The complete poetical works of Thomas Hood

Oh, blessed ease! no more of heaven I ask:
The overseer is gone—that vandal elf—
And hemp, unpick'd, may go and hang itself,
While I, untask'd, except with Cowper's Task,
In blessed literary leisure bask,
And lose the workhouse, saving in the works
Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes;
Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask;
The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spence,
The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair—
Unlearned toil, unletter'd labours hence!
But, hark! I hear the master on the stair—
And Thomson's Castle, that of Indolence,
Must be to me a castle in the air.

269

SONNET.—A SOMNAMBULIST

‘A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.’
—Byron.

Methought—for Fancy is the strangest gadder
When sleep all homely mundane ties hath riven—
Methought that I ascended Jacob's ladder,
With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven:
Some bell, I know not whence, was sounding seven
When I set foot upon that long one-pair;
And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven,
Nor yet of landing-place became aware;
Step after step in endless flight seem'd there;
But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still,
To gain that blessed haven from all care,
Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill,
When, lo! I wakened on a sadder stair—
Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp—upon the Brixton Mill!

FUGITIVE LINES ON PAWNING MY WATCH

‘Aurum pot-a-bile: ’—Gold biles the pot.
—Free translation.

Farewell then, my golden repeater,
We're come to my Uncle's old shop;
And hunger won't be a dumb-waiter,
The Cerberus growls for a sop!

To quit thee, my comrade diurnal,
My feelings will certainly scotch;
But oh! there's a riot internal,
And Famine calls out for the Watch.

Oh! hunger's a terrible trial,
I really must have a relief,—
So here goes the plate of your dial
To fetch me some Williams's beef!

As famish'd as any lost seaman,
I've fasted for many a dawn,
And now must play chess with the Demon,
And give it a check with a pawn.

I've fasted, since dining at Buncle's,
Two days with true Perceval zeal—
And now must make up at my Uncle's,
By getting a duplicate meal.

No Peachum it is, or young Lockit,
That rifles my fob with a snatch;
Alas! I must pick my own pocket,
And make gravy-soup of my watch!

So long I have wander'd a starver
I'm getting as keen as a hawk;
Time's long hand must take up a carver,
His short hand lay hold of a fork.

Right heavy and sad the event is,
But oh! it is Poverty's crime,
I've been such a Brownrigg's Apprentice,
I thus must be ‘out of my Time.’

Alas! when in Brook Street the upper
In comfort I lived between walls,
I've gone to a dance for my supper,
But now I must go to Three Balls!

Folks talk about dressing for dinner,
But I have for dinner undrest;
Since Christmas, as I am a sinner,
I've eaten a suit of my best.

270

I haven't a rag or a mummock
To fetch me a chop or a steak;
I wish that the coats of my stomach
Were such as my Uncle would take!

When dishes were ready with garnish
My watch used to warn with a chime—
But now my repeater must furnish
The dinner in lieu of the time!

My craving will have no denials,
I can't fob it off, if you stay,
So go,—and the old Seven Dials
Must tell me the time of the day.

Your chimes I shall never more hear 'em,
To part is a Tic Douloureux!
But Tempus has his edax rerum,
And I have my Feeding-Time too!

Farewell then, my golden repeater,
We're come to my Uncle's old shop,
And Hunger won't be a dumb-waiter,
The Cerberus growls for a sop.

THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS

‘The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners.’
—Picture of Isle of Wight.

One close of day—'twas in the bay
Of Naples, bay of glory!
While light was hanging crowns of gold
On mountains high and hoary,
A gallant bark got under weigh,
And with her sails my story.

For Leghorn she was bound direct,
With wine and oil for cargo,
Her crew of men, some nine or ten,
The captain's name was Iago;
A good and gallant bark she was,
La Donna (call'd) del Lago.

Bronzed mariners were hers to view,
With brown cheeks, clear or muddy,
Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black hair,
Meet heads for painter's study;
But 'midst their tan there stood one man
Whose cheek was fair and ruddy;

His brow was high, a loftier brow
Ne'er shone in song or sonnet,
His hair a little scant, and when
He doff'd his cap or bonnet,
One saw that Grey had gone beyond
A premiership upon it!

His eye—a passenger was he,
The cabin he had hired it,—
His eye was grey, and when he look'd
Around, the prospect fired it—
A fine poetic light, as if
The Appe-Nine inspired it.

His frame was stout, in height about
Six feet—well made and portly;
Of dress and manner just to give
A sketch, but very shortly,
His order seem'd a composite
Of rustic with the courtly.

He ate and quaff'd, and joked and laugh'd,
And chatted with the seamen,
And often task'd their skill and ask'd,
‘What weather is't to be, man?’
No demonstration there appear'd
That he was any demon.

No sort of sign there was that he
Could raise a stormy rumpus,
Like Prospero make breezes blow,
And rocks and billows thump us,—
But little we supposed what he
Could with the needle compass!

271

Soon came a storm—the sea at first
Seem'd lying almost fallow—
When lo! full crash, with billowy dash,
From clouds of black and yellow,
Came such a gale, as blows but once
A cent'ry, like the aloe!

Our stomachs we had just prepared
To vest a small amount in;
When, gush! a flood of brine came down
The skylight—quite a fountain,
And right on end the table rear'd,
Just like the Table Mountain.

Down rush'd the soup, down gush'd the wine,
Each roll, its rôle repeating,
Roll'd down—the round of beef declar'd
For parting—not for meating!
Off flew the fowls, and all the game
Was ‘too far gone for eating!’

Down knife and fork—down went the pork,
The lamb too broke its tether;
Down mustard went—each condiment—
Salt—pepper—all together!
Down every thing, like craft that seek
The Downs in stormy weather.

Down plunged the Lady of the Lake,
Her timbers seem'd to sever;
Down, down, a dreary derry down,
Such lurch she had gone never;
She almost seem'd about to take
A bed of down for ever!

Down dropt the captain's nether jaw,
Thus robb'd of all its uses,
He thought he saw the Evil One
Beside Vesuvian sluices,
Playing at dice for soul and ship,
And throwing Sink and Deuces.

Down fell the steward on his face,
To all the Saints commending;
And candles to the Virgin vow'd,
As save-alls 'gainst his ending.
Down fell the mate, he thought his fate,
Check-mate, was close impending!

Down fell the cook—the cabin boy,
Their heads with fervour telling,
While alps of surge, with snowy verge,
Above the yards came yelling.
Down fell the crew, and on their knees
Shudder'd at each white swelling!

Down sunk the sun of bloody hue,
His crimson light a cleaver
To each red rover of a wave:
To eye of fancy-weaver,
Neptune, the God, seem'd tossing in
A raging scarlet fever!

Sore, sore afraid, each papist prayed
To Saint and Virgin Mary;
But one there was that stood composed
Amid the waves' vagary:
As staunch as rock, a true game cock
'Mid chicks of Mother Cary!

His ruddy cheek retain'd its streak,
No danger seem'd to shrink him;
His step still bold,—of mortal mould
The crew could hardly think him:
The Lady of the Lake, he seem'd
To know, could never sink him.

Relax'd at last the furious gale
Quite out of breath with racing;
The boiling flood in milder mood,
With gentler billows chasing;
From stem to stern, with frequent turn,
The Stranger took to pacing.

And as he walk'd to self he talked,
Some ancient ditty thrumming,
In under tone, as not alone—
Now whistling, and now humming—
‘You're welcome, Charlie,’ ‘Cowden-knowes,’
‘Kenmure,’ or ‘Campbells' Coming.’

Down went the wind, down went the wave,
Fear quitted the most finical;
The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot,
And Hope was at the pinnacle;
When rose on high, a frightful cry—
‘The Devil's in the binnacle!’

272

‘The Saints be near,’ the helmsman cried,
His voice with quite a falter—
‘Steady's my helm, but every look
The needle seems to alter;
God only knows where China lies,
Jamaica, or Gibraltar!’

The captain stared aghast at mate,
The pilot at th'apprentice;
No fancy of the German Sea
Of Fiction the event is:
But when they at the compass look'd,
It seem'd non compass mentis.

Now north, now south, now east, now west,
The wavering point was shaken,
'Twas past the whole philosophy
Of Newton, or of Bacon;
Never by compass, till that hour,
Such latitudes were taken!

With fearful speech, each after each
Took turns in the inspection;
They found no gun—no iron—none
To vary its direction;
It seem'd a new magnetic case
Of Poles in Insurrection!

Farewell to wives, farewell their lives,
And all their household riches;
Oh! while they thought of girl or boy,
And dear domestic niches,
All down the side which holds the heart,
That needle gave them stitches.

With deep amaze, the Stranger gaz'd
To see them so white-liver'd:
And walk'd abaft the binnacle,
To know at what they shiver'd:
But when he stood beside the card,
St. Josef! how it quiver'd!

No fancy-motion, brain-begot
In eye of timid dreamer—
The nervous finger of a sot
Ne'er showed a plainer tremor;
To every brain it seem'd too plain,
There stood th'Infernal Schemer!

Mix'd brown and blue each visage grew,
Just like a pullet's gizzard;
Meanwhile the captain's wandering wit,
From tacking like an izzard,
Bore down in this plain course at last,
‘It's Michael Scott—the Wizard!’

A smile past o'er the ruddy face.
‘To see the poles so falter
I'm puzzled, friends, as much as you,
For with no fiends I palter;
Michael I'm not—although a Scott—
My Christian name is Walter.’

Like oil it fell, that name, a spell
On all the fearful faction;
The captain's head (for he had read)
Confess'd the Needle's action,
And bow'd to Him in whom the North
Has lodged its main attraction!

PAIR'D, NOT MATCH'D

Of wedded bliss
Bards sing amiss,
I cannot make a song of it;
For I am small,
My wife is tall,
And that's the short and long of it;

When we debate
It is my fate
To always have the wrong of it;
For I am small
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

And when I speak
My voice is weak,
But hers—she makes a gong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it;

273

She has, in brief,
Command in Chief,
And I'm but Aide-de-camp of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

She gives to me
The weakest tea,
And takes the whole Souchong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it;

She'll sometimes grip
My buggy whip,
And make me feel the thong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

Against my life
She'll take a knife,
Or fork, and dart the prong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

I sometimes think
I'll take a drink,
And hector when I'm strong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

O, if the bell
Would ring her knell,
I'd make a gay ding dong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that's the short and long of it!

THE DUEL

A SERIOUS BALLAD

‘Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.’

In Brentford town, of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.

To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow'd,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.

Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.

Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.

So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,—
I'll pop it into you.

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer
Knows how to prime and load.

And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls' eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep's.

Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.

274

But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give—
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.

To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forebore,
And having taken one rash step,
They took a dozen more.

They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.

Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul's Cathedral now,
Be doom'd to have a ball.

I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?

Said Mr. B., I do agree—
But think of Honour's Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.

But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can't we aim above, as if
We had call'd out the sun?

So up into the harmless air
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!

SONNET TO VAUXHALL

The English Garden.’
—Mason.

The cold transparent ham is on my fork—
It hardly rains—and hark the bell!—ding-dingle—
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,
Mocking a Vauxhall shower!—Married and Single
Crush—rush;—Soak'd Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk,
Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle
To study the Sublime, &c.—(vide Burke)
All Noses are upturn'd!—Whish—ish!—On high
The rocket rushes—trails—just steals in sight—
Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light—
And Darkness reigns—Then balls flare up and die—
Wheels whiz—smack crackers—serpents twist—and then
Back to the cold transparent ham again!

275

ODE TO MR. MALTHUS

My dear, do pull the bell,
And pull it well,
And send those noisy children all upstairs,
Now playing here like bears—
You George, and William, go into the grounds,
Charles, James, and Bob are there,—and take your string,
Drive horses, or fly kites, or any thing,
You're quite enough to play at hare and hounds,—
You little May, and Caroline, and Poll,
Take each your doll,
And go, my dears, into the two-back pair,
Your sister Margaret's there—
Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school,
At far off Ponty Pool—
I want to read, but really can't get on—
Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John,
Go—to their nursery—go—I never can
Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan!

Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree
In everything I read with thee!
The world's too full, there is no doubt,
And wants a deal of thinning out,—
It's plain—as plain as Harrow's Steeple—
And I agree with some thus far,
Who say the Queen's too popular,
That is,—she has too many people.
There are too many of all trades
Too many bakers,
Too many every-thing-makers,
But not too many undertakers,—
Too many boys,—
Too many hobby-de-hoys,—
Too many girls, men, widows, wives, and maids,—
There is a dreadful surplus to demolish,
And yet some Wrongheads,
With thick not long heads,
Poor metaphysicians!
Sign petitions
Capital punishment to abolish;
And in the face of censuses such vast ones
New hospitals contrive,
For keeping life alive,
Laying first stones, the dolts! instead of last ones!—
Others, again, in the same contrariety,
Deem that of all Humane Society
They really deserve thanks,
Because the two banks of the Serpentine
By their design,
Are Saving Banks.
Oh! were it given but to me to weed
The human breed,
And root out here and there some cumbering elf,
I think I could go through it,
And really do it
With profit to the world and to myself,—
For instance, the unkind among the Editors,
My debtors, those I mean to say
Who cannot or who will not pay,
And all my creditors.
These, for my own sake, I'd destroy;

276

But for the world's, and every one's,
I'd hoe up Mrs. G---'s two sons,
And Mrs. B---'s big little boy,
Call'd only by herself an ‘only joy.’
As Mr. Irving's chapel's not too full,
Himself alone I'd pull—
But for the peace of years that have to run,
I'd make the Lord Mayor's a perpetual station,
And put a period to rotation,
By rooting up all Aldermen but one,—
These are but hints what good might thus be done!
But ah! I fear the public good
Is little by the public understood,—
For instance—if with flint, and steel, and tinder,
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man,
Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan,
No doubt some busy fool would hinder
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.

Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday,
That wine and bun-day,
Proposed to poison all the little Bluecoats,
Before they died by bit or sup,
Some meddling Marplot would blow up,
Just at the moment critical,
The economy political
Of saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats.

Equally 'twould be undone,
Suppose the Bishop of London,
On that great day
In June or May,
When all the large small family of charity,
Brown, black, or carroty,
Walk in their dusty parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
To sing together till they scare the walls
Of old St. Paul's,
Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white,
Some say a gratifying sight,
Tho' I think sad—but that's a schism—
To witness so much pauperism—
Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make
In this poor overcrowded world more room,
Proposed to shake
Down that immense extinguisher, the dome—
Some humane Martin in the charity Gal-way
I fear would come and interfere,
Save beadle, brat, and overseer,
To walk back in their parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
Islington—Wapping—or Pall Mall way!

Thus, people hatch'd from goose's egg,
Foolishly think a pest, a plague,
And in its face their doors all shut,
On hinges oil'd with cajeput—
Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven,
And turning pale as linen rags
At hoisting up of yellow flags,
While you and I are crying ‘Orange Boven!’
Why should we let precautions so absorb us,
Or trouble shipping with a quarantine—
When if I understand the thing you mean,
We ought to import the Cholera Morbus!

277

A GOOD DIRECTION

A certain gentleman, whose yellow cheek
Proclaimed he had not been in living quite
An Anchorite—
Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day;
At last, by friends' advice, was led to seek
A surgeon of great note—named Aberfeldie.
A very famous Author upon Diet,
Who, better starr'd than Alchemists of old,
By dint of turning mercury to gold,
Had settled at his country house in quiet.

Our Patient, after some impatient rambles
Thro' Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles,
At last, to make inquiry had the nous,—
‘Here, my good man,
Just tell me if you can,
Pray which is Mr. Aberfeldie's house?’
The man thus stopp'd—perusing for a while
The yellow visage of the man of bile,
At last made answer, with a broadish grin:
‘Why, turn to right—and left—and right agin,
The road's direct—you cannot fail to go it.’

‘But stop!—my worthy fellow!—one word more—
From other houses how am I to know it?’

‘How!—why, you'll see blue pillars at the door!’

THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT

‘So while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered myself that I should outwit and incense them all; behold, my hopes are to be crushed at once, by my aunt's consent and approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But here, Sir—here is the picture!’

—Lydia Languish.

O days of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balk'd and valour stalk'd
On high heroic stilts—
Where are ye gone?—adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,—
We've nothing now but New Police—
There's no Romance in that!

I wish I ne'er had learn'd to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write;
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister'd quite!
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter's vat;
I only turn to life, and weep—
There's no Romance in that!

