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

The gayest gallants of the Court
Oft fell in love, on mere report,
With eyes they had not seen;
And knelt, and rhymed, and sighed, and frowned,
In talismanic fetters bound,
With flowers and sunshine all around—
And five-score leagues between.
—MS. Poem.

I

Sir Lidian had attained-his sixteenth year;
The golden age of life, wherein are met
Boyhood's last hope and Manhood's earliest fear
In mingled bliss and beauty;—you forget
Your cradle's laughter, and your school-room's tear,
Your maiden medal, and your first gazette;
But never, never, the bright dreams that blind you
When sixteen years are newly left behind you.

II

The daily longings to be very great,
The nightly studies to be very killing,
The blessed recklessness of human hate,
The sonnet-singing, and the sigh-distilling,
The chase of folly, and the scorn of fate,
Friendship's fresh throb, and Passion's April thrilling
For some high lady, whom your elder brother
Declares is old enough to be your mother.

208

III

Sir Lidian had attained his sixteenth year,
And was the loveliest stripling in the land;
His small soft features and his colour clear
Were like a budding girl's; his delicate hand
Seemed fitter for the distaff than the spear;
Locks of bright brown his spotless forehead fanned;
And he had eyes as blue as summer's heaven,
And stood a little more than five feet seven.

IV

No gallant flung a lance so fleet and true
From the trained courser through the golden ring;
No joyous harper at the banquet threw
A lighter touch across the sounding string;
Yet on his cheek there was the hectic hue
And in his eye the fitful wandering
Which chill our praise to pity, that a bloom
So fresh and fair is destined to the tomb!

V

And though he danced and played, as I have hinted,
In dance and song he took but little pleasure;
He looked contented, though his partner squinted,
And seldom frowned when minstrels marred the measure;
When the rich sky by evening's glow was tinted,
More glad was he to wander at his leisure,
Despising fogs, apostrophizing fountains,
Wasting the time, and worshipping the mountains.

209

VI

And yet he had not loved!—his early fancies
Of love, first love, the transport and the pain,
Had been extracted from the best romances,
And were, perhaps, of too sublime a strain;
So when he woke from those delicious trances,
He shut his eyes and chose to sleep again,
Shunning realities for shades, and fleeing
From all he saw to all he dreamt of seeing.

VII

In starlit dells and zephyr-haunted bowers,
Moistened by rivulets whose milky foam
Murmured the sweetest music, where warm showers
That trickled fresh from Heaven's eternal dome
Watered bright jewels that sprung up like flowers,—
In such a scene his fancy found a home,
A Paradise of Fancy's fabrication,
Peopled by Houris of the heart's creation;

VIII

Who never thrummed upon the virginals,
Nor tripped by rule, nor fortunately fainted,
Nor practised paying compliments and calls,
Looking satirical, or looking sainted,
Nor shrieked at tournaments, nor blushed at balls,
Nor lisped, nor sighed, nor drooped, nor punned, nor painted;
Nor wrote a book, nor traded in caresses,
Nor made remarks on other people's dresses.

210

IX

These were his raptures;—these have all been mine;
I could have worshipped once a constellation,
Filled the fine air with habitants divine,
Found in the sea all sorts of inspiration;
Gone out at noon-day with a Nymph to dine,
Held with an Echo charming conversation,
Commenced intriguing with a star, and kissed,
Like old Ixion, a coquettish mist.

X

Now all is over! passion is congealing,
The glory of the soul is pale and dim;
I gaze all night upon a whitewashed ceiling,
And get no glimpses of the seraphim;
Nothing is left of high and bright revealing
But a weak longing and a wayward whim;
And when Imagination takes the air,
She never wanders beyond Grosvenor-square.

XI

Not that I've been more wicked in my day
Than some, perhaps, who call themselves my betters;
I liked to prattle better than to pray,
And thought that freedom was as sweet as fetters;
Yet when my lip and lute are turned to clay,
The honest friend who prints my Life and Letters
Will find few stories of satanic arts,
Of broken promises or broken hearts.

211

XII

But I have moved too long in cold society,
Where it's the fashion not to care a rush;
Where girls are always thinking of propriety,
And men are laughed at if they chance to blush;
And thus I've caught the sickness of sobriety,
Forbidden sighs to sound, and tears to gush;
Become a great philosopher, and curled
Around my heart the poisons of the world.

XIII

And I have learnt at last the hideous trick
Of laughing at whate'er is great or holy;
At horrid tales that turn a soldier sick,
At griefs that make a Cynic melancholy;
At Mr. Lawless, and at Mr. Bric,
At Mr. Milman, and at Mr. Croly;
At Talma and at Young, Macbeth and Cinna,—
Even at you, adorable Corinna!

