The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed :: :: University of Virginia Library

The night comes on, and o'er the field
The moon shines bright on helm and shield;
But there are many on that plain
That shall not see her light again;
She looks serene on countless bands
Of mailéd breasts and steel-bound hands,
And shows a thousand faces there
Of courage high, and dark despair.
All mingled as the legions lie,
Wrapt in their dreams of victory,
A lowering sound of doubt and fear
Breaks sudden on the startled ear,
And hands are clenched, and cheeks are pale,
And from bright blade and ringing mail
A thousand hands, with busy toil,
Clean off each ancient stain or soil;

Or spots of blood, where truth may read
For every drop a guilty deed.

Survey the crowds who there await
In various mood the shock of fate,
Who burn to meet or strive to shun
The dangers of to-morrow's sun:
Look on the husband's anxious tears,
The hero's hopes, the coward's fears,
The vices that e'en here are found,
The follies that are hovering round,
And learn that (treat it as you will)
Our life must be a mockery still.
Alas! the same caprices reign
In courtly hall or tented plain;
And the same follies are revealed
In ball-room and in battle-field.

Turn to yon open tent, and see
Where, drunk with youth and Burgundy,
Reclines, his midnight revel o'er,
The beau of battle, Theodore.
Before him on his desk he lays
The billet-doux of other days;
And while he reads, his fancy lingers
On those white hands and witching fingers
That traced the darling signatures,—
The “yours till death” and “truly yours;”

And as by turns they meet his eye
He looks, and laughs, and throws them by,
Until perchance some magic name
Lights up a spark of former flame;
And then he ponders in his trance
On Mary's love-inspiring glance,
On Chloe's eye of glittering fire,
And Laura's look of fond desire:
Poor Theodore! if valiant breast,
And open heart, and song, and jest,
And laughing lip, and auburn hair,
And vow sent up by lady fair,
Can save a youthful warrior's life,
Thou fall'st not in to-morrow's strife.

Look yonder; on the dewy sward
Tom Wittol lies, a brother bard;
He lies, and ponders on the stars,
On virtue, genius, and the wars;
On dark ravines and woody dells,
On mirth and muses, shot and shells;
On black mustachios, and White Surrey,
On rhyme and sabres, death and Murray;
Until at last his fancy glows
As if it felt to-morrow's blows;
Anticipation fires his brain
With fights unfought, unslaughtered slain,

And on the fray that is to be
Comes forth a dirge or elegy;
And if he meets no heavier harm
To-morrow from a foeman's arm
Than cracked cuirass or broken head,
He'll hasten from his fever's bed,
And, just broke loose from salve and lint,
Rush like a hero into print,
Heading his light and harmless prattle,—
“Lines—written on a Field of Battle.”
Thou favoured bard, go boldly on!
The Muse shall guard her darling son;
And, when the musket's steady aim
Is levelled at the pet of fame,
The Muse shall check the impious crime,
And shield thee with a ream of rhyme;
But if 'tis doomed, and fall thou must,
Since bards, like other men, are dust,
Upon the tomb where thou shalt sleep
Phœbus and Mars alike shall weep,
And he that loved, but could not save,
Shall write “Hic jacet” o'er thy grave.

What wight is that, whose distant nose
Gives token loud of deep repose?
What, honest Harry on the ground?
I' faith thy sleep is wondrous sound

For one who looks, upon his waking,
To “sleep the sleep that knows not breaking!”
But rest thee, rest, thou merriest soul
That ever loved the circling bowl!
I look upon his empty cup,
And sudden tears uncalled spring up;
Perchance in this abode of pother
Kind Harry may not drain another;
But still our comrades at the Bell
Of Harry's prowess long shall tell,
And dignify with well-earned praise
The revelry of other days;
And then the merry tale will run
On many a wager lost and won,
On many a jest and many a song,
And many a peal of laughter long
That from our jovial circle broke
At Harry's toast or Harry's joke.
Again, at fancy's touch restored,
Our old sirloin shall grace the board;
Again, at fancy's touch shall flow
The tap we drained an age ago:
And thou, the soul of fun, the life
Of noisy mirth and playful strife,
Mayst sleep in honour's worm-worn bed
The dreamless slumber of the dead;
But oft shall one sad heart at least
Think on the smile, that never ceased

Its catching influence, till the earth
Closed o'er the lips that gave it birth:
I'll pour upon thy tranquil rest
The hallowed bowl of Meux's best,
And recollect, with smile and sigh,
Thy “beer with E, and bier with I.”

Dazzle mine eyes? or do I see
Two glorious suns of Chancery?
The pride of Law appears the first,
And next the pride of Moulsey Hurst.
Faithless and fee-less, from the bar
Tim Quill is come to practise war:
Without a rival in the ring,
Brown Robert “peels” for Church and King.
Thus ever to your country's fights
Together go, ye kindred knights!
Congenial arts ye aye pursued;
Daylight ye studied to exclude;
And both of old were known to Crib,
And both were very apt to fib!
Together go; no foe shall stand
The vengeance of our country's brand,
When on his ranks together spring
Cross-buttocks—and cross-questioning!

Sir Jacob arming! what despair
Has snatched him from his elbow-chair,

And hurried from his good old wine
The bachelor of fifty-nine?
What mighty cause has torn him thus,
Unwilling, from suburban rus,
Bade him desert his one-horse chaise,
His old companions and old ways,
Give up his baccalaurean tattle,
And quit the bottle for the battle?
Has he forgot in martial ardour
His wig, his teapot, and his larder?
Has he forgot—ungrateful sub.—
Champagne, backgammon, and the club?
Has he forgot his native earth,
His sofa, and his decent hearth?
Has he forgot his homely fare,
And her, the maid with yellow hair,
That dressed the meat and spread the board,
Laid fuel on the fire, and poured
In stream as sparkling as her eye
From its green gaol the Burgundy?
That Hebe, in thy native town,
Looks from her latticed window down,
And, when the newsman paces by,
Runs, with a sharp and fearful cry,
And cheek all pale, and eye all wet,
To seek thy name in the Gazette.
What fate has bid her master roam,
In exile from his cheerful home?

What! has his landlord turned him out!
Is he gone mad with love—or gout?
Has death imposed his finger bony
Upon his mistress—or his crony?
Have sober matrons ceased to praise
The lover of their youthful days?
Are belles less eager to command,
With wink and smile, his ready hand?
Fears he the sudden dissolution
Of club-house—or of constitution?
Has the last pipe of hock miscarried?
Has—I forget!—last week he—married.

Thou too thy brilliant helm must don,
Etona's wild and wayward son,
Mad merry Charles. While beardless yet
Thou look'st upon thy plume of jet,
Or smilest, as the clouds of night
Are drifted back by morning's light,
Thy boyish look, thy careless eyes,
Might wake the envy of the wise.
Six months have passed since thou didst
Unwilling through Etona's grove,
Trembling at many an ancient face
That met thee in that holy place;
To speak the plain and honest truth,
Thou wast no scholar in thy youth:

But now, go forth! broke loose from school,
Kill and destroy by classic rule,
Or die in fight, to live in story,
As valiant Hector did before ye.
On, on! take forts and storm positions,
Break Frenchmen's heads instead of Priscian's,
And seek in death and conflagration
A gradus to thy reputation:
Yet when the war is loud and high,
Thine old mistakes will round thee fly;
And still, in spite of all thy care,
False quantities will haunt thee there;
For thou wilt make, amidst the throng,
Or ζωη short, or κλεος long.

Methinks I know that figure bold
And stalwart limbs of giant mould!
'Tis he! I know his ruddy face,
My tried staunch friend, Sir Matthew Chase.
His snore is loud, his slumber deep,
Yet dreams are with him in his sleep,
And fancy's visions oft recall
The merry hunt and jovial hall,
And oft replace before his sight
The bustle of to-morrow's fight.
In swift succession o'er his brain
Come fields of corn, and fields of slain;

And, as the varying image burns,
Blood and blood-horses smoke by turns;
The five-barred gate and muddy ditch,
Smolensko and the spotted bitch,
Parisian puppies—English dogs—
“Begar” and “damme”—beef and frogs,
In strange unmeaning medley fly
Before poor Nimrod's wandering eye.
He speaks! what murmuring stifled sounds
Burst from his throat?—“Why, madam!—zounds!
Who scared me with that Gorgon face?—
I thought I saw my Lady Chase!”

And thou too, Clavering! Humour's son!
Made up of wisdom and of fun!
Medley of all that's dark and clear,
Of all that's foolish, all that's dear,
Tell me, what brings thee here to die,
Thou prince of eccentricity?
Poor Arthur! in his childhood's day
He cared so little for his play,
And wore so grave and prim a look,
And cried so when he missed his book,
That aunts were eager to presage
The glories of his riper age,
And fond mamma in him foresaw
The bulwark of the British law,

And Science from her lofty throne
Looked down and marked him for her own.
Ah! why did flattery come at school
To tinge him with a shade of fool?
Alas, what clever plans were crost!
Alas, how wise a judge was lost!
Without a friend to check or guide
He hurried into fashion's tide;
He aped each folly of the throng,
Was all by turns, and nothing long;
Through varying tastes and modes he flew,
Dress—boxing—racing—dice—virtù;
Now looking blue in sentimentals,
Now looking red in regimentals,
Now impudent, and now demure,
Now blockhead, and now connoisseur,
Now smoking at the Jolly Tar,
Now talking Greek with Dr. Parr;
A friend by turns to saints and sinners,
Attending lectures, plays, and dinners,
The Commons' House and Common Halls,
Chapels of ease and Tattersall's;
Skilful in fencing and in fist,
Blood—critic—jockey—Methodist,
Causeless alike in joy or sorrow,
Tory to-day, and Whig to-morrow,
All habits and all shapes he wore,
And loved, and laughed, and prayed, and swore;

And now some instantaneous freak,
Some peevish whim, or jealous pique,
Has made the battle's iron shower
The hobby of the present hour,
And bade him seek in steel and lead
An opiate for a rambling head:
A cannon ball will prove a pill
To lull what nothing else can still,
And I, that prophesy his doom,
Will give him all I can—a tomb,
And, o'er a pint of half-and-half,
Compose poor Arthur's epitaph:
“Here joined in death the observer sees
Plato—and Alcibiades;
A mixture of the grave and funny,
A famous dish of Salmagundi!”

