAN 129 
 
 He came up from Brazen nose College, 
 
 Just caught, as they call it, this spring ; 
 And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge 
 
 Of every conceivable thing. 
 Of science and logic he chatters, 
 
 As fine and as fast as he can ; 
 Though I am no judge of such matters, 
 
 I'm sure he's a talented man. 
 
 His stories and jests are delightful; — 
 
 Not stories or jests, dear, for you; 
 The jests are exceedingly spiteful. 
 
 The stories not always quite true. 
 Perhaps to be kind and veracious 
 
 May do pretty well at Lausanne ; 
 But it never would answer, — good gracious ! 
 
 Chez nous — in a talented man. 
 
 He sneers, — how my Alice would scold him ! — 
 
 At the bliss of a sigh or a tear; 
 He laughed — only think ! — when I told him 
 
 How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year; 
 I vow I was quite in a passion; 
 
 I broke all the sticks of my fan; 
 But sentiment's quite out of fashion. 
 
 It seems, in a talented man. 
 
 Lady Bab, who is terribly moral, 
 
 Has told me that Tully is vain, 
 And apt — which is silly — to quarrel. 
 
 And fond — which is sad — of chamj^agne.
 
 130 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNEES 
 
 I listened, and doubted, dear Alice, 
 For I saw, when my Lady began. 
 
 It was only the Dowager's mahce; — 
 She does hate a talented man ! 
 
 He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love, 
 
 Is all that these eyes can adore; 
 He's lame, — but Lord Byron was lame, love, 
 
 And dumpy, — but so is Tom Moore. 
 Then his voice, — suck a voice ! my sweet creature, 
 
 It 's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan : 
 But oh ! what ^s a tone or a feature, 
 
 When once one ^s a talented man ? 
 
 My mother, you know, all the season. 
 
 Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate; 
 And truly, to do the fool reason. 
 
 He lias been less horrid of late. 
 But to-day, when we drive in the carriage, 
 
 I'll tell her to lay down her plan; — 
 If ever I venture on marriage. 
 
 It must be a talented man ! 
 
 P. S. — I have found, on reflection, 
 
 One fault in my friend, — entre nous; 
 Without it, he'd just be perfection ; — 
 
 Poor fellow, he has not a sou ! 
 And so, when he comes in September 
 
 To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan, 
 Pve promised mamma to remember 
 
 He 's onl^ a talented man ! 
 (1831.)
 
 131 
 
 LETTERS FROM TEIGNMOUTH 
 
 OUR BALL 
 
 Comment ! c'est lui ? que je le regax-de encore ! Cast que 
 vraiment il est bien change ; n'est-ce pas, mon papa ? — Les 
 Premiers Amours. 
 
 You'll come to our Ball; — since we parted, 
 
 IVe thought of you more than I'll say ; 
 Indeed, I was half broken-hearted 
 
 For a week, when they took you away. - 
 Fond fancy brought back to my slumbers 
 
 Our walks on the Ness and the Den, 
 And echoed the musical numbers 
 
 Which you used to sing to me then. 
 I know the romance, since it's over, 
 
 'Twere idle, or worse, to recall ; 
 I know you're a terrible rover ; 
 
 But Clarence, you'll come to our Ball ! 
 
 It's only a year, since, at College, 
 
 You put on your cap and your gown ; 
 But, Clarence, you're grown out of knowledge. 
 
 And changed from the spur to the crown ; 
 The voice that was best when it faltered 
 
 Is fuller and firmer in tone, 
 And the smile that should never have altered — 
 
 Dear Clarence — it is not your own : 
 I 2
 
 132 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Your cravat was badly selected; 
 
 Your coat don't become j'ou at all ; 
 And why is your hair so neglected? 
 
 You must have it curled for our Ball. 
 
 I've often been out upon Haldon 
 
 To look for a covey with pup; 
 I've often been over to Shaldon, 
 
 To see how your boat is laid up : 
 In spite of the terrors of Aunty, 
 
 V\e ridden the filly you broke; 
 And I^^e studied your sweet little Dante 
 
 In the shade of your favourite oak : 
 When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence, 
 
 I sat in your love of a shawl ; 
 And I'll wear what you brought me from Florence, 
 
 Perhaps, if you'll come to our Ball. 
 
