The political and occasional poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed ::

The cunning man has scowled on me
Who changes black to white;
There never came wizard from over the sea
More strong to blast and blight;
He breathes his spell in a dark dark den,
The Chancellor well knows where;
His servants are devils, his wand is a pen,
And his circle is Printing House Square.

196

Many a strange and quaint disguise
The crafty conjuror wears;
Sometimes he mutters blasphemies,
Sometimes he mumbles prayers;
And if he rides to burn a town
On a galloping Broom to-day,
To-morrow he quakes from the sole to the crown
Like a Friar of Orders Grey.

I once was fair; not Waithman's face
Was a fairer face than mine,
Ere the sorcerer's eye had marred the grace
Of the features so divine;
On my brow a few black drops he threw,
And a few fierce words he said,
And lo—and lo—wherever I go
I wear an ass's head!

My hands were once extremely clean,
I was an honest man;
No purer patriot ever was seen
In Freedom's glorious van.
He has withered my arm with a fearful charm;
It was wrought in Greece, they say;
And folks look grave and call me a knave,
In the public streets to-day.

197

I used to cast accounts so fast
That they called me Cocker's son;
The Board of Trade was all aghast
When I rose to carry one;
But since that seal on my fate was set,
I'm as dull as dull can be;
I've quite forgot my tare and tret,
And I've lost my Rule of Three.

A mighty man that juggler is,
So gloomy and so grim;
You shall not find a task, I wis,
Too difficult for him;
He can make Lord Althorp half a wit,
Lord Morpeth not a bore,
And give Lord Palmerston hope to sit
In the seat where he sat before.

Would you retain for a twelvemonth's space
The self-same hue and shape?
Would you shun to change your natural face
For the face of an owl or ape?
Would you pray, through life's uncertain span.
The fame you win to wear?
Avoid, if you can, the cunning man,
Whose circle is Printing House Square!

University of Virginia Library

XXII. HUME TRANSLATED.