Allan M`Gregor! from afar
I see him, 'midst the ranks of war
That all around are rising fast
From slumbers that may be their last.
I know him by his Highland plaid,
Long borne in foray and in raid,
His scarf all splashed with dust and gore,
His nodding plume and broad claymore;
I know him by that eagle eye,
Where foemen read their destiny;

I know him by that iron brow,
That frowns not—burns not—quails not now,
Though life and death are with the ray
That redly dawns upon to-day.
Woe to the wretch whose single might
Copes with dark Allan in the fight!
He knows not mercy—knows not fear;
The pibroch has to Allan's ear
A clearer and a sweeter note
Than mellow strains that blithely float
From lyre or lute, in courtly throng,
Where Beauty smiles upon the song.
Of artful wiles against his foe
Nothing he knows, or cares to know;
Far less he recks of polished arts,
The batteries in the siege of hearts;
And hence the minions of the ton,
While fair and foolish dames look on,
Laugh at old Allan's awkward bow,
His stern address, and haughty brow.
Laugh they?—when sounds the hollow drum,
And banded legions onward come,
And life is won by ready sword,
By strength to strike and skill to ward,
Those tongues, so brave in woman's war,
Those cheeks unstained by scratch or scar,
Shall owe their safety in the fight
To hoary Allan's arm of might.

Close to the clansman's side is seen
Dame Fortune's soldier, James M'Lean.
I know him well; no novice he
In warfare's murderous theory;
Amidst the battle's various sound,
While bullets flew like hail around,
M'Lean was born; in scenes like this
He passed his earliest hours of bliss;
Cradled in war, the fearless child
Looked on the scene of blood, and smiled;
Toyed with the sabre of the Blues
Long ere he knew its hellish use:
His little fingers loved to feel
The bayonet's bright point of steel,
Or made his father's helmet ring
With beating up “God save the King.”
Those hours of youthful glee are fled,
The thin grey hairs are on his head,
Of youth's hot current nought remains
Within the ancient warrior's veins;
Yet, when he hears the battle cry,
His spirit beats as wild and high
As on the day that saw him wield
His virgin sword in battle field;—
The eve on which his comrades found him,
With England's colours wrapt around him,
His face turned upwards, and his hand
Still twined around his trusty brand.

As, spent with wounds and weak with toil,
He lay upon the bloody soil.
E'en now, though swift advancing years
Might well decline this life of fears,
Though the deep scars upon his breast
Show claim to honourable rest,
He will not quit what time has made
His joy, his habit, and his trade.
He envies not the peasant's lot,
His cheerful hearth and humble cot;
Encampments have to him become
As constant and as dear a home.

Such are the hearts of steel whom War
Binds in their cradle to his car,
And leaves them in their latter day,
With honour, medals, and half-pay,
Burthened with all the cares of life,
Repentance—asthma—and a wife.

And what am I who thus can choose
Such subject for so light a muse?
Who wake the smile and weave the rhyme,
In such a scene, at such a time?
Mary! whose pure and holy kiss
Is still a cherished dream of bliss,—
When last I saw thy bright blue eye,
And heard thy voice of melody,

And felt thy timid, mild caress,
I was all hope—all joyousness!
We parted,—and the morrow's sun—
Oh God!—my bliss was past and done:
The lover's hope, the husband's vow—
Where were they then?—ah! where wert thou?

Mary! thou vision loved and wept,—
Long years have passed since thou hast slept,
Removed from gaze of mortal eye,
The dreamless sleep of those that die.
Long years!—yet has not passed away
The memory of that fatal day,
When all thy young and faded grace
Before me lay in Death's embrace.

A throb of madness and of pain
Shot through my heart, and through my brain;
I felt it then, I feel it now,
Though time is stamped upon my brow,
Though all my veins grow cold with age,
And o'er my memory's fading page
Oblivion draws her damning line,
And blots all images—save thine.

Thou left'st me—and I did become
An alien from my house and home,

A phantom in life's busy dream,
A bubble on misfortune's stream,
Condemned through varying scenes to rove,
With nought to hope—and nought to love;
No inward motive that can give
Or fear to die, or wish to live.

Away, away! Death rides the breeze!
There is no time for thoughts like these.
Hark! from the foeman's distant camp,
I hear their chargers' sullen tramp:
On, valiant Britons, to the fight!
On, for St. George and England's right!
Green be the laurel, bright the meed,
Of those that shine in martial deed:
Short be the pang, swift pass the breath,
Of those that die a soldier's death!

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.

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 power,
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;
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 pageant 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;
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;
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 quaff,
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
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 young 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 yeux?
Well, well! and how's the gout, my Lord?—
My dear Sir Charles, upon my word,
L'air 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,
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 your 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 Ma'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?”
“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!”
“'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 place;
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,
And if perchance some powdered peer
Hath gained or lost the Monarch's 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?
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 ours
To ladies' gowns—or characters;
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 when dandies bow;
And Ellen finds, with much surprise,
That beaux will 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
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 à 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?

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 quite 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 youthful 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?
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 faux pas!—a trifle merely!
Ha! ha!—egad, you touched him nearly!”

All blunderers, when they chance to make
In colloquy 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.

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 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 Bonapartè did.
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.

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 Dædalus 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;
Bacon comes forward, sage austere,
And Locke and Paley both are there;
And Newton, with a spiteful hiss,
Points to his “De Principiis.”
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 dulce and the utile;
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 recals a vision
Of some enchanting proposition,
And merry “Chassez-croisès huit”
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;
And fairest forms, from heel to head,
Seem crooked as his x 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 quadrilling,
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
Around her, when unseen she trod
Before the sight of man or god.
Look, 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 sprained her ankle here;
And then there were 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,—
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 “Pray, Papa!”s and “Do, Papa!”s;
“Ladies,” quoth Gout, “I love my rest;”
The carriage waits!—eundum 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 truth to fiction,
From retrospection to prediction:

They regulate with unbought bounty
The destinies of half the county;
With gipsy talent they foretell
How Miss Duquesne will marry well,
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.
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?

TO JULIO

ON HIS COMING OF AGE

Julio, while Fancy's tints adorn
The first bright beam of manhood's morn,
The cares of boyhood fleet away
Like clouds before the face of day;
And see, before your ravished eyes
New hopes appear, new duties rise,
Restraint has left his iron throne,
And Freedom smiles on twenty-one.

Count o'er the friends whom erst you knew
When careless boyhood deemed them true,
With whom you wiled the lazy hours
Round fond Etona's classic towers,
Or strayed beside the learned mud
Of ancient Cam's meandering flood;
The follies that in them you view
Shall be a source of good to you.

With mincing gait and foreign air
Sir Philip strays through park and square,

Or yawns in Grange's sweet recess,
In all the studied ease of dress;
Aptly the man-ling's tongue, I deem,
Can argue on a lofty theme,—
Which damsel hath the merrier eye,
Which fop the better-fancied tie,
Which perfume hath the sweetest savour,
Which soup the more inviting flavour;
And Fashion, at Sir Philip's call,
Ordains the collar's rise and fall
And shifts the Brummel's varying hue
From blue to brown, from brown to blue.
And hence the motley crowd, whoe'er
Bear Fashion's badge—or wish to bear
From Hockley-hole to Rotten-row,
Unite to dub Sir Philip—beau.

And, such is Fashion's empty fame,
Squire Robert loathes the very name.—
The rockets hiss, the bonfires blaze,
The peasants gape in still amaze;
The field unploughed, the ox unyoked,
The farmer's mouth with pudding choked,
The sexton's vest of decent brown,
The village maiden's Sunday gown,
In joyful union seem to say—
“Squire Robert is of age to-day.”

The bumpkins hurry to the Bell,
And clam'rous tongues in riot swell;
Anger is hot—and so is liquor;
They drink confusion to the vicar;
And shout and song from lad and lass.
And broken heads, and broken glass,
In concert horrible, declare
Their loyal rev'rence for the heir.

Right justly may the youthful squire
These transports in his slaves inspire;
At every fireside through the place
He's welcome as the curate's grace;
He tells his story, cracks his joke,
And drinks his ale “like other folk;”
Fearless he risks that cranium thick
At cudgelling and singlestick;
And then his stud!—Why, far and wide,
It is the country's chiefest pride!
Ah! had his steed no firmer brains
Than the mere thing that holds the reins,
Grief soon would bid the beer to run,
Because the squire's mad race was done,
Not less than now it froths away,
Because “the squire's of age to-day.”

Far different pomp inspired of old
The youthful Roman's bosom bold.

Soon as a father's honoured hand
Gave to his grasp the casque and brand,
And off the light prætexta threw,
And from his neck the bulla drew,
Bade him the toga's foldings scan,
And glory in the name of Man;
Far different pomp lit ardour high
In the young German's eager eye,
When, bending o'er his offspring's head,
An aged sire, half weeping, said—
“Thy duty to thy father done,
Go forth, and be thy country's son!”
Heav'ns! how his bosom burned to dare
The grim delight of manhood's war,
And brandish in no mimic field
His beaming lance and osier shield!
How his young bosom longed to claim,
In war's wide tumult, manhood's name
And write it, 'midst the battle's foam,
In the best blood of trembling Rome!

Such was the hope, the barbarous joy,
That nerved to arms the German boy;
A flame as ardent, more refined,
Shall brightly glow in Julio's mind;
But yet I'd rather see thee smile
Grimly on war's embattled file,—

I'd rather see thee wield in strife
The German butcher's reckless knife,
Thinking thy claims to manhood grow
From each pale corse that bleeds below,—
I'd rather view thee thus, than see
A modern blockhead rise in thee.