 You'll find us all changed since you vanished; 
 
 We've set up a National School; 
 And waltzing is utterly banished, 
 
 And Ellen has married a fool ; 
 The Major is going to travel, 
 
 Miss Hyacinth threatens a rout, 
 The walk is laid down with fresh gravel, 
 
 Papa is laid up wnth the gout; 
 And Jane has gone on with her easels. 
 
 And Anne has gone off with Sir Paul; 
 And Fanny is sick with the measles, — 
 
 And I'll tell you the rest at the Ball.
 
 OUR BALL 133 
 
 You'll meet all your Beauties; the Lily, 
 
 And the Faiiy of Willowbrook Farm, 
 And Lucy, who made me so silly 
 
 At Dawlish, by taking your arm ; 
 Miss Manners, who always abused you 
 
 For talking so much about Hock, 
 And her sister, who often amused you 
 
 By raving of rebels and Rock 
 And something which surely would answer. 
 
 An heiress quite fresh from Bengal ; 
 So, though you were seldom a dancer. 
 
 You'll dance, just for once, at our Ball. 
 
 But out on the World ! from the flowers 
 
 It shuts out the sunshine of truth : . 
 It blights the green leaves in the bowers, 
 
 It makes an old age of our youth ; 
 And the flow of our feeling, once in it, 
 
 Like a streamlet beginning to freeze. 
 Though it cannot turn ice in a minute. 
 
 Grows harder by sudden degrees : 
 Time treads o'er the graves of affection ; 
 
 Sweet honey is turned into gall ; 
 Perhaps you have no recollection 
 
 That ever you danced at our Ball ! 
 
 You once could be pleased with our ballads, — 
 
 To-day you have critical ears ; 
 You once could be charmed with our salads — 
 
 Alas ! you've been dining with Peers ;
 
 134 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 You trifled and flirted with many, — 
 
 YouVe forgotten the when and the how; 
 There was one you liked better than any, — 
 
 Perhaps you've forgotten her now. 
 But of those you remember most newly, 
 
 Of those who delight or enthrall, 
 None love you a quarter so truly 
 
 As some you will find at our Ball. 
 
 They tell me youVe many who flatter. 
 
 Because of your wit and your song : 
 They tell me — and what does it matter ? — 
 
 You like to be praised by the throng: 
 They tell me you're shadowed with laurel : 
 
 They tell me you're loved by a Blue: 
 They tell me you're sadly immoral — 
 
 Dear Clarence, that cannot be true ! 
 But to me, you are still what I found you. 
 
 Before you grew clever and tall ; 
 And you'll think of the spell that once bound you; 
 
 And you'll come — won't you come ? — to our Ball ! 
 
 (1829.)
 
 135 
 
 PALINODIA 
 
 Nee meus hie sermo est, sed quern praecepit — 
 
 Horace. 
 
 There was a time, when I could feel 
 
 All passion's hopes and fears ; 
 And tell what tongues can ne^er reveal 
 
 By smiles, and sighs, and tears. 
 The days are gone ! no more — no more 
 
 The cruel Fates allow; 
 And, though Fm hardly twenty-four, — 
 I'm not a lover now. 
 
 Lady, the mist is on my sight. 
 
 The chill is on my brow ; 
 My day is night, my bloom is blight ; 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I never talk about the clouds, 
 
 I laugh at girls and hoys, 
 I'm growing rather fond of crowds, 
 
 And very fond of noise ; 
 I never wander forth alone 
 
 Upon the mountain's brow; 
 I weighed, last winter, sixteen stone; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now !
 
 136 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 I never wish to raise a veil, 
 
 I never raise a sigh; 
 I never tell a tender tale, 
 
 I never tell a lie : 
 I cannot kneel, as once I did ; 
 
 I've quite forgot my bow ; 
 I never do as I am bid ; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I make strange blunders every day. 
 
