A Selection from the Works of Frederick Locker :: :: University of Virginia Library

She gave him a draught freshly drawn from the springlet,—
O Tunbridge, thy waters are bitter, alas!
But Love finds an ambush in dimple and ringlet,—
“Thy health, pretty maiden!”—he emptied the glass.

He saw, and he loved her, nor cared he to quit her,
The oftener he came, why the longer he stayed;
Indeed, though the spring was exceedingly bitter,
We found him eternally pledging the maid.

A preux chevalier, and but lately a cripple,
He met with his hurt where a regiment fell,
But worse was he wounded when staying to tipple
A bumper to “Phœbe, the Nymph of the Well.”

102

Some swore he was old, that his laurels were faded,
All vowed she was vastly too nice for a nurse;
But Love never looked on such matters as they did,—
She took the brave soldier for better or worse.

And here is the home of her fondest election,—
The walls may be worn but the ivy is green;
And here has she tenderly twined her affection
Around a true soldier who bled for his Queen.

See, yonder he sits, where the church flings its shadows;
What child is that spelling the epitaphs there?
To that imp its devout and devoted old dad owes
New zest in thanksgiving—fresh fervour in prayer.

Ere long, ay, too soon, a sad concourse will darken
The doors of that church, and that tranquil abode;
His place then no longer will know him—but, hearken,
The widow and orphan appeal to their God.

Much peace will be hers! “If our lot must be lowly,
Resemble thy father, though with us no more;”
And only on days that are high or are holy,
She will show him the cross that her warrior wore.

103

So taught, he will rather take after his father,
And wear a long sword to our enemies' loss;
Till some day or other he'll bring to his mother
Victoria's gift—the Victoria Cross!

And still she'll be charming, though ringlet and dimple
Perchance may have lost their peculiar spell;
And at times she will quote, with complacency simple,
The compliments paid to the Nymph of the Well.

And then will her darling, like all good and true ones,
Console and sustain her,—the weak and the strong;—
And some day or other two black eyes or blue ones
Will smile on his path as he journeys along.

Wherever they win him, whoever his Phœbe,
Of course of all beauties she must be the belle,
If at Tunbridge he chance to fall in with a Hebe,
He will not fall out with a draught from the Well.