Is it a study for a peer
To breathe soft vows in lady's ear?
To choose a coat—or leap a gate?
To win an heiress—or a plate?

Far nobler studies shall be thine,—
So friendship and the Muse divine:
It shall be thine, in danger's hour,
To guide the helm of British power;
And 'midst thy country's laurelled crown
To mix a garland all thine own.

Julio, from this auspicious day,
New honours gild thine onward way;
In thee posterity shall view
A heart to faith and feeling true,
And Fame her choicest wreaths shall blend
For virtue's and the poor man's friend!

TO JULIA

PREPARING FOR HER FIRST SEASON IN TOWN.

Julia, while London's fancied bliss
Bids you despise a life like this;
While Chiswick and its joys you leave,
For hopes that flatter to deceive;
You will not scornfully refuse,
(Though dull the theme, and weak the Muse,)
To look upon my line, and hear
What friendship sends to Beauty's ear.

Four miles from town, a neat abode
O'erlooks a rose-bush, and a road;
A paling, cleaned with constant care,
Surrounds ten yards of neat parterre,
Where dusty ivy strives to crawl
Five inches up the whitened wall.
The open window, thickly set
With myrtle and with mignonette,
Behind whose cultivated row
A brace of globes peep out for show,

The avenue, the burnished plate
That decks the would-be rustic gate,
Denote the fane where Fashion dwells,—
“Lyce's Academy for Belles.”

'Twas here, in earlier, happier days,
Retired from pleasure's weary maze,
You found, unknown to care or pain,
The peace you will not find again.
Here friendships, far too fond to last,
A bright but fleeting radiance cast
On every sport that mirth devised,
And every scene that childhood prized,
And every bliss that bids you yet
Recall those moments with regret.

Those friends have mingled in the strife
That fills the busy scene of life,
And pride and folly, cares and fears,
Look dark upon their future years;
But by their wrecks may Julia learn
Whither her fragile bark to turn,
And o'er the troubled sea of fate
Avoid the rocks they found too late.

You know Camilla: o'er the plain
She guides the fiery hunter's rein;

First in the chase she sounds the horn,
Trampling to earth the farmer's corn,
That hardly deigned to bend its head
Beneath her namesake's lighter tread.
With Bob the Squire, her polished lover,
She wields the gun, or beats the cover;
And then her steed!—why! every clown
Tells how she rubs Smolensko down,
And combs the mane, and cleans the hoof,
While wondering hostlers stand aloof.

At night, before the Christmas fire,
She plays backgammon with the squire;
Shares in his laugh, and in his liquor,
Mimics her father, and the vicar;
Swears at the grooms without a blush;
Dips in her ale the captured brush;
Until,—her father duly tired—
The parson's wig as duly fired—
The dogs all still—the squire asleep,
And dreaming of his usual leap,—
She leaves the dregs of white and red,
And lounges languidly to bed;
And still, in nightly visions borne,
She gallops o'er the rustic's corn;
Still wields the lash—still shakes the box,
Dreaming of “sixes”—and the fox.

And this is bliss!—the story runs,
Camilla never wept—save once:
Yes! once indeed Camilla cried—
'Twas when her dear Blue-stockings died.

Pretty Cordelia thinks she's ill:
She seeks her medicine at quadrille;—
With hope and fear and envy sick
She gazes on the dubious trick,
As if eternity were laid
Upon a diamond, or a spade.
And I have seen a transient pique
Wake o'er that soft and girlish cheek
A chilly and a feverish hue,
Blighting the soil where beauty grew,
And bidding hate and malice rove
In eyes that ought to beam with love.

Turn we to Fannia: she was fair
As the soft fleeting forms of air
Shaped by the fancy,—fitting theme
For youthful bard's enamoured dream
The neck, on whose transparent glow
The auburn ringlets sweetly flow,
The eye that swims in liquid fire,
The brow that frowns in playful ire,
All these, when Fannia's early youth
Looked lovely in its native truth,

Diffused a bright unconscious grace,
Almost divine, o'er form and face.

Her lip has lost its fragrant dew,
Her cheek has lost its rosy hue,
Her eye the glad enlivening rays
That glittered there in happier days,
Her heart the ignorance of woe
Which Fashion's votaries may not know.
The city's smoke—the noxious air—
The constant crowd—the torch's glare—
The morning sleep—the noonday call—
The late repast—the midnight ball,
Bid faith and beauty die, and taint
Her heart with fraud, her face with paint.

And what the boon, the prize enjoyed,
For fame defaced, and peace destroyed?
Why ask we this? with conscious grace
She criticises silk and lace;
Queen of the modes, she reigns alike
O'er sarsenet, bobbin, net, vandyke,
O'er rouge and ribbons, combs and curls,
Perfumes and patches, pins and pearls;
Feelings and faintings, songs and sighs,
Small-talk and scandal, love and lies.
Circled by beaux behold her sit,
While dandies tremble at her wit;

The captain hates “a woman's gab;”
“A devil!” cries the shy Cantab;
The young Etonian strives to fly
The glance of her sarcastic eye,
For well he knows she looks him o'er,
To stamp him “buck,” or dub him “bore.”

Such is her life—a life of waste,
A life of wretchedness—and taste;
And all the glory Fannia boasts,
And all the price that glory costs,
At once are reckoned up, in one—
One word of bliss and folly—Ton.

Not these the thoughts that could perplex
The fancies of our fickle sex,
When England's favourite, good Queen Bess,
Was queen alike o'er war and dress.
Then ladies gay played chesse—and ballads,
And learnt to dress their hair—and salads;
Sweets, and sweet looks, were studied then,
And both were pleasing to the men;
For cookery was allied to taste,
And girls were taught to blush—and baste,
Dishes were bright,—and so were eyes,
And lords made love,—and ladies, pies.
Then Valour won the wavering field
By dint of hauberk and of shield,

And Beauty won the wavering heart
By dint of pickle and of tart:
The minuet was the favourite dance;
Girls loved the needle, boys the lance;
And Cupid took his constant post
At dinner by the boiled and roast,
Or secretly was wont to lurk
In tournament or needlework.
Oh! 'twas a reign of all delights,
Of hot sirloins—and hot sir knights;
Feasting and fighting, hand in hand,
Fattened and glorified the land;
And noble chiefs had noble cheer,
And knights grew strong upon strong beer;
Honour and oxen both were nourished,
And chivalry—and pudding—flourished.

I'd rather see that magic face,
That look of love, that form of grace,
Circled by whalebone and by ruffs,
Intent on puddings and on puffs,—
I'd rather view thee thus, than see
A Fashionable rise in thee.
If life is dark, 'tis not for you
(If partial friendship's voice is true)
To cure its griefs and drown its cares
By leaping gates and murd'ring hares,

Nor to confine that feeling soul
To winning lovers—or the vole.

If these, and such pursuits, are thine,
Julia! thou art no friend of mine!
I love plain dress, I eat plain joints,
I cannot play ten-guinea points;
I make no study of a pin,
And hate a female whipper-in!

LAURA.

“For she in shape and beauty did excel
All other idols that the heathen do adore:
[OMITTED]
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;
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 destruction, 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.”—
“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.
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,
Whether 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 o'ercome—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:
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:

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;
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.

“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)—
“Though 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 gratify their secret spite:—
“How shocking Laura looks to-night!
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.

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 could not keep,
And then I wept,—as now I weep.

THE CONFESSION OF DON CARLOS.

[_]

IMITATED FROM THE SPANISH.

O tell not me of broken vow—
I speak a firmer passion now;
O tell not me of shattered chain—
The link shall never burst again!
My soul is fixed as firmly here
As the red sun in his career,
As victory on Mina's crest,
Or tenderness in Rosa's breast;
Then do not tell me, while we part,
Of fickle flame and roving heart;
While youth shall bow at beauty's shrine,
That flame shall glow—that heart be thine.

Then wherefore dost thou bid me tell
The fate thy malice knows so well?
I may not disobey thee!—Yes!
Thou bidst me—and I will confess:
See how adoringly I kneel:
Hear how my folly I reveal:—

My folly!—chide me if thou wilt,
Thou shalt not, canst not, call it guilt:—
And when my faithlessness is told,
Ere thou hast time to play the scold,
I'll haste the fond rebuke to check,
And.lean upon thy snowy neck,
Play with its glossy auburn hair,
And hide the blush of falsehood there.

Inez, the innocent and young,
First shared my heart, and waked my song;
We were both harmless, and untaught
To love as fashionables ought;
With all the modesty of youth
We talked of constancy and truth,
Grew fond of music and the moon,
And wandered on the nights of June
To sit beneath the chesnut tree,
While the lonely stars shone mellowly,
Shedding a pale and dancing beam
On the wave of Guadalquivir's stream.
And aye we talked of faith and feelings,
With no distrustings, no concealings;
And aye we joyed in stolen glances,
And sighed, and blushed, and read romances.
Our love was ardent and sincere,
And lasted, Rosa,—half a year!

And then the maid grew fickle-hearted,—
Married Don Josè—so we parted.
At twenty-one I've often heard
My bashfulness was quite absurd;
For, with a squeamishness uncommon,
I feared to love a married woman.

Fair Leonora's laughing eye
Again awaked my song and sigh:
A gay intriguing dame was she,
And fifty Dons of high degree
That came and went as they were bid
Dubbed her the Beauty of Madrid.
Alas, what constant pains I took
To merit one approving look!
I courted valour and the muse,
Wrote challenges and billets-doux;
Paid for sherbet and serenade,
Fenced with Pegru and Alvarade;
Fought at the bull-fights like a hero,
Studied small talk and the Bolero:
Played the guitar—and played the fool,
This out of tune—that out of rule.
I oft at midnight wandered out,
Wrapt up in love and my capote,
To muse on beauty and the skies,
Cold winds—and Leonora's eyes.