 If I would be gallant; 
 Take smiles for wrinkles, black for grey, 
 
 And nieces for their aunt : 
 I fly from folly, though it flows 
 
 From lips of loveliest glow; 
 I don't object to length of nose ; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I find my Ovid very dry, 
 
 My Petrarch quite a pill, 
 Cut Fancy for Philosophy, 
 
 Tom Moore for Mr. Mill. 
 And belles may read, and beaux may write, - 
 
 I care not who or how; 
 I burnt my Album, Sunday night ; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I don't encourage idle dreams 
 
 Of poison or of ropes : 
 I cannot dine on airy schemes ; 
 
 I cannot sup on hopes ;
 
 PALINODIA 137 
 
 New milk, I own, is very fine, 
 
 Just foaming- from the cowj 
 But yet, I want my pint of wine; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 When Laura sings young hearts away, 
 
 I'm deafer than the deep; 
 When Leonora goes to play, 
 
 I sometimes go to sleep ; 
 When Mary di*aws her white gloves out, 
 
 I never dance, I vow, — 
 ' Too hot to kick one's heels about ! ' 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I'm busy, now, with state affairs; 
 
 I prate of Pitt and Fox ; 
 I ask the price of rail-road shares, 
 
 I watch the turns of stocks. 
 And this is life ! no verdure blooms 
 
 Upon the withered bough : 
 I save a fortune in perfumes ; — 
 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 I may be yet, what others are, 
 
 A boudoir's babbling fool, 
 The flattered star of Bench or Bar, 
 
 A party's chief, or tool : — 
 Come shower or sunshine, hope or fear, 
 
 The palace or the plough, — 
 My heart and lute ai-e broken here ; 
 
 I'm not a lover now !
 
 138 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Lady, the mist is on my sight, 
 The chill is on my brow; 
 
 My day is night, my bloom is blight; 
 I'm not a lover now ! 
 
 (1826.) 
 
 SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 
 
 Floreat Etona. 
 
 Twelve years ago I made a mock 
 
 Of filthy trades and traflBcs : 
 I wondered what they meant by stock; 
 
 I wrote delightful sapphics; 
 I knew the streets of Rome and Troy, 
 
 I supped with Fates and Furies, — 
 Twelve years ago I was a boy, 
 
 A happy boy, at Drury^s. 
 
 Twelve years ago ! — how many a thought 
 
 Of faded pains and pleasures 
 Those whispered syllables have brought 
 
 From Memory^s hoarded treasures ! 
 The fields, the farms, the bats, the books. 
 
 The glories and disgraces, 
 The voices of dear friends, the looks 
 
 Of old familiar faces !
 
 SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 139 
 
 Kind Mater smiles again to me^ 
 
 As bright as when we parted ; 
 I seem again the frank, the free, 
 
 Stout-hmbed, and simple-hearted ! 
 Pursuing every idle dream, 
 
 And shunning every warning ; 
 With no hard work but Bovney stream. 
 
 No chill except Long Morning : 
 
 Now stopping Harry Vernon^s ball 
 
 That rattled like a rocket; 
 Now hearing Wentworth's ' Fourteen all ! ' 
 
 And striking for the pocket; 
 Now feasting on a cheese and flitch, — 
 
 Now drinking from the pewter; 
 Now leaping over Chalvey ditch, 
 
 Now laughing at my tutor. 
 
 Where are my friends ? I am alone ; 
 
 No playmate shares my beaker : 
 Some lie beneath the churchyard stone, 
 
 And some — before the Sjieaker; 
 And some compose a tragedy, 
 
 And some compose a rondo; 
 And some draw sword for Liberty, 
 
 And some draw pleas for John Doe. 
 
 Tom Mill was used to blacken eyes 
 
 Without the fear of sessions ; 
 Charles Medlar loathed false quantities, 
 
 As much as false professions;
 
 140 POEMS OF LIFE AND MANNERS 
 
 Now Mill keeps order in the land, 
 
 A magistrate pedantic; 
 And Medlar^s feet repose unseanned 
 
 Beneath the wide Atlantic. 
 
 Wild Nick, whose oaths made such a din, 
 
 Does Dr. Martext^s duty; 
 And Mullion, with that monstrous chin, 
 
 Is married to a Beauty ; 
 And Darrell studies, week by week. 
 
 His Mant, and not his Manton ; 
 And Ball, who was but poor at Greek, 
 
 Is very rich at Canton. 
 
 And I am eight-and-twenty now ; — 
 
 The world^s cold chains have bound me ; 
 And darker shades are on my brow. 
 
 And sadder scenes around me : 
 In Parliament I fill my seat, 
 
 With many other noodles ; 
 And lay my head in Jermyn Street, 
 
 And sip my hock at Boodle's. 
 
 But often, when the cares of life 
 
 Have set my temples aching. 
 When visions haunt me of a wife. 
 