278

No Bandits lurk—no turban'd Turk
To Tunis bears me off—
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother's cough,—
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house;
No shape,—but owl or bat,
Come flitting after moth or mouse—
There's no Romance in that!

I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman's press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I'm growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale—
There's no Romance in that!

It's very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That's worth a pen's report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow'd and rail'd, and came home safe,—
There's no Romance in that!

The only time I had a chance,
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length—
There's no Romance in that!

Love—even love—goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track—
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore—
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more—
There's no Romance in that!

He is not dark, he is not tall,—
His forehead's rather low,
He is not pensive—not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
Is really but a sprat;
With sandy hair and greyish eyes—
There's no Romance in that!

He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks,
Or long sword hanging down;
He dresses much like other folks,
And commonly in brown;
His collar he will not discard,
Or give up his cravat,
Lord Byron-like—he's not a Bard—
There's no Romance in that!

He's rather bald, his sight is weak,
He's deaf in either drum;
Without a lisp he cannot speak,
But then—he's worth a plum.
He talks of stocks and three per cents.
By way of private chat,
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents,—
There's no Romance in that!

I sing—no matter what I sing,
Di Tanti—or Crudel,
Tom Bowling, or God save the King,
Di piacer—All's Well;
He knows no more about a voice
For singing than a gnat—
And as to Music ‘has no choice,’—
There's no Romance in that!

Of light guitar I cannot boast,
He never serenades;
He writes, and sends it by the post,
He doesn't bribe the maids:
No stealth, no hempen ladder—no!
He comes with loud rat-tat,
That startles half of Bedford Row—
There's no Romance in that!

He comes at nine in time to choose
His coffee—just two cups,
And talks with Pa about the news,
Repeats debates, and sups,
John helps him with his coat aright,
And Jenkins hands his hat;
My lover bows, and says good-night—
There's no Romance in that!

279

I've long had Pa's and Ma's consent,
My aunt she quite approves,
My Brother wishes joy from Kent,
None try to thwart our loves;
On Tuesday, reverend Mr. Mace
Will make me Mrs. Pratt,
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place—
There's no Romance in that.

A WATERLOO BALLAD

To Waterloo, with sad ado,
And many a sigh and groan,
Amongst the dead, came Patty Head
To look for Peter Stone.

‘O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If I shall find him here?
I'm come to weep upon his corse,
My Ninety-Second dear!

‘Into our town a serjeant came,
With ribands all so fine
A-flaunting in his cap—alas!
His bow enlisted mine!

‘They taught him how to turn his toes,
And stand as stiff as starch;
I thought that it was love and May,
But it was love and March!

‘A sorry March indeed to leave
The friends he might have kep’,—
No March of Intellect it was,
But quite a foolish step.

‘O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabout he lies?
I want a corpse with reddish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes.’

Her sorrow on the sentinel
Appear'd to deeply strike:
‘Walk in,’ he said, ‘among the dead,
And pick out which you like.’

And soon she pick'd out Peter Stone,
Half turned into a corse;
A cannon was his bolster, and
His mattrass was a horse.

‘O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone,
Lord, here has been a skrimmage!
What have they done to your poor breast,
That used to hold my image?’

‘O Patty Head, O Patty Head,
You're come to my last kissing;
Before I'm set in the Gazette
As wounded, dead, and missing.

‘Alas! a splinter of a shell
Right in my stomach sticks;
French mortars don't agree so well
With stomachs as French bricks.

‘This very night a merry dance
At Brussels was to be;—
Instead of opening a ball,
A ball has open'd me.

‘Its billet every bullet has,
And well does it fulfil it;—
I wish mine hadn't come so straight,
But been a ‘crooked billet.’

‘And then there came a cuirassier
And cut me on the chest;—
He had no pity in his heart,
For he had steel'd his breast.

‘Next thing a lancer, with his lance
Began to thrust away;
I call'd for quarter, but, alas!
It was not Quarter-day.

‘He ran his spear right through my arm,
Just here above the joint:—
O Patty dear, it was no joke,
Although it had a point.

‘With loss of blood I fainted off
As dead as women do—
But soon by charging over me,
The Coldstreams brought me to.

‘With kicks and cuts, and balls and blows,
I throb and ache all over;
I'm quite convinc'd the field of Mars
Is not a field of clover!

280

‘O why did I a soldier turn,
For any royal Guelph?
I might have been a butcher, and
In business for myself!

‘O why did I the bounty take?
(And here he gasp'd for breath)
My shillingsworth of 'list is nail'd
Upon the door of death.

‘Without a coffin I shall lie,
And sleep my sleep eternal:
Not ev'n a shell—my only chance
Of being made a Kernel!

‘O Patty dear, our wedding bells,
Will never ring at Chester!
Here I must lie in Honour's bed,
That isn't worth a tester!

‘Farewell, my regimental mates,
With whom I used to dress!
My corps is changed, so I am now,
In quite another mess.

‘Farewell, my Patty dear, I have
No dying consolations,
Except, when I am dead, you'll go
And see th'Illuminations.’

SHOOTING PAINS

‘The charge is prepared.’
—Macheath.

If I shoot any more I'll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march'd the whole day
With a gun,—for no pay—
Zounds, I'd better have been in the army!

What matters Sir Christopher's leave;
To his manor I'm sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught,
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!

And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they'd cry ‘Walker!’

Not Hawker could find out a flaw,—
My appointments are modern and Mantony,
And I've brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can't find a mark for my Antony!

The partridges,—where can they lie?
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me,—I'm getting quite nervous!

To the pheasants—how well they're preserved!
My sport's not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy,
And so send ‘silver pheasants and golden.’

I have tried ev'ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax'd,
Till my patience is tax'd,
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.

I've been roaming for hours in three flats
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for ‘setting my cap at!’

281

A woodcock,—this month is the time,
Right and left I've made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!

A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day's the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.

For a mallard I've waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake—oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!

For a field-fare I've fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a black-bird!

I am angry, I'm hungry, I'm dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number One seem overloaded.

As well one might beat round St. Paul's,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search'd round and round
All the Baronet's ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn't a wren there!

Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it's really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall's Powder, renown'd for ‘quick firing.’

If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can't have a high sense,
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun—
‘Fined for shooting without any licence.’

THE BOY AT THE NORE

‘Alone I did it!—Boy!’
—Coriolanus.

I say, little Boy at the Nore,
Do you come from the small Isle of Man?
Why, your history a mystery must be,—
Come tell us as much as you can,
Little Boy at the Nore!

You live it seems wholly on water,
Which your Gambier calls living in clover;—
But how comes it, if that is the case,
You're eternally half seas over,—
Little Boy at the Nore?

While you ride—while you dance—while you float—
Never mind your imperfect orthography;—
But give us as well as you can,
Your watery auto-biography,
Little Boy at the Nore!

282

LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR

I'm the tight little Boy at the Nore,
In a sort of sea negus I dwells;
Half and half 'twixt salt water and Port,—
I'm reckon'd the first of the swells—
I'm the Boy at the Nore!

I lives with my toes to the flounders,
And watches through long days and nights;
Yet, cruelly eager, men look—
To catch the first glimpse of my lights—
I'm the Boy at the Nore!

I never gets cold in the head,
So my life on salt water is sweet,—
I think I owes much of my health
To being well used to wet feet—
As the Boy at the Nore.

There's one thing, I'm never in debt:
Nay!—I liquidates more than I oughter ;
So the man to beat Cits as goes by,
In keeping the head above water,
Is the Boy at the Nore.

I've seen a good deal of distress,
Lots of Breakers in Ocean's Gazette;
They should do as I do—rise o'er all;
Aye, a good floating capital get,
Like the Boy at the Nore!

I'm a'ter the sailor's own heart,
And cheers him, in deep water rolling;
And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk,
Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling,
Is the Boy at the Nore!

Could I e'er but grow up, I'd be off
For a week to make love with my wheedles;
If the tight little Boy at the Nore
Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles,
We'd have two at the Nore.

They thinks little of sizes on water,
On big waves the tiny one skulks,—
While the river has Men of War on it—
Yes—the Thames is oppress'd with Great Hulks,
And the Boy's at the Nore!

But I've done—for the water is heaving
Round my body as though it would sink it!
And I've been so long pitching and tossing,
That sea-sick—you'd hardly now think it—
Is the Boy at the Nore!

A word caught from some American Trader in passing.

ODE TO ST. SWITHIN

‘The rain it raineth every day.’

The Dawn is overcast, the morning low'rs,
On ev'ry window-frame hang beaded damps
Like rows of small illumination lamps
To celebrate the Jubilee of Show'rs!
A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves,
The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers,
And from the Houses' eaves
Tumble eaves-droppers.

283

The hundred clerks that live along the street,
Bondsmen to mercantile and city schemers,
With squashing, sloshing, and galloshing feet,
Go paddling, paddling, through the wet, like steamers,
Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend—
Umbrellas pass of every shade of green,
And now and then a crimson one is seen.
Like an Umbrella ripen'd.

Over the way a waggon
Stands with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking,
While in the George and Dragon
The man is keeping himself dry—and drinking!
The Butcher's boy skulks underneath his tray,
Hats shine—shoes don't—and down droop collars,
And one blue Parasol cries all the way
To school, in company with four small scholars!

Unhappy is the man to-day who rides,
Making his journey sloppier, not shorter;
Aye, there they go, a dozen of outsides,
Performing on ‘a Stage with real water!’
A dripping Pauper crawls along the way,
The only real willing out-of-doorer,
And says, or seems to say,
‘Well, I am poor enough—but here's a pourer!’

The scene in water colours thus I paint,
Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint!
Mother of all the Family of Rainers!
Saint of the Soakers!
Making all people croakers,
Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers!
And why you mizzle forty days together,
Giving the earth your water-soup to sup,
I marvel—Why such wet, mysterious weather?
I wish you'd clear it up!

Why cast such cruel dampers
On pretty Pic Nics, and against all wishes
Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers,
And volunteer, unask'd, to wash the dishes?
Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot,
To cling like lady-birds around a tree—
Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea,
By throwing your cold water upon hot?

Cannot a rural maiden, or a man,
Seek Hornsey-Wood by invitation, sipping
Their green with Pan,
But souse you come, and show their Pan all dripping!

284

Why upon snow-white table-cloths and sheets,
That do not wait, or want a second washing,
Come squashing?
Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets,
As if there were no Water-Cart contractors,
No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys ruddy
Spooning out puddles muddy,
Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors!

A Queen you are, raining in your own right,
Yet oh! how little flatter'd by report!
Even by those that seek the Court,
Pelted with every term of spleen and spite.
Folks rail and swear at you in every place;
They say you are a creature of no bowel;
They say you're always washing Nature's face,
And that you then supply her,
With nothing drier,
Than some old wringing cloud by way of towel!
The whole town wants you duck'd, just as you duck it,
They wish you on your own mud porridge supper'd,
They hope that you may kick your own big bucket,
Or in your water-butt go souse! heels up'ard!
They are, in short, so weary of your drizzle,
They'd spill the water in your veins to stop it—
Be warn'd! You are too partial to a mizzle—
Pray drop it!

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MOTTO

‘The Admiral compelled them all to strike.’
—Life of Nelson.

Hush! silence in School—not a noise!
You shall soon see there's nothing to jeer at,
Master Marsh, most audacious of boys!
Come!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

So this morn in the midst of the Psalm,
The Miss Siffkins's school you must leer at,
You're complained of—Sir! hold out your palm,—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

You wilful young rebel, and dunce!
This offence all your sins shall appear at,
You shall have a good caning at once—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

You are backward, you know, in each verb,
And your pronouns you are not more clear at,
But you're forward enough to disturb,—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

285

You said Master Twigg stole the plumbs,
When the orchard he never was near at,
I'll not punish wrong fingers or thumbs,—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

You make Master Taylor your butt,
And this morning his face you threw beer at,
And you struck him—do you like a cut?
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

Little Biddle you likewise distress,
You are always his hair, or his ear at—
He's my Opt, Sir, and you are my Pess:
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous,
An offence I am always severe at!
You discredit to Cicero House!
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

You have made too a plot in the night,
To run off from the school that you rear at!
Come, your other hand, now, Sir,—the right,
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

I'll teach you to draw, you young dog!
Such pictures as I'm looking here at!
‘Old Mounseer making soup of a frog,’
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

You have run up a bill at a shop,
That in paying you'll be a whole year at,—
You've but twopence a week, Sir, to stop!
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

Then at dinner you're quite cock-a-hoop,
And the soup you are certain to sneer at—
I have sipped it—it's very good soup,—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

T'other day when I fell o'er the form,
Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at?
Well for you that my temper's not warm,—
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

Why, you rascal! you insolent brat!
All my talking you don't shed a tear at,
There—take that, Sir! and that! that! and that!
There!—‘Palmam qui meruit ferat!’

THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION A PATHETIC BALLAD

Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!’
—Mercutio.

I

'Twas twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes,
When all in hungry trim,
Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup
With wife, and Kate, and Jim.

II

Said he, ‘Upon this dainty cod
How bravely I shall sup’—
When, whiter than the table-cloth,
A GHOST came rising up!

III

‘O, father dear, O, mother dear,
Dear Kate, and brother Jim,—
You know when some one went to sea,—
Don't cry—but I am him!

IV

‘You hope some day with fond embrace
To greet your absent Jack,
But oh, I am come here to say
I'm never coming back!

286

V

‘From Alexandria we set sail,
With corn, and oil, and figs,
But steering “too much Sow,” we struck
Upon the Sow and Pigs!

VI

‘The ship we pump'd till we could see
Old England from the tops;
When down she went with all our hands,
Right in the Channel's Chops.

VII

‘Just give a look in Norey's chart,
The very place it tells;
I think it says twelve fathom deep,
Clay bottom, mix'd with shells.

VIII

‘Well, there we are till “hands aloft,”
We have at last a call;
The pug I had for brother Jim,
Kate's parrot, too, and all.

IX

‘But oh, my spirit cannot rest,
In Davy Jones's sod,
Till I've appear'd to you and said,—
Don't sup on that 'ere Cod!

X

‘You live on land, and little think
What passes in the sea;
Last Sunday week, at 2 p.m.,
That Cod was picking me!

XI

‘Those oysters, too, that look so plump,
And seem so nicely done,
They put my corpse in many shells,
Instead of only one.

XII

‘O, do not eat those oysters then,
And do not touch the shrimps;
When I was in my briny grave,
They suck'd my blood like imps!

XIII

‘Don't eat what brutes would never eat,
The brutes I used to pat,
They'll know the smell they used to smell,
Just try the dog and cat!’

XIV

The Spirit fled—they wept his fate,
And cried, Alack, alack!
At last up started brother Jim,
‘Let's try if Jack was Jack!’

XV

They call'd the Dog, they call'd the Cat,
And little Kitten too,
And down they put the Cod and sauce,
To see what brutes would do.

XVI

Old Tray licked all the oysters up,
Puss never stood at crimps,
But munch'd the Cod—and little Kit
Quite feasted on the shrimps!

XVII

The thing was odd, and minus Cod
And sauce, they stood like posts;
O, prudent folks, for fear of hoax,
Put no belief in Ghosts!

287

A STORM AT HASTINGS AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN

'Twas August—Hastings every day was filling—
Hastings, that ‘greenest spot on memory's waste!’
With crowds of idlers willing or unwilling
To be bedipped—be noticed—or be braced,
And all things rose a penny in a shilling.
Meanwhile, from window and from door, in haste
‘Accommodation bills’ kept coming down,
Gladding ‘the world of letters’ in that town.

Each day pour'd in new coach-fulls of new cits,
Flying from London smoke and dust annoying,
Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits,
And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying.
Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits,
And quakers of both sexes, much enjoying
A morning's reading by the ocean's rim,
That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim.

And lo! amongst all these appear'd a creature,
So small, he almost might a twin have been
With Miss Crachami—dwarfish quite in stature,
Yet well proportion'd—neither fat nor lean,
His face of marvellously pleasant feature,
So short and sweet a man was never seen—
All thought him charming at the first beginning—
Alas, ere long they found him far too winning!

He seem'd in love with chance—and chance repaid
His ardent passion with her fondest smile,
The sunshine of good luck, without a shade,
He staked and won—and won and staked—the bile
It stirr'd of many a man and many a maid,
To see at every venture how that vile
Small gambler snatch'd—and how he won them too—
A living Pam, omnipotent at loo!

Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box,
'Twas handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass,
And dreamt three times she garnish'd it with stocks
Of needles, silks, and cottons—but alas!
She lost it wide awake.—We thought Miss Cox
Was lucky—but she saw three caddies pass
To that small imp;—no living luck could loo him!
Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him!

288

And so he climb'd—and rode, and won—and walk'd,
The wondrous topic of the curious swarm
That haunted the Parade. Many were balk'd
Of notoriety by that small form
Pacing it up and down:—some even talk'd
Of ducking him—when lo! a dismal storm
Stepp'd in—one Friday, at the close of day—
And every head was turn'd another way—

Watching the grander guest. It seem'd to rise
Bulky and slow upon the southern brink
Of the horizon—fann'd by sultry sighs—
So black and threatening, I cannot think
Of any simile, except the skies
Miss Wiggins sometimes shades in Indian ink—
Miss-shapen blotches of such heavy vapour,
They seem a deal more solid than her paper.

As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave,
And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on
The stony-hearted beach;—some bards would have
It always rampant, in that idle fashion,—
Whereas the waves roll'd in, subdued and grave,
Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion,
Who meekly settle in and take their places,
With a very quiet awe on all their faces.

Some love to draw the ocean with a head,
Like troubled table-beer,—and make it bounce,
And froth, and roar, and fling,—but this, I've said,
Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce:—
But then, a grander contrast thus it bred
With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce
Something more awful in the serious ear,
As one would whisper that a lion's near—

Who just begins to roar: so the hoarse thunder
Growl'd long—but low—a prelude note of death,
As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under,
But still it mutter'd to the sea beneath
Such a continued peal, as made us wonder
It did not pause more oft to take its breath,
Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather,
And hardly cared to wed two words together,

But watch'd the surly advent of the storm,
Much as the brown-cheek'd planters of Barbadoes
Must watch a rising of the Negro swarm:—
Meantime it steer'd, like Odin's old Armadas,

289

Right on our coast;—a dismal, coal-black form;—
Many proud gaits were quell'd—and all bravadoes
Of folly ceased—and sundry idle jokers
Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers.

So fierce the lightning flashed.—In all their days
The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing,
And they are used to many a pretty blaze,
To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing
With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays:—
And truly one could think without much lashing
The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful
And black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful.

The gay Parade grew thin—all the fair crowd
Vanish'd—as if they knew their own attractions,—
For now the lightning through a near hand cloud
Began to make some very crooked fractions—
Only some few remain'd that were not cow'd,
A few rough sailors, who had been in actions,
And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's,
Lest it should blow,—were pulling up the Rose:

(No flower, but a boat)—some more were hauling
The Regent by the head:—another crew
With that same cry peculiar to their calling—
Were heaving up the Hope:—and as they knew
The very gods themselves oft get a mauling
In their own realms, the seamen wisely drew
The Neptune rather higher on the beach,
That he might lie beyond his billows' reach.

And now the storm, with its despotic power,
Had all usurp'd the azure of the skies,
Making our daylight darker by an hour,
And some few drops—of an unusual size—
Few and distinct—scarce twenty to the shower,
Fell like huge tear-drops from a Giant's eyes—
But then this sprinkle thicken'd in a trice
And rain'd much harder—in good solid ice.

Oh! for a very storm of words to show
How this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us!
Handel would make the gusty organs blow
Grandly, and a rich storm in music score us;—
But ev'n his music seem'd composed and low,
When we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus;
Whilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound,
And frozen comfits roll'd along the ground—

290

As big as bullets:—Lord! how they did batter
Our crazy tiles:—And now the lightning flash'd
Alternate with the dark, until the latter
Was rarest of the two:—the gust too dash'd
So terribly, I thought the hail must shatter
Some panes,—and so it did—and first it smash'd
The very square where I had chose my station
To watch the general illumination.

Another, and another, still came in,
And fell in jingling ruin at my feet,
Making transparent holes that let me win
Some samples of the storm:—Oh! it was sweet
To think I had a shelter for my skin,
Culling them through these ‘loopholes of retreat’—
Which in a little we began to glaze—
Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize!

By which, the cloud had pass'd o'erhead, but play'd
Its crooked fires in constant flashes still,
Just in our rear, as though it had array'd
Its heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill,
So that it lit the town, and grandly made
The rugged features of the Castle Hill
Leap, like a birth, from chaos, into light,
And then relapse into the gloomy night—

As parcel of the cloud:—the clouds themselves,
Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting,
Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves,
That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting.—
We could e'en fancy Satan and his elves
Busy upon those crags, and ever casting
Huge fragments loose,—and that we felt the sound
They made in falling to the startled ground.

And so the tempest scowl'd away,—and soon
Timidly shining through its skirts of jet,
We saw the rim of the pacific moon,
Like a bright fish entangled in a net,
Flashing its silver sides,—how sweet a boon,
Seemed her sweet light, as though it would beget,
With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas—
Peace in the sky—and coolness in the breeze!

Meantime the hail had ceased:—and all the brood
Of glaziers stole abroad to count their gains;—
At every window, there were maids who stood
Lamenting o'er the glass's small remains,—

291

Or with coarse linens made the fractions good,
Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes,—
Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubt:
The wind resolved—blowing the candles out.

No house was whole that had a southern front,—
No green-house but the same mishap befell;—
Bow-windows and bell-glasses bore the brunt,—
No sex in glass was spared!—For those who dwell
On each hill side, you might have swum a punt
In any of their parlours;—Mrs. Snell
Was slopp'd out of her seat,—and Mr. Hitchin
Had a flow'r-garden wash'd into a Kitchen.

But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaim'd
The recent violence.—Each after each
The gentle waves a gentle murmur framed,
Tapping, like Woodpeckers, the hollow beach.
Howbeit his weather eye the seaman aim'd
Across the calm, and hinted by his speech
A gale next morning—and when morning broke,
There was a gale—‘quite equal to bespoke.’

Before high water—(it were better far
To christen it not water then, but waiter,
For then the tide is serving at the bar)
Rose such a swell—I never saw one greater!
Black, jagged billows rearing up in war
Like ragged roaring bears against the baiter,
With lots of froth upon the shingle shed,
Like stout poured out with a fine beachy head.

No open boat was open to a fare,
Or launch'd that morn on seven-shilling trips,
No bathing woman waded—none would dare
A dipping in the wave—but waived their dips,
No seagull ventured on the stormy air,
And all the dreary coast was clear of ships;
For two lea shores upon the river Lea
Are not so perilous as one at sea.

Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene
Before us in such horrid hurly-burly,—
A boiling ocean of mix'd black and green,
A sky of copper colour, grim and surly,—
When lo, in that vast hollow scoop'd between
Two rolling Alps of water,—white and curly!
We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming,
Much like a first or last attempt at swimming!

292

Sometimes a hand—sometimes a little shoe—
Sometimes a skirt—sometimes a hank of hair
Just like a dabbled seaweed rose to view,
Sometimes a knee, sometimes a back was bare—
At last a frightful summerset he threw
Right on the shingles. Any one could swear
The lad was dead—without a chance of perjury,
And batter'd by the surge beyond all surgery!

However we snatch'd up the corse thus thrown,
Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it,
And after venting Pity's sigh and groan,
Then Curiosity began with her fit;
And lo! the features of the Small Unknown!
'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit!—
And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies,
We found a contract signed with Mephistopheles.

A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave
His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion,
Providing in this world he was to have
A lordship over luck, by whose exertion
He might control the course of cards, and brave
All throws of dice,—but on a sea excursion
The juggling Demon, in his usual vein,
Seized the last cast—and Nick'd him in the main!

LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly,
And tempests make a soda-water sea,
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly,
And think of me!

Go where the mild Madeira ripens her juice,—
A wine more praised than it deserves to be!
Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice,
And think of me!

Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth,
Making a midnight meal of he and she;
Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth,
And think of me!

Go where the serpent dangerously coileth,
Or lies along at full length like a tree,
Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth,
And think of me!

293

Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth
In mono-polly-logue with tongue as free,
And like a woman, all she can revealeth,
And think of me!

Go to the land of muslin and nankeening,
And parasols of straw where hats should be,
Go to the land of slaves and palankeening,
And think of me!

Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills,
And tall bamboos—may none bamboozle thee!
Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles,
And think of me!

Go where a cook must always be a currier,
And parch the pepper'd palate like a pea,
Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier,
And think of me!

Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes,
Consign'd for wedlock to Calcutta's quay,
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes,
And think of me!

Go where the sun is very hot and fervent,
Go to the land of pagod and rupee,
Where every black will be your slave and servant,
And think of me!

SONNET TO A SCOTCH GIRL, WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION

Well done and wetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth.
Thou mak'st a washing picture well deserving
The pen and pencilling of Washington Irving:
Like dripping Naiad, pearly from her birth,
Dashing about the water of the Firth,
To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving,
And never from thy dance of duty swerving—
As there were nothing else than dirt on earth!
Yet what is thy reward? Nay, do not start!
I do not mean to give thee a new damper,
But while thou fillest this industrious part
Of washer, wearer, mangler, presser, stamper,
Deserving better character—thou art
What Bodkin would but call—‘a common tramper.’

294

SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN

Hail! seventy-four cut down! Hail, Top and Lop:
Unless I'm much mistaken in my notion,
Thou wast a stirring Tar, before that hop
Became so fatal to thy locomotion;—
Now, thrown on shore, like a mere weed of ocean,
Thou readest still to men a lesson good,
To King and Country showing thy devotion,
By kneeling thus upon a stump of wood!
Still is thy spirit strong as alcohol;
Spite of that limb, begot of acorn-egg,—
Methinks,—thou Naval History in one Vol.—
A virtue shines, e'en in that timber leg,
For unlike others that desert their Poll,
Thou walkest ever with thy ‘Constant Peg!’

HUGGINS AND DUGGINS A PASTORAL AFTER POPE

Two swains or clowns—but call them swains—
While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers,
Are turned to songsters, or to lovers,
Each of the lass he call'd his dear
Began to carol loud and clear.
First Huggins sang, and Duggins then,
In the way of ancient shepherd men;
Who thus alternate hitch'd in song,
‘All things by turns, and nothing long.’

HUGGINS.
Of all the girls about our place,
There's one beats all in form and face;
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead
You'll only find one Peggy Plumstead.

DUGGINS.
To groves and streams I tell my flame;
I make the cliffs repeat her name:
When I'm inspired by gills and noggins,
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins!

HUGGINS.
When I am walking in the grove,
I think of Peggy as I rove.
I'd carve her name on every tree,
But I don't know my A, B, C.

DUGGINS.
Whether I walk in hill or valley,
I think of nothing else but Sally.
I'd sing her praise, but I can sing
No song, except ‘God save the King.’

HUGGINS.
My Peggy does all nymphs excel,
And all confess she bears the bell,—
Where'er she goes swains flock together,
Like sheep that follow the bellwether.

DUGGINS.
Sally is tall and not too straight,—
Those very poplar shapes I hate;
But something twisted like an S,—
A crook becomes a shepherdess.

295

HUGGINS.
When Peggy's dog her arms emprison,
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.

DUGGINS.
I tell Sall's lambs how blest they be,
To stand about and stare at she;
But when I look, she turns and shies,
And won't bear none but their sheep's-eyes!

HUGGINS.
Love goes with Peggy where she goes,—
Beneath her smile the garden grows;
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts,
'Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts!

DUGGINS.
Where Sally goes it's always Spring,
Her presence brightens every-thing;
The sun smiles bright, but where her grin is,
It makes brass farthings look like guineas.

HUGGINS.
For Peggy I can have no joy,
She's sometimes kind, and sometimes coy,
And keeps me, by her wayward tricks,
As comfortless as sheep with ticks.

DUGGINS.
Sally is ripe as June or May,
And yet as cold as Christmas day;
For when she's asked to change her lot,
Lamb's wool,—but Sally, she wool not.

HUGGINS.
Only with Peggy and with health,
I'd never wish for state or wealth;
Talking of having health and more pence,
I'd drink her health if I had fourpence.

DUGGINS.
Oh, how that day would seem to shine,
If Sally's banns were read with mine;
She cries, when such a wish I carry,
‘Marry come up!’ but will not marry.

DOMESTIC DIDACTICS BY AN OLD SERVANT THE BROKEN DISH

What's life but full of care and doubt,
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails and such vanities.

We plant pomegranate trees and things,
And go in gardens sporting,
With toys and fans of peacock's wings
To painted ladies courting.

We gather flowers of every hue,
And fish in boats for fishes,
Build summer-houses painted blue,—
But life's as frail as dishes.

Walking about their groves of trees,
Blue bridges and blue rivers,
How little thought them two Chinese,
They'd both be smash'd to shivers!

296

ODE TO PEACE WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS'S GRAND ROUT

Oh Peace! oh come with me and dwell—
But stop, for there's the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches,
On Wednesday, when there's very few
In loft or pew—
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage—
Hush! there's a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods—
The five Miss Woods.
Oh Peace! thou art the Goddess I adore—
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet—
That's Lord Drum's footman, for he loves a riot.

Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann'd—
That's Weippert's band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches—
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace!—another carriage stops—
It's early for the Blenkinsops.

Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have show'd up Lady Squander;
And now I've seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!—but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,—
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won't be far behind.
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,—
Make way there for his Serene Highness!

Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place, and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry—
Susan, what business have you in my pantry?

Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife—Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poet's quills—
They're just beginning their quadrilles—
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;—
I wonder where I put my waiter—
Oh Peace!—but here my Ode I'll cease;
I have no peace to write of Peace.

A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN

When I reflect, with serious sense,
While years and years run on,
How soon I may be summon'd hence—
There's cook a-calling John.

Our lives are built so frail and poor,
On sand and not on rocks,
We're hourly standing at Death's door—
There's some one double-knocks.

297

All human days have settled terms,
Our fates we cannot force;
This flesh of mine will feed the worms—
They're come to lunch of course.

And when my body's turn'd to clay,
And dear friends hear my knell,
Oh, let them give a sigh and say—
I hear the upstairs bell.

TO MARY HOUSEMAID ON VALENTINE'S DAY

Mary, you know I've no love-nonsense,
And, though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn't form'd your feature,
It saves you, p'rhaps, from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But, doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
And at your odd legs sneer and scoff;
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.

PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT A SEA ECLOGUE

‘I apprehend you!’
—School of Reform.

BOATMAN.
Shove off there!—ship the rudder, Bill—cast off! she's under way!

MRS. F.
She's under what?—I hope she's not! good gracious, what a spray!

BOATMAN.
Run out the jib, and rig the boom! keep clear of those two brigs!

MRS. F.
I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs!

BOATMAN.
Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft—she's rather out of trim!

298

MRS. F.
Great bags of stones! they're pretty things to help a boat to swim!

BOATMAN.
The wind is fresh—if she don't scud, it's not the breeze's fault!

MRS. F.
Wind fresh, indeed! I never felt the air so full of salt!

BOATMAN.
That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and nuts!

MRS. F.
If seas have roads, they're very rough—I never felt such ruts!

BOATMAN.
It's neap, ye see, she's heavy lade, and couldn't pass the bar.

MRS. F.
The bar! what, roads with turnpikes too? I wonder where they are!

BOATMAN.
Ho! brig ahoy! hard up! hard up! that lubber cannot steer!

MRS. F.
Yes, yes,—hard up upon a rock! I know some danger's near!
Lord, there's a wave! it's coming in! and roaring like a bull!

BOATMAN.
Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop! go large, Bill! keep her full!

MRS. F.
What, keep her full! what daring work! when full, she must go down!

BOATMAN.
Why, Bill, it lulls! ease off a bit—it's coming off the town!
Steady your helm! we'll clear the Pint! lay right for yonder pink!

MRS. F.
Be steady—well, I hope they can! but they've got a pint of drink!

BOATMAN.
Bill, give that sheet another haul—she'll fetch it up this reach.

MRS. F.
I'm getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech!
I wonder what it is, now, but—I never felt so queer!

299

BOATMAN.
Bill, mind your luff—why Bill, I say, she's yawing—keep her near!

MRS. F.
Keep near! we're going further off; the land's behind our backs.

BOATMAN.
Be easy, Ma'am, it's all correct, that's only 'cause we tacks:
We shall have to beat about a bit,—Bill, keep her out to sea.

MRS. F.
Beat who about? keep who at sea?—how black they look at me!

BOATMAN.
It's veering round—I knew it would! off with her head! stand by!