Alas! when all my gains were told,
I'd caught a Tartar,—and a cold.
And yet, perchance, that lovely brow
Had still detained my captive vow,—
That clear blue eye's enchanting roll
Had still enthralled my yielding soul,—
But suddenly a vision bright
Came o'er me in a veil of light,
And burst the bonds whose fetters bound me,
And brake the spell that hung around me,
Recalled the heart that madly roved,
And bade me love, and be beloved.
Who was it broke the chain and spell?
Dark-eyed Castilian! thou canst tell!

And am I faithless!—woe the while!
What vow but melts at Rosa's smile?
For broken vows, and faith betrayed,
The guilt is thine, Castilian maid!
The tale is told, and I am gone:
Think of me, loved and only one,
When none on earth shall care beside
How Carlos lived, or loved, or died!
Thy love on earth shall be to me
A bird upon a leafless tree,
A bark upon a hopeless wave,
A lily on a tombless grave,

A cheering hope, a living ray,
To light me on a weary way.

And thus is love's confession done:
Give me thy parting benison;
And, ere I rise from bended knee
To wander o'er a foreign sea
Alone and friendless,—ere I don
My pilgrim's hat and sandal shoon,
Dark-eyed Castilian! let me win
Forgiveness sweet for venial sin;
Let lonely sighs, and dreams of thee,
Be penance for my perjury!

THE BACHELOR.

T. QUINCE, ESQ, TO THE REV. MATTHEW PRINGLE.

You wonder that your ancient friend
Has come so near his journey's end,
And borne his heavy load of ill
O'er Sorrow's slough, and Labour's hill,
Without a partner to beguile
The toilsome way with constant smile,
To share in happiness and pain,
To guide, to comfort, to sustain,
And cheer the last long weary stage
That leads to Death through gloomy Age!
To drop these metaphoric jokes,
And speak like reasonable folks,
It seems you wonder, Mr. Pringle,
That old Tom Quince is living single!

Since my old crony and myself
Laid crabbed Euclid on the shelf,
And made our congé to the Cam,
Long years have passed; and here I am
With nerves and gout, but yet alive,
A Bachelor, and fifty-five.—

Sir, I'm a Bachelor, and mean
Until the closing of the scene,
Or be it right, or be it wrong,
To play the part I've played so long,
Nor be the rat that others are,
Caught by a ribbon or a star.

“As years increase,” your Worship cries,
“All troubles and anxieties
Come swiftly on: you feel vexation
About your neighbours, or the nation;
The gout in fingers or in toes
Awakes you from your first repose;
You'll want a clever nurse, when life
Begins to fail you—take a wife!
Believe me, from the mind's disease
Her soothing voice might give you ease,
And, when the twinge comes shooting through you,
Her care might be of service to you!”

Sir, I'm not dying, though I know
You charitably think me so;—
Not dying yet, though you, and others,
In augury your learned brothers,
Take pains to prophesy events
Which lie some twenty winters hence.
Some twenty?—look! you shake your head,
As if I were insane or dead,

And tell your children and your wife—
“Old men grow very fond of life!”
Alas! your prescience never ends
As long as it concerns your friends;
But your own fifty-third December
Is what you never can remember!
And when I talk about my health
And future hopes of weal or wealth,
With something 'twixt a grunt and groan
You mutter in an under-tone—
“Hark! how the dotard chatters still!
He'll not believe he's old or ill!
He goes on forming great designs,—
Has just laid in a stock of wines,—
And promises his niece a ball,
As if gray hairs would never fall!
I really think he's all but mad.”
Then, with a wink and sigh, you add
“Tom is a friend I dearly prize,
But—never thought him over wise!’

You—who are clever to foretell
Where ignorance might be as well—
Would marvel how my health has stood:
My pulse is firm, digestion good.
I walk to see my turnips grow,
Manage to ride a mile or so,
Get to the village church to pray,
And drink my pint of wine a day;
And often, in an idle mood,
Emerging from my solitude,
Look at my sheep, and geese, and fowls,
And scare the sparrows and the owls,
Or talk with Dick about my crops,
And learn the price of malt and hops.

You say that when you saw me last
My appetite was going fast,
My eye was dim, my cheek was pale,
My bread—and stories—both were stale,
My wine and wit were growing worse,
And all things else,—except my purse;
In short, the very blind might see
I was not what I used to be.

My glass (which I believe before ye,)
Will teach me quite another story;
My wrinkles are not many yet,
My hair is still as black as jet.

My legs are full, my cheeks are ruddy,
My eyes, though somewhat sunk by study,
Retain a most vivacious ray,
And tell no stories of decay;
And then my waist, unvexed, unstayed,
By fetters of the tailor's trade,
Tells you, as plain as waist can tell,
I'm most unfashionably well.

And yet you think I'm growing thinner!—
You'd stare to see me eat my dinner!
You know that I was held by all
The greatest epicure in Hall,
And that the voice of Granta's sons
Styled me the Gourmand of St. John's:—
I have not yet been found unable
To do my duty to my table,
Though at its head no lady gay
Hath driven British food away,
And made her hapless husband bear
Alike her fury and her fare.
If some kind hearted chum calls in,
An extra dish and older bin
And John in all his finery drest
Do honour to the welcome guest;
And then we talk of other times,
Of parted friends, and distant climes,

And lengthened converse, tale and jest,
Lull every anxious care to rest;
And when unwillingly I rise
With newly wakened sympathies
From conversation—and the bowl,
The feast of stomach—and of soul,
I lay me down, and seem to leap
O'er forty summers in my sleep;
And youth, with all its joy and pain,
Comes rushing on my soul again.
I rove where'er my boyhood roved—
I love whate'er my boyhood loved—
And rocks, and vales, and woods, and streams,
Fleet o'er my pillow in my dreams.

'Tis true some ugly foes arise,
E'en in this earthly paradise,
Which you, good Pringle, may beguile,
By Mrs. P.'s unceasing smile:
I am an independent elf,
And keep my comforts in myself.
If my best sheep have got the rot—
Or if the Parson hits a blot—
Or if young Witless prates of laurel—
Or if my tithe produces quarrel—
Or if my roofing wants repairs—
Or if I'm angry with my heirs—

Or if I've nothing else to do—
I grumble for an hour or two;
Riots or rumours unrepressed,
My niece—or knuckle—over-drest,
The lateness of a wished-for post,
Miss Mackrell's story of the ghost,
New wine, new fashions, or new faces.
New bills, new taxes, or new places,
Or Mr. Hume's enumeration
Of all the troubles of the nation,
Will sometimes wear my patience out!
Then, as I said before, the gout—
Well, well, my heart was never faint!
And yet it might provoke a saint.
A rise of bread, or fall of rain,
Sometimes unite to give me pain;
And oft my lawyer's bag of papers
Gives me a taste of spleen and vapours.

Angry or sad, alone or ill,
I have my senses with me still;
Although my eyes are somewhat weak,
Yet can I dissipate my pique,
By poem, Paper, or Review;
And though I'm dozy in my pew
At Dr. Poundtext's second leaf,
I am not yet so very deaf

As to require the rousing noise
Of screaming girls and roaring boys.
Thrice—thrice accursed be the day
When I shall fling my bliss away,
And, to disturb my quiet life,
Take Discord in the shape of wife!
Time, in his endless muster-roll,
Shall mark the hour with blackest coal,
When old Tom Quince shall cease to see
The Chronicle with toast and tea,
Confine his rambles to his park,
And never dine till after dark,
And change his comfort and his crony
For crowd and conversazione.

If every aiding thought is vain,
And momentary grief and pain
Urge the old man to frown and fret,
He has another comfort yet;
This earth has thorns, as poets sing,
But not for ever can they sting;
Our sand from out its narrow glass
Rapidly passes!—let it pass!
I seek not, I, to check or stay
The progress of a single day,
But rather cheer my hours of pain.
Because so few of them remain.

Care circles every mortal head,—
The dust will be a calmer bed!
From Life's alloy no life is free,
But—Life is not Eternity!

When that unerring day shall come
To call me, from my wandering, home,—
The dark and still and painful day
When breath shall fleet in groans away,
When comfort shall be vainly sought,
And doubt shall be in every thought,
When words shall fail th' unuttered vow
And fever heat the burning brow,
When the dim eye shall gaze, and fear
To close the glance that lingers here,
Snatching the faint departing light
That seems to flicker in its flight,
When the lone heart, in that long strife,
Shall cling unconsciously to life,—
I'll have no shrieking female by
To shed her drops of sympathy;
To listen to each smothered throe,
To feel, or feign, officious woe,
To bring me every useless cup,
And beg “dear Tom” to drink it up;
To turn my oldest servants off,
E'en as she hears my gurgling cough;

And then expectantly to stand.
And chafe my temples with her hand,
And pull a cleaner nightcap o'er 'em
That I may die with due decorum;
And watch the while my ebbing breath,
And count the tardy steps of death;
Grudging the leech his growing bill,
And wrapt in dreams about the will.
I'll have no Furies round my bed!—
They shall not plague me—till I'm dead

Believe me! ill my dust would rest,
If the plain marble o'er my breast
That tells, in letters large and clear,
“The Bones of Thomas Quince lie here!”
Should add a talisman of strife,
“Also the Bones of Jane, his Wife!”
No! while beneath this simple stone
Old Quince shall sleep, and sleep alone.
Some village Oracle, who well
Knows how to speak, and read, and spell,
Shall slowly construe, bit by bit,
My “Natus,” and my “Obiit,”
And then, with sage discourse and long,
Recite my virtues to the throng.

“The Gentleman came straight from College.
A most prodigious man for knowledge!