XIV

To me all light is darkness;—love is lust,
Painting soiled canvas, poetry so led paper;
The fairest loveliness a pinch of dust,
The proudest majesty a breath of vapour;
I have no sympathy, no tear, no trust,
No morning musing and no midnight taper
For daring manhood, or for dreaming youth,
Or maiden purity, or matron truth.

212

XV

But sweet Sir Lidian was far more refined;
He shrank betimes from life and life's defiling;
His step was on the earth, but oh! his mind
Made for itself a heaven! the fool's reviling
He did not seek, or shun; and thus, enshrined
In glad and innocent thoughts, he went on smiling,
Alone in crowds, unhearing and unheeding,
Fond of the fields, and very fond of reading.

XVI

When lords and ladies went to hunt together,
The milkmaid, as he passed, kicked down her pan;
When witty courtiers criticised the weather,
The Countess swore he was a learned man;
For him the proudest bowed beneath a feather,
For him the coldest blushed behind a fan;
And titled dames gave fêtes upon the water,
To introduce him to their angel daughter.

XVII

But happy, happy Lidian! for he never
Watched the caprices of a pretty face;
Nor longed, as I have longed, with vain endeavour
To tear that plaguy wall of Mechlin lace;
His apathy seemed like to last for ever;
When suddenly an incident took place
Which broke the talisman, and burst the bubble,
And gave his friends considerable trouble.

213

XVIII

He laid a bet upon his falcon's flight,
Rode home, as usually he did, a winner;
And sent a dozen pages to invite
Ten dozen Barons to a peacock dinner:
They came, they ate, they talked through half the night;
And the gay crowd grew naturally thinner,
As old Sir Guy, a story-teller staunch,
Began the story of the Lady Blanch.

XIX

How she was born just twenty years before;
And how her father was a Maltese Knight,
Sir Raymond styled, and skilled in knightly lore,
And true in love, and terrible in fight;
And how her mother, Lady Leonore,
Had perished when her offspring saw the light;
And how, because there was no other heir,
She was brought up with most uncommon care;

XX

How she was never, when she was a child,
Restrained in any innocent vagary;
And how she grew up beautiful and wild,
And sang as sweetly as a caged canary;
And how all artlessly she wept and smiled;
And how she danced cotillons like a fairy;
And how she proved what metal she was made of,
By mounting mares her groom was quite afraid of.

214

XXI

How Bishop Bembo mended her cacology,
And gave her all the graces of the Attics;
How Father Joseph taught her physiology,
And Father Jerome taught her mathematics;
And how she picked up something of astrology
From two white-haired long-bearded Asiatics;
And how she had a genius for gastronomy,
And private—not political—economy;

XXII

And how, as soon as she dismissed her tutor,
And sat at tiltings for the men's inspection,
She was besieged by many an anxious suitor
With sighs and sonnets, rhetoric and affection;
And how Sir Raymond stood completely neuter;
And how she gave to all the same rejection,
For being serious, or for being funny,
For want of genius, or for want of money;

XXIII

And how the father of this matchless daughter,
Who for long years had been a great dragooner,
Found Fate as fickle as old Horace thought her,
Which many soldiers find a great deal sooner;
How he was grounded in some shallow water,
And taken prisoner by a pirate schooner;
And how the Bey of Tunis made a slave of him,
And swore one day the sea should be the grave of him.

215

XXIV

And how poor Blanch, when that sad tale was told her,
Speechless and senseless, fell upon her face;
And how 'twas all two knights could do to hold her;
And how, at last, she took her writing-case,
And wrote, before she was a minute older,
To pray that she might fill her father's place,
Suggesting that a maiden, young and handsome,
Was more than worth an ugly old man's ransom;

XXV

And how the Bey behaved himself correctly,
Knowing such beauty was not for a Bey;
And how he shipped her, very circumspectly,
A present for the Sultan's own serai;
And how the Sultan fell in love directly;
And how he begged her, one fine summer's day,
To calm her passion, and assuage her grief,
And share his throne, his bed, and his belief.

XXVI

And how she told him his proposals shocked her,
Crescent and crown heroically spurning;
And how she reasoned with a Turkish doctor;
And how the Muftis marvelled at her learning;
And how the Vizier in a dungeon locked her;
And how three Pachas recommended burning;
And how, in spite of all their inhumanity,
She kept her character, and Christianity.

216

XXVII

How she escaped by preaching to her gaoler;
How Selim tore his beard and wore his willow;
How she put on the trousers of a sailor;
How Zephyr kindly helped her o'er the billow;
How all her friends were very glad to hail her;
How she was married now to Don Pedrillo;
And how she showed, by every look and action,
She loved her lord and master to distraction.