MRS. F.
Off with her head! whose? where? what with?—an axe I seem to spy!

BOATMAN.
She can't not keep her own, you see; we shall have to pull her in!

MRS. F.
They'll drown me, and take all I have! my life's not worth a pin!

BOATMAN.
Look out you know, be ready, Bill—just when she takes the sand!

MRS. F.
The sand—O Lord! to stop my mouth! how every thing is plann'd!

BOATMAN.
The handspike, Bill—quick, bear a hand! now Ma'am, just step ashore!

MRS. F.
What! ain't I going to be kill'd—and welter'd in my gore?
Well, Heaven be praised! but I'll not go a sailing any more!

LITERARY AND LITERAL

The March of Mind upon its mighty stilts,
(A spirit by no means to fasten mocks on,)
In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts,
Hants—Bucks, Herts, Oxon,
Got up a thing our ancestors ne'er thought on,
A thing that, only in our proper youth,
We should have chuckled at—in sober truth
A Conversazione at Hog's Norton!

300

A place whose native dialect, somehow,
Has always by an adage been affronted,
And that it is all gutturals, is now
Taken for grunted.

Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine,
The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth—
If you have ever heard such creature dine—
And—for Hog's Norton, make a mix of both!—

O shades of Shakspeare! Chaucer! Spenser!
Milton! Pope! Gray! Warton!
O Colman! Kenny! Planché! Poole! Peake!
Pocock! Reynolds! Morton!
O Grey! Peel! Sadler! Wilberforce! Burdett!
Hume! Wilmot Horton!
Think of your prose and verse, and worse—delivered in
Hog's Norton!—

The founder of Hog's Norton Athenæum
Framed her society
With some variety
From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum;
Not a mere pic-nic, for the mind's repast,
But tempting to the solid knife-and-forker,
It held its sessions in the house that last
Had killed a porker.

It chanced one Friday,
One Farmer Grayley stuck a very big hog,
A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog,
Which made of course a literary high day,—
Not that our Farmer was a man to go
With literary tastes—so far from suiting 'em,
When he heard mention of Professor Crowe,
Or Lalla-Rookh, he always was for shooting 'em!
In fact in letters he was quite a log,
With him great Bacon
Was literally taken,
And Hogg—the Poet—nothing but a Hog!
As to all others on the list of Fame,
Although they were discuss'd and mention'd daily,
He only recognised one classic name,
And thought that she had hung herself—Miss Baillie!

To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter
Had a great taste for the Castalian water—
A Wordsworth worshipper—a Southey wooer—
(Though men that deal in water-colour cakes
May disbelieve the fact—yet nothing's truer)
She got the bluer
The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes.

301

The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver,
At future Authorship was apt to hint,
Producing what some call the Type-us Fever,
Which means a burning to be seen in print.

Of learning's laurels—Miss Joanna Baillie—
Of Mrs. Hemans—Mrs. Wilson—daily
Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley;
And Fancy hinting that she had the better
Of L. E. L. by one initial letter,
She thought the world would quite enraptur'd see

‘Love Lays and Lyrics

BY A.P.I.G.’

Accordingly, with very great propriety,
She joined the H. N. B. and double S.,
That is,—Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society;
And saving when her Pa his pigs prohibited,
Contributed
Her pork and poetry towards the mess.

This feast, we said, one Friday was the case,
When farmer Grayley—from Macbeth to quote—
Screwing his courage to the ‘sticking place,’
Stuck a large knife into a grunter's throat:—
A kind of murder that the law's rebuke
Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke,
Showing the little sympathy of big-wigs
With pig-wigs!

The swine—poor wretch!—with nobody to speak for it,
And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it;
So—like the fabled swan—died singing out,
And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard
A note that notified without a card,
An invitation to the evening rout.

And when the time came duly,—‘At the close of
The day,’ as Beattie has it, ‘when the ham—’
Bacon, and pork were ready to dispose of,
And pettitoes and chit'lings too, to cram,—
Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s
All in appropriate and swinish dresses,
For lo! it is a fact, and not a joke,
Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it,
They came—each ‘Pig-faced Lady,’ in that bonnet
We call a poke.

302

The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman
At pork and poetry was chosen chairwoman;—
In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey,
Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy,
She always named the authoress of ‘Psyche’—
As Mrs. Tiggey!

And now arose a question of some moment,—
What author for a lecture was the richer,
Bacon or Hogg? there were no votes for Beaumont,
But some for Flitcher;
While others, with a more sagacious reasoning,
Proposed another work,
And thought their pork
Would prove more relishing from Thomson's Season-ing!

But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily,—
O! Miss Macaulay! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton!—
Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley
Selected him that evening to snort on.
In short, to make our story not a big tale,
Just fancy her exerting
Her talents, and converting
The Winter's Tale to something like a pig-tale!
Her sister auditory,
All sitting round, with grave and learned faces,
Were very plauditory,
Of course, and clapped her at the proper places;
Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse,
She thought herself the blessedest of Blues.
But Happiness, alas! has blights of ill,
And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode;—
There is no travelling through life but still
The heart will meet with breakers on the road!

With that peculiar voice
Heard only from Hog's Norton throats and noses,
Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice
Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies,
When coming to that line, where Proserpine
Lets fall her flowers from the wain of Dis;
Imagine this—
Uprose on his hind legs old Farmer Grayley,
Grunting this question for the club's digestion,
‘Do Dis's Waggon go from the Ould Bäaley?’

303

SONNET TO LORD WHARNCLIFFE, ON HIS GAME BILL

I'm fond of partridges, I'm fond of snipes,
I'm fond of black cocks, for they're very good cocks—
I'm fond of wild ducks, and I'm fond of woodcocks,
And grouse that set up such strange moorish pipes.
I'm fond of pheasants with their splendid stripes—
I'm fond of hares, whether from Whig or Tory—
I'm fond of capercailzies in their glory,—
Teal, widgeons, plovers, birds in all their types:
All these are in your care, Law-giving Peer,
And when you next address your Lordly Babel,
Some clause put in your Bill, precise and clear,
With due and fit provision to enable
A man that holds all kinds of game so dear
To keep, like Crockford, a good Gaming Table.

LITERARY REMINISCENCES

‘Dornton & Co. may challenge the world, the house of Hope perhaps excepted.’
—Road to Ruin.

Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool,
At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen
Began each morning, at the stroke of ten,
To write in Bell & Co.'s commercial school;
In Warnford Court, a shady nook and cool,
The favourite retreat of merchant men;
Yet would my quill turn vagrant even then,
And take stray dips in the Castalian pool.
Now double entry—now a flowery trope—
Mingling poetic honey with trade wax—
Blogg, Brothers—Milton—Grote and Prescott—Pope—
Bristles—and Hogg—Glyn Mills and Halifax—
Rogers—and Towgood—Hemp—the Bard of Hope—
Barilla—Byron—Tallow—Burns—and Flax!

304

ODE TO PERRY THE INVENTOR OF THE PATENT PERRYAN PEN

‘In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instruments. Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it—soft and yielding when rigid inflexibility is not a desideratum, —fluent and flowing at need, for eloquent rapidity—slow and retentive in cases of deliberation —never spluttering or by amplification going wide of the mark—never splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready to wear itself out rather in their service—all things as it were with all men.— ready to embrace the hand of Jew, Christian, or Mahometan,—heavy with the German, light with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, backward in coming forward with the Hebrew,—in short, for flexibility, amiability, constitutional durability, general ability, and universal utility, it would be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn.’

Perry's Characteristics of a Settler.

I

O! Patent, Pen-inventing Perrian Perry!
Friend of the Goose and Gander,
That now unplucked of their quill-feathers wander,
Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry,
About the happy Fen,
Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen,
For which they chant thy praise all Britain through,
From Goose-Green unto Gander-Cleugh!—

II

Friend to all Author-kind—
Whether of Poet or of Proser,—
Thou art composer unto the composer
Of pens,—yea patent vehicles for Mind
To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive
Perrygrinations through the realms of Thought;
Each plying from the Comic to the Pensive,
An Omnibus of intellectual sort!

III

Modern Improvements in their course we feel;
And while to iron-railroads heavy wares,
Dry goods, and human bodies, pay their fares,
Mind flies on steel,
To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Penzance.
Nay, penetrates, perchance,
To Pennsylvania, or, without rash vaunts,
To where the Penguin haunts!

IV

In times bygone, when each man cut his quill,
With little Perryan skill,
What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade
Appear'd the writing implements home-made!
What Pens were sliced, hew'd, hack'd, and haggled out,
Slit or unslit, with many a various snout,
Aquiline, Roman, crooked, square, and snubby,
Stumpy and stubby;
Some capable of ladye-billets neat,
Some only fit for Ledger-keeping Clerk,
And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark,
Or smudge through some illegible receipt;
Others in florid caligraphic plans,
Equal to Ships, and wiggy Heads, and Swans!

V

To try in any common inkstands, then,
With all their miscellaneous stocks,
To find a decent pen,
Was like a dip into a lucky box:

305

You drew,—and got one very curly,
And split like endive in some hurly-burly;
The next, unslit, and square at end, a spade;
The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made;
The fourth a broom; the fifth of no avail,
Turn'd upwards, like a rabbit's tail;
And last, not least, by way of a relief,
A stump that Master Richard, James, or John,
Had tried his candle-cookery upon,
Making ‘roast-beef!’

VI

Not so thy Perryan Pens!
True to their M's and N's,
They do not with a wizzing zig-zag split,
Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit,
Or drop large dots,
Huge fullstop blots,
Where even semicolons were unfit.
They will not frizzle up, or, broomlike, drudge
In sable sludge—
Nay, bought at proper ‘Patent Perryan’ shops,
They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops;
Compose both prose and verse, the sad or merry—
For when the Editor, whose pains compile
The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile,
Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's,
But lays ‘by the most celebrated Pens,’
What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry?

VII

Pleasant they are to feel!
So firm! so flexible! composed of steel
So finely temper'd—fit for tenderest Miss
To give her passion breath,
Or Kings to sign the warrant stern of death—
But their supremest merit still is this,
Write with them all your days,
Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays—
(No Dramatist should ever be without 'em)—
And, just conceive the bliss,—
There is so little of the goose about 'em,
One's safe from any hiss!

VIII

Ah! who can paint that first great awful night,
Big with a blessing or a blight,
When the poor Dramatist, all fume and fret,
Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright,
Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness—more f's yet:
Flush'd, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat,—
Add famish'd, fuddled, and fatigued, to that;
Funeral, fate-foreboding—sits in doubt,
Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage,
To see his Play upon the stage come out;
No stage to him! it is Thalia's carriage,
And he is sitting on the spikes behind it,
Striving to look as if he didn't mind it!

306

IX

Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat
His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt:
He kneads, moulds, pummels it, and sits it flat,
Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt
That went a Beaver in, comes out a Rat!
Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright,
Upon Rienzi's night,
Gnaw'd up one long kid glove, and all her bag,
Quite to a rag.
Knowles has confess'd he trembled as for life,
Afraid of his own ‘Wife;’
Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail
Of water backing him, all down his spine,—
‘The ice-brook's temper’—pleasant to the chine!—
For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail.
Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental pray'r,
Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows-where?
Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth,
While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck,
Squeeze out and suck
More oranges with his one fevered mouth,
Than Nelly had to hawk from North to South?
Yea, Buckstone, changing colour like a mullet,
Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice,
From his best friend, an ice,
Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet.

X

Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points
Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints,
During their trial?
'Tis past denial.
And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock,
All eyes upon him turn to very meacock?
And does not Planché, tremulous and blank,
Meanwhile his personages tread the boards,
Seem goaded by sharp swords,
And call'd upon himself to ‘walk the plank’?
As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot
What have they more
Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot,
Than bear that capers on a hotted floor?

XI

Thus pending—does not Mathews, at sad shift
For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny?—
Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift?
And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny?—
Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note
Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple
About his arms, and Adam's apple
Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat?
Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire
Or not to take a jump into the fire?
Did Wade feel as composed as music can?
And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man?

307

Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf,
Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater,
And ere its changes ring, transform himself?—
A frightful mug of human delf?
A spirit-bottle—empty of ‘the cratur’?
A leaden-platter ready for the shelf?
A thunderstruck dumb-waiter?

XII

To clench the fact,
Myself, once guilty, of one small rash act,
Committed at the Surrey
Quite in a hurry,
Felt all this flurry,
Corporal worry,
And spiritual scurry,
Dram-devil—attic curry!
All going well,
From prompter's bell,
Until befel
A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce—
There's no denying,
I felt in all four elements at once!
My head was swimming, while my arms were flying,
My legs for running—all the rest was frying!

XIII

Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use
Thy pens so innocent of goose!
For this shall Dramatists, when they make merry,
Discarding Port and Sherry,
Drink—‘Perry!’
Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose
To distant lands,
Perry, admitted on all hands,
Text, running, German, Roman,
For Patent Perryans approach'd by no man!
And when, ah me! far distant be the hour!
Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bow'r,
Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many!
And Penury itself shall club its penny,
To raise thy monument in lofty place;
Higher than York's, or any son of War;
Whilst Time all meaner effigies shall bury,
On due pentagonal base,
Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, perriwig'd Perry,
Perch'd on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr!

THE UNDYING ONE

‘He shall not die.’
—Uncle Toby.

I

Of all the verses, grave or gay,
That ever wiled an hour,
I never knew a mingled lay
At once so sweet and sour,
As that by Ladye Norton spun,
And christen'd ‘The Undying One.’

II

I'm very certain that she drew
A portrait, when she penn'd
That picture of a perfect Jew,
Whose days will never end:
I'm sure it means my Uncle Lunn,
For he is an Undying One.

308

III

These twenty years he's been the same
And may be twenty more;
But Memory's Pleasures only claim
His features for a score;
Yet in that time the change is none—
The image of th'Undying One!

IV

They say our climate's damp and cold,
And lungs are tender things;
My uncle's much abroad and old,
But when ‘King Cole’ he sings,
A Stentor's voice, enough to stun,
Declares him an Undying One.

V

Others have died from needle-pricks,
And very slender blows;
From accidental slips or kicks,
Or bleedings at the nose;
Or choked by grape-stone, or a bun—
But he is the Undying One!

VI

A soldier once, he once endur'd
A bullet in the breast—
It might have kill'd—but only cured
An asthma in the chest;
He was not to be slain with gun,
For he is the Undying One.

VII

In water once too long he dived,
And all supposed him beat,
He seem'd so cold—but he revived
To have another heat,
Just when we thought his race was run,
And came in fresh—th'Undying One!

VIII

To look at Meux's once he went,
And tumbled in the vat—
And greater Jobs their lives have spent
In lesser boils than that,—
He left the beer quite underdone,
No bier to the Undying One!

IX

He's been from strangulation black,
From bile, of yellow hue,
Scarlet from fever's hot attack,
From cholera morbus blue;
Yet with these dyes—to use a pun—
He still is the Undying One.

X

He rolls in wealth, yet has no wife
His Three per Cents. to share;
He never married in his life,
Or flirted with the fair;
The sex he made a point to shun,
For beauty an Undying One.

XI

To judge him by the present signs,
The future by the past,
So quick he lives, so slow declines,
The Last Man won't be last,
But buried underneath a ton
Of mould by the Undying One!

XII

Next Friday week, his birth-day boast,
His ninetieth year he spends,
And I shall have his health to toast
Amongst expectant friends,
And wish—it really sounds like fun—
Long life to the Undying One!

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COCKLE v. CACKLE

Those who much read advertisements and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills,
Call'd Anti-bilious—
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these—
Viz.—Quacks and Pills—save Ducks and Pease.
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,
And friends portended was preparing for
A human Pâté Périgord;
She was, indeed, so very far from well,
Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box
Of those said pellets to resist Bile's shocks—
And—tho' upon the ear it strangely knocks—
To save her by a Cockle from a shell!

But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,
Who very vehemently bids us ‘throw
Bark to the Bow-wows,’ hated physic so,
It seem'd to share ‘the bitterness of Death:’
Rhubarb—Magnesia—Jalap, and the kind—
Senna—Steel—Assa-fœtida, and Squills—
Powder or Draught—but least her throat inclined
To give a course to Boluses or Pills;
No—not to save her life, in lung or lobe,
For all her lights' or all her liver's sake,
Would her convulsive thorax undertake,
Only one little uncelestial globe!

'Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,
If she put by the pill-box in a place
For linen rather than for drugs intended—
Yet for the credit of the pills let's say
After they thus were stow'd away,
Some of the linen mended;
But Mrs. W., by disease's dint,
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-turmeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother—
Who took them—in her cupboard—like the other.