He used to pay all men their due,
Hated a miser—and a Jew,
But always opened wide his door
To the first knocking of the poor.
None, as the grateful parish knows,
Save the churchwardens, were his foes;
They could not bear the virtuous pride
Which gave the sixpence they denied.
If neighbours had a mind to quarrel,
He used to treat them to a barrel;
And that, I think, was sounder law
Than any book I ever saw.
The ladies never used to flout him;
But this was rather strange about him,
That, gay or thoughtful, young or old,
He took no wife for love or gold;
Woman he called ‘a pretty thing,’—
But never could abide a ring!”

Good Mr. Pringle!—you must see
Your arguments are light with me;
They buzz like feeble flies around me,
But leave me firm, as first they found me.
Silence your logic! burn your pen!
The poet says “We all are men;”
And all “condemned alike to groan”—
You with a wife, and I with none.

Well! yours may be a happier lot,
But it is one I envy not;
And you'll allow me, Sir, to pray
That at some near-approaching day
You may not have to wince and whine,
And find some cause to envy mine!

I must confess that Dr. Swift
Has lent me here a little lift;
For when I steal some trifling hits
From older and from brighter wits,
I have some touch of conscience left,
And seldom like to hide the theft.
This is my plan!—I name no name,
But wish all others did the same.

MARRIAGE.

What, what is Marriage? Harris, Priscian,
Assist me with a definition.—
“Oh!” cries a charming silly fool,
Emerging from her boarding-school—
“Marriage is—love without disguises,
It is a—something that arises
From raptures and from stolen glances,
To be the end of all romances;
Vows—quarrels—moonshine—babes—but hush!
I mustn't have you see me blush.”

“Pshaw!” says a modern modish wife,
“Marriage is splendour, fashion, life;
A house in town, and villa shady,
Balls, diamond bracelets, and ‘my lady;’
Then for finale, angry words,
‘Some people's—‘obstinate’s—‘absurd!’s
And peevish hearts, and silly heads,
And oaths, and ‘bête’s, and separate beds.”

An aged bachelor, whose life
Has just been sweetened with a wife,

Tells out the latent grievance thus:
“Marriage is—odd! for one of us
'Tis worse a mile than rope or tree,
Hemlock, or sword, or slavery;
An end at once to all our ways,
Dismission to the one-horse chaise;
Adieu to Sunday can, and pig,
Adieu to wine, and whist, and wig;
Our friends turn out,—our wife's are clapt in;
'Tis ‘exit Crony,’—‘enter Captain.’
Then hurry in a thousand thorns,—
Quarrels, and compliments,—and horns.
This is the yoke, and I must wear it;
Marriage is—hell, or something near it!”

“Why, marriage,” says an exquisite,
Sick from the supper of last night,
“Marriage is—after one by me!
I promised Tom to ride at three.—
Marriage is—'gad! I'm rather late;
La Fleur!—my stays! and chocolate!—
Marriage is—really, though, 'twas hard
To lose a thousand on a card;
Sink the old Duchess!—three revokes!
'Gad! I must fell the Abbey oaks:
Mary has lost a thousand more!—
Marriage is—'gad! a cursed bore!”

Hymen, who hears the blockheads groan,
Rises indignant from his throne,
And mocks their self-reviling tears,
And whispers thus in Folly's ears:
“O frivolous of heart and head!
If strifes infest your nuptial bed,
Not Hymen's hand, but guilt and sin,
Fashion and folly, force them in;
If on your couch is seated Care,
I did not bring the scoffer there;
If Hymen's torch is feebler grown,
The hand that quenched it was your own;
And what I am, unthinking elves,
Ye all have made me for yourselves!”

HOW TO RHYME FOR LOVE.

At the last hour of Fannia's rout,
When Dukes walked in, and lamps went out,
Fair Chloe sat; a sighing crowd
Of high adorers round her bowed,
And ever flattery's incense rose
To lull the idol to repose.
Sudden some Gnome that stood unseen,
Or lurked disguised in mortal mien,
Whispered in Beauty's trembling ear
The word of bondage and of fear—
“Marriage!”—her lips their silence broke,
And smiled on Vapid as they spoke,—
“I hate a drunkard or a lout,
I hate the sullens and the gout;
If e'er I wed—let danglers know it—
I wed with no one but a poet.”

And who but feels a poet's fire
When Chloe's smiles, as now, inspire?
Who can the bidden verse refuse
When Chloe is his theme and Muse?
Thus Flattery whispered round;

And straight the humorous fancy grew,
That lyres are sweet when hearts are true;
And all who feel a lover's flame
Must rhyme to-night on Chloe's name;
And he's unworthy of the dame
Who silent here is found.
Since head must plead the cause of heart,
Some put their trust in answer smart
Or pointed repartee;
Some joy that they have hoarded up
Those genii of the jovial cup,
Chorus, and catch, and glee;
And for one evening all prepare
To be “Apollo's chiefest care.”

Then Vapid rose—no Stentor this,
And his no Homer's lay;
Meek victim of antithesis,
He sighed and died away:—
“Despair my sorrowing bosom rives,
And anguish on me lies;
Chloe may die, while Vapid lives,
Or live while Vapid dies!
You smile!—the horrid vision flies,
And Hope this promise gives;
I cannot live while Chloe dies,
Nor die while Chloe lives!”

Next Snaffle, foe to tears and sadness,
Drew fire from Chloe's eyes;
And warm with drunkenness and madness,
He started for the prize.
“Let the glad cymbals loudly clash.
Full bumpers let's be quaffing!
No poet I!—Hip, hip!—here goes!
Blow—blow the trumpet, blow the—”
Here he was puzzled for a rhyme,
And Lucy whispered “nose” in time,
And so they fell a-laughing.

“Gods!” cried a minister of State,
“You know not, empress of my fate,
How long my passion would endure,
If passion were a sinecure;
But since, in Love's despotic clime,
Fondness is taxed, and pays in rhyme,
Glad to retire, I shun disgrace,
And make my bow, and quit my place.”

And thus the jest went circling round,
And ladies smiled and sneered,
As smooth fourteen and weak fourscore
Professed they ne'er had rhymed before,
And drunkards blushed, and doctors swore,
And soldiers owned they feared;

Unwonted Muses were invoked
By pugilists and whips,
And many a belle looked half provoked
When favoured swains stood dumb and choked;
And warblers whined, and punsters joked,
And dandies bit their lips.

At last an old Ecclesiastic,
Who looked half kind, and half sarcastic,
And seemed in every transient look
At once to flatter and rebuke,
Cut off the sport with “Psha! enough:”
And then took breath,—and then took snuff:
“Chloe,” he said, “you're like the moon;
You shine as bright, you change as soon;
Your wit is like the moon's fair beam,
In borrowed light 'tis o'er us thrown;
Yet, like the moon's, that sparkling stream
To careless eyes appears your own;
Your cheek by turns is pale and red,
And then, to close the simile,
(From which, methinks, you turn your head,
As half in anger, half in glee,)
Dark would the night appear without you,
And—twenty fools have rhymed about you!”

CHANGING QUARTERS.

A SKETCH.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress!
[OMITTED]
And there was mounting in hot haste.
Byron.

Fair laughs the morn, and out they come,
At the solemn beat of the rolling drum,
Apparelled for the march;
Many an old and honoured name,
Young warriors, with their eyes of flame,
And aged veterans in the wars,
With little pay, and many scars,
And titled lord, and tottering beau,
Right closely wrapt from top to toe
In vanity and starch.
The rising sun is gleaming bright,
And Britain's flag is waving light,
And widely, where the gales invite,
The charger's mane is flowing:
Around is many a staring face
Of envious boor and wondering Grace,
And Echo shouts through all the place,
“The Soldiers be a-going!”

Beauty and bills are buzzing now
In many a martial ear,
And 'midst the tumult and the row
Is seen the tailor's anxious bow,
And woman's anxious tear.

Alas! the thousand cares that float
To-day around a scarlet coat!
There's Serjeant Cross, in fume and fret,
With little Mopsa, the coquette,
Close clinging to his side;
Who, if fierce Mars and thundering Jove
Had had the least respect for Love,
To-day had been his bride;
And 'midst the trumpet's wild acclaim
She calls upon her lover's name
In beautiful alarm;
Still looking up expectantly
To see the tear-drop in his eye,
Still hanging to his arm;
And he the while—his fallen chop
Most eloquently tells
That much he wishes little Mop
Were waiting for—another drop,
Or hanging—somewhere else.

Poor Captain Mill! what sounds of fear
Break sudden on his startled ear!

On right and left, above, around him,
Tom, the horse-dealer, roars “Confound him!
A pretty conscience his:
To ruin thus my finest bay,
And hurry off, like smoke, to-day!—
If there's no law, some other way,
By Jove, he'll smart for this!”—
Ah fly, unhappy, while you can!
The Captain is a dangerous man,
A right old Jockey's son!
Ah fly, unhappy, while you may!
The Captain first knocks up the bay,
And then—knocks down the dun!

Old Larry is as brave a soul
As ever drained an English bowl;
His head and heart alike are tried;
And when two comrades have applied
Or hand to sword, or lip to pewter,
Old Larry never yet was neuter.
But now the hero (like a fool
Ripe from a milksop boarding-school,
In love or fortune crost,)
Silent and pale and stupid stands,
Scratches his head with both his hands,
And fears the hostile Host.
Oh! can it be? are hearts of stone
So small, and soft, and silky grown,

That Larry fears a lick?
Oh! wrong not thus his closing years,
'Tis not the host of France he fears,
But of the Candlestick.
The Brute is there! in long array,
All clean set down, from day to day,
The dreaded figures stalk;
The veteran, with his honest blows,
Can settle well a score of foes,
But not a score of chalk.
Alas! alas! that warrior hot
Balls from ten-pounders feareth not,
But bills for pennies three;
And if he trembles, well I wot
He would not care for Gallic shot,
So here he were shot-free.

Fat Will the butcher, in a pet,
His furious fang hath sharply set
On luckless Captain Martinette,
And thus the booby cries:
“Don't kick!—As sure as eggs is eggs,
You will not have me off my legs,
Captain, although you tries;
And you must know, good Sir, as how
I mean to ha' my money now,
Or know the whens and whys.”