 When duns await my waking, 
 When Lady Jane is in a pet. 
 
 Or Hoby in a hurry. 
 When Captain Hazard wins a bet. 
 
 Or Beaulieu spoils a curry, —
 
 SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 141 
 
 For hours and hours I think and talk 
 
 0£ each remembered hobby; 
 I long to lounge in Poets' Walk, 
 
 To shiver in the lobby ; 
 I wish that I could run away 
 
 From House, and Court, and Levee, 
 Where bearded men appear to-day 
 
 Just Eton boys grown heavy, — 
 
 That I could bask in childhood's sun 
 
 And dance o'er childhood's roses. 
 And find huge wealth in one pound one. 
 
 Vast wit in broken noses, 
 And play Sir Giles at Datchet Lane, 
 
 And call the milk-maids Houris, — 
 That I could be a boy again, — 
 
 A happy boy, — at Drury's. 
 (1829.) 
 
 A CHILD'S GRAVE 
 
 O'er yon churchyard the storm may lower; 
 But, heedless of the wintry air, 
 One little bud shall linger there, 
 
 A still and trembling flower. 
 
 Unscathed by long revolving years 
 Its tender leaves shall flourish yet. 
 And sparkle in the moonlight, wet 
 
 With the pale dew of tears.
 
 142 POEMS OF EARLY YOUTH 
 
 And where thine humble ashes lie, 
 
 Instead of scutcheon or of stone, 
 
 It rises o'er thee, lonely one, 
 Child of obscurity ! 
 
 Mild was thy voice as zephyr's breath. 
 Thy cheek with flowing locks was shaded ; 
 But the voice hath died, the cheek hath faded, 
 
 In the cold breeze of Death ! 
 
 Brightly thine eye was smiling. Sweet ! 
 
 But now decay hath stilled its glancing ; 
 
 Warmly thy little heart was dancing. 
 But it hath ceased to beat ! 
 
 A few short months — and thou wert here ! 
 
 Hope sat upon thy youthful brow ; 
 
 And what is thy memorial now ? 
 A flower — and a tear ! 
 
 (1821.) 
 
 From ATHENS 
 
 O FOR the harp which once — but through the strings. 
 Far o'er the sea, the dismal night-wind sings; 
 Where is the hand that swept it ? — cold and mute 
 The lifeless Master and the voiceless lute ! 
 The crowded hall, the murmur and the gaze, 
 The look of envy and the voice of praise.
 
 ATHENS 143 
 
 And friendship's smile, and passion's treasured vow, — 
 All these are nothing, — life is nothing now ! 
 But the hushed triumph, and the garb of gloom, 
 The sorrow, deep but mute, around the tomb, 
 The soldier^s silence, and the matron's tear, — 
 These are the trappings of the sable bier 
 Which Time corrupts not, Falsehood cannot hide, 
 Nor Folly scorn, nor Calumny deride. 
 And ' what is writ, is writ ! ' — the guilt and shame — 
 All eyes have seen them, and all lips may blame; 
 Where is the record of the wrong that stung, 
 The charm that tempted, and the grief that wrung ? 
 Let feeble hands, iniquitously just. 
 Rake up the relics of the sinful dust. 
 Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot feel. 
 And Malice brand, what Mercy would conceal; 
 It matters not ! he died as all would die ; 
 Greece had his earliest song, his latest sigh ; 
 And o'er the shrine in which that cold heart sleeps 
 Glory looks dim, and joyous Conquest weeps. — 
 The maids of Athens to the spot shall bring 
 The freshest roses of the new-born spring, 
 And Spartan boys their first- won wreath shall bear 
 To bloom round Byron's urn, or droop in sadness there !
 
 144 TRANSLATION 
 
 FROM LUCRETIUS, Bk. ii. 1. 1-33. 
 
 Oh sweet it is to listen on the shore 
 
 When the wild tempest mocks the seaboy^s cry; 
 And sweet to mark the tumult and the roar 
 
 "When distant battle stalks in thunder by : 
 
 And do not say another's agony 
 Is happiness to us ! — oh, rather deem 
 
 That the mind loves, in its own phantasy, 
 To wield the weapons and to scream the scream. 
 And then to wake from death, and feel it was a dream. 
 
