University of Virginia Library

2. PART SECOND.

Sir Grey and Sir Guy, like proper old boys,
Have met, with a world of coughing and noise;
And after subsiding, judiciously dine,
Serious the venison, and chirping the wine.
They talk of the court, now gathering all
To the sunny plump smoke of Earl-Mount Hall:
And pity their elders laid up on the shelves,
And abuse every soul upon earth but themselves:
Only Sir Grey doth it rather to please,
And Sir Guy out of honest old spite and disease:
For Sir Guy hath a face so round and so red,
The whole of his blood seemeth hanging his head,
While Sir Grey's red face is waggish and thin,
And he peereth with upraised nose and chin.
Nathless Sir Grey excepteth from blame
His nephew Sir Will, and his youthful fame;
And each soundeth t'other, to learn what hold
The youth and the lady may have of his gold.
Alas! of his gold will neither speak,
Tho' the wine it grew strong, and the tongue grew weak,
And when the sweet maiden herself appears,
With a breath in her bosom, and blush to her ears,
And the large thankful eyes of the look of a bride,
Sir Grey recollecteth no creature beside:
He watcheth her in, he watcheth her out;
He measureth her ankle, but not with his gout;
He chucketh, like chanticleer over a corn,
And thinks it but forty years since he was born.
“Why, how now, Sir Grey? methinks you grow young:
How soon are your own wedding bells to be rung?
You stare on my daughter, like one elf-struck.”
“Alas! and I am,—the sadder my luck:—
Albeit, Sir Guy, your own shoulders count
Years not many more than mine own amount,
And I trust you don't feign to be too old to wed?”
“Hoh! hoh!” quoth Sir Guy; “that was cunningly said.”
(Yet he felt flatter'd too, did the white old head.)
“What are years?” continued Sir Grey, looking bold;
“There are men never young, and men never old.
Old and young lips may carol in tune;
Green laugheth the oak 'gainst the brown mid June.
Lo! dapper Sir Kit, with his large young wife;
His big-leggéd babes are the pride of his life.”
“Ay, ay,” quoth Sir Guy, “and stuffeth so fast,
His eyesight not reaching the lady's repast.”
“They may,” quoth Sir Grey, “when both parents are old,
Or when the old parent is wrinkle-soul'd;
But not when he's hearty and merry as we.
You grieve me, Sir Guy. Oh! 'tis doleful to see
How vainly a friend may come here for a bride,
Though he loveth the daughter, and father beside.”
“Your pardon, your pardon, dear friend,” crieth Guy:
“What, you? What, Sir Grey with his ever-bright eye?
We talk'd of the old, but who talk'd of Sir Grey?
But speak ye right soberly? mean what ye say?”
“Ay, truly I do,” with a sigh crieth Grey;
“As truly as souls that for Paradise pray.
And hark ye, dear friend; you'll miss your sweet Anne,
If she weddeth, I wot, some giddy young man.
He'll bear her away, and be lov'd alone,
And wish, and yet grudge, your very tomb-stone.
Now give her to me, I'll give her my gold,
And I'll give to yourself my wood and my wold.
And come and live here, and we'll house together,
And laugh o'er our cups at the winter weather.
“A bargain! a bargain!” cried old Sir Guy,
With a stone at his heart, and the land in his eye;
“Your hand to the bargain, my dear old friend:
My ‘old’ did I call thee? My world without end.
I'll bustle her straight; and to keep all close,
You shall carry her with you, ere creature knows,
Save Rob, and Sir Rafe, and a few beside,
For guests and for guards to the travelling bride;
And so, ere the chattering court come down,
Wed her at home in your own snug town.”
Now a murrain, I say, on those foul old men!
I never, myself, shall see fifty again,
And can pity a proper young-blooded old fellow,
Whose heart is green, though his cheek be yellow;
For Nature, albeit she never doth wrong,
Yet seemeth in such to keep youth too long:
And 'tis grievous when such an one seeth his bliss
In a face which can see but the wrinkles in his.
Ah! pray let him think there are dames not young,
For whom the bells yet might be handsomely rung.
'Tis true, grey-beards have been, like Jove's of old,
That have met a young lip, nor been thought too bold.
In Norfolk a wondrous old lord hath been seen,
Who at eighty was not more than forty, I ween;
And I myself know a hale elderly man,
In face and in frolic a very god Pan.
But marvels like these are full rare, I wis:
And when elders in general young ladies would kiss,
I exhort the dear souls to fight and to flee,
Unless they should chance to run against me.
Alas! I delay as long as I can,
For who may find words for thy grief, sweet Anne?
'Tis hard, when young heart, singing songs of to-morrow,
Is suddenly met by the old hag, Sorrow.
She fainteth, she prayeth, she feeleth sore ill;
She wringeth her hands; she cannot stand still;
She tasteth the madness of wonder and will;—
Nor, sweet though she was, had she yielded at last,
Had Sir Guy not his loathly old plethora cast
In the scale against love and its life-long gains,
And threaten'd her fears for his bursting veins.
“I'll wed him,” she wrote to Sir William;—“yes;
But nothing on earth—” and here her distress
Broke off, and she wept, and the tears fell hot
On the paper, and made a great starry blot.
Alas! tears and letter burn under the eye
Of watchful, unmerciful, old Sir Guy;
And so on a night, when all things round,
Save the trees and the moon, were sleeping sound,
From his casement in shadow he sees his child,
Bent in her weeping, yet alway mild,
The fairest thing in the moon's fair ray,
Borne like some bundle of theft away;
Borne by a horde of old thieves away,
The guests and the guards of false Sir Grey.
She pray'd, but she spake out aloud no word;
She wept, but no breath of self-pity was heard:
Her woe was a sight for no dotards to see;
And yet not bereft of all balm was she;
One balm there was left her, one strange but rare,
Nay, one in the shape of a very despair,
To wit, the palfrey that wont to bear
The knight De la Barre on his daily way
To her, and love, and false Sir Grey.
Him it had borne, her now it bore;
And weeping sweet, though more and more,
And praying for its master's bliss
(Oh! no true love will scoff at this,)
She stoop'd and gave its neck a kiss.