The little Captain, whom 'twould kill
To be a public scoff,
Shuffles, and whispers—“Honest Will,
For forty shillings is your bill,
Take twenty—and be off!”
The butcher, much a friend to fun,
And somewhat apt to laugh or pun,
Stands grinning like his calves;
Till for his joke his debt he barters:
“Sir!—Gemmen, when they change their quarters,
Shouldn't do things by halves.”

He too, the pride of war, is here,
Victorious Major Ligonier.
A soldier he, from boot to plume,
In tented field or crowded room;
Magnanimous, in martial guise
He eats, and sleeps, and swears, and lies;
Like no poor cit the man behaves,
And when he picks his teeth, or shaves,
He picks his teeth with warlike air,
And mows his beard en militaire
But look!—his son is by his side,
More like a young and blushing bride
Than one in danger's hour
All madly doomed to run and ride,
And stem the battle's whelming tide,
And face its iron shower.

100

In peace too warm, in war too cold,
Although with girls he's very bold,
With men he's somewhat shy!
Nature could not two gifts afford,
And so she did not make his sword
So killing as his eye.

Is there an eye which nothing sees,
In what it views to-day,
To whisper deeper thoughts than these,
And wake a graver lay?
Ah, think not thus! when lovers part,
When weeping eye and trembling heart
Speak more than words can say,
It ill becomes my jesting song
To run so trippingly along,
And on these trifling themes bestow
What ought to be a note of woe.

I see young Edward's courser stand,
The bridle rests upon his hand;
But beauteous Helen lingers yet,
With throbbing heart and eyelid wet;
And as she speaks in that sweet tone
Which makes the listener's soul its own,
And as she heaves that smothered sigh
Which lovers cannot hear and fly,

101

In Edward's face looks up the while,
And longs to weep, yet seems to smile.

“Fair forms may fleet around, my love!
And lighter steps than mine;
And sweeter tones may sound, my love!
And brighter eyes may shine;
But wheresoever thou dost rove,
Thou wilt not find a heart, my love,
So truly, wholly thine,
As that which at thy feet is aching,
As if its very strings were breaking!

“I would not see thee glad, my love,
As erst in happier years;
Yet do not seem so sad, my love,
Because of Helen's fears!
Swiftly the flying minutes move,
And though we weep to-day, my love,
Heavy and bitter tears,
There'll be, for every tear that strays,
A thousand smiles in other days!”

102

REMINISCENCES OF MY YOUTH.

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay.
Byron.

Scene of my best and brightest years!
Scene of my childhood's joys and fears!
Again I gaze on thee at last;
And dreams of the forgotten past,
Robed in the visionary hues
That memory flings on all she views,
Come fleeting o'er me! I could look
Unwearied on this babbling brook,
And lie beneath this aged oak,
And listen to its raven's croak,
And bound upon my native plain,
Till fancy made me Boy again!
I could forget the pain and strife
Of Manhood's dark deceitful life;
I could forget the ceaseless toil,
The hum of cities, and the coil
That interest flings upon our hearts
As candour's faded glow departs;

103

I could forget whatever care
It has been mine to see or share,
And be as playful and as wild
As when—a dear and wayward child—
I dwelt upon this fairy spot,
All reckless of a bitterer lot.
Then glee was high, and on my tongue
The happy laugh of folly hung,
And innocence looked bright on youth,
And all was bliss, and all was truth.

There is no change upon the scene,
My native plain is gaily green,
Yon oak still braves the wintry air,
The raven is not silent there;
Beneath my foot the simple rill
Flows on in noisy wildness still.
Nature hath suffered no decay;
Her lordly children!—where are they
Friends of my pure and sinless age,
The good, the jocund, and the sage,
Gone is the light your kindness shed,
In silence have ye changed or fled,
Ye and your dwellings! yet I hear
Your well-known voices in mine ear,
And see your faces beaming round,
Like magic shades on haunted ground

104

Hark! as they murmur down the dell,
A lingering tale those voices tell;
And while they flit in vacant air,
A beauteous smile those faces wear:
Alas! I turn my dreaming eyes,
The lovely vision fades and flies;
The tale is done,
The smile is gone,
I am a stranger,—and alone.

Within yon humble cottage, where
The fragrant woodbine scents the air,
And the neat door looks fair to view
Seen through its leafy avenue,
The matron of the village school
Maintained her ancient state and rule.
The dame was rigid and severe,
With much to love, but more to fear;
She was my nurse in infancy;
And as I sat upon her knee
And listened to her stories, told
In dialect of Doric mould,
While wonders still on wonders grew,
I marvelled if the tale were true;
And all she said of valorous knight,
And beauteous dame, and love, and fight,
Enchanter fierce, and goblin sly,
My childhood heard right greedily.

105

At last the wand of magic broke,
The tale was ended: and she spoke
Of learning's everlasting well,
And said, “I ought to learn to spell;”
And then she talked of sound and sense,
Of verbs and adverbs, mood and tense;
And then she would with care disclose
The treasured primer's lettered rows;
Whereat my froward rage spoke out
In cry and passion, frown and pout,
And, with a sad and loathing look,
I shrunk from that enchanted book.

Oh! sweet were those untutored years,
Their joys and pains, their hopes and fears;
There was a freshness in them all
Which we may taste, but not recall.
No!—Man must never more enjoy
The thoughts—the passions of the Boy;
The aspirations high and bold,
Unseen, unguided, uncontrolled;
The first ambition, and the pride
That youthful bosoms feel and hide;
The longings after manhood's sun,
Which end in clouds—as mine have done.

In yonder neat abode, withdrawn
From strangers by its humble lawn,

106

Which the neat shrubbery enshrouds
From scrutiny of passing crowds,
The Pastor of the village dwelt:
To him with clasping hands I knelt
When first he taught my lips to pray,—
My steps to walk in virtue's way,—
My heart to honour and to love
The God that ruleth from above.
He was a man of sorrows: care
Was seated on his hoary hair;
His cheek was colourless; his brow
Was furrow'd o'er,—as mine is now;
His earliest youth had fled in tears,
And grief was on his closing years.
But still he met with soul resigned
The day of mourning; and his mind
Beneath its load of woe and pain
Might deeply feel, but not complain;
And virtue o'er his forehead's snows
Had thrown an air of meek repose
More lovely than the hues that streak
The bloom of childhood's laughing cheek;
It seemed to tell the holy rest
That will not leave the righteous breast,
The trust in One that died to save,
The hope that looks beyond the grave,
The calm of unpretending worth,
The bliss—that is not of the earth.

107

And he would smile; but in his smile
Sadness would seem to lurk the while;
Child as I was, I could not bear
To look upon that placid air;
I felt the tear-drop in mine eye,
And wished to weep, and knew not why

He had one daughter.—Many years
Have fleeted o'er me, since my tears
Fell on that form of quiet grace,
That humble brow, and beauteous face.
She parted from this world of ill
When I was yet a child; but still,
Until my heart shall cease to beat,
That countenance so mildly sweet,
That kind blue eye and golden hair,
Eternally are graven there.
I see her still, as when she stood
In the ripe bloom of womanhood,
Yet deigning where I led to stray,
And mingle in my childhood's play;
Or sought my father's dwelling-place,
And clasped me in her fond embrace;
A friend—when I had none beside;
A mother—when my mother died.

Poor Ellen! she is now forgot
Upon the hearths of this dear spot:

108

And they to whom her bounty came,
They who would dwell upon her name
With raptured voice, as if they found
Hope—comfort—riches in the sound,
Have ceased to think how Ellen fled;—
Why should they sorrow for the dead?
Perhaps around the festive board
Some aged chroniclers record
Her hopes, her virtues, and her tomb;
And then a sudden silent gloom
Creeps on the lips that smiled before,
And jest is still, and mirth is o'er.
She was so beauteous in her dress
Of unaffected loveliness,
So bright, and so beneficent,
That you might deem some fairy sent
To hush the helpless orphan's fears,
And dry the widow's gushing tears:
She moved in beauty, like the star
That shed its lustre from afar,
To tell the wisest on the earth
The tidings of a Saviour's birth:
So pure, so cheering, was her ray:
So quickly did it die away!

There came a dark infectious pest
To break the hamlet's tranquil rest;

109

It came, it breathed on Ellen's face;
And so she went to death's embrace,
A blooming and a sinless bride;
And how I knew not—but she died.

I was the inmate of her home,
And knew not why she did not come
To cheer my melancholy mood;
Her father wept in solitude;
The servants wore a look of woe,
Their steps were soft, their whispers low;
And when I asked them why they sighed,
They shook their heads, and turned aside.

I entered that forbidden room:
All things were still!—a death-like gloom
Stole on me, as I saw her lie
In her white vest of purity.
She seemed to smile! her lips were wet,
The bloom was on her features yet:
I looked,—at first I thought she slept;
But when her accents did not bless,
And when her arms did not caress,
And when I marked her quiet air
And saw that soul was wanting there,—
I sat me on the ground, and wept!

110

SURLY HALL.

Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!
They grow still, too, from all parts they are coming,
As if we kept a fair here.”
Shakspeare.