 But nought is sweeter than to hold our state, 
 Unchangeable, on Wisdom's guarded keep, 
 
 And look in silence on the low and great, 
 Who, in their sackcloth or their purple, creep 
 Beneath the summit of the viewless steep : 
 
 They dare the deserts, and they tempt the waves, 
 And serve, and monarchize, and laugh and weep, 
 
 While Fortune scoffs alike at lords and slaves. 
 
 And decks the perilous path with sceptres, and with 
 graves. 
 
 Oh wretched souls ! oh weak and wasted breath. 
 Painful in birth, and loathsome in decay ! 
 
 Eternal clouds are round us : doubt and death 
 Lie dark between to-morrow and to-day; 
 And thus oui' span of mourning flits away !
 
 FROM LUCRETIUS 145 
 
 If the veins glisten, and the pulses glow, 
 
 If the free spirits innocently play, 
 Say, wilt thou seek for more ? vain mortal, no ! 
 What more can Dust demand, or Destiny bestow? 
 
 Yet Nature hath more blessings, her own joys. 
 Unearned by labour, and unsought by prayer : 
 
 Be wise to-day ! — perhaps no golden boys 
 
 O'er the thronged banquet fling the torches' glare. 
 No rich aroma loads the languid air, 
 
 No burnished silver gleams along the hall 
 In dazzling whiteness, no fond lute is there 
 
 To wreathe the sweetness of its magic thrall 
 
 O'er listening ears, rapt hearts, at some high festival; — 
 
 Yet Nature^s fondest sons and fairest daughters 
 On her green bosom love at eve to lie. 
 
 Where the lone rippling of the quiet waters 
 Goes syllabling all sweets, and hoar and high 
 The old oak lends his solemn canopy. 
 
 What do they reck beneath their tranquil bowers 
 Of guilt or grief ? — then happiest, when the sky 
 
 Laughs in the glad spring-dawning, and the hours 
 
 Dress every hill and vale in herbs and odorous flowers ! 
 
 (1826.)
 
 146 
 
 LOVE'S ETERNITY 
 
 Cum Paris Oenone poterit spirare relicta 
 Ad fontem Xanthi versa recurret aqua. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 What need of wit ? What need of wile ? 
 
 I know your eyes are killing; 
 But oh ! he isn't worth a smile 
 
 Who isn't worth a shilling- ! 
 And yet; by all the gods of rhyme, 
 
 And by your lips I swear, 
 Though all my love is loss of time 
 
 And all my hope despair, 
 The glittering stream shall cease to stray, 
 
 The wind refuse to rove. 
 All solid things shall melt away, 
 
 Before I cease to love ! 
 
 Fair Freedom shall be found in Quod, 
 
 Stem Jvistice in the Quorum, 
 Carlile shall praise the grace of God, 
 
 Joint Bull shall learn decorum, 
 Loyal addresses shall omit 
 
 ' Our fortunes and our lives,' 
 The Commons shall be famed for wit. 
 
 The Lords for virtuous wives,
 
 LOVE'S ETEENITY 147 
 
 The Tenth shall dress without a glass 
 
 Or dine with one remove, 
 All monstrous things shall come to pass 
 
 Before I cease to love. 
 
 Young widowhood shall lose its weeds, 
 
 Old kings shall loathe the Tories, 
 And monks be tired of telling beads, 
 
 And blues of telling stories; 
 And titled suitors shall be crossed. 
 
 And famished poets married, 
 And Canning's motion shall be lost 
 
 And Hume's amendment carried. 
 And Chancer}' shall cease to doubt, 
 
 And Algebra to prove, 
 And hoops come in, and gas go out. 
 
 Before I cease to love. 
 
 And Peel shall sink his Popery-cry, 
 
 And Buxton lay his plans down. 
 And Bankes shall vote with honesty. 
 
 And Liverpool with Lansdowne; 
 And hungry knights shall lose their steak 
 
 And never talk of pairing, 
 And county members keep awake 
 
 Through half an hour of Baring; 
 And not a soul shall go to grin 
 
 When Martin goes to move. 
 And Mr. Cobbett shall get in, 
 
 Before I cease to love ! 
 K 2
 
 148 LOVE'S ETEENITY 
 
 Good sense shall go to Parliament, 
 
 The tithe shall be abated, 
 A Papist shall be innocent, 
 
 A slave emancipated, 
 A French gallant shall break his heart, 
 
 A Spanish Count his fetters, 
 A fortune-teller trust her art, 
 
 A Radical his betters; 
 A pretty face shall like a veil, 
 
 A pretty hand a glove. 
 And Reason win, and bribery fail. 
 