310

‘Deeper and deeper, still,’ of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W. newly come from Rome,
Acting the self-same filial, pillial, part,
To cure Mama, another dose brought home
Of Cockles;—not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store;
And then—some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The Medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, ‘night and morning.’
Till wanting room at last, for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch'd
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich'd
The feed of Mister Burrell's hens and cocks,—
A little Barber of a by-gone day,
Over the way,
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble,—that is, John,
Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls—with crops.

Little Dame W. thought when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck'd itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.
They might as well have addled been, or ratted,
For long before the night—ah! woe betide
The Pills each suicidal Bantam died
Unfatted!

Think of poor Burrell's shock,
Of Nature's debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam's small Ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle!
To see as stiff as stone his un'live stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash'd, with horror big,
Mr. Bell's third wife's mother's coachman's wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief make tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff—

311

‘What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!—
Just when I'd bought a coop
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!’

After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw—
‘Pison'd by goles!’

To Mrs. W.'s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fix'd the guilt upon his adverse neighbour;—
Lord! how he rail'd at her: declaring now,
He'd bring an action ere next Term of Hilary,
Then, in another moment, swore a vow,
He'd make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp'd in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream—
‘Here's Mr. Burrell, ma'am, with all his farmyard!’
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather,
Charging, of course, each Bantam as a Dorking;
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry ‘going down ten couple.’

Now birds by poison slain,
As venom'd dart from Indian's hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.'s thrift,—
She had a thrifty vein,—
Destined one pair for supper to make shift,—
Supper as usual at the hour of ten:
But ten o'clock arrived and quickly pass'd,
Eleven—twelve—and one o'clock at last,
Without a sign of supper even then!
At length, the speed of cookery to quicken,
Betty was called, and with reluctant feet,
Came up at a white heat—
‘Well, never I see chicken like them chicken!

312

My saucepans they have been a pretty while in 'em!
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that,
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat
Those Anti-biling Pills! there is no bile in 'em!’

THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT

‘I like to meet a sweep—such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes, sounding like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow.’

—Essays of Elia.

‘A voice cried Sweep no more!
Macbeth hath murdered sweep.’
—Shakspeare.

One morning ere my usual time
I rose, about the seventh chime,
When little stunted boys that climb
Still linger in the street;
And as I walked, I saw indeed
A sample of the sooty breed,
Though he was rather run to seed,
In height above five feet.
A mongrel tint he seem'd to take,
Poetic simile to make,
Day through his Martin 'gan to break,
White overcoming jet.
From side to side he cross'd oblique,
Like Frenchman who has friends to seek,
And yet no English word can speak,
He walk'd upon the fret:
And while he sought the dingy job
His lab'ring breast appear'd to throb,
And half a hiccup half a sob
Betray'd internal woe.
To cry the cry he had by rote
He yearn'd, but law forbade the note,
Like Chanticleer with roupy throat,
He gaped—but not a crow!
I watch'd him, and the glimpse I snatch'd
Disclosed his sorry eyelids patch'd
With red, as if the soot had catch'd
That hung about the lid;
And soon I saw the tear-drop stray,
He did not care to brush away;
Thought I, the cause he will betray—
And thus at last he did.

Well, here's a pretty go! here's a Gagging Act, if ever there was a gagging!
But I'm bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had plenty of magging.
They had better send us all off, they had, to the School for the Deaf and Dumb,
To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be regularly mum.
But they can't undo natur—as sure as ever the morning begins to peep,
Directly I open my eyes, I can't help calling out Sweep
As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that say Cheep!
For my own part I find my suppress'd voice very uneasy,
And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt when you are sneezy.
Well, it's all up with us! tho' I suppose we mustn't cry all up.
Here's a precious merry Christmas, I'm blest if I can earn either bit or sup!
If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness's border,
Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn't to cry hear, hear, and order, order,
I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we've sut-on too, don't sympathise with us
As a Speaker what don't speak, and that's exactly our own cus.
God help us if we don't not cry, how are we to pursue our callings?
I'm sure we're not half so bad as other businesses with their bawlings.

313

For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go about ringing,
And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just got to sleep with singing.
Greens oughtn't to be cried no more than blacks—to do the unpartial job,
If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought in a Dusty Bob.
Is a dustman's voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes a seeking arter the cinders,
Instead of a little boy, like a blackbird in spring, singing merrily under your windows?
There's the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps calling out Bank and City;
Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is not just as pretty.
I can't see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old Close thro' their hooky noses,
And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the old stone laws of Moses.
Why isn't the mouths of the muffin-men compell'd to be equally shut?
Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never eat no sut.
Next year there won't be any May-day at all, we shan't have no heart to dance,
And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning for our mischance,
If we live as long as May, that's to say, through the hard winter and pinching weather,
For I don't see how we're to earn enough to keep body and soul together.
I only wish Mr. Wilberforce, or some of them that pities the niggers,
Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our miserable starving figures,
A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each other,
And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-breaking Father and Mother.
They haven't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had thread and needles,
But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of common black beadles.
If they'd only inquired before passing the Act, and taken a few such peeps,
I don't think that any real gentleman would have set his face against sweeps.
Climbing's an ancient respectable art, and if History's of any vally,
Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir Walter Raleigh,
When he wrote on a pane of glass how I'd climb, if the way I only knew,
And she writ beneath, if your heart's afeard, don't venture up the flue.
As for me, I was always loyal and respected all powers that are higher,
But how can I now say God save the King, if I an't to be a Cryer?
There's London milk, that's one of the cries, even on Sunday the law allows,
But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser off than black cows?
Do we go calling about, when it's church time, like the noisy Billingsgate vermin,
And disturb the parson with ‘All alive O!’ in the middle of a funeral sermon?
But the fish won't keep, not the mackerel won't, is the cry of the Parliament elves,
Every thing, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to keep themselves!

314

Lord help us! what's to become of us if we mustn't cry no more?
We shan't do for black mutes to go a standing at a death's door.
And we shan't do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot nations,
For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think of our situations!
And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to serve ladies of quality nimbly,
For when we were drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large frills, all clean and neat, and white silk stockings, if they pleased to desire us to sweep the hearth, we couldn't resist the chimbley.

THE SUB-MARINE

It was a brave and jolly wight,
His cheek was baked and brown,
For he had been in many climes
With captains of renown,
And fought with those who fought so well
At Nile and Camperdown.

His coat it was a soldier coat,
Of red with yellow faced,
But (merman-like) he look'd marine
All downward from the waist;
His trowsers were so wide and blue,
And quite in sailor taste!

He put the rummer to his lips,
And drank a jolly draught;
He raised the rummer many times—
And ever as he quaff'd,
The more he drank, the more the ship
Seem'd pitching fore and aft!

The ship seem'd pitching fore and aft,
As in a heavy squall;
It gave a lurch and down he went,
Head-foremost in his fall!
Three times he did not rise, alas!
He never rose at all!

But down he went, right down at once,
Like any stone he dived,
He could not see, or hear, or feel—
Of senses all deprived!
At last he gave a look around
To see where he arrived!

And all that he could see was green,
Sea-green on every hand!
And then he tried to sound beneath,
And all he felt was sand!
There he was fain to lie, for he
Could neither sit nor stand!

And lo! above his head there bent
A strange and staring lass!
One hand was in her yellow hair,
The other held a glass;
A mermaid she must surely be
If ever mermaid was!

Her fish-like mouth was open'd wide,
Her eyes were blue and pale,
Her dress was of the ocean green,
When ruffled by a gale;
Thought he ‘beneath that petticoat
She hides a salmon-tail!’

She look'd as siren ought to look,
A sharp and bitter shrew,
To sing deceiving lullabies
For mariners to rue,—
But when he saw her lips apart,
It chill'd him through and through!

With either hand he stopp'd his ears
Against her evil cry;
Alas, alas, for all his care,
His doom it seem'd to die,
Her voice went ringing through his head,
It was so sharp and high!

315

He thrust his fingers farther in
At each unwilling ear,
But still, in very spite of all,
The words were plain and clear;
‘I can't stand here the whole day long
To hold your glass of beer!’

With open'd mouth and open'd eyes,
Up rose the Sub-marine,
And gave a stare to find the sands
And deeps where he had been:
There was no siren with her glass!
No waters ocean-green!

The wet deception from his eyes
Kept fading more and more,
He only saw the bar-maid stand
With pouting lip before—
The small green parlour of The Ship,
And little sanded floor!

DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND

‘Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming ...’
—Old Ballad.

Oh what shall I do for a dog?
Of sight I have not got a particle,
Globe, Standard, or Sun,
Times, Chronicle—none
Can give me a good leading article.

A Mastiff once led me about,
But people appear'd so to fear him—
I might have got pence
Without his defence,
But Charity would not come near him.

A Blood-hound was not much amiss,
But instinct at last got the upper;
And tracking Bill Soames,
And thieves to their homes,
I never could get home to supper.

A Fox-hound once served me as guide,
A good one at hill and at valley;
But day after day
He led me astray,
To follow a milk-woman's tally.

A Turnspit once did me good turns
At going, and crossing, and stopping;
Till one day his breed
Went off at full speed,
To spit at a great fire in Wapping.

A Pointer once pointed my way,
But did not turn out quite so pleasant;
Each hour I'd a stop
At a Poulterer's shop
To point at a very high pheasant.

A Pug did not suit me at all,
The feature unluckily rose up;
And folks took offence
When offering pence,
Because of his turning his nose up.

A Butcher once gave me a dog,
That turn'd out the worst one of any;
A Bull dog's own pup,
I got a toss up,
Before he had brought me a penny.

My next was a Westminster Dog,
From Aistrop the regular cadger;
But, sightless, I saw
He never would draw
A blind man so well as a badger.

A greyhound I got by a swop,
But, Lord! we soon came to divorces;
He treated my strip
Of cord like a slip,
And left me to go my own courses.

A poodle once tow'd me along,
But always we came to one harbour;
To keep his curls smart,
And shave his hind part,
He constantly call'd on a barber.

My next was a Newfoundland brute,
As big as a calf fit for slaughter;
But my old cataract
So truly he back'd
I always fell into the water.

316

I once had a sheep-dog for guide,
His worth did not value a button;
I found it no go,
A Smithfield Ducrow,
To stand on four saddles of mutton.

My next was an Esquimaux dog,
A dog that my bones ache to talk on,
For picking his ways
On cold frosty days
He pick'd out the slides for a walk on.

Bijou was a lady-like dog,
But vex'd me at night not a little,
When tea-time was come
She would not go home,
Her tail had once trail'd a tin kettle.

I once had a sort of a Shock,
And kiss'd a street post like a brother,
And lost every tooth
In learning this truth—
One blind cannot well lead another.

A terrier was far from a trump,
He had one defect, and a thorough,
I never could stir,
'Od rabbit the cur!
Without going into the Borough.

My next was Dalmatian, the dog!
And led me in danger, oh crikey!
By chasing horse heels,
Between carriage wheels,
Till I come upon boards that were spiky.

The next that I had was from Cross,
And once was a favourite spaniel
With Nero, now dead,
And so I was led
Right up to his den, like a Daniel.

A mongrel I tried, and he did,
As far as the profit and lossing,
Except that the kind
Endangers the blind,
The breed is so fond of a crossing.

A setter was quite to my taste,
In alleys or streets broad or narrow,
Till one day I met
A very dead set,
At a very dead horse in a barrow.

I once had a dog that went mad,
And sorry I was that I got him;
It came to a run,
And a man with a gun
Pepper'd me when he ought to have shot him.

My profits have gone to the dogs,
My trade has been such a deceiver,
I fear that my aim
Is a mere losing game,
Unless I can find a Retriever.

THE KANGAROOS A FABLE

A pair of married kangaroos
(The case is oft a human one too)
Were greatly puzzled once to choose
A trade to put their eldest son to:
A little brisk and busy chap,
As all the little K.'s just then are—
About some two months off the lap,—
They're not so long in arms as men are.
A twist in each parental muzzle
Betray'd the hardship of the puzzle—
So much the flavour of life's cup
Is framed by early wrong or right,
And Kangaroos we know are quite
Dependent on their ‘rearing up.’
The question, with its ins and outs,
Was intricate and full of doubts;

317

And yet they had no squeamish carings
For trades unfit or fit for gentry,
Such notion never had an entry,
For they had no armorial bearings.
Howbeit they're not the last on earth
That might indulge in pride of birth;
Who'er has seen their infant young
Bob in and out their mother's pokes,
Would own, with very ready tongue,
They are not born like common folks.
Well, thus the serious subject stood,
It kept the old pair watchful nightly,
Debating for young hopeful's good,
That he might earn his livelihood,
And go through life (like them) uprightly.
Arms would not do at all; no, marry,
In that line all his race miscarry;
And agriculture was not proper,
Unless they meant the lad to tarry
For ever as a mere clod-hopper.
He was not well cut out for preaching,
At least in any striking style:
And as for being mercantile—
He was not form'd for over-reaching.

The law—while there still fate ill-starr'd him:
And plainly from the bar debarr'd him:
A doctor—who would ever see him?
In music he could scarce engage,
And as for going on the stage,
In tragic socks I think I see him!

He would not make a rigging-mounter;
A haberdasher had some merit,
But there the counter still ran counter,
For just suppose
A lady chose
To ask him for a yard of ferret!

A gardener digging up his beds,
The puzzled parents shook their heads.

‘A tailor would not do because—’
They paused and glanced upon his paws.

Some parish post,—though fate should place it
Before him, how could he embrace it?

In short, each anxious Kangaroo
Discuss'd the matter through and through;
By day they seem'd to get no nearer,
'Twas posing quite—
And in the night
Of course they saw their way no clearer!
At last thus musing on their knees—
Or hinder elbows if you please—
It came—no thought was ever brighter!
In weighing every why and whether,
They jump'd upon it both together—
‘Let's make the imp a short-hand writer!’

MORAL.

I wish all human parents so
Would argue what their sons are fit for;
Some would-be critics that I know
Would be in trades they have more wit for.

ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER

O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!
I mean of course that venerable town,
Mention'd in stories of renown,
Built formerly of mud;—
O Lud, I say, why didst thou e'er
Invent the office of a Mayor,
An office that no useful purpose crowns,
But to set Aldermen against each other,
That should be Brother unto Brother,
Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns?

318

But still if one must have a Mayor
To fill the Civic Chair,
O Lud, I say,
Was there no better day
To fix on, than November, Ninth so shivery
And dull for showing off the Livery's livery?
Dimming, alas!
The Brazier's brass,
Soiling th'Embroiderers and all the Saddlers,
Sopping the Furriers,
Draggling the Curriers,
And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers;
Drenching the Skinners' Company to the skin,
Making the crusty Vintner chiller,
And turning the Distiller
To cold without instead of warm within;—
Spoiling the bran-new beavers
Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers,
Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers,
Hearty November-cursers—
And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers
Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers;
Making the Grocers' Company not fit
For company a bit;
Dyeing the Dyers with a dingy flood,
Daubing incorporated Bakers,
And leading the Patten-makers
Over their very pattens in the mud,—
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!

‘This is a sorry sight,’
To quote Macbeth—but oh, it grieves me quite,
To see your wives and Daughters in their plumes—
White plumes not white—
Sitting at open windows catching rheums,
Not ‘Angels ever bright and fair,’
But angels ever brown and sallow,
With eyes—you cannot see above one pair,
For city clouds of black and yellow—
And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud,
Such sable lilies
And grim daffodillies,
Drooping, but not for drought, O Lud! O Lud!

I may as well, while I'm inclined,
Just go through all the faults I find:
O Lud! then, with a better air, say June,
Could'st thou not find a better tune
To sound with trumpets, and with drums,
Than ‘See the Conquering Hero comes,’
When he who comes ne'er dealt in blood?
Thy May'r is not a War Horse, Lud,
That ever charged on Turk or Tartar,
And yet upon a march you strike
That treats him like—
A little French if I may martyr—
Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter!

O Lud! I say
Do change your day
To some time when your Show can really show;
When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow.
Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May!
Have it when there's a sun to gild the coach,
And sparkle in tiara—bracelet—brooch—

319

Diamond—or paste—of sister, mother, daughter;
When grandeur really may be grand—
But if thy pageant's thus obscured by land—
O Lud! it's ten times worse upon the water!
Suppose, O Lud, to show its plan,
I call, like Blue Beard's wife, to sister Anne,
Who's gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt,
To see what she can see—and what she can't;
Chewing a saffron bun by way of cud,
To keep the fog out of a tender lung,
While perch'd in a verandah nicely hung
Over a margin of thy own black mud,
O Lud!