The sun hath shed a mellower beam,
Fair Thames, upon thy silver stream,
And air and water, earth and heaven,
Lie in the calm repose of even.
How silently the breeze moves on,
Flutters, and whispers, and is gone!
How calmly does the quiet sky
Sleep in its cold serenity!
Alas! how sweet a scene were here
For shepherd, or for sonnetteer;
How fit the place, how fit the time,
For making love, or making rhyme!
But though the sun's descending ray
Smiles warmly on the close of day,
'Tis not to gaze upon his light
That Eton's sons are here to-night;
And though the river, calm and clear,
Makes music to the poet's ear,
'Tis not to listen to the sound
That Eton's sons are thronging round:

111

The sun unheeded may decline—
Blue eyes send out a brighter shine;
The wave may cease its gurgling moan—
Glad voices have a sweeter tone;
For in our calendar of bliss
We have no hour so gay as this,
When the kind hearts and brilliant eyes
Of those we know, and love, and prize,
Are come to cheer the captive's thrall,
And smile upon his festival.
Stay, Pegasus!—and let me ask
Ere I go onward in my task,—
Pray, Reader, were you ever here,
Just at this season of the year?
No?—then the end of next July
Should bring you, with admiring eye,
To hear us row, and see us row,
And cry, “How fast them boys does go!”
For Father Thames beholds to-night
A thousand visions of delight;
Tearing and swearing, jeering, cheering,
Lame steeds to right and left careering,
Displays, dismays, disputes, distresses,
Ruffling of temper and of dresses;
Wounds on the heart—and on the knuckles;
Losing of patience—and of buckles.

112

An interdict is laid on Latin,
And scholars smirk in silk and satin,
And Dandies start their thinnest pumps,
And Michael Oakley's in the dumps;
And there is nought beneath the sun
But dash and splash, and falls, and fun.
Lord! what would be the Cynic's mirth,
If Fate would lift him to the earth,
And set his tub, with magic jump,
Squat down beside the Brocas Clump!
What scoffs the sage would utter there
From his unpolished elbow-chair,
To see the sempstress' handiwork,
The Greek confounded with the Turk,
Parisian mixed with Piedmontese,
And Persian joined to Portuguese;
And mantles short, and mantles long,
And mantles right, and mantles wrong,
Mis-shaped, miscoloured, and misplaced
With what the tailor calls a taste!
And then the badges and the boats,
The flags, the drums, the paint, the coats;
But more than these, and more than all,
The puller's intermitted call—
“Easy!”—“Hard all!”—“Now pick her up!”—
“Upon my life, how I shall sup!”—

113

Would be a fine and merry matter
To wake the sage's love of satire.
Kind Readers, at my laughing age
I thank my stars I'm not a sage;
I, an unthinking scribbling elf,
Love to please others—and myself;
Therefore I fly a malo joco,
But like desipere in loco.
Excuse me, that I wander so;
All modern pens digress, you know.
Now to my theme! Thou Being gay,
Houri or goddess, nymph or fay,
Whoe'er—whate'er—where'er thou art—
Who, with thy warm and kindly heart,
Hast made these blest abodes thy care,—
Being of water, earth, or air,—
Beneath the moonbeam hasten hither,
Enjoy thy blessings ere they wither,
And witness with thy gladdest face
The glories of thy dwelling-place!
The boats put off;—throughout the crowd
The tumult thickens; wide and loud
The din re-echoes; man and horse
Plunge onward in their mingled course.
Look at the troop! I love to see
Our real Etonian cavalry

114

They start in such a pretty trim,
And such sweet scorn of life and limb.
I must confess I never found
A horse much worse for being sound;
I wish my nag not wholly blind,
And like to have a tail behind;
And though he certainly may hear
Correctly with a single ear,
I think, to look genteel and neat,
He ought to have his two complete.
But these are trifles!—off they go
Beside the wondering river's flow;
And if, by dint of spur and whip,
They shamble on without a trip,
Well have they done! I make no question
They're shaken into good digestion.
I and my Muse—my Muse and I
Will follow with the company,
And get to Surly Hall in time
To make a supper, and a rhyme.
Yes! while the animating crowd,
The gay, and fair, and kind, and proud,
With eager voice and eager glance
Wait till the pageantry advance,
We'll throw around a hasty view,
And try to get a sketch or two,

115

First in the race is William Tag,
Thalia's most industrious fag;
Whate'er the subject he essays
To dress in never-dying lays,
A chief, a cheese, a dearth, a dinner
A cot, a castle, cards, Corinna,
Hibernia, Baffin's Bay, Parnassus,
Beef, Bonaparte, beer, Bonassus—
Will hath his ordered words and rhymes
For various scenes and various times;
Which suit alike for this or that,
And come, like volunteers, quite pat.
He hath his elegy, or sonnet,
For Lucy's bier, or Lucy's bonnet;
And celebrates with equal ardour
A Monarch's sceptre, or his larder.
Poor William! when he wants a hint,
All other poets are his mint;
He coins his epic or his lyric,
His satire or his panegyric,
From all the gravity and wit
Of what the ancients thought and writ.
Armed with his Ovid and his Flaccus
He comes like thunder to attack us;
In pilfered mail he bursts to view,
The cleverest thief I ever knew.
Thou noble Bard! at any time
Borrow my measure and my rhyme;

116

Borrow (I'll cancel all the debt)
An epigram or epithet;
Borrow my mountains, or my trees,
My paintings, or my similes;
Nay, borrow all my pretty names,
My real or my fancied flames;
Eliza, Alice, Leonora,
Mary, Melissa, and Medora;
And borrow all my “mutual vows,”
My “ruby lips” and “cruel brows,”
And all my stupors, and my startings,
And all my meetings, and my partings;
Thus far, my friend, you'll find me willing;
Borrow all things save one—a shilling!
Drunken, and loud, and mad, and rash,
Joe Tarrell wields his ceaseless lash;
The would-be sportsman; o'er the sides
Of the lank charger he bestrides
The foam lies painfully, and blood
Is trickling in a ruddier flood
Beneath the fury of the steel
Projecting from his armed heel.
E'en from his childhoo' earliest bloom.
All studies that become a groom
Eton's spes gregis, honest Joe,
Or knows, or would be thought to know;

117

He picks a hunter's hoof quite finely,
And spells a horse's teeth divinely.
Prime terror of molesting duns,
Sole judge of greyhounds and of guns,
A skilful whip, a steady shot,
Joe swears he is!—who says he's not?
And then he has such knowing faces
For all the week of Ascot races,
And talks with such a mystic speech,
Untangible to vulgar reach,
Of Sultan, Highflyer, and Ranter,
Potatoes, Quiz, and Tam O'Shanter,
Bay colts and brown colts, sires and dams,
Bribings and bullyings, bets and bams;
And how the favourite should have won,
And how the little Earl was done;
And how the filly failed in strength,
And how some faces grew in length;
And how some people—if they'd show—
Know something more than others know.
Such is his talk; and while we wonder
At that interminable thunder,
The undiscriminating snarler
Astounds the ladies in the parlour,
And broaches at his mother's table
The slang of kennel and of stable.
And when he's drunk, he roars before ye
One excellent unfailing story,

118

About a gun, Lord knows how long,
With a discharge, Lord knows how strong,
Which always needs an oath and frown
To make the monstrous dose go down.
Oh! oft and oft the Muses pray
That wondrous tube may burst one day,
And then the world will ascertain
Whether its master hath a brain!
Then, on the stone that hides his sleep,
These accents shall be graven deep,—
Or “Upton” and “C.B.” between,
Shine in the “Sporting Magazine;”—
“Civil to none, except his brutes;
Polished in nought, except his boots;
Here lie the relics of Joe Tarrell:
Also, Joe Tarrell's double-barrel!”
Ho!—by the muttered sounds that slip
Unwilling from his curling lip;
By the grey glimmer of his eye,
That shines so unrelentingly;
By the stern sneer upon his snout,
I know the critic, Andrew Crout!
The boy-reviler! amply filled
With venomed virulence, and skilled
To look on what is good and fair
And find or make a blemish there.

119

For Fortune to his cradle sent
Self-satisfying discontent,
And he hath caught from cold Reviews
The one great talent, to abuse;
And so he sallies sternly forth,
Like the cold Genius of the North,
To check the heart's exuberant fulness,
And chill good humour into dullness:
Where'er he comes, his fellows shrink
Before his awful nod and wink;
And whensoe'er these features plastic
Assume the savage or sarcastic,
Mirth stands abashed, and Laughter flies,
And Humour faints, and Quibble dies.
How sour he seems!—and hark! he spoke;
We'll stop and listen to the croak;
'Twill charm us, if these happy lays
Are honoured by a fool's dispraise!—
“You think the boats well manned this year!
To you they may perhaps appear!—
I, who have seen those frames of steel,
Tuckfield, and Dixon, and Bulteel,
Can swear—no matter what I swear—
Only things are not as they were!
And then our Cricket!—think of that!
We ha'n't a tolerable Bat;
It's very true that Mr. Tucker,
Who puts the field in such a pucker,

120

Contrives to make his fifty runs;—
What then?—we had a Hardinge once!
As for our talents, where are they?
Griffin and Grildrig had their day;
And who's the star of modern time?
Octosyllabic Peregrine;
Who pirates, puns, and talks sedition,
Without a moment's intermission;
And if he did not get a lift
Sometimes from me—and Doctor Swift,
I can't tell what the deuce he'd do!—
But this, you know, is entre nous!
I've tried to talk him into taste,
But found my labour quite misplaced;
He nibs his pen, and twists his ear,
And says he's deaf, and cannot hear;
And if I mention right or rule,—
Egad! he takes me for a fool!”
Gazing upon this varied scene
With a new artist's absent mien,
I see thee, silent and alone,
My friend, ingenious Hamilton.
I see thee there—(nay, do not blush!)
Knight of the Pallet and the Brush,
Dreaming of straight and crooked lines,
And planning portraits and designs.

121

I like him hugely!—well I wis,
No despicable skill is his,
Whether his sportive canvass shows
Arabia's sands or Zembla's snows,
A lion, or a bed of lilies,
Fair Caroline, or fierce Achilles;
I love to see him taking down
A schoolfellow's unconscious frown,
Describing twist, grimace, contortion,
In most becoming disproportion,
While o'er his merry paper glide
Rivers of wit; and by his side
Caricatura takes her stand,
Inspires the thought and guides the hand;
I love to see his honoured books
Adorned with rivulets and brooks;
Troy frowning with her ancient towers,
Or Ida gay with fruits and flowers;
I love to see fantastic shapes,
Dragons and griffins, birds and apes,
And pigmy forms, and forms gigantic,
Forms natural, and forms romantic,
Of dwarfs and ogres, dames and knights,
Scrawled by the side of Homer's fights,
And portraits daubed on Maro's poems,
And profiles penned to Tully's Proems;
In short, I view with partial eyes
Whate'er my brother painter tries.