 Before I cease to love. 
 
 In short, the world shall all go mad. 
 
 And saints shall take to masquing, 
 And kisses and estates be had 
 
 For nothing but the asking ; 
 And beauty shall be ugliness, 
 
 And ocean shall be dry. 
 And passion shall be passionless 
 
 And truth itself a lie. 
 And ^ Stars ' shall cease to shine below, 
 
 And stars to shine above. 
 And Cunningham be left for Lowe, 
 
 Before I cease to love. 
 
 (1824.)
 
 149 
 
 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY 
 
 A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BY A COLLEGE TUTOR AT 
 A SUPPER-PARTY 
 
 Ye Dons and ye Doctors, ye Provosts and Proctors, 
 
 Who are paid to monopolize knowledge, 
 Come make opposition by voice and petition 
 
 To the radical infidel College ; 
 Come put forth your powers in aid of the towers 
 
 Which boast of their Bishops and Martyrs, 
 And arm all the terrors of privileged errors 
 
 Which live by the wax of their Charters. 
 
 Let Macintosh battle with Canning and Vattel, 
 
 Let Brougham be a friend to the ' niggers,' 
 Burdett cure the nation's misrepresentations, 
 
 And Hume cut a figure in figures ; 
 But let them not babble of Greek to the rabble, 
 
 Nor teach the mechanics their letters ; 
 The labouring classes were born to be asses, 
 
 And not to be aping their betters. 
 
 'Tis a terrible crisis for Cam and for Isis ! 
 
 Fat butchers are learning dissection; 
 And looking-glass-makers become sabbath-breakers 
 
 To study the rules of reflection;
 
 150 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY 
 
 ' Sin : ' and ' sin : 6 ' — what sins can be sweeter ? 
 
 Are taught to the poor of both sexes, 
 And weavers and spinners jump up from their dinners 
 
 To flirt with their Y's and their X's. 
 
 Chuck-farthing advances the doctrine of chances 
 
 In spite of the staff of the beadle; 
 And menders of breeches between the long stitches 
 
 Write books on the laws of the needle; 
 And chandlers all chatter of luminous matter 
 
 Who communicate none to their tallows, 
 And rogues get a notion of the pendulum's motion 
 
 Which is only of use at the gallows. 
 
 The impurest of attics read pure mathematics, 
 
 The ginshops are turned into cloisters, 
 A Crawford next summer will fill you your rummer, 
 
 A Coplestone open your oysters. 
 The bells of Old Bailey are practising gaily 
 
 The erudite tones of St. Mary's ; 
 The Minories any day will rear you a Kennedy, 
 
 And Bishopsgate blossom with Airys. 
 
 The nature of granites, the tricks of the planets. 
 
 The forces of steams and of gases. 
 The engines mechanical, the long words botanical, 
 
 The ranging of beetles in classes, 
 The delicate junctions of symbols and functions, 
 
 The impossible roots of equations — 
 Are these proper questions for Cockney digestions. 
 
 Fit food for a cit's lucubrations ?
 
 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY 151 
 
 The eloquent pages of time-hallowed sages 
 
 Embalmed by some critical German^ 
 Old presents from Brunckius, new futures from 
 Monckius, 
 
 The squabbles of Person with Hermann, 
 Your Alphas and Betas, your Canons of Metres, 
 
 Your Infinite Powers of Particles, 
 Shall these and such-like work make journeymen 
 strike work 
 
 And 'prentices tear up their articles? 
 
 But oh I since fair Science will cruelly fly hence 
 
 To smile upon vagrants and gipsies. 
 Since knights of the hammer must handle their 
 grammar, 
 
 And nightmen account for eclipses. 
 Our handicraft neighbours shall share in our labours 
 
 If they leave us the whole of the honey, 
 And the sans-culotte caitiff shall start for the plate, if 
 
 He puts in no claim to jdate-money. 
 