Now Sister Anne, I call to thee,
Look out and see:
Of course about the bridge you view them rally
And sally,
With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter;
The Fishmongers' grand boat, but not for butter,
The Goldsmith's glorious galley;
Of course you see the Lord Mayor's coach aquatic,
With silken banners that the breezes fan,
In gold all glowing,
And men in scarlet rowing,
Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic;
Of course you see all this, O Sister Anne?

‘No, I see no such thing!
I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf,
With two coal lighters fasten'd to a ring;
And, dim as ghosts,
Two little boys are jumping over posts;
And something, farther off,
That's rather like the shadow of a dog,
And all beyond is fog.
If there be anything so fine and bright,
To see it I must see by second sight.
Call this a Show? It is not worth a pin!
I see no barges row,
No banners blow;
The Show is merely a gallanty-show,
Without a lamp or any candle in.’

But sister Anne, my dear,
Although you cannot see, you still may hear?
Of course you hear, I'm very sure of that,
The ‘Water Parted from the Sea,’ in C,
Or ‘Where the Bee sucks,’ set in B;
Or Huntsman's chorus from the Freyschutz frightful,
Or Handel's Water Music in A flat.
Oh music from the water comes delightful!
It sounds as nowhere else it can:
You hear it first
In some rich burst,
Then faintly sighing,
Tenderly dying,
Away upon the breezes, Sister Anne.

‘There is no breeze to die on;
And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps,
Could never cut their way with ev'n three sharps
Through such a fog as this, you may rely on.
I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum,
Like a very muffled double drum,
And then a something faintly shrill,
Like Bartlemy Fair's old buz at Pentonville.

320

And now and then I hear a pop,
As if from Pedley's Soda Water shop.
I'm almost ill with the strong scent of mud,
And, not to mention sneezing,
My cough is, more than usual, teasing;
I really fear that I have chill'd my blood,
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!’

SONNET

The sky is glowing in one ruddy sheet;—
A cry of fire! resounds from door to door;
And westward still the thronging people pour;—
The turncock hastens to F. P. 6 feet,
And quick unlocks the fountains of the street;
While rumbling engines, with increasing roar,
Thunder along to luckless Number Four,
Where Mr. Dough makes bread for folks to eat.
And now through blazing frames, and fiery beams,
The Globe, the Sun, the Phœnix, and what not,
With gushing pipes throw up abundant streams,
On burning bricks, and twists, on rolls—too hot—
And scorching loaves,—as if there were no shorter
And cheaper way of making toast and-water!

RONDEAU (EXTRACTED FROM A WELL-KNOWN ANNUAL)

O curious reader, didst thou ne'er
Behold a worshipful Lord May'r
Seated in his great civic chair
So dear?

Then cast thy longing eyes this way,
It is the ninth November day,
And in his new-born state survey
One here!

To rise from little into great
Is pleasant; but to sink in state
From high to lowly is a fate
Severe.

Too soon his shine is overcast,
Chill'd by the next November blast;
His blushing honours only last
One year!

He casts his fur and sheds his chains,
And moults till not a plume remains—
The next impending May'r distrains
His gear.

He slips like water through a sieve—
Ah, could his little splendour live
Another twelvemonth—he would give
One ear!

321

SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION

‘An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to a Boneyparte.’

—Life of Napoleon.

Time was, I always had a drop
For any tale or sigh of sorrow;
My handkerchief I used to sop
Till often I was forced to borrow;
I don't know how it is, but now
My eyelids seldom want a drying;
The doctors, p'rhaps, could tell me how—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

O'er Goethe how I used to weep,
With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet,
When Werter put himself to sleep
With pistols kiss'd and clean'd by Charlotte;
Self-murder is an awful sin,
No joke there is in bullets flying,
But now at such a tale I grin—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

The Drama once could shake and thrill
My nerves, and set my tears a stealing,
The Siddons then could turn at will
Each plug upon the main of feeling;
At Belvidera now I smile,
And laugh while Mrs. Haller's crying;
'Tis odd, so great a change of style—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

That heart was such—some years ago,
To see a beggar quite would shock it,
And in his hat I used to throw
The quarter's savings of my pocket:
I never wish—as I did then!—
The means from my own purse supplying,
To turn them all to gentlemen—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

We've had some serious things of late,
Our sympathies to beg or borrow,
New melo-drames, of tragic fate,
And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow;
Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt,
And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing,
But Lord!—so little have I felt,
I'm sure my heart is ossifying!

THE POACHER A SERIOUS BALLAD

‘But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.’
—Goldsmith.

Bill Blossom was a nice young man,
And drove the Bury coach;
But bad companions were his bane,
And egg'd him on to poach.

They taught him how to net the birds,
And how to noose the hare;
And with a wiry terrier,
He often set a snare.

Each ‘shiny night’ the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.

Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit—
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.

322

At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall's powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leaden-Hall.

He did not fear to take a deer
From forest, park, or lawn;
And without courting lord or duke,
Used frequently to fawn.

Folks who had hares discovered snares—
His course they could not stop:
No barber he, and yet he made
Their hares a perfect crop.

To pheasant he was such a foe,
He tried the keepers' nerves;
They swore he never seem'd to have
Jam satis of preserves.

The Shooter went to beat, and found
No sporting worth a pin,
Unless he tried the covers made
Of silver, plate, or tin.

In Kent the game was little worth,
In Surrey not a button;
The Speaker said he often tried
The Manors about Sutton.

No county from his tricks was safe;
In each he tried his lucks,
And when the keepers were in Beds,
He often was at Bucks.

And when he went to Bucks, alas!
They always came to Herts;
And even Oxon used to wish
That he had his deserts.

But going to his usual Hants,
Old Cheshire laid his plots:
He got entrapp'd by legal Berks,
And lost his life in Notts.

I CANNOT BEAR A GUN

‘Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts, than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui peut at sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small-arms.’

—Hints by a Corporal.

It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine and feminine
Are nothing else but sham.
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I'll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

There's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell
Of powder—horrid stuff!
A single pop will make her drop,
She shudders at a puff.
My Manton near, with aspen fear
Will make her scream and run:
‘It's always so, you brute, you know
I cannot bear a gun!’

About my flask I must not ask,
I must not wear a belt,
I must not take a punch to make
My pellets, card or felt;
And if I just allude to dust,
Or speak of number one,
‘I beg you'll not—don't talk of shot,
I cannot bear a gun!’

323

Percussion cap I dare not snap,
I may not mention Hall,
Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce,
His wadding to recall;
At Hawker's book I must not look,
All shooting I must shun,
Or else—‘It's hard, you've no regard,
I cannot bear a gun!’

The very dress I wear no less
Must suit her timid mind,
A blue or black must clothe my back,
With swallow-tails behind;
By fustian, jean, or velveteen
Her nerves are overdone:
‘Oh do not, John, put gaiters on,
I cannot bear a gun!’

Ev'n little James she snubs, and blames
His Lilliputian train,
Two inches each from mouth to breech,
And charged with half a grain—
His crackers stopp'd, his squibbing dropp'd,
He has no fiery fun,
And all thro' her, ‘How dare you, Sir?
I cannot bear a gun!’

Yet Major Flint,—the Devil's in't!
May talk from morn to night,
Of springing mines, and twelves and nines
And volleys left and right,
Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs,
And bullets by the ton:
She never dies of fright, and cries
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

It stirs my bile to see her smile
At all his bang and whiz,
But if I talk of morning walk,
And shots as good as his,
I must not name the fallen game:
As soon as I've begun,
She's in her pout, and crying out,
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth
Are false, to match her tongue:
Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares,
Or pheasants, old or young—
On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal,
And yet objects to none:
‘What have I got, it's full of shot!
I cannot bear a gun!’

At pigeon-pie she is not shy,
Her taste it never shocks,
Though they should be from Battersea,
So famous for blue rocks;
Yet when I bring the very thing
My marksmanship has won,
She cries, ‘Lock up that horrid cup,
I cannot bear a gun!’

Like fool and dunce I got her once
A box at Drury Lane,
And by her side I felt a pride
I ne'er shall feel again:
To read the bill it made her ill,
And this excuse she spun,
‘Der Freyschütz, oh, seven shots! you know,
I cannot bear a gun!’

Yet at a hint from Major Flint,
Her very hands she rubs,
And quickly drest in all her best,
Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs.
The whole review she sits it through,
With noise enough to stun,
And never winks, or even thinks,
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

She thus may blind the Major's mind
In mock-heroic strife,
But let a bout at war break out,
And where's the soldier's wife,
To take his kit and march a bit
Beneath a broiling sun?
Or will she cry, ‘My dear, good-bye,
I cannot bear a gun!’

If thus she doats on army coats,
And regimental cuffs,
The yeomanry might surely be
Secure from her rebuffs;
But when I don my trappings on,
To follow Captain Dunn,
My carbine's gleam provokes a scream,
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

324

It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced,
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine, and feminine,
Are nothing else but sham;
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I'll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
‘I cannot bear a gun!’

TRIMMER'S EXERCISE FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN

Here, come, Master Timothy Todd,
Before we have done you'll look grimmer,
You've been spelling some time for the rod,
And your jacket shall know I'm a Trimmer.

You don't know your A from your B,
So backward you are in your Primer:
Don't kneel—you shall go on my knee,
For I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

This morning you hinder'd the cook,
By melting your dumps in the skimmer;
Instead of attending your book,—
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

To-day, too, you went to the pond,
And bathed, though you are not a swimmer;
And with parents so doting and fond—
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

After dinner you went to the wine,
And help'd yourself—yes, to a brimmer;
You couldn't walk straight in a line,
But I'll make you to know I'm a Trimmer.

You kick little Tomkins about,
Because he is slighter and slimmer;
Are the weak to be thump'd by the stout?
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Then you have a sly pilfering trick,
Your school-fellows call you the nimmer,—
I will cut to the bone if you kick!
For I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

To-day you made game at my back,
You think that my eyes are grown dimmer,
But I've watch'd you, I've got a sly knack!
And I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Don't think that my temper is hot,
It's never beyond a slow simmer;
I'll teach you to call me Dame Trot,
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone,
Might melt to behold your tears glimmer;
Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone,
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

325

THE FOX AND THE HEN A FABLE

‘Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to Northcote.’
—Pigrogromitus.

One day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,
Determined upon taking all she had;
And like a very bibber at his bottle,
Began to draw the claret from her throttle;
Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,
And with a scream as high
As she could cry,
She call'd for help—she had enough of sucker.

Dame Partlet's scream
Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream,
And, with a savage growl
In answer to the fowl,
He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.

Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
Thought, self-deceived,
He should not be perceived,
Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom;
But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare,
And caught in copper noose,
And looking like a goose,
Found that his fate had ‘hung upon a hare;’
His tricks and turns were render'd of no use to him,
And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray
Coming to play
Tray-Deuce with him.
Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;
But Juries—Æsop was a sheriff then—
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.

But first the Elephant sat on the body—
I mean the Hen—and proved that she was dead,
To the veriest fool's head
Of the Booby and the Noddy.
And then the Owl was call'd—for, mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark.
To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain.
In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat could nibble;
The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds,
As if the Jury had been packed—of hounds.
Reynard, however, at the utmost nick,
Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick;
Accordingly our cunning Fox,
Through certain influence, obscurely channel'd,
A friendly Camel got into the box,
When 'gainst his life the Jury was impanel'd.

Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,
If Jurors should withdraw,
They are to have no eating and no drinking,
Till all are starved into one way of thinking.

326

Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree,
Were lock'd up strictly, without bit or mummock,
Till every Beast that only had one stomach,
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.
To do them justice, they debated
From four till ten, while dinner waited,
When thirst and hunger got the upper,
And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper:
‘Not guilty’ was the word, and Master Fox
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.

MORAL.

What moral greets us by this tale's assistance
But that the Solon is a merry Solon.
Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence
Depend upon a Colon?

THE COMET AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE

‘I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this selfsame Starling.’
—Sterne's Sentimental Journey.

Amongst professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,
The name of H******l's very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev'ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got beknighted.

In his observatory thus coquetting
With Venus—or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy—it might be upon Mars—
A new André;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping;
Or ogling through his glass
Some heavenly lass
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's:—
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,
When lo! a something with a tail of flame
Made him exclaim,
‘My stars!’—he always puts that stress on my—
‘My stars and garters!’

‘A comet, sure as I'm alive!
A noble one as I should wish to view;
It can't be Halley's though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent!—how fine his fiery trail!
Zounds! 'tis a pity, though, he comes unsought—
Unask'd—unreckon'd,—in no human thought—
He ought—he ought—he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail!’

‘I look'd no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really enter'd in my head,

327

No more than Berenice's Hair!
Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with ‘Please your Honour, come to supper.’

‘Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon—look up!’
‘Not sup!’ cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a star must be starvation,
Or ev'n to batten
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten,
His visage seem'd to say,—that very odd is,—
But still his master the same tune ran on,
‘I can't come down,—go to the parlour, John,
And say I'm supping with the heavenly bodies.’

‘The heavenly bodies!’ echoed John, ‘Ahem!’
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
‘'Zooks, if your Honour sups with them,
In helping, somebody must make long arms!’
He thought his master's stomach was in danger,
But still in the same tone replied the Knight,
‘Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,
Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger.’—
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,
‘Wouldn't the stranger take a bit downstairs?’

‘No,’ said the master, smiling, and no wonder,
At such a blunder,
‘The stranger is not quite the thing you think,
He wants no meat or drink,
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are join'd together,
Behold him,—there he is, John, in the South.’

John look'd up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket,
At last the fiery tad-pole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries,
‘A rare good rocket!’

‘A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet;
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frighten'd kings;
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range’—
‘Do he?’ cried John,
‘Well, let him flare on,
I haven't got no sovereigns to change!’

328

LOVE AND LUNACY

The Moon—who does not love the silver moon,
In all her fantasies and all her phases?
Whether full-orb'd in the nocturnal noon,
Shining in all the dewdrops on the daisies,
To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes,
Whilst stars are winking at the pranks of Puck;
Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves she gazes;
Or new and thin, when coin is turn'd for luck;—
Who will not say that Dian is a Duck?

But, oh! how tender, beautiful, and sweet,
When in her silent round, serene, and clear,
By assignation loving fancies meet,
To recompense the pangs of absence drear!
So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear,
But distant from the city mapp'd by Mogg,
Still saw his image in that silver sphere,
Plain as the Man with lantern, bush, and dog,
That used to set our ancestors a-gog.

And so she told him in a pretty letter,
That came to hand exactly as Saint Meg's
Was striking ten—eleven had been better;
For then he might have eaten six more eggs,
And both of the bedevill'd turkey-legs,
With relishes from East, West, North, and South,
Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs;
Whereas a man, whose heart is in his mouth,
Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth.

And so the kidneys, broiling hot, were wasted;
The brawn—it never enter'd in his thought;
The grated Parmesan remain'd untasted;
The potted shrimps were left as they were bought,
The capelings stood as merely good for nought,
The German sausage did not tempt him better,
Whilst Juno, licking her poor lips, was taught
There's neither bone nor skin about a letter,
Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter.

Heav'n bless the man who first devised a mail!
Heav'n bless that public pile which stands concealing
The Goldsmith's front with such a solid veil!
Heav'n bless the Master, and Sir Francis Freeling,

329

The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeling,
The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet,
The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing!
Heav'n bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet,
That helps a Werter to a sigh from Charlotte.

So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet,
Where, first, the darling signature he kiss'd,
And then, recurring to its contents sweet
With thirsty eyes, a phrase I must enlist,
He gulp'd the words to hasten to their gist;
In mortal ecstacy his soul was bound—
When, lo! with features all at once a-twist,
He gave a whistle, wild enough in sound
To summon Faustus's Infernal Hound!

Alas! what little miffs and tiffs in love,
A snubbish word, or pouting look mistaken,
Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove,
Oh! love, rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken,
A pettish breath will into huffs awaken,
To spit like hump-back'd cats, and snarling Towzers!
Till hearts are wreck'd and founder'd, and forsaken,
As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how, sirs,
While heav'n is blue enough for Dutchmen's trowsers!