122

To each belongs his own utensil;
I sketch with pen, as he with pencil;
And each, with pencil or with pen,
Hits off a likeness now and then.
He drew me once—the spiteful creature!
'Twas voted—“like in every feature;”
It might have been so!—('twas lopsided,
And squinted worse than ever I did:)
However, from that hapless day
I owed the debt, which here I pay;
And now I'll give my friend a hint;—
Unless you want to shine in print,
Paint lords and ladies, nymphs and fairies,
And demigods, and dromedaries;
But never be an author's creditor,
Nor paint the picture of an Editor!
Who is the youth with stare confounded,
And tender arms so neatly rounded,
And moveless eyes, and glowing face,
And attitude of studied grace?
Now Venus, pour your lustre o'er us!
Your would-be servant stands before us!
Hail, Corydon! let others blame
The fury of his fictioned flame;
I love to hear the beardless youth
Talking of constancy and truth,

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Swearing more darts are in his liver
Than ever gleamed in Cupid's quiver,
And wondering at those hearts of stone
Which never melted like his own.
Ah! when I look on Fashion's moth,
Wrapt in his visions and his cloth,
I would not, for a nation's gold,
Disturb the dream—or spoil the fold!
And who the maid, whose gilded chain
Hath bound the heart of such a swain?
Oh! look on those surrounding Graces!
There is no lack of pretty faces;
M---l, the goddess of the night,
Looks beautiful with all her might;
And M--- in that simple dress,
Enthralls us more by studying less;
D---, in your becoming pride,
Ye march to conquest, side by side;
And A---, thou fleetest by
Bright in thine arch simplicity;
Slight are the links thy power hath wreathed;
Yet, by the tone thy voice hath breathed,
By thy glad smile and ringlets curled,
I would not break them for the world!
But this is idle! Paying court
I know was never yet my forte;

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And all I say of nymph and queen,
To cut it short, can only mean
That when I throw my gaze around
I see much beauty on the ground.
Hark! hark! a mellowed note
Over the water seemed to float!
Hark! the note repeated!
A sweet and soft and soothing strain
Echoed and died and rose again,
As if the Nymphs of Fairy reign
Were holding to-night their revel rout,
And pouring their fragrant voices out,
On the blue water seated.
Hark to the tremulous tones that flow,
And the voice of the boatmen as they row!
Cheerfully to the heart they go,
And touch a thousand pleasant strings
Of triumph and pride, and hope and joy,
And thoughts that are only known to boy,
And young imaginings!
The note is near, the voice comes clear.
And we catch its echo on the ear
With a feeling of delight;
And, as the gladdening sounds we hear,
There's many an eager listener here,
And many a straining sight.

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One moment,—and ye see
Where, fluttering quick, as the breezes blow,
Backwards and forwards, to and fro,
Bright with the beam of retiring day,
Old Eton's flag, on its watery way,
Moves on triumphantly!
But what that ancient poets have told
Of Amphitrite's car of gold,
With the Nymphs behind, and the Nymphs before,
And the Nereid's song, and the Triton's roar,
Could equal half the pride
That heralds the Monarch's plashing oar
Over the swelling tide?
And look!—they land, those gallant crews,
With their jackets light, and their bellying trews;
And Ashley walks applauded by,
With a world's talent in his eye;
And Kinglake, dear to poetry,
And dearer to his friends;
Hibernian Roberts, you are there,
With that unthinking merry stare
Which still its influence lends
To make us drown our devils blue,
In laughing at ourselves,—and you!
Still I could lengthen out the tale,
And sing Sir Thomas with his ale
To all that like to read;
Still I could choose to linger long,

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Where Friendship bids the willing song
Flow out for honest Meade!
Yet e'en on this triumphant day
One thought of grief will rise;
And though I bid my fancy play,
And jest and laugh through all the lay,
Yet sadness still will have its way
And burst the vain disguise!
Yes! when the pageant shall have passed,
I shall have looked upon my last;
I shall not e'er behold again
Our pullers' unremitted strain;
Not listen to the charming cry
Of contest or of victory
That speaks what those young bosoms feel,
As keel is pressing fast on keel;
Oh! bright these glories still shall be,
But they shall never dawn for me!
E'en when a realm's congratulation
Sang Pæans for the Coronation,
Amidst the pleasure that was round me,
A melancholy Spirit found me;
And while all else were singing “Io!”
I couldn't speak a word but “Heigh-ho!”
And so, instead of laughing gaily,
I dropped a tear,—and wrote my “Vale.”

127

VALE!

Eton, the Monarch of thy prayers
E'en now receives his load of cares;
Throned in the consecrated choir
He takes the sceptre of his Sire,
And wears the crown his Father bore,
And swears the oath his Father swore,
And therefore sounds of joy resound,
Fair Eton, on thy classic ground.
A gladder gale is round thee breathed;
And on thy mansions thou hast wreathed
A thousand lamps, whose various hue
Waits but the night to burst to view.
Woe to the poets that refuse
To wake and woo their idle Muse,
When those glad notes, “God save the King,”
From hill and vale and hamlet ring!
Hark, how the loved inspiring tune
Peals forth from every loyal loon
Who loves his country, and excels
In drinking beer or ringing bells!
It is a day of shouts and greeting;
A day of idleness and eating;
And triumph swells in every soul,
And mighty beeves are roasted whole,
And ale, unbought, is set a-running,
And pleasure's hymn grows rather stunning,

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And children roll upon the green.
And cry “Confusion to the Queen!”
And Sorrow flies, and Labour slumbers,
And Clio pours her loudest numbers;
And hundreds of that joyous throng
With whom my life hath lingered long
Give their gay raptures to the gale,
In one united echoing “Hail!”

I took the harp, I smote the string,
I strove to soar on Fancy's wing,
And murmur in my Sovereign's prarse
The latest of my boyhood's lays.
Alas! the theme was too divine
To suit so weak a Muse as mine:
I saw—I felt it could not be;
No song of triumph flows from me;
The harp from which those sounds ye ask
Is all unfit for such a task;
And the last echo of its tone,
Dear Eton, must be thine alone!

A few short hours, and I am borne
Far from the fetters I have worn;
A few short hours, and I am free!—
And yet I shrink from liberty,
And look, and long to give my soul
Back to thy cherishing control.

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Control? ah no! thy chain was meant
Far less for bond than ornament;
And though its links be firmly set,
I never found them gall me yet.
Oh still, through many chequered years,
'Mid anxious toils and hopes and fears,
Still I have doted on thy fame,
And only gloried in thy name.
How I have loved thee! Thou hast been
My Hope, my Mistress, and my Queen;
I always found thee kind, and thou
Hast never seen me weep—till now.

I knew that time was fleeting fast,
I knew thy pleasures could not last;
I knew too well that riper age
Must step upon a busier stage;
Yet when around thine ancient towers
I passed secure my tranquil hours,
Or heard beneath thine aged trees
The drowsy humming of the bees,
Or wandered by thy winding stream,
I would not check my fancy's dream;
Glad in my transitory bliss,
I recked not of an hour like this;
And now the truth comes swiftly on,
The truth I would not hink upon,

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The last sad thought, so oft delayed,—
“These joys are only born to fade.”

Ye Guardians of my earliest days,
Ye Patrons of my earliest lays,
Custom reminds me, that to you
Thanks and farewell to-day are due.
Thanks and farewell I give you,—not
(As some that leave this holy spot)
In laboured phrase and polished lie
Wrought by the forge of flattery,
But with a heart that cannot tell
The half of what it feels so well.
If I am backward to express,
Believe, my love is not the less;
Be kind as you are wont, and view
A thousand thanks in one Adieu.
My future life shall strive to show
I wish to pay the debt I owe;
The labours that ye give to May
September's fruits shall best repay.

And you, my friends, who loved to share
Whate'er was mine of sport or care,
Antagonists at fives or chess,
Friends in the play-ground or the press,
I leave ye now; and all that rests
Of mutual tastes, and loving breasts,

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Is the lone vision that shall come,
Where'er my studies and my home,
To cheer my labour and my pain,
And make me feel a boy again.

Yes! when at last I sit me down,
A scholar, in my cap and gown,—
When learned doctrines, dark and deep,
Move me to passion or to sleep,—
When Clio yields to logic's wrangles,
And Long and Short give place to angles,—
When stern Mathesis makes it treason
To like a rhyme, or scorn a reason—
With aching head and weary wit
Your parted friend shall often sit,
Till Fancy's magic spell hath bound him,
And lonely musings flit around him;
Then shall ye come, with all your wiles
Of gladdening sounds and warming smiles,
And nought shall meet his eye or ear,—
Yet shall he deem your souls are near.

Others may clothe their valediction
With all the tinsel charms of fiction;
And one may sing of Father Thames,
And Naiads with a hundred names,
And find a Pindus here, and own
The College pump a Helicon,

132

And search for gods about the College,
Of which old Homer had no knowledge;
And one may eloquently tell
The triumphs of the Windsor belle,
And sing of Mira's lips and eyes
In oft-repeated ecstacies;
Oh! he hath much and wondrous skill
To paint the looks that wound and kill,
As the poor maid is doomed to brook,
Unconsciously, her lover's look,
And smiles, and talks, until the poet
Hears the band play, and does not know it.
To speak the plain and simple truth,—
I always was a jesting youth,
A friend to merriment and fun,
No foe to quibble and to pun;
Therefore I cannot feign a tear;
And, now that I have uttered here
A few unrounded accents, bred
More from the heart than from the head,
Honestly felt, and plainly told,—
My lyre is still, my fancy cold.