 Ye Halls, on whose dais the Don of to-day is 
 
 To feed on the beef and the benison, 
 Ye Common-room glories, where beneficed Tories 
 
 Digest their belief and their venison. 
 Ye duels scholastic, where quibbles monastic 
 
 Are asserted with none to confute them. 
 Ye grave Congregations, where frequent taxations 
 
 Are settled with none to dispute them —
 
 152 THE LONDON UNIVERSITY 
 
 Far hence be the season when Radical treason 
 
 Of port and of pudding shall bilk ye, 
 When the weavers aforesaid shall taste of our boar's 
 head. 
 
 The silk-winders swallow our silky, 
 When the mob shall eat faster than any Vice- 
 master, 
 
 The watermen ix^ ^^ out-tope us, 
 When Campbell shall dish up a bowl of our biskop, 
 
 Or Brougham and Co. cope with our coptcs. 
 
 (1825.) 
 
 ONE MORE QUADRILLE 
 
 Not yet, not yet ; it ^s hardly four ; 
 
 Not yet; we^ll send the chair away; 
 Mirth still has many smiles in store, 
 
 And love has fifty things to say. 
 Long leagues the weary Sun mvist drive, 
 
 Ere pant his hot steeds o'er the hill; 
 The merry stars will dance till five ; 
 
 One more quadrille, — one more quadrille ! 
 
 'Tis only thus, 'tis only here 
 
 That maids and minstrels may forget 
 
 The myriad ills they feel or fear, 
 Ennui, taxation, cholera, debt ;
 
 ONE MOEE QUADRILLE 153 
 
 With daylight . busy cares alid schemes 
 Will come again to chafe or chill ; 
 
 This is the fairy land of dreams ; 
 
 One more quadrille^ — one more quadrille ! 
 
 What tricks the French in Paris play, 
 
 And what the Austrians are about. 
 And whether that tall knave, Lord Grey, 
 
 Is staying in, or going out ; 
 And what the House of Lords will do, 
 
 At last, with that eternal Bill, 
 I do not care a rush, — do you? 
 
 One more quadrille, — one more quadrille ! 
 
 My book don't sell, my play don't draw, 
 
 My garden gives me only weeds ; 
 And Mr. Quirk has found a flaw — 
 
 Deuce take him — in my title-deeds ; 
 My Aunt has scratched her nephew's name 
 
 From that sweet corner in her will ; 
 My dog is dead, my horse is lame; 
 
 One more quadrille, — one more quadrille ! 
 
 Not yet, not yet ; it is not late ; 
 
 Don't whisper it to sister Jane ; 
 Your brother, I am sure, will wait; 
 
 Papa will go to cards again. 
 Not yet, not yet. Yoixr eyes are bright. 
 
 Your step is like a wood-nymph's, still. 
 Oh no, you can't be tired, to-night ! 
 
 One more quadrille, — one more quadrille ! 
 (1832.)
 
 155 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 A look as blithe, a step as light .... 
 A man should be tall, a man should be strong . 
 A Poet o'er his tea and toast .... 
 As o'er the deep the seaman roves 
 
 Back, — back ! — he fears not foaming flood . 
 
 Clotilda ! many hearts are light .... 
 
 Dear Alice ! you'll laugh when you know it 
 
 Good night to the Season ! 'Tis over ! 
 
 I have a tale of Love to tell . 
 
 I knew that it must be ! 
 
 I think, whatever mortals crave .... 
 
 My mother's grave, my mother's grave 
 
 Near a small village in the West 
 Not yet, not yet ; it 's hardly four 
 
 for the harp which once — but through the strings 
 Love ! beauteous Love ! . . . . 
 O'er the level plains, where mountains greet me as I 
 O'er yon churchyard the storm may lower . 
 Oh sweet it is to listen on the shore . 
 Once on a time, when sunny May 
 
 Pretty Coquette, the ceaseless play 
 
 Sir Lidian had attained his sixteenth year 
 So glad a life was never, love .... 
 Some years ago, ere time and taste 
 Spirits, that walk and wail to-night . 
 
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 156 
 
 INDEX OF FIEST LINES 
 
 The Abbot arose, and closed his book 
 
 The men of sin prevail ! 
 
 There was a time, when I could feel 
 
 They hurried to the feast 
 
 This is a night of pleasure ! Care 
 
 Twelve years ago I made a mock 
 
 What need of wit ? What need of wile ? 
 
 Ye Dons and ye Doctors, ye Provosts and Proctors 
 Years — years ago, — ere yet my di-eams 
 You tell me you're promised a lover . 
 You'll come to our Ball ; — since we parted 
 
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