XXVIII

Such was the tale;—a tale to make men weep,
Yet half the guests were laughing in their sleeve;
Some fell a fighting, others fell asleep,
The wild took bumpers, and the wise took leave
But oh, the trance, so passionate and deep,
In which Sir Lidian sate!—you might believe
From his short breathing, and his gushing tears,
His very soul was listening, not his ears.

XXIX

Oh, what a treasure all such listeners are!
He longed to praise, but held his tongue to wonder,
Rapt as a cornet ere his maiden war,
Dumb as a schoolboy when he doubts a blunder,
Pale as a culprit at the fatal bar,
Faint as a lady in a storm of thunder,
And wild of heart, as I sometimes have been,
When you were singing, silver-toned Adine!—

217

XXX

Queen of enchanting sounds, at whose sweet will
The spirit sinks and rises, glows and shivers,
Your voice is now for dearer friends; but still
In my lone heart its every echo quivers,
A viewless melody!—no purer thrill
Do fairies wake from their own groves and rivers,
When they would fling on minstrels' dreams by night
Some bounteous vision of intense delight.

XXXI

You've very often asked me for a song;
I've very often promised to bestow it;
But when my admiration is most strong,
I'm frequently the least disposed to show it;
However, here I swear that I have long
Sighed to be styled your four-and-twentieth poet,
And that your voice is richer far to me,
Than a fat client's, five years hence, will be.—

XXXII

But all this time Sir Guy was in his glory;
He was not used to be respected so;
For though he once was matchless at a story,
Age chills the tongue, and checks the humour's flow;
His talk grew tedious as his hairs grew hoary;
And coxcombs stopt his—“Fifty years ago”—
With questions of their hawking, hunting, baiting,
Or—“Fair Sir Guy, the hypocras is waiting.”

218

XXXIII

Hence, when he saw in what a mute abstraction
His youthful host to his romance attended,
He took unusual pains with every fraction,
Kept his dénouement artfully suspended,
Grew quite theatrical in tone and action,
And went away as soon as he had ended,
Supported to his palfrey by a vassal,
Half drunk with vanity, and half with wassail.

XXXIV

The guests are gone! within that lofty hall
No boastful baron curls his wet mustaches;
The wreaths of flowers are withered on the wall,
The logs upon the earth are dust and ashes;
Where late some lover pledged his amorous thrall,
The wine-cup stands inverted; and the flashes
From torch and taper o'er the bright floor thrown
Fall faint and rare!—Sir Lidian is alone.

XXXV

Alone?—Oh no! the Lady and her grieving
Too truly, deeply, on his soul are wrought;
She has become to him his heart's conceiving,
The very essence of the love he sought,
A present hope, a passionate believing,
A sleepless vision, an embodied thought;
Not fancy quite, nor quite materiality,
Too clear for dream, too lovely for reality.

219

XXXVI

Hark! the wind whistles through the grove of firs;—
The Lady Blanch beneath their shade reposes:
Lo! the dark tapestry in the torch-light stirs;—
The Lady Blanch beneath the curtain dozes:
He gazes on his pictured ancestors,
And even there, the ancient lips and noses
Recall, with most astonishing activity,
The Lady Blanch, her charms and her captivity.

XXXVII

And now she looks into his slumb'rous eyes,
And now she trifles with his flowing tresses;
He speaks to her,—anon her lip replies;
He kneels to her,—she shrinks from his caresses;
Coining all eloquence of smiles and sighs,
Wearing by turns a thousand forms and dresses,
Beauteous in all!—alone?—in bliss or pain,
Sir Lidian ne'er will be alone again!

XXXVIII

Poor youth! the chamber now was wrapt in gloom,
The servants all had gone to rest; but still he
Wandered in silence up and down the room,
Forgetting that the morning would be chilly,
Tossing about his mantle and his plume,
And looking very sad, and very silly;
At last he snatched his harp, and stopped his tread,
And warbled thus before he went to bed.—

220

“O Love! O beauteous Love!
Thy home is made for all sweet things,
A dwelling for thine own soft dove
And souls as spotless as her wings;
There summer ceases never:
The trees are rich with luscious fruits,
The bowers are full of joyous throngs,
And gales that come from Heaven's own lutes
And rivulets whose streams are songs
Go murmuring on for ever!

O Love! O wretched Love!
Thy home is made for bitter care;
And sounds are in thy myrtle grove
Of late repentance, long despair,
Of feigning and forsaking:
Thy banquet is the doubt and fear
That come, we know not whence or why,
The smile that hardly masks a tear,
The laughter that is half a sigh,
The heart that jests in breaking!

O Love! O faithless Love!
Thy home is like the roving star
Which seems so fair, so far above
The world where woes and sorrows are;
But could we wander thither,

221

There's nothing but another earth,
As dark and restless as our own,
Where misery is child of mirth,
And every heart is born to groan,
And every Hower to wither!”