‘The moon's at full, love, and I think of you’—
Who would have thought that such a kind P.S.
Could make a man turn white, then red, then blue,
Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress
His teeth, as if about to effervesce
Like certain people when they lose at whist!
So look'd the chafed Lorenzo, ne'ertheless,
And, in a trice, the paper he had kiss'd
Was crumpled like a snowball in his fist!

Ah! had he been less versed in scientifics,
More ignorant, in short, of what is what;
He ne'er had flared up in such calorifics;
But he would seek societies, and trot
To Clubs—Mechanics' Institutes—and got
With Birkbeck—Bartley—Combe—George Robins—Rennie,
And other lecturing men. And had he not
That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many,
The Copper-bottomed Magazine—or ‘Penny’?

But, of all learned pools whereon, or in,
Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim,
Some hardly damp'd, some wetted to the skin,
Some drown'd like pigs when they attempt to swim,

330

Astronomy was most Lorenzo's whim,
('Tis studied by a Prince amongst the Burmans);
He loved those heavenly bodies which, the Hymn
Of Addison declares, preach solemn sermons,
While waltzing on their pivots like young Germans.

Night after night, with telescope in hand,
Supposing that the night was fair and clear,
Aloft, on the house-top, he took his stand,
Till he obtained to know each twinkling sphere
Better, I doubt, than Milton's ‘Starry Vere;’
Thus, reading thro' poor Ellen's fond epistle,
He soon espied the flaw—the lapse so sheer
That made him raise his hair in such a bristle,
And like the Boatswain of the Storm-Ship whistle.

‘The moon's at full, love, and I think of thee,’—
‘Indeed! I'm very much her humble debtor,
But not the moon-calf she would have me be,
Zounds! does she fancy that I know no better?’
Herewith, at either corner of the letter
He gave a most ferocious, rending, pull;—
‘O woman! woman! that no vows can fetter,
A moon to stay for three weeks at the full!
By Jove; a very pretty cock-and-bull!

‘The moon at full! 'twas very finely reckon'd!
Why so she wrote me word upon the first—
The twelfth, and now upon the twenty-second—
Full!—yes—it must be full enough to burst!
But let her go—of all vile jilts the worst’—
Here with his thumbs he gave contemptuous snaps,
Anon he blubber'd like the child that's nurs'd,
And then he hit the table frightful raps,
And stamp'd till he had broken both his straps.

‘The moon's at full—and I am in her thought—
No doubt: I do believe it in my soul!’
Here he threw up his head, and gave a snort
Like a young horse first harness'd to a pole:
The moon is full—aye, so is this d---d bowl!’
And, grinning like the sourest of curmudgeons,
Globe—water—fishes—he dash'd down the whole,
Strewing the carpet with the gasping gudgeons;
Men do the strangest things in such love-dudgeons.

‘I fill her thoughts—her memory's vice-gerent?
No, no,—some paltry puppy—three weeks old—
And round as Norval's shield’—thus incoherent
His fancies grew as he went on to scold;

331

So stormy waves are into breakers roll'd,
Work'd up at last to mere chaotic wroth—
This—that—heads—tails—thoughts jumbled uncontroll'd
As onions, turnips, meat, in boiling broth,
By turns bob up, and splutter in the froth.

‘Fool that I was to let a baby face—
A full one—like a hunter's—round and red—
Ass that I am, to give her more a place
Within this heart’—and here he struck his head.
‘'Sdeath are the Almanack-compilers dead?
But no—'tis all an artifice—a trick,
Some newer face—some dandy under-bred—
Well—be it so—of all the sex I'm sick!’
Here Juno wonder'd why she got a kick.

‘“The moon is full”—where's her infernal scrawl?
“And you are in my thought: that silver ray
Will ever your dear image thus recall”—
My image? Mine! She'd barter it away
For Pretty Poll's on an Italian's tray!
Three weeks, full weeks,—it is too plain—too bad—
Too gross and palpable! Oh cursed day!
My senses have not crazed—but if they had—
Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad!

‘Oh Nature! wherefore did you frame a lip
So fair for falsehood? Wherefore have you drest
Deceit so angel-like?’ With sudden rip
He tore six new buff buttons from his vest,
And groped with hand impetuous at his breast,
As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls
Had skipp'd to batten on a human chest,
But no—the hand comes forth, and down it hurls
A lady's miniature beset with pearls.

Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry,
Before another outrage could be plann'd:
Poor Juno, who had learn'd to fetch and carry,
Pick'd up and brought it to her master's hand,
Who seized it, and the mimic feature scann'd;
Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth,
He only saw in that fair face, so bland,
Look how he would at it, east, west, north, south,
A moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth.

‘I'll go to her,’—herewith his hat he touch'd,
And gave his arm a most heroic brandish;
‘But no—I'll write’—and here a spoon he clutch'd,
And ramm'd it with such fury in the standish,

332

A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish,
Came rushing forth—Oh Antics and Buffoons!
Ye never danced a caper so ran-dan-dish;
He jump'd, thump'd—tore—swore, more than ten dragoons
At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons!

But soon ashamed, or weary, of such dancing,
Without a Collinet's or Weippert's band,
His rampant arms and legs left off their prancing,
And down he sat again, with pen in hand,
Not fiddle-headed, or King's-pattern grand,
But one of Bramah's patent Caligraphics;
And many a sheet it spoil'd before he plann'd
A likely letter. Used to pure seraphics,
Philippics sounded strangely after Sapphics.

Long while he rock'd like Yankee in his chair,
Staring as he would stare the wainscot through,
And then he thrust his fingers in his hair,
And set his crest up like a cockatoo;
And trampled with his hoofs, a mere Yahoo:
At last, with many a tragic frown and start,
He penn'd a billet, very far from doux,
'Twas sour, severe—but think of a man's smart
Writing with lunar caustic on his heart!

The letter done and closed, he lit his taper,
And sealing, as it were, his other mocks,
He stamp'd a grave device upon the paper,
No Cupid toying with his Psyche's locks,
But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks—
Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets,
He dropt the bitter missive in a box,
Beneath the cakes, and tarts, and sugar'd treats,
In Mrs. Smelling's window-full of sweets.

Soon sped the letter—thanks to modern plans,
Our English mails run little in the style
Of those great German wild-beast caravans,
Eil-wagens—tho' they do not ‘go like ile,’—
But take a good twelve minutes to the mile—
On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock,
As Ellen humm'd ‘The Young May Moon’ the while,
Her ear was startled by that double knock
Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock!

Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning,
And down into the street it dropt, or flung,
Right on the hat and wig of Mr. Gunning,
The jug that o'er her ten-week-stocks had hung;

333

Then down the stairs by twos and threes she sprung,
And through the passage like a burglar darted.
Alas! how sanguine are the fond and young—
She little thought, when with the coin she parted,
She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted!

Too dear at any price—had she but paid
Nothing and taken discount, it was dear;
Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid
Oft kissed the letter in her brief career
Between the lower and the upper sphere,
Where, seated in a study bistre-brown,
She tried to pierce a mystery as clear
As that I saw once puzzling a young clown—
‘Reading Made Easy,’ but turned upside down.

Yet Ellen, like most misses in the land,
Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens,
At one of those establishments which stand
In highways, byeways, squares, and village greens;
'Twas called ‘The Grove,’—a name that always means
Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate—
Each window had its close Venetian screens
And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state
The twenty-four Young Ladies of Miss Bate.

But when the screens were left unclosed by chance,
The blinds not down, as if Miss B. were dead,
Each upper window to a passing glance
Revealed a little dimity white bed;
Each lower one a cropp'd or curly head;
And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies,
Along the road the twenty-four were led,
Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies
With faces rather graver than Melpomene's.

And thus their studies they pursued:—On Sunday,
Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price;
Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar—of a Monday;
Tuesday—hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice;
Wednesday—fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice);
Thursday—pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading;
Friday—beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice;
Saturday—scraps, short lessons and short feeding,
Stocks, back-boards, hash, steel-collars, and good breeding.

From this repertory of female learning,
Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter!
To gratify the eyes of parents yearning.
'Twas evident in bolsters, beef, and batter,

334

Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter,
But heartily, as Jenkins says, ‘demollidge;’
But as for any learning, not to flatter,
As often happens when girls leave their college,
She had done nothing but grow out of knowledge.

At Long Division sums she had no chance,
And History was quite as bad a balk;
Her French it was too small for Petty France,
And Priscian suffered in her English talk:
Her drawing might be done with cheese or chalk;
As for the globes—the use of the terrestrial
She knew when she went out to take a walk,
Or take a ride; but, touching the celestial,
Her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial.

Nothing she learned of Juno, Pallas, Mars;
Georgium, for what she knew, might stand for Burgo,
Sidus, for Master: then, for northern stars,
The Bear she fancied did in sable fur go,
The Bull was Farmer Giles's bull, and, ergo,
The Ram the same that butted at her brother;
As for the twins, she only guessed that Virgo,
From coming after them, must be their mother;
The Scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other.

As ignorant as donkeys in Gallicia,
She thought that Saturn, with his Belt, was but
A private, may be, in the Kent Militia;
That Charles's Wain would stick in a deep rut,
That Venus was a real West-End slut—
Oh, Gods and Goddesses of Greek Theogony!
That Berenice's Hair would curl and cut,
That Cassiopeia's Chair was good Mahogany,
Nicely french-polished,—such was her cosmogony!

Judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics
Lorenzo's letter came now to dispense;
A lizard, crawling over hieroglyphics,
Knows quite as much of their Egyptian sense;
A sort of London fog, opaque and dense,
Hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives;
In vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense,
As well is known to oyster-operatives,
Mere looking at the shells won't open natives.

Yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found
Some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers;
Words giving tongue against her, like a hound
At picking out a fault—words speaking daggers.

335

The very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers,
To lash their tails, but not as horses do,
Nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle waggers,
But like the lion's, ere he tears in two
A black, to see if he is black all through.

With open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch,
She gazed upon the paper sad and sorry,
No sound—no stir—quite petrified, poor wretch!
As when Apollo, in old allegory,
Down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry
Of Niobe, just turned to Purbeck stone;
In fact, since Cupid grew into a worry,
Judge if a suing lover, let alone
A lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone.

‘Ellen, I will no longer call you mine,
That time is past, and ne'er can come again;
However other lights undimmed may shine,
And undiminishing, one truth is plain,
Which I, alas! have learned,—that love can wane.
The dream is pass'd away, the veil is rent,
Your heart was not intended for my reign;
A sphere so full, I feel, was never meant
With one poor man in it to be content.

‘It must, no doubt, be pleasant beyond measure,
To wander underneath the whispering bough
With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure.
Nay, fear not,—I absolve of every vow,—
Use,—use your own celestial pleasure now,
Your apogee and perigee arrange.
Herschel might aptly stare and wonder how,
To me that constant disk has nothing strange—
A counterfeit is sometimes hard to change.

‘Oh Ellen! I once little thought to write
Such words unto you, with so hard a pen;
Yet outraged love will change its nature quite,
And turn like tiger hunted to its den—
How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men!
And stands abash'd, discover'd, and forlorn!
Had it been only cusp'd—but gibbous—then
It had gone down—but Faith drew back in scorn,
And would not swallow it—without a horn!

‘I am in occultation,—that is plain:
My culmination's past,—that's quite as clear.
But think not I will suffer your disdain
To hang a lunar rainbow on a tear.

336

Whate'er my pangs, they shall be buried here;
No murmur,—not a sigh,—shall thence exhale:
Smile on,—and for your own peculiar sphere
Choose some eccentric path,—you cannot fail,
And pray stick on a most portentous tail!

‘Farewell! I hope you are in health and gay;
For me, I never felt so well and merry—
As for the bran-new idol of the day,
Monkey or man, I am indifferent—very!
Nor e'en will ask who is the Happy Jerry;
My jealousy is dead, or gone to sleep,
But let me hint that you will want a wherry,
Three weeks' spring-tide, and not a chance of neap,
Your parlours will be flooded six feet deep!

‘Oh Ellen! how delicious was that light
Wherein our plighted shadows used to blend,
Meanwhile the melancholy bird of night—
No more of that—the lover's at an end.
Yet if I may advise you, as a friend,
Before you next pen sentiments so fond,
Study your cycles—I would recommend
Our Airy—and let South be duly conn'd,
And take a dip, I beg, in the great Pond.

‘Farewell again! it is farewell for ever!
Before your lamp of night be lit up thrice,
I shall be sailing, haply, for Swan River,
Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice,
Or Boothia Felix—happy clime of ice!
For Trebizond, or distant Scanderoon,
Ceylon, or Java redolent of spice,
Or settling, neighbour of the Cape baboon,
Or roaming o'er—The Mountains of the Moon!

‘What matters where? my world no longer owns
That dear meridian spot from which I dated
Degrees of distance, hemispheres, and zones,
A globe all blank and barren and belated.
What matters where my future life be fated?
With Lapland hordes, or Koords or Afric peasant,
A squatter in the western woods located,
What matters where? My bias, at the present,
Leans to the country that reveres the Crescent!

‘Farewell! and if for ever, fare thee well!
As wrote another of my fellow-martyrs:
I ask no sexton for his passing-bell,
I do not ask your tear-drops to be starters,

337

However I may die, transfix'd by Tartars,
By Cobras poisoned, by Constrictors strangled,
By shark or cayman snapt above the garters,
By royal tiger or Cape lion mangled,
Or starved to death in the wild woods entangled,

‘Or tortured slowly at an Indian stake,
Or smother'd in the sandy hot simoom,
Or crush'd in Chili by earth's awful quake,
Or baked in lava, a Vesuvian tomb,
Or dirged by syrens and the billows' boom,
Or stiffen'd to a stock mid Alpine snows,
Or stricken by the plague with sudden doom,
Or suck'd by Vampyres to a last repose,
Or self-destroy'd, impatient of my woes:

‘Still fare you well, however I may fare,
A fare perchance to the Lethean shore,
Caught up by rushing whirlwinds in the air,
Or dash'd down cataracts with dreadful roar:
Nay, this warm heart, once yours unto the core,
This hand you should have claim'd in church or minster,
Some cannibal may gnaw’—she read no more—
Prone on the carpet fell the senseless spinster,
Losing herself, as 'twere, in Kidderminster!

Of course of such a fall the shock was great,
In rush'd the father, panting from the shop,
In rush'd the mother, without cap or tête,
Pursued by Betty Housemaid with her mop;
The cook to change her apron did not stop,
The charwoman next scrambled up the stair,—
All help to lift, to haul, to seat, to prop,
And then they stand and smother round the chair,
Exclaiming in a chorus, ‘Give her air!’

One sears her nostrils with a burning feather,
Another rams a phial up her nose;
A third crooks all her finger-joints together,
A fourth rips up her laces and her bows,
While all by turns keep trampling on her toes,
And, when she gasps for breath, they pour in plump
A sudden drench that down her thorax goes,
As if in fetching her—some wits so jump—
She must be fetch'd with water like a pump!

No wonder that thus drench'd, and wrench'd, and gall'd,
As soon as possible, from syncope's fetter
Her senses had the sense to be recall'd,
‘I'm better—that will do—indeed I'm better,’

338

She cried to each importunate besetter;
Meanwhile, escaping from the stir and smother,
The prudent parent seized the lover's letter,
(Daughters should have no secrets with a Mother)
And read it thro' from one end to the other.

From first to last, she never skipp'd a word—
For young Lorenzo of all youths was one
So wise, so good, so moral she averr'd,
So clever, quite above the common run—
She made him sit by her, and call'd him son,
No matrimonial suit, e'en Duke's or Earl's,
So flatter'd her maternal feelings—none!
For mothers always think young men are pearls
Who come and throw themselves before their girls.

And now, at warning signal from her finger,
The servants most reluctantly withdrew,
But list'ning on the stairs contrived to linger;
For Ellen, gazing round with eyes of blue,
At last the features of her parent knew,
And, summoning her breath and vocal pow'rs,
‘Oh, mother!’ she exclaimed—‘Oh, is it true—
Our dear Lorenzo’—the dear name drew show'rs—
‘Ours,’ cried the mother, ‘pray don't call him ours!

‘I never liked him, never, in my days!’
(‘Oh yes—you did’—said Ellen with a sob,)
‘There always was a something in his ways—’
(‘So sweet—so kind,’ said Ellen, with a throb,)
‘His very face was what I call a snob,
And, spite of West-end coats and pantaloons,
He had a sort of air of the swell mob;
I'm sure when he has come of afternoons
To tea, I've often thought—I'll watch my spoons!’

‘The spoons!’ cried Ellen, almost with a scream,
‘Oh cruel—false as cruel—and unjust!
He that once stood so high in your esteem!’
‘He!’ cried the dame, grimacing her disgust,
‘I like him?—yes—as any body must
An infidel that scoffs at God and Devil:
Didn't he bring you Bonaparty's bust?
Lord! when he calls I hardly can be civil—
My favourite was always Mr. Neville.

‘Lorenzo?—I should like, of earthly things,
To see him hanging forty cubits high;
Doesn't he write like Captain Rocks and Swings?
Nay, in this very letter bid you try

339

To make yourself particular, and tie
A tail on—a prodigious tail!—Oh, daughter!
And don't he ask you down his area—fie!
And recommend to cut your being shorter,
With brick-bats round your neck in ponds of water?’

Alas! to think how readers thus may vary
A writer's sense!—What mortal would have thought
Lorenzo's hint about Professors Airy
And Pond to such a likeness could be brought!
Who would have dreamt the simple way he taught
To make a comet of poor Ellen's moon,
Could furnish forth an image so distraught,
As Ellen, walking Regent Street at noon,
Tail'd—like a fat Cape sheep, or a racoon!

And yet, whate'er absurdity the brains
May hatch, it ne'er wants wet-nurses to suckle it;
Or dry ones, like a hen, to take the pains
To lead the nudity abroad, and chuckle it;
No whim so stupid but some fool will buckle it
To jingle bell-like on his empty head,
No mental mud—but some will knead and knuckle it,
And fancy they are making fancy-bread;—
No ass has written, but some ass has read.

No dolts could lead if others did not follow 'em.
No Hahnémann could give decillionth drops,
If any man could not be got to swallow 'em;
But folly never comes to such full stops.
As soon, then, as the Mother made such swaps
Of all Lorenzo's meanings, heads and tails,
The Father seized upon her malaprops—
‘My girl down areas—of a night! 'Ods nails!
I'll stick the scoundrel on his area-rails!

‘I will!—as sure as I was christen'd John!
A girl—well born—and bred,—and school'd at Ditton—
Accomplish'd—handsome—with a tail stuck on!
And chuck'd—Zounds!—chuck'd in horseponds like a kitten;
I wish I had been by when that was written!’—
And doubling to a fist each ample hand,
The empty air he boxed with, a-la-Bitton,
As if in training for a fight, long plann'd,
With Nobody—for love—at No Man's Land!

‘I'll pond—I'll tail him!’—In a voice of thunder
He recommenced his fury and his fuss,
Loud, open-mouth'd, and wedded to his blunder,
Like one of those great guns that end in buss.

340

‘I'll teach him to write ponds and tails to us!’
But while so menacing this-that-and-t'others,
His wife broke in with certain truths, as thus:
‘Men are not women—fathers can't be mothers,—
Females are females’—and a few such others.

So saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly,
She hustled him outside the chamber-door,
Looking, it must be own'd, a little silly;
And then she did as the Carinthian boor
Serves (Goldsmith says) the traveller that's poor:
Id est, she shut him in the outer space,
With just as much apology—no more—
As Boreas would present in such a case,
For slamming the street door right in your face.

And now, the secrets of the sex thus kept,
What passed in that important tête-à-tete
'Twixt dam and daughter, nobody except
Paul Pry, or his Twin Brother, could narrate—
So turn we to Lorenzo, left of late,
In front of Mrs. Snelling's sugar'd snacks,
In such a very waspish stinging state—
But now at the Old Dragon, stretch'd on racks,
Fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks;

Because that new fast four-inside—the Comet,
Instead of keeping its appointed time,
Had deviated some few minutes from it,
A thing with all astronomers a crime,
And he had studied in that lore sublime;
Nor did his heat get any less or shorter
For pouring upon passion's unslaked lime
A well-grown glass of Cogniac and water,
Mix'd stiff as starch by the Old Dragon's daughter.

At length, ‘Fair Ellen’ sounding with a flourish,
The Comet came all bright, bran new, and smart;
Meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish
The hasty spirit in Lorenzo's heart,
And soon upon the roof he ‘topped his part.’
Which never had a more impatient man on,
Wishing devoutly that the steeds would start
Like lightning greased,—or, as at Ballyshannon
Sublimed, ‘greased lightning shot out of a cannon.’

For, ever since the letter left his hand,
His mind had been in vacillating motion,
Dodge-dodging like a fluster'd crab on land,
That cannot ask its way, and has no notion

341

If right or left leads to the German Ocean—
Hatred and Love by turns enjoy'd monopolies,
Till, like a Doctor following his own potion,
Before a learned pig could spell Acropolis,
He went and booked himself for our metropolis.

‘Oh, for a horse,’ or rather four,—‘with wings!’
For so he put the wish into the plural—
No relish he retained for country things,
He could not join felicity with rural,
His thoughts were all with London and the mural,
Where architects—not paupers—heap and pile stones;
Or with the horses' muscles, called the crural,
How fast they could macadamize the milestones
Which pass'd as tediously as gall or bile stones.

Blind to the picturesque, he ne'er perceived
In Nature one artistical fine stroke;
For instance, how that purple hill relieved
The beggar-woman in the gipsy-poke,
And how the red cow carried off her cloak;
Or how the aged horse, so gaunt and grey,
Threw off a noble mass of beech and oak!
Or, how the tinker's ass, beside the way,
Came boldly out from a white cloud—to bray!

Such things have no delight for worried men,
That travel full of care and anxious smart:
Coachmen and horses, are your artists then;
Just try a team of draughtsmen with the Dart,
Take Shee, for instance, Etty, Jones, and Hart,
Let every neck be put into its noose,
Then tip 'em on the flank to make 'em start,
And see how they will draw!—Four screws let loose
Would make a difference—or I'm a goose!

Nor cared he more about the promised crops,
If oats were looking up, or wheat was laid,
For flies in turnips, or a blight in hops,
Or how the barley prosper'd or decay'd;
In short, no items of the farming trade,
Peas, beans, tares, 'taters, could his mind beguile;
Nor did he answer to the servant maid,
That always asked at every other mile,
‘Where do we change, Sir?’ with her sweetest smile.

Nor more he listened to the Politician,
Who lectured on his left, a formal prig,
Of Belgium's, Greece's, Turkey's sad condition,
Not worth a cheese, an olive, or a fig;

342

Nor yet unto the critic, fierce and big,
Who, holding forth, all lonely, in his glory,
Called one a sad bad Poet—and a Whig,
And one, a first-rate proser—and a Tory;
So critics judge, now, of a song or story.

Nay, when the coachman spoke about the 'Leger,
Of Popsy, Mopsy, Bergamotte, and Civet,
Of breeder, trainer, owner, backer, hedger,
And nags as right, or righter than a trivet,
The theme his crack'd attention could not rivet;
Though leaning forward to the man of whips,
He seem'd to give an ear,—but did not give it,
For Ellen's moon (that saddest of her slips)
Would not be hidden by a ‘new Eclipse.’

If any thought e'er flitted in his head
Belonging to the sphere of Bland and Crocky,
It was to wish the team all thorough-bred,
And every buckle on their backs a jockey:
When spinning down a steep descent, or rocky,
He never watch'd the wheel, and long'd to lock it;
He liked the bolters that set off so cocky:
Nor did it shake a single nerve or shock it,
Because the Comet raced against the Rocket.

Thanks to which rivalry, at last the journey
Finish'd an hour and a quarter under time,
Without a case for surgeon or attorney,
Just as St. James's rang its seventh chime,
And now, descending from his seat sublime,
Behold Lorenzo, weariest of wights,
In that great core of brick, and stone, and lime,
Call'd England's Heart—but which, as seen of nights,
Has rather more th'apperance of its lights.

Away he scudded—elbowing, perforce,
Thro' cads, and lads, and many a Hebrew worrier,
With fruit, knives, pencils,—all dirt cheap of course,
Coachmen, and hawkers, of the Globe and ‘Currier;’
Away!—the cookmaid is not such a skurrier,
When, fit to split her gingham as she goes,
With six just striking on the clock to hurry her,
She strides along with one of her three beaux,
To get well placed at ‘Ashley's’—now Ducrow's.

‘I wonder if her moon is full to-night!’
He mutter'd, jealous as a Spanish Don,
When, lo!—to aggravate that inward spite,
In glancing at a board he spied thereon

343

A play-bill for dramatic folks to con,
In letters such as those may read, who run,
‘“KING JOHN”—oh yes,—I recollect King John!
“My Lord, they say five moons”—five moons!—well done!
I wonder Ellen was content with one!

‘Five moons—all full!—and all at once in heav'n!
She should have lived in that prolific reign!’
Here he arrived in front of number seven,
Th'abode of all his joy and all his pain;
A sudden tremor shot through every vein,
He wish'd he'd come up by the heavy waggon,
And felt an impulse to turn back again,
Oh, that he ne'er had quitted the Old Dragon!
Then came a sort of longing for a flagon.

His tongue and palate seem'd so parch'd with drouth,—
The very knocker fill'd his soul with dread,
As if it had a living lion's mouth,
With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red,
In which he had engaged to put his head.
The bell-pull turn'd his courage into vapour,
As though 'twould cause a shower-bath to shed
Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper—
He look'd askance, and did not like the scraper.

‘What business have I here? (he thought) a dunce
A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster,
Instead of putting out its wick at once;
She's gone—it's very evident I've lost her,—
And to the wanton wind I should have toss'd her—
Pish! I will leave her with her moon, at ease,
To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster,
Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese,
Or make a honey-moon, if so she please.

‘Yes—here I leave her,’ and as thus he spoke,
He plied the knocker with such needless force,
It almost split the panel of sound oak;
And then he went as wildly through a course
Of ringing, till he made abrupt divorce
Between the bell and its dumbfounded handle;
Whilst up ran Betty, out of breath and hoarse,
And thrust into his face her blown-out candle,
To recognise the author of such scandal.

Who, presto! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot,
Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair,
With other noise than his whose ‘very foot
Had music in't as he came up the stair:’

344

And then with no more manners than a bear,
His hat upon his head, no matter how,
No modest tap his presence to declare,
He bolted in a room, without a bow,
And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow!

Like fond Medora, watching at her window,
Yet not of any Corsair bark in search—
The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo,
‘The Cheapest House in Town’ of Todd and Sturch,
The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch,
The public-house, closed nightly at eleven,
And then that house of prayer, the parish church,
Some roofs, and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven,
Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven.

Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her,
She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream;
As if her own belov'd full moon still orb'd her,
Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme,
With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme—
Yet when Lorenzo touch'd her on the shoulder,
She started up with an abortive scream,
As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder,
Had come within his bony arms to fold her.

‘Lorenzo!’—‘Ellen!’—then came ‘Sir!’ and ‘Madam!’
They tried to speak, but hammer'd at each word,
As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam;
Such broken English never else was heard,
For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr'd,
A chilly tremor thrill'd them through and through,
Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd,
They shook like jellies made without a due
And proper share of common joiner's glue.

‘Ellen! I'm come—to bid you—fare—farewell’
They thus began to fight their verbal duel;
‘Since some more hap—hap—happy man must dwell—’
‘Alas—Loren—Lorenzo!—cru—cru—cruel!’
For so they split their words like grits for gruel.
At last the Lover, as he long had plann'd,
Drew out that once inestimable jewel,
Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann'd,
And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand.

‘There—take it, Madam—take it back I crave,
The face of one—but I must now forget her,
Bestow it on whatever hapless slave
Your art has last enticed into your fetter—

345

And there are your epistles—there! each letter!
I wish no record of your vow's infractions,
Send them to South—or Children—you had better—
They will be novelties—rare benefactions
To shine in Philosophical Transactions!

‘Take them—pray take them—I resign them quite!
And there's the glove you gave me leave to steal—
And there's the handkerchief, so pure and white
Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O'Neill—
But no—you did not—cannot—do not feel
A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden!
Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal!
I should have led you,—by your leave and pardon—
To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden!

‘And here's the birth-day ring—nor man nor devil
Should once have torn it from my living hand,
Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville;
And that—and that is all—and now I stand
Absolved of each dissever'd tie and band—
And so farewell, till Time's eternal sickle
Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land
Some other may be found for truth to stickle
Almost as fair—and not so false and fickle!’

And there he ceased: as truly it was time,
For of the various themes that left his mouth,
One half surpass'd her intellectual climb:
She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth
About that ‘Children of a larger growth,’
Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S.'s;
Kit North, was just as strange to her as South,
Except the south the weathercock expresses,
Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses.

Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift
She gather'd from the simple outward fact,
That her own lap contained each slighted gift;
Though quite unconscious of his cause to act
So like Othello, with his face unblack'd;
‘Alas!’ she sobbed, ‘your cruel course I see,
These faded charms no longer can attract;
Your fancy palls, and you would wander free,
And lay your own apostacy on me!

‘I, false!—unjust Lorenzo!—and to you!
Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline
The soul to truth, bear witness I am true!
By all that lives, of earthly or divine—

346

So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine—
I false!—the world shall change its course as soon!
True as the streamlet to the stars that shine—
True as the dial to the sun at noon,
True as the tide to “yonder blessed moon”!’

And as she spoke, she pointed through the window,
Somewhere above the houses' distant tops,
Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo,
And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops
For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops;—
Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian,
And eyes suffused with scintillating drops,
Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds venetian,
To see the sphere so troubled with repletion.

‘The Moon!’ he cried, and an electric spasm
Seem'd all at once his features to distort,
And fix'd his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm—
His faculties benumb'd and all amort—
At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort,
Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock—
‘Speak!—Ellen!—is your sight indeed so short!
The Moon!—Brute! savage that I am, and block!
The Moon! (O, ye Romantics, what a shock!)
Why, that's the new Illuminated Clock!’

THOSE EVENING BELLS

‘I'D BE A PARODY’

Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells,
How many a tale their music tells,
Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime,
And letters only just in time!—

The Muffin-boy has pass'd away,
The Postman gone—and I must pay,
For down below Deaf Mary dwells,
And does not hear those Evening Bells.

And so 'twill be when she is gone,
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
And other maids with timely yells
Forget to stay those Evening Bells.

347

LINES TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM

'Tis pleasant, when we've absent friends,
Sometimes to hob and nob 'em
With Memory's glass—at such a pass,
Remember me at Cobham!

Have pigs you will, and sometimes kill,
But if you sigh and sob 'em,
And cannot eat your home-grown meat,
Remember me at Cobham!

Of hen and cock, you'll have a stock,
And death will oft unthrob 'em,—
A country chick is good to pick—
Remember me at Cobham!

Some orchard trees of course you'll lease,
And boys will sometimes rob 'em,
A friend (you know) before a foe—
Remember me at Cobham!

You'll sometimes have wax-lighted rooms,
And friends of course to mob 'em;
Should you be short of such a sort,
Remember me at Cobham!

University of Virginia Library

POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN

STANZAS WRITTEN UNDER THE FEAR OF BAILIFFS

SONNET WRITTEN IN A WORKHOUSE

SONNET.—A SOMNAMBULIST

FUGITIVE LINES ON PAWNING MY WATCH

THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS

PAIR'D, NOT MATCH'D

THE DUEL

A SERIOUS BALLAD

SONNET TO VAUXHALL

ODE TO MR. MALTHUS

A GOOD DIRECTION

THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT

A WATERLOO BALLAD

SHOOTING PAINS

THE BOY AT THE NORE

LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR

ODE TO ST. SWITHIN

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MOTTO

THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION A PATHETIC BALLAD

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A STORM AT HASTINGS AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN

LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA

SONNET TO A SCOTCH GIRL, WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRY FASHION

SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN

HUGGINS AND DUGGINS A PASTORAL AFTER POPE

DOMESTIC DIDACTICS BY AN OLD SERVANT THE BROKEN DISH

ODE TO PEACE WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS'S GRAND ROUT

A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN

TO MARY HOUSEMAID ON VALENTINE'S DAY

PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT A SEA ECLOGUE

LITERARY AND LITERAL

‘Love Lays and Lyrics

SONNET TO LORD WHARNCLIFFE, ON HIS GAME BILL

LITERARY REMINISCENCES

ODE TO PERRY THE INVENTOR OF THE PATENT PERRYAN PEN

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THE UNDYING ONE

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COCKLE v. CACKLE